Splinter as a rat or as Hamato Yoshi?
 

Which do you prefer? Splinter originally being a rat or being a human? I know this thread may have been done before but I wasn't there at the time and Id be curious to know what your thoughts would be. Which interpretation do you prefer and why?

I prefer Splinter as Hamato Yoshi, even only because I thought being his pet rat wasn't very streamlined. Why should Shredder care that Yoshi's pet hates him? It's inconsequential to him. Yoshi as the rat would make things more personal to Shredder.

Yoshi. A pet rat learning martial arts is silly.

Ya, ya I know...ninja turtles. Within the context of everything it does not make sense for the rat.

Easy one for me - Yoshi.

I just like better having him as an already trained martial arts master who passes his teachings along to the Turtles. I'm still cursing these recent movies for not inserting Yoshi as a martial arts-trained lab tech instead. Different, sure, but at least better than the darn picture book learnin'.

Being human also sets him up to provide them with basic home schooling. They had to learn how to read and write somewhere. Not to mention have any desire for the normal conveniences of home that other people have.

Having him as Yoshi also surely has the Turtles grow up with stories of his deceased wife they could see as their maybe-would-be adopted mom they never met. Which I think resonates with me a little having never met my paternal grandparents and that weirdness of having these people who are so connected to you yet remain like these ghosts who are complete strangers.

I could go with either or. Or extra note go the IDW route and use both.

This basically sums it up. It's certainly isn't weird for a natural-born rat to teach turtles martial arts considering the material, but I think it adds a bump in the road, especially in Splinter's relationship with Shredder. It makes everything more personal.

"Origin" will reveal what he is. At least for Mirage. In my eyes. Not just a rat.

I've always preferred Splinter as Hamato Yoshi. I prefer this because the idea of a human having to be forced to live in poverty or in the sewers as a ratl shunned by a society he was once a part of, seems much more tragic than a rat who is technically returning to the wild and just becomes bigger. Seems a rat would adapt much quicker than a human to those conditions.

The pet rat learning ninja by copying its master is always sad and laughably silly. :tlol: So no, that's out of the window.

Him as Yoshi turned into a rat (OT, 2012, IDW) is always far more superior and credible. :tcool: So yes, I pick the latter.

I guess it doesn't matter much since Hamato Yoshi's role is pretty much to be, you know, dead. In that case he might as well be the same character as Splinter.

Although I'm not a fan of the mutagen turning people into animals, just opens up the door to the mutagen doing whatever without consistency, so the reincarnation angle was probably the best way to tackle it. That way Splinter can be Hamato Yoshi without being the root of making the mutagen a plot convenience.

Edit: Although now that I think about it, issue 50 did imply the reincarnation might just be implanted memories, sort of like in Blade Runner. Maybe that's the way to go?

Splinter as a rat explains why Shredder leaves his mortal enemy to just live without any sort of retaliation for 15 years though (because he doesn't even know he exists/is planning revenge). It also probably works better for the whole cycle of revenge concept too? Arguable I guess.

This topic have been done to death with several threads, but here we go again.

It's less "rat vs man" and more that I prefer the Mirage version, it has more layers and are less clear cut on what's right and wrong, good vs evil. The cycle of vengeance.

No other version have made that impact, it's always Splinter = flawlessly good and Shredder = villainous evil.

I can look past Splinter's unlikely age as a regular rat. As Oroku Saki was 7 years old when Hamato Yoshi killed Oroku Nagi and fled to America with Tang Shen, and he was 19-20 when he exacted his revenge by killing his big brother's murderers. Because I find the overall story and the elements in the story far better and more engaging then what we've gotten on other incarnations.

That said, my second favorite Splinter is the Nick version, and he was human prior mutation, so I'm not completely opposed to Splinter being human.

And it is also a mutagen issue. I prefer a mutagen that function much like the Mirage version, that it turns animals/creatures into intelligent humanoids instead of mutating its victim into whatever the last creature they touched. Less is more in my opinion when it comes to mutants, and the FW type of mutagen usually ends up with a mutant-heavy series.

You like Bayturtles.

Who knows, maybe he thinks subsituting Hamato Yoshi with a picture book is the best damn solution ever?

Hamato Yoshi
 

Hamato Yoshi. I prefder him having knowledge about various cultures around the world, like he had about Europe in the 1987-1996 animated TV-series as well as about some other countries, even in the Middle East, in the Archie comics.

I prefer Hamato Yoshi becoming splinter. It's more tragic to me if Splinter lost his humanity and family to Saki's rage and wanting revenge for that, rather than a pet seeking revenge for it's master's death. And IDW's splinter and turtles are indeed reincarnations, as Tang Shen's spirit regards them as family.

I've kinda always liked Splinter as a mutated rat more than a human-turned-rat.
I like it because it adds more to the relationship between him and the turtles. Imagine a buncha animals suddenly becoming these mutant abominations. They'd obviously want to be together, and being in the same boat, so to speak, would bring them closer together, strengthen their ties. As opposed to Splinter suddenly becoming an animal mutant.

I preferred rat long before I learned of the penchant of the US using rodents to dehumanize the Japanese in their WWII propaganda.

Now I really prefer it.

There is that, yeah.

Well, that certainly adds a whole new level of irony to my TMNT concept...I'm not sure if it was accidental or not, but actually could be a good thing to address within a TMNT storyline, with how much more humiliating the mutation would be for Yoshi.