Thread:The S/@comment-995426-20171120102139/@comment-995426-20171129161558

I'm thinking. Characters like Stump raise questions of whether categories like Category:Allies (IDW) and Category:Villains (IDW) are even fitting. Stump is both an ally of convenience (who then proves himself a complete liability), but he's also responsible (along with Krang) for the genocide of his own people, for which his only regret is that he didn't get paid more money. So he's an ally, but not an ally, but then does something cooperative, but isn't actually an asset...sort of? Meanwhile, everyone with a conscience is disgusted by the fruits of him completely lacking one.

It seems the general assumption on this wiki is that a character can be neither an ally nor villain, but that they can't be both an ally and villain at the same time. There's already been confusion on 2012 TV series articles where characters who are Former Villains (like Takeshi (2012 TV series)) are then classified as Allies by virtue of no longer being aggressive (I reverted one such edit when I pointed out that non-aggression isn't necessarily alliance). I also question whether "Villain" is an appropriate distinction anymore, especially when a story becomes so complex and its characters so grey that the distinction between hero and villain no longer seems suitable. In my judgment, Stump is very unambiguously villainous for his act of genocide alone.

But it is also my opinion that many characters classified as villains, are actually merely antagonists. Already, after I set apart the MNT Gaiden Wiki, I ditched "villain" categories altogether and now classify characters who oppose the protagonists as. While a distinction of "villain" may be adequate for works for younger audiences where the storytelling style tends to stick to a simpler fantasy dichotomy of good vs. evil, it may be completely inappropriate to conflate villainy with antagonism, especially in TMNT works written for older audiences who have a better grasp of moral grey areas. But yeah...I think I was trying to make a point here, but it got me thinking about lots of things. At one point I almost went on a tangent about conversational troping and Dungeons & Dragons-style character alignment tables applied to characters in other works of fiction (Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, etc.). But my thoughts are already cluttered and scatterbrained enough at the moment as it is. Anyway, I think I've made enough of a cogent point to work on.
 * Karai (Mirage) is a villain, but not an antagonist; she has shady dealings, but has enough personal honor to uphold a treaty with the turtles.
 * Baxter Stockman (IDW) is now an ally, but is unquestionably a great evil, which the story has repeatedly reminded the audience.
 * The same could probably be said of Old Hob, who is not only a shaky ally, but a protagonist of the Mutanimals miniseries, and is either an ally or antagonist depending on his attitude and vendetta towards a given individual. When Slash (IDW) recognized that Hob's morality was broken and wasn't easily going to be fixed, he was no longer Hob's ally (though not an enemy), but he was still Hob's friend.  There comes a point when ally, villain, antagonist and protagonist all seem situationally moot, and the simplest designation is "carries baggage." XD
 * It could be said that Pimiko is often an antagonist, but not quite a villain.
 * The same could be said of Hamato Miwa (2012 TV series) with her greatly fluctuating antagonism.