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[Character Analysis] Tales of a Shattered Brotherhood: Tomáš and Bì-Hán, in Search of Lost Unity

Part 2 — Tomáš & Bì-Hán: So Different, Yet So Similar, or the Tragedy of a Broken Family [Part 1, Tomáš, a Trauma Survivor can be read here.]

[I posted this analysis last night but accidentally deleted it. So here it is again...]

Bì-Hán and Tomáš have more in common than we might think… 1) Both are ruthless and serious fighters and killers, but they also possess fiery personality traits (even if the former is more introverted than his brother): Bì-Hán with his puns ("Ice to beat you"), his gestures, his enthusiasm for battle ("After years of idleness, it pleases me to again face kombat.") and his general sense of drama; Tomáš with his ingenuous and selfless curiosity (he asks a lot of questions in his intro dialogues), his will to try new things (for instance, he thinks that it would be "amazing" if he got a part in Johnny's next movie) as well as his overall childlike joy without being childish nor immature (Quan Chi talks of his "youthful exuberance").

2) They each represent one of the two sides of the spectrum of a rough childhood: Tom is a fatherless boy whose early life is an enigma, enshrouded in the haze of mystery and imbued with "bad memories" (as he says to Raiden). And it was probably to survive that he, his mother and his twin sister left Prague to become nomadic hunters traveling around the world. Bì-Hán, on the contrary, has a centuries-old pedigree. His father is the grandmaster of a clan whose mission to defend Earthrealm has remained unchanged for eons. The cryomancer knows his family tree, where he comes from and where he's going. He is the eldest, and therefore heir to the title of grandmaster. But, like Tomáš, his upbringing must have been marked by extreme hardship (inhumane training and certainly, an unbearable peer pressure too). One was a child hunter; the other a child fighter, which is more or less the same thing. What did Tomáš hunt? That's a good question. But Bì-Hán hunted aliens threatening Earthrealm's tranquility and peace between Realms. An orphan with missing and uncertain origin on one side, an heir whose lineage reach deep into the ages on the other, and yet many similarities. Tomáš will also be fully accepted as his only "true" brother by Kuài Liáng after Bì-Hán has severed all ties with them, with his late father and, in so doing, with his ancestors and his divine mission. Thus, the orphan becomes kind of legitimate as a son, brother and heir to his adoptive father's legacy when the rightful son, brother and heir chooses to disown himself from his family and become an orphan.

