WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the series finale of Adventure Time, "Come Along With Me," which premiered Monday, Sept. 3, on Cartoon Network
Adventure Time built up the looming Great Gum War to be the central conflict of its series finale, but the family feud between Princess Bubblegum and her uncle Gumbald turned out to be little more than a the precursor to a larger, existential threat to the Land of Ooo. Its arrival in the four-part "Come Along With Me" confirms plenty of fan theories, while providing few real answers.
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War is averted midway through the finale, thanks in large part to the actions of Finn and Jake, only for the sky to open above the battlefield and reveal GOLB, the enormous malevolent entity who's lurked at the edges of Adventure Time, and the consciousness of fandom, since Season 5. So, to all of those fans who made videos and wrote blog posts theorizing that GOLB would be the primary antagonist in the finale: Congratulations, you were right. But who, or what, is GOLB, the foe so massive that his name is in all caps?
The mysterious entity was introduced briefly in 2013 in the episode "Puhoy," in which Finn is transported to Pillow World after retreating into a pillow fort. After living out a long life in that alternate realm, Finn dies and flies through space, only to bounce off the tongue of a red, gargantuan, four-eyed being that tries to eat him on his way back to Ooo. That's, of course, GOLB, who isn't actually named until more than two years later, in the Season 6 episode "You Forgot Your Floaties," in which he's revealed as a malevolent entity (surprise!) who had attacked Mars and abducted Margles, the wife of King Man, aka Magic Man, aka Normal Man (whew!).
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It's not until the Season 8 episode "Whispers" that GOLB is mentioned again, when the villainous Lich refers to himself, rather cryptically, as "the ceaseless wheel, the last scholar of GOLB," igniting, well, ceaseless speculation among fans about the nature of the being. The next clue arrives in Season 9's "Temple of Mars," in which Betty Grof announces to King Man that she has a plan to rescue Margles from GOLB and, at long last, save her fiance Simon, better known as the Ice King.
Page 2: Betty's Plan to Save Simon Nearly Dooms Everyone
In retrospect, it's that moment in "Temple of Mars," every bit as much as Gumbald's declaration of war in "Gumbaldia," that set the stage for the series finale. GOLB's appearance midway through "Come Along With Me" is preceded by a glimpse of Betty with Normal Man and the sky witch Maja, performing a ritual on a flying carpet, which leads Finn to wonder whether they've sided with the Gumbaldians against the Candy Kingdom. However, we soon learn their actions have nothing to do with the coming war, but are instead tied to Betty's grand plan.
When the Ice King first lays eyes on the enormous red figure hovering over the battlefield, he flashes back to a time when he was the human antiquarian Simon Petrikov, reading a book that references GOLB while his care-free fiancee Betty made sundaes. Describing him as a mysterious entity that embodies chaos, Simon says, "His presence is felt in every crevice where chaos lurks. Imagine if we could somehow harness all that dank energy."
Clearly that's what Betty intends to do, but GOLB is simply too powerful. He transforms the cupcake soldiers of Gumbaldia into an enormous dog-like demon, and turns one of Princess Bubblegum's gargantuan Gumball guardians "nasty." When Normal Man recruits the Ice King, with Finn, to snap Betty out of her trance, she doesn't react kindly to her one-time love, saying, "You're trying to stop me? When I'm this close to harnessing the most powerful force in the world and finally saving you?"
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With the help of BMO, it's discovered that the gathered voices singing in harmony can combat GOLB's creatures -- "GOLB is discord," Bubblegum realizes -- because this is Adventure Time, where music is magic. But it takes more than that to stop the god-like being himself. Swallowed by the entity, along with Simon and Finn, Betty uses the Ice King's crown, which has reverted to its "primal wishing form," to try to make everything right. However, her wishes to banish GOLB and to make him disappear are ineffective; he's simply too strong. And so Betty makes a sacrifice, and wishes for the power to keep Simon safe, which doesn't banish GOLB, but instead transforms him. Or, rather, transforms Betty into a new, and presumably less malevolent, GOLB. With that, she exits through the portal in the sky, leaving behind the crown, and a heartbroken Simon.
Adventure Time: The Final Seasons four-DVD collection, which includes the series finale, is on sale now from Cartoon Network. The Adventure Time "Come Along With Me" original soundtrack is available for digital download and streaming on all major platforms.