tmnt 2k3 meta - ask edition
Mar. 1st, 2025 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysCross-posted from Tumblr.
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Since you are doing a watch through of TMNT. How do ya rank the turtles from fav to least fav? I mean if ya do have a least that Is
Ooh, the classic question. This will, of course, be for the 2k3 kids since that's what I'm rewatching (and also it should always be assumed I'm talking 2k3 unless stated otherwise).
So if I really hold myself to the spirit of the question, the short version is Donatello > Leonardo > Raphael > Michelangelo - with the caveat that there is very little space between each of those tiers, and I truly enjoy them most as an ensemble! The appeal of TMNT to me lies less in any singular character, and more in the tight-knit family unit they form together.
As for the longer version...
4) Michelangelo
Mikey's biggest drawback isn't entirely his own fault - any time the show wants a quick laugh or a manoeuvrable screw-up, cue Michelangelo with the inappropriate joke, the canned banter, the refusal to take a situation seriously that then jeopardises the plan and forces a fight scene. It can be genuinely funny... but sometimes it's just sucking up airtime. Plus, at the end of the day 'loudmouth bratty baby brother / kid appeal character' has rarely been my favourite archetype, and that's nothing but personal taste.
He's such a crucial part of the quartet, though! All the more so in 2k3, where the mood can get pretty darn grim at times, and he's surrounded by brothers with a tendency to get too deep inside their own heads - Mikey's a vital anchor to normalcy, youthfulness, and fun, keeping the others from aging even faster than they already are. There's a real sweetness to him too: the way he acts with characters like Leatherhead, Zog, and of course Klunk; his admiration for the Justice Force, stemming both from a desire for recognition and a desire to make a positive impact on the world; the way he can sometimes say just the right thing to a brother in need, and rarely holds onto a grudge. And I love the contrast between his goofiness and the natural talent that shines through when he decides to knuckle down.
One thing I've appreciated about some of the following adaptations is the willingness to devote a little more time to Mikey's softer strengths vs his motormouth, leaning into making art and creativity his thing and emphasising his place as the heart of the team. 2k3 absolutely has great moments that establish this as part of his character, but sometimes I could use a just a leeeeetle bit more of them.
3) Raphael
I honestly think I've come to appreciate Raph more as I've grown older. Back in the day he suffered a little from the same personal taste handicap as Mikey: nothin' wrong with 'tough guy' as a character type, it's just not what tends to grab me.
As tough guys go, though, he'd be one of my favourites for sure. It's not just the loyalty and the protectiveness, though those are undeniable ticks in his box; it's that Raph may not always be very nice or outwardly friendly, but he has a deep and persistent streak of kindness. It's how immediately determined he was to save Casey from himself; how casually willing he is to help people like April or the old blind lady; the particular push-pull understanding he has with Leo. "I don't hurt that easily, sword boy." They are everything.
Which isn't to downplay the appeal of the loyalty and the protectiveness either! It never ever fails: Raph will be the first one trying to shove Mikey under a bus until the second his brother's in real pain or strife, then bam, all that bluster is smoke on the wind. He's at Don's back in a flash any time he falters, and never begrudges him for it for a second. He doesn't seem to define himself by his role in the family the way Leo does, but by the same token he often wears said role more easily - he's vigilant without being eaten up by this self-appointed responsibility because he also knows how to lay the blame where it really belongs, and boy do some of the others need that example set.
His character arc doesn't have the best pacing, but I like what there is of it. I like that of all the turtles he's probably the one who benefits most visibly from their social world expanding - yelling "what's wrong with me?" on a rooftop because 95% of who he knows is his immediate family and none of them struggle the same way, only to get a real good look in the mirror of a kindred spirit and realise there's a way to be okay with himself after all.
2) Leonardo
So I'm an eldest child. Can you tell?
I do like the leader types. I'm a sucker for the shackles of noblesse oblige, for the characters who don't feel like they have a right to their own emotions half the time, the anxious perfectionists, the rule-bound buzzkills whose own buzz is always the first casualty on the chopping block, the ones whose individual identity is subsumed by who they are in relation to other people and the responsibilities they've shouldered. 2k3 Leo has shades of all these things, so it's good times for me.
