Come Along With Me: The Red Throne/Betty

The Red Throne
Written and Boarded by: Seo Kim and Somvilay Xayaphone
Originally Aired: February 10, 2014
Reviewed by: Josephus Brown

Boy, were people angry about this episode. Part of it might be how they called it a Valentine’s Day episode and then it ended with Cinnamon Bun professing his love for Finn’s ex and her accepting it while Finn acts like a total wongload. Lots of fans really wanted Finn and Flame Princess to reconcile, and their whining is still plastered all over eleven year old Reddit posts.

I get it. We all want to be able to fix things when we fuck up. And sometimes we can. But experience has taught me that even when you “fix” things with someone, they’re not fixed. You can glue a broken dish back together, but it’s never going to be the same. And a heart is very similar.

Once, one of my exes asked how it was so easy for me to love people. How it seemed like I could effortlessly say it when we’d been together for awhile, and how I managed to bounce back from breakups so well. And I told her that the key is just embracing having your heart broken. That love will hurt, even when it works out, because there’s always going to be some difficulty and there will always be things you disagree about or that you don’t mesh with, that you’ll always fuck something up and your partner will be the same. I think my exact words were something like, “at this point my heart has been broken so many times that it’s basically made of crushed heart powder mixed with glue, so the whole thing is like utterly solid and no matter what happens to it, it comes back together really easily. Like how you make concrete by mixing powdered rock with sand and cement.”

Sometimes things just go wrong. No matter how hard you try, and no matter how much work you put in, you’re not going to fix it. Because there’s nothing to “fix”, people aren’t like that. All you can do is keep moving. It’s a hard, scary lesson, but if you’re afraid of hurting and getting hurt, you’ll end up missing out on a lot of life, so it’s an important one to internalize.

Anyway, Flame Princess gets poisoned, and Don John, the Flame King’s vizier, shows up to challenge her authority, hypnotizing the entire kingdom and letting the Flame King free from his prison.

Cinnamon Bun swoops in to rescue her on his Fire Wolf, and makes a daring escape.

They run to Finn for help, and Finn just utterly blows it, over and over. He refuses to listen to her and Cinnamon Bun when they talk about strategy, he charges in like an idiot, tries to show off fighting the guards, and he utterly fails to respect her personal space while they’re riding on the wolf.

That there’s nothing Finn can do to undo the damage he caused is a hard lesson, and it’s clear that a lot of the fan base wasn’t willing to accept it when this episode aired. One Redditor wrote an elaborate scenario of what they wanted to have happen, involving Flame Princess exploring Finn’s memories like Finn and Jake do with Marceline so she can better understand him, and my god it’s so endearingly naive.

But beyond that, one of the best parts of this episode is that we get a great little reunion between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David. And when you have Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David together, you’re basically contractually obligated to have an absurdly long fist fight.

Meanwhile, Cinnamon Bun punches out a bunch of the flame guards, recovers the key to the prison cell that Finn got himself and Flame Princess trapped in, saves them both, and takes a flame blast to the face that makes him more lucid. When the contractually obligated fist fight ends after a minute and a half (Not six minutes like in They Live), Don John fails his concentration check on the hypnosis magic when the Flame King body slams him to the ground and the people snap out of it. They immediately turn on the despot because they never liked him and Flame Princess punches the crap out of Don John for trying to force her to marry him, and CB proclaims his love and devotion for the Flame Princess and vows to be her knight and champion, which she accepts.

Like I said, a lot of the fandom was mad about this episode, but I love it. For one thing, I think the idea that Finn will ever be able to come back from doing something as shitty as he did to Flame Princess is terrible, and it’s much better that he sits with his shit behavior rather than wiping the slate clean, and I think it’s a healthy lesson to have in a television show.

I also like how a character as one-note and goofy as Cinnamon Bun can blossom into someone more interesting and heroic is really awesome. Lots of shows might have their main character develop or grow, but very few put that same effort into minor side characters. I love how much later in the series when LSP runs into Cinnamon Bun again she comments, “When did he get cool? Everybody really slept on that.”

Because, yeah, you never know which of the people in your life have real growth potential, and folk who you write off might surprise you later.

Random Thoughts:

• Like always, everything out of Flame King is amazing. “I love staring out over things” is a personal favorite, but his confused, “Why did I jump?” is a close second
• In a really early episode, like season one, Princess Bubblegum says that Cinnamon Bun is dumb because he’s “half baked”, which is why the blast to the face with a fireball here makes him smarter. I love that they never say this explicitly in the episode, and just leave it as something for the viewer to figure out.
• Even before he gets his shit together, I love how Cinnamon Bun can clearly see that Finn’s fucking up. He’s blunt with him at the treehouse about his chances, he can see how uncomfortable Finn is making Flame Princess on the fire wolf, and even in the beginning when she suggests they ask Finn for help there’s a reeeeeaaaaal long pause.
• Don John first shows up in “Wizard Battle”, where he gets clubbed in the face with ice King’s nunchucks. This is what Flame King is referring to at the beginning when he makes a comment about how he’s gotten more ripped- they made his model more muscular since his initial appearance.

