I've been giving it some thought, and I feel that nowadays we judge Beauty Marked too harshly instead of acknowledging it had flaws and virtues. Maybe we even focus on the wrong flaws.
From what I've seen, the episode's main criticism seems to be its heavy-handed message on feminism, especially how the writers use Sam to deliver it. To be precise, people dislike that Sam signed herself up for a contest she had no interest in just to make a point, which I've often seen was perceived as an example of her "not being like other girls" and looking down on more traditionally feminine things like beauty pageants.
While I admit this issue could have been solved by simply making the pageant mandatory and Sam rebelling against something that was imposed against her will, the truth is, Sam's as much of a proactive character as a reactive one, so it makes sense for her to go out of her way to make a point. So the fact that it was a voluntary event really worked against Sam's point in the first place.
I also have the feeling the Phandom's less forgiving reaction towards this episode might be a result of how, in recent years, more and more people have begun to denounce how femininity is often vilified in media. A campaign that I 100% support!
After all, beauty pageants are vilified for the wrong reasons, more so in the 2000s, where most shows featuring them either played it straight (Jake Long, Pucca, The Fairy Odd Parents), or had one of the characters denounce it as sexist (aside from Danny Phantom, Shake It Up also comes to mind). Now, I must admit I'm not their biggest fan either, but at least I understand beauty queens aren't inherently vapid idiots (for all I know, they can be wonderful people and have a degree in astrophysics), and focus my vitriol towards all the abuse happening backstage (pageant parents are a special kind of evil). However, in itself, beauty pageants aren't necessarily a bad thing, just a different kind of competition.
Just like there's nothing wrong with having more tomboyish interests, characters (and real-life people) who care about "girly" hobbies still have a right to exist outside of being the butt of some joke or the writers' punching bag. After all, we're people. We have layers and contradictions and that's beautiful.
I, myself, happen to be a hopeless romantic who loves dresses and skirts, and shopping for bargains, and cute and adorable things. But at the same time, I can be pretty foul-mouthed, I love myself some badass and even gory action scenes, I love weird animals as much as "cute" ones, and I prefer sneakers over heels any day of the week.
However, I feel people tend to misplace this sentiment onto Sam, seeing her as a proponent on "classical" femininity being bad. And they seem to treat this episode as proof, even though that's not what's going on at all.
Without going on too much of a tangent, the thing about Sam is that she's actually quite feminine herself. It's just that the Angry Goth Aesthetic and her design sometimes eclipse that. Ironically, her design also highlights that feminity.
Out of the major teenage girls in the show, the only ones wearing a skirt are both Sam and Valerie, just like they're also the most accesorised ones—with Sam wearing a choker and a bracelet on each wrist, and Valerie wearing her headband, necklace, earrings, and bracelets. And would you look at that! The girls whose designs include some of the most feminine elements also happen to be the ones spending their free time kicking ghost butt!
Layers, people!
Even outside from that, Sam's also been shown to have other girly traits or interests: even if she was embarrassed to admit it (which is normal for 14-year-olds), she was looking forward to the homecoming dance; she has great empathy for living creatures (mostly plants and animals), and AGIT went as far as to confirm she's a horse girl; she's usually seen with an adorable plushie spider backpack and bat slippers; she has great maternal instincts and the potential to be a very doting and loving mum...
Her problem with the pageant wasn't that it was feminine. In fact, at no point does she look down on the other girls for wanting to participate in it (she only got mad at Paulina for giving her a make-over that wasn't her style, and the feeling was very much mutual). Deep down, moments of hypocrisy aside, Sam understands that every girl has her way of being herself, which is something Dora openly mocked her for.
Sam was against the pageant not because she doesn't like girly things, but because Dora had quite openly stated how she intended to strip the girls of their agency in order to mould them into perfect little princesses—which we later learned actually meant turning them into submissive, mindless drones for her brother to marry.
Dora: Well, here's a statement. (holds a hand out towards Sam, standing beside her.) It says I'll never win in this outfit."
Sam glares at Dora and puts her hands on her hips.
Dora: Still, Ms. Manson has a point. (She walks towards the girls, now all standing in a row.) You girls are unique individuals with strong opinions and independent minds.
Sam: You're darn right we are.
Dora: It's my job to make you forget that and mold you into happy little princesses. (She smiles with her hands clasped together)
The point of the episode wasn't "femininity is bad", rather "objectifying women is bad".
A message which was exemplified all throughout the episode through the boys' actions, something that actually annoyed all girls, not just Sam, right off the bat, as soon as Dora announced she'd be appointing one of them as a judge.
To be completely honest, something I haven't really seen many people talk about is the absolutely horrendous attitude Tucker and Danny adopted during this episode. I hate to say this, because I love them both dearly, but they were such pigs! Literally the only one who acted as less of a feminist than these two this episode was Aragon, and that's because being a misogynist is his whole shtick.
While it's framed as they getting carried away because they're finally popular with the girls, it still doesn't change the fact that Danny and Tucker spent almost the entire episode (or the entirety of it, in the latter's case) reaping the benefits their new position as pageant judge (and his best friend) gave them to get special treatment and dates out of the contestants.
Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?
A judge (and his best friend) abusing his position to get favours and dates with beautiful girls, who in turn only accept because they hope in doing so they'll get first place.
With the rise of the #MeToo movement, that can get uncomfortable to watch. I mean, even if it was clearly meant to be a humourous moment, Danny literally snapped his fingers to get the girls to act as his bodyguards and to sic them on Dash.
It really says something when the most chivalrous guy this episode was Dash. No, seriously. Even if he clearly wanted payback from Danny hogging all the girls all week, he at least came to their defence when Danny seemingly chose Sam as the winner the first time. An action which, even though we as the audience know isn't what happened, can easily be interpreted as Danny playing favourites with his best friend, yet still be shameless enough to extort dates and favours from the rest of the contestants.
That is definitely not a good look.
I guess what I mean to say with all this is that, while Beauty Marked is far from flawless and didn't exactly pass the test of time, its message and Sam's involvement in it is actually one of the few things that aren't all that bad.
Am I the only one who doesn't hate bullies being redeemed? (or wouldn't hate them being redeemed in those shows/movies where they didn't change for the good?)
They were bad, I know. They did bad things to the hero. They treated the hero like trash and hated them (sometimes for unreasonable reasons). Some of them made the heroes' life impossible throughout a great part of the movie/show they appear (for example Johnny, Flash and Dash)— But I've always seen more than that.
I didn't watch their shows/movies and thought they were monsters, or thought that they were irredeemable, or thought "God, they are so evil". I thought about why they were like that, about why they felt the need to bully another person, about what could made them change.
Also, no. I won't justify them by saying "they were kids". Even when kids act bad, they need to take responsability for what they do wrong. "They are kids" is not a valid response when people criticize kids' actions. That's true. But it's also true that some people are immature when they are around the age of 14-16 (or even younger), and that they have the ability to change as they grow.
