Melanie Thompson The Ultimate Boon is the Choice That’s Denied 03/05/17 __ ASIAN 333 Finn the Human and the Hero’s Role in Adventure Time Prof. Ka Wong The world of Adventure Time is one of magic. Populated with princesses, wizards, dragons, and kingdoms of candy, slime, and flame, the land of Ooo is the ideal setting for a hero. Finn Mertens, or Finn the Human, resident fighter of evil and rescuer of princesses, fulfills this role. The children’s cartoon, Adventure Time, created by Pendleton Ward, follows Finn, the last known human in Ooo, as he grows up and eventually confronts his human past. Finn demonstrates many of the basic identifiers of hero-hood: he was abandoned as a baby and raised by animals, he serves a goodly princess, fights to destroy evil, collects treasure, and generally goes out of his way to help people out. However, one of the principal tenants of Adventure Time is its use heroic motifs as material either for humor, bizarre and unrelated commentary, or as gold mines for cultural associations that allow the show to shirk world building responsibilities of its own. In this setting, although Finn is regularly called a hero, his definition as such is thrown into doubt and it is difficult to see if there is any sincere heroic narrative underlying his story. Using Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces, this paper will seek to prove that, along with his more trivial heroic identity, Finn the Human does genuinely express the characteristics of a traditional hero, most notably in the role as a boon bringer to humankind. Finn's adventure, at least, the portions that are relevant here, may be characterized by five main chapters: his backstory, his life in Ooo, his confrontation with his father, his meeting with the Catalyst Comet, and his return to humanity. Over the course of the show we learn through flashbacks that Finn was born on an island stronghold to human parents. He came to Ooo as a baby after he was separated from his father and drifted across the ocean. There he was found and adopted by Jake’s parents. In the present Finn’s timeline begins in The Land of Ooo where he lives with his brother Jake, who is a magical, talking dog. Ooo is a futuristic version of Earth, after it was nearly destroyed by the apocalyptic Mushroom War and magic was released back into the world. Finn's day-to-day life there consists of adventuring, defeating evil monsters, and rescuing princesses, generally being a hero. When Finn turns 15 he learns that his father is alive and embarks on a quest to find him. The following events result in Finn losing his arm and sinking into an existential crisis. Shortly thereafter a comet known as the Catalyst Comet arrives in Ooo’s atmosphere. Finn saves the comet from a monster called Orgalorg and is then offered a gift by the catalyst comet. Later, Finn learns about the human islands and sets out to discover both his origins and the fate of humanity. These are the primary events in Finn’s journey that fall into the larger pattern of Campbell’s monomyth and relate to Finn’s role as the boon bringer. In his work, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell argues that there are a series of motifs that are common throughout heroic legend. No matter how many myths, legends, poems, or, perhaps even television programs, we consume “it will always be the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find”(Campbell, 1). To define this story, Campbell orders the recurring motifs in the sequence that follows the adventure of a hero. He entitles said sequence “The Monomyth.” This sequence is defined by two essential tasks: the first is a retreat from the real world into the fantastical realm of night, and the hero’s “second solemn task…is to return then to [humanity], transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed”(Campbell, 15). In this second task, Campbell notes the importance of the hero’s role in the renewal or rebirth of society. The return of the hero, he concludes, “is indispensable to the continuous circulation of spiritual energy into the world…” and “from the standpoint of the community, is the justification of the long retreat” (Campbell, 29). In other words, the purpose of the hero, and her definition as such, at least from society’s standpoint is that she in someway revitalizes that society upon her return. The two steps of Campbell’s seventeen phase monomyth that correspond most closely to this role are the last step in the realm of night, entitled The Ultimate Boon, and the third to last step in the heroic adventure overall, Crossing the Return Threshold. The importance of these two steps to the nature of a hero are asserted in Campbell’s address to the reader, in which he professes “if we could dredge up something forgotten not only by ourselves, but by our entire generation, or our entire civilization, we should become indeed the boon bringer” (Campbell, 12). Whether Finn undergoes the entirety of Campbell’s monomyth, and which of his many adventures might match the particular motifs is nearly impossible to pin down. However, Finn’s return to humanity and opportunity to act as the boon bringer is distinct, and his identity as a true hero, at least in the eyes of humanity and Joseph Campbell, would seem to rely on it. Before there can be a boon bringer, the hero must come into possession of a boon. The arrival of the Catalyst Comet and the choice it offers Finn qualifies as his possession of the ultimate boon in Campbell’s monomyth. In the events leading up to the encounter with the comet, Finn endures some heavily impactful life events. First, he meets his father, who subsequently abandons him a second time, and, in a series of related events Finn also loses his favorite arm. Following these hardships, Finn falls into a significant depression. His vigor for life and helping people shattered by this event, Finn wonders: “if just being born is the greatest act of creation. Then what are you supposed to do after that? Isn't everything that comes next just sort of a disappointment?” (“Astral Plane”). Finn is offered freedom from this disappointment upon releasing the Catalyst Comet from the monster Orgalorg. The comet offers Finn “freedom from love, hate, friendship, isolation, jealousy…violence…sadness, madness,” (“The Comet”) essentially the whole spectrum of the human experience. The comet offers this opportunity in what is heavily suggested to be a form of immortality, the choice to accompany the comet “to the end and the beginning or struggle here a while like a beautiful autumn leaf” (“The Comet”). This offer is strikingly similar to Campbell’s description of the ultimate boon. According to Campbell, the boon is “the food, the fire, the grace, of indestructible life” (Campbell, 149) or “the elixir of Imperishable Being” (Campbell, 155). Finn, confused, asks the comet why he should abandon these experiences, stating that the comet isn’t making them sound bad. To this, the comet replies: “they’re not bad” (“The Comet”) and emphasizes that it is only giving Finn “the choice of a higher mode of existence” (“The Comet”). In not taking the elevation and immortality offered by the comet, Finn diverges from Campbell’s monomyth. Rather than be elevated, Finn chooses to accept what Campbell would describe as “the passing joys and sorrows, banalities, and noisy obscenities of life” (Campbell, 188) instead of the “transcendental bliss” (Campbell, 188) which he ought to bring to humanity. However, I would argue that Finn still comes into possession of the ultimate boon. The comet emphasizes that it is giving Finn a choice, and the choice is Finn’s boon. This is later qualified by the fact that, when Finn returns to the islands, he offers the humans a similar choice, remain in their lives free of suffering and danger, or immerse themselves in all the good and the bad that life has to offer. Thus Finn delivers the boon unto them. ​The boon that Finn brings to humanity is that which was given to him by the Catalyst Comet. Upon voyaging to the islands where humanity has sequestered itself, Finn discovers something very like the societies Campbell describes in heroic myth, where “the physical and spiritual life of the whole earth can be represented as fallen” (Campbell, 29). The islands’ people are ruled by fear. They are kept coddled and safe, and are protected, and prevented from leaving by a giant, sea dwelling robot called the guardian. Reports of the dangers of the outside world compounded with the threat of the guardian. Reports of the dangers of the outside world compounded with the threat of the guardian keep humanity effectively imprisoned. One of the agents perpetuating this fear and imprisonment is Finn’s own mother, Minerva. At first, Finn hopes to lead the humans back to Ooo. He gathers them and proclaims “you don’t have to live like this…kingdoms of candy, beautiful dragons, fire breathing princesses…it’s all waiting for you across the ocean” (“The Light Cloud”). However, this is only a small part of his message, what ultimately inspires the people is Finn’s talk of Free will. He asks them “How do you even know if you’re happy if someone else decided for you? Don’t you want to be able to choose what you do and where you go?” (“The Light Cloud).