Raphael

**Raphael**or **Raph** is one of the four main protagonists in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a member of the TMNT. He is the younger adoptive brother of Karai, younger brother of Leonardo, older brother of Donatello and Michelangelo, and the second son of Master Splinter. He is *"The Muscle"* of the team. Like all his other appearances in the past, Raphael's weapon of choice is his twin Sai. Raphael is voiced by Sean Astin.

## History

Raphael and his brothers were once ordinary turtles; when they were infants, they were adopted from a pet store by Hamoto 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 rat's tail. The Kraang found 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 came in contact with a rat last, thus mutated into a humanoid brown rat by the name of "Splinter", while Raph 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. Raph and his brothers were named after great Renaissance artists from a book Splinter fished out of the storm drain.

## Personality

Always acting before he thinks things through, Raphael is the muscle of the team. He is catty, sarcastic, tough, and at times, mean; but he is known to have a soft side when caring for his pet turtle. It is also shown that he loves his brothers very much, and shows his nurturing side at times, mostly to his younger brother Michelangelo. However, he often feels that his family doesn't understand him so he doesn't usually open up to them.

As seen in New Girl in Town, Leonardo and Raphael begin to argue. When this happens, Leonardo decides that Raphael should lead the team, if he can do better, to which Raphael agrees. During this, they battled Snakeweed, and Michelangelo ended up injured. Raphael said he 'froze up seeing Michelangelo like that'. He toldSplinter he needs Leonardo. He also said, "I don't mind risking my own life, but risking my brothers'..." This shows us how much he cares about his brothers.

As far as humour goes, Raphael (like most of his incarnations) is very cynical and sarcastic, sometimes making jokes at the others' expense, but usually just making 'witty remarks'. He also deadpans a lot—for example, when Donatello sees April for the first time, and says "she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen" Raphael then asks "isn't she the *only* girl you've ever seen?" Humour is generally when he is most amiable to his brothers too. For example; he will tease one, and another will usually agree or join in—these jokes are often at Michelangelo's expense, (but he rarely minds) or at Donatello's if April is mentioned (occasionally, Raphael and Michelangelo make kissing noises when Donatello mentions her).

As far as Raphael's flaws go, the biggest, and most obvious would be his temper. He starts to deal with his anger issues inTurtle Temper, after being told by Master Splinter that anger can be very destructive (via a story that explained why the Shredder killed Tang Shen). Throughout the rest of the series, he is slightly less impulsive; however he is still the most aggressive of his brothers, and always becomes extremely angry when one or more of his brothers are hurt. Raphael is less vicious to his brothers after this, but still hits them when they are being annoying.

## Appearance

Raphael's Is the 2nd oldest brother and 2nd smallest turtle. He has green eyes but like all of the turtles when they're fighting, the pupils and irises vanish, leaving his eyes white. He has a small, lightning shaped chip cut out of his plastron across his left shoulder. His shell shows distinct battle damage, and the tails of his mask are tattered and worn.

## Abilities, Weaponry and Skills

**Ninjutsu:**Like his brothers, he has a great sense of balance and agility. He can jump farther and higher than a human, as well as move quicker and more easily on narrow surfaces.He is the strongest fighter of the group (this is certainly true when training) Raphael has beaten his brothers including Donatello before in fights, both with and without weapons.

**Enhanced Strength:**He is the strongest turtle, lifting people over his head. He is also the most violent, and so he can deal harder blows - though this is not a question of strength, more of morals, his brothers would most likely not hit someone as hard as Raphael would. He was able to tackle Slash away from his brother Mikey.

**Enhanced Speed:**He and his brothers are very fast. They can easily run faster than most humans, however, April seems to manage it somewhat (this may be due to the turtles running slower for her benefit). Raphael is the fastest of his brothers, and this is probably due to his temper.

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

**Sai:**He normally uses sai as sharpened fist-held stabbing knives ("sharpened" is specified because sai are usually used for defense rather than offense). However, he does have a large collection of other weapons.

**Healing Factor:**As shown that he took damage from his enemy's and plenty of wounds like his brothers could heal much faster than an average person.

**Stamina and Endurance:**He is able to take many attacks from his enemy's. Cause of his training and hard-earned blocking and fighting skills.

