Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-29657114-20170222003316/@comment-995426-20170430021347

What I do know, is that for two seasons he was an entertaining, identifiable character on so many levels. And then, abruptly, he became dull and lifeless&mdash;hardly any fun at all. I once made a private collection of clips of "Best of Raphael"&mdash;50 minutes from season 1, 35 minutes from season 2, and...only 5 minutes from season 3. It's not my imagination&mdash;he became really, really bland. There are so many season 3 Raph scenes that are just painfully wooden to sit through. Raph used to have such zest that manifested in some form no matter how he was feeling, but that zest was just gone.

As for the issue of intent, even many of my gay TMNT fan friends now think that it was probably something done in production but snuck under the higher-ups' radar for two years (that age-old trope Getting Crap Past the Radar, though I'd never consider gay people "crap"), and that the powers-at-be might not have given their approval to such a decisive direction in his character. And thinking about it, this would have been easy. Gay people are, after all, still largely invisible in mainstream all-ages entertainment, at best existing in a kind of limbo, a Schrodinger's plausible deniability. It's a nod and wink to receptive audiences, but avoids the alarm of parents who disapprove (and would then refuse to let their kids watch the show or buys its toys for them). Even with Korra at Nickelodeon, Bryke were forbidden from ever outright saying what was happening with Korra and Asami, only ever implying it, the point that when they did reveal that it had been going on for two whole seasons of that show, most of the clues were easily overlooked by the mainstream. And that fact that Korra's reveal came literally during the last scene of the last episode of the series, meant they waited until it was too late for disapproving parents to pull their kids away from it. Nickelodeon always has to consider issues associated with maintaining their market.

Raph may not have been officially gay, but he was almost definitely "Schrodinger's gay." Tripping strong gaydar for two whole seasons, but plausibly deniable to disapproving parents. The fact that almost all these conspicuous cues abruptly dried up soon after season 3 began, seems to mean that either that effort stopped, or that the network radar they were sneaking it past finally noticed and made them stop.

As for Mikey, I think he's just straight-up pansexual, with little explanation needed. There's already some tradition with versions of Michelangelo having a crush-of-the-season. When they finally brought Renet to Amazing Adventures and she and Mikey shared an adventure, I was impressed with the better-written distance they gave them. I mean, Mikey likes Renet, but unlike in the TV show, there was no immediately necessary romance and practically no touching. Which implies either that Mikey's primary interest had either moved on from her (but was still fond of her), or AA just has better writers that don't feel the need to push fast and easy romantic plot tumors between designated love interests but decides in a more nuanced way what their best chemistry should be.

Though it now occurs to me...this particular topic has nothing to do with this thread's designated topic.