Vampires, Marceline Abadeer, & Major Arcana – Adventure Time: Stakes Miniseries Analysis

in the stakes mini-series marceline experienced an existential crisis about her own immortality and had to slay vampires from her past vampires that were heavily inspired by tarot cards the tarot originated in europe as a pack of cards to play games with it was not until the 18th century that tarot reading emerged as a form of cardamancy which is the use of cards to define the unknown or the future this occult association is what survives into the popular culture of today when people think of ta

rot they generally think of divination and fortune telling now i obviously don't believe tarot cards can read someone's the death future no that's good it means transition change the happy squirrel that's bad possibly the cards are vague and mysterious however the predictive aspect aside i do think tarot cards can potentially serve as an interesting tool to aid in contemplation on the present tarot cards have been injected with cultural meaning so that each card represents a range of vague conce

pts and reading tarot cards can simply equate to asking if and how those concepts might apply toward your own life it can serve as a wacky little framework for self-reflection and thoughtful meditation the random cards you happen to draw merely act as bouncing off points to critically examine your recent actions thoughts feelings circumstances etc now all this can obviously be applied when it comes to analyzing characters in a work of fiction especially so when those characters happen to be dire

ctly based on the tarot the major arcana were an obvious source of inspiration for the vampires of the stakes miniseries and thus the vampires possess traits and thematic elements associated with the respective card they represent and in most cases were even named after in this video i will be pointing out these aspects and dissecting them but i'll be going even further than that because stakes was not just about hunting vampires it was about marceline's personal journey of dealing with her immo

rtal existence and finding the strength to keep going those whom marceline fights against represent characteristics and elements in her own life and this makes the stakes mini-series a very holistic experience the tarot applied toward marceline just as much as they do to the vampires so the format i will follow from here on out will be to first describe the ways in which a vampire is based on their respective card and then analyzed how that archonum applies to marceline so let's get going let's

discuss the stakes mini-series by the framework of tarot it all has to start with a fool smell my feet marceline i promise you won't regret it as a fun visual note in the oldest tarot decks the fool was often depicted as a beggar or vagabond and would often be barefoot as is the case with the vampire fool i doubt this is merely a coincidence plus the vagabond nature is also sort of alluded to he's squatting in a van when marceline first kills him in the past and after being resurrected makes thi

s suggestion for a new dwelling we just got a loft downtown in stakes the fool is literally a fool he's kind of a simpleton that's not exactly what the card represents although embracing folly can be a part of it the fool card is associated with spontaneity being uninhibited acting on impulse living in the moment doing the unexpected being childlike and all of those things most certainly apply to this dude hey you wanna see something i look funny a butt being unbound by restrictions also symboli

cally ties in with his ability being that of flight which generally represents freedom letting go of worries and fear can lead one into danger however and thus in tarot readings the fool needs to stay grounded so to say to avoid potential harm the fool and stakes is most definitely not grounded and his carefree attitude and naivete is what gets him killed by marceline who he doesn't register as a potential threat a lack of understanding can be quite dangerous the full arcanum is most well known

for representing the start of something new entering a new phase the beginning of a journey or adventure as such it only makes sense for the fool to be the very first vampire that marceline eliminates and absorbs the essence of it's the start of marceline becoming an eternal tormented teen i should also mention the fool was the only vampire willing to stay by the vampire king's side after his declaration to start a new era indeed hey martha lee look at me i'm all grown up now i hate a chicken ma

rtha lee so the fool denoting the start of a new journey is very well represented in stakes and potentially even outside the miniseries so check this out certain designs of the fool card often feature a dog companion and i simply can't help but think of schwabble being by young marceline's side in fact we first see schwabble in the scene right after marceline absorbs the fool's essence and figuratively takes on that persona herself now the first time we ever saw schwabble in adventure time was i

n the episode it came from the knightosphere which is the episode that began to explore marceline's character on a deeper level and kick-started her eventual reconciliation with her father that works really well retroactively and the last time we see schwabble is in the series finale when marceline's life has entered a new phase due to simon's return and her relationship with princess bubblegum blossoming that also fits so well into a tarot-based reading i'm kind of blown away by it it's relativ

ely minor detail that i think is really cool when you expand on it marceline's relation to the fool card doesn't stop at the start of a new journey tarot cards can be in an upright position or reversed and a reversed card takes on a new set of potential meanings and interpretations marceline's state of mind at the start of stakes reflects the reversed fool card which can be associated with stagnation with feeling like you're stuck in place with difficulty seeing the world with fresh eyes back in

the episode marceline's closet she sang about her struggle with an immortal vampiric existence and by the time steak starts marceline is ready to give up being a vampire for good because she feels her life has no meaning in its current form i don't want to spend eternity like this with this emptiness i want to grow up that's a solid representation of the reversed tool card that kicks off yet another journey a journey of personal growth for marcy as an amusing side note marceline wants to change

