Shredder (TMNT 2012)

"And now, Hamato Yoshi... DIES!!!"

- Super Shredder killing Splinter.

Oroku Saki, better known as Shredder or The Shredder, is the overall main antagonist of the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. He is the deadly and ruthless leader of the Foot Clan, the adoptive father of Karai, and the archenemy of Hamato Yoshi/Splinter, the Turtles and the rest of the Hamato Clan in general. At the end of "City at War", Shredder is mutated.

He was voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, who also played Sarevok Anchev from Baldur's Gate, Captain Gantu from the Lilo & Stitch franchise, Goro in the Mortal Kombat film, Chairman Drek in the video game, Ratchet & Clank, Joker in the Kids WB show, The Batman, Darkseid in Superman: Shadow of Apokolips, Trigon in Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, and Rhombulus from Star vs The Forces of Evil.

Personality
"You never had anything but your hatred! And if you defeat me, you will have nothing!"

- Splinter to the Shredder as they fight.

The Shredder is highly delusional, pretentious, and manipulative, bordering on a psychopathic, sociopathic and emotionless spectrum, he possesses a warrior's mentality and unshakably determined in a quest for revenge against his former friend Hamato Yoshi. While he says differently, Shredder is a man with no honor whatsoever, having betrayed humanity by assisting The Kraang in invading New York only so he could fulfill his quest for vengeance against Yoshi and his turtle followers.

Shredder's undying hatred of Splinter is due to losing Tang Shen to him and the Hamato Clan (mostly Hamato Yuuta) for killing his birth father and wiping out the Foot Clan when he was a baby while keeping the truth about his heritage a secret. Shredder considers Splinter to be the world's biggest scum and resents every childhood memory of being raised as adopted brothers.

Shredder is shown completely focused on vengeance. Karai stated with everything strange that's happening, he should have questions. To her statement there's more to life than his vendetta, Shredder fiercely refuted there's nothing more than that and deems anything not affiliated with his revenge as a distraction. Before allied with the Kraang, Shredder sees the threat they pose as none of his concern, with an exasperated Karai deeming how short-sighted he is. He shows no concern concern for mankind as well. Tiger Claw commented how little the Kraang care about the human race with Shredder adding neither does he.

Shredder is highly spiteful, conniving, remorseless, vindictive, sadistic, impatient and cold-blooded as a seasoned warrior, able mow down his enemies without blinking an eye and decided to spite Splinter by abducting his newborn daughter, Miwa. He was a cunning mind and a liar. When he had given Miwa a new name as Karai, he raised her in lies about her heritage; claiming he and her mother were together and that Yoshi killed her when it was a murder he accidentally committed. Shredder is a highly deceitful and cunning person who could easily manipulate people toward his advantage or sacrifice people for his advantage.

The Shredder's skill and ease with lying seems to be result of the falsehoods he was fed as a child.

The Shredder has a twisted sense of mercy. While he was intolerant of his henchmen failing him, he would not kill them but instead beat them and aggressively threaten them if they continued to fail. The the cruelest punishment he had served so far was mutating Baxter Stockman, Ivan Steranko and Anton Zeck for continuously failing him and committing crimes against him, respectively. But despite this, he bargained with the Kraang to find a cure for his mutated "daughter".

While he is a very cold, violent, hardened, and contemptuous man, Shredder was in no way incapable of love, the very cause of his quest for revenge against Splinter was out of jealousy that his love Tang Shen preferred his friend over him. In the "Turtles in Time" episode, he comforted Tang Shen after she was worried that Hamto Yoshi cared more for his clan than he did for her and her daughter. Shredder also cares for his adopted daughter Karai, training her in his ways and after she was mutated he searched for a cure to her mutation. Perhaps Shredder's most prominent trait was his incapability to accept or admit blame for his actions and want  for revenge against the people who he believed had wronged him. He truly believes that Tang Shen was stolen from him by Splinter and believed it was Splinter who caused her death, completely ignoring the fact that her murder was by his hand. Shredder also blamed Yoshi for Karai being mutated, disregarding that he was the one who endangered the girl in the first place. Even after she blatantly rejected him, Shredder still calls her his daughter and ignored her hostility and aggression towards him.

