Come Along With Me: Adventure Time – “Princess Cookie” and “Card Wars”

Princess Cookie | Written & Storyboarded by: Tom Herpich and Skyler Page | Aired: June 25, 2012 | Review by: Katie

Princess Cookie is a transgender woman, right? Right.

Sorry, that’s an abrupt way to start. But it’s the overwhelming takeaway I have from this episode. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the reading. Cookie wishes he could be a princess, but society treats that ambition like a joke. It’s so obvious that every time the show he/hims Cookie it feels like misgendering. I have to actively fight the instinct to call her a her, and I probably won’t always succeed throughout this article.

But also, I remember what 2012 was like. If I had watched this episode when it first aired, I would not have immediately thought “oh Cookie’s trans”. I barely knew what trans people even were back then1I could have figured some shit out about a decade sooner if I did, I can tell you that. We were a year away from Laverne Cox on Orange Is The New Black2One of those shows that was big at the time that I haven’t heard a thing about in years. Feel like most of those early Netflix hits were like that. , two years away from Time Magazine’s (in)famous “Transgender Tipping Point”, three years from Caitlyn fucking Jenner. To the best of my knowledge, Rebecca Sugar is the only writer or storyboarder on Adventure Time who isn’t cis3Let me know if that’s wrong, I did some research but I don’t know everyone on the show, and Google isn’t what it used to be, and they weren’t on this episode. So honestly, despite everything, I don’t know if that was the intended reading. I’ll be very curious to read CedricTheOwl’s commentary summary in the comments.

And like, thank god right? Because if Princess Cookie is meant to be trans, a lot of elements of this episode turn pretty ugly. The final scene is Cookie, forcibly committed in a mental hospital, wearing a crown made of grass while his fellow patients bow in reverence. Princess Bubblegum looks on in secret, happy to humor the poor delusional freak. There’s unparalleled “make up a guy to get mad at” potential with this one. If you read Cookie as trans, the episode becomes a tale of trans tragedy, made by and for cis people, that equates being trans to mental illness, but y’know, you should probably be nice about it we guess.

But, if we accept that cis people will sometimes write an explicitly trans character entirely on accident4See: the second season of Infinity Train you can look at Princess Cookie the way it was likely intended. We’ve already had a few episodes complicating Princess Bubblegum as a character. She has controlling if not downright authoritarian tendencies, and this episode is another manifestation of that. She won’t let Jake be a mailman, and she certainly won’t let poor Cookie be a princess and threaten her authority. In the Candy Kingdom you can be anything you desire, so long as it’s what Bubblegum wants for you.

The climax of the episode, where Jake and Princess Cookie reach a dead end and the princess jumps into the gorge rather than be captured is an obvious homage to Thelma and Louise. In that film, the title characters are attempting to flee the country to avoid catching a murder charge, but thematically they’re fleeing patriarchy itself. The man they killed was attempting to rape Thelma, and they choose to flee rather than explain the murder as self-defense because they know the law won’t believe them. But you can’t outrun patriarchy. It’s everywhere, in everyone. The only way out is death.5Spoilers for a 33 year old film whose ending has been a ubiquitous pop culture reference for nearly as long. This movie’s older than I am, it’s on you if you don’t know how it ends.

Princess Cookie is fleeing something that can’t be outrun too. It’s up to interpretation what exactly that “something” is. On the most literal-minded level, he’s fleeing Princess Bubblegum. You can leave the Candy Kingdom but her reach extends far beyond. More thematically, he’s fleeing the trauma of having his dreams crushed. Cookie wound up in a very dark place after having his first ever happy memory immediately tainted, turned into a weapon to confine him. Or, perhaps she’s fleeing cisnormativity, from a society that says a boy can’t be a princess. Whatever Princess Cookie is fleeing from, there’s no escape. Not even in the release of death, as it would seem candy people are surprisingly durable.

Jake can often be a rough character. He’s often selfish, and unwilling to accommodate others. But we see the positive side of that here. He doesn’t care, about Bubblegum’s propriety, about who society says can or can’t be a princess (or indeed a mailman). He’s the first and potentially only person to listen to Princess Cookie and take what he’s saying seriously. Jake was a bright spot in what’s mostly been a very dark life. If we had more Jakes, maybe Princess Cookie could have turned out a different way.

Stray Observations:

• So like, can men be princesses? Without getting into spoilers, future episodes will say yes, they can. It would seem “princess” has become a gender-neutral term for a head of state, at least in some nations. (The Candy “King”dom has no king, nor queen. Princess Bubblegum is the ultimate authority) But also, every princess we’ve seen up to this point is a woman, the Ice King’s princess obsession is absolutely gendered, and this show isn’t a documentary, it was written intentionally by native English speakers who know the cultural connotations and dictionary definition of the word “princess”. It’s interesting.
• I like how Adventure Time has a specific way to draw fake, useless horses, as they’ve now been a plot beat twice. Two nickels dot jpeg.
• Are the chips part of Princess Cookie? Like, are they his kids or something?