2k3 Leo in particular really charms me, though, because even though the narrative grinds this weight down hard upon him... he's so goofy underneath it. He isn't theatrical like Mikey is, but by god is he dramatic. He's delighted by Japanese culture. He likes showing off. He likes playing around with his brothers, sparring and joking and bopping along to terrible rap songs in the Battleshell. He's such an idealist! Mikey's starry-eyed over superheroes but, honestly, Leo isn't that much less susceptible himself: he wants to believe so badly that there are Right and Honourable solutions in the world and that these are an achievable thing if you just try hard enough and make the right decisions and Be Good Enough to win the day, and luckily for him he lives in a children's cartoon but unluckily for him it's the edgy one. Both he and Raph struggle so much with sheer frustration as an emotion, honestly, but Raph learns to own it much faster than Leo, who is always clawing for the Better he believes is out there. The Better he believes needs to come first and most from himself.
You put all those traits together and you get the inherent tragedy that is Leonardo, child soldier - not because Splinter wanted to raise child soldiers, but because he couldn't envisage a world in which his children could live without needing to defend their own right to exist, and because there were four of them and only one of him, increasingly elderly, and someone needed to be ready to continue safeguarding the family once he was gone. And it's Leo. And he doesn't ever get to get away from that; even if he does, eventually, find a way to be at relative peace with it.
And if I sometimes sigh and roll my eyes when the writers forget the rest of the family exists, well, god knows he pays his own cost for it.
1) Donatello
Oh, Donnie. He's always going to wield the unbeatable edge of nostalgia - around the same time as we watched the first season on TV, my brother and I got our hands on the video game based off it, and rented it out again and again until we finally took Shredder out. In co-op mode, my turtle was Donatello, because I liked purple and the reach of the bo and thought the TV character was cool. So there's a permanent feedback loop of fondness embedded deep in my psyche when it comes to Don - that's my guy :)
I do just also like the character! He's the most muted of the family in a lot of ways, and certainly the one with the least consistency across adaptations for a reason - "the smart one" is not much of a personality type. Fortunately, 2k3 didn't opt to make Don particularly insufferable about his intelligence; there are a couple "wow Don, speak English" gags but not that many, and the rest of the time he just wanders around being sincerely thrilled by all the weird crap he gets to play with. It's very endearing, and I adore the bond he forms with April over their shared fascinations.
Don's technical skills are undeniably vital to his family, but more than that I enjoy the subtle ways he proves to be a vital piece of social glue. If Mikey anchors his brothers to a world where it's still okay to have fun, Don's everyone's port: he's the one brother who rarely deals out or gets drawn into serious beef with his siblings, and it makes him a steadying influence on their whole dynamic. He's a playful buddy to Mikey, and a milder counterweight to Raph; I know Raph is generally accepted as Leo's 2IC, but man, just count how often Leo looks to Don in any given scrap for guidance. In a family of pretty strong personalities, he shores them all up from a backseat position that he never resents occupying, and in return their indulgence of his antics is almost boundless (grumbles about dinosaur exhibits notwithstanding). He walks into an alternate universe and immediately kicks down several years of family estrangement. Superglue.
He is also, not infrequently, kind of bitchy. Don's kind, easygoing, deeply curious, and he's invested in reaching out with understanding at least as often as with the hard end of his bo - and he's just a little bit bitchy. It's fun. I enjoy it.
Finally, there is also the part where... well, I don't know that the writers necessarily intended to write Don as emotionally repressed to the extent that they did but, they sure did make Don a character who doesn't talk on-screen about some of the truly insane things he goes through while also doing a truly insane amount of overwork at all times, and unfortunately I am really into that. So it goes.
Ooh, the classic question. This will, of course, be for the 2k3 kids since that's what I'm rewatching (and also it should always be assumed I'm talking 2k3 unless stated otherwise).
So if I really hold myself to the spirit of the question, the short version is Donatello > Leonardo > Raphael > Michelangelo - with the caveat that there is very little space between each of those tiers, and I truly enjoy them most as an ensemble! The appeal of TMNT to me lies less in any singular character, and more in the tight-knit family unit they form together.
As for the longer version...
