History Headscratchers / DannyPhantom

[[folder:Jazz's Ghost Envy]]

[[folder: Lack of closure for Danielle]]

[[folder:Why did Lancer immediately suspect Danny in ''The Ultimate Enemy''?]]

* I ''have'' to be missing something here. Danny's ghost self is shy and a bit freaked out when unexpectedly separated from his human part in "What You Want." Makes sense. In "Identity Crisis," his human half is the ''exact opposite'' of his ghost one, which now has a dedicated and LargeHam -y superhero personality. CharacterDevelopment, alrighty then. In "The Ultimate Enemy", when (once again) separated from his human half, Danny's ghost half suddenly goes rogue and rips the ghost persona out of Vlad in a fit of rage. Oka-wait, what? I'm confused. Angst, maybe? Even if that were so, Vlad specifically said that ghosts don't ''have'' emotions. So...what happened?

** Ask half-ghost Vlad -- he made it (either he or his sometimes-partner Skulker). The GiW's weapons and Fentons' weapons also usually have the ghost glow and even run on "ecto-energy" according to "Reality Trip."

* Possibility 3: They have the money, but different priorities. The Fentons may prefer to use the money left after paying the factures, filling the freezer and giving small allowances to their kids into building all of their awesome weaponry, instead of "building status" as, for example, the Mansons. Note that ''both'' parents, while loving their children, are often too absorbed by their ghost investigation to care about ordinary matters.
** "Prisoner of Love":

[[folder:''WesternAnimation/The Ultimate Enemy'''s bad future could have easily been averted, and it's all Clockwork's fault for causing it.]]

* It's in the superhero rulebook. When in human form, all superheros must take on the appearance of a skinny white nerd. Only when they don their jumpsuits and colored undies can they become tan and sexy.

*** ...Like the previous troper said, I think most of the answers are in Memory Blank, where he turns back into his human self ''just before'' his dad walks into the lab. Maybe his disbelief of being dead is what caused him to turn back to normal, or something. Even without the concept of Memory Blank, when his parents walked in, they would've noticed how shaken up he and his friends were, and that the Portal was suddenly ''working.'' They had to tell Jack and Maddie about the accident, as there was no other explanation. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that they had to mention the whole "Oh my god, what the hell happened to Danny" thing. They had no idea what had just happened, much less how to put it into words. I can easily see the conversation as something like "Oh, we were curious about the portal, Danny went inside and started screwing around, it exploded, sorry", especially coming from a few 14 year olds. Oops, didn't mean for this entry to get so long. But yeah.

[[folder:How come they never made this wish: "Desiree, I wish you weren't evil" ?]]

** If I remember correctly, Tucker was the head of operations to make sure the whole plan (turning the Earth intangible) went smoothly. Jazz was busy distracting her parents, and therefore wasn't much help in the way of saving the world. Danny did the most work, of course, but Tucker was back on Earth telling him exactly what to do and when to do it. Danny was honored for his duties by putting up massive statues of him everywhere (it was ''his'' idea), and Tucker was rewarded with mayorship.

** I have my own theory that makes a it more sense, he's Danny's best friend. Nothing more. Consider how Tucker is easily corrupted by power, I have to agree he's not the ideal choice.

* I don't Valerie picked up on the fact that Danny Phantom was trying to save her, cause it happened rather fast, and wasn't sure if he knew or realized she wasn't in the suit.

This is a minor thing, but why can Danny use his powers when not in Ghost mode? He always could, so it isn't anything out of left field, but it does make me wonder why he even needs to transform.

* Danny has the exact same idea... right before he gets thrown into a situation where he slowly loses his power bit by bit and all he has to rely on are his human abilities, which he realizes he'd better hone fast.

* Sure it is--she just has a short half-up, half-down ponytail that looks a little weird due to the simple art style (look at the title character from WesternAnimation/Anastasia for another example from animation). The top layer of hair gets pulled back into a ponytail, while the bottom layer is left alone to frame the neck.

[[folder: Why doesn't Danny ever just tell his parents the truth?]]

[[folder: Dark Danny and the Cheesehead]]

[[folder: Why don't the Fentons invite everyone to obtain powers the same way Danny did?]]

* This may sound stupid, but why couldn't it be? If every human had half-ghosts powers they would have the ability to become intangible and therefore could avoid harm couldn't they? The pros of having of half-ghost powers outweighs the cons.

[[folder: Sam & Tucker can't see Youngblood]]
In "The Fenton Menace", Youngblood himself establishes that he's invisible to adults or teens who think they are adults like Jazz. So how come Sam & Tucker couldn't see him when he's messing with Danny as the Fentons are preparing to leave for their weekend retreat (especially when those two had previously seen him in "Pirate Radio")?
* Sam and Tucker grow up mental to see him by the time he showed up again, or in short like Jazz they start to think they were teens who they are adults by time of "The Fenton Menace."
* Plot Convenience.

[[folder: What actually happens when Danny, Vlad and Dani transform?]]
When they turn into ghosts does that technically mean they die, and then resurrect when switching back to humans?
* I think you're reading too much into it. The actual origins of ghosts in this show are largely unknown; some are spirits of dead people, like Ember and Youndblood, but some are just supernatural gods like Nocturne and Undergrowth. Which category Danny, Vlad and Dani fall into is really anyone's guess.

