It could have been different
On grieving the people we could have become
[Spoilers for the Adventure Time series finale and all of Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.]
The Adventure Time finale has Simon Petrikov (formerly the Ice King) lose his fiancée Betty once again, as she fuses with the primordial being of chaos Golb in order to save him. We later see Simon in the Fionna and Cake series, staving off his boredom and slogging through day to day, grieving Betty. After a wild multiverse-hopping adventure, he manages to reunite with Betty (still fused with Golb) and gets to say goodbye, achieving closure.
Fionna and Cake tackles grief on a multilayered level. Simon grieves how he lost Betty, unable to contact her due to her being inaccessible in the void. But he also grieves the person he was, the choices that led to him becoming Ice King, and eventually the choices that, in the Adventure Time finale, forced Betty to fuse with Golb. When we grieve, we don’t just grieve other people; we grieve who we could have been had things been different.
This video of Simon and Betty’s final goodbye is chock-full of lovely comments. I’ve quoted two of them here:
“The final act of love is to let go.”
“Even while part of a god of chaos, she [Betty] manages to give Simon one last adoring thought.”
I also found another comment I liked, but it was a rather long one. To summarize, it provides an analysis of how the series showed that Simon and Betty’s choices inadvertently led to the best outcome of the world: if things had gone differently, the Land of Oo would be a lot worse.
Adventure Time is full of wackiness and magic, but it touches on a very real theme of grief through its Fionna and Cake spin-off. We always wish things had gone differently, that we had done things differently. We grieve the people we could have become. I can certainly say for myself that I’ve thought on more than one occasion of how things might have been better under different circumstances. What kind of life would I have led if I was born straight, if I hadn’t developed bipolar, if I had less to deal with in my adolescent years? I try not to bog myself down with the question of “what if”, but it still seeps back into my mind every so often.
I recall seeing this insightful comment on Instagram: “If you could go back and fix all the mistakes you’ve made, you’d erase yourself.” It didn’t ease all my pain, but it certainly helped. Things could have always gone differently, but that’s no assurance they could have been better. As we see in Fionna and Cake, Simon and Betty’s actions prevented the world from being further degraded - overrun by vampires or ruled by a maniacal candy queen, for one. I’m also reminded of Alpha Waymond’s words to Evelyn in Everything Everywhere All at Once: “Every rejection, every disappointment, has led you to this moment.”
This essay is more of an exploration rather than a definitive answer. Our grief for who we could have become is a valid one. Like all forms of grief, it is something we have to live with. But, just as things could have been different before, things can be different right now. We are not prisoners of our past - we have the freedom to reinvent who we are. I was an angsty, resentful teenager in my high school years, but after a decade I’m living a life I’m satisfied with, as a grad student taking up Philippine Studies as well as a heritage advocate.
Reinventing oneself is never easy, but it’s worth it. The grief for our other selves will always be there, but we can always change who we are. Little by little, over time. Changing the toxic patterns of our life and unlearning the belief systems that have held us back.
So maybe if I got the chance to meet my other self, one that had an easier life, I might actually reject his offer to switch places with him. It’s an impossibility anyway. We survive in the present, but it’s our choice to actually live in it.