4) Michelangelo
Mikey's biggest drawback isn't entirely his own fault - any time the show wants a quick laugh or a manoeuvrable screw-up, cue Michelangelo with the inappropriate joke, the canned banter, the refusal to take a situation seriously that then jeopardises the plan and forces a fight scene. It can be genuinely funny... but sometimes it's just sucking up airtime. Plus, at the end of the day 'loudmouth bratty baby brother / kid appeal character' has rarely been my favourite archetype, and that's nothing but personal taste.
He's such a crucial part of the quartet, though! All the more so in 2k3, where the mood can get pretty darn grim at times, and he's surrounded by brothers with a tendency to get too deep inside their own heads - Mikey's a vital anchor to normalcy, youthfulness, and fun, keeping the others from aging even faster than they already are. There's a real sweetness to him too: the way he acts with characters like Leatherhead, Zog, and of course Klunk; his admiration for the Justice Force, stemming both from a desire for recognition and a desire to make a positive impact on the world; the way he can sometimes say just the right thing to a brother in need, and rarely holds onto a grudge. And I love the contrast between his goofiness and the natural talent that shines through when he decides to knuckle down.
One thing I've appreciated about some of the following adaptations is the willingness to devote a little more time to Mikey's softer strengths vs his motormouth, leaning into making art and creativity his thing and emphasising his place as the heart of the team. 2k3 absolutely has great moments that establish this as part of his character, but sometimes I could use a just a leeeeetle bit more of them.
3) Raphael
I honestly think I've come to appreciate Raph more as I've grown older. Back in the day he suffered a little from the same personal taste handicap as Mikey: nothin' wrong with 'tough guy' as a character type, it's just not what tends to grab me.
As tough guys go, though, he'd be one of my favourites for sure. It's not just the loyalty and the protectiveness, though those are undeniable ticks in his box; it's that Raph may not always be very nice or outwardly friendly, but he has a deep and persistent streak of kindness. It's how immediately determined he was to save Casey from himself; how casually willing he is to help people like April or the old blind lady; the particular push-pull understanding he has with Leo. "I don't hurt that easily, sword boy." They are everything.
Which isn't to downplay the appeal of the loyalty and the protectiveness either! It never ever fails: Raph will be the first one trying to shove Mikey under a bus until the second his brother's in real pain or strife, then bam, all that bluster is smoke on the wind. He's at Don's back in a flash any time he falters, and never begrudges him for it for a second. He doesn't seem to define himself by his role in the family the way Leo does, but by the same token he often wears said role more easily - he's vigilant without being eaten up by this self-appointed responsibility because he also knows how to lay the blame where it really belongs, and boy do some of the others need that example set.
His character arc doesn't have the best pacing, but I like what there is of it. I like that of all the turtles he's probably the one who benefits most visibly from their social world expanding - yelling "what's wrong with me?" on a rooftop because 95% of who he knows is his immediate family and none of them struggle the same way, only to get a real good look in the mirror of a kindred spirit and realise there's a way to be okay with himself after all.
2) Leonardo
So I'm an eldest child. Can you tell?
I do like the leader types. I'm a sucker for the shackles of noblesse oblige, for the characters who don't feel like they have a right to their own emotions half the time, the anxious perfectionists, the rule-bound buzzkills whose own buzz is always the first casualty on the chopping block, the ones whose individual identity is subsumed by who they are in relation to other people and the responsibilities they've shouldered. 2k3 Leo has shades of all these things, so it's good times for me.
2k3 Leo in particular really charms me, though, because even though the narrative grinds this weight down hard upon him... he's so goofy underneath it. He isn't theatrical like Mikey is, but by god is he dramatic. He's delighted by Japanese culture. He likes showing off. He likes playing around with his brothers, sparring and joking and bopping along to terrible rap songs in the Battleshell. He's such an idealist! Mikey's starry-eyed over superheroes but, honestly, Leo isn't that much less susceptible himself: he wants to believe so badly that there are Right and Honourable solutions in the world and that these are an achievable thing if you just try hard enough and make the right decisions and Be Good Enough to win the day, and luckily for him he lives in a children's cartoon but unluckily for him it's the edgy one. Both he and Raph struggle so much with sheer frustration as an emotion, honestly, but Raph learns to own it much faster than Leo, who is always clawing for the Better he believes is out there. The Better he believes needs to come first and most from himself.
