What is Stakes
Stakes is an 8-part miniseries from Adventure Time, an american animated cartoon aired on Cartoon Network, The miniseries began airing on November 16, 2015 and concluded Thursday, November 19.
It focuses on Marceline, The Vampire Queen, who no longer wishes to be a vampire, Princess Bubblegum seemingly concuts a cure to take away her vampire essence but at the same time, five of Marceline's most fearsome foes return from her past.
Marceline, Bubblegum, Finn, Jake, and Peppermint Butler deal with the fallout
Why it's awesome
Stakes came out when I was about 9 or 10 and it has stayed in my head rent free ever since. 9 years later and it still gets me emotional whenever I think about it .
I think it’s format as an arc with 8 episodes (all 11 mins long btw) creates such a tightly knit story which really allows Marceline's emotional journey to flourish and while Marceline technically ends up in the same position as at the start of Stakes she has fundamentally changed as a person ( this is stakes whole thesis i will talk about later.)
Storytelling with Tarot
Tarot plays a big part in analyzing stakes. All her vampiric enemies all bare the names of cards from the major arcana, highlighting their personalities and Marceline’s own personal journey when dealing with each of them (note that The Vampire King obviously does not a have a Tarot name but he does name drop 2 in the second to last episode.)
If you're anything like me then this is kinda like cocaine for the soul.
Uncivilized Elk actually has a great video on this, I might be a Tarot nerd but i fear this section is too long already so go watch an hour-long video about it instead.
Everything Stays
Stakes was worth it just for this song btw
Everything Stays is a song sang by Marceline first in episode 2 with her mom in
"Everything Stays" and then sings by herself in the last episode
"Dark Cloud"
auuuuuuuughhhh The lyrics speak for themselves ok bye go watch Aventure Time, it fucks.