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sometipsygnostalgic · 4 years ago

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Lemongrab’s tragedy

Lemongrab hated himself so much because of his failure to live up to the role his “God-Creator” gave him, his failure to live up to her as her heir, his failure to connect to other people or to her. Being incapable of fulfilling such an important role, the heir to freaking God, destroyed him. When PB tried to offer him help, he rejected it in anguish. He was overcome with his inability to accept himself, the ultimate failure.

He ended up imitating her in a number of ways. At first he stared at her candy people... which is something PB herself was doing with her cameras in the episode. He made a “reconditioning” chamber, which reflects her dungeons. He made a sound sword - once again, something she would probably make. If it isn’t literally one of her gifts to him. Lemongrab had catcher’s mitts on pedestals around the castle. Lemongrab wanted to “play catch” to relate with his mother, but didn’t know what catcher’s mitts were for.

When she made a clone of him, he was overjoyed to finally have someone similar to himself, someone who understands his “lemon styles”.

He didn’t stop there though. Using the formula Bubblegum left behind, Lemongrab was given the opportunity to do something that would connect him to his creator, AND give him more companions - Play God. But Lemongrab was unable to play God responsibly. He was unable to stop himself from bringing candy to life, unable to show restraint. He blamed PB, because he had told himself it was all in her plan for him to gain this knowledge, but he was unable to recognise she made a mistake, or hold himself accountable for his actions. The episode is titled “All Your Fault” because Lemongrab’s complicated feelings about imitating his god-creator and causing a catastrophe are the most important part of the ep. He tries to demonstrate superiority by having Lemonjon invade the Candy Kingdom, and bring all of THEIR candy to life.

In the end, Lemonjob had to sacrifice himself for Lemongrab’s mistake. And Lemongrab is punished for his failure by having the secret to life erased from his brain. But, it is stressed at this point, Bubblegum doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with their hearts. Everything they do is born from their own decisions, not from an innate lack of feeling.

Unfortunately, it turned out Lemongrab and his clone were not identical. Because of the bad experiences Lemongrab had prior to the clone being born, he was more ferocious, hostile, inconsiderate of others. Lemonwhite wants little Lemonsweets to go to bed, while Lemongrab wants him to keep on dancing, against the will of his brother. And when shit hits the fan, Lemongrab turns against his brother, devouring him.

After this point, Lemongrab’s desire to imitate Bubblegum and prove himself becomes more twisted. He turns the lemon castle into a “royal society”, giving titles to all of his people and having royal dinners and events. But his people are all still lemons, so it is imperfect. And he is now torturing them. He has become completely sociopathic, taking pleasure in making others suffer because of his inner turmoil.

Lemongrab hates Lemonhope because the boy has the potential to be the heir he never could be. Lemonhope can play the harp, and he has the hope of the other lemons behind him. And, devastatingly, Lemonhope immediately wins the approval of Princess Bubblegum - she perhaps sees him as the only pure good thing to come out of Lemongrab’s history. So when Lemongrab sees her kidnap him, he absolutely loses his mind. After everything he has done, all of his greatest plans, he is unable to earn her love, and he turns to blind violence. But she still gets away with Lemonhope, so unable to hurt the Princess for rejecting him or Lemonhope for stealing his dreams, he hurts all the other lemon people instead.

Lemonhope represents light and dark, sweet and sour. I could write an entirely separate post of similar length on him. To put it short, because Lemongrab was HIS God, he had more than enough Lemon qualities to cause friction with Bubblegum, and he was unwilling to be part of her design. But he had enough light and enough fear of Lemongrab to not want to become him. Anyway after spending a while coming to terms with his position he decides he must go back and blow Lemongrab up so that he can escape his own inner battle.

Lemongrab is stitched back together with his clone, in a final symbolic act of being Frankenstein’s Monster, and they become Lemongray. Lemongrab, now defeated, of two minds, and having faced some of his worst nightmares, now resigns to being a peaceful antisocial ruler of Castle Lemongrab, His sad tale becomes a part of Candy Kingdom underground history, part of Bonnie’s mythology among the banana guards.

He is still discontent with his life because he is no closer to finding purpose. He travels to the Mountain on what is essentially a suicide mission, to become part of a greater whole, but ends up on the path to self discovery.

He is faced with three choices. He can follow his longstanding desire to relate to the God-Creator. He can try to vanquish Lemonhope, his greatest usurper. Or he can try to repair his biggest mistake. And he chooses the latter, which greatly demonstrates how Lemongrab has the potential to change. At the end of the episode, he defies Matthew, throwing pieces of Lemonjon into him, which causes him to explode - the sheer ego that Lemon represents is too much for the Matthew.

Lemongrab has accepted his place in this world.

Following this point, he started to make connections with others, and escape from the shadow of his mother he had placed upon himself.

What I always found particularly tragic about his tale is that he kept zigzagging from blaming himself entirely for what he was, to blaming Bubblegum for making him that way and rejecting him. He revered her as his God-Creator all this time. He never realised, at any point, that the reason he couldn’t connect to her was just as much because of her flaws as it was because of his.

He didn’t realise she fucked up by leaving the formula behind, and it never clicked that the way she treated him was imperfect or bad. Bubblegum is basically his neglectful teen mom, and had she been a better creator, she should have reached out to him regardless, but she is far from perfect. If she is a God, she is one who doesn’t look after her subjects too well. Lemongrab doomed himself to failure from the very start by trying to follow her footsteps or connect with her, because he didn’t understand her at all.

Fortunately, now that he has had time to chill out, and she has actually done some reflection on her past mistakes, it’s possible for them to forge a connection. It’s certainly not going to be what Lemongrab wants it to be. Bubblegum still fundamentally does not understand him, and probably never will. But Lemongrab is notably by her side at the battle for Golb. There is a really funny joke which recognises their relationship. “UNMAKE ME”. Remember that one? But what I found more touching was this scene in Diamonds and Lemons. While it’s technically not canon, it is supposed to serve as a reflection of their changing relationship. Bubblegum sees that Lemongrab needs help. She reluctantly tries to help him out of his breakdown and he actually accepts her help. It’s not perfect, but it’s baby steps.

Anyway, now that Lemongrab is on his path to self discovery, learning what he wants to do, we can hope he has a decent, lemony future.

#adventure time #lemongrab #princess bubblegum #lemonhope

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