Is it actually an improvement for Splinter to start out as Hamato Yoshi?

[neatoman]

My argument here isn't going to be about how little sense it makes for Yoshi to mutate in the same incident as the turtles. We can pretty much point to how the "closest living thing" rule makes no sense in Fred Wolf, Archie, Nick, Rise or any other iteration that may use it (either Yoshi becomes a turtle or the turtles becomes rats in that scenario). I won't focus on how the timeline of events in FW makes no sense, how Nick Splinter seems to forget valuable information by the time the series actually takes place or how Rise Splinter just doesn't do anything with what he logically knows. All of those are just the result of careless writing and IDW is the only one that handled the concept of Yoshi and Splinter being the same well, and even then they're not strictly the same person there but rather different incarnations of the same soul.

No, instead I'll focus on the big thing people seem to consider an improvement, his martial arts skills.

Now, on the surface it certainly looks like an improvement. In the real world there is no way for a rat remember complex human moves, nor can they really emulate them. So indeed, a human trained to use them would certainly know them better. It would indeed seem like Splinter the rat would never be able to teach anyone the moves, while Yoshi the human would. But there is a factor here that is overlooked, the timespan. See, what prevents Splinter from refining his abilities once he's mutated?

As stupid as the "learned it all from a textbook" explaination from the PD movies is, it did make me realise something important, who ever said his time learning martial arts stopped with observing Yoshi? He had fifteen years between mutating and sending out the Turtles to avenge Yoshi, that's plenty of time to figure how to fight properly.

Maybe you're thinking something along the lines of "Wouldn't him spending time training take away time spent on training the Turtles?" right now. The answer is not really. While it might be easy to simplify a teacher/student relationship as "teacher knows, passes it on" but that's not really accurate. It's more like "Teacher knows more than student, student finds flaw in teaching, teacher corrects their error, repeat". Anyone who asked plenty of questions in school should be aware of this concept, sooner or later a gap in the teacher's knowledge will be revealed, thus the teacher will learn to improve. Given changes to the curriculum, teachers are constantly learning new information themselves so they can be better teachers, part of how this happens is input from students. So it is certainyl conceivable that he can easily learn alongside his students.

So pretty much the only reason to make him start out as human because "it would make more knowledgeable" would be to make sure he taught his students quickly. But if he has the better part of two decades on his hands, constructive students, access to the Battle Nexus (i.e others to help), and yes, even a textbook, then it really shouldn't be necessary.

[Leo656]

For me, it's just marginally less silly if he's a human first. I mean, yeah, the whole concept is silly. But even at age 7-8, seeing pre-mutated Splinter throwing kicks in his cage - while kinda cute, I guess - just looked way too ridiculous for me to go along with it. I wasn't aware of the Mirage comics yet, and I figured they just "simplified" the origin to make the movie shorter or whatever, but I never liked it. Seeing it in live-action - poor animatronics/puppetry aside - just really cemented it in my mind as "Too outlandish even for THIS franchise". Finding out later on that the "real" origin in Mirage was the same as the movie didn't change my opinion.

The way the ooze/mutagen works is complete junk science in any version and never makes even the slightest bit of sense, so I don't really think about that aspect too much. It's "magical" and does whatever the writer wants, and that's that, no sense even thinking any deeper about it, or comparing how it works in one version to another; they're all nonsense. It's like "How can Superman fly?" There's no GOOD explanation and you're kinda not supposed to get hung up on that part.

For me, Splinter being Yoshi first just adds a lot to the story, at least in potential. It makes his rivalry with Shredder more personal, in the early goings-on there was some intrigue with the "Will he ever be human again?" stuff before they just kind of dropped it forever, it DOES make his martial arts prowess infinitely more plausible (even though having to "re-learn" everything while adapting to a rat's body was probably difficult)... I just don't think there's much of a reason for Splinter to merely be Yoshi's pet rat, outside of "Well... that's the way it was the first time they told the story." Like, that explanation essentially removes "Hamato Yoshi" as a character entirely in lieu of making him a plot device. And while it's certainly touching that a pet rat would adore his master so much that he'd spend the better part of 20 years training himself and his pet turtles to go on a Vengeful Murder Mission in honor of his memory... it's also EXTREMELY silly on its face. Just being honest.