3) We know that in the DLC, Bì-Hán will become Noob Saibot, contaminated with Titan Havik's chaos magic. His brother, meanwhile, is tormented by visions of demons that could well be the Enenra of the Netherrealm ("the worst" of all the demons inhabiting the place, according to Ashrah). There's a duality in both of them, and their dark side is not a pretty sight. Geras expresses his concern to Kuài Liáng about Tomáš ("I am concerned about Tomas."/"What has the Hourglass shown you, Geras?"): like Bì-Hán, will he end up letting himself be possessed too? 4) For the 2 men, family is a symbol of lost unity to be rediscovered. Bì-Hán is a communitarian man who swears by his clan and its pure blood, and for whom he wants the best: to emancipate it from the limiting influence of Liu Kang and come into the light. He wants the merits of these great warriors to be appreciated and recognized at last, for their expertise to be a real asset to the nations of this world ("We settle for defending Earthrealm, when we could help lead it."), and for them to become a nation themselves (to Sindel: "I don't want your throne. Just part of Earthrealm."; also his bio states that "under his leadership, the Lin Kuei will come out of the shadows and fight for its place as one of Earthrealm’s great nations."). As he and Kuài Liáng says in the story mode to Raiden and Kung Lao: "You are not Lin Kuei. You would only hinder the effort." and "We're trained differently. It takes years to master our ways." The cryomancer has an elitist vision of his clan (and probably Kuài Liáng too), which he believes must be preserved from any outside influence that might cause it to collapse. Is this why he refuses to consider his adoptive brother a "true" Lin Kuei? It's not the only reason, actually. We know that he and Kuài Liáng were very attached to each other, and that he highly valued their mother's judgement (to KL: "Your rebellion stings." and "You could have ruled at my side."; Kitana to him: "You've broken Kuai Liang's heart."; and KL saying to Mileena that he thought his bond with BH was unbreakable. As for their mother, he says to Tom that she "would applaud [his] actions"), but hated his father for neglecting the greatness of the clan and, maybe, jeopardizing its security as well. Let's not forget, indeed, that while these men and women sacrifice their lives on the altar of defending an entire planet/Realm, no one can defend them but themselves when their safety is at stake. Thus, the boys' father took a risk by taking in Tomáš years before, when his sentries had just killed his mother and sister, having no doubt considered all 3 of them aliens who had come to attack them (except that they didn't come from another Realm, but from another continent...). A little boy with hunting skills and who was allowed to keep his mother's karambit? For Bì-Hán, this certainly meant introducing a threat within the clan itself, and running the risk of it being decimated by the orphan's hand, especially since, as Tom admits, his early days in the Lin Kuei were not easy, which is more than understandable, given the circumstances in which he was brought into it (between him & Syzoth: "Lucky for you Kuai Liang's father took you in."/"It didn't feel this way at the time."). Thus, nothing says that he wasn't driven by a desire for revenge, nothing says that he wouldn't strike at any time, and even wait years for it. For Bì-Hán, this must have been a cause of constant anxiety, a source of chronic stress, in addition to the extraterrestrial dangers that could arise at any moment too, and possibly have him sent on a long-term mission far from his family, whom he would consequently no longer be able to protect from the little stranger.

By the time Tom was adopted, the cryomancer must already have felt frustrated by the Lin Kuei's submission to Liu Kang's diktat, and by the idleness and mediocrity into which the peace between Realms had forced the clan. And idleness is what must have gone to his father's head indeed. The sentries who attacked Tom and his family were only doing their duty, what they had been trained to do all their life. That the grandmaster broke away from their action is understandable (after all, they had killed innocent people, and a mother and her child at that, and traumatized another child for life), but that, in the name of "honor" (Kitana to Tom: "You are Kuai Liang's adopted brother?"/"His father's honor demanded that he take me in."), he welcomed the little survivor into his clan, was trampling underfoot the very raison d'être of the latter (Earthrealm's defense and therefore the Lin Kuei's own self-preservation) and compromise its safety for years to come. There's nothing to say that "honor" (which doesn't mean much without context) and charity weren't already values advocated and applied within the clan for centuries, but as a matter of fact, these same values shouldn't prevent common sense and pragmatism from prevailing. Be that as it may, these utopian arrangements must have frustrated Bì-Hán all the more, and reinforced his contempt for his father (between him and Tom: "Father wanted us to be brothers."/"Yet another of the old man's foolish dreams."). When his beloved mother later died, and Kuài Liáng began to adopt the same views as the widowed man (honor feels very important to him as well, so that when he speaks, Bì-Hán tells him he sounds just like their parent: "Has our father's ghost possessed you? All I hear is his voice."), the future grandmaster must have felt that family and clan unity were slipping further out of his grasp, and this must have played a part in his determination to make the Lin Kuei reach the pinnacle, to make it a united, glorious and powerful nation under his iron grip. His legitimate and lifeling distrust of Tom surely explains why he has always acted coldly towards him ("You've always been cold to me."), why he has never really considered him one of his own ("Because your blood is not Lin Kuei."), and why he has always doubted his loyalty ("Your treachery does not surprise me."). Loyalty to the Lin Kuei, moreover, is something the Czech had yet to prove to his two brothers, as evidenced by his bio on the official website (where each character is defined by a word that illustrates what determines their action and purpose), as well as this conversation with Kuài Liáng: "Bi-Han owed you his respect."/"That I earned yours is what matters."

