Return to Ooo With These ‘Adventure Time’ Characters
Let’s travel all the way back to the magical–and sometimes tragic–land of Ooo with the Adventure Time characters.
Adventure Time was an animated show that ran on Cartoon Network starting in April 2010 and ran through September 2018. Since then there have been a few returns to Ooo with short episodes and specials. But this show itself ran for eight successful years with a meaningful and satisfying conclusion for all of our favorite characters. But there were many characters. So let’s talk about all of the biggest names in Ooo, as well as a little about the world itself.
What is the Land of Ooo?
Ooo is the setting of Adventure Time, and its map is designed to look like your standard fantasy-world map from the beginning of a novel. But in reality, the world is a bit more than that. Ooo is made up of a number of kingdoms including the Candy Kingdom, the Fire Kingdom, the Ice Kingdom, Castle Lemongrab, Lumpy Space, and some other non-kingdoms like the Evil Forest and the Bad Lands. It’s a land that’s expansive and diverse.
It’s hinted as early as the first time we see the opening song, but Ooo is actually a post-apocalyptic version of Earth after a global disaster known as the “Mushroom War.” Once you know this, it’s easy to notice un-exploded nuclear bombs throughout the setting as well as evidence of the world before. Ooo also takes place in the aftermath of a version of Earth where magic was, though very rare and not widely known about, very real.
Finn the Human
Finn is the main character of Adventure Time and is believed for much of the series to be the only human living in Ooo. Aside from living in a world full of bizarre creatures and becoming something of a folk hero around Ooo, Finn is a pretty normal kid. He enjoys hanging out with his friends, going on adventures, lives in a gigantic tree house, and has a crush on Princess Bubblegum.
Jake the Dog
Jake is Finn’s best friend and adoptive older brother at twenty-eight “magical dog” years old. He is magically able to stretch and shrink his body to almost any size or shape he wants. There are limits, but they’re pretty extreme. Jake is sometimes the reasonable and mature half of the team, and sometimes absolutely off-the-walls with his plans and jokes. But for the most part, he is a good and protective older brother to Finn. He is later shown to be in a relationship with Lady Rainicorn, a long rainbow unicorn who only speaks Korean. They bond over both playing the viola and eventually have five dog-rainicorn children.
Princess Bubblegum
Bubblegum is a humanoid-looking character, but she is entirely pink because she is made entirely of bubblegum. She is seen as a fair and just leader but had a dark side to her that many don’t see. Bubblegum is also often shown to have superhuman intelligence, be an accomplished scientist as well as a monarch, and enjoy general nerd culture.
Princess Bubblegum also has a need to control everything, which causes issues and complex relationships with the people closest to her. But this is something we see her working on, especially in later seasons of the show. We also learn that Bubblegum and Marceline used to be in a romantic relationship but broke up and go on to have a tense and complicated relationship. Later in the series they rekindle their romance and go back to being a couple known by their couple name, Bubbline.
In flashbacks, it’s implied in the direct aftermath of the Mushroom Wars that some semi-sentient bubblegum blobs will eventually evolve into Princess Bubblegum.
Marceline the Vampire Queen
Marceline is a half-human, half-demon vampire who became the Vampire Queen after killing the previous Vampire King. She, like Bubblegum, looks like a young adult, but both are actually thousands of years old. Marcy plays her axe bass (instrument) which was formerly her family’s heirloom axe (weapon), and despite being a vampire and seemingly one of the most frightening creatures in Ooo, she’s friendly, approachable, and a good friend to Finn and Jake–though a little sarcastic.
Marceline is shown to have a complicated relationship with the Ice King, and it is later revealed that they were both around at the time of the Mushroom War–though Marcy was a child at the time. Eventually, they became friends and learned to rely on each other.
The Ice King
Often seen as the main antagonist of Adventure Time, The Ice King poorly kidnaps princesses and tries to force them to marry him. He’s not particularly competent nor picky about his princesses and is eventually revealed to be more of a tragic character who’s just looking for a friend more than a true villain.
Ice King’s ice powers come from his magical crown, and prior to coming into the crown, he was a normal human man named Simon Petrikov. Once Simon came into and began wearing the crown, he started to slowly lose his mind, eventually causing his fiancé Betty–who he called his princess–to leave him. His magic helped him survive the Mushroom Wars, after which he met and befriended a young Marceline.
Fionna and Cake
One of the most popular side stories of Adventure Time is the adventures of Fionna and Cake, a gender-bent version of Finn and Jake. Fiona is a young girl adventurer, while Cake is her adoptive older sister and cat. This version includes a gender-bent version of all of the characters including Prince Gumball, and the vampire Marshall Lee.
In their first episode, it is revealed that this character exists within the fanfiction that the Ice King is writing. But these characters will be back on August 31st of this year when Fionna and Cake get their own spin-off series.
Which Adventure Time Character am I?
I have taken a whole bunch of these quizzes for science. And if you’re looking for your perfect Ooo match, this is the quiz to take to find out.
Who is your favorite Adventure Time character? Will you be tuning in for Fionna and Cake? Did you figure out what was going on with Ooo from the very beginning, or did it take you a little time to notice some of those background details? Let us know in the comments!
Stay mathematical, adventurers!
