#HNN-- I accidentally deleted this and had to spend over an hour rewriting it

[fantasma-exspiravit]

Freak Show Ghost Envy

Crack Theory

Today I'd like to talk about Ghost Envy and why it exists in the Danny Phantom universe. Who coined the idea and all of that. All my thoughts and theories are up to personal opinion, I just like to over analyze things and jump to conclusions. ☺️ Sooooo, without further ado...

Ghost Envy. We first find out about it in the episode reality trip. One might think it was a common thing since Jazz is reading a whole book about it to write her college thesis essay. Titled "Ghost Envy for dimwits: Ghosts are not the boss of me" this book must have some sort of scientific claim for Jazz to be using it for research. But who did this research? As a reminder: Season one starts off with the general public at the understanding that ghosts aren't real. It's such a fringe topic that Jasmine is able to get JACK (of all people) to admit in Mystery Meat, and I quote, "I, Jack Fenton, from this day forth, do hereby turn my back on ghosts. And this thermos can't trap ghosts because ghosts don't exist."

We know for sure that ghosts sightings, research, and proof are rare things. Those who believe in ghosts and try to prove of their existence tend to be societal outcasts who (even with tremendous research like Jack and Maddie) tend to be laughed off as crack pots. That begs the qestion, who wrote this book?

We know it can't be a scientist. At least not a well founded peer reviewed one. As my calculations show from Danny phantom's sleep deprivation (link), each episode spans about 4.4 days from each other (at least until Christmas). Ghosts finally come into public eye during the episode Public Enemies. That happens when Walker uses Phantom and exposes him to the public, to the news, and makes him look like a villain (by stealing the mayor-- do I need to put spoilers for an over ten year old kids cartoon??). This is the 15th episode in the series making this 66 days into the school year (generously assuming Danny got his powers the first day of school) or, just a hair over 2 months.

Why is this important? Well, Reality Trip happens the last day of school. Any well-eatablished psychologist who wants to do research on how the human psyche is affected by the knowledge of ghosts is gonna need to find, subjects, get a board to approve of an experiment, run the experiment, hopefully have others run the experiment for extra backing, get these articles peer reviewed, get them into an established journal, then write a book on Ghost Envy with all its research at a good enough level that Jazz would want to use it as a resource-- Oh, and all before the last six months of time before school get out for the average teen in America.

While there were other ghost researchers (or at least hunters) in the series, we get a chance to see all the best known and established ghost fanatics in Million Dollar Ghost. This episode happens after Public Enemies, but for lenience, we're gonna assume these guys were all around in the shadows (like Maddie and Jack) and have come to light more now the ghosts are a hot topic. We have the groovy gang and scardey cat, the xtreme ghostbreakers, and the guys in white. The former two certainly aren't researchers. And the guys in white, even if they performed their own studies outside of ghosts (since they never seem to want to experiment on the public and only threaten Phantom with experiments) I doubt the government would be publishing any of their research, akin to no one knowing about Area 51 and so on. Whoever wrote the book knew a great deal about Ghost Envy, had lots of time to research it (before ghosts were popular), and didn't already defame their name through crazy stunts like Jack and Maddie.

Not all is lost, however. I just happen to know an author who has already proven to write about Ghost subjects.

I know, Freak Show is adement that he doesn't have Ghost Envy. Who's to say, though, that he didn't research and write the book to prove to the world that he didn't have Ghost Envy. This is called guilt transference. Ever seen someone you know is a cheater adimently accuse their significant other of having been promiscuous? It's under the idea that if you can attribute the the thing you feel you've done wrong onto someone else, you won't be looked at as in the wrong. He is, however, self aware enough, that at the start of the episode when the guys in white state "We know how you envy ghosts" he doesn't deny it. We also know he discusses this topic with Jazz when he feels safe, so clearly he isn't so closeted about his Ghost Envy that writing a book about it would be considered tabu.

I believe, it runs deeper than just a problem with his family, though. Whether or not he told Jazz about this to try and bait pity out of her is a whole different subject. This may go deeper than just parents or his audience loving ghosts more than him. Dealing with the section when he states that he may love ghosts more than himself I'd like to turn our attention to Lydia. She was the only ghost who, when broken free of the orbs charm, stuck it out with Freak Show. Why? I believe the two may have more or less secret affection for each other.

But she is dead. Not just dead, she's a ghost. An immortal being that is very rare and difficult to become, the chances Freak Show might become a ghost are basically zero. Regardless of how many trinkets he has to try and make himself ghostly (whatever causes his ghostly aura around him). One day he will die and she will live on. This makes his hatred of ghostly things all the more real as it now keeps him from having a happy life with Lydia. It may be a part of the cause for him to want her to express more human traits. It would also explain why he offers to take her to dinner or a movie before stating he'll spend their afternoon becoming the ringmaster of the world.

In other words: I really ship Freak Show and Lydia and I think there's enough evidence for me to say it could have been canon.