[[folder: Danny's punishment in Pirate Radio]]
Okay, what the hell was Danny's parents' problem with using the Emergency Ops Center, to the point where he got in trouble and punished for it in the end? Key word: ''emergency''. As in, it's for dangerous ghost attacks. ''AND THERE WAS A DANGEROUS GHOST ATTACK!'' They're supposed to be ghosts hunters and they couldn't stop to think that maybe Danny had a good reason to use it, considering how frequent ghost attacks are in Amity Park? Also, at the very least, Danny could have explained to his parents what happened and they would have believed him, and it's not like he would have to reveal his secret or anything since he did handle Ember and Young Blood without powers. Yes, the party at his house could have been a factor too, but that was entirely Dash and Kwan's fault, and if his parents knew that Danny and his classmates saved the city then his grounding could have been less severe.

[[folder: Danny's intangibility]]

** You seem to believe in an incorrect definition intagibility. Danny ''phases'' through objects. He doesn't destroys the things he goes through.

[[folder: Dash's Savvy-ness]]
If Dash is so self-aware that [[JerkJock Jerk Jocks]] like him become [[FutureLoser Future Losers]], then why can't he just better himself to avoid that fate? I mean, Kwan was one of the nicer popular kids and supposedly becomes a scientist in the future as shown in "The Ultimate Enemy", even despite being a bit of a DumbJock. Is Dash really that much of a sadistic sociopath that he's willing to accept an entire adulthood with a horrible job struggling to make ends meet just to spend literally four years of his life making nerds miserable?

*** Dash has shown self-awareness in other episodes too. In the very first episode, he says that he's living the best years of his life in high school and after that it'll all be downhill for him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The show premise.]]

* There is a type of ghostly phenomenon called a "ghost of the living", also known as a doppelganger. A doppelganger is, according to Wikipedia (and we all know [[UnreliableNarrator how accurate Wikipedia can be]]), a paranormal duplicate of a living person. I have heard that in one case, a doppelganger was spotted with hair and eye color that was the inverse of the real person. Perhaps, in Danny's case, he ''became'' a doppelganger instead of one being created? It would mean that technically he's still alive ''and'' a ghost at the same time.

[[folder:Ghost Portal.]]
Why would the Fentons build the portal with the on/off switch inside it? And then they forgot about it! Its part of the theme song video, but it seems stupid even for Jack.

** If the portal starts destabilizing when someone is inside, or a sudden power surge activates it while maintenance is being done, it may act as a failsafe to keep them from being trapped between worlds. The only flae is that it turns the machine on as well as off.

[[folder:Why is/can there be a Main/RagsToRiches episode that gives Danny a case of Main/AcquiredSituationalNarcissism when Danny's family ''isn't even remotely close to poor''?]]

[[folder:Am I the only one bothered on Valerie's martial arts status?]]

[[folder:Am I the ONLY one who has ever noticed that Vlad has an English/British accent-SERIOUSLY???Nobody Talks about this, why?]]

[[folder: Jazz' Ghost Envy]]
It gets a nice lead in in Reality Trip, offers an interesting layer to her character and a likewise interesting new way to look at her actions, and even gives her a moment of similarity with the villain. So, naturally, it is never mentioned or hinted at again. What the hell?

[[folder: Why does everyone hates ghosts so much?]]
Yeah, I get it they think they're AlwaysChaoticEvil blah, blah, blah. But Danny saved their lives on occasion and I think they did notice. So why are they hating ghosts so much and refusing to accept not all of them are evil. (This question can be ignored for a while, I might have to watch a few episodes to be sure, but I still remember me complaining about it)
* They accept Danny as their hero because of the good he does. They don't accept other ghosts because all the ones they've seen are antagonistic towards them. None of these humans have seen, gone inside, or is fully aware of the Ghost Zones. They have not seen any good ghosts as a result and the decent ones who have arrived on Earth were kept mostly out of public's eyes. Valerie herself may have seen Danny Phantom's do-gooding status, but it's purely because she has a vendetta with him. And the Fentons? They just hate ghosts, period - good or evil.
** Long answer Trope: [[FantasticRacism Fantastic Racism]]

[[folder: Lack of closure for Danielle.]]

[[folder: The Ultimate Enemy's bad future could have easily been averted, and it's all Clockwork's fault for causing it.]]

[[folder:The so-called Ghosts from season 3]]
Granted, this is due to SeasonalRot and wanting to make the series more like a superhero show, but really? Around season 3 the enemies became more inhuman--strange considering they're supposed to be GHOSTS. I can buy the idea that some spectral aura surrounding Myths turned around and manifested as actual ghosts of Pandora and Pegasus etc, but where the heck do the others come in? Nocturne? Undergrowth? Vortex? At least the others had an implied background and post-humanity...
* My Watsonian explaination of choice regarding this one is a theory that a fan came up with. Said theory is that you've got three different kinds of beings that are native to the Ghost Zone, which are, from weakest to strongest:
** Type 1: 'Blob' ghosts. These ghosts are basically the Ghost Zone's equivalent to life rising from the primordial muck. Except replace cytoplasm with ectoplasm and all. Various degrees of sentience, and some might take on representation of certain things if their creation has an affinity. Examples would be all the blobs and form lacking ghosts we've seen whirling around, or things like the Ectopusses. The Far Frozen's inhabitants are a special case. More analogous to humans, but hailing from the Ghost Zone (hence having a lot of knowledge/treasure of it and caring so much about Danny pwning Pariah Dark)

* The entire premise of DP is a superhero show, no matter what season they were in. That said, I never had a specific problem with how powerful Nocturn, Undergrowth, and Vortex were because the idea of them being God-like entities gave excuse that Danny had [[CharacterDevelopment developed]] to the point that he can take even these guys on. The problem I had with them (and most Season 3 cast) was that they lacked a personality, so maybe that's why they felt "less like ghosts." No motivation or obsession on what they wanna do. We get the idea they want to rule the world, but never the ''why''.

