Adventure Time: Lumpy Space Princess, the Id

In Adventure Time, Lumpy Space Princess corresponds to a distinct piece of the human psyche — the id. Support ScreenPrism on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7792695​

She represents the most basic, selfish urges we all wish we could act on, and that’s why we can’t get enough of living vicariously through her confidence and sass.

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Transcript provided by Youtube:

00:00
“Oh my glob!
00:03
Oh my glob!”
00:06
One fun way to of reading Adventure Time is to align each character
00:10
with a distinct part of the human psyche
00:13
so you could say Jake is the superego,
00:15
Finn would be the ego,
00:17
Princess Bubblegum is the logical, analytical left brain.
00:21
Lemongrab is anxiety.
00:23
The show does a great job of separating out pieces of our minds,
00:27
and realizing these as whole characters that all together
00:30
participate in one big, wild consciousness.
00:33
So to unravel this very special psyche,
00:36
let’s begin with a big fan favorite,
00:39
Lumpy Space Princess,
00:40
“Oh glob, I forgot.”
00:41
who corresponds to the Id.
00:44
LSP represents the most basic, selfish urges
00:47
we all wish we could act on,
00:49
and that’s why we can’t get enough of living vicariously
00:52
through her confidence and sass.
00:54
“But I can make you happy.”
00:56
“Puke off!
00:57
You big donut!”
00:59
Before we go on, be sure to hit subscribe
01:01
and click the bell to get notifications on all of our new videos.
01:06
For LSP, lumpy isn’t just about looks:
01:08
it’s a state of mind.
01:10
“Yah, everyone needs to know that when I work these lumps,
01:13
no man is immune to their influence.”
01:16
We see this almost immediately, in the second episode
01:19
of the series “Trouble in Lumpy Space.”
01:22
When Jake gets infected with the lumps,
01:24
his whole personality begins to change,
01:26
and we see just what it means for someone to be lumpy.
01:29
“No, because no matter how messed up and lumpy I get,
01:33
this guy never turns his back on me.
01:36
Oh, yah.
01:37
Right behind ya.
01:38
Just gotta turn my back on this guy.”
01:40
It’s about a don’t-care attitude, and a lack of self awareness
01:44
that allows you to speak your mind
01:45
and always put yourself first.
01:47
“I said lump off Mom!
01:49
OH MY GLOB!”
01:51
LSP and the other people of lumpy space only seek out
01:54
fun and petty, meaningless drama.
01:57
“Tonight is the weekly Promcoming Dance!
01:59
It’s gonna be so flipping awesome!”
02:02
“LSP, we don’t have time for this.
02:04
Ask for the RIDE, LSP!”
02:06
And when Jake starts to turn lumpy, so does he.
02:08
“Aw, Finn, this music ducks, right?
02:10
Ah.
02:11
I love this song.
02:13
We should totally TP Shandala’s house!”
02:16
Being lumpy is essentially being pure Id.
02:19
The Id is a concept developed by Freud, from the Latin for “It” —
02:22
it’s the part of our personality that seeks to satisfy our basic desires,
02:27
like our bodily need for food,
02:29
“Ugh, gross, ugh!
02:30
My lumpin’ body’s all hollow now!
02:32
I gotta put something in it!”
02:34
as well as our drives for sexual pleasure and aggression.
02:37
Like the lumpy state of mind,
02:39
“Oh my glob!
02:41
Look at those luscious lips!”
02:43
the id doesn’t have a moral code.
02:45
“I’m sorry.”
02:47
It doesn’t have any other directive except to follow the “pleasure principle” —
02:52
seeking instant gratification of any impulse.
02:55
LSP feels most herself in an environment driven by instinct.
03:00
She literally lives with wolves for part of the series.
03:02
But even her relationship with the wolf pack falls apart
03:05
because of her need for instant gratification.
03:08
“Okay, here’s the secret.
03:10
I saw Jessica making out with Mark.
03:15
Behind Tony’s back!”
03:16
Unlike the wolves, LSP finds that one of her
03:19
most pressing immediate desires is to gossip.
03:23
She’ll spill a secret even if it means ruining
03:26
other good things in her life.
03:27
“Tony!
03:28
Jessica’s cheating on you!”
03:29
“Oh my glob, oh my glob, oh my glob.”
03:33
All of this isn’t to say that LSP doesn’t care about her friends.
03:37
But the way she’s capable of expressing that care is very limited.
03:42
Even when she wants to help, she’s usually pretty useless
03:44
because she lacks all ability to think ahead
03:47
or to empathize in a sophisticated way.
03:49
Here her momentary desire to insult the smooth posers
03:53
overrides her much bigger desire to help Finn and Jake,
03:56
“Give ’em the antidote already,
03:57
and stop being such a poser.”
03:59
“Sorry kid.
04:00
We change our minds.”
04:01
“Why did you have to say all of those rude things to them?”
04:05
“What?
