Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

Raiden is one of the major characters from the Mortal Kombat series.
== Charactah Account ==
Raiden is the eternal God of Thunder and former protector of Earthrealm. Being a god, he possesses many supernatural abilities and a radically different outlook on life than a mere mortal.
Raiden is the god of thunder and lightning, and as such, he is immensely powerful and has complete control over electricity. Raiden's movements in combat are stated to be as fast as lightning in the Konquest Mode's lore in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. He can summon lightning bolts with a thought, project electricity from his hands that can paralyze, incapacitate, kill, or force an opponent's body to move wherever he chooses, create forcefields and blades made of electricity, summon electric orbs that act as shocking traps, use electricity in conjunction with telekinesis to move objects without physically touching them, form massive thunderstorms that shapes the weather and channel electricity through his limbs to strengthen his strikes.
Raiden usually keeps behind the scenes in the games and rarely fights, although one notable exception was in Deception, where he fought both Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, and was able to hold his own for most of the fight. Raiden has a plethora of other abilities that are not suited for combat such as creation of interrealm portals, project blinding light from his eyes, raise fallen beings from the dead, take flight and summoning objects such as ships as shown in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. 
== Appearance ==
=== Cartoons ===
* Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm
=== Comics ===
* Mortal Kombat
* Mortal Kombat 4
* Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe
* Mortal Kombat X
* Mortal Kombat X: Blood Island
* Mortal Kombat X: Blood Ties
* Mortal Kombat: Battle Wave
* Mortal Kombat: Raiden & Kano
* Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition
* Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition II
* Nintendo Power
=== Movies ===
* Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match
* Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins
=== Video Games ===
* Injustice 2
* Injustice 2 Mobile
* Mortal Kombat
* Mortal Kombat (2011)
* Mortal Kombat 3
* Mortal Kombat 4
* Mortal Kombat 11
* Mortal Kombat Advance
* Mortal Kombat Gold
* Mortal Kombat II
* Mortal Kombat Mobile
* Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
* Mortal Kombat Trilogy
* Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
* Mortal Kombat X
* Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
* Mortal Kombat: Deception
* Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
* Mortal Kombat: Onslaught
* Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
* Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition
* Mortal Kombat: Unchained
* NBA Jam Tournament Edition
* NFL Blitz
* Ultimate Mortal Kombat
* Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
* Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
== Trivia ==
* Raiden is one of the earliest instances of a playable god in a fighting game.
* He is the protagonist of Mortal Kombat (2011), and co-protagonist of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.
* Raiden's MK vs DC Universe ending implies that he has become like Ultraman, Earth-3's Superman, where his powers are inverted (e.g. Kryptonite fuels his powers, solar radiation from a yellow star weakens them).
* Raiden's Fatality in the original MK was drastically altered in the Super NES version due to Nintendo's strict no-blood policy at the time. The decapitation was changed to the opponent's turning into a gray pile of dust.
* Raiden's name is spelled Raiden in the arcade iterations of the Mortal Kombat games, and both Deadly Alliance and Deception. On the other home versions and in the Mortal Kombat films, comics. and TV series', his name is spelled Rayden. This was possibly because of copyright issues from a shoot 'em up named Raiden, or to avoid confusion with Raiden from the Fatal Fury series, a large wrestler. The console versions up until Mortal Kombat 4 and the movies changed the name to Rayden. Ed Boon disliked the way that Acclaim changed Raiden's spelling.
* Raiden's name is written in both Traditional Chinese and Japanese and in Simplified Chinese. It's pronounced as "raiden" (phonetically) in Japanese and "léidiàn" (Pinyin) in Mandarin Chinese. This is simply the Chinese word for "thunder and lightning" that was borrowed in Japanese together with the Chinese characters. The first character in this word means "thunder", the second one now mostly means "electricity", or "lightning" in ancient times.
* Raiden was modeled after the character "Lightning" from the 1986 John Carpenter movie Big Trouble in Little China.
** Lightning was one of three storms from the movie. Fujin corresponds most with Thunder (they share a suicidal final attack theme), while the purple ninja Rain corresponds to the third storm (also named Rain).
* In MK4, Raiden and Johnny Cage share the same fighting stance.
* Originally, Raiden was not going to be in Deception, and the opening of Deception explained why Raiden would not be in the game. However, this changed after fan complaints, and Raiden remained in the game; the character who would have replaced him, Fujin, makes only a cameo appearance in the Prison stage, and in the Orderrealm during Konquest. Despite this, logically, Fujin is still the protector of Earthrealm, as appointed in MK4.
