Picking up where we left off in the first ecocinema post...
Adventure Time's rejection of Fukuyamaism is clear from its unique approach to eschatology, in which the apocalypse is figured as something generative and positive instead of something
destructive and negative. However, this is not the only way in which Adventure Time rejects Fukuyama – in the triptych of episodes ending season 4 and beginning season 5 (The Lich, Finn the Human, and Jake the Dog) Adventure time explores an alternate timeline in which the apocalypse kickstarted by the Mushroom War never happened.
The apparent villain of these episodes, and Adventure Time's most significant recurring villain, is the Lich - a force dedicated to the outright destruction of all life and light in the universe, representing complete and absolute nihilism and born from the wreckage of the human weaponry used in the Mushroom War. In The Lich, the Lich manages to access a Wish Master named Prismo and wishes for the complete destruction of all life.
However, despite the Lich being the instigator here, after this point the Lich does not affect the story at all. Finn and Jake arrive in Prismo's chamber at the exact same time, and Finn attempts to counteract the Lich's wish with his own: "I wish the lich never even ever existed!"
Adventure Time's rejection of Fukuyamaism is clear from its unique approach to eschatology, in which the apocalypse is figured as something generative and positive instead of something
destructive and negative. However, this is not the only way in which Adventure Time rejects Fukuyama – in the triptych of episodes ending season 4 and beginning season 5 (The Lich, Finn the Human, and Jake the Dog) Adventure time explores an alternate timeline in which the apocalypse kickstarted by the Mushroom War never happened.
The apparent villain of these episodes, and Adventure Time's most significant recurring villain, is the Lich - a force dedicated to the outright destruction of all life and light in the universe, representing complete and absolute nihilism and born from the wreckage of the human weaponry used in the Mushroom War. In The Lich, the Lich manages to access a Wish Master named Prismo and wishes for the complete destruction of all life.
However, despite the Lich being the instigator here, after this point the Lich does not affect the story at all. Finn and Jake arrive in Prismo's chamber at the exact same time, and Finn attempts to counteract the Lich's wish with his own: "I wish the lich never even ever existed!"
This is not successful. By attempting to defeat the Lich, Finn ends up in a timeline in which the Mushroom War never occurred and humanity still exists. This world is represented in a new visual style.
The human-dominated world is one of cruelty and violence. Finn's father is being extorted by the Destiny Gang, meaning Finn is forced to sell his beloved mule at the market.
Junk Town, where Finn and his family live, looks desolate and dead. The world is a deeply stagnant place. Finn has both of his parents; the values of the heteronormative familial structure have been restored– something Kääpä points out is crucial in Hollywood apocalyptic films like The Day After Tomorrow. But heteronormative structures are not redemptive here. Indeed, the heteronormative familial structure (combined with a dictatorial hierarchy in which the all-male Destiny Gang rules over everyone by force) ends up leading to its own complete destruction.
The Destiny Gang burn down Junk Town and trap Finn's parents in their own burning house; Finn locates a magical ice crown, is overcome by its power, and unleashes an icy apocalypse, freezing every being on earth into cubes.
This apocalypse is qualitatively different than the main apocalypse of Adventure Time – it is an apocalypse of complete stagnation. If the apocalypse in the main timeline represents the potentiality of the post-human era, the alternative apocalypse represents the destructive potential of an unchecked humanity.
In some ways, this is an even more thorough debunking of Fukuyama and the end of history than the one found in Simon and Marcy. Here, Fukuyama's ideas are given space to play out – if the wheels of human historical change have stopped turning, that doesn't by any means indicate that history is over. In this triptych of episodes, the late-human (or, at a stretch, capitalist) epoch is allowed time to continue on – and the results are vastly more catastrophic than the epoch coming to an end.
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