| “ | Tell me who you love! | ” |
–Ember McLain to her live audience. | ||
Ember McLain is a ghost villainess in Danny Phantom. She's the main antagonist of the episode "Fanning the Flames."
History
Previous life
Based on the full version of her song "You Will Remember", Ember was an unpopular teenage girl who strongly dreamed of one day becoming a rock star, and felt forgotten by someone important, dying two weeks afterwards. She may have had some experience with fire which gave her the name "Ember". Her song is possibly based on the events prior to her becoming a ghost.
Season 1
Making her debut with her famous song "Remember" in the episode "Fanning the Flames," Ember uses her hypnotic abilities to achieve rock-star status as part of her plan to dominate the world.
Starting in Amity Park, she takes control of the minds of every teenager at Casper High School, except for Danny, who was protected by his ghost powers, and Sam, who was wearing the Fenton Phones at the time. When Mr. Lancer ordered Ember and Her band to leave, the Ghostly Rock n' Roller uses Her guitar to have the teenagers attack Lancer, who is protected by Danny's ghost powers. Ember leaves during the chaos, however.
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 Danny distracted 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 appearance as the secondary antagonist 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.
Danny later steals her guitar, and she furiously tries to get it back using her flaming hair, but accidentally sets the ship’s sail on fire. Noticing her mistake, she gets a little nervous at first saying “Ok, maybe not the best idea”, but then decides it’s not that big of a deal to her and leaves Youngblood on his own, presumably returning to the ghost zone, 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 others 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.
Ember in The Ultimate Enemy.
In an alternate future in "The Ultimate Enemy," Ember is obese and can no longer sing due to her vocal cords 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. She along with the other ghosts all blamed him for their pain and called him a menace to those around her.
Her actions only frustrated Danny, to the point that he developed Ghostly Wail, and she was surprised by this development before she is 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 TV 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
- Main article: Ember McLain/Gallery/Clothes
Ember McLain is a tall, beautiful, attractive and pale cyan-skinned teenage ghost girl with a slender, pear-shaped built, green eyes and long, flaming, robin's egg-blue hair which had been pulled back into a high-ponytail by a black hair tie, with two locks of her hair framing her face (resembling a sharp-angled "M"). Her makeup includes curled and curved black eyeliner under her eyes, and amethyst-purple lipstick.
Her appearance, songs, and character in general portray her as a ghostly embodiment of teenage rebellion and disobedience to authority figures such as kings, dictators and high school principals.
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.
Her clothing is attractive and appealing in nature, having clearly been inspired by the Gothic-Punk subcultures, which consists of a black choker around her neck, a black one-shouldered leather crop-top, a gray-studded belt hanging from her waist, skin-tight black leather pants and large, knee-length gray skull boots with black detailing. Her accessories includes small, amethyst-purple piercings shaped like a circle and a triangle, a black leather arm-length glove on her right arm, and a black bracelet on her left wrist.
Personality
Ember is a loud, hard-rocking ghost who feeds off the idol worship of other teenagers, and 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.
Because she is the ghost of a teenage girl, Ember is rebellious and somewhat has a childish demeanor, frequently bending rules and using 1970's phrases such as "dipstick". What's quite known of her is that she despises any form of adult authority, and is also determined for things to go the way she wanted.[1]
She is also rather petty and vengeful, as in most episodes she is featured, she attempts to beat up and hurt Danny or anyone else who defeated or annoyed her in any way. Along with this, Ember can be selfish and apathetic, as she used her music to control people, whether it's only mind control or changing one's emotions, or when she wanted all men gone because of a fight with Skulker, or abandoning Youngblood after burning his ship's sail.
Despite being a dangerous enemy, Ember isn't particularly psychopathic or murderous like other ghost villains in the series. In fact, one could see that she come across as an influential teenager with her own "little" desires.
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 number 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.
It’s later revealed in Butch Hartman's videos that in the ten years following “Phantom Planet”, Ember develops a deep obsession with Danny, which eventually turns into an infatuation, though she is unwilling to admit it to anyone, even herself. Because of this, the motivations for her hauntings gradually shift from rebelling against authority figures to solely getting Danny's attention. Her crush on Danny is recognizable to others as she has shaved his logo onto the back of her head and uses it for the base of her guitar. Despite her obvious attraction, she continues to staunchly and sometimes violently deny it.
Relationships
Danny Phantom
Ember sees him as her archenemy, 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."
Years later, she would become obsessed with Danny, secretly desiring to have a romantic relationship with the hero.
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, presumably returning to the ghost zone.
Skulker
It is revealed in "Girls' Night Out" that Skulker and Ember are or 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 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, also presumably Ember is unaware that Skulker is just a tiny ghost inside a mechanical ecto suit.
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."
This relationship was erased after Danny changed the future.
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:
- Invisibility, Intangibility, and Flight: Standard ghost powers. She can also fly with her electric guitar as a hoverboard.
- Telekinesis: In "Fanning 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. With her guitar, Ember can create objects made of solid energy, as in "Pirate Radio", she trapped humans inside a pink ecto-bubble. While her name was being chanted by the whole world, she could create an upside-down ecto-tornado cage to trap Danny and prevent him from passing through.
- Spectral Body Manipulation: She can manipulate the shape of her body in order to make her hair take the form of a flame.
- Pyrokinesis: She can shoot streams of flames from her hair.
- Supernatural Strength: While being chanted in Amity Park, she was strong enough to easily overpower Danny.
- Supernatural Durability: 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 still highly resistant to all forms of external physical damage.
- Supernatural Stamina: Like many other ghosts, she has a higher level of stamina than a normal human being.
- Supernatural Reflexes: Her reflexes are enhanced beyond normal human limits.
