Splinters story
 

Ok I am just wondering... since I was recently watching some of the old TMNT cartoons, I noticed something that doesn't make sense...

Whenever the turtles or splinter tells their story about how they came to be, they say that the mutagen causes them to turn into what they were most recently in contact with. The turtles, of course, were most recently in contact with Hamato Yoshi... and then they say he was most recently with the rats-- this makes no sense because... while he was in contact with rats, at the time of being mutated he was in contact with the turtles. That is more recent, not the rats... so really, he should be a turtle...

or am I taking it out of context...? :tanime:

He had stepped into the mutagen just before touching the turtles.

Ahh, kay....

Damn. I guess he was playing with some rats before he came to rescue the turtles. :P
But... if you got cute little turtles in your home, why would one go out to play with smelly dirty rats who might have diseases?

That Yoshi... what a crazy craze... :lol:

The old cartoon series origin story doesn't actually make perfect sense. I think there was a thread about what origin story made the most sense a while back.

Makes enough sense to me.

turtles do carry a disease. *a little bit of info that I could not resist in saying*

Are you kidding? The old cartoon series origin makes a thousand times more sense than the comics origin.

(A thousand times zero is zero, for you non-mathematicians out there.)

I kind of prefer the cartoon series origin...I always thought that the comics origin (Splinter starting out as Hamato Yoshi's pet rat and learning ninjutsu by observing his master) was intended to be completely ridiculous because the original comic was supposed to be a parody of other Marvel comics, right?

:lol: Good one. Rat learning ninjitsu is not any more realistic than fully grown human being mutating into a rat. And Yeah, the concept of TMNT is totally ridiculous, and that was E/L's intention I believe.

Actually, rats are pretty smart...you can train them to do all sorts of tricks, and the buggers will actually answer to their names...so a particularly smart rat could probably grasp some of the basics of ninjitsu, anyway...

Plus, if the mutagen made Splinter smarter, perhaps it would've given him access to memories (and teachings) that he couldn't have fully grasped before, yet were still buried deep in his mind.

One possible explanation, though we clearly see the rat doing hardcore martial arts in the film and games. :) I don't remember having seen the comic origin pages.

In the cartoon, I'm thinking Splinter should've become a humanoid rat-turtle, since he was in contact with the rats and then the Turtles. :lol:

yeah....right....well splinter was an established character....they had to make him a rat...that's how he was....a rat...will always be a rat....maybe he steped on a rat after touching the mutagen....but who knows....but which origen do u like better?? I kinda like the movie origen....love betral....it rocks

Makes more sense to me. And Yoshi walks onto the mutagen before he picked up the turtles and he had bare feet. I would imagine that when he walked onto the mutagen he had most recently been with rats but picks up the turtles 5 seconds later. A rat learning ninjitsu just doesn't make any sense to me. Rats are smart but how would a rat learn it just by mimicing it and then know how to use it properly? Although, the concept of either substance from the comics/new toon/movies and the old cartoon is just of silly to begin with. A substance that speeds up evolution vs. a substance that mutates you with whatever you come into contact with. And yes there have been several threads about which origin story is better and each story has won a few times. And for those of you who say that you never see him with the rats in the old cartoon in the origin it says "Then one day" meaning it didn't happen right after you'd last seen Yoshi and he had been with rats in a scene we hadn't seen.

Everything learns through mimic. The true understanding supposedly came after the mutation.

Also remember that it's been established in several places that Splinter was never an ordinary rodent. It's also been mentioned by Peter Laird. He was always a mutant, gifted with enhanced lifespan and intelligence. And then thanks to the ooze, he was mutated into a humanoid form. :)

Well, nobody ever told me that.

That's the first time I heard that. Very interesting.

Where does it specificly state that?

Laird has said it a few times, in various interviews. It may be in a letters column or two also. And it's in the TMNT RPG book that Eastman and Laird contributed info for. :)

Splinter:

Thanks for the info. :)