*** That's what I meant by the whole "we get the idea of why they wanna rule the world". I guess I should have been a bit more clear (sorry); what I meant was despite their motivation, there isn't much of a personality to push and justify it. Vortex claims his weather is his art, but he doesn't do anything to convince me it is. All the animation shows is him creating wanton amounts of generic destruction--heck, he only states that once and never does so again. Undergrowth is angry at humans for what they did to his greens, but there's barely a personality behind said anger. I think it's just tiresome for me when you have three new villains whose goals and personality are usually the same with very little to interchange as oppose to the other ghouls who each have a different character and goals--often more personal (which I find much more engaging). Not that there is anything wrong with baddies who wanna rule the world.
*** Oh, well in that case it's probably just that they each only ever had one episode in the last season of the show with no prior establishment or foreshadowing, and were all written after Steve Marmel got axed.

* For the record, the show is heavily inspired by ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'', where the "ghosts" consisted of both the spirits of once-living people who had died, and creatures who originally came from another dimension. Whether this makes sense or not, ''Danny Phantom'' isn't the only show to use the word "ghost" to mean more than just "spirits of dead people" -- OurGhostsAreDifferent.
* According to a Q&A from Butch Hartman, all Ghosts in the show are supernatural creatures from another dimension and any that imply to have been human once, such as the Box Ghost or Desiree or Technus, are simply making up their own backstories in order to imitate humans, which for this Troper….honestly sounds like a bad retcon as the ghosts in the beginning of the show were all clearly human based, whereas they became more inhuman in later episodes. An inherent issue with the premise of the show is that if the ghosts were humans, then the Ghost Zone is some kind of afterlife and if any the cast die, why can’t they become ghost too? Seems like a lot of UnfortunateImplications and FridgeHorror. Perhaps a better theory would be that for any ghost who may have been human, they were ''transformed'' into a ghost due to some contact with the Ghost Zone. E.g, we saw a portal to the Ghost Zone in Poindexter’s locker, so perhaps he got sucked in there? Or when Desiree became trapped in a lamp, maybe the lamp was from the Ghost Zone and transformed her into what she was? Not so much as killing these characters but transforming them in the same way Danny and Vlad were transformed, but just making full ghost instead of a half-ghosts.

[[folder: Dark Danny's paradox.]]
So you, a ghost of pure evil who's turned Earth and the Ghost Zone into a CrapsackWorld [[ForTheEvulz because you can]], meet your younger, good self. Do you A: Use your Ghost Powers to knock your younger self and his friends unconscious and erase their memories of the future, then send them back to the past and be on your merry way? Or B: Send said friends back to their time with knowledge of your time period,then force your younger self to be trapped in the Ghost Zone so you can go back in time, then fake being the you of that time,and instigate your StartOfDarkness? If you picked A, well done. If you picked B, HOW THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN WORK?! You aren't avoiding a temporal paradox, you're creating one!

[[folder: So is Valerie stupid or what?]]
She gets a suit upgrade from straight the heck out of nowhere, never questions it, despite having fought a technology themed ghost. What? What?! WHAT?!

[[folder: How can a 'ghost' Have a Breathing problem?]]

* For some odd reason, ghosts can function just as living humans do, including basic bodily functions. They can get hurt, reproduce and even grow old (and possibly...pass on? Again? I don't know). So...asthmatic ghost? Yes?

[[folder: Secret Weapons situation]]

[[folder: Eyes]]

* If you look at hair colors the only people with brown hair here or on WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents are Maddie (which you could argue is a reddish-brown), Timmy, and his Mom. Timmy was supposed to have red hair originally but it was changed so he wouldn't look like Vicky and his mom was given brown hair to match. I saw somewhere that Butch Hartman doesn't like using the color brown, which kind of explains it, but it seriously annoys the hell out of troper who's going into a career where character design is very important. You can't get rid of the most common eye color and the second most common eye color because you don't like it.
* What I personally don't get is why every single ghost has either red or green eyes. Did this mean they had only green or red eyes when they were living? The only ones that didn't have either color were the ghosts that were placed under Freakshow's spell (they had blue). And I actually did not notice the significance in the eye colors until someone pointed out. And I've been making characters with all sorts of colored eyes for years.
** [[RedEyesTakeWarning Red is sort of the go-to eye colour for ooglie-booglies]] and given that the green eyes are specifically ectoplasm-green for ghosts (green eyed humans have a slightly duller shade) I sort of figured that it was a sort of a 'windows to the soul' situation.

[[folder: Dude, where's my respect?]]

[[folder: Danny's Skin Tone]]

[[folder: The Fenton's Security Systems]]

[[folder: What the heck's up with this show's timeline?]]
When the series starts out, we can probably make an assumption Danny's been at high school for a few months-ish. Prisoners Of Love takes place in May, and then we follow up with a Halloween episode shortly after that. Then around 15 episodes later we're at Christmas! It gets even worse when 7 episodes later it's once again summer, but heavily implied to be Danny simply going from 9th to 10th grade. And around 13 episodes later it's summer again! I know a lot of shows do this, but DP's always been pretty good about keeping things in the continuity, and this flies in the face of that.

