What is I Must Consult With the Elder Gods?

It's a reaction image built from a Mortal Kombat 11 cutscene where Raiden says he needs to consult with the elder gods before teleporting away.

Where did I Must Consult With the Elder Gods come from?

From Mortal Kombat 11, released by NetherRealm Studios on April 23, 2019. The meme version hit /r/dankmemes the next day.

What does I Must Consult With the Elder Gods mean?

It's used as a comic exit line, a dramatic way of saying you are done with a conversation or situation.

How do you use I Must Consult With the Elder Gods?

Attach the Raiden teleport screencap to a top-text caption describing whatever you want to bail on, or just reply with the phrase itself.

Is I Must Consult With the Elder Gods still popular?

It peaked in the weeks after Mortal Kombat 11 launched in April 2019 and settled into occasional use inside Mortal Kombat fan communities on Reddit.

I Must Consult With the Elder Gods

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Published August 31, 2026

I Must Consult With the Elder Gods is a Mortal Kombat 11 quote from Raiden that turned into a reaction image within days of the game's April 23, 2019 release. Redditors grabbed the dramatic teleport-out line and used it as a stock exit joke, and the format spread across the Mortal Kombat and dank meme subreddits inside the first week.

gaming reaction memes catchphrase memes dismissal memes subreddit origin memes

Overview

The format pairs a screencap of Raiden mid-lightning teleport with a caption describing whatever the poster wants to escape from1. Half of the joke works because Raiden's exit is visually clean and gives posters a ready-made peace-out image, and the other half works because Mortal Kombat fans already knew the elder gods bit as a running Raiden tic across earlier entries in the series5. Text-only uses of the phrase also caught on as a way to bail out of an awkward Reddit thread without answering it3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Mortal Kombat 11 cutscene / Reddit (viral spread)

Creator

NetherRealm Studios; CoachSDot

Date

2019

The line appears in a cutscene from Mortal Kombat 11, the NetherRealm Studios fighter released on April 23, 20192. Raiden says 'I must consult with the elder gods' and then teleports away, and players quickly pointed out that he had delivered close variations of the same line in previous entries of the series5.

How It Spread

On April 24, 2019, the day after launch, Redditor CoachSDot posted a screengrab of the moment to /r/dankmemes with a caption reading 'One like and I will literally perform a fatality,' pulling more than 21,000 upvotes1. Two days later on April 26, a since-deleted account ran a similar setup on /r/memes that climbed past 14,000 points3. On April 28, Redditor Cjames1902 posted a parody inspirational poster of the line to /r/MortalKombat that gained around 1,600 likes4. By May 8, Redditor d1psyyyy folded the format into a Prequel Memes riff on /r/MKMemes that gained over 340 points6.

How to Use This Meme

Post the Raiden teleport screencap with a top caption describing a chat, argument, or thread you would rather exit than deal with1. Common variations swap Raiden for other fictional characters who leave a scene at a suspicious moment, and the phrase often gets typed as a text-only reply without the image3.