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Magic Man/Normal Man/King Man is such an interesting character not because he portrays grief, but because of *how* he portrays grief. Magic Man has driven himself mad with his magical abilities, a curse of all of Adventure Time’s magic users, and his memories have drifted away like grains of sand that dance in the waves. internally, he is sad, so incredibly sad, and it shows whenever Margles is mentioned or shown. but, more interestingly, it is in this “brain broken” state that we see some of the most interesting and powerful lessons taught through the medium of Magic Man and his magical abilities.

for instance, it is in the episode “All the Little People” that we see him appear near Finn and Jake while they discuss dating, specifically if your ideal partner should be your equal or your opposite. this gives Magic Man an idea, and he produces a bag full of the Little People, casting a magical spell on them. he says, “do what thoust will be the whole piece of law […] i’m not coming back”. this quote, at least the first part of it, is derived from Aleister Crowley’s religious system called Thelema. the original quote is, “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”. this phrase is central to Thelemic beliefs, as it centers around the core idea of pursuing one’s innate “True Will” or, better put, their purpose in life.

a little debrief on Thelema. it blends elements from Wester esotericism with Kabbalah, and a few Eastern traditions through practices like Magick, and follows The Book of the Law, a foundational text for Thelemic beliefs that Crowley reportedly received from a divine being in 1904. i promise this is important to Magic Man’s character, please stick with me. one of the most notable Thelemic quotes was “love is the Law, love under Will” which emphasized pursuing love by following your True Will, rather than indulging in life’s many fleeting desires. it outlines that each individual inherits a divinely-granted “Will” and that pursuing that Will is inherently loving and serves the greater good of not only the world, but the universe. more specifically, Thelemic beliefs revolve around Love not only being a feeling, but an action that serves to better the world around us. furthermore, Thelema dictates that by pursuing Love and True Will, you will be able to more deeply connect with the whole world, and find fellowship in others that have done the same.

inherently, Magic Man is a character who centrally revolves around love, grief, loss, and tragedy, as his problems stem entirely from the loss of his wife, Margles. the last memento he has of Margles is a picture he keeps in his house, and even then it’s clear that he doesn’t quite know exactly who she is, or why she’s important, just that he loved her dearly. Magic Man serves as a character that pursues his true purpose in life, seeking love that could replace the loss of Margles.

when he lived on Mars, Magic Man created a defense force that could fight against GOLB, but modeled it after Margles, which clouded his judgment and put Mars in jeopardy, causing him to be banished to Ooo by Abraham Lincoln until he, quote, “found love again”. thus, he pursues love, searching and searching across all of Ooo to find it. along his way, he intentionally causes disaster and disruption, entirely for the purpose of teaching lessons.

strangely, these lessons at a glance seem to mean nothing, and end up being a garbled mess of random annoyances for our heroes to search through. but, if you look deeper, each and every one of these lessons and hijinks revolve centrally around love and how it affects us and others. in his first lesson, he turns Finn into a giant foot, for the purpose of teaching him, and the other residents of Freak City, that he is a jerk. the entire lesson is that Magic Man is a jerk. however, underneath that, it is about how trust can betray us, and how we can be hurt by those we trust, and love. this is vaguely reminiscent of Magic Man’s banishment, and the rift in his relationship with GLOB following this banishment.

another lesson he teaches comes from All The Little People, where he sneaks Finn a bag of miniature versions of the main cast. this episode revolves around Finn exploring his new feelings and desires as he enters puberty, and learning how to go about them in the future. however, the entire episode revolves around Finn forcing love onto others, and then realizing how wrong and messed up that is. this, again, is a reference to his banishment from Mars, and how he has to seek out love and find it, instead of forcing it to achieve some inconsequential, non-essential goal birthed from desire and depravity. love is a pursuit, a passion, a universal language. it is not forced upon us, or anyone else.

in a later episode, Time Sandwich, we get a more minor lesson from Magic Man. he delivers a cryptic message, “when your face shows 7:20, when green leaves turn brown, the only way forward is down. Then you'll see, the wetter, the better” that our heroes have to decrypt and understand to solve their problem. the riddle means that when you have a frown, sometimes the way forward is to go down, and be sad. then, crying can help, the wetter the better. it’s an analogy to Magic Man’s own sadness and grief, and how he’s learned that it can be okay to process and feel sadness, and even cry, because it can end up leaving you better off than you were before.

all of this builds up to more Margles lore, in the episode You Forgot Your Floaties, where Betty accidentally enters Magic Man’s mind, which is barren and empty, like a wastebasket (more on that later). putting on the Margles mask she has in her sleeve, Betty witnesses Magic Man’s memories warp, and is jettisoned into a memory of the day Magic Man was banished. he was walking with Margles toward the edge of a cliff, with the Margles robot preparing to engage its defense systems against GOLB. Magic Man tries to get her to stop and, when she doesn’t, he forces her to shut down, and Mars is attacked by GOLB. following this Abraham Lincoln banished him from Mars, telling him to only come back when he’d found love.

at this time, Finn (who has been transformed into a gingerbread cookie) breaks the machine Magic Man and Betty are in, causing their brains to switch. Betty inherits Magic Man’s insanity and magical powers, while Magic Man becomes Normal Man, and lives on as a “normie”. it is at this time that Betty sees a vision of Simon’s head on a coconut crab emerging from a backyard pool, mouthing the words “you forgot your floaties”. this is a reference to earlier in the episode, where Magic Man says this: “I see... the coconut crab who swims in your neighbor's pool at night... maybe Simon's in there, too. Who else holds their breath in there, Betty?"

when we next see Normal Man in a truly important light, he is reconnected with GLOB, and preparing to launch back to Mars, having finally found love with his beloved brother. GLOB, however, says that his time on Mars is up, and drops back down to Ooo, while Magic Man steps up and embraces his role as king of Mars, becoming King Man.

when we see him again, he’s with Betty as she tries to fill a massive hole with sand, one grain at a time, to make up for her sins. King Man tells Finn to have empathy after he lashes out at Betty, which shows growth from his original ways as the prankster. afterward, he, Finn, Jake, and Betty go on a quest, where King Man teaches another important lesson. he says, "finally, you've learned that most pressing of lessons. That sometimes, for our own good, we must accept the loss of that which we hold most dear”.

this is an important quote from him, as he has finally moved on from his loss of not only Margles, but GLOB and his magical abilities, all of which were central to his life and identity previously. this sticks with Finn, Jake, and a little bit with Betty, and that’s the last we really see of him until Come Along With Me where he accidentally summons GOLB.

all in all, Magic Man is a character that wonderfully represents grief, loss, tragedy and acceptance, through finding his true purpose in life and moving on from his loss. it is a beautiful story, and i wish my thoughts about him were a bit clearer, because i feel like i didn’t present this nearly well enough.