Princess Bubblegum



Princess Bubblegum (full name Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum,[1] often called PB and on occasion Peebles, P-Bubs, or other nicknames) is a main character on the series Adventure Time who first appeared in the animated short. She is the benevolent ruler of the Candy Kingdom. She is also Ice King's most often-targeted princess.

Bubblegum takes on the physical appearance of being 18 years of age (as of debut, her current biological age is 19), but is implied to be even older than that as revealed by flashbacks in "The Suitor," "Earth & Water," and "The Vault." As Finn said to her in "The Vault," "PB, you're like a bazillion years old! You're not freaking 19, what the heck?!" Her age appearance can change with a loss of candy biomass: she takes on a 13-year old appearance due to the events of "Mortal Recoil" but returns to 18 due to gaining new biomass in "Too Young." However, she also states in "Goliad" that she knows that she is not going to live forever, implying that although her life is long, it is limited.

Biography
Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum is the overachieving ruler of the Candy Kingdom. Though not much is said about her past, there are some allusions to her relatives (e.g. Uncle Gumbald, mentioned in "Susan Strong"). It is implied that Finn has saved Princess Bubblegum many times, though she winds up saving him in the episodes "Dungeon" and "Lady & Peebles," and throughout the series learns to defend herself with science. It also seems that she has had previous run-ins with Marceline The Vampire Queen (who is the only known character who calls her by her real name Bonnibel or just Bonnie) but both of them are now close friends. In the past she created Lemongrab (her first experiment gone wrong), then sent him away to live a sheltered life inside his own castle. Princess Bubblegum also performs other science experiments which vary from very successful to catastrophic.

In the second season's two-part finale, "Mortal Folly" and "Mortal Recoil," she sends Finn and Jake on a quest to stop the Lich from killing everyone in the Land of Ooo. She gives Finn the Gauntlet of the Hero Billy, as it is the only known weapon that can harm the Lich, and a sweater she made herself. The Ice King captures Princess Bubblegum and chases after Finn and Jake to get their blessing to marry her, but he accidentally drops the princess into a pit of green liquid. She is soon melted into a pile of pink-brown candy goo, and is rushed to the hospital.

It is soon revealed that the spirit of the Lich has possessed the princess and eventually warps her into a giant monster that nearly tears apart the Candy Kingdom. Finn enlists the power of Ice King to immobilize her with a very freezing ice. Unfortunately, the frozen princess topples over and shatters to pieces. The doctors reassemble her but lack all the necessary pieces to put her back together, reducing her age to 13 (the same age as Finn at the time). According to Adam Muto, her body was composed of only enough reclaimed biomass to be an adolescent, and therefore she turned into one.[2]

As a 13-year-old, Princess Bubblegum is technically younger than the Earl of Lemongrab and he claims his right to the throne until she turns 18 again. After failed attempts of pranking the Earl until he leaves, Princess Bubblegum is forced to restore herself to her 18-year-old form with the contribution of biomass (candy) from the Candy People and a hug (and kiss) from Finn. After reverting to her proper age and size in "Too Young," she jokingly acts as if the events that happened earlier that same day (while she was 13) actually happened five years ago.[citation needed] Though, it was proved that Princess Bubblegum was not 18 (or 19), it was shown in The Vault that she was already living at Finn's past life (Shoko), Finn said that she was like a bazillion years old and not 19.

In "Burning Low," Princess Bubblegum reveals that Flame Princess is physically unstable, and she prevents Flame Princess's Elemental Matrix from causing the end of the world: she guides Jake to block the hole resulting from the kiss between Finn and Flame Princess, thus cutting off Flame Princess's oxygen supply and stopping the reaction (and nearly suffocating her along with Finn, who had jumped down after her). She also admits to Jake that Flame Princess is unaware that she is the one who locked her away as a baby.

During the events of "Lady & Peebles," Princess Bubblegum and Lady Rainicorn track the missing Finn and Jake into an uncharted ice cave, with the belief that Ice King has captured them. After surviving dangerous encounters within the dungeon's environment, it is revealed that Ricardio set up the situation to lure Bubblegum into the cave and force her to marry him, tying Lady Rainicorn into a knot and having already poisoned Finn and Jake with Zanoits. Princess Bubblegum challenges him to a fist fight and defeats him by ripping his newly attached limbs away at their exposed sinews. She then drags Finn, Jake and Ice King back to the Candy Kingdom on Lady's back, creating a new heart for Ice King out of "Ricardio's sinews, toffee and maracas." She is also the first person to learn of Lady Rainicorn's pregnancy.