## Relationships

* **Leonardo** - Raphael's only older brother. He and Leo tend to fight about who would be a better leader of the Turtles, but Leo always comes first, making Raph jealous. They seem to fight the most out of all their brothers, but they still care about each other. The two are shown to trust each other more in the family as they are often discussing things privately away from the others such as Leo's relationship with Karai. Raph often expresses annoyance at Leo's constant attempts at 'hero speak', especially in season 1 when Leo is most influenced by *Space Heroes*. However, Raphael does gain some sort of respect for Leo after being the leader himself for a while, and finding it very difficult. After the Kraang Invasion of New York, Leo was severely injured to the point he was in a temporary coma. Raph was the one who watched over Leo day and night until he got better. While Leo was still healing from his wounds, Raph appeared to have become the de facto leader as he was the one to lead the training sessions with his brothers and the one giving orders when Leo could not.

* **Donatello** - Raphael's second-youngest brother. He fights with Donnie the least, in physical terms, but in verbal terms, he makes fun of Donnie's intelligence and his huge crush on April a great deal. As far as Raph's treatment of his brothers goes, his behaviour to Donnie is the closest he comes to full on bullying. However, like all his brothers, Raph cares for Donnie deeply and is incredibly protective of him. In A Foot Too Big, he tried to console Donnie about his feelings for April, telling Donnie to give up because he was a mutant and she was human and that he should get used to it sooner so the pain would be less.
* **Michelangelo** - Raphael's youngest brother. Mikey teases Raph the most of the four brothers, and Raph often retaliates physically (usually by a slap or punch). However, when other people start beating up Mikey, Raph stands up for his little brother. Raph seems to be the most protective of Mikey. Though he doesn't show it very often, Raph deeply cares about him. Raph seems closest to Mikey out of all his brothers, sometimes joking with him (usually at Donnie or Leo's expense). For example, in Panic in the Sewers, Donnie starts rattling on about frost, and Mikey asks Raph if "He [Donnie] maybe has an off switch somewhere]" Raph slaps Donnie on the back of the head, causing Donnie to yell "OW!" and shut up. Raph then turns back to Mikey and says "Found it!" and the two share a laugh.
* **Splinter** - Raphael's adoptive father. He tends to show a lot of stubbornness towards Splinter's advice, but Raphael still listens to his sensei and trains well under him. He is almost certainly the most rebellious of Splinter's sons, and Splinter's guidance is usually to show restraint or mercy in combat, as well as force and power. Despite this, he loves Splinter as much as his brothers and will rush to his help if Splinter is in danger.
* **Spike / Slash** - Raph's relationship with Slash is complicated, to say the least, as a pet love that turned into a conflicted ambiguous love between two fully-grown sentientmutant turtles. Slash was originally Raph's pet turtle Spike, and one of the only individuals Raph showed love and affection to, Raph usually speaking to him as if to another *person* rather than to a pet; indeed, Spike's first scene in Rise of the Turtles, Part 2 showed Raph sharing solemn tender words of love to another unseen male character, only for the scene to reveal the recipient to be his non-verbal pet turtle Spike. In the same scene, Raph was deeply embarrassed that Michelangelo witnessed this exchange, implying that Raph prefers not to show tenderness to Spike when others are watching. This kind of tenderness occasionally carried over to Raph and Slash as mutants, as shown in a scene in Clash of the Mutanimals when Raph worriedly rushed to see if Slash was okay. When Spike became the mutant Slash in Slash and Destroy, he demonstrated that he really had been listening to Raph all those years, finally requiting the love Raph had shown him. The two planned to become their own ninja team, but Slash proved unstable, possessive and ax-crazy when he tried to kill Raph's brothers to have Raph all to himself. Raph rejected what Slash had become, and Slash escaped feeling betrayed by the only person he'd ever loved. Raph was so aggrieved by Slash's loss that Splinter had to teach him how to cope with the loss of loved ones. Slash and Raph did not interact much when they met again inMetalhead Rewired, but Slash protected Raph from harm, demonstrating he still cared about him. Raph and Slash finally fully reconciled in Newtralized!, when Slash's stabilizing conscience steadily alienated him from his then-ally,the Newtralizer, and Slash eventually turned against the Newtralizer to defend Raph, his brothers and Casey Jones. Raph invited Slash to come back home, but Slash declined, choosing to remain alone for the time. In The Invasion, Part 1, when the turtles were permanently evacuating the Turtle Lair, Raph revealed his most cherished personal possession to be his photograph of Spike, expressing how much he still worried about Slash. After an exile in North Hampton, Raph and Slash met again in Battle for New York, Part 1, immediately re-establishing their ties. Raph trusted Slash even while his brothers (particularly Leonardo) still doubted him. Slash is one of the few close friends or family who consistently addresses Raph by his three-syllable name, "Raphael," except for two utterances of "Raph" inSlash and Destroy.
* **April O'Neil** - Raphael's first human friend. He and April don't interact that much. He got a little defensive when thePurple Dragons tried to mug her, but he also laughed at her when they thought Pigeon Pete attacked her. He was also impressed that she escaped from Karai. He and April are good friends. Since season 3, they have become more like family, and Splinter and Mikey specifically consider April and Casey part of their family.
* **Casey Jones** - Raphael initially fought Casey the first time they met, and then became close friends and rivals, having a lot in common. They are both shown patrolling together frequently. Since season 3, they have become more like family, and Splinter and Mikey specifically consider April and Casey part of their family.
* **Karai** - Raphael's adoptive sister, by virtue of her being Splinter's biological daughter. Raph was by far the most distrustful of Karai for season 1 and 2, being highly cynical of Leo's infatuation with her, and verbally catfighting with Karai in person. But since Karai mutated, Raph has been more sympathetic to her like the rest of his siblings.

