Thread:Gilgameshkun/@comment-25262453-20180410165809/@comment-995426-20180411122307

Okay, that was a rather long this time. And you're right&mdash;Raph was way out of character. This show's versions of Renet and Mona were introduced purely for fanservice, and they did derail the characters they were written as love interests for. Even Renet's reference drawing showed Mikey gawking at her. And true to form, most of her personality was in her D-cup. It was basically the TV-Y7 equivalent of soft porn, with plot and character sacrificed to enable it.

And it actually hurt Raph's credibility as a character more than you may realize. It wasn't just out-of-character for him in some ways. It also sacrificed a building character trait that was shown repeatedly earlier in the series. To the extent that TV-Y7 allowed, Raph seemed really, really gay&mdash;and actually pretty realistically so, rather than as any kind of blatant stereotype. Not only that, but when you add April and/or Karai to a situation, Raph's personality would have more in common with them than it had with his brothers. And really, if you're a gay guy in the audience, there were times when you couldn't ask for a better audience surrogate than Raph. He was never necessarily going to say "I am gay" (even Steven Universe characters never need to do that), but he was extremely relatable, and it could make that portion of the audience feel like they weren't so invisible, especially during episodes like Slash and Destroy.

That said, it wasn't just Mona Lisa that derailed his character. Beginning sometime early in season 3, his character went from being one of the most fun and interesting characters, to being one of the most bland and wooden. He couldn't even get angry in a believable way anymore, because the show had stopped realistically portraying his angst and ennui, so his moments of apparent anger seemed more artificial. Heck, before The Moon of Thalos 3, his worst episode to me was actually Dinosaur Seen in Sewers, where he came off as a total jerk without a sympathetic angle, such that his pleas with Zog at the end seemed rather insincere.

I once compiled my own collection of video clips, sort of a "best of Raphael." 50 minutes from season 1. 35 minutes from season 2. ...5 minutes from season 3. They'd already stopped trying with him well before season 4. They really stopped trying with all the characters. The writers just didn't seem to care anymore, so by the time they started piling on cheap fanservice, it was insult to an already existing injury.