Betty
Boarded by: Jesse Moynihan and Ako Castuera
Originally Aired: February 24, 2014
Reviewed by: Lyssie

In the roughly two seasons since we learned that the Ice King is actually Simon Petrikov from the 21^st century (a version of it, anyway), we’ve gotten glimpses of his origins, him becoming the Ice King, his relationships (mainly with Marceline). But this is the first time we’ve really gotten a deeper look at his past life. When he walks in on a few of the Wizard City guys making a deal with a strange creature called Bella Noche, he’s on location just in time for the being to regain their power and suck everyone’s magic away – including him, or rather his crown, all at once giving him his identity and consciousness back!

This episode adds a new angle to the dementia parallels I’ve tried to chart out with Simon. All at once he’s freed of this disease that’s held him, and back to his old self, if only for a short while; immediately able to jump into action and do what he needs to before he loses himself again. Now, this stretches the metaphor close to its breaking point, even more so than Simon and Marcy did; obviously with real dementia there’s no on/off switch that can bring back the person as they were before. But even in real life, a lot of people with dementia get lucid moments where they suddenly regain their memories, their cognitive capabilities, their perception of reality, their personality. They’re even able, many times, to describe their experience of living with dementia, some talking about it as being trapped in their body and mind.

Simon certainly reacts as if he had been trapped in his own mind, speaking as though he had some awareness of what his spellbound self was doing. He isn’t surprised that he’d preserved his own research (and jacket, and glasses!), and that even in that state he had some understanding that it was important to do so. Does this have any real world parallels, too? Do people with dementia subconsciously do certain things because on some level they still understand the importance or meaning of something? I don’t know; I wasn’t able to find anything like that. But if nothing else, a lot of them act in certain ways due to some underlying need they’re no longer able to express – anxiety, stress, pain, lack of control.

And we definitely get a lot of that from IK. I don’t know if he approached the wizards this episode subconsciously trying to find something that would break the spell (and how would he have even known that would happen?). But I do know that tries so often to get close to other people, and is so desperate to make friends, because he’s lonely. Not least because he’s got no one who can relate to his experience of the world (by the by, seeing and hearing things no one else does is also a common symptom of dementia…) And because he doesn’t quite know who he is – his identity is buried deep, deep inside, unknown to him, and all that’s there is an exaggerated, hollow personality, constructed with no past.

And now his conscious self finally gets back the opportunity to do much the same – to reconnect with his loved ones, even if it’s just briefly in what little time he has. Mainly he’s trying for a way to apologize to Betty for leaving her, but there’s also Marceline. With Marcy it’s more utilitarian in a way, but that’s understandable since talking to Betty is much harder to accomplish and he really doesn’t have much time. At any rate it was still really heartwarming that one of the first things Simon does is call Marceline and ask her for help, and to see them finally reunited. And her faceplant-collapse is just a perfect reaction!

In this universe, an item invested with strong emotions for a really long time has a strong power in it; this was already mentioned in Sky Witch, about both Hambo and PB’s shirt that she got from Marcy. Then, PB was willing to give up her shirt without hesitation to get Marcy her Hambo back; and it’s a nice parallel that here, Marcy is willing to do the same for Simon, by giving Hambo. She initially doesn’t know what he needs Hambo for, and even later she doesn’t know if it’ll work, but then this sort of sacrifice is no less meaningful for taking the loved one at their word. I do kind of wish there was a lot more of Marcy here, and I actually might have liked a double-length episode or two-parter. (Way back in Holly Jolly Secrets I said that that two-parter would have worked better as a single episode, and that this showed how well the show’s regular format works. Well, here’s a different Simon episode that feels like an exception to the rule)

So Simon manages to open his time travel portal (adorably shaped like Hambo) and get a few moments to talk to Betty, who’s currently busy hiding from Simon’s past self as he wrecks the city streets and calls out to her (Past Simon calls her his ‘princess’, in what appears to be an early stage of his fixation on princesses – or maybe it’s just always been because of a lingering sense of loss over Betty.) Betty is pretty freaked out by past Simon’s destruction, and only slightly less freaked out by future Simon’s appearance; but on the whole she takes things in stride (or portal-jump, as the case may be); even in the little things, like picking Simon up and placing him on a floating magic carpet like it’s nothing. I appreciated the twist on the time travel loop – I assumed Simon opening the portal would be what causes Betty to leave him in the past, and, well, it was, but not how I expected…

