Marceline Abadeer is one of the main characters from Adventure Time. She is half-demon, half-vampire hydrid. She likes having fun with Finn and Jake, pulling pranks on anybody and sometimes spending quality time with Princess Bubblegum.
Marceline makes her debut in the first-season episode "Evicted!" in which she forces Finn and Jake from their home. However, as the series progresses, Marceline becomes a close friend to the two. Several backstory episodes have established that she was born to an unnamed human mother (voiced by Rebecca Sugar) and the demon Hunson Abadeer (voiced by Olivia's real-life father, Martin Olson). Furthermore, when she was a child, the cataclysmic Mushroom War occurred, and soon after, she developed a father-daughter-like bond with Simon Petrikov (voiced by Tom Kenny), who would one day turn into the Ice King.
Marceline has been critically acclaimed and is popular with the Adventure Time fandom. The character was also the focus of the seventh season miniseries Stakes (2015). Early in the show's history, Ward himself stated that Marceline was his favorite character because he did not know everything about her history and backstory, which he felt added a mysterious element to her character. Marceline's relationship with Princess Bubblegum created controversy when the episodes "What Was Missing" and "Sky Witch" implied that they had been in a relationship—a relationship that was confirmed in the series finale "Come Along with Me." The relationship was also the subject of the second episode of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, "Obsidian," which was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids and Family Programming.
Characteristics[]
Personality and traits[]
I'm not mean. I'm a thousand years old, and I just lost track of my moral code.
Marceline is a half-demon and half-human vampire. She assumed the title "Vampire Queen" after having killed the previous Vampire King prior to the start of the show. Although she is over 1,000 years old, she takes on the physical appearance of an 18- to 21-year-old. Having spent centuries traversing the Land of Ooo, she has evolved into a "fearless daredevil", and her fondness for mischief has turned her into something of a trickster. Consequently, in her first role, Marceline functions as the antagonist of the story, forcing Finn and Jake from their home. However, she eventually becomes their close friend once Finn recognizes that she is "a radical dame who likes to play games".
Unlike traditional Western vampires, Marceline subsists not off blood, but rather the color red. Items she drinks the red from are rendered grey afterward, including, on one occasion, Princess Bubblegum. Since she is only sated by the color itself, blood is appealing simply due to its hue (although Ward noted on his Formspring that she "drinks blood sometimes"). When Marceline is deprived of red, she enters a "feral" state, and will instinctively try to kill others and drink their blood. Like traditional Western vampires, she is vulnerable to sunlight and is capable of turning into a bat of varying size. Marceline also possesses several powers, such as levitation, invisibility, self-healing, and shapeshifting; she gained each of these powers after absorbing the essence of several powerful vampires, as documented in Stakes. From her demonic father, she also inherited the power to absorb people's souls. Marceline is also a survivor of the Mushroom War. Hints of her past are sprinkled through the series; in "Memory of a Memory" a trip into Marceline's mind shows her as a child wandering around the outskirts of a destroyed city, and "I Remember You" features her meeting Simon Petrikov in a ruined city.
She was very emotionally attached to her teddy bear Hambo, which was given to her by Simon Petrikov, as revealed in the episode "I Remember You". In "Memory of a Memory", after Ash sold the teddy bear to a witch, Marceline was furious and broke up with him. In the episode "Sky Witch", Marceline enlists Princess Bubblegum's help, and they retrieve the bear, but in "Betty", she sacrifices the bear to allow Simon the chance to communicate with his fiancée. Although she is very independent, her detachment often makes her feel alone, as seen in "Marceline's Closet"; while Jake and Finn are hiding in her closet, she expresses most of her feeling via her diary. Throughout the series, Marceline is seen playing music; in several official sources, she is described as "a wild rocker girl". Several times throughout the series, she jams with Finn and Jake, and various others depending on the circumstances. She is usually shown playing her ax bass, which was formerly her family's heirloom battle-ax. According to Ward, she is ambidextrous, which explains her ability to play bass with both hands. She often finds it easier to express her feelings through music, as seen with songs like the "Fry Song," about her father, and "I'm Just Your Problem," about her relationship with Princess Bubblegum.
Relationships[]
Marceline has a close relationship with Finn and Jake. Marceline and Finn have many things in common with one another; in the episodes "Evicted" and "Henchman," it is stated that the reason Marceline befriended Finn is that he enjoys being himself. Although she has kissed Finn platonically on the cheek twice, Ward has noted that there is no romantic subtext between the two. On the other hand, Marceline and Jake share a more complex relationship. In her initial appearances, she derived pleasure from scaring Jake, who was terrified "of her vampire bite". In turn, Jake felt that she was evil and had managed to take over Finn's mind. Due to this, Jake attempted to kill her several times, to no avail. However, after the events of "Henchman," Jake seems to have forgotten his fear of her; in "Memory of a Memory," he even refers to her as a "friend" in one of her memories.
At the start of the series, Marceline shares a tense relationship with Princess Bubblegum. However, as the show has gone on, their relationship has been fleshed out and changed. Marceline was the first person to address Bubblegum by her first name—Bonnibel—which occurred in the episode "Go with Me". Their connections are explored further in the season three episode "What Was Missing". In the episode, Marceline's song "I'm Just Your Problem" and the dialogue between her and Bubblegum implied that they may have had some sort of relationship in the past, although the exact details surrounding the nature of the relationship were not explained. This later caused an internet controversy over Marceline's sexual orientation. However, after the events of "What Was Missing", Marceline and Bubblegum's relationship seems to have gotten better, as the two spend quality time together in "Sky Witch", "Varmints", Stakes, and "Broke His Crown" and are seen having a strong bond. In the series finale, "Come Along with Me", Marceline and Bubblegum express their romantic feelings for one another and kiss, and the episode's epilogue shows the two seemingly as a happy couple. In the episode "Obsidian" of the spin-off series Distant Lands, set some years later (Finn is shown as an adult man in the episode), Marceline and Bubblegum are depicted as living together in Marceline's cave and are in an explicitly romantic relationship with each other. The episode also confirms that they had previously been in a relationship and a break-up is shown through flashbacks.
Marceline and her father, Hunson Abadeer, have trouble accepting one another. Initially, Marceline believes her father does not care for her and expresses her feelings through the before-mentioned "Fry Song." Although they admit to loving each other, Abadeer constantly pressures Marceline to follow in the family business and take over ruling the Nightosphere, a prospective job Marceline does not want.
Marceline's mother, Elise, died centuries before the series and is depicted only in flashbacks. In "Everything Stays", Elise and a young Marceline are shown living together in a trailer in the desert. In "Obsidian" it is revealed that Elise tried to take Marceline to a fallout bunker but succumbed to illness on the way, leaving Marceline alone. Marceline believed that her mother had abandoned her until she finds a recording from Elise apologizing.
Marceline and the Ice King also have a complicated relationship. In the episode "I Remember You," it is revealed that the Ice King—then the human man named Simon Petrikov—discovered her crying in the ruins of a city destroyed by the Mushroom Wars. It was Simon who gave little Marceline Hambo and attempted to watch over her. This kind gesture made the Ice King a long-time close friend and father figure to Marceline. However, as the crown's power increased, Simon began to forget more and more about his relationship with Marceline until he had all but forgotten their friendship. Former storyboard artist and showrunner for the series Adam Muto explained that Marceline and the Ice King's history was not part of the series' initial plan but something that "evolved from [the show's] original course and it will likely continue to evolve in the future." The Distant Lands spin-off shows that Simon eventually regains himself and maintains a close relationship with Marceline.