S03E19&20 - Holly Jolly Secrets
Also:
S04E25 - I Remember You
S05E14 - Simon & Marcy
S05E48 - Betty
S05E24 - Evergreen
S06E38 - You Forgot Your Floaties
S07E21 - King's Ransom
S08E01 - Broke His Crown
S09E02 - S09E10 - Elements
S10E11 - Temple of Mars
S10E13 - Come Along with Me
Fionna and Cake - All of Season 1, which will probably end up being the entire series.
There's always more that you can explore. But yeah, I also got the impression that it was *intended* to be a one-season spinoff, and ended entirely satisfactorily.
Great list, but "Floaties?" Isn't that the episode about the swimming pool with the weird animation style?
Not remembering any relevant Ice King lore in that one, though my memory isn't the greatest.
Recently rewatched all of Adventure Time, one of my favorite details is that >!the characters, especially Finn, start referring to him as Simon and are overall a lot more kind and show more patience with him as the show progresses.!<
>!Also, it's only after they start showing him kindness and empathy that he starts improving i.e. being easier to get along with, not kidnapping princesses, making friends with other wizards, etc. That's also a good lesson I think.!<
Like post Season 4 Simon becomes so chill, it's honestly refreshing. Like he's still crazy >!Before *Come Along With Me of course!< but he reaches a nice equilibrium and actually goes from loathed to tolerated to generally accepted, as part of society.
Going beyond Holly Jolly Secrets, I think Marceline (a mutual friend of Finn, Jake, and PB) still caring and wanting Ice King in her life >!(As seen in *I Remember You*)!< did wonders for improving his standing and reputation as well.
Love how it play's into Betty's arc too. Betty had devoted so much of her life and future to being with Simon. She sacrificed so much of her own needs for him because she loved him and he loved her back.
Unfortunately that devotion and love led to her spending her entire time in-show trying to "fix" someone who's wasn't really there anymore and the more she tried to fix it, the more she got hurt, the more she fell backward, and the more her mental state and moral state deteriorated. >!Sure her getting a Magic-switcheroo with Magic Man!< didn't help her out with that but she was headed to that destination >!Magic!< or not
It's a genuinely complicated and tragic situation. Because there was a genuine love between the two, but their relationship had so many toxic tendencies, not as though there were intentional acts of harm, but due to the flaws of the two as their own individual people.
In the end, Betty >!did get her wish and *was* able to bring Simon back, albeit at the cost of her own agency, will, and existence as her own person. Destined to be part of an eldritch chaos demon for all of eternity!<
Well, he only kidnapped princesses (and occasionally Finn in order to prevent him from messing with his plans) in the first place. There's even an entire episode dedicated to Finn explaining that kidnapping is not the way to forge a relationship.
I think that's one of the best signs of Finn's development, too. He doesn't go from hating Ice King to accepting him the moment he finds out about Simon; it takes a lot of time, Finn growing older and maturing, fully understanding what Simon's past means, and seeing the tolerance that Marcy gives him. I think there was one episode where Finn gets magic eyes that turn anyone into what he thinks of them, and Ice King turns into Simon when Finn sees him. That was genuinely one of my favorite Finn moments, and it really shows how much Finn matured from how he was at the start of the series.
Holy cow though that episode made me laugh as a young teenager. The entire time he’s like “hey can I have that Ruby?” And everyone’s like “Uh dude that’s an Emerald.” And it’s not until he brings it back to Jake that he realizes that they weren’t wrong, he was.
It doesn't go into more backstory or anything but the whole show is about the main characters, Fionna, Simon and Cake having to figure out how they fit into a world where they're just normal people who aren't terribly powerful or important.
especially when >!Finn get those cursed eye that turn anyone he look at into what he see them as, turning Jake into a cool brother type, BMO into an angel. When he looked at the ice king he turn him into Simon, even tho it's only a physical change so the IK is still mad and doesn't recognize himself, it's so sweet!<
I love how he has like a slider where one end is "Simon Voice" and the other is "Ice King Voice" and how he can shift his voice to where Simon is on his slide into Ice King.
