Donatello

**Donatello** or **Don/Donnie** is one of the four main protagonists in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a member of the TMNT. He is the tallest turtle and best friend of April O' Neil, younger adoptive brother of Karai, younger brother to Leonardo and Raphael, and the older brother of Michelangelo. He is "*The Brains"*of the team.

He is in charge of the design and manufacture of all the tools and weapons in their arsenal. He fights with a bō, which converts to a naginata (in which a blade pops out of one end).

Donatello is voiced by Rob Paulsen, who use to be Raphael's voice actor in the 1987 animated series.

## History

Donatello and his brothers were once ordinary turtles; when they were infants, they were adopted from a pet store by Hamato Yoshi. When their soon to be father walked passed a strange man, a Kraangdroid, he felt something odd about him and followed. Unfortunately, Yoshi gave away his position when he accidentally stepped on a brown rat's tail. The Kraangfound him and attempted to kill him, but Yoshi fought back hard. In the end, the Kraang dropped the canister of Mutagen they were holding causing the turtles and Yoshi to mutate. Yoshi, having to have stepped on that rat last, thus mutated into a humanoid brown rat by the name of "Splinter", while Donnie and his brothers, after coming in contact with Splinter when he was human, mutated into humanoid turtles.

Splinter knew they would never be accepted in society, so he took them to the sewers, made a home down there, and made the four turtles his children. Knowing the world would be dangerous and there would be a time where they want to explore the outside world, Splinter trained the boys in the art of Ninjitsu. Donnie and his brothers were named after great Renaissance artists from a book Splinter fished out of the storm drain.

## Personality

Donatello is extremely intelligent and technical, always working on a strategy, whether it's building machines and gadgets or battling villains. Donatello talks a lot in order to describe or explain a situation or theory in full, sometimes even when in the face of danger which can be a problem. Donnie is not without faults. He is nervous, tense under pressure, easily annoyed and, while not prone to regular bursts of anger like Raph, he can lose his temper, especially when technology fails or performs ineffectively. He is also rather romantic and very loving. Donatello is more active and purpose-driven, but at times, does not understand and/or has quite a hard time understanding the lectures of Master Splinter. He is the second-youngest turtle, despite being the tallest.

## Appearance

Donnie is the 2nd youngest and the tallest Turtle. He has reddish brown eyes but like all of the turtles when they're fighting, the pupils and irises vanish, leaving his eyes white. Donnie has a gap in between his teeth, he wears a purple mask where the tails of the mask are longer than any of his brothers, except for Raph's.

## Abilities, Weaponry and Skills

**Ninjutsu:**Like his brothers, he is a master ninja and is very agile, able to leap over rooftops and avoid attacks from enemies, including gunfire, weapons, and punches and kicks.

**Enhanced Strength:** An regular turtle can pull 5x its body weight. He and his brothers have been mutated and have had years of training under a grand master of martial arts, so their strength has been amplified as a result.

**Enhanced Speed:**Despite being a turtle, he is not slow. He can run fast enough to avoid laser fire from a Kraang weapon. He can also move things at enhanced speeds too, such as twirling his bo-staff.

**Stealth:**Like his brothers, he is stealthy, can hide in the shadows, sneak around without being detected, and use hand to hand combat.

**Naginata:**His bo-staff has a built switch blade on one end.

**Healing Factor:**He was able to take numerous hits from mutants like Dr. Tyler Rockwell, Dogpound and Slash, seriously injuring himself and was still able to fight. He also was able to fight Shredder but was hurt by him.

**Intelligence and Communication:** He is incredibly intelligent able to calculate complex equations in his head, create different machines and handle the creation of medicines and other chemical compounds. He enjoys tinkering with items he finds in the junkyards and in the abandoned part of the sewers, which have allowed him to make the Shellraiser, the T-phone and Tpod. Donatello also is a master of strategy and helps Leonardo as a tactician in many of the more involved and complex missions. Touched by his father as human given the power to speak and understand perfectly human English.