[[folder: The accident that gave him his powers...]]

[[folder:How come they never made this wish: "Desiree I wish you weren't evil" ?]]
* I mean she grants every wish she hears. In fact, after she's done being upset over being forced into the side a good is really a win-win scenario for everyone.

* Although it clear in her first appearance that she's magically compelled to grant every wish she hears (even if she can't think of a loophole to use it to make the wisher suffer), that weakness seems to be gone in her second appearance, where Sam has to be quick and get her to grant her ResetButton wish on reflex before realizing what she's done. This inconsistency aside (or maybe it's a result of her growing "more powerful," as she explains to Danny), any evil genie magically compelled to grant such a wish would find a loophole to avoid the intended results (ex. "Well, you may consider what I'm doing 'evil,' but I don't, so from my point of view, I'm not evil, so your wish is granted"). Undoing the damage caused by an evil ghost genie is never as easy as wishing it all away -- [[WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters Janine Melnitz]] learned that the hard way.

[[folder: Is Danny's ghost half...Bipolar?]]
* I ''have'' to be missing something here. Danny's ghost self is shy and a bit freaked out when unexpectedly separated from his human part in "What You Want". Makes sense. In "Identity Crisis" his human half is the ''exact opposite'' of his ghost one, which now has a dedicated and LargeHam -y superhero personality. CharacterDevelopment, alrighty then. In "The Ultimate Enemy", when (once again) separated from his human half, Danny's ghost half suddenly goes rogue and rips the ghost persona out of Vlad in a fit of rage. Oka-wait, what? I'm confused. Angst, maybe? Even if that were so, Vlad specifically said that ghosts don't ''have'' emotions. So...what happened?

[[folder: Why was Tucker made Mayor at the end?]]
* Seriously why was he chosen to be mayor. Why not Jazz? She's probably the most intelligent and reasonable in town it's make more sense it she got the job in my opinion.

[[folder: How exactly does the Fenton Ghost Catcher work and/or what exactly is the nature of Danny's powers?]]

[[folder:Phasing and Overshadowing.]]

[[folder: Alternate timeline richness?]]

[[folder: Does Jack wear a toupee?]]

* His hair is beginning to turn grey. He's as old as '''Vlad.'''

*** Yes we do. In one episode Danny stopped Vlad from getting his ghost powers and it altered the future. Vlad's hair was still white.

[[folder: How come no one makes the connection Between Fenton and Phantom?]]

[[folder: Why does Valerie had the ghost glow VFX with her original gear?]]

[[folder: How could Valerie think Danny Phantom was trying to kill her in "Flirting With Disaster"?]]

[[folder: Valerie's Appearance in her Ghost Suit]]

[[folder: Which half has powers again?]]

[[folder: Micro Management.]]

It gets a nice lead in in Reality Trip, offers an interesting layer to her character and a likewise interesting new way to look at her actions, and even gives her a NotSoDifferent moment with the villain. So, naturally, it is never mentioned or hinted at again. What the hell?

* Dark Danny going back in time to ensure his own future is an example of the Bootstrap Paradox, where two events from the past and future end up causing one causing one another to exist. Technically, Danny's grief that led to the creation of his darker self was caused by his darker self. It would explain why Tucker, Sam and Jazz also perished if it was supposedly just Lancer having a meeting with Danny and his parents, and why Danny himself didn't also die in the explosion. Dark Danny really did want to make sure his bad future happened.

* I think you're reading too much into it. The actual origins of ghosts in this show are largely unknown; some are spirits of dead people, like Ember and Youndblood, but some are just supernatural gods like Nocturne and Undergrowth.

** Actually, he didn't initiate ''anything.'' (CompletelyMissingThePoint right now, but whatever) He was watching over the conversation to make sure his plans were going smoothly. Case and point, Danny tells her over the IM that he has a high bowling average (CallBack from Lucky in Love) and that he wants to be an astronaut (CallBack from Mystery Meat, which was the first episode and a while before Technus had become a character anyways). Now, if Technus has ever had a legitimate conversation with Danny and asked about his college plans, I'll gladly let you smack me with a club, but back to the point: Maybe Valerie ''was'' exaggerating some, but we can at least tell from one side of the conversation that the IM was solely between Danny and Valerie, just with Technus eavesdropping.

[[folder: Fan Characters]]