04:06
I was helping you.”
04:07
whereas a more controlled person can properly prioritize
04:09
what they care about most.
04:11
But lumpiness means a total lack of impulse control.
04:15
“I’m gonna need a secretary desk!
04:19
Rrr-AAAGH!”
04:20
If you’re lumpy, the only possible solution to a problem
04:22
is the first thing that pops into your head.
04:25
The id is essentially how we were as little kids,
04:28
before we learned how to regulate and control our impulses.
04:31
LSP throws a fit every time she’s bored
04:34
“Ahhh!
04:35
You guys, I’m bored out of my face!
04:38
I make a motion
04:39
to stop talking about dumb stuff that’s lame!”
04:42
or hungry.
04:43
“Where’s the food?
04:44
What kind of castle is this?
04:46
It’s like a poor people’s castle!
04:49
No lumping waffles for my dump truck!”
04:51
Like a kid, she is ruled by her impulses.
04:54
Sometimes, her impulses can be contradictory,
04:57
like wanting to live with the wolves
04:59
and wanting to spread a rumor.
05:01
But she always makes the decision that’s more instantly rewarding.
05:05
The kinds of desires that she reliably acts on are desires
05:09
that we’ve been taught to suppress.
05:11
After all, we’re not id-ridden children.
05:14
We don’t have to make a scene every time we’re hungry,
05:16
and we probably shouldn’t.
05:17
But that’s what makes it so fun to live vicariously through LSP.
05:22
Because even if we’re not allowed to throw a fit when we’re bored,
05:24
it’s very satisfying to watch her do it
05:27
and watching her appeases the id in all of us.
05:30
“Everybody get ready to pay attention to me!”
05:33
Strikingly, the id in Adventure Time is expressed with a voice and texture
05:37
reminiscent of the more shallow entries in our pop culture.
05:40
“I’m ready for you now, Brad.
05:43
Isn’t it so obvi?”
05:45
LSP consumes mindless, catchy pop songs
05:47
and she reminds us of the sort of reality star mindset and vocal cadence
05:51
we might know from Keeping Up with the Kardashians,
05:54
“Why are you following me everywhere?
05:56
That’s like my time to get away from home.
05:59
I’m dead serious.”
06:00
“Y’all don’t think I can make it on my own?
06:03
I’ll show you!
06:05
I’m running away!”
06:06
or Real Housewives,
06:08
“You’re boring!”
06:09
“I’m bored, and I’m not having any fun.”
06:11
or Jersey Shore.
06:12
“Look at you, I don’t care if I’m small.”
06:15
“You guys ruin everything.
06:17
I’m gonna kill you!”
06:20
This type of media appeals to our id because,
06:23
on some animalistic level, it’s satisfying to see
06:26
uninhibited aggression and pettiness on TV.
06:29
So by associating LSP with this part of our culture,
06:32
Adventure Time introduces a subtle commentary on
06:35
how certain kinds of our entertainment fuel
06:37
a childlike state of arrested development.
06:40
“No more learning!”
06:43
Even though it soothes our id to watch her,
06:46
for the most part, we don’t truly want to be like LSP.
06:50
For a lot of the series she lives as a homeless person in the woods.
06:53
She seems okay with it, but by most people’s objective standards
06:56
she’s not doing that well in her life.
06:59
“Ahhh!
07:00
What my life has become!”
07:02
And that’s because to be successful, and to find happiness
07:06
by the common definition of the word,
07:08
it’s important to be able to delay gratification.
07:11
“You give young children a marshmallow and say
07:14
you can eat it straight away,
07:15
or if you don’t eat it and hold on for ten minutes,
07:18
you can get a second marshmallow.”
07:20
Total self-indulgence is not even the way to feel happy
07:23
in the short-term.
07:24
If she ever gets bored, she has to act out
07:27
or make up something to fill the void.
07:29
“First, I’m gonna fall in love with one of those little guys.
07:32
And then, I’m gonna fall out of love.
07:35
And then, I’m gonna totally fake die.
07:37
I’m gonna fake heart attack.
07:40
Oh, my heart!”
07:41
Which suggests there’s a dark emptiness at
07:44
the center of LSP and of our id impulse —
07:47
other fictional characters representing the id also back this up.
07:51
“All the ways you wish you could be — that’s me.”
07:54
LSP is a slave to her latest whim or discomfort,
07:59
and it doesn’t feel very good to be a slave to anything.
08:01
It’s as if she’s frantically fleeing from the fear of
08:04
not doing what she wants to be doing at any given moment,
08:09
the fear of not feeling perfect pleasure.
08:12
She is never truly content.
08:14
She always has a desire for a little bit more.
08:16
“What?
08:17
I didn’t wait infinity for a dip in the kiddie pool!”
08:21
Even if LSP doesn’t recognize this emptiness in herself,
08:25
the audience does.
08:26
There’s a sadness in her lack of fulfilment
08:28
that we don’t want to emulate.
