Adventure Time Fionna and Cake’s creator says Marceline was always Black

It’s a world of Adventure TimeMarceline the vampire queen is the only thing that remains the same as the world crumbles. Elemental beings are reborn and die. And monarchs turn the earth into candy-filled wonderlands.

Marceline, as an immortal creature, is preserved like a fossil in amber. The original design features a pale purple complexion, a black flowing mane and an ax. She has been featured in various publications, from her 2010 debut to the more recent one in The Distant LandsHer look was largely unchanged, excluding her clothes and hairstyles.

Although she appears to be in an eternal state of youth, her world has evolved. Even before Adventure Time ended, the larger animation world began to grapple with what representation could and should look like — Marceline included. Then, in Fionna and Cake, HBO’s spinoff of the Adventure TimeMarshall Lee is the Marceline’s counterpart in the alternate universe. He has a completely new look.

The original version of the character is Adventure TimeMarshall Lee retained the main traits of Marceline. Marshall Lee was a vampire who shared the gray skin of a vampire. Fans had not seen either vampire with melanoid skin, despite the fact that Marceline was shown to have a black or brown mother.

You can also read about it here Fionna and Cake debuted Marshall Lee as a Black character — the first time fans saw either depiction of the vampire as visibly Black in the Adventure Time universe. Social media users celebrated by sharing their cosplay and reacting to first trailer. Adam Muto executive producer for both Adventure TimeYou can also find out more about the following: Fionna and Cake, “it would have felt harder to rationalize not showing [Marshall Lee] that way.”

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Image: Tom Herpich/Warner Media

Image: Haewon Lee/Warner Media

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It’s both a large change and it’s not.

In an email interview, Muto told Polygon the team did a couple of passes for Marshall Lee’s design. He said the team used artist Natasha Allegri’s original designs as a starting point, and then incorporated concept art from Tom Herpich and other artists.

“We knew this version would have none of the supernatural elements of the previous version. He’s kind of a punk but with a rich upbringing from which he’s trying to distance himself,” he said. “In retrospect, we probably could have added more details and piercings but that’s added line mileage and things to track and he’s moving around a lot in these episodes.”

Although Marshall Lee started as a character in Ice King’s in-universe fanfiction, there was a lot riding on his presence in Fionna and Cake. Fans loved and celebrated Marceline for the way she brought queer representation to a children’s show, but her design long stood as a point of contention.

Many fans have long wondered if she is actually black or not. Although she wore different outfits, the showrunners consistently gave her the pale look associated with Eurocentric, white vampires. In an episode titled “Marceline the Vampire Queen,” Princess Bubblegum cures Marceline of her vampirism and turns her back into a normal human. While she loses her vampire powers, the human version of Marceline still has very light skin and her look stays the same — save for the disappearance of two fang marks on her neck.

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Even though showrunners decided that Marceline is a person of color, no labels were used to identify her. In “Everything Stays,” we saw Marceline had a Black or brown mom, but fans couldn’t agree on what that meant. Some fans didn’t want to accept Marceline being a woman of color. Tumblr posts would remind people about what canon was. Even with all that discussion in the fan community, Muto says Marshall Lee’s identity was clear to the creative staff “early in the process” of developing Fionna and Cake.

“We didn’t have a final model before we boarded the first episode. We had already established that Marceline’s mom (played by the amazing Erica Luttrell) was Black during Season 7 and it felt natural to depict [Marshall Lee] that way, especially since he was neither a demon nor a Vampire in Fionna’s world. To me, it would have felt harder to rationalize not showing him that way.”

Muto’s comment points to yet another piece in the overall conversation around representation in animation that has changed in the past few years: casting. In fan chatter, it is often overlooked that Olivia Olson is an Afro-Jamaican actress who plays Marceline.

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Animation is not immune to the discussion of voice actors’ ethnicities and characters. In the summer of 2020, Alison Brie said she regretted playing a Vietnamese American character on Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, and the show’s creator grappled with casting the show with all white actors. Jenny Slate, who announced she would not be voicing a bi-racial character in Big Mouth Kristen Bell left Central Parkfor the same purpose. Polygon asked if — and how — these larger conversations shaped how the team approached creatingFionna and Cake.

There was a discussion about the portrayal of characters amongst Adventure TimeTeam too. “Marceline didn’t change too much from her look in the latter episodes of the series since Vampires are ageless,” Muto told Polygon. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t consider her a Black character during Adventure Time’s original run. “This is years back now but I remember talking about it internally now and then. The actor playing Marceline, Olivia Olson, is multiracial so when discussions came up about depicting her human side in season 7, it seemed like a natural choice,” he said.

Polygon asked if — and how — these larger conversations shaped how the team approached creatingFionna and CakeDonald Glover portrays Marshall Lee.

“We have looked at the voice cast over time and looked at ways to get representation that better reflects the world we live in. A writer on the show, Kate Tsang, has worked in casting before so she was able to offer advice on how to write character descriptions to get more specificity, and breadth, in some of the casting calls,” he said.

The change from Marshall Lee to Marshall Lee is welcomed on the surface. TikTok has seen a surge of fans who have shared edits to celebrate Marshall Lee’s budding relationship with Gary Prince and to honor Marshall Lee. Muto appeared to be encouraged by the positive response. He had received no criticisms about the original design.

“I don’t remember getting any network notes along those lines. When it came to depiction we stopped and thought about what would be different if a character from a fictional world was shown as a Black music in a real world. If the question is more about audience reception, animation works so far in advance, usually without preview materials, that we’re not really in a dialog with the viewers in the same [way] as some other media.”

Black vampires are often seen in the media. Twilight or AMC’s more recent adaptation ofInterview with a Vampire. Yet Marceline herself hasn’t gone through any changes that depict her with darker skin. Fionna and Cake explores alternate universes, with alternate forms of Marceline, but she’s still portrayed with light skin in each one. Fans have been filling in these cracks by creating the Marceline that they desire through cosplay and fan art.

Marshall Lee’s new design represents just one way that Adventure TimeOver the years, grew. Through the entire series, Princess Bubblegum changed from being a monarch who was too controlling to one who learned to accept others’ flaws. Fionna and CakeIt reaffirmed the commitment of its shows to tell queer stories, and explored how Princess Bubblegum, Marceline and their romance spanned several worlds. Muto says that the changes occurred naturally as both shows developed.

“A lot of them evolved over time and just felt organic. The more we became empathetic with Ice King, the less it was important to us that he chase women or get beaten. To try to push against that felt less grounded.”

How the creators of the show have handled the change neatly ties into Marceline’s story.

Marceline, a vampire immortal who never ages in the Land of Ooo. She has seen friends die, move away, and come back over the 1,000 years of her life. She witnesses dramatic periods of history like the downfall and eventual return of humanity itself, and yet she stays the same — at least, from the outside. She turns to music in these times of solitude.

Marceline performs an old song during a flashback to her early years. Written by Rebecca Sugar, the song goes, “Everything stays right where you left it / Everything stays / But it still changes / Ever so slightly, daily and nightly / In little ways, when everything stays.” Marshall Lee is just another way the show has stayed the same, but still changed, ever so slightly, for the better.