![]() However, as Neil Strauss emphasizes in an article for Rolling Stone, Pendleton Ward – himself a stereotypical 30-something reclusive introvert – has managed to create a show that goes far beyond offering escapist consolation to himself and his peers: it “connects in the deepest way with children, teens and adults alike.” 2 Strauss digs deeper in an attempt to identify what actually made Ward capable of achieving this feat, and what later drove him to give up his position as the show’s director (though remaining on the storyboarding team). Offering a trip down memory lane to the world of 8-bit consoles, classic role-playing games, bouts of gorging on candy, and agonizing over how to speak to girls, the show might seem to embody a clichéd safe haven for withdrawn adults unable to rise to the challenges of a demanding job market. Adventure Time is a perfect case in point. ![]() The story of millennial-anguish-turned-juvenile is now widely circulated – a mantra repeated ad nauseam by those bemoaning the “death of adulthood” in modern culture. Jennifer Luxton posed the fundamental question in The Sundial: “Who exactly is the show intended for, and what is it trying to say?” Pointing to Adventure Time ’ s “signature style of discontinuity” and “anti-climactic non-endings,” she argues that, formally speaking, it is geared towards an adult audience, yet the “slap-stick animation” makes it “almost unpalatable for adults.” 1 Ultimately, she pins the show’s popularity on prevailing nostalgia for childhood-era flights of imagination, with enough “infantile innocence and the right amount of twisted humor to lure in even the most discretionary man-child.” The slightly condescending tone of such observations dovetails with today’s widespread consensus among more grave critics that the culture of nostalgia feeds off the infantile cravings of millennials who have failed to adapt to the harsh realities of late capitalism and who fantasize about a return to the golden age of childhood innocence. This has greatly confused many commentators. Curiously enough, Adventure Time refuses to grow up, reveling in outright antics and unabashed cuteness, as well as jumping back and forth between adolescent drama and universal philosophical issues. Although Finn and his adoptive brother Jake – a shape-shifting dog – learn vital lessons and evolve, there is no sense of their socializing into any standardized function in society, complemented by working out youthful dilemmas and settling for a “mature” subjectivity. Given that the audience of Adventure Time would grow together with the series, one might expect it to offer a Bildungsroman-style narrative, concluding with a sense of closure regarding the emotional and moral development of its protagonist. In fact, questions of personal growth and maturing may be regarded as crucial with respect to both the general story arc of the show and the question of its reception. After the show was picked up by Cartoon Network, premiering in 2010 and continuing to this day, the boy’s age was not frozen in a TV stasis, which granted him the rare opportunity (in the world of cartoons, that is) of actually developing and coming of age, with various adventures deeply transforming him as a person. In his first appearance in the pilot episode aired in 2007, Finn (then named Pen) was 12. The television show created by Pendleton Ward is about to run its course, much to the dissatisfaction of loyal fans, after having taken the main protagonist on a long journey from boyhood to the brink of maturity. Princess Bubblegum, Adventure Time: Stakes (2015) Introductionįinn the Human has just turned 17 as Adventure Time enters its final, tenth season, meant to conclude in 2018. Indeed all physical adventure which is entered upon of set purpose involves an adventure of thought regarding things as yet unrealized.Īlfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (1933) ![]() ![]() The world dreams of things to come, and then in due season arouses itself to their realization.
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