08:30
And even though the Id is all about honestly
08:32
expressing what we feel,
08:34
being lumpy also requires a certain amount of denial —
08:37
“Then if he’s gone, can you send me back
08:42
to before I met him so I won’t have to remember
08:46
this heartache?”
08:47
whenever LSP’s behaviors cause her negative emotions,
08:50
she ignores them because her instinct is to avoid bad feelings.
08:54
“Whenever I get hungry I dress up like the monster
08:56
and go eat all the villagers’ crops.”
08:59
“LSP, you’re stealing.”
09:00
“Don’t say that!
09:02
You’re making me feel bad.
09:04
[Cries]”
09:05
Facing the contradictions in her actions and thinking about
09:08
how she could be hurting people would be highly unpleasurable,
09:11
and that’s something that LSP doesn’t do.
09:16
“I saved the village!”
09:19
LSP is the most unrealistically, implausibly, baselessly
09:23
confident character you could ever meet.
09:25
“[Screams]”
09:26
“I know you like me, Finn.
09:28
That’s why you’re running!”
09:29
And there’s something wonderful about imagining
09:31
what the self-image of someone who’s just an id would look like.
09:35
“I know you want this body — but you can’t have it.
09:38
You can’t have it!”
09:40
She has no concept of insecurity, or self-doubt, or anxiety,
09:44
because those emotions come largely from
09:46
comparing yourself to others, or to the outside world —
09:49
and that’s something she isn’t capable of.
09:51
Even though LSP just looks like a purple blob to us,
09:54
she’s always commenting on her own attractiveness.
09:57
“Side note: I look fresh to death with my new dress and purse.”
10:01
When she imagines a soul mate for herself, she imagines
10:04
Lumpy Space Prince, who looks and acts exactly like her.
10:07
She’s so deeply in love with herself
10:10
she wants to fall in love with her clone.
10:12
And the lesson Lumpy Space Prince learns in his episode
10:15
is that he shouldn’t care what other people think.
10:18
For the audience, not caring so much about what others think
10:21
is a liberating concept, too.
10:23
It would be great to go around feeling like we’re hot stuff
10:26
even if we look like a purple blob.
10:28
“Woooh, my dress!”
10:30
“Get in touch with your feelings, babe!”
10:34
We struggle to feel this kind of free,
10:37
unhampered self-confidence,
10:38
because we have other parts of our psyche intruding on our minds.
10:42
So we love LSP for letting us feel how she feels for a little while.
10:47
But when Lumpy Space Prince makes his proclamation,
10:50
“I don’t care!”
10:53
his well-intentioned parents literally explode.
10:56
So he learns not only that his confidence is powerful,
10:59
but also that others are inconsequential.
11:02
All that matters is what he wants.
11:04
“Not bad.”
11:06
Objectively speaking, that’s a pretty unhealthy approach to life.
11:09
LSP firmly believes her own opinion matters more than anything else.
11:13
“I’m not a monster!
11:14
I was just pretending to be a monster!”
11:18
“Aww.”
11:19
“I’m sorry that you’re starving because I ate all your crops.
11:23
Even though you’re all still really fat,
11:26
and I probably helped you lose some weight.”
11:29
“LSP!”
11:30
“What?”
11:31
“That apology was terrible!”
11:33
She’s perpetually certain that she’s always right.
11:36
“All I said was ‘you’re ugly,’ which is totally true.
11:39
Somebody help me!”
11:40
And she just assumes that the rest of the world thinks so, too.
11:43
“Papa Wolf was all like: This is a special child.
11:46
She needs special love because she’s gonna be great
11:49
when she grows up.”
11:50
“So these were talking wolves?”
11:52
“No, they were normal wolves.
11:54
I knew what they were thinking because of their body language.
11:58
Stop interrupting, Finn.”
11:59
We all have that little LSP in the back of our minds,
12:02
telling us that we deserve everything we want right now,
12:05
but the rest of our brain keeps her in check,
12:08
because ultimately we can see that our live would be a disaster
12:11
if we let LSP take over the show in our brains.
12:15
We like escaping into watching her, imagining
12:18
what it would be like to be pure id, pure confidence,
12:21
pure stimulation and instant gratification,
12:23
“Oh yah, this body’s hot.
12:26
I’m powerful!”
12:27
without all that much harder long-term self-control
12:30
and discipline holding us back.
12:32
But we don’t really want to be LSP —
12:34
we certainly don’t want friends like her,
12:36
and we probably wouldn’t even want to meet her in real life.
12:39
That’s why we enjoy her so much,
12:41
removed from us in a safely fictional TV show,
12:44
and we go back to our lives with the messy Id,
12:47
safely relegated to its far more limited spot
12:50
in the everyday psyche.
12:51
“Oh my glob you guys!
12:54
It’s Debra.
12:56
And Susannah.
12:57
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12:58
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12:59
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13:02
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13:06
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13:09
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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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