City at War - What side are you on?
 

We kinda already know that the episodes end up with the turtles eventually fixing the problems they have caused, but I always wondered who was more "right".

I'll quickly recap City at War for being sure:
The turtles "defeated" Shredder (now discovered to be Ch'rell) in the TCRI building. This, sadly, caused alot of troubles in the city, because Shredder was tecnically the one who controlled the entire criminal activity in the city. Without him, smaller "factions" like the Purple Dragons, the Foot remains and the Mobsters tried to rise up and gain the territories previously owned by Shredder.
The wars between the factions eventually cause death or injuries to innocents in the city, and Leo starts to feel responsable for it because THEY defeated the Shredder.
Leo wants to fix the situation, in some way, but Raph tries to tell him that is not their fault if the city started to have those problems. The two argue about it for alot of time until, because of Leo, they end up being part of the war. Karai arrives because she heard about the problems of the city, and as Shredders "daughter", she had to fix the situation aswell.
The three episodes end up with the turtles joining Karai and helping her to regain the control over the city.


Tecnically, it's obvious that Leo is the most ethically correct, but at the same time both Splinter and Raph go against him, while Don and Mike are "neutral".
I mean, what they have done is basically give back the power to Shredder, sure not the best they could have done.

Since the story of the show is already written, and it doesn't have any sense arguing about who's really right (since Shredder obviously gets defeated), I ask you guys instead which part you would have choosen.

If you were in the same situation, you would have tried to "fix" such a big situation, or you would have ignored it waiting for it to end itself?


As for me, I don't really know. I'm usually the one who doesn't play as the hero of the situation, unless it's actually my fault. But, at the same time, I would feel kind of bad not doing anything about it.
So I would probably choose a middle path, like, trying to help by not direct means.


Post me your idea, and please, be expansive with the reason of your choice other than being honest!
(ah yes, and if this thread was already made in the past, sorry)

City at war really deserved more then 3 episodes. Leo is right,IMO. They should clean up after themselves.
As for putting Shredder back in power...criminal will always exist,so it's probably better if its run "cleanly" by one guy/alien then to have constant shoot outs and giant robots stomping around.

Yeah, I too wanted it to be longer. Is one of my favourite trilogy of episodes!
About the "cleaning up" thing, I think it depends.
As Splinter said, you can't "shoulder the weight of the world", some things have to happen, no matter if you feel guilty or not. But just because some things can't be done.
Leo never had a chance against all three factions, so it was an impossible thing to do.

In fact, they succeded thanks to Karai, who basically was part of one of the factions.
Karai joining the thing, very likely shaked off Splinter too, who, again, very likely saw a chance of doing something.

I think the problem was more that innocent people were dying in the crossfire,so Leo felt responsible and had to try and stop it. He didn't really have a plan,thou.

As a viewer, I side with Leo 100%.

If I was in the TMNT's shoes, however, I'd feel pretty conflicted and guilty, but would probably remain neutral like Don and Mikey.

Yeah pretty much what I thought.
Not saying that Leo is wrong, I think his actions were rushed. Being neutral would have been better for everyone, minus the innocents.

I wouldn't've jumped in the path of any fights where it was just villains whacking each other, but only had any innocent people been nearby, then I'd jump in at that time. Frankly, for the turtles, I never believed it was "their mess" to clean up in the first place, villains are villains and they're going to cause mayhem in some way, shape, or form, one way or another. Plus, the Shredder had gotten blown up by his own bomb, so his absence was really his own fault, not that him being in the picture makes anything better. In the end, it turned out to be a good thing Raphael sided against it, because then he and Master Splinter wouldn't've shown up to save the day in the end when everyone was cornered.

Yeah I totally agree with you comrade.
Raph never said that they shouldn't help the innocent (he himself helped Tyler), so I think Leo misunderstood him.

The thing of the bomb you just said actually makes alot of sense. Shredder blowed himself up, not even the turtles, so they are not even "ethically" guilty.

I am in Leo´s side just because there were innocent people, if it was just bad people dying, I will let them fight until they all die.

Innocent people die everyday, everyone. I think it would be better to help who you can and in the way you can.
Leo was basically trying to play as a hero back then.

Ironically in the comics Raph wanted to intervene and Leo wanted to sit it out while Raph called him on his bull****.

Didn't he feel responsible for the power vacuum due to killing the Shredder? Can't recall.

Damn I need to read those freaking comics...

Kinda. Leo couldn't give two rat's butts about the power managment of the city, he felt guilty when innocents were killed in the crossfires.

That's probably my answer too.

My Reply
 

I would obviously be on the Turtles side