Grim Tales from Down Below/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Why didn't Zero go to get help when Junior was kidnapped?

It's implied that some time passes between the kidnapping and when Minnie discovers Zero with Junior's rib. There didn't seem to be anything to stop Zero from going to the party and alerting everyone to what had happened.

What prevented Mandy from having an abortion when she was pregnant with Minnie?

Grim is shown to be very upset that Minnie isn't his daughter, yet, as Nergal points out, any child who is aborted is technically the child of the grim reaper. So, what kept Mandy from getting an abortion while pregnant with Minnie?

  • The impression I got was that Nergal would have stopped them, considering how angry he seemed over the whole process with Junior.

When is the story supposed to take place, in comparison to Nightmare Before Christmas?

The fact that Junior refers to Sally as "Aunt Sally" would imply it takes place after the film, but Oogie's also involved and there's no mention of him having ever been "dead", nor of any other events of the movie. An explanation of this would be an alternate universe to the film, but if that were the case, it would have been nice to see an indication of this.

  • The entire series is an alternate universe. Think about it; Oogie boogie gets killed by the daughter of Nergal Jr. and the son of Grim, and ends up awaking a gigantic monstrosity that can only be stopped by Evil Danny Phantom due to Clockwork's meddling. Meanwhile, there's appearances of Spawn, Him, everyone from Halloweentown, Helga of all people, Yogi Bear if I remember correctly, with all of them somewhat different from their original incarnations, and that's not even naming many, many less memorable characters.
    • Yogi, Booboo, and Hector Con Carne didn't seem like a "real" cameo, especially since Hector said he wasn't even supposed to be in this comic. Since the video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge is canon, Oogie can come back. As shown by Kingdom Hearts II (which is an Internal Retcon Alternate Universe) and other non-canon spinoff stuff, people have a tendency to forget that Oogie is evil, and tend to treat him as less of a threat than he should be (more along the lines of a mischief maker like Lock, Shock, and Barrel).

why does everyone only give Mandy the Complete Monster tag?

Does no one else remember that Death in his memories caused, among other things THE HOLOCAUST?! I think that puts him on a fairly evil level. It's also strange that Jack could be so okay with this considering how well meaning he tends to be.

    • I agree that it's weird that Jack would be okay with that. With the Complete Monster tag, I think people tend to tag Mandy with it and not Grim is not just because of not just what she did, but the reason behind the action. For all we know, Grim was just doing his job (because that's SUCH a good excuse), while it's implied that Mindy did it to impress her crush. Still, it's a wallbanger.
      • We're pissed off because it's bad writing on Bleedman's part. Death isn't the "cause" of natural disasters or genocide. It's a result. If he had wanted someone to blame for natural disasters or genocide, and for Mandy to rise high politically (perhaps even to POTUS? Nah, that'd be too awesome, so that's right out) why couldn't Bleedman have had Mandy be The Chessmaster we all know and love (instead of the personalityless egg bank and heir factory she's turning out to be in this comic) and strike a Deal with the Devil... Him : that he'd orchestrate these disasters and grant her power, immortality, the ability to Charm Person every male creature of the underworld, and spawn an army of unwaveringly loyal heirs, that she may attempt to take over the whole of the multiverse, ostensibly in Him's name? The best part is that she could be revealed as having played Him for a sap, and stand revealed as the multiverse's next great villain! Who would save us? The Powerpuff Gals, of course... with a little help from their friends...
      • Different universe, different rules. Apparently death does do stuff on his own in this one.

Why is Junior considered highly evil by the angels?

He ain't a saint, even at the beginning of the comic, but he is still mostly a jealous child, and with better reasons than most jealous children. But the angel (forgive me if he has a name, or is from a cartoon) acts as if he is highly evil being, despite the mention that god would be forgiving.

Mandy derailment

Mandy agreeing to be Dark Danny's kid oven. First it's Mini Mandy (Minnie) who it's Nergal Jr's daughter, fine we can past it as she just having sex with him because she does what she wants with who she wants, or a form of relieve IF Grim really can't have sex, and that either of this cases let to a mistake and she ended up pregnant. Grim Jr. IF he really isn't Grim's son it could be passed as they looking for a way to have child, grim even choosing the father, which would explain why he favors him over Minnie who is favored by everyone else. In both of those Mandy still retains her badassery Then comes Dark Danny, there are several things wrong with this.