Most people act differently when they grow, when they become adults. And that's important, because that shows that people are capable of changing. And as well as many people in the real world have the ability to change, bullies can also change in fictional shows/movies.
Of course, I understand why some people hate bullies' redemption. But not all bullies are the same. Not all bullies did unforgivable things. And in the case of the bullies mentioned in the tags, some of their actions can be attributed to how they were raised. For example Johnny, Steve, Chloe and Bakugo.
Johnny was a good kid. It was the influence of Cobra Kai what made him worse. As well as Cobra Kai's influence also made Daniel a different person (but I don't see people hating Daniel for being part of Cobra Kai in 1985). Both Daniel and Johnny were manipulated by Kreese/Terry (Johnny didn't know who Kreese truly was, as well as Daniel didn't know who Terry was). Both became worse when they were trained by Kreese/Terry. Before that, they were good kids. Johnny was a good kid. A kid who wanted to be loved by his father, a kid who wanted to have friends, a kid who wanted to be more.
We don't know many things about Steve, but we do know that his father was a bad parent. "Jim also had a bad parent and didn't become a bully!". That's true, but it's also true that Jim had Toby, Barbara, Strickler, and later Blinky and Aaarrrgghh, who were good influences for him. But who was there for Steve? Who was there to make Steve a better person? No one. He had friends, yeah. But were they really his friends? Were they good persons like Toby? And his mother? She doesn't show up, so I don't know how she acted towards her son. Maybe she was a good mother who didn't have anything to do with his son's behavior, but maybe she had something to do with Steve's personality.
Chloe also had a bad mother, a mother who only cared about herself and didn't pay attention to her daughter. Hell, when she went back to Paris she didn't care about Chloe. She didn't care about her pain or desire to be loved. She only cared about Chloe being like a mini-version of her. And her father? He wasn't an idiot with his daughter like Audrey was, but he only seemed to care about "keeping Chloe satisfied". And yes, parents are there to make their children happy, but they also need to be there to tell them "you can do this" or "you can't do that". They need to show their love for their children, but they also need to make sure thay are good persons.
In the case of Bakugo, I don't know if his behavior can be attributed to his parents, but if her mother's violent behavior is a hint, his anger's problems could also be her fault. "It's not her fault he bullied Izuku!" No, it's not. That was Bakugo's decision. And I'm not saying Mizuki caused Bakugo to bully Deku. I'm saying she could have had a part in his personality. And if Bakugo had been raised by a person without anger-issues, maybe -just maybe- he could have been more emotionally stable. Instead of acting as if everything could be solved with anger. "He told Deku to kill himself!" Yeah, that was a mistake. But people always bring this argument as if other characters didn't do worse things. Heroes/villains in the show killed. Endeavor made Dabi turn into a villain and traumatized his wife and children. Please, don't demonize Bakugo's character when in the show there are literal killers.
What I wanted to show with this is that not bullies are monsters. Of course, there are bullies who are bad. Bullies who are cruel just for the sake of being cruel. But in the case of Johnny, Steve, Chloe and Bakugo, they weren't only bullies. They were also victims. Yeah, some characters also had bad parents and weren't bullies. But not being a bully not only depends of "being strong enough to follow another path", it also depends on the support you have, and it also depends on someone telling you bullying is bad.
And did someone tell Johnny, Steve, Chloe, Bakugo, Flash or Dash that bullying was bad? Was anyone really there for them? Did someone show them a better way of handling their emotions -instead of acting as if all the misfortunes were the heroes' fault-? No, they didn't have the support the heroes had. And that could have sailed their destiny.
I'm not justifying their actions. I'm not telling you to love these characters. I'm only asking for you to see them as more than the monsters you want them to be.
Besides, some of them showed they could change.
At first, Flash (from Ultimate Spider-Man) only bullied Peter without caring about him. But slowly, that started to change. He started to be more fond of him, and when he became Agent Venom and Spider-Man's ally, all the anger he felt for Peter dissapeared. His admiration for Spider-Man and Peter's goodness made him better, to the point that in a lot of scenes he was the first to defend Peter. In The Amazing Spider-Man, although Flash is not Agent Venom, when Peter loses his uncle he changes completely, and stops bullying Peter. It's sad that in that universe he only changed for that reason, but after that, he only showed care for Peter.
Bakugo was Izuku's friend until he became his bully, and his relationship became more complicated. Izuku kept trying to be Bakugo's friend, while he was tired of his attempts to recover their friendship. But one thing Bakugo has in common with Flash is how both redeem. Bakugo learned to be better, he learned to become a good hero. He slowly stopped hating Izuku. He stopped considering him "a bad hero". He apologized to Deku for hurting him and called him "Izuku" for the first time in years. And he even saved his life. He was a bully to Izuku, yeah, but he perfectly showed he was more than that.
Flash and Bakugo's redemption were the best bully's redemption I've seen (in Flash's case, especially in Ultimate Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man). Although I accept Johnny and Steve's redemption could have been better written. I love how they changed, but the writers should have adressed the harm they caused to the hero. They both should have apologized to Daniel and Jim, because both heroes needed an apology (even if Johnny's actions were worse). And I would have loved Chloe and Dash redeeming too— but to be honest I didn't expect that happening. Because Miraculous Ladybug and Danny Phantom's writers are bad.
But not liking how they handled their redemption is not the same as hating that they were redeemed. And my question is: why people hate their redemption? What's so bad about changing for the better? What's so bad about realizing that you did wrong and redeeming? What's so bad about apologizing for hurting someone else? I never understood it.
Of course, I know where people come from. Some of them might have been bullied and see Johnny, Steve, Chloe, Bakugo, Flash or Dash as their bulies. But let me tell you something (and this comes from a person who also was bullied in school): fictional bullies are not your bullies. They didn't hurt you. They aren't real.
I'm sorry that you were bullied. You shouldn't have go through that, but fictional bullies don't have anything to do with real bullies.
And that's why people need to differenciate between reality and fiction: because understanding a bully/villain in fiction doesn't mean you're sympathizing with real bullies/villains.
I don't think we talk enough about how in the Danny Phantom universe, Danny is one of all of THREE people who have superpowers, four if you include Valerie and her nanotech suit. Like, just imagine how insane that has to be to see from the outside. And not the outside like other Amity Park residents who see superpowered interdimensional beings every day and have a family of comic book-level mad scientists building plasma weapons, force fields, and hovercraft in their townhouse's basement, but outside as in people who rarely if ever see ghosts.
How would you react if you saw someone clearly get shut out of a train only to run through the closed doors like they weren't even there? If your college roommate was so tired one day they seemed to throw themselves out a seventh-story window to get to class faster? Or if they picked up their dirty laundry using telekinesis? What about if you saw someone at the cafe you work at eat their omelet AND the fork he was using to eat it at the same time? You would legit think you were going insane and would have no way of knowing that what you saw was actually real.
