the turtles Zodiac/personalities

[heretic888]

I wasn't saying they were mutated in different years, I was talking about them being actually born, or unhatched, in different months or years to fit into the Zodiac signs. We all know the contact of the ooze all happened at once, including Splinter who's waaaay older than all of them. In the original Mirage, I believe they did unhatch in the same glass bowl at God-only-knows-different-times. And were they from the same litter of eggs or just thrown in the bowl together? Oops, that's another question we'll probably never figure out.

I wouldn't matter either way. They didn't have humanoid personalities or intelligence then, so even if this "birth order" has any relevance it certainly wouldn't apply to them. And, regarding the Zodiac/Astrology, considering it has been empirically disproven time and time again (I believe the actual Zodiac correlations in real-life individuals is a less than 1% accuracy), it most certainly doesn't hold any relevance.

In either case, the TMNT were not obviously modelled after any little-known psychological models or archaic mythic symbols. They were meant to be fairly realistic and "life-like" personalities.

I'm not familiar with Godai

Its the five element system in Japanese tantric buddhism (earth, water, fire, wind, and void).

The strange thing about Birth Order, is that it doesn't really matter that they were "born" at the same time. Twins, triplets, quadruplets, will all develop birth order roles even though they were born at the same time. For instance with twins, if there are no other children in the family, one twin will develop a firstborn personality and the other will develop a lastborn personality. So it doesn't matter whether or not the Turtles were born at the same time or not, they would still, and apparently have, developed birth order roles.

*nods* Yes, possibly.

We know that age still affects them, even if they were mutated at the same time. Splinter was older and much more mature than the Turtles at the time of mutation, so that carried over.

That is because, as the Palladium RPG pointed out, Splinter was already a mutant of some form before he was ever exposed to the mutagen.... possessing extraordinary intelligence and memory, not to mention human-like compassion, as a "simple rat".

So if Leonardo had been hatched before Michelangelo and had matured more pre-mutation, then that would have carried over to post-mutation just as Splinter did over the Turtles.

No. There is nothing at all to indicate the turtles were mutants of some form like Splinter prior to their mutation. In any event, the "party line" given by Eastman and Laird is that they are all roughly the same age (thus making any developmental differences based on age irrelevant). Whenever their ages are asked for in fan letters, the same age is given for all four.

We don't really know when the Turtles hatched, or whether they are actually brothers or not.

According to Eastman and Laird, they are biological brothers.

But if Eastman gave particular birth orders to the Turtles, then that must mean something. I wish I could find where he said that.

He didn't. They are always given the same ages in the Mirage/Palladium books, and always regarded as biological brothers. This means (if you know your biology) they all came from the same "litter" of turtle eggs at roughly the same time and place.

I've already forwarded this discussion to him. I should get an answer within a few days and when I do, I'll share it with you all.

If he and Laird's past answers to these questions are any indication, he will most likely tell you they are roughly the same age and biological brothers. Thus making this entire discussion kind of pointless.

It's true that the "elemental" system often greatly oversimplifies people and personalities, but in a way, it can still be used to ROUGHLY classify people into groups. And even if it's not the most precise method to get inside turtles' heads, it'll still be brought up a million times over, because its appeal lies in its simplicity of comprehension.

I already provided a more accurate and realistic system to accomplish this.

Besides, people have to keep in mind that the primary reason for their character differentiations wasn't to prove one psychological theory over another, it was simply marketing at its finest. In order for the kids to buy each individual toy, they better have vastly different personalities (and colours) so that they could be easily identified. I don't think I need to elaborate on that any more.

*chuckles* Apparently you've never heard of a little comic book company called Mirage Publishing.

But if we are going to liken them to humans, then yes, it is true that even if they are twins or whatnot, they would develop differently. In human siblings, it is usually theor overwhelming similarity that pushes people to act differently and thus become a different person. So even if the turtles were born at the same time, or months apart, the outcome would be the same.

Yes. But this has nothing to do with 'birth order' or with the Zodiac. It has to do with their respective life experiences.

Well, just because the TMNT were all in the same bowl at the same time, doesn't mean they were all born, errr hatched at the same time. And anyway, even if they were, there's a lot more to a horoscope than the "sun sign" we're all familiar with. Every planet, and a couple moons, and stars are all charted, and change by the minute.

And it makes a BIG difference, believe me. (And no, I'm not charting all four of them out. This is fun, but not THAT fun.)

It doesn't matter either way, considering astrology as a means of empirical predictions has been disproven time and time again (even when tested by scientific experiments designed by astrologists themselves). The actual predictive "power" of the Zodiac (or any astrological system for that matter) has been found to be less than 1%.

Now, this is not to say astrology is "meaningless" or "wrong", it most certainly has its value and provides an important function among its adherents, but it has been demonstrably proven to have no predictive power whatsoever (no more than random guessing, that is).

Laterz.