Valerie Gray

Valerie Gray is an anti-heroine from Danny Phantom. Once a popular, shallow girl, Valerie's life takes a turn for the worse in the episode "Shades of Gray", when accidents caused by a ghost dog cost her father his job. No longer living an average life, Valerie vowed revenge against all ghosts (formerly Danny Phantom). for ruining her life after being given a ghost-hunting suit and gears from Vlad Masters (unbeknownst to her at the time). Vlad employs her to do his bidding until she finds out in "D-Stabilized" that Vlad was a half-ghost and that he was manipulating her. She is hot-tempered, which often clouds her judgment, but slowly starts to realize a world beyond the superficial. She briefly strikes a romance with Danny Fenton, but clashes very often with his alter ego.

Season 1
Her first appearance was in "Parental Bonding," though she only appeared and talks for a few seconds, accepting Tucker's invitation to the dance because Kwan decided to go with a different girl. Later, it's implied that Tucker, overshadowed by Danny, breaks off their plans so that he can take Sam to the dance.

Valerie Gray was once a rich, popular girl at Casper High until the appearance of a huge ghost dog at Axion, a large laboratory facility where her father worked, occurred in "Shades of Gray."

Danny tries to catch the dog, but the two of them cause so much ruckus and damage, that her father, Damon Gray, loses his job. Due to his job loss, she and her father have little money, are forced to move into a run down apartment, and thus her popularity status from the "in-crowd" plummets. Valerie blames her misfortunes on Danny Phantom, thus dedicating herself to hunting ghosts for the rest of her life.

Unbeknownst to her, Vlad Plasmius takes advantage of her grudge and has secretly supplied her with various ghost-hunting weaponry, helping her to fight Danny and allowing Vlad to spy on Danny in secret for his own plans.

Late to school after fighting each other in their alter-egos, Danny and Valerie are forced to become "parents" of a sack of flour for a one-week school assignment in "Life Lessons." At the same time, Skulker, ghost hunter extraordinaire, decides to pit Danny Phantom and Valerie against each other in a contest, the winner earning the privilege of becoming his prey.

Valerie is busy with two jobs, and forces a partially-unknowing Danny to have the sack for most of the time, much to Danny's chagrin. Finally pushed to the brink of frustration, Danny gives Valerie the sack, complaining that she needs to do some work.

After several failed attempts to make the two fight, Skulker realizes that both Danny and Valerie consider the flour sack as very valuable, and in one last resort he kidnaps the sack and frames Danny of stealing it with the hopes of at last, finding the winner.

However, things don't go his way, and in the end he decides to capture both Danny and Valerie in the Ghost Zone to be his prey. After getting through booby traps and escaping Skulker's Island, the two eventually figure out how to work together and finally manage to defeat Skulker together.

Later, Danny apologizes to Valerie, and they are able to get a C for their somewhat destroyed sack. In this episode, it is revealed that Valerie works at the Nasty Burger as the mascot of the restaurant to make extra money.

Season 2
By "Reign Storm," Valerie gains a friendship with Danny, which develops into having a crush on him. Vlad pulls her to the side and reveals that he is the one who has been giving her the ghost hunting equipment.

Courageously, she tries to fight against Pariah Dark's army to save Danny and Vlad. She also attempts to fight Pariah Dark himself with the ecto-skeleton, but Danny stops her by revealing her secret identity to her father.

At the end, Valerie lets Sam know that Sam better make her move on Danny, or else she would.

In "The Ultimate Enemy," her Valerie's future self has become Amity Park's defender. When Dark Danny broke Amity Park's enhanced Ghost Shield, she tried to hunt him, but he easily sent her away.

Though present Danny was able to prevent her from hitting the wall, she then fell to the ground. Before she became unconscious, she says she almost forgot how cute young Danny was. Fortunately, that future was prevented thanks to the work of Danny and Clockwork. In "Flirting With Disaster," Valerie and Danny date for a brief period of time, neither knowing Technus is the one pushing the two together while he goes about his plans for world domination.

In one instance, Technus attacks Danny with Valerie's old suit, but when Danny destroys it, Valerie thinks he was trying to kill her, making her vow to stop Danny Phantom stronger. Before Technus hooks up with a satellite in space, he upgrades Valerie's suit, giving her an advanced red and black-striped one, and the power to change into it at will.