On the other hand, at the time of MK1, Smoke had never really demonstrated his commitment and loyalty to the clan during a defense mission:

Reptile: The battle against the sorcerers was your first real fight. Smoke: It was a baptism by fire, Syzoth.

Unfortunately, this is when Sub-Zero will fall into corruption by making a pact with the forces of Evil, and will therefore interpret his adoptive brother's defection from the Lin Kuei as an act of betrayal, and as a confirmation of what he had always sensed about his potential duplicity (I quote again: "Your treachery does not surprise me."). Can we really blame Bì-Hán for behaving this way towards Tom for years? Isn't his coldness and rejection of his adoptive brother a way of telling him: "I'm putting you at a distance because, for me, you're still a potential danger. If I made you understand that you're a true Lin Kuei, you'd risk deceiving our vigilance even more, including mine, and then you'd have even more leeway to destroy us from the inside. That mustn't happen, as I must continue to protect my family, and to do so, I must keep you away and keep an eye on you, just as I have since the day our father took you in." So when Smoke asks him if they "are [...] to be enemies for life?", and that Sub-Zero replies: "Unless you submit, Tomas.", what the older actually means is: "for me to trust you, you have to show me that you've become totally harmless and ready to abide by my rules." Thus, for the cryomancer, Tomáš must have played an even greater part in shattering the family and clan unity he had dreamed of.

How cruel it must have been for the little boy, and then the young man, to be so rejected by someone for whom he had admiration and, probably, affection too, and whose validation he sought. I've already explained, in Part 1, how Smoke was able, against all odds, to overcome his trauma and, perhaps, his desire for revenge, and instead, to develop love for his new family and embrace their principles as well as their fight for peace, not only terrestrial but also, by extension, universal (which is why, even if it's a little dated, I invite everyone to read it to better appreciate this one). In this previous analysis, though, of all the reasons I've given, I've overlooked one, and not the least, for which I'll be devoting a forthcoming addendum to these two chapters: Tom's "lost faith", which is a religious one, and which may not be as lost as he'd like to believe (just for those who would doubt that his faith is indeed religious in essence: Tanya is the only person he talks to about it in one of their intro dialogues, and Tanya, who is not only a warrior, but also a priestess, also speaks of her personal faith in Argus and Delia on several occasions. Moreover, everything in Smoke's words and actions manifests faith—a Christian faith, presumably, since the character is Czech…).

But for the child, who most likely had no known biological father and had just lost his mother and twin sister in the most horrific of ways, his adoptive father must have symbolized a family structure and stability he desperately longed for, and which had been denied him from an early age. And, since Bì-Hán was not only his father's heir, but also, in his wake, the embodiment of values of peace and altruism handed down from generation to generation by each grandmaster, and since these values had earned Tom his salvation (doesn't he tell Sindel that: "[he'll] save who [he] can to make up for the ones [he] can't", which is exactly what his adoptive father did for him? Also, from Shang Tsung to him: "I am a hunter, no different than you."/"Except my quarry's never been the weak and helpless."; and to Omni-Man: "I rejected the Lin Kuei to fight for justice."), then it was only natural that he should also cling to him, and to what he represented, not only as a future clan leader, but also as an older brother. And what little boy hasn't admired his big brother?

For Tom, the successive loss of his adoptive parents must have been terrible, as it was too for his two brothers (except for the loss of their father for Bì-Hán, needless to say): hadn't he already lost enough people? And after this, Bì-Hán's betrayal, and the discovery that he was behind their father's death, must have sounded the death knell, for him, of the family unity he had hoped for on his side of things, once and for all. Through the Shirai-ryu, however, Tom will build a new found family, and play the role his late father once played for him in finding an orphaned Hanzo and welcoming him into the clan. However, nothing will replace the crack caused in him by Sub-Zero's sacrilegious act (breaking his oath to the cosmic order and, in so doing, to his family), and several dialogue intros show his desire to see his 2 brothers reconcile and Bì-Hán return to them, not only because the fate of the world depends on it, but also because he wants it for himself, because he deeply needs it on a personal level. Hasn't he lost enough of the people he loved in his young life? Why should this continue? Why can't members of a same family get along? Family is everything to Smoke:

Smoke: I lost my family, too, Baraka. Baraka: The pain never ends, does it?