The Phandom has created Wes to be a joke character trying to expose Danny and everyone thinking he's crazy, but if YOU saw some random person with superpowers wouldn't YOU investigate that shit? Wouldn't you want to get confirmation that you weren't going crazy?
Just think about it. Danny, Vlad, and Dani are anomalies of the highest order not just by being half-ghosts, but because they exist in a reality where 99.99% of the world is like our own while they and the Fenton parents are living like comic book characters.
I'm sorry, Sam fans. 😔 She has the horrible combination of being a teenage girl AND being a girl written by Bitch Fartman. She's got potential tho, and since the problem of being written by BH isn't a thing anymore with the comics, maybe she can finally be allowed to be a character.
Details below the cut for those who aren't in the mood to read Sam critique. (I get it, especially if you're a fan of her.)
Fun fact: Sam was created with the idea of: "Danny needs a girl that he falls in love with." That's already an awful place to start from, but it can work... It just...didn't work this time.
Many complaints fans, including myself, have with Sam is that she's pushy, selfish, hypocritical, and kinda misogynistic. And those are good flaws for a teenage character to have!! But...the show rarely if ever portrays these faults as a bad thing (especially her "not like other girls" mentality. There was an entire EPISODE about how Sam is cool because she's not "shallow" and "only thinking about makeup and boys" like "other girls" (Beauty Marked). Also remember how Valerie wasn't in that episode because her existence would've harmed the shaky message they were trying to send to kids- I'll stop here).
She wants Danny to use his powers to further her own goals, no matter how noble her intentions, but chastises him for doing the same (Memory Blank). She prefers to escalate a conflict than try to find a peaceful resolution (Mystery Meat). She will impose her own life choices upon others without any regard for their own say (again: Mystery Meat). When Tucker shows these same flaws, retribution is swift, but Sam is allowed to get away with it.
...But I've seen what Sam is like at her best. When her independence is a strength. She values genuine connection over superficial socializing and status-flaunting (Attack of the Killer Garage Sale). She can show genuine kindness to her friends (Control Freaks), and can use her own dedication to being original and true to herself to encourage others to be comfortable with how they are (13 is my favorite example of this). She's also nurturing and responsible, though she doesn't enjoy letting it slip (Life Lessons and Urban Jungle).
I'll skim over the love life section since these are the same points everyone and the ghost haunting their basement brings up: Sam and Danny are SUCH a forced couple in most episodes and their "will-they-won't-they" bit is enough to make Miraculous start sweating, Sam and Danny are at their most satisfying to watch when they're acting like best friends rather than blushing and stuttering like schoolgirls meeting a boy band member (or worse: when they're actively stalking each other), and Danny seems to click a lot better romantically with Valerie anyways. (As for Sam ships, I LOVE her chemistry when she's alone with Tucker so I'm 100% a Veggie Burger truther, but that's just me. Those two just work so much better when they aren't competing with Danny for the spotlight.)
She and Tucker both have a lot of wasted potential in the writing dept, but if A Glitch in Time's quality writing is any indication, things are looking up and we might actually get to see these two get to grow as characters.
10 Danny Phantom Episodes with Good Concepts that Sorely Disappointed Me: “The Ultimate Enemy” (Part 2)
Alright, here I am, everyone—part two of my critical analysis on “The Ultimate Enemy”, and how its faulty writing let down a good episode idea. For those stumbling across this for the first time, I am in the process of composing an analytical list of ten Danny Phantom episodes whose concepts I liked, but didn’t like the execution of. “The Ultimate Enemy” is the first on this list. Due to the size of my complaints with the episode, I’ve split my arguments into multiple categories across multiple posts; I highly suggest you start from the beginning with part 1 here before moving onto this post. It covered the main introduction, and Category A of my problems with the episode: the plot points that were primarily irrelevant to Dan’s character.
For those of you continuing from the first part, I apologise for this part being overdue. I proposed I would edit and upload part two roughly a day after part one, but those days dragged on due to constant re-editing and problems with my mental health. Parts three and four shall probably take longer than a few days to edit and upload as well, as I discovered arguments in the essay that needed massive overhauls before posting. I can guarantee they’re coming eventually (the whole thing essay is fully written, point-wise); I need to rework and trim the fat off some paragraphs.
Without further ado, this post will take a look at everything I’ve chucked into Category B—my issues with Dan’s characterisation, and how what the episode showed us about who deserved responsibility for Dan contradicted what it told us about how Dan was created.
(Also, because of my saltiness seeping in when I was writing, my captions for the images got a little too snarky for an analytical essay, but I am too tired of re-editing this section to remove them. Hopefully, they’ll serve as humour; if not, I apologise.)
1. The episode incorrectly portrayed Danny as the only one responsible for Dan’s existence, and for the wrong reasons (the wrong events in the timeline). Upon scrutiny of the actual sequence of events that led to Dan’s creation, the direct responsibility for Dan’s birth was either an even split between Danny and Vlad, or slightly more Vlad’s fault (depending upon the interpretation of the event that did actually cause Dan).
(Spoiler alert: No. No, it was not.)
The episode initially chose to establish Danny cheating on the CAT as the cause for Dan’s existence. While this was partially, indirectly true (since it set up the chain of events that led to Dan’s creation), it was not the event that directly caused Dan—yet, the episode treated it as a highly important tipping point, close to the point of no return that led to Dan. Looking at Dan’s backstory from the information Future Vlad gave (as dubious as it was), and working backwards, it was clear that Danny cheating on the test was not the vital “point of no return” by any means. Neither was the explosion at the Nasty Burger, for that matter (which the episode treated as the point of no return after Dan cheated on the CAT in Danny’s place, which required the episode to postpone the narrative stakes of preventing Dan’s creation to the Nasty Burger fight).
(Well...not exactly--it didn’t ruin Dan’s future, but it did ruin Danny’s. There’s a distinction.)
Kick-starting the entire chain of events that set up the eventual moment of Dan’s birth was not synonymous with directly creating Dan, and blaming the causality for Dan’s existence on Danny cheating (the leap of logic that “Danny became evil in the future because he cheated on a test”) or even his loved ones dying at the Nasty Burger was incorrect.
To demonstrate the argument, I’ll shift to an in-universe hypothetical:
Imagine yourself in Clockwork’s shoes: an “evil future version of Danny” has been created, and you have to prevent Dan’s existence by searching through the events that led his creation to find as many openings between key events as possible, in order to change one and subsequently avert all the events (including Dan’s creation) that followed.
To lay it out in full, the chain (separating the events based on intervention windows) was as follows: (1) Danny cheated on the CAT -> (2) Mr. Lancer met with Danny’s parents at the Nasty Burger to discuss it -> (3) they (including Sam, Tucker and Jazz) died in the Nasty Burger explosion -> (4) a grief-stricken Danny went to Vlad in Wisconsin -> (5) Danny requested that Vlad numb his emotional pain -> (6) Vlad split Danny’s ghost half from his human half—only for the ghost half to immediately pull out Vlad’s own and fuse with it into Dan.
