Board Thread:Mortal Kombat Wiki/@comment-25163804-20150813023230

In collaboration with Daryl, I'm covering one of the most popular characters in Mortal Kombat; Sub Zero. A quick note; while he is the winner of the VS thread by consensus, I might not do the winner of every thread, but if that is desired, I will do so. Onto the Character Analysis!

First, a little background. The Sub Zero we're mainly covering this week is Kuai Liang; more than likely Bi Han (aka Noob Saibot) will get his own article in due time, but for now, we're focusing mainly on the little brother. And yes, I did say brother. Both of the Sub Zeros are brothers born to a Chinese father and American mother. Their father was a member of the Lin Kuei, a deadly clan of assassins (Not to be confused with ninjas, as Bi Han notes in MK Mythologies). He fled in order to keep his children safe, but he was taken out by his own clan for desertion. At a young age, the brothers were kidnapped and trained under the Lin Kuei to perfect their natural cryokinetic powers and become deadly warriors. There was also a ferocious rivalry between the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu ninja clan, which had culminated in two critical deaths. First was the death of Hanzo Hasashi, who became the fire wraith Scorpion, and killed Bi Han. Kuai Liang sought revenge for the death of his brother, but when he realized that Quan Chi was truly responsible, he managed to convince Scorpion that Quan Chi was the true villain, not the Lin Kuei. He also rebuilt the Lin Kuei from the Cyber Initiative.

Both of these 'goals' were realized in both timelines, although there were a couple key differences. In the Current Timeline (We're calling this the 'NetherRealm' timeline), Sub Zero was transformed into a cyborg thanks to the Lin Kuei, and when he was freed from Quan Chi's grasp, he reformed the Lin Kuei, and even showed Hanzo the truth via Sektor's head. In the old timeline (The 'Midway' timeline), Sub Zero was never turned into a revenant or a cyborg, so this process was a bit easier, but by consequence he appears to have aged a lot more than in the NetherRealm timeline. However, in this timeline Scorpion 'sided' with Evil as a ploy to get close to and eventually kill Quan Chi, so the two ninjas were at odds durind Armageddon, while after Hanzo saw the truth in the NetherRealm timeline, there was never another conflict with Sub Zero. Currently ongoing is his goal to protect Earthrealm from outside threats, like Outworld and the NetherRealm.

As a character, Kuai Liang has had several changes to his character over time. He was initially only focused on the end of Scorpion's life, but reconciled at some point in both timelines to be a force of good for Earthrealm after reforming the Lin Kuei to this cause. However, in the NetherRealm timeline, twice has he become a 'drone', devoid of any personality but to fulfill his goal; Once as a cyborg, and a second time as a revenant. He is calm in combat, preferring to defend himself and counterattack rather than go for an all-out assault. However, he can and does use weapons whenever he can, from swords to daggers to even a hammer. In the respect of combat, he is very similar to his brother before his brother became Noob Saibot, but because he is more of a defender, he tends to hold back his power, which can result in him losing.

In one form or another, a character by the name Sub Zero has appeared in every Mortal Kombat game save for Special Forces. Kuai Liang first appeared in Mortal Kombat II, and has appeared in some capacity in every game since, all the way to Mortal Kombat X.

That ends my analysis of Sub Zero. Expect another character Analysis this time next month :) 