#he raised marceline. he doesn't know her anymore. she doesn't know him anymore. they survived the inescapable. they can never talk about it.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

Simon reminds me of the main character from firewatch whose wife got early-onset dementia and he felt guilty about living the rest of his life without her because she was THERE. yknow. Just different. And she'll never be the same again. And it's unfair to hold the new person to the same standards as before but DAMN. you're grieving.

[lhuxlux]

You know what? I absolutely LOVE the way Fionna & Cake (the show) told us how important Simon Petrikov (the one we know) was. Let's check out the most important universes. As expected, there will be spoilers:

Farmworld is pretty obvious itself. Simon was able to prevent the bomb that would have brought the Lich, which is pretty impressive itself, but that didn't stop the Lich forever and Simon wasn't able to take care of Marceline or even contact Hunson Abadeer. Because of this, Marceline dedicated her whole life (literal centuries) to guard the crown knowing it was too dangerous. Eventually, she dies after Farmworld Finn accidentally activates the bomb. Simon's sacrifice was noble, but it only delayed something that was inevitable and Marceline didn't have the best life guarding her friend and father figure's corpse for centuries due to the crown

Simon doesn't have the purpose of sacrificing his own life in order to save Marceline and other people. Becoming Ice King again for Fionna and Cake was a way to abandon and sacrifice the life he regained thanks to Betty. No one has such purpose, it was just Farmworld Simon's choice and we can see the consequences of his absence even years after those events occurred and our boy Prismo had to fix things a bit

After that, the show presents us Winterworld and a version of Simon that managed to "conquer" the crown and seemed like the perfect outcome for everyone involved: Simon keeping his sanity without facing the consequences of not only using the crown but also being a magic user again to bring magic back to Fionna's world. Thing is MMS (Magic, Madness, and Sadness) applies to all magic users and it is unavoidable, all of them will show different degrees of those three characteristics. Winter King is no exception, he is still mad despite projecting most of his madness on PB. We can see this because he made an ice version of Marceline despite saying it would be unethical to do the same with Betty

Simon cannot be a magic user because otherwise he won't be the Simon we know (Remember the Tiny Manticore mentioning how Betty changed as well after becoming a magic user?). He knew this every time he needed to use the crown in order to protect Marceline and survive. He acknowledged it was the only way to do it despite knowing the long-term effects and being aware he also hurt Marcy. Simon was no coward, he probably was scared and knew no one could save him from the crown's madness, and still tried to be himself when he could

Probably the reason why Winter King lost his Marceline was because he wanted to have the crown's power to survive without facing the consequences of using it, maybe he overused the crown itself until Simon was completely gone, making him unable or too dangerous to take care of Marcy. Winter king lived in a bubble in which he thought he was completely sane (which is not even possible if you are a magic user) and everything, including himself, was perfect. He wants to believe he's Simon but that's not the case, Simon is far gone and deep down he knows it when he took the name "Winter King" and decided to make his kingdom instead of using his own name and trying to live as Simon Petrikov, not some king

And, of course... Vampworld

The perfect answer to the question "How important is our Simon Petrikov?"

A world in which Marceline was never raised by Simon, and Hunson was absent or didn't mind that his daughter was raised by the Vampire King. Marcy didn't become a vampire hunter and didn't help humans survive. This is because she was educated in a different way since she was very little, and keep in mind that Marceline was already thinking she was a monster because she couldn't comprehend why her mother couldn't be with her anymore. Vampire King just encouraged her to behave like an actual monster

Simon cared about Marcy and her education, seeing her as a scared little girl living in the end of the world, not a monster despite knowing she was different. Again, he admitted he was Marceline's father figure and raised her as his own. This is why Simon is scared and maybe even a bit sad when he watches Marcy acting in such a cruel way, and that's why he loses his shit and calls the Vampire King a bad dad, he couldn't stand seeing someone else encourage that behavior on Marceline

Simon's education wasn't the best, he had his own struggles due to the crown, but he did his best and that made a difference on Marceline's life, he even bothered to contact Hunson so she wouldn't be all by herself. It was a pity he didn't know that Hunson himself wasn't that good as a father but leaving Marcy all by herself would have been cruel

And yet, Simon himself couldn't see this despite living it. He was still trying to save Fionna's universe by becoming Ice King again. Why? He thought his purpose was to help others by sacrificing himself, that's what he learned with Marceline when he took care of her, this made him think that Simon Petrikov didn't matter, only Ice King because he's able to make Fionna's world magic again and could stop Scarab, fueling his identity loss

Most people cannot realize how important they are, even if they didn't lose their identity. Sometimes it is too hard to know how important we actually are or we tend to forget and re-learn it, and this is something the show remarks despite Simon helped Fionna save her universe. He didn't need Ice King, but that doesn't mean it is over and he learnt his lesson

It is a longer process because there are ideas or thoughts about ourselves that are hard to abandon or not to pay attention to in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes

[paragonrobits]

so i was reading some complaints about how Marceline is only really present in Fionna And Cake in a brief snippet and then only in AUs, and then it occured to me: Marceline not being around in an active way is necessary for the plot to happen.

