Did Splinter mutate the turtles?

[victory_angel]

Originally Posted by srmff

Does it? Is Splinter not not just telling them that he went to a pet shop and bought four baby turtles when he was attacked and mutated? In the episode I don't think he mentions why he was in New York or the Shredder.

He mentions the Shredder in the second half of the 2 parter. He tells Leo about how he lost his wife and daughter to the Shredder. What isn't being said is that with his clan destroyed he left Japan to make a new life and that is exactly what happened. Though he was probably banking on eventually remarrying and having children. Not getting four turtles and having to raise them as his sons.

I do feel that perhaps he did have some selfishness with training his sons in ninjutsu. He knew they would face the Shredder but when they were fully grown and well mastered as ninja such as Jonin level or Chunin at the very least. At the end of Rise of the Turtles he does warn the turtles their carelessness could have consequences. And seeing his sons performing the death dragon was the warning he needed to know that someone associated with the Shredder was around and if Shredder himself wasn't in the city yet, he soon would be.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by saber16

Well, the origin story in the first episode says otherwise.

Well there is this thing that people tend to do, I don't know if you have ever heard of it so I'll link the Wikipedia on it. It's called lying, it's done quite commonly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie

But seriously, the only person who has told the origin is Splinter and the only other people who would know if he's telling the truth are a couple of Kraang. The idea that Splinter is lying or keeping information to himself isn't out of the question, we have seen him do it.

[Tarris Vaal]

We do also have Shredder's side of the story in regards leading up to Hamato Yoshi's presence in the US.

Give it a few more weeks and we'll potentially have some idea of what happened prior to New York thanks to Renet

Though its fun to speculate on whether his motives were entirely pure, I doubt that anyone could have guessed what the mutagen was going to do until it happened to come into contact with them.

If he did do it, there would have to be some kind of outside influence involved pushing him along - something which would have known what would happen. I've mentioned time travel as one possibility, as well as the Rat King (though again that would have to involve time travel in some way).

Just so long as it doesn't turn out to have been Kirby all along

[Cryomancer]

Yeah I have thought this for awhile now and think it could be potentially a very good plotline but I'm not gonna get my hopes up about it too much.

Ideally, it'd be a situation where he knew exactly what it would do, and did it on purpose. They later find out that he's been "lying" aka never mentioned that particular part. Then it would cause some kind of conflict (maybe like Raphael and Donatello feel betrayed and move out for awhile, fight Leo and Mike a couple times, etc) and then would ultimately be resolved.

Were it a Mirage plot, I'd be tempted to say it would be the sort of thing they'd only find out about after Splinter is already dead and it's another thing that drives them apart later in life.