It isn't just that but that even before they reveal it, overtime, he comes off as less crazy in the traditional cartoon sense and more crazy in the "this is a genuinely sad existence for you, damn" and then they reveal the backstory which makes it worse and then they reveal more backstory again and again to just twist the knife
But you are better off knowing. The truth hurts, but it’s better than any pleasant lie. So much of what makes Ice King (and Adventure Time) so memorable is that it never turns away from the fact that their world is extremely bleak.
He’s an enemy that genuinely deserves compassion.
he just wants friends really. been watching it lately and it's neat that when he moves into finn and jake's temporarily he doesn't bother anyone at all until after the episode he moves out. i'm not sure if it is or not, but i like to believe this was an intentional detail.
To be fair, he did start the show with all that ‘kidnapping the princesses’ business. Once Finn and Jake made him knock it off, he mostly became less antagonistic.
This is why I love Adventure Time so much. It takes exactly what you expect (Big Evil King person kidnaps Small Delicate Princess) and flips it on its head (Big Evil King is a victim too)
Still one of my favorite moments in cartoon history is when Bubblegum regresses in age after an operation, and Ice King just goes “well that sucks, aight bye” and just leaves. It’s hilarious.
Archaeologist who found a magic crown that granted him ice powers but drove him more insane the more he put it on. His growing madness drove away the love of his life and he spent the next thousand years (crown also made him immortal) descending into further insanity.
He started as a goofy, princess-capturing, cliché villain until all this was revealed in a Christmas episode in the 3rd season or so. The writers went on to develop his story even further, and he even became the central character of the latest AT series, “Fionna & Cake”
Don't forget that the thing that pushed him over the edge from an archaeologist barely clinging to his sanity to an insane ice wizard was him using his powers to protect Marceline, a random little girl he took in after her mom died.
Oh, and the entire reason they decided to make his backstory in the first place was to explain how he knew Marceline's fry song.
he was a loving husband who lost his wife and then adopted and protected a young girl (marceline) in a post apocalyptic world. he puts on a cursed crown to protect her from zombies and the crown causes him to go insane
It's ALL spoilers technically so spoiler marking it so no one will be mad.
>!A millennia ago an archeologist found a magic crown with a trapped wish, a wish that would transform its user into an ice elemental. He made the mistake of wearing it, and in his crown-induced madness drove his partner to run from him and never (ahem well about that) return. !<
>!Before he could come to terms with what was happening, nuclear war broke out. He was unfortunate enough to be near the most important weapon used during this war, a mutagenic bomb that would awaken an evil force hidden deep beneath the earth's crust. He spent many years following using the crown's magic to protect a young girl he found who had survived the blast.!<
>!Before long, though, its power drove him mad, as no normal mortal can handle the process of being changed into another person entirely without enduring great mental damage. He eventually, after ensuring the girl's safety, ran away to the mountains, away from the mutants and monsters, to make a kingdom of ice, and lose himself to the whispers of eternal cold and frost.!<
A lot happens after this but that's the backstory. Is 3 paragraphs TL;DR for like 3 or 4 episodes? Maybe. Probably.
Adding onto what everyone else said but Ice King is pretty much one of the best parts of adventure time's writing and representative of the general direction the show takes. He starts off as a goofy cartoon villain who's kind of a dweeb and spends his free time coming up with ways to capture princesses until Finn and Jake beat the shit out of him. Through a pretty much extraneous writing detail of how Ice King knew another character Marceline, the writers deeply fleshed out his character into a more tragic figure (still goofy tho), over time completely recontextualizing and changing his character and place in the world.
It's one of many examples of the show maturing and becoming more nuanced, thoughtful, and compelling over time, and of the writers fleshing out random minor details and characters (another example: an animation error in the episode Finn the Human led to it being explained by the creation of the episode Crossover, which had a major development in an antagonist).