Shredder's love for Karai was what convinced him to help stop the Triceratons, but his desire for revenge proved to be too great. Instead of helping Splinter stop the destruction of Earth to the very end, he took the opportunity to kill him while his back was turned. He didn't care that the world would end and that seeing Karai again would be fruitless as long as his grudge was settled, an action much to Tiger Claw's outrage. In the revised timeline, his true motives for betraying Splinter are revealed to be that he blames Splinter for Karai's disappearance, indicating he still may have cared for Karai.

After mutating, Shredder's mind was warped as he saw all the lies he had told himself and Karai as the truth, with the girl stating he's come to believe an entire dream after so many lies and his archenemy proclaiming he's become the monster he always was on the inside. He refused Stockman and Tiger Claw's warnings to stop taking more mutagen as it would make him more unstable. However, it's shown his mind was warped from the mutation. Karai's pleas to stop wasting his life on vengeance got through to him for a moment. Unfortunately, after his mutant body became stable and perfected, he abandoned all love and compassion, even for Karai and Tang Shen. He cruelly taunted Karai and stated she would perish in flames like her mother had. But he was still under the mutagen's influence, considering Leonardo's question if his destiny was to be a monster or a demon.

As an undead zombie, Shredder was briefly shown not as vengeful. After being enslaved, he truly aided the Turtles by ensuring Kavaxas was sent back to the Netherworld, telling the Demodragon they did not belong in the living realm. This shows he might have accepted who he was in life (possibly remorseful for his many sins) and that he no longer had a place in the living world.

Powers and Abilities
Shredder's skills of ninjutsu are very high, going beyond than any other ninja could reach, since he been training for his entire life. Also, he was able to become unbeatable for learning forbidden ninjutsu. So far, he was able to easily defeat all the turtles and for long brutal fight against Splinter who is the only one who rivals him

His abilities are quite amazing for a human to have, as shown that he has immense strength. Even his strength was formidable enough to battle large opponents like Leatherhead and Rocksteadyin a short fight.

His speed seemed to be unmatched for the turtles as Donny said it is "like he was everywhere at once" in combat, so he's proven to be much faster than the Turtles.

Shredder's acrobatics seems to be very well adaptable in combat for reflexes and his agility, as shown by fighting against Leatherhead.

His stamina and endurance is also high for his age, enough that he was able to take the jaw strength of Leatherhead, but the type of armor that he wears could be very proactive for his body to take many blows of attacks. As for his stamina he was able to still fight back just shortly after he was attacked by Leatherhead. Having the battle against Splinter in the episode "The Invasion ", he used his special skill by using his fingers that is powerful enough to push opponents to the wall that can defeat most of his enemies, but Shredder was able to get back up to continue to fight Splinter until he reveal that his arm was wounded, but he was still able to walk.

Although he was covered in armor, he is surprisingly very stealthy, able surprise his enemies as he was able to sneak behind Leonardo.

His intelligence is also quite high, as he knew the Turtles live in the sewers, knowing Master Splinter was in New York training a team of Ninjas, and others.