* Raiden's alignment and personality change on the events of Mortal Kombat: Deception can be related not only to Onaga's presence, but also influenced by the Elder God's passivity. Since the supreme entities only interfere on Realm affairs when occurs a threat to their existence and power, after many times requesting help, Raiden adopted a machiavellian ideology of doing anything for the protection of Earthrealm, including allying himself to the Forces of Darkness. These steps didn't interfere on the Elder Gods affairs, so Raiden decided to do whatever was necessary to preserve Earthrealm, even not being its current protector at the time.
* In MK3 and UMK3 for both the arcade and home versions, Nightwolf's Friendship had him transform into Raiden and an arcade machine of MKII drop down with two quotes, "Yes, But I Can Do a Raiden Transformation" or "I've Never Seen a Kano Transformation" (despite not actually turning into Kano). This Friendship was omitted in the Nintendo 64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy, due to the fact that Raiden was in that game with the same MKII sprite. Perhaps as a nod to this, Nightwolf becomes Raiden's second-in-command in the story mode of MK 2011.
* Raiden was originally going to use his staff as a weapon in MKII, but Midway were forced to omit it due to memory constraints.
* Of all the Kombat Kode symbols shown in MK3, Raiden's symbol was the eighth to appear if the player presses the right buttons seven times or in reverse by holding the joystick Up and press the right buttons three times.
* In the Super Nintendo version of the first MK, by killing the final opponent in the third Endurance Match with Raiden using his Shock to the Head fatality will make Goro appear grey just like the ashes when he defeated the opponent.
* Raiden's popularity as a "thunder god" and the way fans reacted to him when he made his debut ultimately led to the creation of other gods such as Fujin (the "wind god"). While they had their own uniqueness, Raiden was still considered to be the most popular of all the gods in the series.
* He also appeared as a secret character in Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, NFL Blitz and NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, as well as a cameo appearance in a pinball machine, Bally's 1994 World Cup Championship, in a bonus round, WWE Immortals and a playable guest character Injustice 2.
** To unlock Raiden in Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, the player had to complete all the challenges. Two of the challenges are called "Unreal Kombat". The challenges involved 3 people at once though rather than their traditional 2. Also all 3 people used staff weapons for their melee weapons.
* The television show Mortal Kombat: Conquest is the only portrayal of Raiden as sort of "laid back" god, where he seems like a normal human (or guardian over Kung Lao) rather than an immortal being.
* Raiden is also a playable character in Broforce as Broden appearing in his 1995 film.
* Raiden has been portrayed by Midway employee and martial artist Carlos Pesina in all his 2D games' appearances, except in MK Trilogy's versus screen, where he is portrayed by Sal Divita.
* In Deception, Raiden's ending is the only ending to be narrated by himself.
* In his profile from the Brady Games' Official MK4 Fighters Companion strategy guide, Raiden's favorite food is "nuclear buffalo wings". This guide also said that Kid Thunder is his favorite nephew.
* Actors Clancy Brown and Christopher Lambert, both starring in the film Highlander, have both portrayed Raiden.
* When Shao Kahn killed Raiden in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, his dragon Tattoo did not fly off when he died when all of the others with tattoos did. He explains this in the movie as Cyrax's, as well as Mileena's being temporary, as they are not in Raiden's bloodline.
* During the development of Mortal Kombat Armageddon, early screenshots showed Raiden's pre-Dark Raiden portrait being used for the character select screen, implying Raiden had returned to his original self. When the game was ultimately released however, the portrait had been changed to his Dark Raiden version, and was left as such in the games unchanged from Mortal Kombat Deception.
* In MK (2011), Nightwolf refers to Raiden as Haokah, the Lakota Indian thunder god.
* In Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, he was supposed to partake in an extensive fight scene with Sheeva (Marjean Holden). Despite being in the shooting script (and subsequent novel adaptation), it was cut from the film. Raiden instead fights a pair of Reptile clones, and Sheeva is crushed by a falling cage.
* In MK (2011), if Raiden is using his "Dark Raiden" costume, his teleport will be red instead of white.
* If certain X-Ray Moves are performed on Raiden, his hat will fall off. However, it will not fall off during Fatalities, similar to Kung Lao's Razor-Rimmed Hat.
* Raiden's name and status as a god are taken directly from the Japanese thunder god Raijin.
* He is the last playable fighter in Mortal Kombat (2011)'s story mode.
