Danny Phantom just gets wilder the more you know about it, really.
first of all i gotta say that it's not actually canon that he's from Illinois. the show is just "generic American small city" for his hometown and the fandom took context cues from other parts of the show and decided "Fuck it Illinois makes sense" and just kept that.
But I guarantee you, nothing about the show makes sense when you look at it too closely so take everything with a grain of salt. Yes I'm looking at you, Timeline.
the teenager in question is also kind of a ghost, hence part of the reason why the other ghosts are picking fights with him. He arguably picks a bunch of the fights himself.
it's not just the entirety of the Ghost Zone that get put into the antagonist role in the show either. Danny's other antagonists include:
A literal billionaire (who is also a ghost) (and gets himself elected mayor)
his parents (literally ghost hunters. who also fight the ghosts.)
a circus ringmaster with mind control and reality bending artifacts
Classmates at school who bully Danny
the closest thing we get to an adult who is on Danny's side is Mr. Lancer, who also supports the school bullies
the ghost who impersonated a school counselor and was literally in the role of Danny's therapist for a bit that one episode
a girl he dates was actually being controlled by a dragon ghost and didn't actually want to date him. Have fun with that fallout kid.
the girl he dates for a bit who *wanted* to date him also shows up in costume to shoot him on sight.
his clone shows up and is supposed to be his enemy. he adopts her instead. yes those pronouns are all correct.
she's not really an antagonist but one of his best friends arguably kills him twice. once very much on purpose.
his other best friend and whatever happened in King Tuck.
like it's not enough that this show puts Danny (and friends) against the regular ghosts and the God-Like Being level ghosts and the literal Ghost Tyrant King guy
he can't even catch a break at home either
kid's literally surrounded by people deliberately or accidentally making his life harder, there are no safe Adults, there are barely any safe friends, and he is fourteen and half dead.
and his parents canonically want to rip his alter-ego apart "molecule by molecule" i am not kidding with that one.
Like they made us a sandbox of a Nickelodeon cartoon and just half assed it by grabbing a bunch of two-by-fours, nailing them together... and then sticking them on the beach.
and then people still get mad when the fandom shows up to build sandcastles and dig to china. Yeah, we know they didn't make it That Deep on purpose.
But we're here with the good Tonka Toys anyway and ready to dig.
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