so bad that she's willing to embrace death this means someday you'll die you know that right i guess that'll be my last adventure and everyone knows in tarot the death card represents change i just thought that was a fun little detail all right let's now move on to the empress sell your spirit to the skies surrender to the empress eyes on first glance it may seem the empress has little in relation to her respective major arcanum but there's actually plenty of overlaps to be found especially whe

n you consider this vampire as a sort of corruption or perversion of what the emperor's card usually represents while there's no overties to nature say for the snake that rests wrapped around her neck the empress arcanum as a symbol of beauty and femininity plays quite a large role ice king being wooed by thinking there's a woman who is finally into him takes up a large portion of the episode and many illusions were made to the past when simon was being hypnotized to serve the empress as his mis

tress he used to have more of a silver fox thing going on with his hair and those cute glasses he was happier than you know when he was serving me dang girl the hypnosis power itself plays into how the empress card in a negative reading can represent an overbearing and smothering quality her ability is a corruption of the lasting love and loyalty traits typically associated with the empresarconum her hypnosis creates forced loyalty and coerced love likewise the motherhood and fertility aspects o

f the card are applied in a twisted manner the empress wants to figuratively birth a massive vampire colony where an army of minions expand her reign and serve her every whim we must start rebuilding our realm there's life here and i bet it's pathetic we march in we take control and we rebuild the hive if you're gonna cat a wall like this then i may as well start building my army master luego turds the empress card can also signify abundance and luxury which that reading is actually really strai

ghtforward for this vamp but simply taken to an unhealthy extreme where are the comforts of the old hive the minions the blood the good blood with the gold leaf flaked into it she's all about the physical and sensual pleasures of life she desires to relish in the material delights of the physical world tastes like cheese water where's the top drawer stuff the reversed empress card can represent an unhealthy over-reliance on other people and this is exactly what brought the empress to her demise

she is struck down in part because her hypnosis power fails to work on ice king the empress is too reliant on having other people fight her battles marceline avedir's relation to the empress card mostly revolves around the caregiving nurturing and protective aspects when marcy was still little simon was the one who cared for her and provided those things and around the time stakes takes place marcy is the one who occasionally checks in on simon and looks after him marceline saved simon from the

empress once before in the past and during the events of stakes she once again prioritizes simon's safety above all else surprised you have the time to play around while the empress makes her way to the land of ice and snow simon crud marceline even gives up a surefire stealth staking of the empress so that she can check ice king's condition simon marceline what has she done to you did she bite you marceline's protective nature extended far beyond just her love for simon during her teenage years

marcy's affection towards simon paved the way for her role as a guardian for all humankind i think marceline channeled her love for simon into protecting humanity from vampires because in a sense she felt like she had failed to protect simon's humanity from the influence of the crown staking vampires protecting the last remaining humans it felt like i was protecting you the humans may have very well gone extinct without marceline's help two bred tom and crew would have never made it to founders

island where humankind could flourish if not for marceline's constant aid back on the mainland life is more than mere survival and we just might live the good life yet a reversed empress card can signify neglect and this is what the empress tries to guilt marceline with she implies that simon's decline his transformation into the ice king could have been prevented if marceline had cared for him more and put in more effort if you really cared about him why'd you let him degenerate into this path

etic clown character at the base level this is a false and dishonest accusation but there's a tragic grain of truth to it ice king through his gradual exposure and involvement and eventually even friendship with others was able to become semi-reformed toward the end of adventure time you can't make simon start kidnapping princesses again yeah he's semi-reformed if marceline had not lost track of her moral code and tried to stay more in touch with him like she does later in the series could ice k

ing have grown into a better person many years earlier hello anybody home no what are you doing here i told you not to come around me my loaded question is meant to be largely rhetorical there's obviously not a straightforward answer we don't know the circumstances that led marcy to distance herself from ice king before the start of the series and marceline had her own mental well-being to consider after all one part of betty groff's character arc was trying her hardest to accept ice king as he

was and exploding after she was incapable of that you can't really blame marceline for deciding to keep her life separate from ice kings and only monitoring him from afar there's so much discussion to be had on that topic and i'm not gonna get into it here but that is one of the reasons why the accusation of neglect by the empress hit so hard because at some point in time marceline did make the choice to maintain a distance rather than trying to nurture ice king's better nature welp that's a bit

of a downer to end the empress discussion on but we gotta keep on truckin it's time to discuss the hierophant may i come in the hierophant tar conum is all about tradition it's about orthodoxy ritual it's about conforming to the established system and rules it's about following what is believed to be tried and true well then i suppose i have no choice i'm just going to waste you and eat that kid because that's what an old school vampire does and yeah as you can obviously tell the hierophant and