In general Betty is a freakin star from pretty much the first moment, impulsive, quick to accept weirdness, and willing to do whatever is needed or punch whatever’s in the way. She seems to share those traits with Simon, and it’s clear why they were scientific and romantic partners; and it’s also no surprise that these are the kinds of people who would devote their lives to scientific study of magic! (In contrast to PB, who’s more cool-headed and less impulsive in her approach to science and magic. But then, for her they’ve always been one and the same; for Betty and Simon this was strange, uncharted territory, that could only have been explored by pretty wild personalities).

With her clarity of purpose, strength of will, and stability, Betty is even more of a contrast to the Ice King personality than Simon is, taking charge and refusing to give up. I guess she fits into something akin to the role of a caregiver for someone with dementia, the person on the outside looking for a way to help; which makes me think about whether her decision to restore the Ice King was unethical. On the one hand, since there’s a clear magical cause for the problem there might be a clear magical solution, and it makes sense to try to find it and not just let him die (compared with a real-life person dragging their loved one through endless tests and remedies, even when it’s pretty clear nothing will change things). On the other hand, she is going against Simon’s wishes and autonomy, forcing him back into that pretty hellish situation… but he does accept her reasoning and agree to the plan, literally telling Death that he’s not going to give up on his life just yet, so I guess it’s okay. 

Betty also provides an outsider perspective on things, especially magic. She defeats Bella Noche where all these great wizards fail, by simply acting without hesitation and not being wrapped up in preconceived notions about magic – instead of trying to use magic she just jumps inside the thing and punches them out. Simon’s affliction was caused by magic, and by being this person from the past, from another world without magic, she’s able to take a different approach to it, which might make the difference. And even Bella Noche promises the wizards ‘antediluvian’ magic – that is, ‘before the flood’. In this context, would that mean that which belongs to the world before it’s cataclysm, from when there practically was no magic? Antediluvian magic is magic going away; it allows Simon to come back and set a change in motion; it allows Betty to join him and perhaps make that change happen.

At any rate, as the episode ends Betty remains the outsider, acclimating to this new magical world but staying apart from everyone else, as she looks for something no one else has been able to find. Which is sort of what she and Simon were doing back in their original lives – and maybe both of them were always outsiders. Certainly Simon has been an outsider as the Ice King in a way, and remains one; also looking for something he can’t find and doesn’t even know he’s yearning for. But now he’s back to how he was, everything’s back to normal – except that Betty has inserted herself into the situation as a wild card who might just do the impossible.

Stray Observations:

• Simon punching Ash was fantastic; especially in the context of him reconnecting with Marceline, and receiving her help through Hambo which Ash took away from her.
• Simon’s bookshelf was fun to check for titles, though not many fun easter eggs (though the inclusion of what seems to be some kids books is cute). It does put a bit of a dent in my theory about Simon and Betty being weirdos and outsiders, since clearly there were a bunch of people doing research on magic; but it was still probably a fringe field.
• Finn and Jake, stop harshing Marceline’s advanced bass playing! And for something as silly as ‘it doesn’t look as cool’… Don’t get in the way of art.
• A nice touch was IK’s palace-mountain melting. Obviously because the ice powers have gone away, but it also symbolizes Simon’s mind thawing from the curse; and the mountain appears to be crying, signifying his sadness and regret, and his fear that he won’t even have time to say he’s sorry.
• Once again, Death is awesome (sentences you’d never expect to say). It was hilarious how he showed up to both warn and troll Betty and Simon, and pretty sad how he seemed genuinely sorry for Simon not being free of all of this. It also drives home how much Betty is trying to do the impossible, as well as the ethical murkiness of it all.
• Death tells Simon ‘you’ve got about 15 seconds’, and it’s very satisfying that it takes Betty about 15 seconds to take out Bella Noche. 
• Betty calls Bella Noche tranch. I tried looking up if this is a term outside the show, but when the first result (that wasn’t trench or tranche) was someone asking about it in the AT reddit, I could see what the answer was… And turns out it’s been used a few times already!
• The curious promo art shows Betty as some kind of nature spirit. This might just be a fun sketch of her being an awesome magical warrior, but it made me think about her role in this episode and going forward, trying to free Simon of this magic and bring him back to his natural state. (But also turns out one of the Wizard City people fighting Bella Noche looks like that, so… I’unno). 

(Note from Josephus: Apparently this was from a deleted scene showing Huntress Wizard fighting Bella Noche that they were sad to lose so they used it here)