You put all those traits together and you get the inherent tragedy that is Leonardo, child soldier - not because Splinter wanted to raise child soldiers, but because he couldn't envisage a world in which his children could live without needing to defend their own right to exist, and because there were four of them and only one of him, increasingly elderly, and someone needed to be ready to continue safeguarding the family once he was gone. And it's Leo. And he doesn't ever get to get away from that; even if he does, eventually, find a way to be at relative peace with it.
And if I sometimes sigh and roll my eyes when the writers forget the rest of the family exists, well, god knows he pays his own cost for it.
1) Donatello
Oh, Donnie. He's always going to wield the unbeatable edge of nostalgia - around the same time as we watched the first season on TV, my brother and I got our hands on the video game based off it, and rented it out again and again until we finally took Shredder out. In co-op mode, my turtle was Donatello, because I liked purple and the reach of the bo and thought the TV character was cool. So there's a permanent feedback loop of fondness embedded deep in my psyche when it comes to Don - that's my guy :)
I do just also like the character! He's the most muted of the family in a lot of ways, and certainly the one with the least consistency across adaptations for a reason - "the smart one" is not much of a personality type. Fortunately, 2k3 didn't opt to make Don particularly insufferable about his intelligence; there are a couple "wow Don, speak English" gags but not that many, and the rest of the time he just wanders around being sincerely thrilled by all the weird crap he gets to play with. It's very endearing, and I adore the bond he forms with April over their shared fascinations.
Don's technical skills are undeniably vital to his family, but more than that I enjoy the subtle ways he proves to be a vital piece of social glue. If Mikey anchors his brothers to a world where it's still okay to have fun, Don's everyone's port: he's the one brother who rarely deals out or gets drawn into serious beef with his siblings, and it makes him a steadying influence on their whole dynamic. He's a playful buddy to Mikey, and a milder counterweight to Raph; I know Raph is generally accepted as Leo's 2IC, but man, just count how often Leo looks to Don in any given scrap for guidance. In a family of pretty strong personalities, he shores them all up from a backseat position that he never resents occupying, and in return their indulgence of his antics is almost boundless (grumbles about dinosaur exhibits notwithstanding). He walks into an alternate universe and immediately kicks down several years of family estrangement. Superglue.
He is also, not infrequently, kind of bitchy. Don's kind, easygoing, deeply curious, and he's invested in reaching out with understanding at least as often as with the hard end of his bo - and he's just a little bit bitchy. It's fun. I enjoy it.
Finally, there is also the part where... well, I don't know that the writers necessarily intended to write Don as emotionally repressed to the extent that they did but, they sure did make Don a character who doesn't talk on-screen about some of the truly insane things he goes through while also doing a truly insane amount of overwork at all times, and unfortunately I am really into that. So it goes.
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If Don is Leo’s right hand man on strategy stuff what would that make Raph?
Fun question!
There are obviously a lot of things Raph is to Leo in general, but since Don's role in contributing to strategy sits more in the Guerrilla Unit half of the Venn circle that makes up the turtles' lives, I would say Raph's equivalent role in that capacity is the tank. He's an absolute beast in a fight, not only because of his baseline strength and skill, but because he doesn't flinch and he's genuinely good at reading the battlefield and being where he needs to be to keep the others protected. When the brothers pair off, Leo often takes Raph with him for a reason: they fight really well together, and he values having Raph at his back. When there's a tough enemy to be stalled or drilled into, Raph's the natural choice to take it head-on.
Leo also relies on Raph to challenge him. He doesn't always recognise or appreciate this reliance, but it's a big part of what keeps Leo grounded and accountable as a leader. Raph will question his decisions, and sometimes they need questioning; he'll give Leo a sharp jab in the self-doubt when he's getting too wound up, and puncture his ego when he's getting too self-righteous. Raph helps him stay sharp physically too, being the only other one of the brothers who particularly likes training and pushing the limits of their skills, and who will always eagerly step up in competition so that Leo always has a reason to keep striving and can never get too cocky.
In a narrative sense, he's Leo's Lancer, the one who most complements and contrasts Leo. They're both passionate, quick-tempered, and devoted to their family; but where Leo is diligent, obedient, and idealistic, Raph leans more impulsive, rebellious, and cynical. And it's good for them both to have that contrast!