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Card Wars | Written & Storyboarded by: Somvilay Xayaphone, Bert Youn | Aired: July 16, 2012 | Review by: Alex

There is an oddly-persistent episodic staple of cartoons (and some live-action media) that has emerged in the past decade or so as geek culture becomes more mainstream. I guess it could be generalized as The Gang Plays Something Suspiciously-Similar to a Real-World Hobby Game. Both the She-Ra and Voltron reboots had Dungeons and Dragons episodes, though it’s not always that specific game; OK K.O.! did a fun Yu-Gi-Oh satire, and Gravity Falls, as I’ll get into later, had three separate episodes based around some kind of nerd-game. These stories are not usually about moving any sort of greater plot forward; typically, they are standalone episodes that let us take a breather and explore the characters involved while enjoying some fun references to an obscure interest.

Pendleton Ward is a notorious D&D fan, and Adventure Time is already peppered with countless references to the campaigns he’s played. Heck, the greatest overarching antagonist for most of the show’s run is a skeletal mage whose name comes straight out of the Monster Manual.6 “Lich” is a real word, too, an archaic term for “corpse,” but a lich being an undead mage who hides away the secret to their immortality is a D&D invention, based loosely off the Russian fairy tale stock character Koschei the Deathless. So what does an episode of Adventure Time even look like when it says, “OK, this one is for the dorks”?

Naturally, they have Finn and Jake sit down to play Magic: the Gathering.

We begin with Jake sighing dumpily into the treehouse, despondent that nobody wants to play the TCG “Card Wars” with him for some reason. Finn can’t bear to see his brother so down, and offers to play a round with him. BMO is invited to join in, too, but ominously replies, “I do not play such games… -_- with Jake,” and does a sick skateboard flip out of the room.

They decide on the stakes. The loser: A Dweeb. The winner: A Cool Guy. And just to up the ante, Jake pours some refreshing Total Soda into the to-be-determined winner and loser’s mugs, mixing coffee grounds, beetle butter, grape jelly, kimchi, and, uh, something called “Ham Chunk Juice7(Skim)” into the mug of whoever will be unfortunate enough to come out The Dweeb.

Jake tries to explain the rules to Finn, but Finn sleeps through the two-hour dissertation. Jake begins catastrophizing that if his brother doesn’t understand the rules, he’ll just lose right away and grow to hate Card Wars and, by extension, him. This is kind of an interesting side of Jake we don’t often see, where he’s so worried about losing Finn’s respect for him (he was hesitant to even admit he played the game a little earlier). Finn eases his worries with playful bravado, and the two begin their Card War.

Whenever a niche hobby like this is parodied, you can pretty-easily tell if the people writing the jokes are fans or not. It’s here that Gravity Falls makes for such an interesting case study. GF, as noted, did this three times: They parodied Street Fighter in “Fight Fighters,” D&D in “Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons,” and romantic visual novels in “Soos and the Real Girl.” 

In “Fight Fighters,” the writers are clearly fans, and the episode is a hilarious love-letter to Street Fighter and other arcade beat-em-ups, filled with great inside jokes about their tropes and idiosyncracies. With “Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons”…it’s pretty clear the jokes about the game are from an outside perspective, and ended up falling flat for me in an otherwise-great episode. “Soos and the Real Girl” took a sort of middle-ground approach; while there were a few fun gags around the game itself and silly anime tropes in general, most of the episode wisely focused on more fertile grounds: Soos’s character arc and the consequences of an abusive ex-waifu becoming self-aware. It wasn’t much of a dating sim parody, but it was incredibly funny, and that counts for more.

So, how does Adventure Time’s Magic: the Gathering pastiche stack up? Well, this is the episode that got me back into the whole series!8 I was a fan of the viral pilot episode, but lost interest after trying a couple season 1 episodes and being disappointed. It’s my favorite instance of a show parodying some niche game, and the jokes are on point. This is clearly MTG they’re parodying, right down to the land cards getting tapped (“flooped,” sorry) to power creatures and spells. We’ve got rule technicalities about attacking VS flooping and the way it affects spell targets, obscure interactions between specific effects, arguments over what land type has the strongest cards, even a frustrated player activating a boardwipe when things don’t go his way. To an outside observer not familiar with the game, it’s still funny because we’re watching Finn utterly trash his increasingly-irate brother without really trying or even fully knowing what he’s doing. To me, it’s additionally funny because all these silly technicalities and exceptions feel just like things I’ve run into playing actual Magic. I love it so much.

I am thankful, though, that I’ve never had to deal with someone as toxic as Jake here. There’s no getting around it; Jake is a dick this episode. He’s always had a selfish streak, but he generally doesn’t turn it on Finn, and certainly not to the degree we see here. Something about this game really brings out the worst in him! He’s smug when he’s winning, salty when he’s losing, and irate when Finn nervously tries to turn the temperature down and take a break. What’s going on here?

Finn sneaks off to talk to BMO, and (after narrowly-surviving a wicked BMO Chop) confirms that Jake is a miserably sore loser. Last time BMO won against Jake, he didn’t talk to him for a month! This is awful! Finn didn’t even care who won or lost! He was just trying to cheer his brother up! He may be a Card Wars Super-Amadeus, but it’s clear that beating Jake will only make things worse. He’s going to have to throw the dog a bone.

