#After making the quick drawing of Danny I figured I needed a background of some kind. But I didn't really want to draw a background. So...

[monotype-on-phantom]

I’m gonna be honest with you guys. In my opinion, Paulina’s probably one of the weakest recurring characters in this entire show. Even Dash got a focal episode in the form of Micro Management. Aside from Parental Bonding, which only depicts her as shallow and manipulative, any focus Paulina gets usually has her overshadowed or barely doing anything.

Honestly, no character really deserves that, but I was having trouble finding a way to make her character work without changing things too much. These last two episodes finally gave me an idea that I think could’ve been very interesting. So, this is going to be less of an analysis of Paulina as we know her and more of some ideas for the kind of character she could have been.

In Public Enemies, Paulina is the only one who really notices that this ghost is actually helping people. In an episode that’s nothing but people coming to believe this ghost is the most evil one in town, that’s actually a huge deal. At this point, Paulina’s the only human being who doesn’t know Danny’s secret but does know that this ghost is friendly.

While this was likely just to setup her future crush on him, this could’ve been really interesting. Everyone around her is saying that the ghost boy is the one responsible for all the ghost attacks, but she knows he saved her life. This could’ve been the perfect opportunity to show her human side without totally changing her personality. Show her defending the ghost boy. Have her try to form a fan club. Have her gush to her friends, even if they think she’s crazy for trusting a ghost.

Then this line popped up in Lucky in Love.

Call me crazy, but the minute he said that right in front of Paulina, my brain just screamed “that’s it!”

There’s a headcanon that Star runs the school newspaper, which I can see. Paulina seems to be more about fashion, while Star could be more of the gossip girl. Paulina and Star are best friends, so imagine if Paulina used that as a way to try and improve “Inviso-Bill’s” reputation.

After the events of Lucky in Love, Paulina becomes a total ghost boy fangirl, but the writers never really do anything with it other than having it be kind of a joke. But think of it this way: we’re all Danny Phantom fans. A lot of us also had crushes on the “ghost boy” when we were younger. And what do we like doing? Drawing fanart. Writing stories. Analyzing things and coming up with theories.

Picture Paulina as a total gung-ho fan who wants to learn everything there is to know about the ghost boy.

This could’ve been really interesting. We could’ve had Paulina doing research and interviewing people, asking Star to write articles for her, and trying her best to make sure everyone appreciates the heroics that this ghost is doing in spite of what everyone thinks of him.

In Memory Blank, Paulina’s shown to be observant enough to notice that the ghost boy shows up where Danny Fenton is a lot of the time. This isn’t something we see anyone else noticing. While this is merely an excuse for her to invite Danny and his friends to her birthday party, this could easily be a testament to the fact that when she’s passionate about something, she can be much smarter than she’s given credit for.

I’m not saying we need Paulina to find out Danny’s secret. If we keep theorizing that this person and that person figured it out, it’ll get old quickly. However, this could’ve easily been a way to develop her character. She could come to Danny for questions about ghosts. She could follow the ghost boy to try and get an interview or something with him. She could try to help out there and there (imagine if she did that in Public Enemies. Like, if when he lost the thermos, Paulina ran up and said she found it for him.)

This could’ve even led to a plot where Sam and Paulina come to an understanding. After all, Sam also loves and appreciates the ghost boy, even though it’s for different reasons. The two of them could’ve had an episode where they’re stuck with each other for whatever reason, and when Danny Phantom’s in trouble, they have to team up to help him. It could lead to them realizing they do actually have things in common, and they could start seeing each other as actual people rather than “goth geek” and “shallow witch.”

Paulina is first and foremost a background character, and we don’t need the show to redirect attention onto her instead of the main characters. Still, it does disappoint me that she was never really given any sort of depth, especially since she showed up so often.

I don’t want to see her flaws taken away. There are girls out there who are like her. I knew plenty of girls who cared more about their looks and social status than people or morals. The thing is, it’s not bad to care about how you look. It’s not bad to like girly things. It’s not even bad to be popular, but this show often depicted these things as exactly that.

Parental Bonding was a good episode that established that while Sam’s a good girl, how quick she is to judge other girls isn’t necessarily fair. Instead of reinforcing her ideas all the way through the show, it would’ve been nice to see these two come to understand one another, even if they don’t become friends.

Or we could go with my sister’s idea of having Paulina grow up trying to become Vlad 2.0 in order to steal Danny and destroy Sam but be a very pathetic villain.

That one’s a joke. She just really wanted me to mention it.

I apologize.