stakes is a massive fan of all those things he actively champions tradition and takes pride in his allegiance to the ways of old surely you agree that this is our chance to go back to our old ways surely diverging from the old ways is what made us vulnerable the first time old-fashioned ideas have no place here do what you like i know what's right this personality trait was taken to such an extreme that the hierophant has a distaste for modernity in general what is with all this tacky plastic r

ubbish i can't even deal with all this modern nonsense it's interesting that the vampire who wants the orthodoxy to remain unchanged is the one with the ability to transform there is however a very fun visual constraint to the higher fan's power the animals he transforms into will still be wearing a pair of boots always with the boots for the hierophant this is a self-imposed constraint its visual symbolism for the hierophant being bound to his roots and unwilling to leave them behind oh jeez th

at's not schwabble man well you got me what gave it away the boots and to that aspect of never fully being able to leave your ideology behind that's what makes the hierophant so fun all the ways in which his strict adherence to his ideals works against him honestly i think that might be my favorite bit of visual symbolism out of the entire stakes miniseries a shortcoming often associated with a higher front card especially when it comes up reversed is following traditions or established rules wi

thout understanding the reasons for why they exist this bullheadedness seems to be reflected in hierophant's general outlook he's not particularly interested in how things came to be what they are the demon marceline staked us all why are we back how did it happen listen i didn't know and i don't care we're alive and i'm going to get eating and the hierophant strictly follows rules that have no tangible benefit to him you can't come in unless i invite you in what do you think would even happen i

f you just walked in here huh you're so dumb you sad old relic may i remind you that the empress barged into ice king's home with zero issues and no repercussions the hierophant on the other hand is willing to die by his convictions fanatical adherence to the rules that govern his life is the very thing that causes his death religion is commonly associated with the hierophant card and this vampire zealously holds on to his beliefs as if they were sacrosanct blind devotion lacking in understandin

g can lead to some bad results and traditions that don't adapt may die out geez what happened dude was too old-fashioned for his own good he just couldn't get with the times as for marceline her relationship to the higher phantar condom is more subtle and more spread out throughout the miniseries it relates to when the card comes up reversed marceline unlike the hierophant is able to break away from the established norms she set for herself when the situation calls for it early on marceline make

s the decision to fight the vampire solo just as she did in the past likely out of a sense of responsibility and wanting to protect her friends whoops oh no my mom hey guys why don't y'all head back to the cabin she feels the task is her burden alone to bear after her pals save her butt though yeah you're welcome she semi begrudgingly accepts their help all right i shouldn't have tried to go it alone with the vamps from now on we'll do this team-up style see marcy isn't vampire hunting better wi

th friends yeah i guess which worked out for the best because even their combined efforts left marceline debilitated after fighting the hierophant i can't imagine marcy could have succeeded alone eh yeah yeah but the real struggle for marceline came when the vampire king pleads to break the cycle rather than fight and continue it marceline marcy is dead set on killing every single goddamn vampire take down the vk kill him destroy him and kill him which is no different from how she was in the pas

t would you wipe out an entire species for the last time yes that is literally my entire plan i especially like this exchange between marceline and finn it's against my code to strike a foe who's raised their bottom to the sky the encyridian explicitly states so demi-your rules them a good rule though out of my way the rules marceline has been going by are not exactly unfounded compromising with most of the vampires would only lead to bad results but ultimately marceline was able to step away fr

om her nearly thousand-year-old conviction okay dag he'll take your stupid thing out my what you're dang vamp juice come on cool knowing when to follow the rules you set for yourself and when to bend or change them is of vital importance in life and i think marceline's arc in stakes demonstrates that quite nicely i've been talking about events related to the vampire king but it's not quite time for him yet we first have to cover the moon so how did the moon open a lock by shouting birds at it ov

er and over we don't know nobody knows that invokes the moon cards ties to confusion mystery and the unknown and sister moon here is certainly the most inscrutable of all the vampires we don't know any of her thoughts or motives nor do we understand how her powers work and we don't get to see her in any of marceline's flashbacks it appears marcy was not very familiar with who the moon even was i picked up self-healing power last month off some vamp with a head like a garden trowel and during the

events of steaks marceline underestimates the danger the moon can pose to those who lack soul-sucking powers whoa chill jake these pearls were dropped by the moon her main power is accelerated healing it'll be like finding a cutting board okay yeah something tells me that's not how finn and jake will look back on their encounter with the moon yes finn she's dead oh thank love this vampire has a bunch of strange characteristics with those glowing pearls she creates being one such example the des

iccated husks of the moon's victims end up stuffed with these orbs and she seems to leave them behind like a deliberate trail to be followed and perhaps these pearls might even be edible gross i think they're pretty what if they're like her boogers or worse when it comes to the moon who the hell knows and something important to consider is are you sure you want to find out the uncanny mystique of the moon can be captivating or sometimes even beautiful but oftentimes it's repulsive and frightenin