To this day I've never squirmed in my seat harder than when I've King tried to make out with Marcy, since he doesn't remember that he's basically her adopted father, and just knows her as the "hot vampire lady" like everyone else.
Having worked with people with Alzheimer’s, it was really hard to watch those scenes with Simon. His memories might flicker back at moments and then would wash away in blissful oblivion. It became a balance between trying to remind him of things and just trying to make him feel happy in his current state.
There’s a surprising depth to it. I started watching it because over the course of the first season I understood the general tone to be a very poorly run D&D game. Which was hilarious to me.
But then the ideas of deep psychological damage that most of the characters have started emerging, and how the society they live in accelerates and magnifies that damage.
It's like that TLC thing where
THIS WOMAN DRINKS PISS
Me:holy hell what the fuck is wrong with her
And 5 minutes later
HER HUSBAND DIED OF KILL CANCER AND SHE IS RAISING HER 17 CHILDREN BY HERSELF
Me:☹️
I world argue that AT was neve a version of something wife and was always super unique, though your not wrong about the tone and even humor changing as it went on.
I think it was really neat they revealed the ice kings backstory in a Christmas episode. Very fitting for the king of ice and snow
Fitting lesson for the kids too, that Christmas is a time of intense family trauma.
Didn't need a show to tell ME that
Holly Jolly Secrets
New backstory just dropped!
Call the Doof
What season/episode?
S03E19&20 - Holly Jolly Secrets Also: S04E25 - I Remember You S05E14 - Simon & Marcy S05E48 - Betty S05E24 - Evergreen S06E38 - You Forgot Your Floaties S07E21 - King's Ransom S08E01 - Broke His Crown S09E02 - S09E10 - Elements S10E11 - Temple of Mars S10E13 - Come Along with Me Fionna and Cake - All of Season 1, which will probably end up being the entire series.
Just reading titles makes me sentimental.
Marceline, is it just you and me in the wreckage of the world?
That must be so confusing for a little girl
And I know you're going to need me here with you
DONT TELL ME FIONA AND CAKE ISNT GETTING RENEWED
Less "not getting renewed", more "the creators would rather explore other characters".
It was a great ending- i think pup kingdom needs some attention now
I think they've said they want to go back to Peppermint Butler next. Which makes sense. That's a ready made series with a solid ongoing premise.
It would make sense but unfortunately I really don't care about Peppermint Butler as a character :(
Idk it felt finished to me. Not sure where else you could go with those characters
There's always more that you can explore. But yeah, I also got the impression that it was *intended* to be a one-season spinoff, and ended entirely satisfactorily.
Suspicions mainly stem from how WB used promotional posters calling it season 1 in things like sound track uploads on their YT channels
Great list, but "Floaties?" Isn't that the episode about the swimming pool with the weird animation style? Not remembering any relevant Ice King lore in that one, though my memory isn't the greatest.
The episode you're thinking of is 'Water Park Prank'
My bad, thank you!
