Ember McLain (Danny Phantom)

Ember McLain is a ghost villainess in Danny Phantom. Ember appeared from 2004-2007. She was voiced by Tara Strong.

History

Previous life

According to one of the directors of the show, before she died, Ember was an unpopular high school girl who dreamed of one day becoming a rock star. One day a boy asked her out to the movies. She waited all night for him to show up, saying, "He's just running late." When morning came and he still didn't show up, Ember gave up on waiting and went home. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep and didn't wake up when her house mysteriously caught on fire. She died in the flames, which possibly gave her the name "Ember." Her song "Remember" is based on the above events prior to her death.

Season 1

Making her debut with her famous song "Remember" in the episode "Fanning the Flames," Ember uses her hypnotic abilities to achieve pop-star status as part of her plan to dominate the world. Starting in Amity Park, she takes control of the minds of every teenager in town, except for Danny, who was protected by his ghost powers, and Sam, who was wearing the Fenton Phones at the time. When fighting Danny at a music store, she gains the upper hand due to the chanting and eventually grows strong enough to affect him, keeping Dannydistracted by putting a love spell on him that makes him fall in love with Sam, while she busies herself with her plans of world domination with a worldwide televised concert.

The spell is later broken when Sam, in a desperate move, kisses Dash (much to both of their disgust) right in front of Danny. Heartbroken and finally back to normal, he fights Ember, but she is still way too powerful for him due to the entire world chanting her name, enabling her to trap him in a swirling purple vortex. Danny realizes he needs to stop the chanting and gets Tucker to sing on stage. His horrible singing causes the hypnotized crowd to snap out of it and stop cheering for Ember. Immediately she grows weak and powerless, losing her flaming ponytail, and is captured and banished to the Ghost Zone where she deals with an annoying Klemper who keeps chanting her name.

Ember later attempts to exit the Ghost Zone in the episode "13," where she is shown in a line heading directly through the Fenton Portal. Jack was obliviously releasing ghosts one at a time by pressing a button which opened the portal doors, telling his family that whenever they press it, the doors open "like this." Just as it is Ember's turn to exit the Ghost Zone, Johnny 13 and Kitty cut in front of her on his motorcycle with the aid of Johnny's Shadow.

Season 2

Ember makes her second appearance as a main character in "Pirate Radio," in which she creates a song (which is actually a mellow, ballad version of "Remember") that hypnotizes adults so they will go on a fake cruise called M. Bersback, a poorly-hidden message for "Ember's Back." With this, she teams up with Captain Youngblood. However, she just leaves/escapes the ship after accidentally burning its sail, vowing to return. Despite her involvement in the plot, she was not the primary villain of the episode as she was merely a mercenary hired by Youngblood.

She comes back in "Reign Storm" with numerous ghosts who fled the Ghost Zone when Pariah Dark was woken up. She tells Danny about how she and the other ghosts are fleeing from Pariah Dark before she, as well as several other of Danny's enemies, attacks him. Later in the episode, she, along with Danny's other enemies, team up to help him fight off the Ghost King's army.

In "Identity Crisis," Danny, Sam, and Tucker check out Ember's file on Danny's computer, hinting that he might have fought her before the beginning of the episode since he mentions sending her back to the Ghost Zone.

In an alternate future in "The Ultimate Enemy," Ember is obese and can no longer sing due to her vocal chords being damaged by Dark Danny. She attacks regular Danny along with some of his other enemies, wanting revenge for the terrible fate his future-self gave them. Her actions frustrated Danny to the point that he developed Ghostly Wail and she was blown away by it and knocked unconscious.

She makes a cameo in "The Fright Before Christmas" as one of the many ghosts helping Danny save Christmas.

Season 3

In "Girls' Night Out," Ember teams up with Kitty and Spectra in a joint attempt to eliminate all men. When Kitty uses her banishing kiss on Johnny 13, Ember uses her guitar to amplify the kiss, causing its effect to spread across the entire town, making all the men disappear. This is the episode where her new song, "Girl's Night Out" is played with Jazz and two other girls as backup singers. It is also revealed that Ember is Skulker's girlfriend.

Ember's final appearance is in the series finale, "Phantom Planet." She is seen amongst the many ghosts who help Danny and Skulker turn the entire planet intangible, so that the Disasteroid can pass harmlessly through it.

