If 1987 Splinter was grilled by someone about his decisions during the events of the first episode ...
"Why did your sons run into April O'Neil in the sewers while she was running from her attackers?"
"Because I allowed them to wonder the sewers freely even back then."
"Why?"
"Our home is comfortable, but it is hardly roomy enough for four teenagers to share happily all the hours of the day and every day of the year. I taught them to take care of themselves for a reason. I did not want to forever cage them."
"Wasn't that dangerous? What if they were seen by the wrong people? They did end up making dangerous enemies."
"Perhaps, but allowing them to burn off their energy in the lair, alone, or sit and watch TV all day, instead, would have both been dangerous ideas in their own ways."
"Weren't you angry they brought a human home like that?"
Splinter recalled his sons bringing April O'Neil home. No, he hadn't considered her dangerous at first. For one thing, if she had run from those his sons had quickly defeated for her she likely then wasn't a physical threat. He had been proven correct on that.
"She had seemed both brave and helpless to me. Leaving her to be found again by her foes did not seem the right thing to encourage my students to do instead."
"Why did you decide to tell her your story right away?"
Splinter recalled how April had fainted, asked questions, and commented on the outrageousness of her situation for the first few minutes upon awakening in their lair. What else had there been to do?
"She seemed either inclined to disbelieve her own eyes entirely or believe lies about us if I did not. Better the truth than lies be let loose in any mind, save perhaps a true enemy's, and she had not yet proven herself such, nor did she."
"She accused you of a crime you hadn't committed."
Splinter nodded. "That is true."
April had accused them of carrying out the robberies she'd been investigating, those done by ninja, because they were ninja. A common mistake really. Donatello had quickly blocked her path. His sons had been determined not to be exposed in such a manner nor accused of such a thing to others. A discussion had ensued about what to do. A deal had been made where they would help her investigate her story, find the real robbers, and thus prove their innocence.
"Why did you then let your students go up to the surface with her? Wasn't 'that' risky?"
Splinter nodded. "Indeed, it was." He hadn't like letting them go then … "But I didn't like following through with Michelangelo's suggestion of keeping April O'Neil with us forever by force. There is also much to be said for knowing your enemy's current activities as well."
When his sons brought that outfit home and told him of the robots who'd been wearing them, he'd known. Oroku Saki was behind April's story of ninja thieves in New York City and an attack on his students. He and they had long suspicioned he was behind their mutations. Though the turtles were all happy with theirs, they still felt incensed for him considering his own and wished to make him human again.
"Did you regret letting them go afterward?"
Splinter considered this question as well. Saki had found him in the sewers once before and mutated both he and the turtles there. His men, while after April O'Neil, had run into his students already in the same. It was only a matter of time before he found their home if he kept seeking them out instead of going on the defensive. It had been better to have them go out and find him first.
"No, I do not."
"Really, you have no regrets about that first time your students, as you call them, met a human while wondering the sewers without you, rescued her from her attackers, thus exposing themselves to the meaner part of society, alone, or their first excursion to the surface with her?"
Splinter thought again for a moment. "I regret not being able to host April O'Neil in our home properly then. We had little food she found enjoyable to eat." Then he grinned. "Though she did eat my offered sushi."
What do you think?
God Bless
ScribeofHeroes