Declan. After attracting girls like moths to a flame in Season 9 and spending the summer with Holly J, he's now in prep school in New York while she's back at Degrassi. This means he really does have a Girlfriend in Canada. Really. Honest.
While Craig's bipolar disorder is not revealed until two seasons after he's introduced, there are signs of it going back to his very first episode (the scene where he stands in front of the train, again in the same episode he's introduced, is probably the most obvious example). While some of this could have been related to what was going on with his father, his impulsive and sometimes manic behavior persists after he moves in with Joey, eventually culminating in his full-scale manic episode and bipolar diagnosis in Season 4.
It is also heavily implied that Craig's father may have also been bipolar, due to his behavior and the fact that bipolar disorder has a strong genetic component.
Season 1 of Degrassi: The Next Generation had Emma ordering a veggieburger for Sean. Okay, harmless, except for the fact that he might be allergic to soy and she has no way of knowing this. (Then again, soy is everywhere.) Season 3 had Rick ordering a salad for Terri. In the case of Emma, this and her "healthy eating" experiment foreshadow her eating disorder, but it also implies her relationship with Sean is unhealthy in some way.
How much of Emma's early installment save-the-[fill in the blank] meddling/soapboxing can be attributed to her response to having been groomed and manipulated for eight months/almost raped by a pedophile she met over the internet? Emma's misinterpretation of Coach Armstrong's innocent familiarity with Liberty as sexual misconduct can be easily identified as the reaction of a child who was subject herself to long-term grooming under the guise of innocent interaction. How about Emma's opposition to News About Kids' product placement deal? This was an arrangement in which adult outsiders got to sneak their influence under kids' radar by persuading them through trusted new media in exchange for the "bribery" of computer access (via the donation of computers to the media immersion lab). As far as we know Emma's grooming involved only emotional, not material, bribery, but otherwise the parallels to her own manipulation are striking. And Emma's objection to cheerleading on the grounds that it involves girls being led to become unthinking bimbos parallels her own experience of having come into peril through poorly-thought-out sexual experimentation.
The fact that Emma had been been groomed by this pedophile for eight months qualifies as Fridge Horror in itself. The revelation is practically a throwaway line in the script, and has much less immediate dramatic impact than the horrifying near-rape scene itself, but the experience of being gaslighted and manipulated by a sexual predator for so long, of having one's first sexual feelings exploited and manipulated, of having to doubt one's instincts, one's entire thinking processes, is arguably more damaging than the near-rape itself. No wonder Emma goes from giggly/happy in the pilot to drawn-faced shrewishness thereafter.
Peter's full Heel–Face Turn makes more sense when you remember he attended brat camp with Darcy. He may have signed up just for spending more time with her, but it seems to have made a personal difference for him too.
Fiona is a lesbian who is in love with Holly J. This put her behavior in season 9 in a completely new light - she's never been in a sexual relationship because she is not attracted to men, she uses Riley as her own beard, and the reason why she was bitchy towards Declan/Holly J is because she was attracted to her, and was trying to break Declan/Holly J up so either A) she could have a chance at her or B) get rid of her so she wouldn't admit the truth to herself.
It seems a little off that Eli is acting so overprotective of Clare once Fitz returns into mid-Season 10 that it's quite unnerving, but it makes sense when you consider his perspective: his last girlfriend was killed in an accident that he blames himself for, and his rival who previously tried to stab him is back and is in close proximity with his current girlfriend.
Blue and yellow are the school colors, red was probably assigned to Grade 11 to make us think one of them (coughsEli) would be the next to die. But purple seems an odd choice, unless you remember that the old Degrassi Junior High's colours were blue and purple. Snake remembers this - he went to school there.
Girls get a choice of skirt or pants, but there's no corresponding item that guys can wear but girls can't, because Audra Torres probably had a hand in the new policy, and while she trusts Simpson won't make Adam wear a skirt, neither is she willing (consciously or otherwise) to give Adam something else to establish his masculinity with.
The uniform looks better with the cardigan than without, especially from a distance. Tamp down raging libidos and improve the school's image in the community = ugly and unappealing clothing when viewed as one would another student in school, everyone all nice and preppy when viewed as one would a random kid walking or riding the TTC to school. Check and check.