- Healing Factor: She can heal all her wounds in just a matter of seconds. But she was unable to heal her vocal cords after Dark Danny ruined them.
- Audiokinesis: With her guitar, she literally has the ability to control sound. Ember can generate sound waves and beams that can take out even Danny.
- 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 large groups of people chant her name, the effect causes her hair to flare wildly and rapidly increases her power. This is both her biggest advantage and worst weakness because if those same people cease chanting, her fiery ponytail goes out, and she is rendered powerless. This also only works if many people are chanting her name all at once; if only one or two are doing so, Ember's power does not increase and she is merely left annoyed.
- 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
- Guitar Playing Intuition: She is an expert electric guitar player.
- Singing Mastery: She is a perfect singer, even with or without her powers.
Weapons
- Ember's 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.
- 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:
Her guitar can also be used as:
- A "sword" in close combat.
- A hoverboard.
- See Main Article: Ember's Guitar.
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
You Will 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)
10 Years Later
Version 1
Version 1
The first version is similar to the future Ember character design seen in The Ultimate Enemy but tweaked. In this scenario, the rock star life has taken its toll and she let herself go. She still rocks out and plays at concerts, but her physical form is not that of a young, teen idol Ember.
Version 2
Version 2
At this point in time, Ember has learned to play more instruments than just the guitar. To fit her expanded musical abilities, she has multiple arms, making her a one-woman band. Although it is not drawn on this image, this version could possibly have more arms or a second head. In addition to the instruments seen in the picture, she likely can also play piano and bass.
Version 3
Version 3
The idea behind this design is that in the ghost zone your body becomes what you are. In Ember's case, she has played so much music that she has become music. She doesn't need any instruments; her body is her instrument. When she moves, she creates music. All she needs to do is move her hair, arms, or anything, and she creates music. In fact, her body only makes music when it moves, meaning that there are no sounds heard when a normal person moves around. To reflect this, her form is a music chart, not a body. Hartman stated that the sound would likely be melodic, deadly, hypnotizing.
Version 4
Version 4
This fourth version is intended to be a more comic book-y, realistic, human design. The human look is meant to resemble her voice actor: Tara Strong who voiced Ember in the series.
Version 5
The final version is a punk rock style. She's edgy, cool, but still dangerous. At this point in time, she has become obsessed with Danny Phantom, and this can be seen in her DP styled guitar and the DP logo that has been shaved, or possibly tattooed, on her head. Hartman commented that she still messes with Danny, and possibly is secretly in love with him but unwilling to admit it.[2]
Quotes
"Fanning the Flames"
- (Singing) "You will remember my name!"
- "That's right, baby! Say my name! Are you ready for a little youth revolution?!"
- (Tucker: "WE LOVE YOU, EMBER!")
Ember: "That's because I filled a void in your empty lives!" - "How about a love song?"
- "HELL-O, AMITY PARK! TELL ME WHO YOU LOVE!"
- "Hear that? They're chanting my name all over the world! 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 ROCK!"
- "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!" - "What was that?"
- "Funny, so where he'd go?"
- "Let's just turn up the volume."
- "Hey!"
Trivia
- Tara Strong, the voice of Ember, also voices Timmy Turner, Poof, Britney Britney, Princess Mandie, Carly in "Five Days of F.L.A.R.G.", the supermodels from "Escape from Wishless Island", Tootie's mother, and other characters from Butch Hartman's other show, The Fairly OddParents.
- Her songs are sung by Robbyn Kirmssé.
- Ironically, Tara Strong has proven on a few occasions that she has a lovely singing voice, making it rather strange she didn't perform Ember's song herself.
- Tara Strong also voiced Kylie Griffin in Extreme Ghostbusters.
- 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.[1] Later, she aimed at adults.[3] Lastly, she affected women.[4]
- That would point out an apparent weakness in Ember's powers, making her seem like she can only control a specific demographic with her music instead of general music lovers all at once.
- For better context, a Marvel supervillain from the X-Men comics, Magneto, has a similar weakness; he has the power to manipulate metal by controlling magnetic fields but can only control a positively charged field or a negatively charged field instead of both at the same time.
- 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 Jack using the DNA lock.
- Along with the Fright Knight and the Lunch Lady Ghost, Ember is one of the few recurring villains who’s only starring role was in their debut episode. From that point onwards, all of her other episodes have her share screentime with other villains.
- Along with Sidney Poindexter and Desiree, she is one of the few ghosts implied to have had a human life once. However, Butch Hartman stated in a video on his YouTube Channel that the ghosts in the Danny Phantom universe are beings from another dimension and not the spirits of the deceased.
- 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.[citation needed]
- Due to her developing feelings for him in the 10 years following the series finale, Ember is the fifth female character to have a crush on Danny. The first being Sam Manson, then Paulina, next Valerie Gray, and an unnamed girl with braces.
- Randy Stair, a YouTuber infamous for perpetrating the shooting at Weis Markets, has his mental health decline involved with his obsession with Ember.[5]
- Her name "Ember" means a small piece of fire or flame burning or glowing in coal or wood, smoldering in ashes, hence her fiery hair.
- She also has the same first name as Ember Lumen, a fiery woman and the main protagonist in Disney's Elemental (2023).
- In the Latin American dub of the show, Ember goes by Amber for unknown reasons.
- Out of all the female ghost villains, Ember is the one with the most appearances in the show.
- Ember McLain made an appearance as an official playable fighter in the 2023 crossover video game, Nickelodeon: All Star Brawl 2.
- During one of her performances, Ember sticks out her tongue with a wild grin on her face; this, coupled with her eye make-up, brings to mind the guitarist Gene Simmons of KISS.
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
References
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