Dan’s existence being the result of (what was essentially) a disastrous line of falling dominoes made his origin more sinister, but also highly easy to prevent (at least, without taking into account the mess caused by the story’s poorly thought out use of time travel, which I’ll explain later in section C). After all, the more complex a system (the more elements necessary for a system to successfully operate and achieve a desired result), the more weak spots it has—as meddling with one part can affect all the other parts and lead the entire operation to fail.
Utilising any of the intervention room between the events in “The Ultimate Enemy’s” alternate timeline would prevent Dan’s entire existence. The only event, therefore, that could be labelled the direct cause of Dan’s existence was the event that immediately resulted in Dan’s birth, and the most dire pivotal point—which rendered Dan inevitable—was the event directly before that. The event of Dan’s creation itself (or the cause of Dan) was event number six—the removal of both Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves using the Ghost Gauntlets, and their subsequent fusion with each other. The event which led to this—event number five, which was Danny’s request for Vlad to remove his emotional pain—was the direct catalyst for the procedure, and therefore the important “point of no return” leading to Dan that the episode tried to make Danny cheating on the CAT (and once that was over, the act of losing his loved ones) out to be. (Technically speaking, it was one of possibly two options for the event upon which Dan’s existence truly hinged—number four was also a likely candidate).
Danny cheating on the CAT was not the cause of Dan (even if it set the eventual stage), because there were numerous ways to interfere after the incident of Danny cheating the CATs and still prevent Dan from existing. Clockwork could’ve interfered between events one and two, by changing Mr. Lancer’s parent-teacher meeting location to anywhere safer than the Nasty Burger, so no one died (he could’ve utilised Jazz to sway Mr. Lancer, perhaps—it’s safe to assume Clockwork was aware of her knowledge on Danny’s secret, and she was the one Mr. Lancer approached about Danny cheating). He could’ve interfered between events three and four—had Danny’s loved ones still die at the Nasty Burger but convinced Danny himself not to go to Vlad. He could’ve popped in between events four and five and convinced Danny, right after moving in with Vlad, to not ask for a way to numb his emotional pain. However, Vlad proved to be a dubious source in the flashback of Dan’s origin story, and was typically too much of a wild card, so preventing Danny from moving in with Vlad at all is likely the safest option.
Ergo, either event four or five should’ve been treated as the important point that led to Dan’s existence. On top of that, Vlad’s role in event six proved he was partially responsible for Dan’s creation, but the rest of the episode outside of the flashback neglected this fact in favour of pushing the “Dan was all Danny’s fault” message.
(Begin Vlad’s unreliable narratorhood in 3...2...1...)
However, Future Vlad behaved like an unreliable narrator of the
“Dan’s creation” flashback, so his explanation of events shouldn’t be taken at face value. Assuming the basic outline of events was trustworthy, however, the episode indicated to us that Vlad was roughly equally as responsible for Dan’s creation as Danny. He conceded to Danny’s desire to escape his emotions and responded with the halfa-splitting operation that caused Dan’s fusion.
He stretched the reality of the event to Present Danny when he exaggerated the delivery of some (if not most) of his narration lines in the flashback. It was most blatantly clear in the line where he inflated his importance to Danny after the tragedy, “With nowhere else to go, you came to me—the only person left on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation.” He verbally emphasised the words ‘me’ and ‘possibly’, and the phrases “the only person left on the planet” and “could possibly understand” were hyperbole in their own right. Another was the line, “No more painful human emotions to drag you down,” where he spoke the italicised words with overt disdain for Danny’s emotions. It could be interpreted simply as Vlad’s typical habit of speaking in a dramatised manner, rather than trying to make himself look good to Danny by stretching the truth. However, even if choosing to interpret Vlad’s delivery as the latter, he still skewed his recount through vagueness and omission in the literal content of his narration (when linked to the visuals that ran alongside his lines).
According to Future Vlad, Danny asked for his emotional pain to be taken away; and Vlad removed his ghost half to “[honour] [his] wishes,” while the shot changed from Vlad’s sympathetic face at the grieving Danny to the procedure with the Ghost Gauntlets. Future Vlad never explicitly stated whether it was Danny or him that decided removing Danny’s ghost half was the course of action to take, Vlad only explained that Danny “wanted to make the hurt go away”, and then the shot cut to Vlad removing Danny’s ghost half with the only explanation that he was acting in accordance with that wish.
On top of not explicitly saying whose idea it was, (though, with Vlad’s knowledge and experience with halfa research far exceeding Danny’s, it was almost certainly his) the episode did not explain how his logic leapt from “remove Danny’s emotional pain” to “remove Danny’s ghost half”, which was an insensible method to solve Danny’s problems.
The “no more human emotions” line indicated that his intention behind the procedure was to remove Danny’s human emotions, yet he knew that the procedure entailed removing Danny’s ghost half.
It made no sense, in universe, for Vlad to competently assume that removing Danny’s ghost half from him would work to remove an emotionality rooted in his human half (the episode overall, by the way Dan referred to human emotions and sentimentalities as a “humanity” he gave up, implied that it intended to frame the emotional attachment to Danny’s loved ones as part of his human half). If it could be chalked up to an external fault, like the lack of clear research into the procedure’s outcome, and not Vlad’s failure to realise the logical inconsistency, the episode needed to give evidence of this. Without that information, the only feasible assumptions were either that he wasn’t making any sense in-universe, he was supposed to be sensible but the episode’s writing didn’t make sense, or he had an ulterior motive for convincing Danny into going through with the operation. Either way, it was yet another part of Dan’s creation that Vlad was responsible for, not Danny, and the episode’s message was illogical to contradict this.
Through potentially exaggerating his sympathy for the alternate Danny in his verbal intonation, and blatantly failing to mention the details of why he chose removing Danny’s ghost half to fix a “human” problem, Vlad told his version of Dan’s birth in a way that would minimise his moral fault in the incident to Present Danny. His only logically feasible motivation for this was to hide further moral accountability for Dan’s creation than what we already saw in the face-value version of the flashback.
To summarise this entire sub-category of arguments, the episode was wrong to pin Dan’s existence on Danny cheating on the CAT (and even on losing his family, as the second half of the episode changed gears to), rather than his desire to remove/escape his emotions (even if the deaths resulted in the pain that he wanted to remove in the first place, which I shall explain later in Section D). It was also mistaken to portray Danny as the primary cause of Dan, rather than acknowledge that Vlad was equally (if not more), responsible than him.
Additionally, the fact that Vlad, as an in-universe character, tried to minimise his moral role/accountability in the physical causality of Dan’s creation by skirting around the truth in his retelling was something that the episode itself should’ve acknowledged or called out, through more reliable information from a third-person or other characters’ perspectives such as Danny, Dan’s or Clockwork’s—but it didn’t.
