Heya howdy, it’s my day off and hotter than sin out there, so instead of picking the grapes before we reach lethal temperatures (like a sensible person), I would like to procrastinate by rambling about an idea that’s been increasingly taking hold of my thoughts.
To put it simply, I think that Ben Tennyson, Rex Salazar, Danny Fenton, and Zak Saturday would be very interesting to compare and contrast in terms of their backgrounds and how their occupations are either matters of passion or functionally forced.
Ben and Rex are the most similar to one another in that they are deeply entrenched in the heart of organizations which can, and have repeatedly threatened, to severely punish them (through captivity or execution). They are both viewed as inherently irresponsible in spite of the fact that they show shocking maturity in how they act given their circumstances. Rex gets a bit more leeway in this, as his makeshift family (Dr. Holiday, Six, and the monkey) make compromises with him so that he can still live his life, the way any healthy relationship should allow for, and overall there is mutuality between this group’s members.
Ben, on the other hand, is lambasted constantly by the people he cares about for not being responsible enough, for not being constantly around. When you remember that he is a child (and later a teenager) working for a relative, it feels less like trying to teach him and more like trying to wring him out for all his worth. Moments where characters other than Rook show concern or regard to Ben are shockingly scarce, often reserved for climactic moments or as ways to demonstrate severity. I think Ben is seen hugging his grandfather one time per series, in spite of the fact that he’s demonstrated to enjoy physical affection and in spite of the fact that his grandfather is the sole generative figure actively in Ben’s life at this point. (Rex isn’t shown receiving much physical affection either, but in his case it feels like he prefers it that way?)
Danny and Zak both live in a part of larger organizations/communities which have threatened them, but it’s always clear that the people closest to them would never do them harm, and are very loving. There’s an entire episode dedicated to Maddie fussing over her son, trying to spend time with him (and having to protect him). Fenton Works might hate Phantom’s guts, but that’s because they’re misinformed due to some unfortunate scenes causing them to perceive Phantom as a threat. A lot of Maddie and Jack’s theatrics in the house about how they’ll take Phantom apart “molecule by molecule” starts feeling less like proclamations of aggression and more like wrongheaded attempts to comfort their children, one of whom is repeatedly seen fleeing at the sight of ghosts.
In regards to associations with peers, Ben and Danny were both ostracized (with Danny having a small friend group and Ben being part of a soccer team, who dump him without much hesitation) whereas Rex and Zak were isolated. Rex and Zak still had friends, but they were always long distance. Zak’s peers were most often species other than his own, generally his pets and the sentient bear-thing that is his adoptive brother (Fisk).
All four accidentally wound up in their respective fields due to family matters, with Rex and Zak becoming what they are very young (Zak being Kur from birth); Danny and Ben become what they are just after their formative years. That said, Ben is an Anodite descendent, which was from birth (the relevance of this varies based off of interpretation of canon), and he has a fair amount of close family who are nonhuman, all of whom are either implied or explicitly stated to have hidden their natures.
Onto deceit. Danny and Ben’s life orient around how well they can misdirect, confound, conceal, dissuade. Both were keeping their natures secret from the people close to them, including their housemates and families. They had two or so people who were aware of what they were or of their activities, and that’s it. For Danny, discovery is dangerous. With Ben, as aforementioned, a lot of the people in his life growing up were keeping pretty massive secrets from him. Was he truly ignorant, or did he clue in on the fact that no one could know? That would be a good explanation for why he’s so practiced in discretion and perfectly fine with not telling people what’s going on in his life. His grandfather and cousin knew right from the get go, but even then his grandfather was very obviously hiding things.
Zak’s family and family friends pretty much always knew what he could do and what he was up to. When he does start hiding things, it clearly pains him with guilt and he’s incredibly unskilled at covering up his activities. His parents know he’s up to something almost immediately, recognize that life has been stressful of late, and make the choice to give him some space while reminding him that they’re there for him.
Rex…doesn’t really hide things from Providence, at least not from what I can remember. He runs away at one point and the people in his life are talking to/at him over the phone the majourity of the time.
The subjects of Rex’s work often lack self awareness, being generally destructive because their bodies (and brains) have just been violently reshaped into large, dangerous beasts. His work is intervention and captivity.