**Stamina and Endurance:**Due to his ninjitsu training, he has a great deal of stamina, which allows him to keep up with his training. A good exhibition of his stamina is seen when Donatello is training the Pulverizer. He able to take hits better then Mikey can take, but not as good when compared to Leo and Raph.

## Relationships

* **Leonardo** - Donatello's oldest brother. He and Leonardo rarely fight, unless absolutely necessary. They do tend to tease each other often, but never try to hurt each other physically. Although, there are points in the series where Leonardo tends to stress out Donatello while he fixes or opens bombs, locks, etc., as seen in The Gauntlet and It Came From The Depths. Donatello, in return, questions Leonardo occasionally about his plans to see if they're accurate or safe. Leonardo feels like Donatello worries too much, and Donatello feels the same way about him, but they share a strong brother/best-friend relationship and show compassion and always have each other's backs.

* **Raphael** - Donatello's second-oldest brother. He and Raphael do fight occasionally, but tease and taunt each other more. Raphael tends to tease and taunt Donatello about his "dorkiness" and smarts, while Donatello does the same to Raphael about his "meatheadedness" and temper. Overall, they still have each other's backs and care about each other, as they are brothers, but they hardly show that kind of affection.

* **Michelangelo** - Donatello's only younger brother. He and Michelangelo fight the most out of all his brothers, but they seem very close as brothers. Donatello tends to be the actual big brother to Michelangelo, whereas his other brothers just plan out what they're going to do, and just use Michelangelo as a sidekick. Donatello hates it whenever Michelangelo doesn't use his common sense or whenever he goofs off too much, but Donatello still loves him, as he is his little brother and best friend. Michelangelo, on the other hand, looks up to Donatello, and teases him about his huge crush on April, but he always tries helping Donatello; trying to impress him with his nunchuck skills.

* **Splinter** - Donatello's adoptive father and sensei. Donatello tries his best to listen to Splinter's advice, but most of Splinter's words tend to confuse him, which is ironic, because Donatello is never confused once it comes to words. It is shown that Donatello questions Splinter's advice the most, despite being the smartest.
* **April O'Neil** - Donatello's best friend and crush. Donatello instantly developed a crush on her when he first saw her, despite her sometimes not knowing how to react, to his immense attraction towards her. There are several episodes where Donatello actually shows his feelings for her, but he quickly takes it back or makes up an excuse, fearing that she'll not accept him and their friendship will go awry. When she discovers that the turtles caused her father's mutation and becomes furious at them (in The Mutation Situation), he is devastated. However, after he and his brothers save her from Karai and her talk with Casey, April reconciles with the turtles and she gives Donatello a hug and a kiss on the cheek as an apology. After it becomes clear that Casey is also in love with April, Donatello's attempts to earn April's heart become even bolder than before, as he keeps trying to one-up Casey's attempts to impress her. In Fungus Humungous, it's revealed that his worst fear is April hating him and leaving him for Casey. In The Invasion, Part 1, as the Kraang are invading New York City and the world seems to be ending, the Turtles have sought cover in the O'Neils' apartment, and April is in the process of tying off an injury to Donatello's arm, Donatello finally tells April that he wants to tell her his feelings. April, who was almost certainly *never* ignorant of Donatello's feelings towards her, quickly shuts him up before he can speak, telling him to stop talking as it will only make things hurt more, while trying to make it look like she's referring to Donatello's injury. In The Invasion, Part 2 (which picks up immediately after the events of the previous episode), Casey arrives at April's apartment, and April embraces Casey and tells him "I was scared I'd lost you forever," *in front of* Donatello. Donatello is briefly fazed by this display, but quickly shrugs it off as their crisis isn't over yet. By Within the Woods, Donatello has become paranoid of April and Casey spending any time alone together. In A Foot Too Big, Donatello still tries to keep earning April's heart, but is increasingly frustrated. After Raph tells him that Bigfoot's one-sided obsessive crush on Donatello is just like Donatello's crush on April, Donatello confronts April. He tells her that he intends to give up on seeking her heart, and that he's "just a mutant". To his surprise (and *extreme* confusion), April calls Donatello her mutant, and gives him a very affectionate kiss.
* **Casey Jones** - Even though he didn't officially meet Casey until The Good, The Bad and Casey Jones, Donatello didn't like what he observed of Casey with April. He is jealous of how close Casey is with April and doesn't like him because of it (the feeling is mutual). In Fungus Humungous, he gets upset with him when he tells the turtles that he lost April on their way over to the lair. When he and Raphael pinned Casey to the wall, he admitted he enjoyed it, proving how much he doesn't like him. In addition to April hating him, Donatello's worst fear involves her falling for Casey. He does view him as an ally and occasionally friend, but their rivalry gets in the way. After the events of The Invasion, Part 2 when it became clear that there was a real possibility April *was* falling in love with Casey, Donatello started to treat Casey with even greater hostility and spite. In Within the Woods, a normal training session at the O'Neil Farm saw Donatello and Casey drop their discipline and start brawling, for which April said the two were acting like "caged animals". Donatello was also paranoidly opposed to letting April and Casey spend any time alone together. In Race with the Demon, his relationship with Casey improves after they work together to build the Turtle Racer and take down Speed Demon.