Princess Bubblegum patches up her rocky relationship with Lemongrab in "You Made Me" by making him a Lemongrab 2, so he will have a friend who truly understands him. At the end of the episode, the princess bids them a fond farewell and they both invite her to visit anytime, indicating that the three of them are on good terms. In "All Your Fault," however, she sends Finn and Jake on a mission because the Lemongrab clones have run out of food. Finn and Jake, upon arriving, find out that the Lemongrabs have been using food to create candy people, because Princess Bubblegum accidentally left the recipe for making candy people there. Luckily, after Lemonjon turned himself into food after almost destroying the Candy Kingdom, Princess Bubblegum erased the Candy life formula from their minds.

In the Season 4 finale, she is the first person to realize that Billy is possessed by The Lich, and tries to warn Finn and Jake, yet it is too late.

In "The Suitor," Peppermint Butler tried to find her a suitor which was later chosen to be Braco. Despite of all of Braco's attempts to win her heart, she does not seem to have developed any emotions for him and she claims that Braco will never be happy with her. However, she created a robotic clone of herself to be Braco's partner. PB later admitted that she loved Braco in the same ways she loves all candy people but she cannot be put into a relationship. Throughout the rest of season five she is seen focusing on all of her science projects and isolating herself in her lab. In "Earth & Water" a flashback specifically reveals that 15 years ago when Flame Princess was born a messenger of the Fire Kingdom gives Flame King word that his offspring will be more powerful than he could ever dream to be. The Flame King tells the messenger to leave the baby in the woods to perish. The messenger could not bear to let the baby perish, so he left her with a Crystal Lumberjack, whose house Flame Princess promptly burns. The lumberjack screams in shock, and Flame Princess runs into the forest, burning trees. Princess Bubblegum sees this, and, wearing a protective suit, returns Flame Princess to the Fire Kingdom. She tells Flame King that he should not let her wander in the woods because she is too dangerous. Princess Bubblegum tells Flame King to find a way to contain Flame Princess's power, and he proceeds to do so by locking Flame Princess up. The scene changes to Flame Princess in her lantern, and the flashback ends.

Personality and Traits
Princess Bubblegum loves (most of) her subjects and has been known to defend them tirelessly when trouble brews. In "Princess Cookie," her dedication to her Kingdom is shown when she visits a Candy Orphanage and spends some time cheering up the children.

Princess Bubblegum has a strong sense of morality and participates in politics outside the Candy Kingdom. She is very noble and intelligent, perhaps the most intelligent person in the Land of Ooo.

Princess Bubblegum is a highly cultured and educated ruler with an undying passion for science. In "Slumber Party Panic," she attempts to revive the dead Candy People, accidentally creating a horde of zombie Candy People instead. In her dedication, she sometimes drives herself to exhaustion with her experiments such as the perfect sandwich in "Five Short Graybles" and the eponymous character in "Goliad."

Though ordinarily sweet and good-natured, Princess Bubblegum shows a malicious aspect of her personality whenever she is crossed, as toward the Duke of Nuts for eating all of the royal pudding and supposedly ruining her appearance. Even with her kind disposition, her moral code is not as strict as Finn's. She sometimes says morbid or inappropriate things, such as when Finn picks up a paralysis poison in "The Other Tarts," she says, "That's paralyzing potion, Finn! Don't touch it, or it'll paralyze you forever!" and then giggles. Many darker things are briefly shown in several episodes such as skeletons cuffed to the walls in hidden chambers as shown in "Ricardio the Heart Guy." Another example of such behavior can be witnessed in "James," as Princess Bubblegum was willing to resort to sabotage and forced sacrifice in order to survive.

Also, in "What Have You Done?," she displays a non-hesitant willingness to torture Ice King after he infects the Candy Kingdom with a Freezer Burn flu (in an attempt to woo the Princess) and refuses to assist her in curing them by screaming voluntarily. However, in this case, she does understand what she was attempting to do was wrong, and cries in stress and guilt when Finn exposes this. In "The Lich," she is shown randomly cutting the limbs off of tiny round creatures with scissors and reattaching them in different places when Finn sneaks in, although the creatures show no pain and seem perfectly happy to be reconfigured.

When she is 13 years old in "Too Young," she exhibits a playful attitude and a willingness to perform pranks with Finn. Just before Princess Bubblegum is returned to her normal age she mentions that she enjoyed temporarily being 13 because she was free from the responsibilities that came with being ruler of the Candy Kingdom and that she could act like a kid again. In Princess Bubblegum's own words, being thirteen was "bloobalooby," while being 18 was "plop-dumps and waggle-sags."

Princess Bubblegum acts noticeably more childlike when she is not in her role as the princess. She dresses and talks more casually when she is not busy with her work, as seen in "Video Makers" and "What Was Missing." As a princess, she is prim, poised, and straight-laced, but is quite capable of loosening up and dressing/acting like a regular teenager with her friends. In the episode "Wizard Battle," Princess Bubblegum's kiss (on the mouth) is the prize of winning the Wizard Battle. When she is being displayed on a blimp as a prize, she appears to be rather cooperative with the idea and even shows off a bit.

