What Time is it? It's What an Idiot! moment time.
- The Ice King's tendency to kidnap princesses is troubling others to no end.
You'd Expect: For Princess Bubblegum to ask Finn and Jake into snatching the crown away from the Ice King and keep it locked within PB's vault so that nobody can use it.
Instead: Nobody ever considers doing this as they simply leave him there without taking the crown away even though it would have benefited them in doing so. - "Trouble in Lumpy Space" Finn, Jake, and LSP need to borrow the latter's parents' car to get to makeout point to cure Jake from "the Lumps", but LSPs parents are annoyed that she brought "smooth people" into Lumpy Space.
You'd Expect: For LSP to apologize to her parents, then politely explain to them that it's an emergency. They might be willing to help.
Instead: She yells at her parents with what is implied to be swear words.
The Result: They ban her from using the royal car. - "Go With Me" has Finn taking advice from Marceline into going on a date with Princess Bubblegum. However, her advice involves hurting her with things like headlock and the wolves.
You'd Expect: For Finn to realize that this is very poor (and possibly malicious) advice and threaten to tell all of this to Bonnibel so that she can get in trouble.
Instead: Finn takes her word for it and does all that.
The Result: PB temporarily banishes Finn from her kingdom. - In "Jake vs. Me-Mow", Jake, having knocked everyone asleep by having Finn play their mom's lullaby, explains the situation of how the assassin who's trying to kill Wildberry Princess is in his nose, has poisoned him, and is forcing him to kill her.
You'd Expect: Finn, remembering Wildberry Princess saying she's being targeted by the Guild of Assassins, as well as seeing Jake's washed-out skin and bouts of recoiling in pain, would immediately believe his bro and try to get Me-Mow out of there.
Instead: Finn immediately suspects that Jake is acting crazy and doesn't believe a word he says.
It Continues: Jake writes out "Cat: Nose" with Wildberry Princess' meat pies, and Finn misreads it as "Cat: Noise", making him meow extremely loudly, almost waking up Me-Mow, until Jake shushes him.
You'd Expect: Finn would take the hint and stop his own foolish antics, especially after Jake explained everything clearly.
Instead: He meows even louder and faster, causing Jake to bind and gag him, then throw him out the window onto the meat pile he dropped earlier.
The Result: Finn trusts Jake even less than he should, Jake gets poisoned even more thanks to Finn's shouting, and Finn only finds out about Me-Mow thanks to the sheer dumb luck of a bird grabbing the hot dogs in Jake's ears, knocking Me-Mow out of his nose. - In "Marceline's Closet", Jake reads a note on Marceline's door that's written in blood saying to stay out of her house, before he and Finn play Cloud Hunt.
You'd Expect: Jake to hide anywhere but inside her house, especially considering he has a fear of vampires, and the cave where her house is is expansive as is.
Instead: He ignores the note and hides in her house for literally no reason.
It Continues: Finn starts the game of Cloud Hunt, finds Jake behind Marceline's window, and yells at him to get out of her house.
You'd Expect: For Jake to listen to Finn and get out of the house, especially considering that he was the one who read the note, which Finn even lampshades.
Instead: He shapeshifts into Finn and tries to convince him that it's a mirror, to absolutely no avail.
The Result: Finn follows him inside the house right at the moment when Marceline comes home, forcing them to stay trapped inside her closet until she goes to sleep. - In "Sons of Mars", Jake is taken captive by Abraham Lincoln as he is mistaken for the Magic Man. This is because he has taken his form. Before he gets his death sentence, Jake begins to say how he missed Finn.
You'd Expect: For Finn to stop attacking to hear this statement.
Instead: Finn runs with a chair to throw it at Grob Gob Glob Grod. This caused him to drop his wand and Jake ends up dead. To top it off, he doesn't even think it's his fault this happened. - In "The Lich", Finn and Jake sneak up on Princess Bubblegum's place to collect the final gem for the Enchidirion to combat The Lich.
You'd Expect: That they stick to the plan and continue sneaking up on her until she either becomes tired or falls asleep while experimenting.
Instead: They simply barge in which causes Finn to get cut by PB's scissors, weakens their bond even further, and end up getting chased by her, just in time to stop the Lich from completing his plans for the extinction of all life. - In "Jake the Dog", Finn is teleported to a different universe with various humans, tries to stop a problem, puts on the Ice King's hat, gets under control by it, and goes insane.
You'd Expect: That Jake would use his wish to help save Finn.
Instead: He wishes for a sandwich and a hot tub.
Luckily: Prismo just made and gave him those things rather than grant the wishes for them, otherwise it would have ended very badly. - In "Mystery Dungeon", Tree Trunks, Shelby, Ice King, Lemongrab, and NEPTR are trapped inside a dungeon where they have all just escaped a room with a giant monster, and enter the spiraling ledge room, a huge column well with a broken bridge separating a large spiral ramp-way from the way they came.
You'd Expect: At least one of the characters, despite not being active adventurers like Finn and Jake, would be able to recognize such an obvious hazard and not leap before they look, even as they are getting close to the exit as they speak.
Instead: Not even one of the characters does any of this and as a result, they almost fall to the ground below until Ice King, who is secretly using them all to get the final room deliberately for his own means, uses his torn cloak to parachute himself and everyone else down safely to the final room. - In "The Red Throne", The Flame King escapes his prison with the help of Flame Lord, hypnotizes the citizens, weakens Flame Princess, and dethrones her, forcing her and Cinnamon Bun to escape. They return with Finn, who is still in love with FP, to take back the Fire Kingdom. CB comes up with a plan to sneak into the palace.