Dragged back into the Card War, Finn starts playing worse, acting as if he just wants to give his weaker creature a chance to shine instead of finishing Jake off with the Immortal Maize Walker he stole last turn. The gambit pays off, giving Jake the time he needs take back his troops and gleefully close out the game. Finn is The Dweeb, and Jake is The Cool Guy.

They each grab their respective mugs, and Jake, for the first time, seems to be showing a little remorse watching Finn attempt to choke down the revolting Dweeb Smoothie he made. But Finn likes it! Being a dweeb’s not so bad! The smoothie absolutely is, though, as Jake quickly finds out when Finn offers him a sip. But y’know, maybe it’s not the end of the world to just be a couple of dweebs together instead of fighting over who’s the Cool Guy.

Now, did Finn do the right thing here? I certainly wouldn’t blame someone for just walking away if their friend got this pissy with them over a simple card game, but on the other hand, a card game’s not really worth ending a friendship over, is it? This is an excellent episode to showcase Finn’s growing maturity and devotion to his paladin code of honor: He genuinely wants to help everyone, even the ones acting banoonanananoos, if he can. If his brother’s having an off day today, he can set aside his dignity and ego for a little bit to show him a better way to be. A time may come when Jake has to more-fully-reckon with his toxic over-competitiveness, but for now, at least he’s learned that his brother will always love him, no matter how much of a dweeb loser he is. After all, he’s in good company.

And at any rate, BMO already has the Cool Guy role on lockdown.

Stray Observations

• The mug we see Finn drink from at the start has what look sort of like Elder Fuþark runes, but are actually a cipher unique to Adventure Time reading, “CUP OF MANY ALE.”
• The assorted Gaming Snacks they have procured include “Crunch,” “Chipped Teeth,” and “Chip Looks Like Face.”
• Jake seemed really insecure about sharing this hobby with Finn. I wonder how much of that was his need to be seen as The Cool Guy to his little brother, and how much of that was a fear of what he might turn into once he started playing, even if he couldn’t consciously acknowledge it.
• This is a “Bottle Episode,” taking place entirely in one room (mostly). Watching two people play cards certainly had the potential to be really boring. They note on the commentary that the over-the-top face expressions (“Weird Bert Faces” as they call them) really help to keep it fun and exciting.9Bert Youn is well-respected by the others for his ability to draw the most grotesque caricatures of human faces. It’s why his girlfriend broke up with him in CalArts!
• SO MANY fun Magic: the Gathering references here:

1. Magical power in MTG must be drawn out of land cards, with different biomes providing different “colors” of mana, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Effects that destroy land cards are VERY annoying to deal with, since you can’t play any other cards without a foundation of land to pay their mana costs.
2. The “floop VS activate” distinction feels like exactly the sort of rules technicality that trips up new players. In Magic, many card abilities require you to “tap” the card to pay for them, turning it sideways so it can’t be used again until your next turn. You don’t need to tap a creature to attack with it, but assigning it as an attacker during the combat step will cause it to become tapped (unless, of course, it has the Vigilance ability), and also you can only attack with untapped creatures (assuming they don’t have “summoning sickness” from being played that turn). Simple, right?
3. Immortal Maize Walker sounds like a reference to either planeswalkers (powerful dimension-hopping mages you can call on for support) or plainswalk (an ability that lets a creature skirt the defenses of any player using Plains land cards)10Yes, planeswalk and plainswalk are both game mechanic terms in Magic, and there’s no way to tell them apart when spoken out loud. Luckily, the plainswalk ability only shows up on like five cards and no one really plays them, but this will never not be funny to me.
4. “Uh, wouldn’t Teleport only work on your own creatures?” I cannot tell you how many times I have been foiled by forgetting to read what the spell I’m about to cast actually does. Jake, you have my sympathy.
5. I’m ribbing the game a lot here, but I promise you it is actually a lot of fun and the rules don’t really bog it down once you understand the basics. Running into weird technicalities usually just leads to us laughing at how silly things are getting, or someone realizing they can pull off some insane combo if they order their actions just so and like, generate infinite squirrels to trample everyone to death. Like D&D, a lot of people find it easier to learn by finding a friend who can teach them or an online playthrough they can watch.

• •◡• “I floop the pig” is a fantastic bit of comedy, and really wonderfully captures the feeling of glee you get when you find a way to bring back That One Card your opponent just put all their effort into getting rid of.
• I notice the card Jake steals from Finn is the card Finn accidentally revealed to Jake. So he only decided to use Silo of Truth when he knew his opponent had something worth stealing due to a beginner’s mistake. Not technically cheating, but certainly bad form!
• Card Wars did, in fact, get made into a real card game, by Cryptozoic Entertainment, as well as a (now-defunct) mobile game. Apparently they did a kickstarter a few months ago to rerelease all the card packs and stuff for it, in celebration of its 10th anniversary. I’ve never played it, but I hear it’s pretty fun.

Extra: The Cards

In case anyone else wanted to look at them more closely. I’ve rotated the images so they’re right-side-up.