Although initially perceived as a silly show for growing children about magic, wizards, and friendship, Adventure Time delves deeper than that and explores complex themes about real, emotionally challenging events and circumstances that exist in the lives of many children. The show alludes to the psychology of growing up and navigating topics around mental health and independence. The story mainly follows Finn the Human and Jake the magic dog, two best friends exploring the land of Ooo and fighting evil while growing into their bodies and identities. The Land of Ooo is considered to be a post-apocalyptic Earth containing a variety of regions, the most prevalent being: The Candy Kingdom, the Fire Kingdom, the Ice Kingdom, Castle Lemongrab, Cloud Kingdom, Lumpy Space, the Evil Forest, and the Bad Lands. The Candy Kingdom is ruled by the scientist Princess Bubblegum. Finn and Jake frequently interact and share the spotlight with her, as well as Marceline the Vampire Queen, the Ice King, and BMO, however, there is a large variety of unique characters that they run into throughout the show. Every character in Adventure Time has their own complex lore and identity that mimic what we would see in reality. None of the characters of Ooo are surface-level characters. Similarly, the plot line of Adventure Time is incredibly complex and extends across 10 seasons and 2 spin-off shows.
Throughout the entire show, there is a consistent lack of healthy parental relationships and many of the younger characters have to process ongoing trauma in their adolescence, either from their parents or from traumatic situations they’ve been faced with. Viewers can find parallels between their situations and those of the characters within the show, allowing Cartoon Network to not only touch on the mental and emotional tribulations of youth culture through Adventure Time, but also the variation and complexity of gender identity, performance, and sexuality in reality. Many of the characters experience states of loss, grief, rejection, love, madness, and perseverance. Gender isn’t explored in a direct, ostentatious way. Instead, Adventure Time displays gender without the existence of a binary. Characters each have their own way of expressing their gender, sexuality, and personality. This is what makes this show so profound for queer youth. The gender binary is not normalized throughout the show, but instead defied. Additionally, the Land of Ooo is inhabited by many different races/species that represent the vast amount of diversity across the Earth. The show even explores disability and sexual harassment of the vulnerable (Holdsworth, 2024). These themes are core parts of the stories of these specific characters: Finn the Human, The Ice King + Marceline the Vampire Queen, BMO, Gunther and Lady Rainicorn.
There is no way to shorten the plot of the story in a single clip so instead, here is a 3 minute clip that displays the amount of emotional complexity that is frequently incorporated into many episodes. This is the scene that will be analyzed and referenced in the following paragraph.
Finn the Human
A consistent detail across the series is the absence of healthy parental figures and relationships. This robs many of the characters from a traditional, loving family environment seen in ideal childhoods. Finn the Human was adopted as a young baby by Jake’s parents and he is considered to be the only living human to exist after the nuclear holocaust known as the Great Mushroom War. Due to this, Finn never received a “normal” childhood. Instead, he was primarily raised by his best friend Jake, a shapeshifting dog that can speak. In Episode 1 of Season 6, “Wake Up”, Finn discovers that his human father, Martin, is being held in space’s version of a maximum security prison called the Citadel. He hopes to find answers to why his father abandoned him. In Episode 2, “Escape from the Citadel”, Finn comes face to face with his father and isn’t given any answers as to why he abandoned him. Instead, Martin only jokes and deflects, not caring about Finn and his peace of mind. The escape of the Lich, described as “an ancient cosmic being who is the manifestation of the inevitable death of all things”, begins to consume the Citadel and interrupts their talk. While Finn manages to stop the Lich, his father Martin takes the opportunity to try and escape. Finn races to cling to him, trying to prevent him from leaving. He begs for him to stay, desperate for answers. Despite his pleas, Martin revs up his escape device and Finn’s arm is ripped off in his attempt to keep his father. He falls into the ocean and is brought back to shore by Jake, forced to face the reality of his father’s identity. This abandonment freshly wounds Finn.