I feel like it's one of those things people like better just "Because Mirage", but I honestly don't think it's any better. If you completely disregard the nonsense about How Mutagen Works and accept that it's just "magic", everything else about the story makes a lot more sense if Yoshi becomes Splinter rather than Splinter just being a rat.

I know people occasionally whisper about how Laird implied something about Splinter was always a "special" kind of rat to begin with, but 1. I've never seen anything in-canon within the actual books themselves to support that, but feel free to direct me towards it if it exists (letter column and blog musings don't count, I mean in-story stuff), and 2. That's hardly better, it's still silly.

I'm aware that this is mostly a personal preference thing, but hey... you asked. Objectively, though, I do think Yoshi-to-Splinter makes more sense. You'd have a very hard time convincing me otherwise, put it like that. As you said, though, FW and various others don't exactly spin that particular yarn to its full potential, but I think that's just due to bad or lazy writers. I do think the idea in itself was an improvement.

[Andrew NDB]

I wouldn't mind it if they could find a totally non-hysterically comical way of doing it other than just "you become merged with the last life form you touched!" Because that's always been stupid.

My idea in "Origin" was that Hamato Yoshi imbued Splinter with a sliver of his soul in exchange for power from The Adversary.

[Leo656]

Maybe one of the sewer rats bit Hamato Yoshi and their comingled fluids are what hastened his mutation into a rat-dude. I'unno. That'd be close enough as a way of explaining Yoshi's mutation. Although even that would imply some kind of "rules" for how FW mutagen works. The fact that no such "rules" exist is a big part of the problem.

It's amazing how little thought went into the actual mutagen/ooze itself given how much of the story depends on it in any incarnation. But again, I doubt that anyone writing the stuff ever thought that people would be trying to hash out the Why and How of it all 30 years later. Back In The Day people were less likely to question the things they read and watched, they just absorbed them and accepted what they were given.

Not saying that's better or worse, just a general observation.

[Andrew NDB]

The Mirage ooze seems somewhat consistent in that it appears to just hyper-evolve whatever lifeform it touches. Like, touch some ooze if you're a wolf and you skip millions of years of evolution. Possibly forcing them down a bipedal path (the comics say it's Transmat waste but I venture maybe it could be also waste from the Utrom human skinsuits... that would explain a lot). In Mirage it even mutated trees similarly.

[The Turtle Terminator]

It does make slightly more sense for a human to know martial arts than a rat learning it from his cage

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

The Mirage ooze seems somewhat consistent in that it appears to just hyper-evolve whatever lifeform it touches. Like, touch some ooze if you're a wolf and you skip millions of years of evolution. Possibly forcing them down a bipedal path (the comics say it's Transmat waste but I venture maybe it could be also waste from the Utrom human skinsuits... that would explain a lot). In Mirage it even mutated trees similarly.

That does seem the most consistent of the various explanations I've seen across the disparate TMNT media. In most others it's just "Wish Magic". Although even FW isn't as bad as some of the later versions have been. Nowadays it's like they totally just don't care.

Remember "The Great Disaster", when Earth-51 got hit with that plague that hyper-evolved all the animals into sentient, violently-aggressive humanoids, and turned any surviving humans into some kind of weird hybrids, and then they essentially blew up the Earth? Maybe the ooze was a byproduct of the experiments that eventually created that plague.

Man, "Countdown to Final Crisis" was a goddamn sh*tshow. But that part was creative. That one bit where the dog jumps over the table or whatever with the knife is so unintentionally hilarious that it cracks me up every time. Not sure that's what they were going for, but...

