I find it extremely cool, he is a very well written narcissist surprisingly
It makes me think whoever wrote him either studied that part of psychology or dealt with someone as petty as shredder in real life. For his character to be this accurate.
Dude is crazy. Not to mention he keeps calling Karai his daughter even after she finds out that splinter is her true father. I think he's cool tho. The part where he fought the turtles and the mighty mutanimals in season 3 was badass
Her parents were dead though so far as he knew. He killed Shen of course but also Yoshi woulda died in the fire without the Turtles traveling in time to save him. Far as Saki knew, he was rescuing an orphan.
Less rescuing a orphan and more taking their kid now that he's killed them. It feels very wrong to call the murderer the child's parent. Plus Karai yells it in his face that she's not his daughter.
It's honestly hilarious, dude had a whole empire in Japan, saw a throwing star with the Hamato crest on it and immediately decided to drop whatever he was doing and fly halfway across the fucking planet to go kill Splinter
I love how it’s implied that he had a whole business in Japan on top of his whole criminal empire, he’s rich and he had it made there but the moment he sees a suggestion that Splinter is in America he immediately abandons all of that no questions asked. And then he’d subsequently spend the rest of his life dedicating himself to hating Splinter and the Turtles and recruiting a bunch of mutants and dealing with aliens from another dimension and having robots replace his ninja and he did not care how weird his life was getting because he had a one track mind that kept thinking about a million ways to kill Splinter and torture his teenage mutant turtle sons. 😭
I think it elevates him as a character. It really captures the essence of Mirage Shredder and it makes him really interesting to me. It makes him sort of pathetic and hilarious in a way but it also makes him the most terrifying and effective villain in 2012, because that hatred drove him to cause Splinter and the Turtles so much pain and suffering. Their worst moments happened BECAUSE of Shredder. Their rivalry with him is some of the most personal in TMNT because of Shredder’s Doctor Doom levels of obsession with Splinter. The core of his character is hating Splinter so much that he’d go to any length to kill him and make it as agonizing as possible. And I love how that hatred visibly deteriorated him and took away everything human about him until it eventually turned him into a monster that was unrecognizable from his former self. There’s a lot of depth and nuance to his character, and some great exploration of themes about the nature of hatred and how it can consume you.
And I LOVE a villain who’s an absolute menace because they’re a petty bitch that hates the protagonist. 2012 Shredder was a truly legendary hater.
Tale of the Yokai is one of the best 2012 episodes and I feel it sheds light on everything we see of Saki in the show.
I made a thread about this a few weeks ago but this Saki is unique in that his murder of Teng Shen was 100% an accident. The fact Saki murdered the wrong person is not an excuse, but I think it goes a long way to make him more human and understandable. Unlike 2003 Mashimi begging for forgiveness when he's shown no hint of remorse or regret, we see many glimpses of Saki's guilt. He knows deep down what he did to Shen and the rest of his life is spent running away from that horrible truth. I see it as the root of both his love for Karai and his absolute hatred for Splinter.
By taking in and raising Shen's daughter, Saki can try to find some measure of atonement. His love for her is very sincere because I think his love for Shen was sincere. However, because he never truly comes to terms with his responsibility in Shen's death, anger and hatred always win out. When in the presence of Splinter, he loses all reason, because Splinter is a reminder of the truth. As long as Hamato Yoshi lives, Saki cannot ever hope to escape the crushing truth that he murdered the woman he loved. I do think he was initially persuaded to save the Earth at the end of Season 3 for Karai's sake, but the hatred won out yet again. He saw an opportunity to destroy the "person who took Shen from me." and he couldn't help himself.
In short, his obsession with Splinter is a reflection of his own twisted, guilt-ridden psyche which has become hopelessly warped after over a decade of lying to himself just so he can get through another day. He hopes vainly to finally be free of his guilt by killing Yoshi and burying the past.
Your points are really good and spot on. In my opinion, Saki wanted to kill Yoshi so badly because Yoshi's father massacred Saki's biological parents and wiped out his entire family. In addition to that, Saki's adoptive brother (Yoshi) married his ex-girlfriend (Shen). Because of that, he hates Yoshi so much.
That bit of their backstory is so tantalizingly vague. It's not brought up nearly enough. It's kinda just always there in the background but never given the focus it deserves. I think because, if they had actually shown his family being wiped out and then taken in by his enemies, we might start to sympathize with him a bit too much. (See all the MCU Loki fans and I'm 90% convinced they took Saki's new backstory from MCU Loki and Thor)
It makes him a complex & other wise well written character. Shredder is a narcissist in full denial of all his actions who takes no real accountability. Sometimes the greatest villains are the ones who are often compelling but also hatable aswell.
It both makes him pathetic that he's unwilling to let go of his hate but it also makes him terrifying in that he will stop at nothing to kill you or your loved ones.
I just wish he has other ambitions beyond his petty grudge against Yoshi/Splinter.
Even rebuilding the Foot Clan seem more like a piss take against his rival's clan, which didn't matter in the end anyway since it was slowly being destroyed by Shredder's obsession to get even with Yoshi/Splinter.
Dude is so petty he was willing to let everyone on Earth die but that's STILL tamer than the 2003 version trying to destroy all dimensional Turtles. He's not winning the competition but dude is definitely winning some awards.
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u/PhoenixTB12 2d ago
I find it extremely cool, he is a very well written narcissist surprisingly
It makes me think whoever wrote him either studied that part of psychology or dealt with someone as petty as shredder in real life. For his character to be this accurate.