Appearance

Ember McLain is a pale-white hard-rocking siren-like teenage ghost girl who feeds off the idol worship of other teenagers. Her appearance, songs, and character in general portray her as a ghostly embodiment of teenage rebellion and disobedience to authority figures.

Ember has long, flaming, teal hair pulled back into a ponytail at the top of her head, two locks of hair framing her face (resembling a sharp-angled "M"), and light purple lipstick. She can control the temperature of her hair in order for it to be hot enough to use as an attack or cool enough to wear hats and can even control if it looks like fire or real hair. Like some other ghosts, her eyes are green. Her clothing is attractive and appealing in nature, consisting of a black choker around her neck, a black one-shouldered crop-top, one long glove that covers most of her right arm, and one black bracelet on her left arm. She also wears a pair of what appear to be leather pants with a silver belt and skull boots.

Personality

Ember is a hard-rocking ghost teen with disrespect towards any kind of authority figure. She obviously has a great amount of pride in her singing abilities, as she wanted revenge on Dark Danny in "The Ultimate Enemy" for ruining her vocal cords. She also has somewhat of a childish personality (whilst frequently shouting 1970's phrases such as "dipstick"). However, she doesn't seem to be easily offended as she usually ignores Danny when he drives insults towards her. She shares her hatred of adult authority with Youngblood, and she is distressed when things don't go the way she wants ("Fanning the Flames").

She is not above revenge. In all the episodes she was featured as a villain, she has tried to hurt Danny or anyone else who defeated or annoyed her in any way. She also can get really low in her schemes when it comes to world conquest as she has used her music to control people, whether it's only mind control or changing one's emotions. This shows that she can be selfish, which is also displayed when she wanted all men gone because of a fight with her boyfriend Skulker and abandoning Youngblood after burning his ship's sail. Despite being a dangerous enemy, she's not insane or murderous like some other ghosts in the series. In fact, she could be considered nothing more than an influential teenager with her own "little" desires.

Little is known about her human life. Although as mentioned previously she was an unpopular teenage girl who wished to become a rock star, some have used the lyrics of her song "Remember" to theorize that she might have committed suicide by self cremation, making her somewhat of a tragic villainess. However, this is unclear. Her life could have been around the 1970's or 80's because of her use of that time's slang and plans to start a youth revolution (a fairly common occurrence during those decades) in her first appearance.

As stated before, Ember's mind is filled up with revolutionary thoughts. In every episode she is featured as a villain, her plans are always related to some sort of revolution. This is also evidenced by her hatred of authority, especially adults. She will team up with other ghosts (Youngblood, Kitty, Spectra, etc) and hypnotize a large amount of humans in order to put her rebellious plans into action. However, even though she always has ideas of this type in every episode that has her as a main antagonist, she is always extreme and desires to enslave others, ironically ending up as an authoritarian herself.

Relationships

Danny Phantom

Ember sees him as her arch-enemy, no doubt due to the many defeats he has dealt her. Therefore, she will do whatever she can to stop him from ruining her schemes - preferably permanently. Ironically, she actually helps Danny and Sam realize their feelings for each other because of her love spell. She often refers to Danny as "dipstick". However, she and some other ghosts seem to feel sorry for him when he's trapped in the Ghost Writer's story in "The Fright Before Christmas."

Captain Youngblood

These two get along due to their shared hatred towards adults and their youthful personalities. They team up for this reason and make a deal: Ember hypnotizes the adults of Amity Park with Youngblood's help, giving her easier access to the youth of the town, while Youngblood uses the adults to power his ship. When Ember accidentally destroys part of Youngblood's ship while battling Danny, she ultimately abandons him.

Skulker

It is revealed in "Girls' Night Out" that Skulker and Ember were boyfriend and girlfriend. They had a quarrel over Skulker's inability to hunt Danny Phantom (or any ghost for that matter), and it’s unknown whether or not they are still dating. Presumably, one of the reasons they've dated is because they have similar personalities, which is shown in their styles as they both have flaming hair and similarly-styled boots.

Dark Danny

Ember finds him the most deplorable ghost in existence and has a personal vendetta on him for ruining her voice and making her fat in the alternative timeline of "The Ultimate Enemy."