    • 1) Mandy was cheating while being on the castle while Grim was around, apparently the married couple don't even have the courtesy to sleep in the same chamber and Grim is not allowed while she's not there since Danny was told to wait for her there for who knows how long.
    • 2) She's become a baby maker only because the author thought it would be good to have 2 (as seen on sketches of Afterbirth) ghost kids, even when it was stated (see #3)
    • 3) She stated (and it goes perfectly with her character) that she hates kids, yet is agreeing so easily to another 9 months of pregnancy and childbirth just because the children she already has might be at risk, even though (see #4)
    • 4) Mandy agrees to Danny's threat even when he's still on very thin ice with Clockwork, who since Danny is his responsibility could simply go back a little before he does the damage and imprison him again. Not to mention she's the queen of evil, wife of the grim freaking reaper who have an army and tons of connections with pretty much everything imaginable given the universe. I'm just glad Mimi needed to not be related to Jr and Minnie or else she would had also been their sister. It's like Mandy's vagina is the portal to the author's made up characters.
      • Maybe she's in denial and really wants kids? Or, the more likely reason, she just wants it to be more fun. She could also be trying to put up some kind of powerful team as one WMG says. And I don't think Danny was able to threaten Mandy,this is the girl who can put powerful enemies in their place. He most asked her for a little "badger" to carry his legacy and she complied.
        • OP here, first of all even if she really wanted kids, she already has 2 kids, one who will now never grow, and Danny DID threatened her, the atmosphere could had been cut with a demonic knife, it wasn't a (Danny: wanna have my baby? Mandy: ok) situation, it was a situation of him saying, have my kid(s) or those two little ones over there might suffer a little....ghostly wale accident.
          • Kinda doubt that. Mandy has Grim and Nergal Junior in her side, and even then, she's shown to be quite defiant and scare off powerful figures (and that was when she was a kid). Danny can't threaten her kids since she even calmly stated that he was beaten by them in that same page. Plus this page indicates she approached him, not the other way around, most likely trying to get his son in the first place. As a WMG said, maybe Mandy is either trying to raise one of the most powerful team in the underworld under her control. Or she just wants things to be more "exciting". and what better way then to have more kids with special powers(and possibly have them be in a relationship with each other.
              • Actually that page indicates she's not too pleased with him using something he didn't think Junior would survive.
                • I personally saw it as the former when I first read that page. I figured she was looking at him for a reason, like sizing him up. Clockwork's comment practically foreshadowed what was going to happen in Wh AM.
    • cuz if you don't...I can always..., sounds like a threat to me, maybe I was quick to conclude what kind of a threat it is, it could simply be that he tells a secret, or does something she can't do anything about, etc. etc. endless possibilities, but you can see from her face that she's not exactly ok with the deal.
      • Nah, sounds more like "if you won't raise them as like that, I'll do it myself" thing. Mandy's expression reminds me more of the way they say "no! They're mine!".
    • Better excuse: she's consolidating her power. Although she did not want children, she does not either abuse nor really neglect her children. By doing this, she has people with interesting powers who are loyal to her and one another, dysfunctional or not. They go places she can't, what with her reputation and with powers she doesn't have, queen of the underworld and all. Could be too that Grim wants kids. She did make mistakes with Junior but she's still human, i. e., able to make mistakes. The threat was par for course, considering Danny's origin.
    • At some point there was a character Page; in Nergal Jr's it was said that Mandy had some kind power over him, some kind of bargain ship, obviously that's Minnie, which leads me to believe, that having kids might be a way to get the fathers under her power.

How old are the children (Junior and Minnie, specifically)?

This is a stupid question and usually I don't care about stuff like this, but considering the sexual tension between the characters I get confused. Most people say they're around 8-10 (is this Word of God?), yet they act and are sometimes drawn like young teenagers. Minnie has quite the libido, and I find it hard to believe she could only be 8. Perhaps that's just me not wanting to believe it due to the implications, but I do honestly find it hard to pin-point their exact age.

  • Dunno really. They could more likely be 12-16 since Junior will soon go on his own as shown in Afterbirth. Grim will probably not allow him til he's of age and 16 is sometimes considered old enough for kids to leave home.
  • To the above: To be fair, we don't know how much time has passed between the original story and the sequel, so if it's ten years, Junior could easily be about eight or ten in the original story and be old enough to be on his own in After Birth.
  • Well, they aren't human by any means. They could be Really Seven Hundred Years Old after all.

Why do Nergal Senior and Junior still have both their eyes?

In this page, Nergal explain to Grim Jr. that Nergal demons' mating ritual involves the ripping out their left eye and giving it to their mate. But though both Nergal Senior and Junior still have both their eyes, despite having each conceived at least one child. Does, this ritual only apply to female Nergal demons (if there even are such things)?

  • Grim explained later that Nergal body parts can regenerate
  • Also the eye thing seems to be a passing of the torch and not how they pro-create .
    • Agreed. And they have both of their eyes because they probably either didn't have mates or were at the stage where they'd have to pass their powers onto someone else.

Why did Dark Danny call his father a douche?

  • I mean, he's an idiot, he would have called him an idiot instead but Jack was no means a douche to Danny (only to his ghost half), could it have been the Vlad part talking?
    • Both, likely. The Vlad Plasmius half that always hated jack, and the Danny Phantom half that was always hunted by him. Considering the monstrous bastard Dan is, who knows.
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