Shinnok

"You turned on your fellow Elder Gods. You betrayed your title. You deserved much worse!"

- Raiden in Shinnok's Mortal Kombat Gold ending.

Shinnok is an Elder God that fell from grace and was banished into the dreaded Netherrealm after he attempted to conquer the Earthrealm as well as the rest of the realms and even tried to overthrown his fellow deities. Shinnok is also forever worshipped by a fanatic cult of demons and evil conjurers known as the Brotherhood of Shadows. He is one of the most powerful villains from the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games. He first appeared and served as the main antagonist of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat 4. He serves as the tertiary antagonist of the franchise.

Attempt at Power
It is known that Shinnok knew Taven and Daegon and their father, Argus. Shinnok desired to control the Earthrealm, which would give him immense power. However, he knew that he could not enter the realm without the Elder Gods becoming aware of his plans. Shinnok then created a mystical talisman (the Amulet of Shinnok or the Sacred Amulet), which allowed him to enter Earthrealm by weakening the dimensional barriers. A war broke out and the Elder God found himself fighting the thunder god, Raiden. At one point, Raiden was left with a terrible choice: either sacrifice the indigenous inhabitants of Earthrealm or surrender to Shinnok. However, the Elder Gods intervened and Raiden defeated the renegade god, stripping him of his precious amulet. Shinnok was cast into the depths of the Netherrealm, but his defeat left the dimensional fibers of the worlds weak, resulting in Earthrealm's then indigenous race, the Saurians, going almost extinct.

Claiming the Netherrealm
Shinnok was imprisoned within the Netherrealm, where he was tormented constantly by the Netherrealm's then ruler, Lucifer. However he met Quan Chi, who agreed to help him overthrow his tormentor, in exchange for a great amount of power and a place at Shinnok's side. They were successful in their coup and became the main controllers of Netherrealm. In return, Shinnok himself, now the Netherrealm's only lord and master honored his word and imbued Quan Chi with incredible power, making him arch-sorcerer of the Netherealm, and later chose him to become the founder and high priest of his cult of worshippers, conjurers and demons known as the Brotherhood of Shadows whose only purpose is to serve Shinnok the Lord of Darkness.

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
Shinnok began rebuilding and gathering his forces of darkness, but knew he could not escape from Netherrealm without his amulet. He dispatched Quan Chi to find it, who after many years discovered its location. The sorcerer recovered it for Shinnok using the elder Sub-Zero, but secretly gave him a useless replica. Sub-Zero confronted the fallen Elder God and managed to retrieve the amulet from him.

Mortal Kombat 3
Though Shinnok did not participate in Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm, he did instigate them and monitored them. Earlier, Quan Chi had made a deal with Shang Tsung in exchange for the location of Shinnok's amulet, Shinnok would resurrect Shao Kahn's deceased queen, Sindel, allowing him to enter Earthrealm. Shinnok also ordered Noob Saibot to spy on Shao Kahn and to eventually side with the Earthrealm warriors, since Kahn had also attempted to invade the Netherrealm, which Shinnok took as a sign that he was becoming too powerful.

Mortal Kombat 4
With Shao Kahn defeated, Shinnok lead his dark forces in an assault on the realms and proved successful in conquering Edenia, capturing Queen Sindel and Princcess Kitana. However after this, Shinnok's plans went downhill, thanks to his possession of a fake amulet, with the real one belonging to Quan Chi. The sorcerer was dragged down to Netherrealm when he attempted to send Scorpion back to Netherrealm. Shinnok's forces were defeated by Raiden and his warriors, and Liu Kang managed to defeat Shinnok himself, resulting in his banishment back to Netherrealm.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
Earlier, Shinnok discovered Onaga trapped in the Netherrealm and offered him freedom in exchange for the Dragon King's assistance in reclaiming his power. When Onaga agreed, the fallen Elder God opened a portal for him to Outworld where he allied himself with Shao Kahn, Shang Tsung, and Quan Chi. Shinnok later encountered Taven during his quest in Netherrealm while he was being attacked by Li Mei. Taven did not know about Shinnok's fall from grace and he saved the fallen Elder God from her wrath. The god said that he had been sent to Netherrealm because he had meddled in the affairs of mortals. Shinnok asked him for assistance in driving out invaders in his sacred tower, only for him to reveal, after Taven had left, that these were illusions he had conjured up and that he was in league with Daegon, whom Taven had pursued to Netherrealm. Shinnok said that perhaps he should have placed his trust in Taven, since he defeated the illusions faster than Daegon. The god also revealed he was the one that alerted the kombatants to the godlike powers Blaze's defeat would give to the person who defeated him.