Penelope Spectra and Kitty

Ember teams up with the two in an attempt to get revenge on men in "Girls' Night Out." At first, she and Spectra seem to get along but when things go wrong they blame each other. Ember gets along better with Kitty, both connected due to the troubles they have with their respective boyfriends. However, they get upset with each other when Sam tricks them into believing that they didn’t get rid of all of Amity Park's men when she disguises herself as a boy.

Klemper

Klemper attempts to befriend Ember at the end of "Fanning the Flames" but is unsuccessful as she tries to get him to leave her alone.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Being a ghost, Ember has many of the same abilities as other ghostly characters on the show as well as her own special powers, such as:

Audiokinesis: With her guitar she literally has the ability to control sound.
Flight: Standard ghost power; she can also fly with her guitar as a flying board.
Invisibility: Standard ghost power
Intangibility: Standard ghost power
Telekinesis: In "Fannng the Flames," she was able to summon her guitar from a long distance.
Teleportation: She can appear and disappear in a purple smoke cloud or disappear in a hair-flame tornado.
Ghost Ray: She can fire a pink blast and other types of blasts from her guitar.
Hypnotic Music: When she plays her guitar or sings, she can hypnotize people (usually young people), although she can hypnotize adults (and those who think they are adults) as well.
Chanting Empowerment: Whenever people chant her name, the effect seemingly causes her hair to flare wildly and her eyes to glow, thus rapidly increasing her power. This is both her biggest advantage and worst weakness because if people cease chanting, her fiery ponytail goes out, rendering her powerless.
Spectral Body Manipulation: She can manipulate the shape of her body in order to take the form of a flame.
Superhuman Strength: While being chanted in Amity Park, she was strong enough to easily overpower Danny.
Superhuman Resistance: Her physical durability was considerably higher than many other ghosts, possibly including Danny, while being chanted by the whole world. However, even without the chanting of others, she is highly resistant to all forms of external physical damage.
Superhuman Stamina: Like many other ghosts, she has a higher level of stamina than a normal human being.
Superhuman Reflexes: Her reflexes are enhanced beyond normal human limits.
Healing Factor: She can heal all her wounds in just a matter of seconds.
Ecto-Tornado Cage: While her name was being chanted by the whole world, she could create an upside down ecto-tornado cage to trap Danny.
Ecto-Bubble: She can trap humans inside a pink ecto-bubble.
Pyrokinesis: She can use her flaming hair as a fire attack.
Power Augmentation: Ember has the ability to enhance the powers of others, one such example being what she does with Kitty's banishing kiss.

Abilities

Master Guitar Player: She is an expert electric guitar player.
Singer: She is a perfect singer, even without her powers.

Weapons

Electric Guitar: In the episode Fanning the Flames, she uses the guitar as a weapon when she plays a ghostly "love song" to place Danny under a love spell. This in turn makes him fall in love with Samantha Manson, his "platonic" girlfriend. The effect is broken by the end of the episode, but Danny and Sam fall in love on their own terms at the end of the series.

Icons and Powers: Ember's guitar has different icons in each close-up, with each one representing the special abilities she can use. The icons and their effects are:
- A music note: Presumably for normal music playing.
- A spiral: For a hypnotizing spell.
- A flame: For a flame attack.
- A heart symbol: Used for a love spell.
- A skull: For a skull beam.
- A punch: For a fist-shaped energy beam.
- A wave: A generic energy beam or a sonic wave.
- She can also trap people in an ecto-bubble that no human can pass through.

Her guitar can also be used as:

A "sword" in close combat.
A flying board.

See Main Article: Ember's Guitar.

Ember's Ponytail: She uses her hair as a fire attack as it's shown in "Fanning the Flames" and "Pirate Radio."

Weaknesses

Ember has ghosts' inherent weaknesses, such as ecto-ranium, blood blossoms, and anti-ghost weapons.

Her main weakness is a lack of chanting. The moment people stop chanting her name, she is rendered powerless. However, this was only during her first appearance and she hasn't needed chanting since then.

Ember's Songs

Remember

Yeah! Oohh!

It was, it was September Winds blow, the dead leaves fall To you, I did surrender Two weeks, you didn't call...