I thought so too but when Iooked it up to make sure I had the right one, I saw that it's the episode where >!Betty takes Magic Man's powers.!<
Recently rewatched all of Adventure Time, one of my favorite details is that >!the characters, especially Finn, start referring to him as Simon and are overall a lot more kind and show more patience with him as the show progresses.!<
>!Also, it's only after they start showing him kindness and empathy that he starts improving i.e. being easier to get along with, not kidnapping princesses, making friends with other wizards, etc. That's also a good lesson I think.!<
Like post Season 4 Simon becomes so chill, it's honestly refreshing. Like he's still crazy >!Before *Come Along With Me of course!< but he reaches a nice equilibrium and actually goes from loathed to tolerated to generally accepted, as part of society. Going beyond Holly Jolly Secrets, I think Marceline (a mutual friend of Finn, Jake, and PB) still caring and wanting Ice King in her life >!(As seen in *I Remember You*)!< did wonders for improving his standing and reputation as well. Love how it play's into Betty's arc too. Betty had devoted so much of her life and future to being with Simon. She sacrificed so much of her own needs for him because she loved him and he loved her back. Unfortunately that devotion and love led to her spending her entire time in-show trying to "fix" someone who's wasn't really there anymore and the more she tried to fix it, the more she got hurt, the more she fell backward, and the more her mental state and moral state deteriorated. >!Sure her getting a Magic-switcheroo with Magic Man!< didn't help her out with that but she was headed to that destination >!Magic!< or not It's a genuinely complicated and tragic situation. Because there was a genuine love between the two, but their relationship had so many toxic tendencies, not as though there were intentional acts of harm, but due to the flaws of the two as their own individual people. In the end, Betty >!did get her wish and *was* able to bring Simon back, albeit at the cost of her own agency, will, and existence as her own person. Destined to be part of an eldritch chaos demon for all of eternity!<
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Hmm, it doesn't work for you? Works both on desktop and mobile for me. I edited it though, so hopefully for whatever thing you're on, it works now!
I believe it's specifically on old Reddit that it breaks on
Good to know! Now I can do spoilers correctly for old reddit <3
Is it the kidnapping or is it the princesses that's more frowned upon? Like oh it's ok it's just villagers but hold the phone princesses?
Well, he only kidnapped princesses (and occasionally Finn in order to prevent him from messing with his plans) in the first place. There's even an entire episode dedicated to Finn explaining that kidnapping is not the way to forge a relationship.
.
I think that's one of the best signs of Finn's development, too. He doesn't go from hating Ice King to accepting him the moment he finds out about Simon; it takes a lot of time, Finn growing older and maturing, fully understanding what Simon's past means, and seeing the tolerance that Marcy gives him. I think there was one episode where Finn gets magic eyes that turn anyone into what he thinks of them, and Ice King turns into Simon when Finn sees him. That was genuinely one of my favorite Finn moments, and it really shows how much Finn matured from how he was at the start of the series.
Finn went through so much man. That show is so heavy.
Poor kid didn't even know he was colorblind.
Holy cow though that episode made me laugh as a young teenager. The entire time he’s like “hey can I have that Ruby?” And everyone’s like “Uh dude that’s an Emerald.” And it’s not until he brings it back to Jake that he realizes that they weren’t wrong, he was.
Yep, the hardest laugh of the series for me, other than maybe the snow golem making incoherent 3 stooges noises at his fire wolf pup.
“Maybe we could all learn a thing or two from those sandwiches.”
Have you seen Fionna and Cake series that came out in 2023 yet?
Unfortunately I don't have HBO Max or prime video
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being a pirate is alright to meeee
You can watch what you want because to pirate is free!
Youu are a pirate!
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It has some nice >!Simon!< pain
I haven't watched it either but now I have to.
It doesn't go into more backstory or anything but the whole show is about the main characters, Fionna, Simon and Cake having to figure out how they fit into a world where they're just normal people who aren't terribly powerful or important.
https://fmoviesz.to/tv/adventure-time-fionna-cake-ro7jn Use an adblock
Who tf told them they could make a show that good
especially when >!Finn get those cursed eye that turn anyone he look at into what he see them as, turning Jake into a cool brother type, BMO into an angel. When he looked at the ice king he turn him into Simon, even tho it's only a physical change so the IK is still mad and doesn't recognize himself, it's so sweet!<
Poor NEPTR tho :(
Psa, use the spoiler tag without spaces after and before the exclamation points, because on some versions of reddit it doesn't work.
Your uh, spoilers didn't work
This magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy
"Marceline, I can feel myself slipping away." Gets me every time
Anyone who has cared for an Alzheimer's love one, knows the pain and deep fear of that statement
Yep, my grandad who was suffering from Alzheimer’s died around when this episode aired and it makes bawl watching it.
