Friday, October 26, 2012
Discontinuity that went unnoticed
I noticed this about the episodes "Holly Jolly Secrets" and "I Remember You." There is a slight discontinuity about the Ice King. In "Holly Jolly Secrets" the Ice King appears to remember his past and knows that he was at one point Simon Petrikov. In "I Remember You" he has no recollection of Simon even after watching the tapes with Finn and Jake that established his back story. Here is my theory behind this: the crown hasn't completed it's process of transforming Simon into the Ice King and he will inevitably reach his "final form" that will transfer his character from neutral evil to chaotic evil and require him to be slain by Finn and Jake or rescue Simon from within the Ice King.
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I think that the Crown works a little like the One Ring, in that it basically works by amplifying your own tendencies toward evil, and from its own point of view Simon was a very, very poor host for it, because he's naturally an extremely good man. Notice that, after a thousand years, and equipped with powers that could devastate a wide area, what he basically does is live in a mountain-sized ice castle, randomly kidnap women of various species, and then annoy them. He conceptualizes what he wants to do as "marry a princess," which precludes (in his mind) direct rape or worse; though he may be getting worse (as when he mind-controlled Old Lady Princess and especially when he built Monster Princess out of princess parts still being used by the princesses in question). If he had been a more evil person to begin with, he'd probably be trying to turn the whole continent into a glacier, or something like that.
ReplyDeleteSimon seems to have moodswings and phases, oscillating between what could be termed chaotic silly and chaotic silly with evil tendencies. This may be because Simon's soul is constantly fighting against the domination of the crown. Compare him with Gollum/Smeagol, who was much less powerful, but also much more murderous.
One sad thought is that the Crowm probably used Simon's goodness to tempt him to use its powers. This would have been most obviously the case when he was Marceline's guardian. Note that when he first met Marceline, he wasn't wearing the Crown on a routine basis, he was instead carrying it strapped to his side, rather as if he was treating it as a weapon to only be used in time of need. Simon himself, even partly transformed into the Ice King, would have been tough enough to deal with most threats without calling upon the Crown -- but now he had a little girl to protect, and to do so he may have had to use the Crown more and more often -- until it mostly consumed him.
If Marceline suspects this, the guilt this would logically induce may have been one of the reasons why she now affects a spooky amorality: she doesn't want to face up to the fact that protecting her contributed to the destruction of Simon's mind. It's very obvious in "I Remember You" that she still loves him very much, but when someone you love goes utterly mad, especially to the point of being dangerous (and the Ice King is powerful enough to be dangerous even to Marceline, were he not restrained by Simon's unwillingness to harm her), it's very emotionally hard to face such a person.
Poor Marceline. She's been abandoned or betrayed by everyone we know for sure she cares or cared for -- except for Finn. So far, that is.
If Finn actually had to kill Simon, that would be truly terrible, in so many ways.
Of course Finn doesn't really want to kill Simon. The Ice King confuses him, because Finn has a very black-and-white morality and the Ice King fluctuates between good and evil, friendly and hostile, depending on the degree to which the Crown has control.
(Marceline also confuses Finn, but as long as what she mostly wants to do is play with him, he doesn't feel the need to face that issue).
What I really want to know is, where does Gunter fit into all this?
I think also that what we saw Princess Bubblegum doing in the finale could give an indication as to the power of the crowns. She appears to be more concerned with science and less concerned with the people she harms. I do not think that Finn will have to kill Simon as part of the Final Form Ice King, rather he will have to find some way to separate Simon from the Ice King. Especially now that The Enchiridion is no longer around the gems serve no other purpose but to provide power to the wearer. So either Finn will separate Simon from the Ice King or destroy the gem and the Ice King will revert to Simon.
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