2. On top of physical responsibility for Dan, the episode was wrong to pin Danny with the moral blame and identity of Dan. It treated the two of them as essentially the same person, and portrayed Dan as just a Danny from the future who turned evil because of a combination of Danny’s potential evilness (potential to do “selfish/evil” things) and tragic circumstances. Considering Dan’s backstory, it made no sense for Danny to be the sole owner of either Dan’s immorality or identity/personhood.
Dan’s backstory told us that physically Danny wasn’t solely responsible for his creation, but the rest of the narrative still deeply connected Dan to Danny alone by treating Dan as what would happen if Danny let his pre-existing moral flaws take over him—that Dan’s villainy (or evil nature) came from Danny.
Clockwork referred to Danny Phantom as “grow[ing] up into the most evil ghost on the planet” in the cold open (which, given that Dan was a product of a fusion, was blatantly false.)
“The Ultimate Enemy” attempted to build up the idea that Danny had the potential for evil, and that Dan was him realising his own evil, in the scene where the trio entered Clockwork’s lair. As they watched Dan’s carnage through the observation window, Danny excitedly admired Dan’s Ghostly Wail, completely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, and Sam called him out for not reading the room.
(Though, Sam’s condemnation of Dan’s villainy was extremely underwhelming—calling a world-destroyer and (presumable) mass murderer just “kind of a jerk” in a snarky tone did not do the severity of Dan’s actions any justice.)
When they confronted Clockwork, Danny scoffed at him to find just “one” evil thing he’d done. The shot then immediately focussed onto “examples” of Danny’s “evil” in the time window—first, Jazz finding out Danny was going to cheat the CATs (which, as established in point one, was not as morally significant as the episode tried to portray it—that shall be further elaborated later in Section D). After Tucker sassed at Clockwork, “[I] bet you can’t find two!”, the time window changed to Dan standing atop his destruction in the alternate future, and Clockwork replied, “How about two thousand?”—implying that Clockwork was referring to what Dan did in the future as at least part of the (supposedly numerous) evil things Danny did (or would do). This made no sense unless the episode was implying that Dan’s immorality was Danny’s own. However, this implication was incorrect, leaving Clockwork to state that he had seen countless instances of Danny Fenton/Phantom being evil with no valid examples to show for it whatsoever.
Dan’s atrocities had no weight as examples of Danny’s morality flaws due to the fact that Dan’s evil was not primarily Danny’s to begin with, creating a feedback loop of invalidation; evidence for the argument was invalid because its own validity was dependent on the validity of the very argument it was supposed to be supporting.
(Danny, despite the episode’s reluctance to be fair to him with its accusations of his “potential villainy”, was actually justified in asking this of Clockwork. You know there’s something wrong with your story when your self-centred, short-sighted teenage protagonist is righter than your supposedly all-knowing Master of Time in this situation.)
(Cheating on a test is not evil, Clockwork, try again.)
(Nope, sorry, Dan’s evil is not Danny’s “evil”; your argument is invalid.)
(I typically put the “improvements/fixes” part at the end of each point, but for the sake of its direct relevance to the aforementioned example, I’ll put it here to avoid structural confusion in the essay:
“The Ultimate Enemy”, for some reason decided that its reason/foreshadowing of Danny’s potential for evil had to be self-contained; ironically, almost all (sans a small few) of the episode’s examples of Danny’s moral flaws weren’t “evil” at all, and they would’ve been far better off using actual events of Danny showing potentially villainous traits from previous episodes. Danny may have been justified in asking Clockwork to name one evil thing he’d done, because that accusation had no basis at that point, but Clockwork’s response should’ve been to show previous instances in the series where Danny took advantage of others with his powers.
For example, imagine if in the episode, when Danny demanded, “Name one evil thing I’ve done!”, Clockwork’s time window had switched to moments like the end of “Maternal Instincts”, where he manipulated Vlad into lowering his guard, or his acts of overshadowing Dash for petty revenge in “Splitting Images” or “Reign Storm”? Not only were they more legitimate examples of morally corrupt characteristics—tricking people for his own gain/victory and abusing his powers to the detriment of others—it would’ve given such a significant episode in the series more continuity with the previous ones. In fact, the examples in two of those previous episodes resulted in Vlad pointing out that Danny was becoming more like him, as a way to use Vlad’s relationship as Danny’s nemesis/character foil for the sake of tension. “The Ultimate Enemy” could’ve used those examples in its own narrative to turn Dan into a proper payoff of this long-term build-up of Vlad’s whole “We’re not so different, you and I” thing going on with Danny.
Also, it would add to the thematic irony of Dan being a fusion of Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves, if that aspect of his backstory was not altered in a rewrite of TUE.)
Vlad owned Dan’s evil nature equally as much as (if not more than) Danny because Dan was also half-Vlad. However, the episode neglected to acknowledge this outside of a few seconds on Dan’s birth in the flashback. While explaining the scene of the two ghost halves fusing into Dan, Future Vlad’s most honest lines of narration (because they straightforwardly confessed he was morally accountable for Dan to Danny, and thus had no motivation to be a lie) explained that, “My [ghost half’s] evil side overwhelmed you”. This implied that the reason Dan turned out evil in the first place was that Vlad’s evil took over Danny’s mind during the fusion.
Given that we trust Vlad’s line, Vlad (or Plasmius, as Vlad’s ghost half) deserved most of the accountability for Dan’s lust for destruction and lack of a moral compass, not Danny. So, calling Dan “Danny’s evil future self” was only accurate in the literal sense of “this is what remained of Danny’s mind/existence in the future—his ghost half—even though it’s only a part of a larger fusion with another ghost, and this fusion is evil”. Dan was not a warning that “Danny was going to turn evil”, because Danny was not the primary source of Dan’s villainy.
In regards to overall personal identity, rather than just morality, Dan was also not “Danny’s evil future self” on account of the fact that he was not “Danny’s future self”, period. He shouldn’t have been an “older Danny” (or essentially the same person as Danny but older and evil), according to his backstory’s statement that he was half-Phantom, half-Plasmius. Yet, for some asinine reason, Dan only identified himself personally as “Danny” for the duration of the episode (without mention of Vlad).
After travelling to the past under Danny’s guise, Dan referred to Danny’s bedroom and face in the mirror as his own.
(Whoops--another image where I goofed the subtitles, this time in formatting...and MS Paint’s lack of layers makes redoing it an unnecessary pain. Sorry about that.)
When he met Sam and Tucker in the future, he explained his cold response to seeing them again as a result of “[surrendering his] human half a long time ago”. His singular human half. Not plural…because even Dan himself wanted to pretend that he wasn’t half Vlad, for some reason.
Perhaps it could be chalked up to people behaving differently in different social contexts; in that case, it was understandable that—even if he was part-Vlad—his Danny-side and memories influenced him the most in front of Danny’s friends…but that alone didn’t justify him stating that he only had one human half as a fact. The only other option that made in-universe sense was that it was a deceit/falsehood on Dan’s part, and therefore knowingly untrue. Perhaps Dan didn’t want to admit that he had more than one human half to Sam and Tucker—because he was not obliged to divulge that information to them—or that he preferred to mentally distance himself from Vlad’s human half because the latter was still alive, and separate from Dan. However, it was still untrue to link Dan and Danny together as people, but not Vlad, with the idea of only owning Danny’s human half.
