Masters of All Time Breakdown
I wrote all this in my notes, I’m gonna do two parts: this, then a rewrite which is gonna take a bit.
So I decided to watch Masters of All Time. My thoughts will be below. First, I noted everything I liked, and everything I didn’t. I did this as I watched the episode to try to get details as accurately as possible. So now here are the notes I took during the episode, and my thoughts afterwards.
Also before I get started, I want to make this clear: no hate if you like this episode. I’m glad you’re able to enjoy something that was legitimately painful for me. It has a really neat concept, and that’s part of where my disappointment comes from. This isn’t a personal attack on people who enjoy the episode, just me explaining why I hate it. Let’s get into it!
Everything of note that either makes no sense, or points out a writing flaw in other points of the series
Why would clockwork even let Danny do this? Yes, he’s hesitant but Clockwork has been shown to only interfere if absolutely necessary, and seems to think most things happen for a reason. This is one of the things you could excuse though because erasing Vlad’s powers I guess seems like a good idea? But Clockwork should know that something big will happen in result, that fuck Danny himself could not be a ghost or stop existing at all, like yeah Sam and Tucker won’t be infected but they may not even know him at all? At least Clockwork is like yeah you’re gonna learn thing the hard way but eh. Idk you could excuse this one but still doesn’t make sense to me.
How the fuck didn’t Danny realize how big of a difference one small change was gonna make. Like, his parents being ghost hunters and like, still together? Did he not realize that Vlad not having ecno acne was going to change a lot? The incident separated him from Jack and Maddie so him actually still being in their life could change a lot???? Like idk I get Danny’s just a teen but did he learn nothing from The Ultimate Enemy
Twenty years later Jack still has the ecno acne; we don’t have an exact say on why Vlad’s went into remission but it likely had to do with ghost powers and years of hospitalization, was Jack not hospitalized? Wouldn’t he be dead from it?
Okay this one is a big gripe for me. WHY DOES JACK PLASMIUS LOOK LIKE VLAD PLASMIUS? Was that specific strain of ecno acne the vampire inspired strain or something because Vlad’s design is very intentional with his specific character, its personal to him. Jack would most definitely not have made himself look like that, especially with how he tried to do good at first. Like????
Jack hating ghosts makes sense in this world, honestly I wish Vlad shared more of a hatred for ghosts in our current timeline cause that would make a ton of sense “if it wasn’t for ghosts I wouldve never lost the love of my life” where’s that anger with Vlad?
VLAD BEING A FARMER DOESN’T FUCKING MAKE SENSE. Okay so like, you take from Bitter Reunions how he says “I didn’t have any old moves, all those years in the hospital robbed me of that” after being tackled holding a football implies he may have wanted to play football. That’s a stretch? Well his entire house is decked head to toe in packers memorabilia, and in the college photo we see HE’S WEARING PACKERS COLORS!!!! He couldn’t do an active career like football after being hospitalized, but if that never happened, why fucking. FARMING? DAIRY FARMING? HUUHHHH. WHERE DOES THIS COME FROM?
“I didn’t destroy the past, I destroyed the present!” YOU FUCKING THINK? WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN that like nothing else would change except Vlad not having ecno acne? Okay this one’s just a nitpick and I’m aware of that lol, Danny’s just a teen I know he wasn’t thinking about the consequences
WHHYYYYY does Vlad still live in the same castle? I know he’s the new dairy king whatever he owns that castle in the present cause he’s rich as sin, how did he become the dairy king? Maybe its explained? I’m writing this as I watch
Why does Vlad have grey hair? It became grey because of the incident. Speaking of, why does Jack have black hair? Make it make sense
Yeah this is a complaint because you’ll see. Vlad is clearly in love with Maddie, truly. He seems to genuinely care for her. I know later they just make him controlling for no reason which I’ll get into but like, it’s nice to see him actually care for her and her care for him too.
Why is Vlad super anti ghost? One of my “compliments” is how I think Jack hating ghosts makes sense. And tbh in the true current, Vlad having a hatred for ghosts for the same reason would make sense, he was disfigured, hospitalized, and he never got to confess to the girl he loved the most. In this world, Vlad has no good reason to hate ghosts unless he for some reason knows Jack is a ghost? We see that before any changed to the timeline are made, Vlad was a bit annoyed with how Jack and Maddie got along, maybe it has something to do with that? I dunno. I feel like this choice was made just so they gave Vlad a reason to be controlling. But Vlad is only the way he is because of the incident bitter and resentful of a life he never got to have, so why the fuck is he just controlling and mean? Why when he has everything he wants, is he still a dick? Because he’s just like that no matter what because the writers didn’t want to add anything thought provoking about how Maddie and Vlad could’ve actually been good for each other. No, Vlad’s evil no matter what blah blah blah
AND ANOTHER THING. Maddie is shown to have other personality traits then liking ghost hunting, like, Jack is the one super obsessed. She’s the one that gets annoyed that Jack makes it his everything. Who knows, if she had a life without Jack, would she have continued her thing for ghosts? Thought provoking questions this episode won’t answer. This was again just a choice made so Vlad could be controlling.
