"The fantastical should leave you energized and motivated or at least inspired. When you return from wonderland, you should be brimming with a thousand new ideas and possibilities."
Perfectly put. So much of this stuff left me feeling old and sad and drained as the years went by.
Excellent work. I loved adventure time growing up, and the who subversion of a boy's journey to manhood being subverted for lesbian romance made me glad that I didn't get to attached to the show. At least I can say that it inspired me to write my own stories and to grow up rather than be stuck in an eternal boyhood.
Would it be fair to summarize your views on children's fiction the same way you summarized your views on video games? Video games are good insofar as they inspire achievement and bad insofar as they substitute for achievement; is escapist fiction, therefore, good insofar as it points towards a true escape and bad insofar as it pretends to be an escape itself?
I feel like someone could write the same thing about JRPGs moving through late 90s to now. Some of the writing was some good archetypes and messages... even a bit politically complex... and now they're bad redundant tropes.
Yeeep, I wrote about the change in children’s cartoons from action-adventure oriented with a healthy dose of comedies into very pozzed lefty brain engineering slice of life shit. Adventure time was a fun show but it was the stepping stone into this transition. Steven Universe might be the most pozzed major cable cartoon to date but it was only the second stepping stone in this process nonetheless as it was still pretty action oriented (albeit the protagonist is an obese pussy). Rebecca Sugar was a writer for AT so it’s not surprising.
I think adventure time was especially devastating because they really wanted to nail in the point that Finn’s entire mission of saving princesses in the hopes that he would get a girlfriend was “objectifying women” and that women who you save from an evil wizard “dont owe you anything”, so they basically gave him the most humiliating ending and he got cucked by a girl and also he didn’t even get the flame princess. People will say ‘oh but he did get that wife when he grew up canonically’ but it’s not really the point. They did the same stuff with Regular Show but Mordecai is a less likable more “lovable loser” character than Finn, who is a textbook hero
I felt like Regular Show did romance and genuine relationships justice with Rigby and Eileen. I learned a lot from RS and I wouldn’t be in the same fortunate circumstances I am now without it methinks.
Excellent job. My father always had me watch a bunch of Hanna Barbera cartoons when I was growing up. Looking at Johnny Quest, Scooby Doo, and The Jetsons, it feels like the cartoonists successfully incorporated Faustian man's need to discover/conquer the world and unmask superstition in a fun, playful, and adventurous atmosphere. Those shows also presented an optimistic future not tainted with apocalyptic overtones that everyone is going to kill everyone eventually.
I know that whether you are into anime or not, (I am not), millennial boys probably grew up watching Dragon Ball Z at some point in their childhood. I think DBZ did a great job of stressing the need of conquering your inner fears and striving to become more powerful as you grow up. It is probably one of the last shows that was genuinely geared to children that showed strength, personal development, and taking responsibility as positive traits and something to be achieved.
> This show is eternal childhood. Finn is never going to grow up because he’s going to keep hitting that reset button forever.
This is precisely what I felt when I watched Distant Lands (particularly Together Again). It's deeply depressing to think that Finn never grew up to be the grown-up hero he always aspired to be, and instead remained mentally a child forever. I can't imagine why the writers would want this for him, unless they too are mentally children, wishing that they could live in Ooo forever.
Well written but I think naively optimistic about consvervatives desire for good in the world.
Yes I know its a cynical opinion but everything written and produced by "conservatives" in recent years is a poor attempt at copying what other people have done.
They want power, they want money; the health, wellbeing, and future of children and young men and women be damned.
I never watched Adventure Time, but this post was compelling and a great in-depth consideration of the show and themes. Adventure Time always seemed a little nihilistic to me, which I guess I don't have much basis for. There were also some...creepy? insinuations sometimes, though like you mentioned, it was also able to explore difficult themes. It's one of those shows that's either assumed you watched or is highly recommended with a half-dozen best episodes.
Also want to mention Regular Show, which came out around the same time and is a bit like the other side of the coin that Adventure Time is stamped on, since it covered under-achieving adults dealing with extreme intergalactic problems, or if they weren't extreme, making them extreme by nature of dealing with everything as if it were a quest. Regular Show had a disappointing ending because it sidelined the simple relationships that all the irregularity was built upon and pressed a designated hero story instead. In light of your focus - I wouldn't call it conservative, but Regular Show was very patriotic and also distinctly American in its sense of humor, and that's also somewhat rare I think as not many modern children's shows are set distinctly in a real-life location.