Enemies

 * Hamato Yoshi/Splinter - Oroku and Hamato were raised in Japan as adoptive brothers and very good friends, and the two learned, exercised and became Masters in the art of Ninjitsu. However, their companionship suffered a great strain when they both fell in love with the very same woman, Tang Shen. They constantly competed for her attention, but she chose Hamato in the very end. Jealous, Oroku began harassing Hamato, insulting him and purposely trying to get him angry. This eventually culminated when Oroku learned of his true heritage and restored his birth clan as "the Shredder". Breaking into Hamato's own house and challenging him to a mortal duel, both men engaged in battle, and the house soon caught fire in the process (due to the fact that some burning candles were left laying around at the time), killing Tang Shen and horridly burning the Shredder's face. The latter found Miwa and secretly took her in, raising her as his own daughter and telling her many lies about what Hamato "did". Sixteen years later, the Shredder discovers that Splinter is hiding out in New York City, and he leaves Japan (along with his deployed Foot Ninja) to finish him off. The two finally meet again in "Booyaka-Showdown, Part 2" and duel with each other in The Foot Headquarters. The Shredder soon reveals to Splinter that his daughter is indeed alive, and he attempts to have her kill Splinter when she shows up. With this revelation, it is likely that Splinter despises The Shredder even more than he formerly did. In "Wormquake", the two were excepted to a duel in Shredder's Hideout when Splinter was recaptured, only to be rescued by the Turtles.
 * The Turtles - Since they are affiliated with Splinter (as his disciples), Shredder views the Turtles as enemies, and he orders his henchmen to find and kill them throughout the entire series. However, out of the two times that The Shredder has encountered them, he's let them live only for the purpose of interrogating them. The Turtles hate Shredder for everything he's done to their sensei. Out of all of them, Leo despises Shredder most of all. So much in fact that Leo often tried to finish off Shredder before finally doing so in the season 4 finale "Owari".
 * April O'Neil - Shredder learned from his Kraang hostage that April is not only a friend of the Turtles, but also the missing link to the Kraang's invasion plan that the Turtles are guarding from them. So with the Kraang's help, he uses April as bait to lure Splinter out of hiding. Due to this and what he's done to Splinter, April greatly dislikes him.
 * Casey Jones - Shredder almost caught Casey spying on the meeting at Don Vizioso's restaurant but accepted the boy's lie that he was a bus-boy and kicked him out. Later, at the Auman Chemicals factory, Casey stops Shredder and attempts to fight him in his vigilante gear, but Shredder is unstoppable for Casey and unmasks him as the same boy from the restaurant. While the teen is inferior to him, the assassin commends Casey for his spirit.
 * Hamato Miwa/Karai - Shredder kidnapped Splinter's baby daughter, Miwa, after the events of his and Hamato Yoshi's final battle, named her Karai, and raised her as his own child. However, it was uncertain that Saki truly loved Karai like she does him. In Season 2, after she finds out that Saki is not her true father, she betrays him and he has her locked away. In "Vengeance is Mine," Shredder did not want Tiger Claw to kill Karai when she got out. When Shredder wanted Karai to understand what he had to do, Karai told Shredder that he is not her father. After the Turtles freed Karai, Shredder states to Tiger Claw that Karai will want to have her revenge on him. When Karai arrives to get her revenge on Shredder, she ends up overwhelmed by Shredder who manages to defeat her. Shredder then plans to use Karai as bait so that he can have the Turtles fall into the mutagen vat filled with snake DNA that Stockman had placed in there. During Shredder's fight with Splinter, Shredder tried to stop Leonardo from freeing Karai only for her to fall into the mutagen vat and emerge as a snake-like mutant much to the dismay of Shredder and Splinter. Shredder blamed Splinter for Karai's mutation as the resulting battle ends up destroying Stockman's lab. He escapes after vowing to avenge Karai. This event reveals that despite Shredder's cold attitude and lack of empathy to Karai, he truly saw her as his daughter and loved her dearly. He also continues to refer to her as "his" daughter because he still sees her as his own because he raised and cared for her and desperately searches for her so the Kraang can mutate her back to normal. He even makes Baxter Stockman make a mind control serum so Karai can be in the foot clan again, even though she can't be turned back to normal again. After mutating, Shredder no longer cares for Karai and tries to kill her.
 * Slash - Shredder and Slash don't interact much except when the dishonorable ninja used his Mind Control Worms on him to attack Splinter and abduct Raph, but Slash breaks free of from Shredder's control with the hel of the Turtles and the other Mutanimals, then drop a huge statue on the crime lord. Slash was involved in the semi-final stand with Super Shredder, which claimed Splinter's life
 * Leatherhead - Shredder's attempts to kill Splinter during the Kraang invasion was interfered with by Leatherhead when he bites Shredder's stomach and threw him into the building. As Leatherhead attempts to free Splinter, Shredder attacks him in return and kicks him down into the water. Leatherhead fights Super Shredder at the Mutanimals' hideout, but is defeated once again.
 * Kavaxas - Kavaxas was tasked with reviving the Shredder by Tiger Claw, but brainwashed Shredder upon resurrection. After Kavaxas was defeated and forced to open a portal back to Netherworld, he attempted to resist entering, but Shredder, angry over being used and dissatisfied with his new state of being, punched Kavaxas and himself through the portal.