The assumption that Dan was a future, evil Danny in person (and not also part-Vlad in person, or a new person from either of them entirely) implied that the fusion resulted in Plasmius’s mind giving his evil to Danny’s and then disappearing into the aether. It implied that a fusion of two people resulted in a powered-up being that was solely one of them psychologically, in order to purport that Danny (or, at least Phantom as his ghost half) was still Danny in sense of self for the last ten years in the alternate future. This contradicted the more logically valid implication that Plasmius’s mind or identity still existed as a component inside Dan, and Dan was at least both Danny and Vlad mentally.
Vlad explained in the flashback, “[Vlad’s] evil ghost half mixed with [Danny’s].” The general interpretation of “mixing” implied that the two ghost halves merged together into a new being and their traits and minds blended together. His identity should, theoretically, be either a half-and-half joining of the two halfas, or a whole new person with Vlad and Danny’s ghost halves as mere fusion ingredients. Ten years of existence and experience after the initial fusion would also, theoretically, give Dan enough time to develop this new mixed mind into his own individual sense of self beyond who/what either of Danny or Vlad were as people (prior to the ghost half fusion). In that case, Dan was not Danny’s “future self” in identity, and had little reason to identify Danny’s face, room and family as “his old [life]” (or, at least his only one).
The next most obvious theory (about Dan’s psychological makeup as a fusion) is that one half was more dominant than the other during the fusion, leading to Dan to become primarily just one of them in identity. That dominant one had to have been Danny, based on how Dan identified himself in the episode, but that wouldn’t make sense. Phantom taking full control of the fusion and assimilating Plasmius into himself required that a grief-stricken fourteen year old was somehow capable of winning against a more experienced forty-something in a battle of minds, thoroughly enough to the point of absorbing the latter. Considering that Phantom was mentally weak enough to be the one “overwhelmed” by Plasmius’s evil (a single facet of Plasmius’s larger mind) almost immediately, that hypothesis seems unlikely. The notion of Phantom overwhelming Plasmius in the fusion to gain dominance, and Plasmius being the one to overwhelm him to turn him evil, contradict each other. Ergo, Dan being a mix of both Phantom and Plasmius was the most likely (and sensible) outcome of the fusion.
In that case, the episode was thoughtless and inaccurate to treat Dan as “Danny’s future self who became a villain”. Dan was not inherently linked to Danny in either the majority of his morality or his identity, due to the part Vlad played in Dan’s creation, and his mental component in Dan’s fusion.
2.5.A notable counterpoint, for the sake of not one-sidedly flipping all of the fault for Dan onto Vlad:
To be fair—as the idea of solely blaming Vlad would also be inaccurate to what Dan’s origin story showed—I should acknowledge a piece of evidence explicitly indicating that Danny still contributed some of his own darkness to Dan’s villainy, albeit less than Vlad. Once separated from his human half, Phantom ripped out and fused with Vlad’s ghost half of his own volition, all with a malicious grin on his face.
However, there was no clear motivation or reason for the separated Phantom to fuse with Plasmius (the physical cause of Dan that Danny/Phantom could be blamed for) —in fact, it made no sense for there to be any premeditated intention for Phantom to fuse with him, since he couldn’t have known that fusion with another halfa’s isolated ghost half was even possible at that point; it was an untried, never-seen-before method, hardly likely to mentally occur to Danny in the first place. Phantom resorted to attacking Vlad, stealing the Ghost Gauntlets and pulling out Plasmius for some unknown reason, but ghost-half fusion could not have sensibly been it. The Gauntlet attack simply demonstrated that Phantom took ill-willed pleasure from the act of hurting or depowering Vlad. After removing Vlad’s ghost half, fusing with it was the second step. Danny could be held responsible for his ghost half explicitly harbouring malice/potential evil in the attack (and his ghost half’s response to being removed was part of Danny’s responsibility in Dan’s creation), but that wouldn’t explain the crucial next step of the fusion itself.
This is where my ideas for potential improvements for the story of “The Ultimate Enemy” come in, as the exact extent of Danny’s contribution to Dan (in physical responsibility and mentality) wasn’t entirely clear—outside of this explicit evidence of Phantom’s facial expression. This uncertainty leaves the room for a do-over of the narrative to ask a lot of questions about how physically and morally accountable for Dan’s birth and evilness Danny actually was.
We could assume implicit evidence that Danny had some sort of inner darkness which contributed to Dan, even if only the minority, from the possibility that his grief at the loss of his loved ones (as well at helplessness at not being able to do anything to save them, and low evaluation of his own worth as a person) led to buried malice, anger and a desire for power to compensate.
Based on how splitting halfas apart worked in “Identity Crisis”, it made sense that Phantom had a sense of hostility and motivation to hurt Vlad once separated from Danny in “The Ultimate Enemy”. When Danny was split in half the first time, the halves took on the mental characteristics of the whole Danny’s momentary intents and desires. When Danny wanted his ghost half to do all the hero work so his human half could have the time to have fun, his ghost half took on an exaggerated hero personality and his human half an irresponsible teenager personality. Assuming this logic consistently determines the split halves’ personalities each time, and the fact that Danny’s desires in the alternate future revolved around escaping his emotional pain, it was logical that one of the split halves inherited a condensed majority of Danny’s pain (in this case, the ghost half), while the other half (the human one) was innocently blind to most of Danny’s grief and self-hatred—and that the suffering half acted out aggressively or malevolently as a result.
However, since we could logically assume that fusing with Plasmius was not the initial reason Phantom removed him from Vlad (and we assume the fusion was a spur-of-the-moment decision that occurred to him afterwards), why did he remove Plasmius in the first place? Was he intending to spite Vlad after all the grief he caused Danny in their rivalry? Was it a sense of inferiority telling him to tear Vlad down from his superior position? Was it to avoid letting Vlad stay a possible physical threat to Danny? There is such a large gap here, one could brainstorm countless possible motivations.
Furthermore, if that only covered his motivation to remove Plasmius, then what made him decide to fuse with him? Was he attempting to possess Plasmius as one ghost half trying to possess another for some reason? Was it internal panic? Was it a hunger for power pushing him to seize the opportunity that opened up? Why didn’t/couldn’t Plasmius fight Phantom off in the fusion scene?
These questions could be explored if the story of “The Ultimate Enemy” was redone. Present Danny, the Danny whose point of view we saw the episode from (rather than the Alternate Danny) hadn’t experienced the Dan future himself, so he didn’t know what was going through his alternate self’s head (human or ghost) during Dan’s creation. How much of it was his fault? How much of it wasn’t? How did he fill in the holes in the story Future Vlad told to him based on his own insecurities, and what did he blame himself for?