[newfan]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

My idea in "Origin" was that Hamato Yoshi imbued Splinter with a sliver of his soul in exchange for power from The Adversary.

I like this, a good way to keep an element of Yoshi without the splicing if you don't like it.

I've said previously (I think we had a thread asking which we preferred) that I prefer Splinter being Yoshi. For me it feels like there is more credit as a Ninja Master where is the master himself, though that is more the idea of it rather than what we actually see. (credible Master either way)
I guess it also depends on the story they want to tell for the character and also if they are using Saki, how they want the rivalry/background to play out.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by newfan

I've said previously (I think we had a thread asking which we preferred) that I prefer Splinter being Yoshi. For me it feels like there is more credit as a Ninja Master where is the master himself, though that is more the idea of it rather than what we actually see. (credible Master either way)
I guess it also depends on the story they want to tell for the character and also if they are using Saki, how they want the rivalry/background to play out.

Yeah, this topic comes up at least once every couple of years. We'll be getting a poll about Red Bandannas vs. Colored Bandannas any day now, I'm sure.

To your post, as I said I think the Splinter/Shredder feud is a lot more personal AND plausible if Yoshi and Splinter are one in the same. Him being just Yoshi's rat kind of pushes the whole story into silliness. "And then, instead of nibbling on my Master's dead carcass like any other rat would, I invoked a BLOOD OATH OF VENGEANCE!" That is one goddamn melodramatic rat, right there. And let's be honest, if it were reversed, and Saki let Yoshi live and only killed Splinter - let's leave Tang Shen out of it for a moment, since as far as I know she had no personal connection to Splinter The Rat and is thus not relevant to my hypothesis - you know that Yoshi wouldn't have sworn a lifelong feud and spent 20 years planning and executing it, he'd have just gone and bought a new rat, or maybe even upgraded to a ferret or something. Splinter's loyalty and devotion to Hamato Yoshi would not likely have been reciprocated in kind, is what I'm saying, so in looking at the Big Picture, the methods and motivations of Splinter The Rat are... well, they're questionable.

I'm part kidding but more serious. I think for as "human" a character as Splinter is generally presented, along with his very human and at times downright questionable motives and morality, it all makes slightly more sense if he was a human first. The martial arts prowess is definitely part of it, but there's lots of other reasons, too.

Splinter's origin, to me, was always one of those "Superman can only leap an eighth of a mile" bits of Early Installment Weirdness, which later writers polished and refined into something that worked a lot better. I don't think there's a lot of the story you lose by merging Yoshi and Splinter; if anything, I think you actually gain a lot more potential story mileage. Like, pretty much everything about the Mirage origin can stay the same if Yoshi becomes Splinter, BUT you also have a lot more potential stories because now the Shredder feud is more directly personal, without the "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" stuff getting in the way. Like, Yoshi can potentially be the one avenging Tang Shen himself, just for one example.

Also, brief side note, but isn't it kinda weird, anyway, how much of the TMNT origin story revolves around long-dead people with no active involvement in the Here and Now? Oroku Nagi, Tang Shen, Hamato Yoshi... like whew, man, that's a lot of "So here's what happened Forever Ago and why these turtles hang out with this rat and why they all hate the guy in the razor suit" before we even get anywhere with the actual Plot. And IDW adds reincarnation into the mix. It's enough to make you dizzy.

I think that in general, the fewer degrees of separation between What's Happening Now and Why It's Happening, the better. So I've never had a huge problem with some characters being eliminated outright or others amalgamated or whatever else, if it prunes some of the dead buds off of the story branches. You never really hear much of Nagi anymore, for example, and while that's another debate all its own, it's ultimately probably for the best from a storytelling perspective. The whole "Turtles and Splinter vs. Shredder" thing only being a Proxy War for people who've been dead for decades is... well, it's rather silly if you frame it exactly like that. I know that's part of the whole "tragedy/Cycle of Violence" motif that Mirage partly leans on, but it's also, well, silly. If it's really just about Saki and Yoshi, and it's always been about them (along with Tang Shen, I do think she's kinda necessary), from Then to Now, I honestly think it makes everything a LOT better. There's a much greater personal conflict, much higher stakes, and many more stories you can tell.