Allies

 * Chris Bradford/Dogpound/Rahzar - Shredder trained Bradford in his own image as the Foot's top lieutenant and second best fighter, maintaining his rank and respect to the entire clan. After the Turtles began beating him on a regular basis, though, Shredder respects him far less, even forcing Xever Montes to be his leader in one episode. When they became Dogpound and Fishface in "The Gauntlet", Shredder seemed legitimately upset that his allies became mutants and screamed in rage. When Shredder came back from his trip to recruit Tiger Claw and he saw that Bradford had mutated again, he simply said "You look terrible, Bradford."
 * Xever Montes/Fishface - Shredder freed Montes from prison after Montes was caught burglarizing his property by the police, mainly because he found his burglarizing skills very useful to his clan, as well as the fact that Montes likes having a job where he gets to crack skulls almost everyday.
 * Baxter Stockman/Stockman-Fly - Shredder spared Stockman after Stockman's M.O.U.S.E.R.S's interfered with his feud against the Turtles, mainly because he found his talented inventing skills very useful to his clan, which led to several improvements, such as making Fishface a pair of robotic legs, thus making the latter a more powerful combatant. Shredder, however, for the most part, cares little for Stockman and he probably chose to dislike him even more after the scientist trapped Dogpound and Fishface in the "Maze of Doom". Stockman still buys back Shredder's favor by creating a formidable or even decent mutant army for him.
 * Tiger Claw - Shredder found Tiger Claw in Japan and found his bounty hunting skills very useful, thus he made the feline fatality his second-in-command. Though Tiger Claw is unimpressed with the Foot Clan, he accepts the job regardless. Even after Tiger Claw returned from the stomach of the Kraathatrogon, he was reinstated as the second-in-command, showing how Shredder respects his ally's skills.
 * Ivan Steranko/Rocksteady - Shredder and Steranko have been business partners in the mafia, but Shredder doesn't always trust him that much. This distrust escalated after Shredder found out that he sent Zeck to steal the Kuro Kabuto and was hunting Karai, and had Steranko work for him as payment for his treachery.
 * Anton Zeck/Bebop - Shredder was almost robbed by Zeck of the Kuro Kabuto, which the Turtles return to him in exchange for Karai. Upon finding out that Zeck was employed by Steranko, Shredder proceeds to have the thief punished for stealing his helmet and hunting Karai without consent by employing him and Steranko into his service.
 * Don Visioso - Shredder and Vizioso have been business partners in the mafia like he was with Steranko, and during Shredder's meeting with the food critic at his restaurant, he announces that the Kraang have given him the opportunity to gain control over much of the crime groups in the city. Thus, he asks Vizioso to join in by sharing control of his mob to him, and after being proven a point, Visiozo complies. After Shredder was hospitalized, Don Visiozo believes their alliance was null and void. After Shredder's death, Don considers his old associate a freak while stealing his mutated heart and intended to take over his turf now that he was gone.
 * Purple Dragons - A street gang and occasional allies.
 * Hun - Shredder considers Hun his only pupil in the Purple Dragons, and he helps Shredder retrieve a chemical from the Auman Chemicals Factory for his mind control serum.
 * The Kraang - An alliance was made only to get closer to Hamato Yoshi, but his true intentions were to use their technology and mutagen for himself. After their successful invasion on New York City, he bide his time for the right opportunity to betray them and take over himself, knowing they'll likely try a similar move.

Love Interest

 * Tang Shen - She was a woman who both Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi fell in love with. She chose Yoshi over Saki, however. In a fit of jealousy and rage, he attacked Yoshi one night and killed Tang Shen in the process when he missed a swing meant for Yoshi and killed her instead. Saki stole her and Yoshi's daughter and raised her to hate her father while claime he and her mother were together. As a Young man it showed Saki did indeed love shen but used emotional manipulation to lure her away from Yoshi. Tang Shen's death would take a toll on Saki after he became the Shredder as he blamed Splinter for her death. After his perfected mutation, however, he implies he no longer loves Shen; giving a cruel nod to her death at his hands.

Trivia

 * In Splinter's flashbacks, Shredder is seen wielding a pair of "Tekkō-kagi" (lit. "back of the hand hooks"). In the present, he is seen with custom-made Tekko-kagi claw weapons: They have extendable blades and are razor sharp. They have also been shown to be strong enough to cut through metal shipping containers.
 * The Shredder's real given name "Saki" is (usually) a female Japanese name that ironically means "blossom" and "hope".
 * He owns an Akita Inu named Hachiko. Hachiko contributed to Dogpound's mutation by biting him before the mutagen spilled on him.
 * It is unknown why Shredder was sick and dying prior to his mutation, although there are a few possibilities:
 * His helmet was removed for a long period of time, and therefore not covering the areas of his face that had no skin on them, making it easier for him to be infected.
 * The jabs Splinter made his pressure points at his chest and stomach areas, which could have stopped his organs from working properly.
 * In an original scene from "Owari", it was shown that Super Shredder was decapitated by Leonardo but it was censored, although blood can still be seen on Leo's sword.
 * The 2012 version of the Shredder is considered to be the darkest & most murderous version of Oroku Saki yet.