Is there a reason Robyn is excluded from most adaptions?
 

Remember April's sister Robyn? Guess how many adaptations she's in? One, she shows up in the 2003 show and that's it. She's not in the the Fred Wolf cartoon, the 2012 show, the PD movies or Rise.

Is there a reason for that? The closest I think we got was April getting a time travel duplicate and mentioning she always wanted a sister.

I think for nothing more than the same reason Oroku Nagi never gets carried over, or why April's family never gets much mention in general. That being, they're considered to be Extraneous Baggage by whoever picks up the pen for the latest adaptation.

Nagi gets erased because even though it completely changes the Why with regards to Saki having an adversarial relationship with Splinter (and by association, the Turtles), you can get to the exact same place of conflict without him; what's important is that Saki is the Forever Enemy of Splinter and the Turtles, how specifically you get them to that point is less relevant, and so Nagi and Saki end up having their stories kind of "merged" for the sake of simplicity. It makes sense.

Likewise, for what April's role in the story is, her family really doesn't matter much. As I recall, it only ever came up in the FW cartoon to showcase a "goofy" relative or two, and the adaptation where it arguably was the most "important", the 2012 cartoon, they never really did much of substance with her father or the story with her parents, anyway. Or at least, they didn't handle it half as well as they could and should have.

It basically comes down to, April is "The Turtles' first human friend" and so she's important in that way but the story isn't "about" her. It would be nice if she had a more present and consistent family dynamic but it's not absolutely essential for the stories being told... which should predominantly be about the Turtles. Like, aside from her trying to hide the Turtles from her family members, or her family pestering her about where she goes all the time instead of spending time with her family, what much of substance would there even be for them to do? And so, for the sake of the story, they may as well not even exist.

It's kinda like how a rather big deal was made of Tim Drake having a father, the first Robin to have a still-living parent. But it became rather pointless very quickly; he only existed to scold Tim about not going out as Robin, before Tim inevitably would sneak out as Robin anyway. So once it became a meme, they killed him off, because he simply didn't add anything to the stories at all. It was just a novel thing that wore out its welcome quickly because there really wasn't any room to do anything else.

Any of April's relatives, be they siblings or parents or Aunt Aggie or whatever... they're not at all relevant to the story of the Turtles, and that's what the story should predominantly be about. So even if they were there, they'd be more background clutter than anything, same as Jack Drake.

It's not BAD when they give her a family, obviously, they're just all rather extraneous because She and They are not at all the point of the story and only exist in service to the Main Characters. So you can lose them and not lose anything noteworthy.

The 2012 show got really weird when it came to the acknowledgement of Casey and April's family.

April's father getting abducted in season 1 was at least given the excuse of being a red herring for the actual twist about April, but after that they went out of their way to keep him out of the story until mid-season 3, at which point he was mostly just neglected. April is also mentioned as having an aunt to live with when dad was gone but they just ignored that as well. With Casey it's even worse, it's just mentioned he has a family once or twice and that's about it.

It seems to be a consequence of making these characters minors that they didn't want to deal with. Like they desperately needed them to be teenagers because I guess them hanging out with sewer mutants would be less weird that way, but also didn't account for this meaning they would need to live with some sort of legal guardian and just hand waved it away.

It's one of my personal gripes with the 2012 show, if there was any version of TMNT that should have dealt with the family lives of Casey and April it's that one, which it instead avoided like the plague.

There was no GOOD reason why April or Casey needed to be teenagers. At all. They did nothing decent with it, and so it just became yet another example of "Being Different For Different's Sake".

There were "reasons", sure. But no GOOD reasons. And it's one of the many reasons I just plain don't like that show.

It comes down to making April and Casey more relatable to the Turtles and the children's audiences they were seeking. Also, it denotes a fundamental misunderstanding of their characters.

Yes, it's strange because when I was a kid never did I think Casey and April should be younger in order for me to relate better to them. I mean it's not like they have ever bebe characters I wanted to relate to in the first place. That's what the Turtles are for.

Seems like a lot of people working on TMNT nowadays fail to realise that the audience watches and reads TMNT for the Turtles. Not for the human characters.

Anyway, Leo pretty much said everything. I was never interesting in knowing much about Aprils family because they're not impoirtant to the overall plot. We never hear about Shredder's and Yoshi's parents and uncles either, do we? OK Shredder had a mother and a brother in the FW series but each appear in one episode separately only and that's an episodic series anyway. So it doesn't count. Had they not been in it, we'd not have missed out on any important details.

I guess just a side detail in April's life that doesn't have much reason to exist on screen/page.

Though speaking of the PD movies, the random worried roommate who calls her mom to move back home could have been more interesting as her sister, watching her have what looked like psychological break, if that led somewhere. That movie where the Turtles break April out of a mental institution...

I also like to imagine April as being a rather lonely and private person. She doesn't really have friends besides the Turtles and Splinter and maybe someone like Casey or Irma. The fact the people she spends the most time with are 4 talking Turtles kinda tells me she isn't that close to her family or possibly even doesn't have a very large family in the first place. It's not like she ever ditches the Turtles because she has a family dinner or something.

I have often considered changing my "subtitle" to "The Last Word In Everything", but I REALLY like "The Franchise" as Shane Douglas is one of my biggest heroes. :lol:

Plus, he said I could use it and I haven't really found any other place where I can justify it.

I'd watch it. :lol:

Which is why I like your long posts. You cover pretty much everything most of the time.

Thanks, I try! :lol: Even if people don't agree, I at least want to make it clear that I've given whatever nonsense I'm spewing a ton of thought from multiple perspectives. I very rarely "pop off" just to make noise. Sometimes, when it's funny. Otherwise, no, it's incredibly thought-out most times. Which is partly why it's so hard to change my mind. Whatever opposing viewpoint someone can throw at me, I've definitely already considered it and decided I don't care. :trazz:

Yeah, her status generally implies that she's mostly a "widow of business" and has very little outside of her career. Which while sad in its own respect does make her ideally placed to be exactly the type of friend the Turtles need, so it all evens out.

Plus, her boss, Baxter Stockman tried to kill her. And in FW, her boss is a grouchy asshole and her coworkers are either lame or jealous asskissers like Vernon. Outside of Vernon, there's zero people she can trust in Channel 6. Can you blame her for not having a social life really?

When hanging out in a sewer with a group of genetic abominations is the better choice, you know your social circle is non-f*cking-existent. :lol:

But again, their lives would be rather sh*tty without her so I guess it's one of those cosmic "they all need each other" kinda things.

She is the "den mother." That's what she was created to be and Vol. 1, #11 makes it clear and even those first movies got that right. But newer hacks didn't like that so they want her to be the "den sister," or worse yet "love interest."

I mean, I'd rather be friends with the Turtles than with any human being I personally know as well. At least they seem nice and I'm sure they'd save my life in case I was ever attacked by aliens or something. I can't think of anyone I know irl who'd do anything but run away if they witnessed such scene.

Plus, I'm sure Donnie would know how to grow, just, the BEST hydro. :lol:

...Which would explain Mikey. Just "Mikey" in general.

Almost a little awkwardly relatable... :sweatdro:

I think it's relatable to a lot of people here.

I feel like the Turtles tend to mean more to less sociable people in general.