"This show is eternal childhood." - yes, for me, this was AT's appeal as an adult. My kids really didn't like the show. I was reminded of the fantasy world in my mind as I played in the backyard w/ my friends and action figures as a kid in the early episodes. I couldn't bear to watch Finn getting his heart broken over and over again though. AT is the journey from pre-teen innocence through puberty through the lens of an awkward boy. You slowly realize the world is not the safe play-land you thought it was as a kid, and that adults have a lot more depth - and flaws - than the archetypes you used in the past.
This reminds me of how younger Catholic anime autists took the new Vatican anime mascot Luce and ran with her into the anime meme economy, while the older traditionalists are left befuddled over why the Church would even need a mascot to appeal to the youths. Instead of handwringing over the character being drawn by some Pridefest dildo maker (really), Catholic anime fans started putting her next to the Doom Guy slaughtering demons, or eyeing a crusade to convert the heretics.
I have been trying to communicate this idea with friends and family for a while. A limited amount of entertainment for kids or adults that isn't intentionally subversive exists and can be hard to find or plainly just not as good. I am thankful I never got into Adventure Time as much as some of my friends, but the Whimsy cannot be overstated. That is a large part of Rick and Morty popularity as well, it is whimsical even in its very adult nihilism and cynicism, and it gets laughs.
I would love to see, or help, the creation of more conservative/Catholic media that is also really good storytelling.
As the target demographic of the executives at Cartoon Network for the show, maybe not the writers, no, it was always obvious slop. The background art was good and there were sometimes funny jokes and maybe Ice King was cool, but that is all the positives. Every zoomer I knew either hated it from the start or gave up watching it when the elephant and pig started throat fucking each other. Only a millennial could think this show accomplished anything. In fact the crew of this show is partly responsible for killing cable for children. Of the millions of viewers how many were children? Indeed Adventure Time’s viewership never stopped decreasing from it’s beginning. As stated elsewhere it paved the way to worse slop. I do agree the right should be more creatively involved, but to pretend Adventure Time was some grand show is nonsense. If the right attempts to kick in the left’s control of entertainment in the whole rotten structure will collapse.
"The fantastical should leave you energized and motivated or at least inspired. When you return from wonderland, you should be brimming with a thousand new ideas and possibilities."
Perfectly put. So much of this stuff left me feeling old and sad and drained as the years went by.
Excellent work. I loved adventure time growing up, and the who subversion of a boy's journey to manhood being subverted for lesbian romance made me glad that I didn't get to attached to the show. At least I can say that it inspired me to write my own stories and to grow up rather than be stuck in an eternal boyhood.
Simon Petrikov sold me on the show when I was young. Felt I needed to comment on it.
Would it be fair to summarize your views on children's fiction the same way you summarized your views on video games? Video games are good insofar as they inspire achievement and bad insofar as they substitute for achievement; is escapist fiction, therefore, good insofar as it points towards a true escape and bad insofar as it pretends to be an escape itself?
Pretty much
I feel like someone could write the same thing about JRPGs moving through late 90s to now. Some of the writing was some good archetypes and messages... even a bit politically complex... and now they're bad redundant tropes.
Yeeep, I wrote about the change in children’s cartoons from action-adventure oriented with a healthy dose of comedies into very pozzed lefty brain engineering slice of life shit. Adventure time was a fun show but it was the stepping stone into this transition. Steven Universe might be the most pozzed major cable cartoon to date but it was only the second stepping stone in this process nonetheless as it was still pretty action oriented (albeit the protagonist is an obese pussy). Rebecca Sugar was a writer for AT so it’s not surprising.
I think adventure time was especially devastating because they really wanted to nail in the point that Finn’s entire mission of saving princesses in the hopes that he would get a girlfriend was “objectifying women” and that women who you save from an evil wizard “dont owe you anything”, so they basically gave him the most humiliating ending and he got cucked by a girl and also he didn’t even get the flame princess. People will say ‘oh but he did get that wife when he grew up canonically’ but it’s not really the point. They did the same stuff with Regular Show but Mordecai is a less likable more “lovable loser” character than Finn, who is a textbook hero
I felt like Regular Show did romance and genuine relationships justice with Rigby and Eileen. I learned a lot from RS and I wouldn’t be in the same fortunate circumstances I am now without it methinks.
Excellent job. My father always had me watch a bunch of Hanna Barbera cartoons when I was growing up. Looking at Johnny Quest, Scooby Doo, and The Jetsons, it feels like the cartoonists successfully incorporated Faustian man's need to discover/conquer the world and unmask superstition in a fun, playful, and adventurous atmosphere. Those shows also presented an optimistic future not tainted with apocalyptic overtones that everyone is going to kill everyone eventually.
