Danny becoming increasingly more afraid of his half-ghost disposition is such an interesting concept to think about.
After fighting what would be his evil self in TUE, he writes off him turning evil as an influence from Vlad’s ghost but as he gets older, maybe those traits weren’t so exclusive to Vlad after all.
Danny starts to understand that maybe he DOES need to learn control. Control over his ghost side. Who better to learn it from than the only other half-ghost in the world?
It becomes kinda a paradoxical mental battle of
“Is it really a good idea to take mentorship from my furture’s other EVIL HALF?” Or
“What consequences will I face if I never hold control of my ghost side”
YES YES YES 10000000x AGREE i agree with this whole post
At the end of the day Danny is more afraid of himself than any enemy he has ever fought. He has such a skewed perspective on who he is as a person. He doesn't trust himself to be able to save people, and he doesn't trust himself to not turn evil if nothing is there to hold himself back. When in reality, while he does bad stuff sometimes, he consistently chooses to learn and grow from his mistakes and be a good person with little outside influence. He has nothing to worry about, but he does worry about it because in his mind, he's a total freak.
He's afraid of himself, what he's become, and what he might become. So afraid that he'd even trust Vlad Masters more than himself if he thought there was a chance he could go down the wrong path. Ironically, that fear is strong enough that it could be the thing that leads him down that wrong path.
To me this ties in a lot with what Phantom represents symbolically. Phantom imo acts as a vehicle for Danny's coming of age story. Danny is terrified of his ghost half. He constantly tries ignore it and get rid of it in any way he can, but he keeps coming back to it because it's not something that will just go away. And then he sees this alternate version of himself that grew up and embraced his ghost side and was totally evil. He's terrified of facing who he is and who he might become because what if that person is bad? It's better for everything to stay exactly the same. If he can keep careful control over every part of himself that could be undesirable then everything will be okay. He can just keep being a normal teenager forever.
The impostor syndrome is great with this one.
UGH YOU GET ME