Recap / Adventure Time Fionna And Cake S 1 E 06 The Winter King

Fleeing from Farmworld, Fionna, Cake, and Simon come across a dimension with an ideal Ice King, his familiar foe, and a potential solution to all their problems. Meanwhile, Marshall Lee meets Gary in Fionna's apartment and tries helping him with his cooking.

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Tropes Include:

• Accidental Hero: It’s revealed that the Winter King is the true Big Bad of the episode, as he transferred the madness inside his crown on this version of Princess Bubblegum, turning her into the Candy Queen a century ago. So when Fionna gives him a Kiss of Death by accident, the curse is finally lifted.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: The Winter King appears to be this at first, a version of Simon that overcame the crown’s corruption and created a paradise.
• Antagonist Title: Despite the Candy Queen being the primary antagonist for most of the episode, the last few minutes revealed that The Winter King was the true antagonist of the episode since he was cured of his insanity only because he pushed it onto Princess Bubblegum instead for over a century.
• Anti-Magic: When Fionna kisses the Winter King it drains the magic from his crown (which she’s holding). This not only drains all the magic from the Winter King, it causes him to rapidly age and turn to dust. With his death all of his icy creations melt away.
• Bait-and-Switch: At first, the universe Simon, Fionna, and Cake appear to be in a Swapped Roles universe where the Winter King is a benevolent ruler of a magical kingdom and the Candy Queen is the insane Stalker with a Crush. The end of the episode reveals that it was in reality a Close-Enough Timeline with the divergence being Simon somehow finding a way to transfer his madness to Princess Bubblegum a century ago.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Fionna finally gets to go on an adventure when Simon and Winter King are kidnapped, getting to have the time of her life and even shares a kiss with the latter afterwards. Then unknown Anti-Magic Kiss of Death kills Winter King; the trauma is only compounded when its revealed he was Evil All Along and the monsters she was fighting were innocent Candy Kingdom citizens that were afflected by the same curse as Princess Bubblegum.
• Evil All Along: The Winter King. At first he appears so suave, whimsical and good natured but when he loses his magic by the end, it’s revealed he was the bad guy and the Candy Queen is really Princess Bubblegum, the true victim. Winter King simply found a way to send his madness onto her.
• Foreshadowing: There are several clues that the Winter King isn’t as benevolent as he makes himself out to be.
  • When Simon asks the Winter King how he managed to regain his sanity, noting that resisting the crown’s power is difficult, the Winter King states that he did it 100 years ago through “sheer force of will”, but he doesn’t go into any details about the process and tells Simon that perhaps he can show him how later, almost as if he’s avoiding the question.
  • When Cake notices the distorted Candy Mountain and suggests they go there, the Winter King stops them and tells them that place is forbidden, only to backtrack and state that it’s dangerous out there, hinting that there’s something about that place he isn’t telling anyone.
  • When Simon asks if a version of Betty exists in this world, the Winter King cheerfully tells him that she’s dead and he hasn’t thought about her in years, something that visibly appalls Simon. The Winter King suggests that he make an ice duplicate of her once he has his own crown, only to claim he’s joking since that would be unethical. However, Cake passes by an ice copy of Marceline as a child, showing that he actually has done it before.
  • While Simon is empathetic towards Candy Queen and wants to restore her sanity, the Winter King noticeably has no empathy for her, outright telling Simon that she doesn’t need to be fixed and they should only worry about being rescued. When Fionna confronts Candy Queen, Simon tries to tell her they can help her only for the Winter King to interrupt by telling Fionna to knock Candy Queen out.
• Genre Shift: With its visuals, elegant characters in the Winter King and his assistants, an anime-esque presentation, and the musical number by Candy Queen, this episode can come across as an evocation of Steven Universe especially when it turns out there's a darker secret to the setting than what's first shown.
• Hope Spot: Simon gains some hope of retaining his mind as Ice King given how lucid Winter King seems to be. Said hope is dashed when Simon realizes the cost of Winter King's sanity.
• Kiss of Death: Fionna’s kiss with the Winter King is this. Not only does the king die, Fionna had no idea she could do this and is horrified by the results. It’s implied that it’s due to the fact that she doesn’t belong to the multiverse per se, but because she’s from the “unauthorized universe” created by Prismo.
• Literal Metaphor: After Candy Queen sings about blending and baking herself together with Simon and Winter King, Simon thinks she’s being metaphorical and compliments her, only for Candy Queen to reveal she’s actually being literal. Cue an Oh, Crap! from both Simon and the Winter King when they see the giant blender.
• Mood Whiplash: After saving The Winter King from the Candy Queen, both he and Fionna share a loving kiss with each other. While this is happening however, Fionna somehow accidentally drains his crown by touching it as he loses his magic and instantly goes through Rapid Aging which results in him dying from turning into dust as everyone looks on horrified by what happened.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Even though she saved this version of Princess Bubblegum from the curse of madness put on by the Winter King, Fionna is horrified that she did so by accidentally killing him with a kiss as well as mercilessly slaughtering all of Bubblegum's citizens who were also cursed. She even considered the idea that she might hurt people of the multiverse by her mere existence.
• No-Sell: Whilst Fiona and Cake noticeably experience the chill inside the Winter King's throne room, Simon, who is additionally barefoot in a frozen icy environment, doesn't react at all, suggesting his extended time as the Ice King left him with slight immunity towards colder temperatures.
• Replacement Goldfish: At one point Winter King suggests that Simon should simply use the crown’s magic to create an Ice Betty. While he plays it off as a joke, the Ice Marceline seen earlier in the episode implies he did exactly that.
• Role Swap AU: At first, it looks like the gang are in a universe where the Ice King is good and Princess Bubblegum is bad. This is subverted as it turns out that the Winter King (Ice King/Simon) just transferred the insanity into the Princess a century ago, making her the evil Candy Queen.
• Spinoff Babies: Played With In-Universe, the alternate reality Fionna, Cake, and Simon, come across at the end of the episode is one where everyone in the original cast (even The Lich) is a baby, being tended to by the Gumball Guardians.
• Stealth Pun: Of course the Winter King is into the idea of kissing Simon — he's a narcissist.
• Super Cell Reception: After the Winter King recharges Fionna's phone, she receives all the messages Gary sent her and holds a short conversation.
• Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: There's a "Times Kidnapped" tally on the wall of Candy Queen's lair, just outside the cage. It totals to 307.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Marshal and Gary's B-plot has nothing to do with the main story, outside of showing Fionna can text across dimensions.
• Uncertain Doom: With the presence of an Ice Marceline who looks like she was still a child in the Winter Kingdom, what happened to the real Marceline in that universe is left ambiguous. It's unlikely she would have accepted Simon making Princess Bubblegum insane without protest.
• Villain Song:
  • "Winter Wonder World" doesn't seem like one at first, but it has Winter King showing Simon everything he can be if he just does what he did.
  • "Baked With Love" is a more straightforward one. An obsessive love song about how Candy Queen believes she and Winter King (and also Simon) belong together, and how she intends to blend and bake the three of them alive so they can be together forever.

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