This is more about the fanbase, but how come whenever someone makes a DP fan character who is the child of Danny, how come they're half ghost or fully human instead of quarter ghost? (Danny's bride is almost always Sam.) Doesn't it make more sense that way?
* Because LamarckWasRight, and from what we guess, ghost genes don't breed in fractions like other magical species from this dimension. Though while I've never officially invented any offspring characters that made it out of my brain, I once had a concept where Danny had two daughters aged a few years apart, one fully human and one fully ghost, both with the same mother. And one was a redhead for the sake recessive genes and not making them GenerationXerox.
** Considering that Sam's black hair almost certainly isn't natural (her father's a blond, her mom's a redhead)...
*** Or her mom/dad could be dying their hair from 'gloomy black' to 'bright blond' or 'cheery redhead'. I get the feeling that Sam's parents are suppose to be superficial, and Sam's grandmom had black hair as well.
** OP: In fact, they probably shouldn't even get a ghost half unless they went through the portal as well! Then again, I'm talking about a series that uses LegoGenetics...
** Well, to borrow from Fantasy and AD&D, when was the last time you heard of a character being called a Quarter Elf? It may be important to people in real life to know that they're half Spanish, quarter Indonesian, third Italian, or whatever, but in fiction it just sounds pretentious to be that precise. Its also quite possible that the fans making the characters realize genetically that one half-blood parent having a kid with a pure-blood parent should have a kid that's quarter-blood, but despite that they linguistically interpret the word "halfa" to mean something completely different than "half-a-ghost".
*** The lingusitic interpretation idea is probably the most likely. While 'halfa' may stem from 'half a human, half a ghost' the usage/percieved meaning seems to have drifted a bit. I even saw one fanfic discussion that defined the terms as "a person endowed with, or who has somehow gained access to, power of origins that are located somewhere in the dimension
colloquially known as the Ghost Zone" and I've also seen some debate as to whether or not Valerie counts as one due to what happened with her second suit.
*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint But you can't be a third Italian...]]
*** One parent is Italian/Dutch, the other is full Dutch.
*** That would make the person one ''quarter'' Italian, three quarters Dutch...
*** 8/24 Italian, 16/24 others.
* Apparently ghost vs human is a single codominant trait/allele in those stories. Basically how this works is a ghost would have GG a human would have HH and a half ghost would have GH. Nature flips a coin for each parent so if one parent is human heads H tails H. If the other is half ghost heads heads/ tails heads HH human heads tails/tails tails HG half ghost.
** This does not make sense at all. Being human or a ghost is not determined by a single allele, rather it's the DNA as a whole that would dictate that. Alleles are what dictate what our eye and hair color would be, or how much skin pigment we'll have. Think of mules. They come out with traits of both a horse and a donkey, but not either or. The show proved that the energy in Danny's body merged with whole DNA strands, not just single genes, therefore every cell in his body has ghost-infused DNA. A child of his would be half of what he is due to basic biology, therefore making a "quarter ghost".
[[/folder]]