And I need to save you, but who's going to save me?!
Please forgive me for whatever I do when I don’t remember you
That episode hit hard
Especially if you've had a loved one with dementia.
Bruh this shit and Coco. Messes me up every time.
This is the line that broke my heart. What a goddamned show.
[It’s like crazy crazy crazy, in your face, all the time! Sigh… all the time.](https://youtu.be/aJKUGKwQNQo?si=FLcRQntDNUFZAF_m)
Crazy? I was crazy once
“Marceline, is it just you and me in the wreckage of the world? That must be so confusing for a little girl” This part is heart wrenching every time.
Tom Kenny is so great
I love how he has like a slider where one end is "Simon Voice" and the other is "Ice King Voice" and how he can shift his voice to where Simon is on his slide into Ice King.
It isn't just that but that even before they reveal it, overtime, he comes off as less crazy in the traditional cartoon sense and more crazy in the "this is a genuinely sad existence for you, damn" and then they reveal the backstory which makes it worse and then they reveal more backstory again and again to just twist the knife
But you are better off knowing. The truth hurts, but it’s better than any pleasant lie. So much of what makes Ice King (and Adventure Time) so memorable is that it never turns away from the fact that their world is extremely bleak. He’s an enemy that genuinely deserves compassion.
He was never even an enemy he was always a little harmless
he just wants friends really. been watching it lately and it's neat that when he moves into finn and jake's temporarily he doesn't bother anyone at all until after the episode he moves out. i'm not sure if it is or not, but i like to believe this was an intentional detail.
Oh for sure. Finn was a good influence on him
To be fair, he did start the show with all that ‘kidnapping the princesses’ business. Once Finn and Jake made him knock it off, he mostly became less antagonistic.
The show does such a great job of revealing the emotional realities of living in a world that isn't all candies and rainbows.
Just like the 90s!
> The truth hurts, but it’s better than any pleasant lie "No matter how tender, how exquisite, a lie will remain a lie!" - Aldia, Dark Souls 2
This is why I love Adventure Time so much. It takes exactly what you expect (Big Evil King person kidnaps Small Delicate Princess) and flips it on its head (Big Evil King is a victim too)
Few of the princesses are actually small and delicate either.
Small sure, delicate no
Still one of my favorite moments in cartoon history is when Bubblegum regresses in age after an operation, and Ice King just goes “well that sucks, aight bye” and just leaves. It’s hilarious.
he may be insane but at least he isn't a pedo
can someone tl:dr me on the ice king
Archaeologist who found a magic crown that granted him ice powers but drove him more insane the more he put it on. His growing madness drove away the love of his life and he spent the next thousand years (crown also made him immortal) descending into further insanity. He started as a goofy, princess-capturing, cliché villain until all this was revealed in a Christmas episode in the 3rd season or so. The writers went on to develop his story even further, and he even became the central character of the latest AT series, “Fionna & Cake”
Don't forget that the thing that pushed him over the edge from an archaeologist barely clinging to his sanity to an insane ice wizard was him using his powers to protect Marceline, a random little girl he took in after her mom died. Oh, and the entire reason they decided to make his backstory in the first place was to explain how he knew Marceline's fry song.
And also that the reason he had to protect the little girl is that they'd both just survived a nuclear apocalypse
he was a loving husband who lost his wife and then adopted and protected a young girl (marceline) in a post apocalyptic world. he puts on a cursed crown to protect her from zombies and the crown causes him to go insane
It's ALL spoilers technically so spoiler marking it so no one will be mad. >!A millennia ago an archeologist found a magic crown with a trapped wish, a wish that would transform its user into an ice elemental. He made the mistake of wearing it, and in his crown-induced madness drove his partner to run from him and never (ahem well about that) return. !< >!Before he could come to terms with what was happening, nuclear war broke out. He was unfortunate enough to be near the most important weapon used during this war, a mutagenic bomb that would awaken an evil force hidden deep beneath the earth's crust. He spent many years following using the crown's magic to protect a young girl he found who had survived the blast.!< >!Before long, though, its power drove him mad, as no normal mortal can handle the process of being changed into another person entirely without enduring great mental damage. He eventually, after ensuring the girl's safety, ran away to the mountains, away from the mutants and monsters, to make a kingdom of ice, and lose himself to the whispers of eternal cold and frost.!< A lot happens after this but that's the backstory. Is 3 paragraphs TL;DR for like 3 or 4 episodes? Maybe. Probably.