Is 'right hand pain in my ass who nonetheless makes me much better at what I do' a sufficient summary?
Fun question!
There are obviously a lot of things Raph is to Leo in general, but since Don's role in contributing to strategy sits more in the Guerrilla Unit half of the Venn circle that makes up the turtles' lives, I would say Raph's equivalent role in that capacity is the tank. He's an absolute beast in a fight, not only because of his baseline strength and skill, but because he doesn't flinch and he's genuinely good at reading the battlefield and being where he needs to be to keep the others protected. When the brothers pair off, Leo often takes Raph with him for a reason: they fight really well together, and he values having Raph at his back. When there's a tough enemy to be stalled or drilled into, Raph's the natural choice to take it head-on.
Leo also relies on Raph to challenge him. He doesn't always recognise or appreciate this reliance, but it's a big part of what keeps Leo grounded and accountable as a leader. Raph will question his decisions, and sometimes they need questioning; he'll give Leo a sharp jab in the self-doubt when he's getting too wound up, and puncture his ego when he's getting too self-righteous. Raph helps him stay sharp physically too, being the only other one of the brothers who particularly likes training and pushing the limits of their skills, and who will always eagerly step up in competition so that Leo always has a reason to keep striving and can never get too cocky.
In a narrative sense, he's Leo's Lancer, the one who most complements and contrasts Leo. They're both passionate, quick-tempered, and devoted to their family; but where Leo is diligent, obedient, and idealistic, Raph leans more impulsive, rebellious, and cynical. And it's good for them both to have that contrast!
Is 'right hand pain in my ass who nonetheless makes me much better at what I do' a sufficient summary?
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What do you think Leo and Don would struggle to see eye to eye on?
Option one: Tradition vs innovation.
There's a little headcanon mixed in this, because overall the family seems very comfortable with Don's experiments and the whole premise of 2k3 is how their lives are changing and expanding, and they take it pretty well in stride.
Leo is the most likely to be protective of their secrecy, though - echoing and reinforcing Splinter's concerns in the early seasons, but based on his fourth season bossy herding in the museum he is also just a bit like that forever. He also clearly enjoys routine, the tenets of ninjutsu and bushido are deeply important to him, and he has a lot of his personal identity staked on occupying a particular place in a family that works a particular way.
Don, meanwhile, likes new things. New discoveries, new places, new tech for the Lair, for his brothers, for the hell of it. He can't help but fiddle with the Mousers. He MUST take an entire train car home, please Leo please. He wouldn't exactly cry a river if he had to quit being a ninja tomorrow, and I generally feel that the older he gets, the more restless he's likely to feel regarding a wider world and its opportunities they can only access from the fringes.
If you accept Fast Forward as canon - Don helps found a huge company! Mostly from the shadows, sure, but that's still a big, public-facing thing that would take up a lot of time and energy, and I can see it being the kind of thing that makes Leo... anxious. And even without that exact example, it's still easy to picture other occasions where Don's visionary leanings triggers Leo's whoa instincts - what does pursuing that mean for you, for the family, for our way of life? What's wrong with the way things are now? Do you really have to stick your hands down that dark hole?
Remember Don's "Tales of Leo" offering? "But I didn't care about [the potential danger]. I just wanted my [newest and most exciting invention] back." Don's the one who lays out the ways what they learn in "Secret Origins" changes what they know and believe about themselves; Leo's the one who firmly insists it doesn't change anything important about who they are as a family. There are some potential philosophical clashes in how they approach the world!
Option two, sort of spinning off the above: Don feels Leo's being kinda smothering and/or authorative in a way that's encroaching on his priorities, Leo thinks Don is getting too tunnel vision and neglecting important fundamentals (yes, like training). It's pretty clear from the series proper that Leo's continual dominance in the ninja sphere can get on Donnie's nerves occasionally.
Option three, classic hypocrisy: "You're working too hard and being reckless with your health and taking responsibility for things that aren't your sole burden to bear and clearly hiding things from the family." "You? The person complaining to me about this is you?" (Works both ways.)
Option one: Tradition vs innovation.
There's a little headcanon mixed in this, because overall the family seems very comfortable with Don's experiments and the whole premise of 2k3 is how their lives are changing and expanding, and they take it pretty well in stride.