You'd Expect: Finn would stop, set aside his feelings for FP and listen to CB's plan and follow it, considering that CB has gotten smarter.
Instead: Finn ignores CB and charges in there to defeat the guards, hoping to impress FP. It gets them captured.
But Even Worse: Finn's services were not even needed. In the end, CB took care of the problem without any help, whereas Finn just kept getting in the way. So why shoehorn him into the episode in the first place?- At the end of the day, Finn's actions in "The Red Throne" only made his relationship with Flame Princess even worse. Moreso by when Cinnamon Bun expresses his love for her.
You'd Expect: That Finn would learn his lesson from his previous screw-up and, after some advice from either Jake or Princess Bubblegum, try and make up with Flame Princess starting with him serving as her human knight of the Fire Kingdom. Any issues regarding their previous relationship can be dealt with later, after getting to know each other more.
Instead: He never does this and stays away from her for potentially years on end, never talking to her nor even trying to think that Cinnamon Bun's confession is merely platonic on their behalf.
- At the end of the day, Finn's actions in "The Red Throne" only made his relationship with Flame Princess even worse. Moreso by when Cinnamon Bun expresses his love for her.
- In "You Made Me", Princess Bubblegum creates a second Lemongrab to keep the first one company and gives them a lifetime supply of candy so they don't have to leave their castle.
You'd Expect: For The Lemongrabs to live out their lives in sour, dyadic angry-happiness.
Instead: The first Lemongrab steals the Princess's recipe for bringing candy to life and uses it to turn ALL the candy into misshapen lemony creatures who quickly start to starve. (We find this out in "All Your Fault")
But Even Worse: When Finn and Jake bring candy seeds to replenish their food supplies, the Lemongrabs turn the seeds into another candy creature. Then they decide to attack the Candy Kingdom to get the food they need. - In "Burning Low", upon discovering that Finn is dating Flame Princess, Princess Bubblegum realizes that in the heat of their emotions, it could put the state of the world at risk including the two couples.
You'd Expect: That she outright tells Finn and Jake what exactly is wrong with dating Flame Princess and give recommendations on how FP can better control her powers so that they can kiss without putting the world at risk.
Instead: She gives an incredibly complicated and scientific explanation which causes Finn and Jake to misinterpret what she is saying as some sort of jealousy. Had she not re-clarified to Jake later about what would happen, Ooo would have been destroyed because of her own stupidity. - In one of his prophetic dreams from "Frost and Fire", Finn has a vision created by the Cosmic Owl regarding the ultimate showdown between Ice King and Flame Princess. Something that Finn thoroughly wants to experience.
You'd Expect: For Finn to keep his desires to his own dreams.
Instead: He decides that apparently, he wants to experience the exhilaration to the point that he directly manipulates Flame Princess and Ice King to fight one another.
Result: For this act of idiocy, Ice King's entire home is destroyed, so he is forced to stay in Finn's treehouse, and Finn loses Flame Princess's love and trust, directly resulting in their break up. Finn really did blow it.- Flame Princess wasn't much better:
You'd Expect: Flame Princess would actually listen to Finn.
Instead: Flame Princess refuses to listen to Finn, and instead allows one bad experience to render all the good times she and Finn had completely non-existent. - Heartbroken over this breakup, Finn wishes to regain his relationship with Flame Princess again.
You'd Expect: That he acts professionally by apologizing to her for his previous actions, admitting that what he did was wrong and how he could make it up to her.
Instead: He apparently thought it was a good idea to flirt with her as if nothing ever happened nor does he even admit that what he did was wrong. This comes to a head in "The Red Throne" when his actions ultimately alienate him from Flame Princess to the point that they never speak to each other, at least until "Bun Bun".
- Flame Princess wasn't much better:
- In "Checkmate", PB wants to dispose of the Vampire cloud safely.
You'd Expect: For Bonnibel to either let Marcy or herself handle the bucket.
Instead: She entrusts the blind and dazed Peppermint Butler to do the job. No surprise that he screwed up before he even went out of her house. - In "Elemental", Finn, Jake, and the Princess escape from Patience St. Pim who has kidnapped the Princess for ambiguous reasons, by sticking her to the wall with slime.
You'd Expect: They arrest Patience for kidnapping and then question her on her motives. If they turn out to be sinister, they could lock her up, if they turn out to be innocent, they could arrange a compromise that makes everyone happy.
Instead: They leave her in the Ice Kingdom, deciding that she's "not going anywhere for a while".
The Result: The events of "Elements" happen. - After ending up in the future, Betty vows to save Simon by any means necessary. She can't remove his crown's magic without killing him, and one option she considers is undoing this entire future, by making sure Simon never wears the crown. There is the fact that while Betty has good intentions, her quest has destroyed the land and her mental health. No one wants this, since while their future appears like a Bad Future to Betty, it belongs to them. Even Ice King is begging her to stop after she has to tie him up while preparing to time travel back to the past.
You'd Expect: Having gone this far, Betty would make sure Ice King is tied up securely, or attempt to talk him down by explaining she wants Simon back and not rapidly aging Simon. Or if she is really sure, she would kill Ice King, since her saving Simon would undo that.
Instead: A tied-up Ice King manages to sabotage her time portal despite his bonds and cause it to send her to Mars.
The Result: Betty ends up on Mars, and now has no one hindering her stubborn quest to save her lover. - In "Seventeen" Princess Bubblegum is a tech genius and the device she uses to get through the Green Knight's shield busts and is pushed away.
You'd Expect: PB to retreat to her lab and gather some new tech or improve her old tech to get through the shield.
Instead: PB just stands there and watches with the others.