g that describes the vampire stakes but it is also an apt description of the tarot card i think adventure time did an excellent job of capturing the peculiar energy and ambiance associated with the moon archonum much of what the moon card represents is what the vampire makes people around her feel which includes fear anxiety delusion disorientation bewilderment and other such similar conditions and emotions even when the mood is asleep misunderstandings seem to sprout around her finn and jake sp

end the whole day staking her back rather than taking her back man we've been doing this for hours you know it's weird that peeby wanted us to stake her back instead of us taking her back wait taking or staking that's a comical miscommunication that served as great joke material but i got the impression that merely being in the moon's presence makes you subject to mild delirium fin and jake can certainly be pretty dumb whoa i don't think so man i think you might have a hubris but i'm of the opin

ion that this particular blunder was caused in part due to the moon's passive influence i think the moon's defense mechanism while she sleeps during the day is mentally discombobulating people who wander into her general vicinity finding a way to permanently kill somebody with ridiculously powerful regeneration capabilities might be pretty hard when you're operating on only two brain cells and once the sun goes down and the moon wakes things get only more intense finn and jake get plenty to fear

and be bewildered by not only from the moon's fluctuating appearance and creepy actions but even her vague and bizarre dialogue are you being literal or allegorical upon trying to fight the moon finn and shakes bodies give out on them in a manner i found quite reminiscent of certain types of severe anxiety attacks dread and disassociation mixed with mental and physical paralysis from this debilitating psychic cocktail that jake describes as i feel like i'm in a slow motion terror dream that is

spot on for reflecting the negative qualities associated with the moon tarot card the moon actually also ties into dreams but more on that in a moment before that i want to discuss the art on the classic moon tarot card and inspirations that may have sprung from it first the dog and wolf these are thought to represent two halves of human nature the dog signifying the civilized and domesticated while the wolf signifies the wild and the feral this duplicity is well reflected in the moon's behavior

she has a tame persona that at first glance may appear like a pushover it'll be like finding a cutting board but conversely she can flip into an intimidating feral persona the duality in the moon's demeanor seems totally inspired by the symbolism behind the two canines featured on the card next the crayfish emerging from a pond the murky depths of which are thought to signify the primordial and the unknown there's some major vibes to the episode you forgot your floaties there i wouldn't be surp

rised if the simon coconut crab symbolism happened to be directly inspired by the moon tarot card but that's a bit of a tangent let's get back to the stakes mini-series after splitting from the vampire king the moon decides to take up residence on the edge of a body of water and i severely doubt that this was a coincidental creative choice there also happens to be locks of fresh lobsters in peppermint butler's poison lab where the moon meets her demise and whether that detail is merely coinciden

ce or a deliberate reference i don't even know anymore lastly the card art has a path eliminated by moonlight and if you recall the moon's dialogue the influence there should be self-explanatory but she said i'm running in her life who gave the doctors go the winding pathway on the cardar tarks to the intermingling that occurs between the conscious and the unconscious mind and this is where we segue to marceline for nearly the entire duration of the episode take her back marceline is suffering f

rom the effects of the higher fence venom and by the way if that sounds like it could be an allegorical representation of the struggle associated with trying to shed the old you that's because it totally is so the literal yet also symbolic venom puts marceline into a comatose state where she experienced fever dreams which brilliantly reflect the moon or conum my dreams are weird all dreams are weird but mom my dreams are weird the moon card is heavily tied to the subconscious realm and is associ

ated with dreams visions illusions and the imagination it can pertain to creative blocks repressed emotions and inner turmoils marceline's dreams and stakes explore her desires and her uncertainties about the choice to become mortal there's a lot to unpack in marcy's dreams they're very interesting and very personal but i won't be doing that here in this video because i already have a video focused on that very subject from many years ago so if you want more analysis on marceline's dreams i urge

you to go check that video out because right now it's time to finally discuss none other than the vampire king i'm dying to see him in person i probably will die if i see him in person oh geez it's the worst of them all the vampire king unlike the rest of the vamp entourage the vampire king is not named after any of the tarot cards but he does name drop the two arcana he is associated with during the magnificent rousing speech that convinced marceline not to stake him returning you would subjug

ate me to the wheel of fortune and i am a king not a hamster my path runs straight into the void on a sick flaming chariot the wheel of fortune and the chariot are the cards that epitomize the vampire king both of these classic tarot card designs feature a sphynx whereas the sphynx generally has the body of a lion and the head of a human the vampire king's design is reversed lionface humanoid torso the vk's hairstyle slash main seems to be stylized after the headdress adorned by the great sphinx