I know that whether you are into anime or not, (I am not), millennial boys probably grew up watching Dragon Ball Z at some point in their childhood. I think DBZ did a great job of stressing the need of conquering your inner fears and striving to become more powerful as you grow up. It is probably one of the last shows that was genuinely geared to children that showed strength, personal development, and taking responsibility as positive traits and something to be achieved.
> This show is eternal childhood. Finn is never going to grow up because he’s going to keep hitting that reset button forever.
This is precisely what I felt when I watched Distant Lands (particularly Together Again). It's deeply depressing to think that Finn never grew up to be the grown-up hero he always aspired to be, and instead remained mentally a child forever. I can't imagine why the writers would want this for him, unless they too are mentally children, wishing that they could live in Ooo forever.
Well written but I think naively optimistic about consvervatives desire for good in the world.
Yes I know its a cynical opinion but everything written and produced by "conservatives" in recent years is a poor attempt at copying what other people have done.
They want power, they want money; the health, wellbeing, and future of children and young men and women be damned.
I never watched Adventure Time, but this post was compelling and a great in-depth consideration of the show and themes. Adventure Time always seemed a little nihilistic to me, which I guess I don't have much basis for. There were also some...creepy? insinuations sometimes, though like you mentioned, it was also able to explore difficult themes. It's one of those shows that's either assumed you watched or is highly recommended with a half-dozen best episodes.
Also want to mention Regular Show, which came out around the same time and is a bit like the other side of the coin that Adventure Time is stamped on, since it covered under-achieving adults dealing with extreme intergalactic problems, or if they weren't extreme, making them extreme by nature of dealing with everything as if it were a quest. Regular Show had a disappointing ending because it sidelined the simple relationships that all the irregularity was built upon and pressed a designated hero story instead. In light of your focus - I wouldn't call it conservative, but Regular Show was very patriotic and also distinctly American in its sense of humor, and that's also somewhat rare I think as not many modern children's shows are set distinctly in a real-life location.
"This show is eternal childhood." - yes, for me, this was AT's appeal as an adult. My kids really didn't like the show. I was reminded of the fantasy world in my mind as I played in the backyard w/ my friends and action figures as a kid in the early episodes. I couldn't bear to watch Finn getting his heart broken over and over again though. AT is the journey from pre-teen innocence through puberty through the lens of an awkward boy. You slowly realize the world is not the safe play-land you thought it was as a kid, and that adults have a lot more depth - and flaws - than the archetypes you used in the past.
This reminds me of how younger Catholic anime autists took the new Vatican anime mascot Luce and ran with her into the anime meme economy, while the older traditionalists are left befuddled over why the Church would even need a mascot to appeal to the youths. Instead of handwringing over the character being drawn by some Pridefest dildo maker (really), Catholic anime fans started putting her next to the Doom Guy slaughtering demons, or eyeing a crusade to convert the heretics.
Adventure Derp
Derp Derping Derp
All the Derps Will Never Derp
Derp the Dog and
Derp the Human
Derping Derpa Derp
Adventure Derp
Both too much to add and nothing to add.
I'll just get this draft of a romantisy light novel finished up...
Isaac, you put into words the pain I felt on seeing Adventure Time's fall. Its like seeing vandalism.
They had such potential and often great stories, but in the end, they failed because they have no hope in a real life happy ending.
Cynicism is the Wisdom of the Despairing
I have been trying to communicate this idea with friends and family for a while. A limited amount of entertainment for kids or adults that isn't intentionally subversive exists and can be hard to find or plainly just not as good. I am thankful I never got into Adventure Time as much as some of my friends, but the Whimsy cannot be overstated. That is a large part of Rick and Morty popularity as well, it is whimsical even in its very adult nihilism and cynicism, and it gets laughs.
I would love to see, or help, the creation of more conservative/Catholic media that is also really good storytelling.
As the target demographic of the executives at Cartoon Network for the show, maybe not the writers, no, it was always obvious slop. The background art was good and there were sometimes funny jokes and maybe Ice King was cool, but that is all the positives. Every zoomer I knew either hated it from the start or gave up watching it when the elephant and pig started throat fucking each other. Only a millennial could think this show accomplished anything. In fact the crew of this show is partly responsible for killing cable for children. Of the millions of viewers how many were children? Indeed Adventure Time’s viewership never stopped decreasing from it’s beginning. As stated elsewhere it paved the way to worse slop. I do agree the right should be more creatively involved, but to pretend Adventure Time was some grand show is nonsense. If the right attempts to kick in the left’s control of entertainment in the whole rotten structure will collapse.