This was meant to further distract Danny from his own dastardly plans, as she was now even more dangerous to Danny Phantom then she was before. After Technus's defeat, Valerie lets Danny know that she didn't think she was ready to start a deeper relationship with him, breaking both of their hearts.

Season 3
In "D-Stabilized," Valerie is hired by Vlad to seek and capture Danielle "Dani" Phantom. Vlad tells her that Dani wants to destroy him.

Using a ghost detector, she instead finds a human Danielle, and is unaware she is the same as Dani Phantom. When mistaking Valerie as a hostile situation, Danielle runs from her into an unstable building about to collapse, where she saves Valerie's life when the hunter followed and almost perished from within from falling debris.

After exposing herself as a half-ghost, Valerie captures Danielle and uses her to lure out Danny Phantom, capturing him as well. She then ships her off to Vlad until Danny convinces Valerie that she is innocent. Calling a temporary truce, the two work together to save her from Vlad Plasmius's clutches. By the end, Valerie discovers that Vlad Masters and Vlad Plasmius are one and the same, and vows to take him down as well.

She makes a final cameo appearance in "Phantom Planet." First she gets pushed aside by Vlad's Masters' Blasters, and eventually takes part in saving the world from a deadly asteroid.

Valerie was seen among the crowd cheering for Danny when he revealed his secret to the world, so her hatred for ghosts and Danny Phantom had inexplicably gone away.

Appearance
Valerie is a fourteen year-old African-American girl, with long, curly hair and dark green eyes. She seems to be a little curvy, although she looks slimmer when she's wearing her red and black ghost-hunting suit. When not using her suit, she usually wears a yellow sleeveless shirt and orange skirt with white tennis shoes.

She also wears an orange headband, yellow triangular earrings, an orange necklace, and has two bracelets on each wrist, one yellow and the other orange. She has also been seen in a violet baby doll T-shirt in "Shades of Gray."

Personality
Early on, she was cruel, selfish, and mean-spirited like her popular friends. In "Reign Storm," she's confused for a while about why Sam and Tucker treat her uneasily, but then they remind her that she used to treat them terribly.

However, her descent into unpopularity begins to change her into a nicer, less egotistical person to the people around her, making new, better friends while looking upon her former "friends" with disdain and disgust.

She also becomes more compassionate and caring, going from just wanting to get revenge on ghosts like Danny Phantom to endangering herself to protect Amity Park from ghost attacks.

Valerie is extremely stubborn and hot-tempered, as well as very persistent and dangerous. Not even her dad can stop her dedication to hunting ghosts. If necessary, she manipulates people if it's required or it's helpful, like taking advantage of Tucker knowing ghost hunters and Dani having connections with Danny.

Her anger is also something to be feared, like getting revenge on Danny ruining her new shirt by sending Kwan out to hurt him in "Shades of Gray." She holds strong grudges, too, as she has never forgiven Danny Phantom for ruining her life. As time goes by, though, Valerie becomes better at suppressing her fiery emotions, especially when she has to team up with her least favorite ghost or makes occasional truces with him.

Danny and his friends might see her as a foe, but Valerie thinks of herself as the hero, even though she's actually an anti-hero. Valerie truly means well and is positive that Danny and all ghosts are evil, so her hatred motivates her to hunt them down.

Although more fierce and harsh in the way she treats enemies than Danny, she does have the right intentions of saving everyone from harm. Sometimes, her firm stance in her beliefs gets shaken up.

She strongly trusts that Vlad isn't a ghost or a bad guy, but when she finds out the truth, she is shocked and immediately decides that she'll get him back for his deceit.

While certain that torturing humans is wrong, she struggles over whether letting a half-human/half-ghost be killed is morally right, only finally agreeing to it after Danny persuades her. Valerie isn't completely aware about many things concerning ghosts, yet she is sure that it's her duty to ward them off from innocent people, like her father and her crush, Danny.

Damon Gray
As her father and only parent, Damon is strict but very caring towards Valerie. He is sorry that their living conditions have gotten worse but is determined to help his daughter. In turn, Valerie loves her father and worries for his safety.

She also understands that he wouldn't approve of her hunting ghosts so she hid her secret to ensure he wouldn't worry. However, Danny reveals her secret to Damon in "Reign Storm," which causes Damon to worry over her safety after fighting ghosts. Afterwards, he firmly restricts her access to her weapons, becoming annoyed when she uses them. Overall, the two have a tight, trusting bond (and no longer hide secrets from each other).