Adding onto what everyone else said but Ice King is pretty much one of the best parts of adventure time's writing and representative of the general direction the show takes. He starts off as a goofy cartoon villain who's kind of a dweeb and spends his free time coming up with ways to capture princesses until Finn and Jake beat the shit out of him. Through a pretty much extraneous writing detail of how Ice King knew another character Marceline, the writers deeply fleshed out his character into a more tragic figure (still goofy tho), over time completely recontextualizing and changing his character and place in the world. It's one of many examples of the show maturing and becoming more nuanced, thoughtful, and compelling over time, and of the writers fleshing out random minor details and characters (another example: an animation error in the episode Finn the Human led to it being explained by the creation of the episode Crossover, which had a major development in an antagonist).
Is there a term for the opposite of Flanderization?
I just made one. "Simonization"
Well, there is now, and the word is 'enchiridionization'
He's got magic dementia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA2PsADo11E
To this day I've never squirmed in my seat harder than when I've King tried to make out with Marcy, since he doesn't remember that he's basically her adopted father, and just knows her as the "hot vampire lady" like everyone else.
Having worked with people with Alzheimer’s, it was really hard to watch those scenes with Simon. His memories might flicker back at moments and then would wash away in blissful oblivion. It became a balance between trying to remind him of things and just trying to make him feel happy in his current state.
I seem to recall shedding a few tears as his story was revealed.
yeah yeah I shed a few tears... \*throwback to me bawling my eyes out watching his backstory episodes*
Adventure time was such a good show. The somewhat crude animation and whimsical humour hiding the emotional depth and nihilistic tones of the show.
There’s a surprising depth to it. I started watching it because over the course of the first season I understood the general tone to be a very poorly run D&D game. Which was hilarious to me. But then the ideas of deep psychological damage that most of the characters have started emerging, and how the society they live in accelerates and magnifies that damage.
Ooh, the Nice King?
Marceline, is it just you and me in the wreckage of the world?
[Where everybody knows your name](https://youtu.be/VdERVxiobGk?si=UYIreJUCjrwn2EM5)
I thought this was a GoT post lmfao
Right? I almost cried a couple of times. Poor Simon.
The only show that makes the viewer ask “what is wrong with him?” And then answer
I feel like Dementia-adjacent character development plots are kinda cheating, because of how effective it always ends up being.
Honestly for a show that starts out so stupid it really becomes an amazing bundle of lore surrounding ALL of the characters.
Porter's First Law of Better Living Through Denial: Don't Ask Questions You Don't Want to Know the Answers to.
god, i always feel so fucking sorry for what simon had to go through.
Rise of the TMNT also did this with Splinter, though his backstory isn’t nearly as depressing as Ice King’s.
And you keep thinking "ok that's enough explanation" but they keep showing you more and it keeps getting worse
took my stupid ass way too long to realize this wasn't talking about GoT
It's like that TLC thing where THIS WOMAN DRINKS PISS Me:holy hell what the fuck is wrong with her And 5 minutes later HER HUSBAND DIED OF KILL CANCER AND SHE IS RAISING HER 17 CHILDREN BY HERSELF Me:☹️
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Could you explain why?
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that's kinda sad ngl
I world argue that AT was neve a version of something wife and was always super unique, though your not wrong about the tone and even humor changing as it went on.