Just for example, let's spitball about Yoshi and Tang Shen, for a moment. I love character stuff; if Splinter and Yoshi are one in the same, then for starters, it'd be neat to dig into a bit of that stuff. To begin with, he lived a whole life as a human, fell in love, had a relationship... these things were important to him, and they're things he'll ostensibly never get to experience again, things like being in love or the romantic touch of a woman. There's a lot of tragedy and poignancy in that. Obviously, nobody's going to tell those stories in any official media, but they COULD, is my point. It's just one of many, many interesting things you can do with the Splinter character if you merge him with Yoshi.

I rather feel like the FW cartoon had a good idea in merging Yoshi and Splinter - although the reasoning for his feud with Saki in that show was utter Bugs Bunny nonsense - but then completely did nothing with it at all after the first few episodes, which was a shame. But then, "Neat concepts with weak execution" was rather a trademark of that show, to be blunt about it.

If I were booking it, I'd most likely do exactly what the 1990 movie did EXCEPT have it pick up with Yoshi having to flee to America a'la the cartoons, for some reason, and then once again the rest of it would be like the movie. I don't think you need Nagi - although he was in the novelization of the film which implies that he was also in the shooting script; probably deleted his entire subplot for logistical reasons I'd guess - but I do think the Yoshi/Saki/Tang Shen stuff is pretty essential. I'm just not convinced that Splinter can't be Yoshi for the story to still work. If anything, it probably improves a lot of things.

BUT, it usually comes down to whichever version a person saw first. That's what I generally notice.

[newfan]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Snip

Agreed, the feud feels more personal for both parties if Splinter is Yoshi, or even in Andrew's scenario at least carries a little of the spirit, so there is still Saki's enemy himself there either in whole after suffering the hardship of mutation or in part spirit after being murdered. I like them to be fairly equal opponents also.

I don't want to go off too much on a 'what I would like more of' cause we have that everywhere but I could totally get my teeth into more of the feud/Yoshi and Saki's past.
So far as Nagi, I guess depending on the origin if they were exploring more of Saki's story then the influence and loss of his brother they could beef that up a little more maybe.

[The Great Saiyaman]

"What kind of misdeed did I do in a previous life that such a curse has been bestowed on me?"
- Splinter a few days after his mutation in "Lone rat and Cubs"

One thing about Yoshi becoming Splinter is his connection to the Rat King, as the both of them are actually quite similar: two people who have been rejected by humanity.


It is very much Batman and the Joker here.

Their interaction works so much better since Splinter had been human before.
Heck, it's also why it works in the IDW series.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by newfan

Agreed, the feud feels more personal for both parties if Splinter is Yoshi, or even in Andrew's scenario at least carries a little of the spirit, so there is still Saki's enemy himself there either in whole after suffering the hardship of mutation or in part spirit after being murdered. I like them to be fairly equal opponents also.

I personally tend to lean away from things such as "spiritual transfer" and reincarnation simply because some people don't believe in any of that stuff, and while it doesn't bother ME - I'm pretty much "Agnostic, But Hopeful and Open-Minded" - I know for a fact that it bothers some others deeply to see such things represented, to the point where they either wouldn't read or couldn't fully appreciate the story if that sort of thing was included.

In a perfect world, I'd want any TMNT origin story to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible without muddying the waters too much. I know that the Mirage books in particular would occasionally dabble in "spirit world" stuff, but even then it can be argued that the protagonists of those stories are just tripping balls, or whatever. Once you start putting in spiritual stuff as Hard Canon you're inevitably going to lose people.

Again, it doesn't bother me specifically - as stated, I'm very agnostic but Peter David's "Supergirl" run was neck-deep in the Heaven/Hell stuff being taken completely literally, and I still argue that it's the most interesting run the character's ever had, even to this day - but I know for a fact it bothers some people. So if I were booking it for an actual audience, I personally wouldn't go into that stuff. But that's just my take.