For that matter, why not get present Vlad wrapped up in it too? Have him take responsibility for what is HIS. If not, the episode should’ve at least acknowledged that Dan was not entirely “Danny’s evil”, and made it clear that he was cleaning up both his and Vlad’s collective mess by himself. If the message of the evil future self being Danny corrupted to the side of evil was so necessary for the episode, then simply remove the fusion plot entirely from Dan’s origin and have Danny become a villain by his own moral corruption. It weakened the impact of the future-self villain being a warning of “what the hero should avoid becoming” by having the main character only become evil by fusing with an already malevolent character.
3. The Observants’ conclusion that they had to kill Danny to save the world from Dan didn’t make sense, due to Vlad being primarily responsible for Dan’s evilness—but the episode, instead of acknowledging this inanity, actually reinforced the opposite.
Having now established that Vlad was half (if not more) at fault for Dan’s evil than Danny, the plot to kill Danny in the episode lost any of the ground it had to stand on.
(Nope...no, he didn’t have to.)
It was illogical for the Observants to assume killing Danny was the best way to stop Dan from existing when killing Vlad would equally achieve this (not to mention that either of these options were overkill, in the presence of the intervention methods mentioned in Section A). Without Vlad, Dan could not exist either. Eliminating Vlad would stop his continuous crimes against both worlds, and let Danny live to continue doing the good he’d done. After the events of “Reign Storm”, a large part of the Ghost Zone knew that Danny had saving Amity Park, and the entire Ghost Zone, under his belt—if an entire wasteland civilisation like the Far Frozen came to worship Danny for his victory against Pariah Dark (as shown in season three’s “Infinite Realms”).
(For that matter, where were the Observants hounding Clockwork to get on Vlad’s troublesome ass when he tried to steal the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage in “Reign Storm”, if Pariah Dark was so dangerous?)
If they were being somewhat rational, it was possible that they chose Danny as Vlad’s less powerful counterpart, and an easier target—even though they delegated the task off to Clockwork because intervention wasn’t their job, and they clearly acknowledged Clockwork’s power and competence to some degree. The Observants openly referred to Clockwork as the master of time while shirking their responsibility for fixing the future onto him, so whether or not killing Vlad would be too difficult for themselves would be irrelevant, since they made it Clockwork’s problem and became backseat commentators. Though, Clockwork would’ve probably foreseen Vlad’s importance in Danny’s emotional growth as his nemesis and also kept him alive anyway—but from a purely logical standpoint, it made little sense to execute Danny over Vlad, if they ever needed to kill anyone at all.
To be honest, the episode could’ve used the invalidity of the Observants’ plan to paint their incompetence more, expanding on Clockwork’s disdain for them and how he told the audience they “just observe”. However, to do that, the episode itself would’ve had to actually portray the Observants’ plan (not just the Observants themselves, but their actual plan to kill Danny itself) as nonsensical. The episode never did, however, as it had Clockwork—the character portrayed as bolder and wiser than the Observants—reinforce their proposition as worth trying and go along with their request for Danny’s demise. He sent two ghosts to attack Danny (although the fight with Boxed Lunch was more of a moral test about giving Danny the CAT answers, rather than an attempt on his life, Danny “failed” that moral test before Clockwork sent Skulktech after him—so, the latter at least counted as a potential hit on Danny) to the extent of attempting to kill Danny himself on the last attempt. That Clockwork went along with the Observants’ plan showed that the episode saw the plan as reasonable, despite its illogicality.
(While there is a possible argument for Clockwork’s knowledge of how the episode would end—insinuating that he knew Danny would never actually end up dying—justifying why he went along with the plan in the first place, the next section of the essay shall tackle that. Since Clockwork is the Master of Time, and the issues with his character were heavily intertwined with the effects the time travel lore had on the plot, that shall be addressed in Category C, the section covering the mess created by the time-travel in the episode.)
...actually, that just gave me an idea. You know what would be interesting, if a little too much to content to stuff into the narrative? Having an Observant character distinguished as their own individual, who doubts the other Observants’ unreasonable decisions and becomes a rogue element to the rest of the council, directly intervening in the timeline themselves. The rogue Observant could abandon the council of Observants to side with Clockwork, and characterise Clockwork by having him change his globalised impression of the Observants to understand this new, non-conformist one as an ally. Or, perhaps the Observant plays a more compassionate foil to Clockwork, choosing to himself save Danny’s life from the ghost attacks Clockwork sent after him?)
Ive never seen a post specifically talking about Danny's Sam wall in fanning the flames, so I figured I'd try
first we have this adorable picture. it looks like sam is in the middle of talking, and it's most likely danny who had taken this picture, which is so cute to think about. he was probably bored of hearing her blabbing and thought having a secret photoshoot would be more interesting. tucker probably jumped in at last minute, look at his little smile!!!! danny most likely had this lying around, but overall an adorable picture.
next is this iconic photo. im guessing this was in middle school, but i would've loved to see her rock this look on the show. she looks pretty bored/unamused in this photo. maybe her parents took it of her. maybe danny or tucker??? idk. danny probably had this lying around as well.
i have so many thoughts on this one ??? im guessing it's sam's belt, but where the hell did danny get this?! it would be pretty creepy if he casually had HER BELT lying around in his room. unless these kids have some explaining to do, i can't think any other reason how he could have this. im just gonna say the animators were sticking random stuff up there. sam does have some great taste in belts tho.
another adorable picture!! there's not much to say about this one, besides the fact that this basically confirms that danny is never picture ready. i'll take it though!!
i have a few thoughts on this one. this was most likely taken at re dance in parental bonding. but sam's dress sleeve looks different then the one she originally had. or maybe im just overthinking it and it was just an error. also, it looks like a part of the picture was ripped off. maybe it was a picture of her with someone else (most likely tucker) and danny had ripped it off bc he just wanted a picture of her. still looks perfect though.
im guessing this is a reminder for danny to keep thinking about sam. which is pretty pointless since he's under an obsessive love spell? but hey, whatever helps the kid out.
now this??? i have no idea. how the hell did danny get her hair? HER GUM?! especially in such a short period of time! that's another level of creepy! i guess it's just another case of animators putting up random stuff. i bet danny was super confused seeing this when he got back home after the episode.
Have you ever noticed how Double Cross My Heart, aside from the obvious similarities with Flirting with Disaster, also parallels Parental Bonding somewhat?
The first connection is fairly easy to make. After all, the episode was specifically designed to mirror Flirting with Disaster and Danny's budding relationship with Valerie while Sam stewed in jealousy from the sidelines.
An episode like that is a staple of romance subplots, and arguably a needed one. After all, the Green-Eyed Epiphany, that trope where someone realises their feelings for somebody else because of jealousy, is a classic for a reason, mainly because it works so well.