And one last bit of Fridge Brilliance on the way out; retiring the uniform pants are a problem for Zig, but the shirts apparently aren't. A lot of small urban convenience stores like his family's sell assorted blank T-shirts at around 2 for $5, meaning they probably paid a dollar or less each for them.
Campbell's too short to be a pro hockey player. At only 15, he's still growing - but given how messed-up he is that's a lot riding on a factor (future growth spurt) entirely outside anyone's control.
Zig seems kind of awkward in standing closeup scenes. Being 6' tall before his fifteenth birthday, even if he's always been tall for his age he wouldn't be used to being taller than so many adults and so much taller than almost all girls yet.
In Dallas's first episode, he gives Drew a condom before the party, joking that he might "Swipe his V-Card". Although in the second half of the season it's revealed Dallas has a 3 year-old son. No wonder he was promoting safe sex.
Starting in season 13, Maya has a habit of butting into her friends' lives (Zig, Tristan, Miles) and trying to help them, even if they never asked for her help. Back in season 12, at the candlelight vigil after Cam's suicide, Maya lamented that he never asked for help. After that, Maya took it upon herself to try and help the people closest to her so she would never lose them. This is especially apparent in her recurring nightmare about Miles falling off the balcony outside the gym, something that Cam did.
"Snake" Simpson was 15/16 when he walked into the boys' bathroom and saw Claude's dead body with its' face blown off. A couple years later, one of his best friends killed a child while driving drunk and went to prison for ten years. During his teaching career, he's seen a school shooting leave a promising young athlete paralyzed and then a bright, well-liked kid (who was good friends with his stepdaughter) stabbed to death near his house, seemingly randomly. Within his first few months as principal, he had to deal with a hazing incident, punish a hate crime that could've led to devastating injury as mere bullying (involving the same Mama Bear as the previous one), and discovered narrow aversions of prostitution, rape and another knifing-in one night! Tell me, what runs through this guy's head when he tries to sleep at night?
In Season 6, a character named Nic had a group of kids beat Toby up. On the site, it says that he probably transferred schools. What is really creepy is how almost his ENTIRE GANG (except Johnny and Lucas) did not come back in Season 7 to Degrassi.
What is interesting is that his school burned down. Maybe Johnny and Lucas were absent if Nic and the rest of his gang burned the school down.
Also, in a season two episode, Paige sings a song about rape to drive away her rapist Dean which was pretty cool and heartwarming at the knowledge that both Hazel and Ashley know about her rape, also that we know that Paige is going to get the help she needs to move on with her life.... but then, you realizeDean was at a talent competition for young teenage girls.Holy Shit.
Campbell's suicide. Although Campbell's method of suicide is never stated, it's most likely he slit his wrists. This was foreshadowed by Cam's reaction to cutting himself with his ice skate in "Rusty Cage," and when Eli discovered his body he was looking down, so it's implied that his body was not hanging, but rather on the ground. Further evidence is Eli was traumatized by red paint which resembled blood in "Ray Of Light". However, the writers were advised by on-set psychologists not to reveal exactly how Cam died, as doing so had the possibility to be "harmful" to audiences (i.e. inspire copycat suicides).
When Luke is first introduced, he is hesitant to be with Jenna because she "tempts" him. Also Becky, his twin sister, just tells Jenna she should stay away from him altogether. She'd be absolutely right when Luke sexually assaults Zoe at a party. Even more creepy coincidence, he may not have actually had sex with her, so that stayed true to Luke claiming he is abstinent.
Another one related to Zoe's sexual assault. Before she passes out and is carried to the pool house by Miles and Winston, where she is later raped by Luke and Neil, she strips down to her bikini and tries to kiss Miles. Miles- who is, barring what seems to be a few sips of beer, sober is fully ready to at the very least make out with Zoe, who (as the show itself demonstrated with regards to Luke and Neil drunk past the point of being able to properly consent.) If it weren't for Winston's intervention, Miles would have taken advantage of Zoe in a way.
Doubles as Fridge Brilliance, but in season two of Next Class, Zoë starts self harming to cope with and suppress her lesbianism. She does this by harming herself whenever she “fails” to feel attracted to boys and feels or is reminded of being attracted to girls. She’s essentially trying to preform conversion therapy on herself.