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom
At the beginning of the series, Valerie thinks very little of Danny Fenton and ridicules him along with all of her other popular friends.

Danny in turn strongly dislikes her. When Danny Phantom's antics lead to Valerie's father losing his job (and as a result, his wealth), her popularity immediately declines. As a result, Valerie begins to hate Danny Phantom and all ghosts, as she feels they ruined her life.

However, she quickly grows to care for Danny Fenton as her decline in popularity allows her to grow closer to him. Danny believes she is a selfish know-it-all at first, but upon learning that she has to work two jobs to pay for college due to what happened, he grows friendlier towards her.

This friendship slowly develops into a crush on Danny by "Reign Storm," and becomes mutual in "Flirting With Disaster," when they begin dating. Unfortunately, before Danny can ask to go steady with her, she breaks up with him so she can focus on ghost hunting, though this does not stop her from holding feelings for him. By "D-Stabilized," Valerie seems to have developed a mutual respect towards Danny Phantom after they team up to save Dani Phantom. At the end of "Phantom Planet," she claps for Danny when he reveals his identity to the world.

Vlad Masters
Upon learning of her situation, Vlad finds Valerie to be a perfect pawn to take advantage of and sends her ghost-hunting equipment to fight Danny and other ghosts. He later reveals himself as her benefactor in "Reign Storm." Valerie respects Vlad for this and carries out his bidding to hunt down ghosts.

In "D-Stabilized," however, she finds out that she was just a pawn and that Vlad Masters and Vlad Plasmius are one and the same man. After this, Vlad becomes another ghost in her eyes for her to hunt down.

Dani Phantom
Seeing Dani having to steal food to eat, Valerie sympathizes with her at first and tries to protect her from ghosts but quickly attacks her once she learns that Dani is a half-ghost and Vlad's target for her to catch.

Valerie hands her over to Vlad, but after some convincing, Danny and Val team up to save her. After the rescue, Dani and Val are shown to have a playful, friendly relationship.

Tucker Foley
At first, Tucker is attracted to Valerie, but she thinks little of it until she tries to take advantage of his crush to get information on ghost-hunting (since Danny's parents are ghost hunters).

However, he eventually loses interest in her as she tries to kill Danny Phantom, and even advises Danny against dating her for that very reason.

Sam Manson
At first, the two have little interaction, with Valerie having a low opinion of Sam due to her unpopularity, and Sam disliking Val's haughty, arrogant personality while she is popular.

Sam's dislike grows even more when Valerie starts hunting ghosts (namely, Danny Phantom) while simultaneously developing a crush on Danny Fenton. The two girls eventually develop a rivalry of sorts over Danny's affections.

Star
The two have remained friends since Valerie became unpopular, as they are seen hanging out in "Flirting With Disaster."

Powers and Abilities
As a normal human being, she has no superhuman powers at all, but she does have several skills and weapons she uses to hunt ghosts.
 * She is a 9th-degree black belt.
 * She has proven to be capable to fight ghosts like the Fright Knight and Vlad Plasmius, using her suit and her fighting skills, and even Vlad himself stated that "she really is good at this" when she fought the Fright Knight. She was also seen fighting her own ghost hunting gear when it was manipulated by Technus.
 * After she decides to become a ghost hunter, she begins to exercise intensively, and becomes very athletic. She motivates herself during exercise with her hatred towards ghosts.

Equipment
As a ghost hunter, she has a wide array of ghost hunting gear. In "Shades of Gray," she gained a red ghost-hunting suit with a silver flying board, made by Plasmius, with a wide array of ecto-guns. This suit was eventually destroyed by Danny. In "Flirting With Disaster," Technus made her a new, stronger suit, which was a black-and-red armored suit with much more firepower.

Trivia

 * Her address is 461 Elm Street, Elmerton. This may be a reference to the Nightmare on Elm Street film series.
 * Like Danny, Valerie's real identity is unknown to most of Amity Park's inhabitants, though her father learned it in "Reign Storm," Danny, Sam, and Tucker have known it the whole time, and some ghosts (Skulker, Vlad Plasmius, Technus, and possibly Dani) were aware of her identity.
 * Valerie, who likes Danny Fenton, but hates Danny Phantom, is the opposite of Paulina, who likes Danny Phantom and hates Danny Fenton.
 * When Valerie becomes a ghost hunter, she has two ghost-hunting books, Ghost Hunter's Almanac and Ghost Killing for Dimwits.