Double Cross My Heart, despite its flaws, is a classic role reversal where Sam finally got to experience what it was like to have a mutual crush on someone outside of her best friend, and the complications that come with it, while Danny got a taste of what it's like to fear losing your best friend, someone you subconsciously assumed would always be there for you, to somebody else. The fear of watching them close that door and move on from you while all you can do about it is seethe in jealousy because you don't dare admit your feelings out of fear of that ruining everything still.
Again, the similarities with Flirting with Disaster are crystal clear: the new love interest, the jealousy, the suspicious thing going on prompting one of them to spy on the other, the new ship sinking before it could even sail...
However, I think we're sleeping on the fact that it still shares a few parallels with Parental Bonding and Danny's other love interest: Paulina.
Specifically, I'm referring to this exchange from Danny and Sam's argument after he revealed he'd been spying on her and "Gregor".
Danny: Not you! I was spying on Gregor! He's so obviously working with the guys in white!
Sam: Oh, so that's it! The only way a boy could like me is if it was a part of a plot to get to you? Huh? Ego much?
Sam wasn't just mad because Danny went behind her back to spy on her date, she was especially hurt because Danny accidentally implied nobody could ever like her for her and would have to have some sort of ulterior motive to show interest instead.
Now, why does that sound so familiar?
Ah, right. Because that's precisely what happened to Danny with Paulina in Parental Bonding. The irony being that he never even found out about it, since it's implied Sam kept it a secret to spare his feelings.
Sam: Hey, Paulina. Nice dress.
Paulina: (Turns to her.) Yes, and it goes so nicely with your amulet, don't you think?
Sam: My amulet? That's not my-- (Realization of Danny's plan hits her.) Right! Listen...my grandma gave me that amulet, and--
Paulina: Forget it, sweetie. I'm not giving up this trinket or your little boyfriend Danny.
Sam: My boyfriend? Ha ha! And they say pretty girls can't be funny. Danny is not my boyfriend.
Paulina: He's not?
Sam: He's my best friend. Maybe that's why I was so hard on you. I didn't mean to call you shallow.
Paulina: What a bummer! I only agreed to go out with him because I thought I was stealing him from you. (Putting amulet around Sam's neck.) Here, take your crummy amulet. (Walking away.) I'm going back inside to dump your dorky friend.
For all of the focus Danny (understandably) receives by virtue of being the protagonist and, hence, most people's target, the reason he ever got a "chance" with Paulina before she fell for the Ghost Boy was precisely because she was using him to get back at Sam for calling her shallow. Nothing more, nothing less.
In other words, he himself was a victim of what he was accusing Gregor of, and he doesn't even realise it!
And while Gregor was significantly nicer to Danny and Tucker (before he blew up at the latter and with it his cover) than Paulina or even Valerie ever were (Valerie has her moments, but since her arc ended up being tied most closely to Danny's, her interactions with Sam and Tucker were far and in between and not always friendly on either side), Danny ended up being right about him. Partly.
Because he indeed was a fake, only he was "just" pretending to have more things in common with Sam than he really did (and the whole false identity thing, which is kind of inexcusable, let's be honest), instead of working for the Guys in White to get to him. And that was that. Gregor was really Elliot and Sam was done with him the moment he was done with Tucker. Because her friends come first.
I suppose this all comes to show that Gregor/Elliot wasn't just a parallel to Valerie for the sake of a mirror episode and a new love triangle. He ended up being a perfect amalgamation of both of Danny's love interests outside of Sam. He genuinely liked Sam (like Valerie with Danny), but he was still being dishonest about it (like Paulina).
Something that’s always caught my eye and, more importantly, impressed me about Danny Phantom is how consistent they are with Sam being an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian.
I know, I know. It was used as a major plot point in the very first episode, so of course they had to stay true to that aspect of her character, right?
But I mean they really made an effort to always portray Sam as ultra-recyclo-vegetarian, no matter how subtle that representation was. Sam was always eating nothing but vegetables and tofu. If my memory doesn’t fail me, they never messed up on that, not even once.
And it could’ve been so, so easy to miss that when drawing the scenes or coming up with new plots. Even The PowerPuff Girls, another incredible show, made that mistake: in one episode, Bubbles claimed to be a vegetarian, but in another she was eating a hamburger.
Danny Phantom never had that problem.
Even if Sam’s preferred diet wasn’t a plot point like it was in Mystery Meat (and it never really was after that episode, unless you somehow count Urban Jungle), it was a consistent side of her the animators never failed to portray.
These two screenshots are from Parental Bonding, the very second episode lof the show, and despite Sam’s being an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian having nothing to do with the plot, there she is; eating a salad.
Then there’s Attack of the Killer Garage Sale. When she’s asking for a pizza for her and Tucker, she explicitely says “half pepperoni, half veggie.” And, again, it would’ve been so easy to forget those two extra words and just go “Yup, one large pepperoni pizza.” But that never happened!
And it doesn’t stop there.
Oh, no.
This aspect of Sam’s character extends to everything she eats!
Here they are. Team Phantom in the flesh! But can you see what’s so peculiar about their lunches?
Yup, you guessed it! Not only is Sam eating her usual greens, but she’s drinking water! And you might be thinking, “But Geeks, what’s the big deal with water? Everyone drinks it!”
And you’re absolutely right. Everyone drinks water. Except, in this particular scene, Sam is the only one drinking water! Danny and Tucker both have milk instead. And why’s Sam the odd one out? Well, duh! ‘Cause milk is an animal product and Sam just doesn’t eat or drink anything with a face.
And you know what else the animators do right in keeping Sam consistent?
Ice cream.
No, I’m serious. Again, it’d be so easy to just slip up and have Sam eating ice cream with the boys. I honestly wouldn’t even fault the animators for making such a mistake. After all, ice cream (and more so in the early 2000′s) is very clearly a dairy product.
But what do they do?
Tofu ice cream.
They deliberately gave Sam some tofu ice cream in My Brother’s Keeper.
*Chef kiss*
These are all instances of Sam’s character being consistent and respected, even when the plot doesn’t immediately gain anything from it. The animators and the writing team were just very devoted to keeping this side of Sam’s character intact. Even when it was irrelevant for the plot.
In fact, I’d say Sam being ultra-recyclo-vegetarian became pretty much irrelevant to the story after Mystery Meat. Let that sink in for a minute, okay?
Out of 52-53 episodes (I don’t remember the exact amount and I’m too lazy to look it up rn, sorry), Sam’s ultra-recyclo-vegetarianism was only important in one (1), and that was the very first episode of the show.
Now that I think about it, the only time I can recall right now that Sam not eating meat had any sort of importance for the plot was back in Double Cross My Heart. And that was only because Gregor/Elliot was using that to come up with a persona that would appeal to Sam after seeing she was eating a Tofu-Soy Melt sandwich.
And yet, they kept working and making efforts to ensure the audience never forgot that about her. Why? Because being unique and progressive (with varying degrees of success seeing as the main writers were all middle-aged white dudes) is Sam’s character.
Danny Phantom may have its flaws (especially when writing its female characters), but nobody can take away from it that, at the very least, they were remarkably consistent.