[[folder: About Technus' voice actor]]
Rob Paulsen does a decent impersonation of Gilbert Gottfried, but anyone else thought the crew should've hired Gottfried himself? He isn't that difficult to get isn't he?
* I don't imagine so, but remember that in his first appearance, the show was still in its earliest stages. It's possible that lack of budget mixed with time constraints just made it impractical get schedule the real Gil to do a cameo appearance. As for why they didn't try to get him for subsequent appearances, when you have a cheaper option, why not use it?
* I'd imagine that Gilbert Gottfried became too expensive as this was around the same time where he stopped voicing Dr. Bender & Wendell on ''The Fairly [=OddParents!=]''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Why all the Sam hate?]]
* So she's NotSoAboveItAll, a SoapBoxSadie and a bit of a whiner. So she can get possessive, preachy and downright hypocritical at times, among other things. These are character flaws and beyond that, she's a teenager and a younger one at that. Since when do actual girls her age even know what they want, let alone have real, solid convictions about anything? How does any of that fundamentally make her a bad person, as this fandom seems to like to claim she is? As far as I'm concerned, this was very refreshing at the time, to not just put the girl on this pedestal of superiority and [[WomenAreWiser have her always be right]]. Yeah, that's becoming more and more common these days, but at the time, it was nearly unheard of.
** [[SchmuckBait Oh, boy...]]
** The show tends treat her as above it all, only rarely giving her even a small punishment for her actions. Tucker, while more vile, at least tends to receive his comeuppance. Sam ''does'' have solid convictions. She just forces them on others (such as changing the menu to things that would kill anyone with certain dietary needs and refusing to change it back when a ''ghost attacks''), calling it "thinking like an individual"... when she wants others to conform to her ideals. She whines about her parents wanting her to try on tacky dresses... despite the fact that they let her wear whatever she wants, decorate her room however she wants, and go wherever she wants, which is a lot more freedom than most kids her age get. Whenever Danny ''expresses interest'' in other girls, she gets angry, despite the fact that they're ''not dating'' [[spoiler:until Phantom Planet]]. Sam acting like this would be more understandable if she were 12, but most expect a freshman to be slightly more grounded.
** Unfortunately, the show ''did'' put her on pedestal of superiority and have her always be right... even though she wasn't. The writers ''treated'' Sam as right every time she displayed the character flaws you listed and Tucker and Danny as wrong for daring to disagree with her or question her. Character flaws are great -- the writers being blind to those flaws and putting the character on a pedestal they don't deserve is aggravating.
*** To be fair, they do seem to be somewhat self-aware of how they write her character. None of the characters in the show take her seriously because of the same reasons mentioned above which manifests in a way that shows most people just flat out ignoring her or insulting her or something. Maybe the writers don't think she's as bad or worse than Tucker.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:How can most of the major plotholes in this show pass muster with any sort of story editor?]]
Ultimate Enemy has several writer's fiats, and the finale,
Phantom Planet, was nothing but fiat after fiat.
* Umm...what's "fiat?" Do you mean "flat?" That stated, when it comes to "The Ultimate Enemy", the way I see it, it's filled with a number of plotholes because it didn't have more then an hour to squeeze it all in. They have to keep the relevance of the actual story going; the only one I can safely say that should or needed to be answered is on the why of Dark Danny's sudden desire to wreck havoc on the planet. The rest however (including the various aspect of time travel) is good fodder for theorizing (which I've done my share). Of course, I admit "TUE" is my favorite episode. As for "Phantom Planet", it's not so much the plothole I'm bugged at (which is really just Danny's unexplained hair streak plot device), but the incredible delusions of grandeur you have to take to even watch ''that'' episode, one I refuse to because there's just far too many for me to absorb. DP may not be a realistic show, but some of their methods in "Phantom Planet" lacked believability for me to accept--I'm still cringing from the [[spoiler:Mayor Tuck]] thing.
** Let me refresh your memory then. TUE sucks not only because it had major cases of plotholes, but because the whole concept utterly failed. If 'Dark Danny' was a future version of Danny, then there would've been a powerful message. But he wasn't. He was a fusion character of Vlad AND Danny(plus, once Danny knew about those specific events that would happen, then the events would fail to happen). Him being a fusion character takes away from whatever message about being 'careful' or what have you. Not to mention, the whole conversation that Jazz had with Mr. Lancer totally and completely lacked all concepts of logic. If one remembers, Mr. Lancer not only admits he has no proof Danny cheated, or took the answers, he admitted, to his own knowledge, it was IMPOSSIBLE for Danny to GET the answers. His only proof was a half heard conversation through a door. And with that, he was going to accuse Danny of cheating?
*** He ''did'' have proof though. He saw Danny [[spoiler:(who was actually Dark Danny)]] looking at the answer sheet during the test. That's why he called everybody down to the Nasty Burger.
*** He didn't have proof at the time of the conversation though. More over he promised that if Danny didn't return the answers by the time of the test, he was failing him anyway. The point is, even IF Danny didn't have the answers, and someone else stole them or something, if they hadn't been replaced and then he "fessed up" to stealing them, he would have been failed, whether he did it or not. That's some kind of prejudice and non-logic man.
*** Not to mention that if Danny ''hadn't'' had the answers, or had destroyed or lost them, there would be ''no way'' for him to prove his innocence. Except, I guess, by Jazz telling him what Mr. Lancer had said (since, of course, Mr. Lancer couldn't be bothered to confront Danny himself) and then them somehow ''getting'' the answers and returning them. It's basically a witch trial; it sucks more to be innocent than to be guilty.
** Mr. Lancer has never been the most logical or reasonable one; he's blamed/allowed Dash to blame Danny/Sam/Tucker for things they didn't do.
** There exists a thing called "Suspension of disbelief". A character admitting he has no right to make an accusation, then continue on saying he will make it anyways breaks it faster than ever before recorded. Butch Hartman is just a hack.
*** It would be fairly easy to tell if Danny cheated after the fact. ''If'' Danny had the answers (which he did) his test would likely come back as having a ridiculously high score. Major red flag for any teacher like him. Any threats before that was reasonable doubt, but notice he didn't take any direct action, nor would he until after the test.
* The first one you mentioned in the case of Dark Danny isn't a plothole though. If anything, it still caters to Danny because it's a CHAIN reaction of events that started from Danny cheating to when he becomes evil. You have to realize also--that merge of Vlad or not--Danny is the dominate of the two; evident when Dark Danny refers to himself as past Danny instead of Vlad. As for Lancer? Well, considering he's shown favoritism towards the more popular group of kids, him bagging on Danny at this point should be common occurrence for him. If anything, Danny's the ONLY one whom he suspect because he's the ONLY who whom gave suspect (even if it's a small conversation). How he did get the rest in Lancer's eyes is an all together different matter.
** It's not for sure that Danny was the dominant personality. All that means is he has Danny's memories. My theory is that Danny [[spoiler: removed Vlad's ghost side]] in an attempt to be heroic (in Identity Crisis, his ghost side ''was'' the heroic one) and stop the ultimate evil as far as he was concerned (Vlad). However, he wasn't strong enough and Vlad's evil merged with him, forming a composite known as Dark Danny. Vlad was actually a decent guy [[spoiler:without his ghost side]] so there may be something to this.
** There's also the fact that even despite Dark Danny not really being Danny, Danny cheating on the test ''did'' lead to his family and friends ([[AndZoidberg and his English teacher]]) dying.
*** The problem is that [[spoiler:in the version we saw, Dark Danny did the cheating. It's possible that this is a StableTimeLoop and that Danny wouldn't have cheated and none of this would have happened if Dark Danny didn't go back in time.]] That's why Dark Danny still exists after Danny knows the whole story- ''he has to'' for any of this to have happened. Clockwork says time is like a parade- what's to say there aren't multiple parades going on at once? He could have taken Dark Danny from another timeline and put him in this one just to teach Danny a lesson. And ''yes'', I know this should go in WMG.
*** Could also go into WMG, but there's the possibility that original events were similar to the movie so that Lancer heard Danny waffling about using the test answers or something. Or Lancer noticed Danny getting an unreasonably high test score and called everyone to the Nasty Burger. A better plot hole would be the fact that he got the test answers because of a fight with a future ghost wearing one of Clockwork's medallions if I recall correctly. So, Clockwork orchestrated the whole thing to prevent Dark Danny and give Danny an extra power.
*** Keep in mind that, in a way, Dark Danny is still technically Danny. He has all of his memories, clearly considers himself Danny by referring to Danny as his past self, and does have some vestiges of his past self's personality. Given [[NotSoDifferent the comparisons to Vlad]], Danny clearly had the potential to become evil...probably not as bad as Dark Danny, but still up there. Dark Danny works because he shows what Danny could become if he turned evil-having Vlad remove his humanity just exaggerated this.
* As for Phantom Planet... The biggest issue Phantom Planet had was when Vlad, as mayor, created that anti-ghost squad, the same anti-ghost squad that, after catching a ghost in a very public place(like a city park) then demand money from any nearby citizens that happen to be walking in the area. Oh, and Vlad gloating about this in television in a big pile of money. Butch Hartman, as subtle as a nuclear bomb.