She regularly organizes and attends events and showpieces such as scientific conferences, parties, and talent shows.

After the events in "Mortal Recoil," Princess Bubblegum is afraid of her own mortality, and since then, she has been more of a "mysterious" character. She worries what would become of the Candy Kingdom should she die, as pointed out in the episode "Goliad." She considers the possibility of living forever is not scientifically possible yet so she creates an heir in the form of Goliad.

Princess Bubblegum is also very confident in herself and science, as shown in the episode "Lady & Peebles" when Lady Rainicorn is discussing the dangers. Princess Bubblegum believes that she cannot lose as long as she has science on her side.

In "Wizards Only, Fools" she also shows disbelief towards magic, labeling it as "scientific principles presented like mystical hoodoo." She also claims that "All magic is science," and people just do not know what are they doing so they call it magic despite frequent instances of magic actually existing in the land of Ooo. But even so, she is also shown to use magic frequently like when she made the bread to make the perfect sandwich in "Five Short Graybles." She also seems to respect the wizards knowing that she has close relations to the Grand Master Wizard. She even participated in the Wizard Battle and slapped Finn for ruining the "sanctity of Wizard Battle."

She is shown to be a rational thinker in "Burning Low" where it is revealed she had Flame King lock Flame Princess away so her elemental matrix would not cause the world to be destroyed. In the episode "Earth & Water," Princess Bubblegum's history with Flame Princess is examined and it is shown that 15 years before she found an infant Flame Princess wandering through the forest towards the Candy Kingdom and returned her to Flame King (who had ordered for Flame Princess be abandoned in the wilderness), demanding that he find a way to contain his daughter's power or she will do so herself.

Abilities
Aside from her scientific prowess, she has many abilities and talents. She has spoken German in "Frost & Fire," "What Have You Done?," "Go With Me,"" Slumber Party Panic" and "James," and is capable of understanding Lady Rainicorn, who speaks Korean, suggesting she knows the language. In "What Was Missing" she manages to successfully play BMO as a high-tech instrument, and in "Dream of Love," she combined her scientific abilities with her musical talents at her concert. There is a possibility she may be a good whistler as she was shown practicing for a Whistling Choir Death Match Championship, even though in the scene where you saw and heard her practicing her whistling was no more than unimpressive and off-tune. She is also an ambidextrous writer as she wrote with her left hand in "Slumber Party Panic," "Goliad," and "What Was Missing" and her right hand in "Five Short Graybles," "Burning Low," and "The Lich."

Princess Bubblegum's scientific aptitude is shown in "Slumber Party Panic" where she concocts a potion to reanimate dead Candy People and "Five Short Graybles" when she creates the "most perfect sandwich" that has ever existed. She also created Lemongrab, Goliad, Stormo and Lemongrab 2.

In "Lady & Peebles," she shows her capabilities in fighting when she fought in hand-to-hand combat with Ricardio. She also demonstrated her strength when she carried an injured Lady Rainicorn, as well as healing and rescuing Finn, Jake, and the Ice King when she brought them to the Candy Kingdom. It was shown again in "James," where she carried Finn and Jake far away.

Her crown and matching earrings are capable of blocking the wearer's mind from the Lich's influence, as she reveals in "Mortal Folly." The gem of power is also used for the Enchiridion (book) in "The Lich."

Curiously, Princess Bubblegum seems to age differently than other candy people seen in the show. In "Princess Cookie" she is seen in a flashback visiting an orphanage for candy children. She appears to be the same age as she is now, while Baby Snaps (one of the orphans) had physically aged since then. Also, in the promo art for "Burning Low," Flame Princess appears to be very young, about 5 years old, while Princess Bubblegum is standing next to her lamp but still has the same appearance of being 18. It seems that more candy biomass given or taken away can change her age as seen in "Too Young."

She is depicted as being in her 18-year-old or 19-year-old form 15 years ago in "Earth & Water," suggesting that she has been perpetually 18 for some time. This might be why the suitors in "The Suitor" had all aged considerably while waiting to court her. She remarks to Ricardio in "Lady and Peebles" that she knows about building a body from biomass, and a pink, gum-like substance with a face is seen 1,000 years in the past in "Simon and Marcy," though it has not been revealed if this substance eventually evolved into Princess Bubblegum, or if it was one of her ancestors.

In "The Vault," Finn grasps that Princess Bubblegum is "like a bajillion years old" after experiencing a flashback to a past life in the early days of the Candy Kingdom, where Princess Bubblegum is the same age she is now.

In "Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW!," she is given a current age (as of the middle of season 5) of 827.

She is observant as seen "Sky Witch" as she looked at her environment to figure out where to go and where Maja most likely hidden Hambo.

In What Was Missing, it is revealed she is quite adept with a synthesizer.