The beginning of Season 6 explores the pain that child abandonment causes a child, as well as the trauma that comes along with that. After this encounter with his father, Finn starts to feel the frustrations of only having one arm. He takes his anger and manifests a phantom arm in Episode 4, The Tower. Finn dedicates himself to using that arm to build a tower into space so that he can find his father and rip off his arm in return. Finn works tirelessly at this, ignoring his own health and well-being. In the end, he makes it to space but ends up passing out without any oxygen. He is saved by Princess Bubblegum, who secretly disguises herself as Martin while he sleeps so that Finn may enact his revenge. Finn wakes and goes at it, but quickly realizes that he doesn’t feel any better. His phantom arm disappears and Finn returns to his life.
In Episode 6, we find Finn amidst a deep depression with his new disability. He explains a numbness to his doctor and is diagnosed as depressed. In an attempt to cheer up, he begins to attend social events and parties. Throughout these events, he begins to display signs of hypersexualism (Holdsworth, 2024). He makes it a goal to kiss every princess and the episode ends with him and Lumpy Space Princess sleeping together in a bed. His attitude towards women changes drastically from the love and care he expressed for Princess Bubblegum and the Fire Princess in earlier seasons. Now, he views the other Princesses as a method of distraction. This is also the episode where Finn is put in a situation alluding to sexual assault while in this depressive state. Towards the end of the episode, Finn regains his arm but it is altered. A small thorn is left in the palm of his hand, a physical reminder of the trauma he has been through. Season 6 is primarily devoted to the cycle of grief. The five stages of grief are defined as Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance (Fisher, 2023). Finn experiences the first four however it seems the human boy hasn’t reached the last stage yet.
Ice King + Marceline the Vampire Queen
Marceline the Vampire Queen, although technically 1,000 years old, takes the form of a woman in her late teens. Her mental state seems to match that choice, so she is likely considered a young adult in the realm of vampires. Her trauma is inflicted upon her by the Ice King, who was previously known as Simon. The Ice King has an extensive amount of trauma himself and is seen as one of the most emotionally chaotic characters. Simon was a human who came in contact with a cursed crown, which drove him into periods of madness and caused his lover to leave him. This crown allowed him to survive the Great Mushroom War, where he found a young Marceline in the wreckage. At that point, he hadn’t fully become the Ice King yet and Marceline begged him to stop using the crown but it was the only way he could protect her from the post-war monsters. Eventually, he left Marceline out of fear of what he was becoming. Once fully consumed by the crown, he completely forgets his past life as Simon and becomes a deranged wizard with body image issues, eating disorder habits, and an obsession with kidnapping princesses to try and fill the hole his lover Betty left inside of him (Kielich, 2023). He begins to decay physically, his skin turning blue, but the crown refuses to let him die. Instead, he is given immortality. In Season 4, Episode 25, Marceline and Ice King have an encounter where Marceline begs the ice cream to remember her. She shows him photos and letters from the past but he is so far into his madness that it has no effect. Marceline is forced to accept that the man who played the father figure in her life will never remember her. These painful feelings caused Marceline to move a lot, constantly avoiding interactions with the Ice King. Many viewers see this episode and find parallels in their experiences with loved ones suffering from life-altering disorders such as dementia and Alzheimers (Zachary, 2018).
BMO + Gunther
Mental health and trauma isn’t the only complex part of adolescence that Adventure Time touches on. The show explores what exists beyond the gender binary through characters like BMO and Gunther. BMO is a sentient video game console capable of moving and speaking independently. They live with Finn and Jake in their treehouse and frequently appear throughout the story. Their gender is never really clear as they show both masculine and feminine qualities, and there is fluctuation in how others refer to them. Gunther is a penguin that is frequently seen beside the Ice King. The Ice King treats it as a pet and expects it to be loyal and subservient, however viewers quickly realize that although the penguin can’t speak, it is definitely conscious and strives for independence. Viewers initially assume Gunther to be a male penguin due to his name and nature, however in Season 2 there is an episode where Gunther gives birth to an egg. Jake is shocked, exclaiming “Gunther is a woman?!” and the Ice King denies that before checking Gunther’s genitals and shrugging it off, never revealing the penguins gender (Jane, 2015). Throughout the show, he continues to swap both feminine and masculine nicknames and pronouns for Gunther. The existence of these two characters and their lack of genders is unquestioned in the Land of Ooo. It’s simply another part of their identity and requires no extra attention. The show pushes awareness of intersectionality to a younger crowd by having such a wild variety of characters. Intersectionality is a core value in Adventure Time and every single character displays the complexity of that. Raising awareness and normalizing the concept of a diversity of identities in each person allows the next generation to see and act on social issues such as sexism and racial inequality (Crenshaw, 2015).