Danny’s work is with more sentient beings; the undead and the effected living. Some are maliciously violent with premeditated plans to harm others since they’re no longer mortal, therefore can act lawlessly. Others are obsessive and unbidden, the abilities granted by their new existence drastically changing their capabilities compared to their much more fragile peers. It’s easy for such people to get carried away, and their undeath is broadly believed by the fandom to have given them all aggressive monomania. For them, they need to be either redirected, made aware of how their actions are effecting those around them, or be brought to safe places where they can continue on without putting others at risk. The last ghostly group are those who are aware of their deaths and are acting out. How should young Danny approach them? If they try for vengeance, are they not justified? (We see him point a group towards the one who wronged them at least once, when he steers a group of animals to the person who cruelly experimented and killed them.) At the same time, he has to navigate a world where people have seen the chaos brought by the ghosts and who would probably have some strong feelings on the matter. Some would be worshipful, others enraged as their homes and lives are desecrated. Valarie is shown loathing ghosts on principle and goes on to target the demographic as a whole, do we really think she’s the only one?
Zak’s subjects are, well…his subjects. He has inherited governance over a class of life collectively referred to as “cryptids” and whom he can twist the minds of. This ability extends only to what the subject is inclined to, but how far can that go? We see him and his family tempt subjects with external stimuli, granting him the opening to slip into their consciousness and persuade them to his will. He works exclusively in intervention and relegation, if it weren’t for his immense empathy and genuine desire for both the cryptids and humans to live peacefully, he could very easily abuse his position. He verges on this one time and it is the conflict of the episode, and it is something he is called on by those around him and which he quickly rectifies.
Ben’s lot is a more diverse bunch. While Zak’s focus is mostly on animal-adjacent creatures, a few being cognizant, Ben deals with people. He handles war, conflict, invasion, opportunistic cruelty, the beginnings and ends royal lineages, hostile takeovers, the list goes on and on. Rex and Zak dabble in this, bur those are exceptions. Danny has to contend with it on occasion, as powerful people lord over him with threats and control. Ben is often a delegate, but can be far more easilt be called a warlord or living weapon.
I say “living” because I question how truthfully it can be said that Ben’s human. The Anodites are claimed to be all or nothing, but real people say that about ethnicity and so the claim comes across as in-universe bigotry. It feels like someone looking to their children and thinking “You’re Americanized, therefore you have no claim to your ancestors” or “They’re not dark enough”.
Speaking of colour, they’re all white passing with Ben being on one end, Zak on the other, and Rex and Danny (jet black hair) being intermediaries. Ben gets immediate White privilege where Zak might get it denied in the wrong circumstance. I don’t myself adequately knowledgeable to discuss their ethnicities or races, but colourism is something I have quite a bit of experience in. I am the palest person in my family and grew up being teased that I must have been adopted because the Italian and Syrian seemed to have skipped me, and I know others who have similar issues of not having the traits of their predecessors. I have siblings who have some slight Black traits and have been ostracized for it by our parents, and I have listened to the trash people say about my clearly Mexican siblings (and their father) because they assume I’ll be on their side.
I think Rex is the only character whose ethnicity is explicitly discussed, since he’s an amnesiac and gets to reconnect to the surviving member of his original family. His older brother openly finds hilarity in Rex’s Americanization, up to and including Rex’s poor fluency in Spanish. Ben is directly denied his heritage when he meets his grandmother, who takes one look at him and blatantly decides him too dissimilar (which she is implied to have done to her children as well). Zak gets to learn of countless cultures through being shuffled around the map, and Danny is an Illinoisian (he is of the corn and soy).
Back to the human aspect, Ben’s human status is dubious whereas Zak’s is questioned but concrete. Rex and Danny have their humanity and legal statuses questioned repeatedly. Rex, Danny, and Ben are all shapeshifters with nonhuman attributes; Zak is human through and through (ironically enough).
Each of these characters have grown around their work, with it informing their personalities, boundaries, and affects. A neat comparison between Ben and Zak is how they relate to cage fighting— but I really need to get a move on, so that’ll have to wait ‘til next time.