## Trivia

* Raphael is named for the famous Renaissance master, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino.
* Raphael's name is Hebrew, meaning "God has Healed".
* Raphael is also the only brother to have a Hebrew name, whilst all three of his brothers' names are Italian.
* He is the only turtle to not have an o sound at the end of his name. These things are because the Turtles were named after the common English names for the four Renaissance artists, and unlike the others, the artist Raphael is not usually called by his Italian name Raffaello.
* His mastery of Ninjutsu includes: Taijustu, Shurikenjustu, Kobudō, Kayajustu, Shinobi-iri, Boyaku, Sui-ren, Archery, and Intonjustu.
* As revealed in Vision Quest, his Spirit Element is the Mountain; he relies too much on his mind and not on his body, therefore he must be strong and stand his ground.
* Raphael is the second oldest of his brothers; Leonardo being the oldest while he's older than Donatello &Michelangelo.
* Raphael has a bolt-shaped chip missing at the upper, left side of his plastron. His shell, and body in general are by far the most scarred of his brothers'.
* His mask has the longest tails, and by far the most tattered.
* He was the final turtle to be seen without his mask on
* Raphael is often called "*meat-head*" by Donatello.
* In Cockroach Terminator, Raphael is revealed to have katsaridaphobia (irrational fear of cockroaches), and is terrified of Donatello's pet SpyRoach (or called "Chong"). The origins of his katsaridaphobia has yet to be explored, but apparently Raphael was able to keep it quiet, as his brothers never knew of his phobia until that episode.
* It is revealed in Parasitica that Raphael gets nausea after seeing body parts from bugs.
* He's the first turtle to have a mutated pet (Slash/Spike), second being Mikey.
* Raphael had a pet turtle named Spike, who later turned into Slash.
* He and Mikey had a pet who got mutated by eating mutagen on purpose.
* Raphael is shown to care a lot about his youngest brother Michelangelo, as he didn't know what to do anymore when Michelangelo got hurt.
* Raphael also cares about his other brothers as he said: "I don't mind risking my own life, but my brothers'..."
* It is seen in New Girl in Town, when Raphael gets under so much pressure being the leader for a short time, he freezes up with anxiety.
* Though he is the second oldest, Raphael is the third tallest/second shortest of the turtles. However, his stocky build often makes him seem shorter.
* In the first season of the show he has three big rivals—Fishface, Spider Bytez and Spy-roach.
* Raphael is the second Turtle to hide completely in his shell as seen in The Good, The Bad and Casey Jones.
* He was the first Turtle to hide just his head in his shell
* Raphael's personality has traits of a Tsundere, in Japan a tsundere is a person that acts hostile and cold towards others but has a much more softer side to them that they reveal over time.
* He is the first Turtle to be transformed into a completely different mutant (plant).