Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-29657114-20170222003316/@comment-995426-20170510103434

 IDW SPOILERS BELOW 

I think IDW TMNT handled the transition between apprenticeship and independence better. In that, /  didn't die&mdash; was killed at Splinter's hand, and Splinter became the new j&#X14D;nin of the  with three of his four sons as ch&#X16B;nin. ( refused to ever join the Foot Clan. He instead just wanted peace so they could live freely as a family, and felt betrayed by being expected to help run an entire ninja clan.)  But eventually, Splinter's past life as a lifelong Foot Clan member caught up with them, and his cold summary execution of the already-disarmed  deeply disturbed Splinter's sons by showing them that he could act just as ruthlessly and amorally as any gangster. (The sons had grown up mostly with just family rather than clan life, so they weren't prepared for these unsavory realities of ninja clan business.) The three remaining turtles promptly quit the Foot Clan and moved in with Mikey. But Splinter, still a genuinely loving father, gave his sons his blessing, conceding that perhaps he could not be their leader anymore; instead, he said that was becoming the leader of a new separate clan, the. Splinter would always be their father and the family could still visit together, and the two clans could request one another's aid, but those clans would remain separate, and for the most part the turtles would have to learn to live without their father always being around. This arrangement allowed the turtles to honor Splinter as their father and teacher (preserving that all-important Asian filial piety), while letting them respectfully disagree and not cooperate with his decisions, and also letting them learn to make life decisions on their own terms as adults.

I found this approach interesting because it didn't turn Splinter into a sacrificial lion, but instead exposed everything he is&mdash;warts and all. In some ways it's easier to idealize a perfect parent who isn't around than it is to figure out how to keep having a relationship with a parent whose fatal flaws only become more apparent when you reach adulthood yourself. As a child, you have the luxury of thinking your parents know best, and will always be there to help you. But the reality is, even with relatively good parents, even they often don't know if what they're doing is right, and they may even admit that to their children. In some ways, going this route is better storytelling than portraying a perfectly idyllic happy family, because family with some real dysfunctions is more realistic and more relatable...at least if you're an adult. I guess, for Nickelodeon, if you're still as young as (TV-Y) 7, they want you to keep idealizing your parents for at least a while longer (or long enough for your parents to keep approving of the TV show so they'll buy the associated toys Nick partially profits from), even if those parents happen to die before you finish growing up and actually get a chance to know them as an adult.

 IDW SPOILERS ABOVE