Adventure Time: Distant Lands — Obsidian conquers tropes and trauma in the Land of Ooo
Note: Please don’t continue reading if you’re concerned about spoilers for Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode 2, Obsidian.
The original run of Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time felt like it left off on the perfect note in 2018. Most characters saw their arcs peak and come to a satisfying close, but perhaps none felt quite as good as that long-awaited kiss between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline the Vampire Queen. After years of pining, subtle nods to their romantic past, and flirtatious exchanges, the two finally acknowledged their relationship and rekindled the flame. I had my anxieties about the show’s spin-off, mostly out of fear that I would learn the Bubbline ship had gone sour or perhaps suffered some worse fate. But in a year of shows like Supernatural or The Haunting of Bly Manor, where the “bury your gays” trope somehow manages to feel even more painful, Adventure Time paints a tale of queer happiness and conquering trauma.
Obsidian begins with an introduction to the Glass Kingdom and its people. Hundreds of years ago, a terrifying dragon, Larvo, wreaked havoc upon the city and Marceline showed up to slay the beast through song amidst a relationship-ending fight with Bubblegum. Glassboy, a kid traumatized by his rejection in the kingdom due to a fracture in his glass, is obsessed with Marceline and her heroics, so when the dragon strikes again he vows to find her and win favor among his peers.
That’s when we pick up just where the original show left off. Marcy and her beloved P-Bubs are wrapped up in the mundane, and it’s got to be one of the biggest strengths of Obsidian. There’s no more fighting, no painful emotional distance between the two. Marceline and Bubblegum are assembling furniture from whatever the equivalent to Ikea is in the Land of Ooo, playing board games, and lazing on the couch. Their life has turned into the basic, domestic day-to-day as much as it can and they’ve moved on from their troubled past. It’s difficult to express how impactful moments of sleepy cuddles or sharing coffee are until it painfully nails you in the heart, a moment of realization in how absent these things feel in queer portrayals of life.
Yet both characters still are beautifully flawed individuals, deeply humanized by their portrayal to cope and love through trauma without the constant element of toxicity so often introduced to queer love stories. Marceline, arguably Adventure Time’s most complex character, shows her baby steps through the healing process of overcoming a life full of roads always leading to pain. As she fiddles with her bass, Bubblegum notes that Marceline is super focused on her latest song and such concentration is uncharacteristic of the vampire queen. Marceline is stuck, she’s not accustomed to happiness and acknowledges as much later on. Bubblegum’s love has become a strong foundation of happiness and peace, but Marceline doesn’t know how to stop bracing for pain. When all you’ve ever known is trauma, it’s difficult to accept the comfort of love and stability.
The music doesn’t come to Marceline since she can’t easily belt out a song from a place of anger, but instead, she’s hard at work on a piece inspired by love she’s not quite ready to share. And even through this, Marceline is learning and growing in her relationship in a healthy, typical way. Confronted with the Glass Kingdom’s doom again, both Marceline and Bubblegum reluctantly agree to revisit the place where they broke up and slay the dragon again. They both know this ultimately means confronting some uncomfortable feelings from the past, but it doesn’t cause the rift we may expect.
Marceline’s struggle to move on from her past comes to a head when their first confrontation with Larvo begins in the Glass Kingdom and she finds herself stuck with a similar feeling of inadequacy to the Land of Ooo’s perfect princess, but this time she seems equipped to handle the struggle. To Bubblegum’s dismay, Marceline sets out to confront those feelings and conquer her fears of rejection and the constant theme through her life of just not being good enough to keep her loved ones around.
While the princess overcomes her own demons, it’s Marceline who takes the stage. Obsidian does a great job of packaging the vampire queen’s plight into a stand-alone series of flashbacks that work perfectly for newcomers, but long-time fans may understand a little better just how important her arc becomes here. Marceline has faced literal centuries of torment. She lost her mother to illness after their home is ravaged by war, her biological father is a manipulative and convenient figure, her guardian Simon loses himself for years to an evil magic crown, and she is estranged from the love of her life. Glassboy accompanies her on the road to seek out “the place where she was hurt the most” and sees a touching finale that mimics Marceline’s own, but it’s the vampire queen who leads by showing a painful load of baggage does not mean you aren’t worth loving. We learn much of Marceline’s pain stems from what was perceived as childhood rejection from her mother, only to learn that was never the case, and that her mother’s love was ultimately what kept her safe for years to come.
After revisting her devastated childhood home, Marceline returns with understanding and closure she didn’t have before. She’s ready to put in the work to overcome her internal struggles and learn to let go. The desire to find her “punk rock anger” again disappears and the couple apologizes to each other for their past, ready to cope with old pains. They were naive, troubled, and not quite ready to address their own flaws. Bubblegum lets go of the sour feelings Glass Kingdom has rekindled, and the two stumble upon the real solution to defeating Larvo through a demonstration of love none of the haughty kingdom’s citizens could understand.
It’s ultimately the couple’s refusal to give in to anger, jealousy, or lazy excuses that save them and the Glass Kingdom from their demise. Even when on the verge of losing everything, Marcy and P-Bubs are honest with each other, a feeling that Marceline notes is incredibly strange for her given her mother’s tendency to hide and shield her from the truth. It’s a departure from the stark juxtaposition we see in Marceline and Bubblegum’s chaotic past and points to their continued growth over the years.
Marceline’s final song is a painful ode to the trauma that dominated her life while simultaneously celebrating where she’s going and the happiness to come. “You’re the pink in my cheeks and I love that it means I’m a little bit soft,” is a lyric Bubbline fans will be chanting for years to come. Ending with a story that comes full circle on overcoming demons that don’t make you unloveable feels like some radical act of defiance after consuming so much media that insists queer stories are too troubled, doomed, and undeserving of the mundane day-to-day happiness others enjoy. Marcy and Bubblegum are left dancing in the most normal scenario you can imagine in the Land of Ooo with a promise of eternity together, and that’s really all I’ve ever wanted.
