The writers gave everyone a unique slang, or attitude, or cadence to work with. Marceline was a laid-back slacker punk rocker. Princess Bubblegum was officious and scientifically minded. One episode set in an alternate universe introduced an entirely different future lingo. No character was too minor to be considered as a distinct individual.
Adventure Time frequently devoted entire episodes to fleshing out secondary characters, sometimes shining a spotlight on someone who had only existed in the background for the entire show up to that point. And what it could do for its main characters was even more impressive. Some of them were hundreds of years old, with a few of them predating the Mushroom War, and as we got to know them better, we came to understand a long history of regrets, which stemmed first from the act of survival and then from trying to build a new society out of the ruins.
Their arcs were contrasted with the subtle but definable trajectories of Finn and Jake, who slowly matured over the course of the show from goofballs to responsible figures.
Many episodes of Adventure Time took detours to toss out different philosophical challenges, aiming them at both the characters and the audience.
In one, Finn got trapped in another world and lived an entire lifetime there before returning to his own as a child again. In another, Finn and Jake confronted a population of people willingly submitting to a Matrix-like virtual reality existence. The sky is black. Adventure Time dared to be anything and everything, often at the same time. It was an epic fantasy adventure. It was a long-term coming-of-age story. It was an experimental exercise. It was a relationship drama.
It was a heartbreaker. Episodic television offers a canvas unique among the arts: time. The best shows make use of this canvas to tell their stories as creatively and ambitiously as they can; Adventure Time used it to become one of the best television series of its day.
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
He began the show as a good-hearted kid with a strong sense of right and wrong. He began the show as a hilariously ineffectual villain obsessed with kidnapping princesses. But his personality was expanded over time, revealing a surprisingly deep and tragic backstory of how a good man was corrupted by a magic crown, leading to mental instability, the loss of his loved ones, and loneliness. The point is, these characters became quite multi-faceted as time went on.
And on the subject of Bubblegum and Marceline…. Olson herself confirmed it to fans, but the show itself had to hold back as it did also air in countries where homosexuality is illegal. But as the show progressed we saw more and more hints of their relationship, culminating in the two finally sharing an on-screen kiss in the final episode. Another animated show from the s, The Legend of Korra , confirmed its main character to be bisexual in the final moments of the show.
But it had to be ambiguous for the same reasons as Adventure Time. The threat of censorship loomed in the air, as well as fear of complaints from parents and moral guardians. Basically, both shows had to be coyer about it. But the positive response from fans gave other creators the courage to step up their efforts in bolstering LGBTQ representation.
The strides these shows made were possible thanks to Adventure Time paving the way for them as a bellwether. Long story short, Adventure Time walked so that others could run. I remember the first time I watched Adventure Time when it debuted; I was 22 then.
Nobody ever held a vigil for the finale of Button Moon , did they? Nobody ever wrote a gushingly emotional thinkpiece to mark the end of Dog With a Blog. But Adventure Time was different.
As of this week, Adventure Time is over. When it debuted back in , Adventure Time might have felt like another zany brain-rotter for kids to slowly grow obese to; there was a boy and a dog and a magical land and it was all very twee, like something Zooey Deschanel might dream up after over-indulging at an ironic vintage fondue revival night.
As the episodes rolled on, though, the show slowly built the confidence to show its true colours. In any other show, Ice King would be a two-dimensional princess-stealing baddie who cackled to himself in a castle and never learned from his mistakes.
Genuinely misunderstood, Ice King quickly became a lonely old man; a cypher through which Adventure Time could tell stories about social isolation and mental illness. He never learned from his mistakes because his memory was failing.
0コメント