Vlad immediately forgives Maddie because he doesn’t wanna doubt her oh gee maybe its cause he actually loves her. Nahhh we can’t have that.
How did Maddie build an entire underground ghost Lab that Vlad didn’t notice. Also how does she still have the suit
Whyyyyy would Vlad slander Jack to Maddie? Is the personality they wanna give that Vlad was always jealous of Jack and Maddie’s relationship? I mean, I guess so? I guess this one could make sense but it makes me wish we knew more about their trio’s relationship in college besides what we see and how Jack describes it; Vlad did always seem like a third wheel, I guess this one could happen but as I said, just makes me wish we had more context as a whole, could make this action make more sense
Why is Vlad in his suit all of a sudden. Did they forget what episode they were doing. Did they just straight up forget. Also it’s the middle of the night why isn’t he in pajamas or something. Huh.
I just hate the narrative Danny Phantom has as a whole with how some characters are just meant to be together so other pairings have to not work or be bad in some way. How about thought provoking stuff about how the relationships that seem destined to be actually good have some solid rivalry? No? All other parings don’t work just because even if it means mischaracterizing? Kay.
I had a thought here about Vlad’s anger at Danny not making sense but I don’t remember what it was. Maybe relates again to the ghost hating thing making no sense. Idk my brain cells are dying.
“None of this should be happening” “I like it this way” what this way? Being with Maddie? I mean yeah? I mean did the writers forget that Vlad doesn’t have the knowledge of his baseline current self here?
Because I hate it so much just another point to say I hate Vlad’s behavior here. He’s just evil and manipulative no matter what? Why? Just because? Because that’s Vlad Masters? Are we forgetting that his usual behavior is very much a product of his rage and bitterness about a life that was robbed of him? Or am I just giving the “evil villain” too much credit. This is pissing me off
Things I liked about the episode:
I think the bit at the beginning with Danny’s parents embarrassing him was silly, entertaining
I like Vlad’s attitude of like “oh you’re giving me chills” just his sassiness lmao
I like getting to see more insight into the day of the incident, Vlad trying to confess but being stopped by Maddie, that was neat
Seeing exactly what caused the incident was neat, too, that it truly was Jack’s fault
It’s kinda funny that we can tell Jack didn’t name Danny cause he thinks the name is dumb
I do like we get to see Jack chose the name Jasmine, as he mentions having a cat named Jasmine
I liked seeing Vlad say like oh Danny I knew you could do it, neat to see him acknowledge that Danny can be pretty smart, even if he kinda forced his hand here
I’m too tired to go into detail, so I’ll do it later but Jesus Christ this episode sucked. It had good things about it but so much shit just didn’t make sense and was just a blatant mischaracterization of Vlad
Alright I’m finally back to this after a couple of weeks, the episode seriously drains me that much, wish I was kidding. As stated in a previous post this episode makes me so angry that it has the power to make me dissociate and feel physically ill. Some of my comments are nitpicks, and I’m aware of that. I hate the episode so I’m just angry about even little things, I know that’s weird, lol. But, I thought I’d share these nitpicks anyway.
The notion that Vlad would be evil no matter what just doesn’t make a single lick of sense considering how Bitter Reunions builds him up to show that his anger and well, bitterness stems from being robbed of the life he never got, and his desperation to have that life now. Maybe I’m just biased but Jesus. Some people will try to claim that Vlad would still be evil therefore deserves no sympathy on like, posts and videos about him and if someone starts their comment with “but in masters of all time”, the rest of the comment is immediately static to me.
I do want to make it clear the things Vlad does due to his anger is not acceptable (I’ve even got an analysis of his character in the works that addresses this further), I just see so much potential for him to be better, and Masters of All Time could’ve been that episode. To show that he’s truly a victim of circumstance that is overwhelmed by his anger and jealousy, that these events truly shaped him into the not so great person we see in the show, but that he didn’t /have/ to be evil, that if given the life he wanted, the one he felt he deserved, that he could’ve been better.
I also think this episode missed the mark to be more creative design wise. Jack could’ve had his own ghost form! That would’ve been so cool! I also would’ve LOVED to see more of the college trio’s dynamic. Were Vlad and Jack truly best friends, or was that just Jack’s rose tinted glasses? I know it’s a kids show from 20 years ago but damn they could’ve done more here. I think this episode could’ve benefited from being another 40 minute special, although I know that’s unrealistic. Just a sorta, how I’d do things thing.
That’s basically it from me in terms of the episode. But, only for now. I plan to rewrite the episode, soon! Including some of my own HCs about the college trio, and who Vlad could’ve been if the incident didn’t happen, and how Jack and Maddie could’ve been! How this could’ve been a more thought provoking episode as a whole. I may even do some drawings :3 I’m excited to share my thoughts on what we could’ve had. But, keep in mind they will simply be my ideas, and not a definitive “the writers should’ve done this instead”, just my hcs and such. This is my first sorta DP writing post, but hopefully not my last. I enjoy sharing my thoughts like this, and I know some of my YTTD ones have reached a good bit of people, so I’m curious as to how this’ll be received.
Again, yeah, I’m biased, I hate this episode, I nitpicked. This is not at all a defense of every single bad thing Vlad has done, just my opinions on why the choices made here don’t make sense.