of giza which is of course what the sphinxes on the classic tarot card art were based on and since the wheel of fortune is the real cornucopia of visual inspiration when it comes to the vampire king's design let's spin off in that direction besides the lion and human components which this thinks is already a combination of the vampire king's bird legs may have been pulled from the eagle in the upper right corner and he has these scaly reptilian-esque forearms and hands that idea may have been p

ulled from the presence of a snake on the card art the vk has no bovine components to his design but he did develop quite a fondness for this cow that he even ended up taking into the vamping machine with him towards the end of the miniseries as for anubis well he's got a fat butt and the vk's got a fat butt what happened your pants jokes aside the vk does seem to make an indirect reference to anubis you weigh the scales of fate which is pretty neat i think it's safe to say that the art on the w

heel of fortune card greatly inspired the eventual design of the vampire king especially when you consider that his early concept art lacked all of these interesting components and may i just say i love how the vampire king's final design turned out it is among my all-time favorites of the whole show with those visual connections behind us let's now move on to the meaning in stakes the vampire king's ideology is based around his perceived subjugation to the wheel of fortune and his desire to bre

ak free from its influence free me from the shackles of my station the vampire king wants to defy destiny but paradoxically the more he attempts to reject the wheel of fortune the more he personifies it heck from marceline's perspective by the end of the mini-series he kind of became the harbinger of it even the vk's awareness of the arcana that his life is linked with only serves to strengthen his ties to the wheel of fortune because this card prompts one to look at the bigger picture and have

a wider perspective as the card's name implies it relates to the cyclical nature of existence and how the passage of time can bring about both good change and bad change the sarcanum often signifies turning points in a person's life or twists of fate if you will the vampire king is all about ushering in these sorts of turning points he tries to seek alternate paths into the future that break convention even in the past rather than defeating marceline which was within his capability he made the r

ather bizarre choice to sacrifice himself so that he could turn marceline into a vampire i imagine because he thought it would shake things up while still serving to preserve vampire kind you know marceline there's still another way give it a rest already no another another way after reforming from the nebulous group that was extracted from marceline's body the vampire king sought coexistence and compromised with marceline i've changed as well i only eat animals now just like everyone else but t

hen while marcy was off on her kill spree the vampire kane pondered the nature of existence and basically decided he didn't want any this is the old way agents of darkness and light in a tug of war but now a creature can step out of that struggle in this age why would i want to be the vampire king anymore the vk decided to reject vampirism at its source he wanted to enter a new form of existence that sort of gave me some mild martin mertens vibes actually i'm just giving you the choice of a new

mode of existence hey how about i get a new mode i never thought i would be comparing the vampire king to finn's dad of all people but as the fates would have it that low-key similarity does exist and it's rather intriguing since the wheel of fortune card conveys fluctuations it often deals with transitional states and connotes opposites and reversals there's a lot of that going on in stakes both for the vampire king and marceline the vampire queen who i will be regularly weaving in and out of t

he wheel of fortune discussion because as the vk said our lives are magnetized so just to summarize marceline went from a mortal non-vampire to an immortal vampire at the same time the vampire king went from being alive to being dead and when marceline underwent a reversal back to the mortal realm it led to the resurrection of the vk but after the vampire king phase shifted into the mortal realm himself marceline ended up returning to being the immortal vampire queen which apparently also manife

sted remnants of the vampire king as we knew him before he devamped although side note it's interesting that the vk bestowed marcy with the title of vampire queen even when she was still planning to remain in her mortal state queen of vampires even bonnabel bubblegum got in on that reversal action so once i usurp crunchy i'll have my castle back again the vampire king might also say there was a reversal in his relationship with marcy going from enemies to friends does that mean we can be friends

now marceline although i doubt marceline will ever perceive it that way speaking of perception the wheel of fortune card calls for seeing how life's threads weave together which allows one to uncover patterns and cycles which denote loops of the figurative wheel in a sense this aspect of the card would be massively amplified when discussing characters that have lived for longer than humans are capable of such as thousand-year-old marceline and we don't know how old the vampire king is but he ce

rtainly carries himself like he's fairly ancient he is the one who asks for marcy to reflect on the nature of existence and she comes to the exact same conclusion that he did as he suspected what's the one thing you've noticed about the world since you beat me all those hundreds of years ago everything repeats over and over again no one learns anything because no one lives long enough to see the pattern i guess the world is always changing but in many ways it keeps on repeating and staying the s

ame cue the lyrics to everything stays which evokes the wheel of fortune very well despite marceline having lived long enough to see these repeating patterns she still can't escape the fate of the wheel marcy begins stakes as a vampire and she ends stakes as a vampire be that as it may as marcy clumsily stated herself the experience still allowed for her to grow as a person now i'm a vampire with fresh mortal memories and i don't know more empathy or something more grown up bonnie thank you for