Leo is the most likely to be protective of their secrecy, though - echoing and reinforcing Splinter's concerns in the early seasons, but based on his fourth season bossy herding in the museum he is also just a bit like that forever. He also clearly enjoys routine, the tenets of ninjutsu and bushido are deeply important to him, and he has a lot of his personal identity staked on occupying a particular place in a family that works a particular way.
Don, meanwhile, likes new things. New discoveries, new places, new tech for the Lair, for his brothers, for the hell of it. He can't help but fiddle with the Mousers. He MUST take an entire train car home, please Leo please. He wouldn't exactly cry a river if he had to quit being a ninja tomorrow, and I generally feel that the older he gets, the more restless he's likely to feel regarding a wider world and its opportunities they can only access from the fringes.
If you accept Fast Forward as canon - Don helps found a huge company! Mostly from the shadows, sure, but that's still a big, public-facing thing that would take up a lot of time and energy, and I can see it being the kind of thing that makes Leo... anxious. And even without that exact example, it's still easy to picture other occasions where Don's visionary leanings triggers Leo's whoa instincts - what does pursuing that mean for you, for the family, for our way of life? What's wrong with the way things are now? Do you really have to stick your hands down that dark hole?
Remember Don's "Tales of Leo" offering? "But I didn't care about [the potential danger]. I just wanted my [newest and most exciting invention] back." Don's the one who lays out the ways what they learn in "Secret Origins" changes what they know and believe about themselves; Leo's the one who firmly insists it doesn't change anything important about who they are as a family. There are some potential philosophical clashes in how they approach the world!
Option two, sort of spinning off the above: Don feels Leo's being kinda smothering and/or authorative in a way that's encroaching on his priorities, Leo thinks Don is getting too tunnel vision and neglecting important fundamentals (yes, like training). It's pretty clear from the series proper that Leo's continual dominance in the ninja sphere can get on Donnie's nerves occasionally.
Option three, classic hypocrisy: "You're working too hard and being reckless with your health and taking responsibility for things that aren't your sole burden to bear and clearly hiding things from the family." "You? The person complaining to me about this is you?" (Works both ways.)
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What is one common headcanon that you reject?
I've never been sold on portrayals of Donatello as deeply troubled about his martial upbringing, let alone as an outright pacifist who (by definition) thinks the use of violence is immoral.
I understand how the headcanon's come about. Don's baseline temperament is mild, curious, and pretty unaggressive. The whole ninja / warrior / fighter / hero schtick is a smaller portion of his self-identity than it is his brothers, and if he had to hang up his bo tomorrow it wouldn't leave him at the same kind of loss it might Leo or Raph; he has other passions he noticeably preferences.
He's also a compassionate guy! There are several cases where he's the one throwing a hand out to his brothers and suggesting they take the risk of giving peace a chance: Nano, Zog, Jhanna, Cockroach Man. It's by no means unique to him - Leo's responsible for the uneasy truce they maintain with Karai for as long as they do, Mikey's the one to talk his brothers down during their scrap with Leatherhead, Raph initiates the friendship with Casey - but there's definitely a pattern.
There is still a really big difference between "would prefer not to attack someone he doesn't think deserves it" and "dislikes resorting to violence ever". This is of course complicated by the fact that Don is a protagonist in an action-adventure series which stipulates, as a genre necessity, the existence of people who conveniently 'deserve it' so we can have hours of guilt-free fight scenes, but I would still argue he is overall accepting of a reality in which he has to shrug and whip out a beatdown on a fairly regular basis, and even enjoys it more often than he doesn't.
Don's comfortable on the battlefield. He doesn't hesitate or navel-gaze about their straight-forward conflicts with the Foot, or the Purple Dragons, or the Triceraton army or the Garbageman or Bishop - they started it, they're harming others, so they gotta go down and he takes obvious satisfaction in making it happen. He doesn't abstain from the Battle Nexus - he's embarrassed to be the first of the family knocked out. If he's not the most disciplined when it comes to training (in part because he has other critical things to do!), he hardly goes out of his way to avoid it, and he grumbles enough when bested by his brothers to make it evident he's putting genuine effort in.