Essentially, the plot of Fionna And Cake might be summarized as 'longing the magical life, Fionna and Cake flee from a Lawful Neutral cosmic killjoy and enlist the help of Simon Petrikov who agrees to become Ice King again, but is explicitly not telling them about what this is going to do to him'. The story is essentially about Simon WANTING to become Ice King while at the same time really not wanting to do that at all, pressuring himself into losing himself once more because he thinks its the only way for him to be needed by anyone anymore.

If Marceline is around, this doesn't happen. She is Simon's biggest reason for staying; she's the happiest part of his life, the most fulfilling and rewarding part of his life. It comes up, time and time again, that in the end becoming Ice King was the best thing to happen to Simon despite all its misery, suffering and tragedy because he otherwise would never have met her; he wouldn't have survived the great mushroom war, or the horrors following it, and would have died long before ever meeting her.

And the show details how INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT Simon raising her really was. The Marceline we know was shaped, by a massive degree, by Simon; his example of self-sacrifice, him letting his mind disintegrate by inches, him going out of his way to help a complete stranger and a monstrous child horrifying by the standards of the setting, all implciitly RIGHT after Marceline's mother died and Marceline had resigned herself to being a scary monster that drives everyone away. And then here came a stranger out of the blue, and spent the next few years telling her that yes, she DID matter, she was a person, and that he cared about her so much he destroyed himself so she wouldn't get hurt... or perhaps because her only means of defending herself, ripping out the souls of others, hurts who she is.

It's not a nice kind of comfort. But it still shaped her into someone willing to be a hero in her own way.

And this goes both ways; we can see that the proverbial straw for Simon is him calling Marceline and concluding that she doesn't need him anymore. It's only after this he starts trying to contact Golbetty, with the potential doom that may befall him. If Marceline doesn't need him, he seems to think, he doesn't matter. The need to be needed runs deep in Simon's character; its what draws him to help Fionna and Cake, and the worlds they visit seem to impart a lesson to him on how he matters more than he thinks he does, both by the things he's done and what he means to others; that he's not as bad a person as he thinks he is, or that Marceline would be fine without him.

So. If Marceline talks more to Simon, ESPECIALLY after he resolves to throw his progress away and let his mind be lost all over again just so he doesn't have to hurt anymore... well, his character arc in this series is about accepting that he's actually ok, the way he is, and to gain perspective on his feelings that he doesn't belong anywhere (and the answer is that he DOES, more than he knows). Marceline doesn't inhibit that, but she WOULD make it harder for it to happen, arguably at the cost of sidelining Simon's character arc here. He would pretend that okay he doesnt want to be Ice King even if he DOES still intend to go through with it, and not in the same way as when he comes to the conclusion that he ultimately does.

If Marceline is there, he doesn't think those thoughts, and he won't come to the same conclusion.

And at the same time, despite not being there, Marceline's presence hangs over the entire show in Simon's character arc. She is the best thing in his life; his greatest success, the most purely positive and happy part of his life. It can't be understated how significant Marceline is; as miserable as Ice King was, she was someone he cared about even if he didn't understand why anymore. Ice King shows a remarkable amount of restraint in context, but it becomes a lot more obvious whenever she's involved, or in danger; a care so deep and ingrained that when Ice King was often pretty callous, whenever she was upset you could see flickers on his face, genuine distress rising up from some forgotten memory or part of who he is.

Marceline pervades Simon's character and the impact he had on the world; the idea of him being able to pull through this and come back to Ooo for her feels very evident, and the impact Simon has in her in other worlds remains extremely important in all of them, sub-textually or otherwise. Sometimes, its a hint that the Winter King is far more morally ambiguous or even malicious than he lets on (the only Marceline present being an eternal child that, from context, is just a simulcrum for him to play pretend parent with) or evidence that without Simon, Marceline grows up into the monster she always feared she was (Vampire World).

She's a presence, hanging over Simon in a good way and reminding us that not only does he have somewhere to go back to, he must understand that he does belong there. And furthermore that the world of Ooo, whimsical and ultimately a better one than most of the places he visits in the miniseries, can only exist because of him.

In Winter King, we see what he could become, without his moral choices. In Vampire World, we see what happens without Simon Petrikov. And in Marceline herself, we see the surest evidence of how important he really is, even if he can't or won't acknowledge it. In his loved ones, in the family he made, even if its not the family he thought he was supposed to have.