Your life goes on without me My life, a losing game But you should, you should not doubt me You will remember my name

Oh, Ember, you will remember Ember, one thing remains Oh, Ember, so warm and tender You will remember my name

Your heart, your heart has mended You're wrong, now bear the shame Like dead trees, in cold December Nothing but ashes remain...

Oh, Ember, you will remember Ember, one thing remains Ember, so warm and tender You will remember my name

Oh woah woah!

Ember, you will remember Ember, one thing remains Ember, so warm and tender You will remember my name Yeah! You will remember my name

Girls Night Out

Hey girls (echoing) It's girls' night out (night out, night out, night out)

Wooooaaaaaaaaah! (Come on, girls! Let's do this!) (Whoo! All right! Come on!)

Hey girls, we're a lot of fun. (Doo wap, wap) We'll show all of you l'il schoolboys how it's done (Doo wap, wap)

We got the looks that you're all after We got the moves that make you cry (Make you cry) If there's a chance of causing laughter You wanna kiss, baby, don't even trrrrrry (--trrrryyy--rrrrrryyyyyyy)

Sightings

Season 1

111. "Fanning the Flames"
114. "13" ^{(no lines)}

Season 2

203. "Pirate Radio"
204. "Reign Storm"
206. "Identity Crisis" ^(pictured)
208. "The Ultimate Enemy"
210. "The Fright Before Christmas"
211. "Secret Weapons" ^(pictured)

Season 3

303. "Girls' Night Out"
312. "Phantom Planet" ^{(no lines)}

Quotes

"Fanning the Flames"

(Singing) "You will remember my name!"
(Tucker: "WE LOVE YOU, EMBER!")
Ember: "That's because I fill a void in your empty lives!"
"The revolution will be televised!"
(Klemper: "Ember! Ember!")
Ember: "Stop saying my name!!"

"Pirate Radio"

"That's right pop fans, Ember's back and ready to roooooooock!!!!!!!!!"
"So, Youngblood helps me hypnotize the over-thirties so I can take over the world and stuff, and I provide him with a power source for his fleet of ships."
"The only one rocking this boat is me!"
"Ok, maybe not the best idea. Oh well. Bon voyage, kid! Catch you on my comeback tour!"

"Reign Storm"

"Hey kids, here's a little ditty I like to call, GET OUT OF MY NEW HOME!"
(Danny: "How did all of you fit inside the Specter Speeder?")
Ember: "Hey! Ever been inside your stupid Thermos? Compared to that, it's the Taj Mahal in there."

"The Fright Before Christmas"

"Have some warm Christmas goose."
(With other ghosts) "We resume all hostility!"
"That is really uncool."

"Girls Night Out"

(Bertrand "And you told Skulker he was a lousy hunter.")
Ember: "He is! He can't even find the TV remote!"
"Let's just turn up the volume."
"Hey!"

Trivia

Tara Strong, the voice of Ember, also voices Timmy Turner and Poof from Butch Hartman's other show, The Fairly Oddparents.
Tara Strong also voiced Princess Mandie and The Platinum Princess from the Nickelodeon series The Fairly Oddparents.
Tara Strong previously voiced a pair of Scooby Doo villainesses: Lena Dupree from 1998's Scooby Doo on Zombie Island and Terry from What's New, Scooby Doo?
Her songs are sung by Robbyn Kirmssé.
In "Beauty Marked" Sam used make-up very similar to Ember's on Paulina, and later in Prince Aragon's castle, Sam wore similar make-up.
Every time Ember uses her hypnotizing spell against a large amount of people, she seems to focus on a specific group. First, she targeted teenagers. Later, she aimed at adults. Lastly, she affected women.
Ember is the only character in the show to have her own 3-minute theme song which also turns out to be her first song on the show: "Remember."
Ember states in her first appearance that "the revolution will be televised."
Ember's use of '70s lingo suggests that she might have lived and died in the 1970s.

At the start of the episode "13," Ember is seen in the Ghost Zone in a line leading to the Fenton ghost portal repeatedly being opened and closed by the DNA lock.
In a video of future concepts for characters, Hartman depicts Ember as still being a rocker and possibly being in love with Danny Phantom but unwilling to admit it. He even goes so far as to give her a DP-logo guitar.
In another video, Hartman said that had he been able to do more episodes, out of all the ghosts in the series, he would have liked to expand on Ember's character the most and maybe even do more songs for her.