A Look At Possible Meso-American Influence in Kotal Kahn for Mortal Kombat X!


Kotal Kahn himself appears as the emperor of Outworld after Mileena was overthrown.  I have noticed that he not only looks like Ogre in Tekken 3, he is also having a lot of shoutout to Meso-American history in these days.

Kotal Kahn's background is that he comes from the Osh-Tek race in Outworld, one that is dependent on the sun for powering up.  The Osh-Tek is an obvious shout-out to Aztec.  Later he became a Mayan war god, calling himself a blood god.  What he also did is that he performs the traditional Meso-American pull out the heart sacrifices, complete with his war knife called a tecpactl.  His first fatality uses that Meso-American human sacrifice method.

His variations also provide shoutouts to Meso-American culture.  In his Blood God variation he uses blood, crystal and obsidian totems.  In his War God variation, he uses the Aztec war saw called a macuahuitl into his special moves.  Either way, the use of the totems and the macuahuitl, both items which are from Meso-American culture.

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