helping me grow up now i guess we get to hang out together forever the wheel of fortune certainly spun in marcy's favor when it comes to her course with bonnie i must look a real mess nah you always look great after fighting a monster you think so adaptability is what allows one to find balance when the world around them keeps on spinning and adaptability is favored by the wheel of fortune the vampire king however does not want to adapt the vampire king wants to overcome and this is where we tra

nsition to the chariot arcanum if the wheel of fortune is behind the vampire king's motivations then the chariot drives his behavior the chariot stands for victory and dominance it's all about willpower and determination it often represents overcoming obstacles through dedication and grit it's all about asserting yourself to get what you want i come to you channeling the chariot card gives you the ability to get kicked in the nards 11 times and still retain your composure it's chill see no funny

business i want to draw attention to the very first action we as the audience see the vampire king perform the first impression from this was quite bizarre but it actually ingeniously portrays both the chariot and the wheel of fortune attributes of the vk's character after resurrecting the fool was bewildered by the return of his missing tooth also i used to be dead so the vampire king performed a kiss with such intense suction that it removed that tooth from the fool's mouth incoming tangent i

can't help but drop some trash talk about how it took until the series finale for marceline and princess bubblegum to finally kiss and even then an angle was chosen where their faces were obfuscated for most of it that being said i do really like this shot as well as the meta metaphor about how their kiss is earth shaking but anyway i just think it's funny how the vampiricane was allowed to perform the most intense hickey imaginable while in the middle of a french kiss to someone's teeth i'm im

agining it like hey cartoon network got back to us we can have our characters french kiss so hard that teeth are slipping out of gums as long as it's not gay okay so after the vk acts like a [ __ ] weirdo with no concept of personal boundaries he says fool this is life get a hot dog if you can't take the bun which essentially translates to if life is not your liking then spice it up if things are too bland slip in the meat that came out sounding rather awkward by the way the kiss harks back to t

he wheel of fortune because the vampire king on a spontaneous swim returned the full back to the state he was in around the time he died it was a reversal of fortune at the vampire king's behest and in a way it was foreshadowing to marcy killing the fool again later in the episode i should also point out the symbolic nature of the kiss in that it denotes the vampire king taking on the fool's essence the vk takes what the fool represents onto himself via that kiss specifically i am talking about

how the fool represents a new phase or journey this is the symbolic starting point of the vampire king's adventure in a sense does anyone have any milk for this you might be thinking okay but why did the vk kiss the fool literally i'm guessing that the vampirking's intent was akin to slapping someone who's acting hysterical the goal is to reset the person so to say and have them get with the program however the fool was just being a goof he did not seem particularly perturbed or bothered by the

developments just puzzled and surprised so the vk's kiss comes off as very out of line and disconcerting and this is where we broaden our perspective to discuss the chariot's association with control the vampire king's wish is to exist on his terms so he asserts his control on the things around him what the vampire king realizes over the course of stakes is that his inner desire is actually mastery of the self by the way the vk kinda sorta attains that goal in an abstract and fragmented way by g

iving up higher consciousness which that's an endless bit of analysis that i do not have time to go spelunking in right now but i wanted to mention it because it's provocative anyway the point at hand is that the vampire king is all about control even his powers are about control his telekinesis is him exerting his control over physical objects his teleportation is bending space to his will so that he can manifest where he pleases and the dude is even able to create barriers that block out the s

un when it comes to behavior though many of the negative qualities associated with a chariot card come from trying to assert your control over other people this can take a variety of forms being overly aggressive is surely one of them surely or assuming you know what's best for others or disregarding the desires of others completely and one big potential flaw that could emerge with the chariot going full steam ahead is that attempts to assert control over others can lead to a breach of consent t

he reason the vampirking sucks out the fool's tooth is because he does not care about the fool's consent the vk does not care about the consent of the cow moo to which he forms an affection for uh uh i don't like to dance i'm a wallflower and in what i consider to be one of the best yet most disturbing scenes out of the entire stakes mini-series the vampire king does not care about marceline's consent and turns her into a vampire against her will this is a moment of violation and the visual alle

gory is by design and the scene is legitimately hard to watch while the vampire king admits he was evil and wants to change he was still evil he only turned a new leaf after his resurrection so no amount of conviction would be enough for marceline you've done enough already to get staked a thousand times over you're monsters there is a limit to how far the chariot can take you there's a time placed in proper circumstances for making things you want happen through the power of your will and if yo

u try to personify attributes of the chariot card beyond the proper framework to do so effectively what once may have seemed awe-inspiring can instead make you look like a gibbering man baby the vampire king's speech was indeed amazing for a while but let's not forget that as it kept going it turned into the vk splashing around in a puddle in his undies while cursing marcy he was throwing a tantrum do i have to spell out the visual symbolism there he's a piss baby do it chicken you make me sick