## Trivia

* Donatello is named for the famous Renaissance master, Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, (better known simply as "Donatello".
	+ Donatello's name is Italian, a diminutive form of the name Donato, from Latin Donatus, which means "given".
* His bandana color, purple, represents his personality - Wisdom and Intelligence.
* Donatello is the tallest amongst his brothers, presumably at around 6 ft tall as seen on concept art of The Pulverizer scale refers to the Turtles' maximum height.
* Donatello has Diastema, (a noticeable gap between two of his front teeth).
* Donatello has OCD: According to J.R. Ventimilia (executive producer) Donatello is "*(...)a little fussy, nervous and obsessive-compulsive*.
* In this incarnation, Donatello has a crush on April O'Neil, having fallen for her at first sight.
* While Donatello still fights with his weapons of choice, a Rokushakubo, (a Bō staff), his staff can be converted into Naginata, (a "pole-blade"), via a retractable blade inside one end of the staff.
	+ In the 3rd season episode, *Vision Quest*, Donatello arms himself with a weapon which is a combination of Stone Hammer & Ono Axe.
* His mastery of Ninjutsu includes: Bōjutsu, Sōjutsu, Naginatajutsu, Bōryaku, Intonjutsu, Tenmon, Chi-mon, Shinobi-iri, Shurikenjutsu, Archery, computer hacking, building machines, and Bōryaku.
* He knows medical treatment.
* He's the third oldest/second youngest of his brothers; Leonardo, Raphael &Michelangelo.
* Donatello is an expert in fields of metallurgy.
* He has an IQ of 637.
* Rob Paulsen, Donatello's VA, voiced Raphael in the 1987 TV series.
* He is the only Turtle that does not have an **archenemy** that he personally dislikes.
* Donatello is the 2nd Turtle to say "Booyakasha!"
* In Leatherhead's first two episode appearances, he repeatedly grabs Donatello by the face and shakes him around "like a rag doll."
* Due to his behavior in I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman (and various other episodes), he is the second to Raphael in temper and anger.
* He has a picture of April eating pizza as a screen saver for his computer
* Despite being opposites, Donatello has been shown being really close to Michelangelo.
* When Donatello's T-Phone rings, it has the tune of the intro of the 1987 series.
* The first two humans who have entered the lair (April and Timothy) have been closer to Donnie out of the four turtles.
* Donatello appears for the first time without his mask in Slash and Destroy.
* He is the third Turtle to hide completely in his shell as seen in The Lonely Mutation of Baxter Stockman.
* He's so far the only one to have or attempt, to train someone.
* He played The Wizard in Mazes & Mutants.
* He is the first turtle to stop breathing in In Dreams.
* He has been kissed 4 times by April.