** [[IncrediblyLamePun I believe you mean 'flying mallet'.]]
** Trust me, I can think of SEVERAL things wrong with "Phantom Planet". The only thing I was bugged in "Phantom Planet" regarding Vlad was how shallow he was. 500 million dollars attached with his world domination? Why the hell would he want more money? Season One/Two Vlad would never resort to this. Also, when the Ecto-meteor comically smacking him in the end, that was an insult to his character.
*** Actually, it was 500 billion, but the point still stands. What exactly does he need cash for, he's a billionaire. Plus world domination seems out of character for him as well. Since when has he ever wanted to rule the world? And if that's the case, he could have come up with better than hold the world hostage over a meteor barrel without checking to see what it was made out of.(WHO in the heck doesn't check to see what a glowing green meteor is made out of?) Who are you and what have you done with my favorite character?
*** My biggest issue with it was actually the whole thing with the asteroid. I mean--the explosion knocks it out of its path, and that ''just happens'' to propel it directly at the Earth? The hell? It was clearly in orbit around a completely different planet--and therefore far enough away that the vectors that would put it on a collision course with the Earth would compose a tiny, ''tiny'' portion of all the possibilities. The sheer improbability boggles me. And then, at the end, Vlad somehow ends up ''directly in its path''... despite the fact that Jack left him, without any apparent means of transportation, somewhere that the asteroid would have left behind long ago. How did he manage to get ahead of it again? Did it get into a stable orbit around the sun and it just completed a revolution? And if that's the case, isn't there a non-zero chance that it will threaten the Earth again?
*** I may be late to the game, but I don't see how the "biggest issue" with the asteroid was only how it began hurdling toward earth. I think the biggest issue is the fact that it was anti-ghost, and therefore designed specifically so ghosts can't, you know, phase through it. When you establish a fundamental rule in a series' universe, you can't build a whole episode's (let alone the series finale's) solution upon breaking it, without ANY explanation! I'd have even accepted some ReversePolarity bullshit. The meteor should have collided with them anyway, or at least knocked into the ghosts, forcing them back to tangibility, which would then still destroy the planet! Danny's plan was equally as flawed as Vlad's, and should have failed based on their own rules. It's just more proof of a botch job at shotgun-ending the series. Call it SeasonalRot, but I call Shenanigans.
*** All they ever said about Ectoranium was that ghost's couldn't TOUCH it. They never said anything about not being able to phase through it.
*** And another issue: why, ''why'', did Danny decide to get the other ghosts' help by capturing them and forcing them? They've all shown--more than once--that they're willing to set aside their differences and work together against a common threat. A little thought would have told him that if they were willing to help him against Ghost Writer, that king, and the Guys in White, they'd be willing to help him with this. Plus, capturing them one at a time is slow and difficult. It would have been ''much'' smarter, easier, and safer to just go around ''telling'' as many as he could, explaining the threat, and asking them to spread the word. Going around catching them is linear, while the "spread the word" plan would be exponential... especially considering that a lot of ghosts probably have more contacts and friends in the ghost zone than Danny does, and would know their way around it better by virtue of having lived there much longer.
** The ghost squad thing is easy to explain, though. He obviously did it just to mess with Danny in the first place. So when Danny dropped out of the picture, it meant he'd won. But winning isn't enough for Vlad. He likes to rub his opponent's face in it. Having the anti-ghost squad charge for their services was a taunt ("Look what I can do, and you can't stop me!"), and the ad another one.
** I think they explained why Danny had to capture the ghosts in the movie. They all ran and hid in the Ghost World and refused to help. All the other {{Enemy Mine}} situations were ghost problems. I think Skulker said that the comet was a Human World problem, and the ghosts believed they would be fine.
* "Fiat" is borrowed from the Latin "let it be done", and means an arbitrary decree. A "writer's fiat" is the fancy college term paper way ;-) of saying an Main/AssPull.
** Thanks. I knew it meant something, but couldn't be bothered to look it up.
*** [[http://dictionary.reference.com/]]
* I've never seen Phantom Planet, so can't say much about that one, but as for The Ultimate Enemy, while the evil future Danny that we see gets his StartOfDarkness from the Nasty Burger incident, it's not enough to nullify his existence when it's stopped. So yes, even though Danny knows how it happened *that time* it's not to say that he doesn't become evil on his own, or through some other events. Dan Phantom even said himself "Don't you get it? ''I'' still exist. That means ''you'' still turn into me." Since the series never went 20 (10?) years into the future we don't see exactly how this happens, but we do see when Danny gets his ghost half ripped out that it may be malevolent (Seeing as how the first thing it does is tear the ghost out of Vlad.) Nothing says that he couldn't just get taken over by his ghost half or separated some other way, and do the same thing.
** To Phantom being malevolent, think back to Identity Crisis. What was Phantom like then? Super Danny. What was Super Danny's self-concept? [[LargeHam "FULL-TIME SUPER HERO!!!"]] What was Vlad before Dark Dan? The epitome of Phantom's known evils. That scene was an unrestricted Super Danny trying to disarm the greatest perceived threat to humanity... and the merger was an accident when he (for whatever reason) tried to overshadow Plasmius. Perhaps Super Danny was trying to destroy Plasmius from within? Take his power as it was assumed, so as to be more effective at heroics? Case of [[IdiotBall sudden]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero stupidity]]? At any rate, the exact Start of Darkness was at the instant the hair went fiery.
*** Consider this, however: in Identity Crisis, when Danny split himself, he gave a new, literal meaning to the term "Split Personality" in that Phantom became became the embodiment of Danny's responsibility, which Fun Danny the "full-time party dude" lacked. A similar personality split could have occurred when Vlad used the ghost gauntlets on Danny. His older self even said, "No more painful human emotions to drag [Danny] down." Danny was grieving outwardly for his lost loved ones after the explosion, but under the surface, he could've been angry at himself for being unable to save them despite his powers. Splitting Phantom from Fenton could have polarized that hidden anger inside Phantom, and Vlad being Danny's archenemy beforehand naturally made him a target ("Hel-LO, misplaced aggression!" anyone?). Though Phantom may have also been seeking stability since he was no longer whole and overshadowing his human half wouldn't work.
** I'd say that more of a plot hole is that Dark Danny is apparently ''the cause'' of the Nasty Burger incident. However he couldn't have come to the past to cause it if Clockwork hadn't had gone to stop him initially. In addition to the fact that Clockwork saves everyone at the end through total deus ex machina, the fact that the entire situation is his fault to begin with is very confusing.
** Isn't Dark Danny being the cause of the Nasty Burger incident just a StableTimeLoop? He goes back in time to stop his existence from being stopped in the future, causing Clockwork to attempt to stop his existence in the past.
*** I might've accepted that theory... expect it gives us other plot holes that aren't easily explained. Why would Dark Danny be surprised over Danny Phantom learning the Ghostly Wail ten years too early? And why would Danny, ''knowing'' what the result would be, ''still'' go through with separating his human and ghost part?
*** I said it earlier, and I'll say it again: multiple timelines. In this timeline, Danny learns the wail ten years earlier and didn't go through with the split.
*** Maybe fate just likes to screw with 'em. Up until the TimeMaster did his thing, perhaps the results would have played the same no amount what. Chalk it up to the mysterious of the universe. Or plotholes. Or whatever.
*** So in other words, [[AWizardDidIt the Time Master did it?]] I can live with that.
*** shrugs* Why not? Clockwork is the closest we have to a [[AGodAmI god]] in that series and it's clear he has a neutral position when it comes to the concept of good and evil; if he wanted to ass us around, then all the more power to him. No one can stop him, he knows ''everything''.
** This is partly the reason I see TUE as a case of [[TemporalMutability branching timelines]] where we only see the successful result (the other reason being a later time travel in the series working this way).
** Was I the only one who heard the line from The Observants: "...now that he exists ''outside of time''"? Dark Danny's timeline was destroyed, but he was out of that timeline at the time, therefore he still exists, and what Danny's future may or may not be no longer effects him. At least that's what that line sounded like to me...
*** No, I believe that is the canonical explanation, but others either took a different route or couldn't fully grasped what Clockwork said.
*** As I understand it, before Clockwork did his magical intercede, Danny was going to turn into Dark Danny. Then he disappeared into Clockwork's Realm with the Observants, and was outside of time. So it's both, it was inevitable, and he exists outside of time now, after Clockwork intervened.
** Five little words: Wibbly-Wobbly TimeyWimeyBall. Does wonders for plotlines like this.
*** I could be wrong about this but didn't Dark Danny have one of Clockwork's time medallions phased inside of him? One would think that if he still had it, Dark Danny existence was grounded by that an in fact would not exist without the Nasty Burger explosion.
*** Dark Danny phased the time medallion into younger Danny. He (Dark Danny) used one of the medallions that Sam and Tucker had gotten rid of to go back in time. That's why younger Danny couldn't go back in time on his own; he couldn't get to the medallion lodged inside him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Dash's Genre Savvy-ness]]

