Hereâs the final part of the âRaph is a systemâ theory compilation post! Itâs the last of what I can scrape up from canon; while I still have ideas on how it might loop back into character interactions and plot and so on, theyâre much more speculative in nature. (Part 1 is here) (Part 2 is here) (Youâre reading Part 3)
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"Redâ is the alter with the least screen time, so it took a while for me to connect the dots on when and why he formed.
His shadowed face, the dramatic background music when he speaks, and his seriousness are reminiscent of the âbrooding on rooftops in the rain while gloomily staring off into the distanceâ thing that Raphs throughout the franchise will do sometimes. Thatâs easy to poke fun at on a superficial level because most of us look back on our edgy phases with self-deprecation, but itâs a lot less funny in the context of the life he lives. Being a normal human teenager in normal human society is a fucking nightmare; being a mutant teenager who has no idea what to expect in terms of development or lifespan, only five people he can safely interact with ever, and a very limited future hiding from everyone else for as long as he lives has got to be just awful.
RRâs few lines in âPizza Puffsâ tell us a lot. âItâs the only way theyâll learnâ and âthis is for their own goodâ suggest that he formed when the turtles started exploring more of the sewers and going aboveground, and Being The Leader became more of a responsibility. A thousand new ways for them to get in trouble meant a thousand new ways Raph would have to bail them out, and that got old fast- especially since they didnât have Aprilâs knowledge to help them in the beginning. I doubt they met her the very first time they left the sewers. The wiki says April knew the boys for five years as of âMystic Mayhemâ, so they would have been nearly eight at the time, perhaps the mental equivalent of a ten- or eleven-year-old human.
A while back I sifted through all the eps with Raph in them in the vague hopes that âPizza Puffsâ wasnât the only episode featuring RR... and lo and behold, I found something! The shadowed face and dramatic background music are also present in âMinotaur Mazeâ!
âI canât do it. I got no mystic mojo. Iâm useless.â
âHey, thatâs not true, brother. You just gotta believe in yourself, and know this:Â If I die in this maze, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.â
(I know thatâs only two data points, but yâall canonically cannot scoff at me.) RR shows up when HR is no longer able to tolerate the bullshit at hand. âIâm not going to baby you Leo, get your shit together before your ego kills us allâ was a reasonable response to nearly being shish-kebabâd.
âPizza Puffsâ, on the other hand... LDM pulled through in the end, but that RR got HR to stay behind added an unnecessary level of risk. Getting his brothers to learn a lesson should have waited until after the giant mutant cannibal had been dealt with and they were no longer poisoned.
This hands-off âfigure it out on your ownâ approach probably came from Splinter. I swear to Pizza Supreme In The Sky Iâm not trying to shit-talk him, but his lack of involvement with his sons was a major flaw. Before all that character development he was terrible at things like âemotional supportâ and âlife lessonsâ, leaving Raph without the blueprints to deal with a lot of problems. HR would respond by rushing in and figuring things out as he went, but sometimes RR would have to say âNo, weâre maxed out and canât deal with this, weâve gotta step backâ. As weâve seen in other iterations, when Raph is maxed out and doesnât step back...
...he goes too far. Plenty of folks have commented on how rarely the Rise turtles smack each other around compared to other versions; itâs telling that RR spoke up just a moment after HR smacked Mikey in âPizza Puffsâ.
Raph is much bigger and stronger than his brothers this time around, meaning such an outburst would have a much higher risk of Genuine Grievous Injury. And while his size and strength also mean a measure of gentleness has been baked into him since day one, there would still be times HR would feel himself boiling over and RR would head off somewhere quiet for fear of the above situation; which was potentially alluded to in âHot Soup: The Gameâ.
âYou went out on your own when you were his age.â
The context of âMan vs. Sewerâ suggests Raph isnât going to go off on his own without very good reason- such as cooling down before he does something he regrets. That this detail shows up in Caseyâs debut episode suggests it is how they will properly meet and bond, since befriending Casey and doing vigilante shit with him is what usually gives Raph a way to blow off steam while having someone nearby to keep him in check. But that probably wonât happen until partway through season 3, since I doubt we can cram the rest of Caseyâs redemption arc into the movie alongside the invasion and time travel trauma shenanigans and leader drama. So in the meantime RR will continue to brood on rooftops in bad weather and listen to Ephemerality songs and monologue to himself because he knows nobodyâs going to hear him over the incessant background noise that makes up the cities above and below.
I was a bit stumped about how that meeting would take place- the events of the finale (and possibly also the movie) would no doubt have both the human and yokai populations on high alert, making it dangerous for RR to slip away for some peace and quiet. But the events of the finale also gave us some insight on Raphâs powers; he has a way to leave without actually leaving!
Hardlight Clone Jutsu, baby!
So whenever HR finds himself in a particularly sour mood, a wisp of power winds its way up through the open-air portion of the lair and forms into a clone aboveground. HR doesnât have to leave for a while to cool down before coming back and dealing with the situation calmly, because RR is already on a rooftop somewhere dissipating those bad feelings by listening to the rain and/or yeeting trash cans.
But mutants canât freely walk the streets of New York, and the Hidden City Police probably still have it out for Raph. And someone, hero or villain, will eventually realize that Raph has a gloomy stray clone running around and ask questions that canât be answered without cracking open the can of worms that is This Whole Situation. RR needs to get creative. That weâve seen clones have both full color and the basic red/white palette suggests their color could be altered in other ways; and that the holo-form grew extra arms in the lair fight vs. the Shredder suggests their shape could also be changed further.
So what will he choose to look like, if not his body?
Obviously heâll use a red and black color palette because it slaps, leaning more towards black since I compared him to Batman back in Part 1. A low-detail design makes it hard to identify him, giving onlookers the impression that they just couldn't see him well in the dark. Mentally filing down his spikes and decreasing the curve of his shell are easy enough, but it takes him a while to figure out five fingers instead of three, and thereâs not much he can do about his voice other than lowering the pitch so he just opts to not talk much within earshot of others. A cape further disguises his silhouette and again, it slaps. The impression of a mask means he doesnât need a face and it lets peoplesâ assumptions work for him. Humans are more likely to think heâs human than a Very Human-Shaped Mutant, and yokai come in so many shapes as is that he could be anything from a witch to a dehydrated googlyschmootz.
(You know how it is with franchises. Old patterns repeating in new ways.)
New York City never sleeps, and I doubt the Hidden City does either. Heâll run into Casey eventually, but in the interim he stumbles across and intervenes in some attempted purse-snatchings and kidnappings and the like. Most of the would-be victims use his arrival as their chance to escape, but one of them is too frozen with fear to move until their attackers are chased off into the dark. He escorts them home, and itâs only once theyâre at their doorstep that they work up the courage to ask him who he is.
Itâs... a difficult question, in more ways than one. âRaphâ is out of the question. âRedâ isnât quite right, and neither is âAngelâ- theyâre a tad too identifying still, and the R.A.P.H. thing was HRâs idea anyway. So he shrugs, and melts away into the shadows.
âDonât worry about it. Iâm Nobody.â