when the veil of perceived control crumbles sometimes what's underneath is an idiot by the way this was not the first occasion in adventure time where attempts to control others and the sidelining of consent debased a character into appearing like a giant man baby but but it was important because the cosmic owl was oh wow hey look at that i had previously compared the vampire king to finn's dad and now i'm throwing finn under the bus with him too bang have some of these bangers why don't you ban

g now finn was a baby back in frost and fire because he was behaving like a barman but the vampire king was a baby because he was having a hard time trying to stop being a barman the vk's character arc in stakes is one that does steer him away from being an evil jerk the vk does want marceline's agreement he asks for her cooperation he attempts to be courteous and considerate to marcy and her friends even when fending off their attempts to kill him and while the vampire king still asserts himsel

f he does so without violence let me finish my thought stay q okay go ahead apparently the grass sword couldn't sense genuine hostility or danger from the vk despite the vk clearly feeling genuine annoyance think that's a good indicator that the vampire king was legitimately trying his best to change and was also succeeding at restraining his emotions the vampire king does manage to quell his face her instincts and urges in his quest to break the cycle my thirst for blood is an awesome force but

in these new times i have a chance to try a different course i think i wanna but ultimately all of those things were merely prerequisites for the vampire king to actually get his way for him to finally convince marcy to change her mind the vampire king had to give up his control there was not much humility in the action but the vk did place his life into marceline's hands queen of vampires you weigh the scales of fate spill my guts or face the unknown either way i will not bite giving marceline

complete and utter control over his destiny is what convinced the vampire queen to spare the vampire king if the vk is indeed on a path straight into the void on a sick flaming chariot then marceline is the one driving that chariot hold on that's actually way more literal than i first thought when you consider the psychic remnants of the bk in marcy's mind at the end of stakes huh looking back it's rather funny when i started making a guide for this video like five years ago i thought the chari

ot would be one of the more boring associations turns out there's like an entire robust deconstruction of the chariot or condom in the vampire king's character arc and it was just another thing to remind me that adventure time is a flippin amazing piece of literature come on finn let me hear that war cry we're not done with a chariot card quite yet though because marcy had a big pivotal moment in stakes where her metaphorical chariot basically broke down with the vampire essence released and the

wheel of fortune continuing to spin as it always has marcy succumbed to dejection and gave up that's it i'm done what happens in marceline's mind in the aftermath of the vampire essence explosion is very well represented by a sudden reversal of the chariot card the emergence of the dark cloud for marcy was like having all the positive energy associated with the chariot stripped away in an instant all the focus and tenacity is replaced with a total loss of drive a loss of self-confidence a sudde

n lack of any tangible goals and the crushing feeling of futility and self-pity marcy breaks down because she feels like she not only lost all control but that she never had any control she feels like none of her actions have ever led to outcomes she's happy with marcy fell into the pit of thinking everything she does just further [ __ ] up her life and jeez louise trying to fix it trying to fix me just made things a thousand times worse that's why i even try you know what's the point her self-d

eception is easy to see through for us as the audience we're well aware of how marcy's interplay with history literally allowed for finn the human to be born among countless other things and i think we can all agree that adventure time is better with marceline in it but marceline is drowning in the reductive depths of despondency and seeing value in anything under such a mental state can be extremely difficult was it reality you remembered my song the chariot card is all about individuality but

when reversed it can be a reminder that in hard times you might need a helping hand a gentle nudge that you can reorient yourself with it can be as simple as hearing the right words at the right time to propel you back to your former glory you and me we're survivors right like cockroaches rat that's the look that's the look of someone whose mental framework just got rearranged i adore how it's iceking who delivered the exact wake-up call that marceline needed he calls marceline a rat and a cockr

oach but from a place of acceptance and love he has zero judgment of marcy he is holding no disappointment he is holding no pity ice king's words are from a place of pure solidarity and this is why they have such a profound effect better to run and hide like a rat right buddy did you just call me a cockroach simon what no no no no no thanks buddy simon's words are able to flip marceline's entire perspective around which allows her to flip the chariot back into the upright position and that allow

s marceline to come to terms with and accept the wheel of fortune i don't want to say like i'm sorry about who you are or anything if you're feeling okay but i don't know how bad news is all this is right nah i'm cool being a vampire again and this is where i'm going to shift my framework of analysis ever so slightly for the final section of this video in a reversal of how the vampires up till now have had associations with tarot cards for the concluding discussion i want to assign marceline the

vampire queen with a tarot card that i feel best represents her i want to pick out a tarot card that reflects marceline's adventure in stakes but also the collective journey of her entire life technically i already gave it away in the introduction and i'm sure most of you have probably picked out the specific card i have in mind already but i'm still gonna build some suspense for the final vampire vampire king you still in here hello too bad in the middle of all the action this dialogue from ma