* Raiden's alternate costume in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is his first official appearance hatless. Also, he has a katana on his waist, but he does not use it in battle.
* In Mortal Kombat (2011), one of Raiden's fatalities is called "Just A Scratch". This is a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which the Black Knight fights King Arthur and is dismembered, the Black Knight says "Tis but a scratch". Raiden also severs the opponent's limbs and leaves the head like in the film. Unlike the film however, where King Arthur decides to just leave the limbless Black Knight be and go, Raiden picks up the dismembered body and smashes the head in to kill them.
** This is the second fatality to reference a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail as Kung Lao's "Unfriendly Rabbit" fatality from Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is likely a reference to the Rabbit of Caerbannog from the film. 
* In the MK (2011) Arcade Ladder, Raiden appears in eight endings, including his own. This is more than any other character in the game.
* Raiden's official theme is titled "Eternal Life".
* If Reptile's Yummy! Fatality is performed on Raiden, Reptile will swallow his head, while his hat is still on.
* In Injustice 2, Raiden sometimes says "Thunder take you!" during a clash. This is a reference to his MK 2011 Battle Cry.
* In a Top 10 list hosted by Screwattack.com, Raiden's Godly Essence Fatality is listed at #5 for the Worst Fatality due to Raiden blowing himself up during the Fatality.
* Raiden had a different X-Ray Move for Mortal Kombat X during development, compared to the one found in the final version. This version has the same start as the final version, with Raiden shooting electricity at the opponent, but it doesn't send them flying. Instead, Raiden comes in close and attacks them with a high kick, similar to the one performed by Johnny Cage during his X-Ray Move. Raiden then grabs the victim's spine and releasing a powerful electrical current through the opponent, before teleporting in front of them, and punching them in the liver, sending them flying backwards.
* During a Clash in Injustice 2, The Joker and Black Adam will make a reference to Raiden; with Black Adam referring to Raiden as "The guy with the bamboo hat".
** This reference could have been a foreshadow for Raiden's appearance in Injustice 2 as a playable guest character via the Fighter Pack 2.
* WWE Superstar Xavier Woods is playable in the WWE Immortals game as Raiden.
* In MKX, he and Shinnok are the only characters to address guest character Leatherface as "Leatherface".
** Shinnok will, however, address Leatherface by last name in addition to calling him "Leatherface".
** Although Raiden does not say Jason Voorhees' name at all, he is aware of who he is, saying "Back to Hell with you!", referencing Jason's undead nature.
* In MKX, Raiden along with Sub-Zero and Reptile have the weakest X-Ray attacks, dealing only 31% damage.
* Raiden's Klassic Diamond card is one of five cards in the mobile game with the Grapple bonus on all his specials. The others are Jason Voorhees's Slasher card, Jax's Revenant and Klassic cards, and Raiden's Injustice 2 card.
** Injustice 2 Raiden is one of two cards in the mobile game with Grapple attacks that are completely unavoidable. This is because all the attacks break the opponent's block at the start of every special rather than in the middle. The first was Revenant Jax.
* Raiden's Brutality Inside You pays homage to the climactic fight scene in the end of the 1999 film The Matrix in which Neo does the same into Agent Smith and explodes from the inside.
* Raiden's new corrupted persona in MK11 is very similar to that of Superman from the Injustice game series;
** Both act like villains, torturing and/or murdering their enemies, but claim they do it to protect the Earth.
** Both have been through traumatic experiences that have changed them to more darker characters.
*** Superman - The death of Lois Lane and their unborn son and the destruction of Metropolis.
*** Raiden - The constant undeserved violence brought upon Earthrealm, the deaths of his comrades and the cleansing of the Jinsei after Shinnok corrupted it.
* Raiden is one of the few characters whose voice actor from Mortal Kombat X reprises their role in MK11.
* Some of his brutalities from MK11 are references to his klassic fatalities. For instance, the brutality Electricis a reference to MK's Electric Decapitation, whereas Power Of A God is reference to MKII Fatality Electrocution I.
* An interaction with Sub-Zero in MK11 has Raiden discuss about a dream he had, which Sub-Zero will reply with "of a Dark Knight and a Caped Wonder". This is a reference to both the DC fighting game series Injustice, developed by NetherRealm Studios, and Sub-Zero and Raiden's inclusion in the second game as playable guest characters.
== Gallery ==
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== External Links ==
* Raiden at Mortal Kombat Wiki
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Category:Mortal Kombat