Rainicorns
The Rainicorns are one of many species in Adventure Time, however they are the only species to frequently appear in the show and not speak English. They are first introduced in the series through Lady Rainicorn, Princess Bubblegum’s loyal companion and Jake’s girlfriend. The Rainicorns are a species of unicorn rainbows that speak Korean as their first language rather than English. Many of the Adventure Time characters have accents based on their species and/or where they reside. However, the Rainicorns are the only species shown to speak an entirely different language. They also have a vastly different culture. The existence of the Rainicorns in the Land of Ooo allows the show to make comments on cultural appropriation and racism, as well as more complex themes like interracial marriage. For example, in Episode 12 of Season 2, Finn pretends to be a rainicorn and offends Lady Rainicorn’s parents after yelling gibberish and dancing wildly in an attempt to do the traditional rainicorn dance (Chane, 2023). In Season 8, two episodes are dedicated to Lady Rainicorn and her past. Through those episodes, the viewers discover that there has been lifelong tensions between dogs and rainicorns. Lady Rainicorn used to date Lee, another fellow rainicorn, but came to hate the way he treated dogs. He would make racist jokes and commit hate crimes whenever given the chance. Adventure Time uses this fantasy land and character interactions to make comments about real occurrences. Although this may not be common knowledge for white children, most children of color understand and have seen racism and hatred like this before. Adventure Time doesn’t attempt to hide the grime of reality through fantasy and magic, instead it allows the viewer to perceive real sociological and psychological themes in a more digestible manner.
Conclusion
Although it appears to be a children’s show entirely based in fantasy, Adventure Time touches on aspects of our current society more than some adult shows do. It’s made in such a manner that for a child lacking emotional awareness, it’s just a fun, colorful show. However, for children who are more emotionally intelligent and have experienced the effects of trauma, racism, disability, sexism, and homophobia, this is an outlet for them. This is representation for them. Intersectionality is the idea that we are all composed of multitudes. We are not one single identity, rather we are many held together in one body. By continuously breaking gender stereotypes and normalizing sapphic and nonbinary relationships, Adventure Time pushes the narrative that you are not defined by a single part of your identity. In the Land of Ooo, gender is not a primary concern. Racism is addressed and shown, but never justified. Mental illness and trauma is displayed in all of its forms, physical and emotional. At the core, this is a show about growing up in a world that has all of these problems and learning to navigate and survive it. Finn is not only a hero in the show, but a hero to many teens and adults because he displays both strength and vulnerability. He is the lost child navigating a foreign world, yet continuously fighting for good.
Bibliography
Chane, Camille (2023). Yellow Voices and Rainbow Bodies. Analyzing adventure time: Critical essays on cartoon network’s world of ooo. McFarland & Company Inc.
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 2015. Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait. Washington Post.
Holdsworth, D. (2024, March 1). “this magic keeps me alive, but it’s Making me crazy!”: Amputation, madness, and control in Adventure Time (2009–2018). SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-52034-1_7
Jane, Emma. (2015). “Gunter's a Woman?!”— Doing and Undoing Gender in Cartoon Network's Adventure Time. Journal of Children and Media. 9. 231-247. 10.1080/17482798.2015.1024002.
Jennifer Fisher, Mms. (2023a, December 12). 5 stages of grief: Coping with the loss of a loved one. Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/5-stages-of-grief-coping-with-the-loss-of-a-loved-one
Kielich, Steven. (2023). Trauma and the Body in Adventure Time. Analyzing adventure time: Critical essays on cartoon network’s world of ooo. McFarland & Company Inc.
Thomas, P. (2023). Analyzing adventure time: Critical essays on cartoon network’s world of ooo. McFarland & Company Inc.
Zachary, B. (2018a, September 1). Magic is madness: How adventure time explores mental health. CBR. https://www.cbr.com/how-adventure-time-explored-mental-health/
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