Like, I feel bad that some people can't put their atheism aside to try and enjoy the IDW books simply because reincarnation is a plot point, but those people definitely exist. I think the origin story - seeing as how it's the bedrock of everything to come after - should be as "neutral" as possible, theologically speaking. But again, that's me, and I'm mostly playing Devil's Advocate.

[newfan]

So far as any spiritual elements with TMNT, not used or subtly used (just a few elements) both suit me. Far out stuff dominating the version or strong magical powers, not so much. Saying that, I did enjoy the arc in 2k3 (an unpopular opinion) but as that one arc, I would not have liked that series wide. As they decided to go a different route with Shredder, the demon stuff was a way of writing in Saki I guess?. I also prefer Saki to be a man and threat in his own right, (though different things suit different versions) but that would be another thread

[Leo656]

Was that the Ninja Tribunal arc? I've heard that one was a bit divisive. I really ought'a get around to watching that. I'm terrible. It always sounded intriguing I just keep forgetting to watch it.

As stated, they're all just stories so nothing spiritual or mystical or fantastical really bothers ME, but I'm aware they can be off-putting to some. I also think you get more leeway as stories go on to get more "out there" with some things, but I feel like origins - since they're a starting point and therefore should ideally be really accessible - should be relatively "grounded" as much as possible, but that there's a lot more freedom later on to work more fantastic ideas into the mix.

It's like if TMNT were a DC property, Frank Miller would write the ultra-grounded and realistic "TMNT: Year One" origin story, and then 15 years later Geoff Johns would come along and do "TMNT: Secret Origin" and slip all the mystical/spiritual/reincarnation jazz in between the pages of the original story just to be cheeky while swearing up and down it's still the exact same story. But by then, those elements would play a little better because you've become familiar with the characters and the scenarios. You're willing to accept a little more.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Was that the Ninja Tribunal arc? I've heard that one was a bit divisive. I really ought'a get around to watching that. I'm terrible. It always sounded intriguing I just keep forgetting to watch it.

It's uh... Well, let's try to break down what happened there:

1. It turned out that Shredder was originally a demon who was defeated by the Ninja Tribunal
2. As it turns out, Hamato Yoshi was groomed to be the warrior to prevent his return.
3. Because he died prematurely, the Turtles are forced to take his place and are given magic medallions and weapons.
4. Shredder comes back to life and the Turtles have to fight him with their new magic powers.
5. All five of them turn into Dragons and does battle over the city.
6. Shredders knocks them out of it and the medallions break.
7. Out of the medallions pops the ghost of Yoshi and slices Shredder in half.
8. Turns out all this nonsense was part of destiny.

It's... Not terribly elegant...

Anyway, I'm fine with the reincarnation angle since you don't have to jump through hoops just to make the mutation and the circumstances around it work. It's primarily the Humans to Mutants concept I hate because it always, always, always, always leads to a slippery slope of horseshit to poorly thought out characters like Muckman and inconsistant rules about what the mutagen does. But I don't think it adds much to have him be Yoshi himself in the first place. He's still going to have plenty of reason to despise the Foot and Shredder, he still has reason to feel miserable about his existance etc.

[Leo656]

Haha. Well, I own the DVD, so once I re-stock the ol' "Funny Cigarettes" supply I know what I'm watchin'. Sounds like a perfect fit.

[cammy85]

The way I see it, Splinter as a pet rat learning from and mimicking human Hamato Yoshi's moves gives him an advantage as he would know how rat and human bodies work whether mutated or not. The turtles of course were mutated form turtles, not humans; so they would also have that advantage because of Splinter's rat experience. Human-originated Hamato Yoshi had to adapt, rat-originated Splinter didn't have to.