rcy may sound a little like a badass one-liner and it very much is in some ways especially given the tone of marsy's determined voice and even more so if you remove the scene from its larger context what one might overlook regarding this line of dialogue however are the gentle and compassionate undertones beneath i've basically just described the strength tarot card marceline represents strength unlike the chariot the strengther condom is not about being physically powerful and winning battles o

h i'm gonna poop my pants if finn kills this guy instead of me although at times it can be if that battle is emblematic of an internal personal fight that's waging inside you and conquering some big old monster is symbolic for self-actualization or something what i'm saying is this card is about inner strength it represents having the ability to endure and bounce back from setbacks it's about overcoming obstacles with compassion and understanding benevolence and magnanimity are attributes that a

re often characterized by this card and one fun way to think about it is strength is holding yourself to the personal standard of not being a cockroach while the dark cloud was a menace that was wreaking uncontrolled havoc on the land of ooo and had to be defeated instead of going straight to vanquishing it marceline shows her sympathy vampire king you still in here hello remember marceline bears intense hatred toward the vampire king and was dead set on exterminating him from the face of the pl

anet until just recently and yet she still tries to find the vk's presence in the dark cloud in case there's a chance that she doesn't have to kill him again too bad strength is doing what has to be done but out of love and care for others and with love and care for others by the way marcy defeats the dark cloud by sucking it up from within by awakening a mouth that rests within her own body that's a stacked visual metaphor for inner strength i think it's no coincidence that the strength tarot c

ard depicts a woman nonviolently subduing a lion this is yet another example of the visual imagery and stakes being derived from art on the traditional tarot cards speaking of the lemniscut or infinity symbol above the woman's head has been thought to represent a wide variety of things but in the context of stakes it's hard not to think of marceline's immortality historically the strength card used to be called fortitude because as already discussed it's about persisting through dark times stake

s had marceline at some of the lowest moments in her life and the miniseries was about marcy finding the strength to soldier on through her immortal existence marceline the vampire queen has had a rough life marcy felt like a monster before she was ever a vampire due to being half demon it limited her ability to form relationships with others in a time when the world was laid to waste as a child marcy was abandoned by her biological father lost her mother in the aftermath of the apocalypse she e

nded up being abandoned by her father figure and then was let down by her dad yet again marcy spent much of her life as a teenager by her lonesome trying to find friends while saving humans who merely feared her in return and when marcy finally found a loving community she had to abandon them after being turned into a vampire and that's when marceline's immortal life began followed by hundreds of years of existential depression vampiric urges and the nine feeling that marcy sabotage to every mea

ningful relationship she's ever had marceline often feels like life is a big fart marceline songs have also suggested that the toll of being immortal is worrying away at her psyche and sense of self-identity the thought of having to live forever to continue existing indefinitely into the future as the world keeps on going through cycles of destruction outside your control that's low-key horrific it sounds like it could be an existential nightmare maybe that's just my depression talking but compo

und that with a potential loss of self due to your collection of memories putrefying in your head for eons yeesh i could have snapped and done you all in at any time who knows how much truth is in marceline's joke while she puts on a front like usual this is a legitimate fear that she grapples with marcy is afraid of losing control over her vampirism and hurting innocent people i mean she even has dreams where her fangs gain their own autonomy but despite being a cave hag who dwells in the pits

of self-hate and futility for most of adventure time marceline has always continued to persevere as a force of good in the land of ooo even if she sometimes did lose track of her moral code marceline has always embodied strength even if she sometimes forgets that fact stakes was a sort of reboot for marcy where facing the past allowed her to reorient her perspective find her inner strength and acquire newfound control over her powers the trials and tribulations that marcy overcame in stakes allo

wed for her to come to terms with who she is as a person what she wants out of life and they also gave her the power to channel the dark cloud in the series finale to protect the person she holds most dear the purpose of strength is protecting your loved ones after all despite all the hardship and the ephemeral nature of time life can still be beautiful marcy put a lot of work into this meet reality and she'd like to see it through we were messed up kids we taught ourselves how to live and i'm s

till scared that i'm not good enough hear the pink in my cheeks and i love that it means i'm a little bit sad oh hey you've made it to the end of my tarot-based analysis i hope you've enjoyed my exploration of the stakes miniseries and i hope it provided you with food for thought if you want to share any of those ideas or opinions in the comments i'd be delighted this video had been lodged in the production backburner for about five years and more recently i've had tons of delays and difficultie

s both technical and otherwise that ended up pushing this video far beyond obsidian's release date but in retrospect it was quite fortunate that i left this video concept to ferment for so long because steaks aged like fine wine thank you for watching and thanks to all the people who support this channel on patreon rest assured there will be plenty more adventure time videos into the far distant future