In his ending, Shinnok sent a doppelganger of himself to the final battle to assist Daegon in defeating Blaze. However this doppelganger defeated Blaze himself and became a living being as powerful as Shinnok. Now the fallen Elder God would have to face his doppelganger to attain ultimate power.

Mortal Kombat (2011)
Shinnok makes a brief cameo in the ending of the Story Mode of Mortal Kombat (2011). Shinnok is pleased with his new plans perfectly coming to fruition thanks to the efforts of his powerful disciple Quan Chi. According to him, Shinnok himself will soon be free, and his dark forces will conquer Earthrealm and Outworld for themselves.

Mortal Kombat X
Coming soon!

Powers and Abilities
Shinnok is quite a powerful being thanks to him being an Elder God, his powers seeming to mainly revolve around darkness and the Netherrealm, such as summoning a skeletal hand from the ground to grip his opponent and take them into the Netherrealm. Shinnok can also shapeshift and mimic the powers of other kombatants, however the powers he mimic must be in his jurisdiction. He can also take on a larger demonic form as shown in the final level of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero when his precious amulet became stolen from him and in his anger, he transforms into a gigantic, unholy monster. His magic abilities also include the ability of creating demons and wraiths to do his bidding, as well as creating clones and illusions of others and himself.

The fallen Elder God Shinnok when combined with his Sacred Amulet (Amulet of Shinnok) once more, becomes already more powerful then ever, meaning he is allowed him to freely traverse the realms and open up portals as well as instantly destroys anyone and anything that stands in his way.

Movie appearance
The evil Elder God Shinnok is portrayed by Reiner Schöne in the second Mortal Kombat movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and according to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Shinnok is the father of Raiden and Shao Kahn, who wishes for power not only over all realms, but over the gods as well. He also appears to be the Elder God of Wind. Shinnok is also never without his Sacred Amulet (Amulet of Shinnok) which in its alternate version, is made of gold with a ruby gem instead of bronze with an emerald gem but still with he four sections of the amulet itself are etched with the elemental forces of Wind, Earth, Water, and Fire. Each includes alchemical symbols, shapes, and parts of I Ching trigrams, all of which pertain to their respective element.

He favors Shao Kahn, considering Raiden too weak and caring to be his son. Shinnok orders Shao Kahn to kill his brother while guiding him in his path to merging the parallel universes of Earth and Outworld. Shinnok is later stopped and ultimately imprisoned by his fellow Elder Gods and Raiden was offered his position within the ranks of their pantheon.

Trivia

 * Shinnok's fall from grace is similar to that of Satan also known as Lucifer.
 * Shinnok is loosely based on the demon Yan Wang from Journey to the West.
 * So far, Shinnok is the first boss character playable in the game without aid of a cheat code or cheat device.
 * In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Sektor will say to initiate code K-0-N-N-1-H-5 where that code should be read is 5H1NNOK, despite there being no relation between Shinnok and Sektor.
 * So far, the exact element Shinnok is a deity of is not made clear, though Mortal Kombat: Annihilation marks him the god of wind. The use of skeletal hands in most of his techniques hints he is a god of death at least, though his death based powers may be a result of his banishment to the Netherrealm.