[Coola Yagami]

It makes more sense if Yoshi is Splinter. We have to remember the Turtles trained under Splinter so in essence all the super amazing martial arts and flipping around and whatnot we see the Turtles do came from him. And that came from.... just watching someone else do it. Right.

I can marathon Bruce Lee and other martial arts movies all weekend, I'm not going to somehow know how to do the actual moves, let alone grab 5 teens and teach them moves with enough skill to take down actual ninjas.

[Leo656]

As someone who still occasionally play-fights for gas money, I'll co-sign that.

I watched wrestling very closely my whole entire life before I ever trained to actually do it, and it absolutely, absolutely DID help - point of fact (and I swear to you, I'm not jacking myself off here, this is Bible truth), when I took my first "Bump & Roll" drill at Pro Training, I nailed it so fast that the trainer asked me "Are you SURE you never did this before?" and I just shrugged and answered truthfully, "I just watch it on TV", which legit got a big laugh out of the crew. So careful and close observation over several decades CAN help you grasp some of the nuances of a physical, combat-based sport or martial art, yes.

But you can't MASTER it unless you've had Master-level training. You ever watch guys wrestle who "trained" in their backyard or by playing video games? Maybe they can "pass" for knowing what they're doing in front of a small crowd who don't quite "get" what they're looking at, but if you compare them to, say, a Monster Factory guy or a guy on TV, it's night and day, the "Yard 'Tards" by comparison look like a couple of monkeys trying to f*** a coconut. Furthermore, that's more like co-operative slap-fighting than a "real" martial art, but it's STILL impossible to get good at it without a million hours of actual, physical hands-on training. I can only imagine that it's 10x more intense when you're actually training to fight Life or Death style.

Maybe if it weren't so constantly reinforced that Splinter and the Turtles are MASTER Ninjas. Like, if maybe they thought or assumed that they were, but in truth they were kinda incompetent, and that was a running gag... then "learning by watching" is plausible, but I still wouldn't book it that way. If they are indeed Master-level martial artists, then that means it only really works if Yoshi is Splinter and retains all his previous training and muscle memory. Yeah, he'd have to adjust, but that's not altogether impossible. People who lose their legs and get prosthetics can learn to run again, for example; that's different, but what I'm saying is that people can overcome drastic bodily changes and return to some level of their previous function, even if it takes a while and a lot of hard work.

If Splinter was "just" a rat, and all he ever did was WATCH Yoshi do all this cool martial arts stuff... then no, that totally isn't even a little bit plausible.

That's generally the line at which we all start talking about just how "plausible" we want this story about karate turtles and their pet rat to actually even be in the first place. I'm Just Sayin', though, that if we want to keep even one foot in "reality", then Rat Splinter doesn't work. You nailed that one.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by neatoman

No, instead I'll focus on the big thing people seem to consider an improvement, his martial arts skills.

Primarily the reason I prefer Yoshi as Splinter.

So pretty much the only reason to make him start out as human because "it would make more knowledgeable" would be to make sure he taught his students quickly.

Oh, but wait, it's not my only reason.

The martial arts may be one thing -- albeit not entirely easy to accept a rat in a cage would ever be capable of teaching it later -- BUT... Look at the Turtles, they aren't a bunch of dumb slobs (relatably messy lair aside, esp as teens), they're relatively decent young men who have clearly had at least some amount of home schooling in other subjects, and other non-fighting skills including some semblance manners (albeit that varies per Turtle), as best a rat dad can manage given their situation.

Maybe we can pretend a pet rat can mimic martial arts moves and somehow teach it later... but it's even harder to accept that a pet rat grasped literacy, math, etc and would be able to teach it later, let alone learn it himself or even be interested.

I suppose if they watched Sesame Street as little kids like a lot of us it would have taught them something, but it would only be scratching the surface and never anywhere near enough.

I kind of feel like without human Yoshi still wanting the basic amenities of a human life he used to live (a home more or less, refrigerator, tv, beds, an education for his kids, etc) they aught to be living a rather different life had Splinter always been a rat.