Smoke: In a billion lifetimes, you've never had family? Geras: Liu Kang is the closest I've come.

Smoke: My sister was my twin. Kitana: How it must have hurt to lose her.

Smoke: Can I get my brothers to reconcile? Liu Kang: They must choose their own path, Tomas.

Smoke: I rue the day I ever met you. Quan Chi: No sense dwelling on the past, Tomas.

Smoke: For Earthrealm's sake, my brothers must reunite. Raiden: There's little hope for that, Tomas.

Smoke: I also know the pain of losing family. Reptile: It appears we are hatchlings of the same nest.

Smoke: Father wanted us to be brothers. Sub-Zero: Yet another of the old man's foolish dreams.

Smoke: Are we to be enemies for life? Sub-Zero: Unless you submit, Tomas.

Smoke: After losing my family, I lost my faith. Tanya: It's the only thing that can sustain you, Tomas.

Tom knows the price of death and of the blackest ontological solitude. But because he no longer had a biological family, it was through a found family that he managed to rebuild himself. Bì-Hán, because he seemingly never had to go through such trials, because his biological family had surrounded him with its multisecular roots since before he was born, nevertheless denied his little brother this privilege. And it's this very conservatism that will lose the eldest: of course, his clan will remain loyal to him, as will his two most devoted supporters, Cyrax and Sektor, who will perhaps symbolically fill the place once occupied by his brothers. However, if the DLC leaks are to be believed, he will lose everything in the end. Infected by Titan Havik's chaos magic, transformed into Noob Saibot, Liu Kang will be forced to take him to the Temple of the Elements for treatment, where he may well remain for years. In the meantime, the world will keep spinning, without him. Disasters will follow one another for the defenders of good, but also immense joys and simple pleasures. And Sub-Zero will remain frozen in his chaos, his illness—his dream of a glorious future unfulfilled and abolished forever—his desire for family and clan unity and power, a distant memory of something he desperately wanted, but never got to taste. But isn't Tomáš the only one who truly understands this?

To understand the loneliness and dereliction that arise from the absence of a family by your side? To understand that a family consists above all of people who love and support each other, even if it means getting the lost sheep back on the right track, and that while biological family is important, it's not the end of everything? Mortal Kombat is a game that has been talking to us about this for more than 30 years: about the birth family, who's not always benevolent (remember the toxic, even murderous birth families in the previous timelines? ), and the found family we make as we go along, made up of people from all walks of life (from this point of view, Mortal Kombat is a game emblematic of this theme, where Hollywood actors rub shoulders with ninjas, otherworldly princesses, wizards, demons and Shaolin monks, etc.) and which can survive everything, even death. From the depths of his abyss, Bì-Hán may see a light shining far above him, then slowly coming closer. And that light will be a hand, held out to him: it's my headcanon, and I'm not trying to convince anyone of its relevance. But if that's what's going to happen, then I'd like to believe that this hand will be that of Tomáš…

"You have forsaken your family." "Come in from the cold, Bi-Han."

I dedicate this analysis to @fsfghgee, with whom I had an interesting discussion following the publication of the first part several months ago, and to whom I had "promised" to explain in a second part the complex relationship between the 2 brothers, and the apparent paradox between Tomáš' admiration and affection for Bì-Hán, and the latter's disdain for the former. I hope I haven't failed in this task!

#im so ill abt them #bi han #noob saibot #kuai liang #tomas vrbada #mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #mk1

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