#idk how he became different from the other clockworks in the sense of his emotions

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

The way I see the Dan thing is that CW saw many timelines where Danny slowly slips into bad habbits by loosing his integrity, not talking to Jazz, drifting from his family and other stuff. But he's too Bound to Rules to interfere directly so he engeneers a sacrificial timeline that lets him steer things to the better by influencing Danny, Jazz and Lancer. So he meddles to make Dan something Danny would strongly want to avoid becoming but could still defeat.

^^^

It’s something that’s only really occurred to me kinda recently. But yeah, Clockwork is probably more involved with Dan existing than we see.

I’ve mentioned it in tags, but a theory I have is that Clockwork more or less created Dan so that the Danny we follow ends up being, well, more heroic! I’m not saying the events that would lead up to Dan’s existence wouldn’t happen without interference, but it makes more sense if they only got that escalated because there WAS time shenanigans.

It’s been a bit since I’ve seen TUE, so I might get some details wrong, but. In basics—Dan (Dark Danny, but for sake of ease we’re calling him Dan) exists because of the following factors: he cheats on a Very Importanf Test; Lancer organizes a meeting with Maddie and Jack at, of all places, the Nasty Burger; Jazz, Sam, and Tucker are also there, I think to defend him?; there’s an explosion caused by sauce vat getting too hot; they literally all die, deader than Danny; Danny goes into Vlad’s custody; Danny convinces Vlad to take out his emotions or kill them down by taking out his ghost half (which is my best interpretation of how exactly they thought it would works-fun fact, this is probably why there’s so many theories and headcanons about ghosts feeling things more strongly in fanon, cause I honestly don’t know what else they expected would happen if they WEREN’T aiming to separate his ghost half); the ghost, now called Dan, kills off the human half, takes out VLAD’S ghost half, and absorbs it, not necessarily in that exact order but yeah; Dan devastates the world in a little under ten years.

Now, cheating on the CAT? Requires the answer sheet that Danny only gets because he’s fighting one of the villains Clockwork sent back. It could’ve happened anyways—but it didn’t. We don’t see how else he could have gotten them. We also don’t see how else that explosive vat gets that close to a heat source.

I don’t know WHY Lancer would choose a fast food chain restaurant. Maybe it’s because he wants to help and see if he can get Danny a retest, or help, or what have you, rather than, idk, expelled, and so meeting officially at school wouldn’t work. Point is, he chooses there. If I recall, I think that bit of exposition came from Vlad? Who wasn’t even THERE. And Danny? He’s used to lying. We can’t actually say if that’s the full truth. I’m not sure why Vlad wouldn’t be told the truth, later, even if Danny gave a different story to the police—or it’s close enough that Danny wouldn’t feel like bothering.

Keep in mind, all those major parts? Danny getting the answers, the meeting, the explosion? All happen. The only reason they don’t die is because Clockwork saves them.

An interesting thing is that Dan takes Danny’s place to ensure he cheats, to ensure this happens.

Which… why? Even if Danny now knows, thanks to inexplicably alive Vlad in the future, why is Dan so persistent that it HAS to go like this? To ensure he exists?

I think it’s cause THAT’S what happened the first time. Dan does what he does, knows who Clockwork is, recognizes the time medallions, because this is LITERALLY what happens. Dan believes he’s inevitable, that he’s in a stable time loop, because Clockwork was interfering the FIRST time. It’s possible that Dan, back when he was Danny, knew he became a villain. And maybe, in some timelines, he becomes a tragic hero. There’s a whole bunch of fanfic where this happens. Particularly crossovers. But in Dan’s, he decides to stop fighting it. Fighting it caused the mess, right? Might as WELL embrace it.

So he convinces Vlad, doesn’t tell him the whole truth, gets separated into parts, kills his human half, absorbs Vlad’s ghost half, and leaves Vlad alone. Because he knows that he meets Vlad in the future. And so he needs to be left alone, so that the loop continues. He knows he needs to develop that ability to warp into other versions of himself, so he does it. He knows he gets a ghostly wail—possibly already developed it, but lost it when he first got separated into a full ghost—eventually, so he’ll be patient. He knows he’ll get a round two, and better yet, he’s seen the script. He knows what to say, what to do, and knows what Danny is going to say and going to do.

And it all goes… pretty much according to plan. Even Danny getting the wail early can be brushed aside or accounted for—Dan might’ve forgotten, between all the murders and destruction, lost some ability when he lost his human half. Maybe it’s just a slight variation, but everything else is still happening.

The major difference? For Danny, Clockwork saved everyone.

For Dan, he didn’t.

It’s a story about timelines. We’ve seen alternate timelines, things effected by time travel, how even if it’s sucks there IS a way things are supposed to go. It’s entirely possible that Dan IS from a stable time loop. He might even have his OWN version of a Dan stuck in a thermos that Clockwork takes.

This explains Dan’s motives, more or less. These qualities, of being sure he’s a villain because he’s seen it, would also make him good at being a sort of… time enforcer? Danny did a couple of time travel stints, but didn’t seem to care much for it. Dan would understand necessary things might be unpleasant for a stable future.

But why would Clockwork even BOTHER? Because in Dan’s timeline, the timeline I propose above, then Clockwork is the whole REASON this happens. Heck, Dan might even be trying to destroy Earth, cause that would destroy the Ghost Zone, which would probably destroy Clockwork.

Simply put? Basically, your idea above, anon. Danny is a heroic character, but as much as fanon likes to push aside some of his… less desirable traits, some of which CAN be attributed to canon bad/weird writing as well as the time in came out at, Danny does have faults. He has flaws. And those can be pushed. Danny hears constantly that he was a villain, especially at the start. His grades suffer, his goals suffer, his relationships with EVERYONE suffer. That has to take a toll. There’s probably quite a few timelines where he turns bad all on his own. There’s probably even more where something or someone does take him out. There’s some where him never facing himself caused him to not develop more heroic qualities or abilities or something. Despite everything, he’s an optimist of sorts. It might not be perfect, but if he tries, it’ll work out for him, something that’s kinda developed and proven because he’s a protagonist in a kid’s cartoon. A true loss would effect him greatly.

Dan is the epitome of all the ways Danny’s stress would elevate any loss that shattered his optimist that he ended up with.

Danny is the epitome of having to LITERALLY face the worst version of yourself, and somehow both lose AND still win. He’s a hero who literally defeated himself at his worst and most powerful.

And that, THAT is the kind of hero Clockwork wants…. For whatever reason Clockwork wants a hero like that. We don’t even know if this is their ‘prime’ timeline. It’s just the one we see. This could very well be the ONLY timeline where Danny stays a full hero character. We do not know.

TLDR; I like Clockwork, but he’s a little sus and probably engineered Dan’s entire existence to the point that DAN HIMSELF is compliant in his own ruining of his younger self, and there’s now at least a split timeline between Timeline Where Clockwork Saved Danny’s Support Network and the timeline where he DIDN’T.

#danny phantom #ask me anything #I probably got a theory breaking detail wrong due to not wanting to rewatch the episode #so feel free to tear me to shreds #I can stitch it back together if I did lol #the ultimate enemy #clockwork #dan phantom