** If you mean the episode where Spectra showed up, that could have been the general depression she was instilling talking instead of something he actually believed(or even considered) later. Once that was over and he went back to normal, he may not have given it any real thought.

*** To be fair, they do seem to be somewhat self-aware of how they writer her character. None of the characters in the show take her seriously because of the same reasons mentioned above which manifests in a way that shows most people just flat out ignoring her or insulting her or something. Maybe the writers don't think she's as bad or worse than Tucker.

*** To be fair, they do seem to be somewhat self-aware of how they writer her character. None of the characters in the show take her seriously because of the same reasons mentioned above which manifests in a way that shows most people just flat out ignoring her or calling her a loser or something. Maybe they just don't think she's worthy of actual punishment.

Okay, what the hell was Danny's parents' problem with using the Emergency Ops Center, to the point where he got in trouble and punished for it in the end? Key word: ''emergency''. As in, it's for dangerous ghost attacks. ''AND THERE WAS A DANGEROUS GHOST ATTACK!'' They're supposed to be ghosts hunters and they couldn't stop to think that maybe Danny had a good reason to use it, considering how frequent ghost attacks are in Amity Park? Also, at the very least, Danny could have explained to his parents what happened and they would have believed him, and it's not like he would have to reveal his secret or anything since he did handle Ember and Young Blood without powers.