I've seen much made of the fact Don wields a bo rather than a blade, but let's be honest: he'll pick up rocket launchers if he has to. Whenever the family goes up against the Shredder in earnest, it's a kill mission, right? They try to kill the guy so many times, and not only does Don voice no objection to this, he designs huge chunks of their infiltration strategies and is the only one of the brothers to eventually succeed in landing a perma-kill, and he succeeds by building a giant mecha murder machine and dragging the Shredder facefirst into a drill. The stick thing is not really a commitment to doing minimal harm.
Fandom is as fandom does, and I'm hardly going to begrudge anyone who wants to explore a divergent universe where Don longs for a peaceful life, or really wants to interrogate the darker realities behind their 4Kids ninja lifestyle and decides Don is the best POV for such a story. People can do what they want forever!
It's just not something I care to lean into much myself, and not something I'm going to agree is particularly borne out by what is shown onscreen. Maybe being a ninja isn't the heart and soul of Don's life the way it is Leo's, but he clearly likes being able to help people, and likes flexing his skills in both physical and mental challenges, and accepts that violence is a tool in his toolbox that can aid in these things. Sometimes a goon just needs a good bapping.
I've never been sold on portrayals of Donatello as deeply troubled about his martial upbringing, let alone as an outright pacifist who (by definition) thinks the use of violence is immoral.
I understand how the headcanon's come about. Don's baseline temperament is mild, curious, and pretty unaggressive. The whole ninja / warrior / fighter / hero schtick is a smaller portion of his self-identity than it is his brothers, and if he had to hang up his bo tomorrow it wouldn't leave him at the same kind of loss it might Leo or Raph; he has other passions he noticeably preferences.
He's also a compassionate guy! There are several cases where he's the one throwing a hand out to his brothers and suggesting they take the risk of giving peace a chance: Nano, Zog, Jhanna, Cockroach Man. It's by no means unique to him - Leo's responsible for the uneasy truce they maintain with Karai for as long as they do, Mikey's the one to talk his brothers down during their scrap with Leatherhead, Raph initiates the friendship with Casey - but there's definitely a pattern.
There is still a really big difference between "would prefer not to attack someone he doesn't think deserves it" and "dislikes resorting to violence ever". This is of course complicated by the fact that Don is a protagonist in an action-adventure series which stipulates, as a genre necessity, the existence of people who conveniently 'deserve it' so we can have hours of guilt-free fight scenes, but I would still argue he is overall accepting of a reality in which he has to shrug and whip out a beatdown on a fairly regular basis, and even enjoys it more often than he doesn't.
Don's comfortable on the battlefield. He doesn't hesitate or navel-gaze about their straight-forward conflicts with the Foot, or the Purple Dragons, or the Triceraton army or the Garbageman or Bishop - they started it, they're harming others, so they gotta go down and he takes obvious satisfaction in making it happen. He doesn't abstain from the Battle Nexus - he's embarrassed to be the first of the family knocked out. If he's not the most disciplined when it comes to training (in part because he has other critical things to do!), he hardly goes out of his way to avoid it, and he grumbles enough when bested by his brothers to make it evident he's putting genuine effort in.
I've seen much made of the fact Don wields a bo rather than a blade, but let's be honest: he'll pick up rocket launchers if he has to. Whenever the family goes up against the Shredder in earnest, it's a kill mission, right? They try to kill the guy so many times, and not only does Don voice no objection to this, he designs huge chunks of their infiltration strategies and is the only one of the brothers to eventually succeed in landing a perma-kill, and he succeeds by building a giant mecha murder machine and dragging the Shredder facefirst into a drill. The stick thing is not really a commitment to doing minimal harm.
Fandom is as fandom does, and I'm hardly going to begrudge anyone who wants to explore a divergent universe where Don longs for a peaceful life, or really wants to interrogate the darker realities behind their 4Kids ninja lifestyle and decides Don is the best POV for such a story. People can do what they want forever!
It's just not something I care to lean into much myself, and not something I'm going to agree is particularly borne out by what is shown onscreen. Maybe being a ninja isn't the heart and soul of Don's life the way it is Leo's, but he clearly likes being able to help people, and likes flexing his skills in both physical and mental challenges, and accepts that violence is a tool in his toolbox that can aid in these things. Sometimes a goon just needs a good bapping.
