Princess Bubblegum

Princess Bubblegum (full name Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, often called PB and on occasion Peebles, P-Bubs, or other nicknames) is a main character on the series Adventure Time that first appeared in the Animated Short. She is the benevolent ruler of the Candy Kingdom, and is Finn's former love interest. She is also Ice King's most often-targeted princess. Marceline is the only person known to call her by her first name, Bonnibel, or Bonnie for short. At the end of "Mortal Recoil," she was transformed into a 13-year-old, but returned to her normal biological age of 18 years at the end of "Too Young." She has a gender-swapped character named Prince Gumball created by the Ice King in his fan-fiction.

Biography
Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum is the beloved ruler of the Candy Kingdom. Though not much is said about her past, there are some allusions to her relatives (e.g. Uncle Gumbald, mentioned in "Susan Strong"). It is implied that Finn has saved Princess Bubblegum many times, though she winds up saving him in the episodes "Dungeon" and "Lady & Peebles." It also seems that she has had previous run-ins with Marceline, the vampire queen. In the past she created Lemongrab (the first one of her experiments gone wrong), then sent him away to live a sheltered life inside his own castle. Princess Bubblegum also performs other science experiments which vary from very successful to catastrophic.

In the second season's two-part finale, "Mortal Folly" and "Mortal Recoil," she sends Finn and Jake on a quest to stop the Lich from killing everyone in the Land of Ooo. She gives Finn the Gauntlet of the Hero Billy, as it is the only known weapon that can harm the Lich, and a sweater she made herself. The Ice King captures Princess Bubblegum and chases after Finn and Jake to get their blessing to marry her, but he accidentally drops the princess into a pit of green liquid. She is soon melted into a pile of pink-brown candy goo, and is rushed to the hospital.

It is soon revealed that the spirit of the Lich has possessed the princess and eventually warps her into a giant monster that nearly tears apart the Candy Kingdom. Finn enlists the power of Ice King to immobilize her with a very freezing ice. Unfortunately, the frozen princess topples over and shatters to pieces. The doctors reassemble her but lack all the necessary pieces to put her back together, reducing her age to 13 (the same age as Finn at the time). According to Adam Muto, her body was composed of only enough reclaimed biomass to be an adolescent, and therefore she turned into one.

As a 13-year-old, Princess Bubblegum is technically younger than the Earl of Lemongrab and he claims his right to the throne until she turns 18 again. After failed attempts of pranking the Earl until he leaves, Princess Bubblegum is forced to restore herself to her 18-year-old form with the contribution of biomass (candy) from the Candy People and a hug (and kiss) from Finn. After reverting to her proper age and size in "Too Young," she jokingly acts as if the events that happened earlier that same day (while she was 13) actually happened five years ago.

In "Burning Low," Princess Bubblegum reveals that Flame Princess is physically unstable, and she prevents Flame Princess's Elemental Matrix from causing the end of the world: she guides Jake to block the hole resulting from the kiss between Finn and Flame Princess, thus cutting off Flame Princess's oxygen supply and stopping the reaction (and nearly suffocating her along with Finn, who had jumped down after her).

During the events of "Lady & Peebles," Princess Bubblegum and Lady Rainicorn track the missing Finn and Jake into an uncharted ice cave, with the belief that Ice King has captured them. After surviving dangerous encounters within the dungeon's environment, it is revealed that Ricardio set up the situation to lure Bubblegum into the cave and force her to marry him, tying Lady Rainicorn into a knot and having already poisoned Finn and Jake with Zanoits. Princess Bubblegum challenges him to a fist fight and defeats him by ripping his newly attached limbs away at their exposed sinews. She then drags Finn, Jake and Ice King back to the Candy Kingdom on Lady's back, creating a new heart for Ice King out of "Ricardio's sinews, toffee and maracas." She is also the first person to learn of Lady Rainicorn's pregnancy.

Princess Bubblegum patches up her rocky relationship with Lemongrab in "You Made Me" by making him a Lemongrab clone, so he will have a friend who truly understands him. At the end of the episode, the princess bids them a fond farewell and they both invite her to visit anytime, indicating that the three of them are on good terms. In "All Your Fault" however, she sends Finn and Jake on a mission because the Lemongrab clones have run out of food. Finn and Jake, upon arriving, find out that the Lemongrabs have been using food to create candy people, because Princess Bubblegum accidently left the recipe for making candy people there. Luckily, after the monsterous lemon person they created turned himself into food after almost destroying the Candy Kingdom, Princess Bubblegum erased the candy person recipe from their minds.

In the Season 4 finale, she is the first person to realize that Billy is possessed by The Lich.

Personality and traits
Princess Bubblegum loves (most of) her subjects and has been known to defend them tirelessly when trouble brews. In "Princess Cookie," her dedication to her Kingdom is shown when she visits a Candy Orphanage and spends some time cheering up the children.

Princess Bubblegum has a strong sense of morality and participates in politics outside the Candy Kingdom. She is very noble and intelligent, perhaps the most intelligent being in the Candy Kingdom.

Princess Bubblegum is a highly cultured and educated ruler with an undying passion for science. In "Slumber Party Panic," she attempts to revive the dead Candy People, accidentally creating a horde of zombie Candy People instead. In her dedication, she sometimes drives herself to exhaustion with her experiments such as the perfect sandwich in "Five Short Graybles" and the eponymous character in "Goliad."

Though ordinarily sweet and good-natured, Princess Bubblegum shows a malicious aspect of her personality whenever she is crossed, as toward the Duke of Nuts for eating all of the royal pudding and supposedly ruining her appearance. Even with her kind disposition, her moral code is not as strict as Finn's. She sometimes says morbid or inappropriate things, such as when Finn picks up a paralysis poison in "The Other Tarts," she says, "That's paralyzing potion, Finn! Don't touch it, or it'll paralyze you forever!" and then giggles. Many darker things are briefly shown in several episodes such as skeletons cuffed to the walls in hidden chambers as shown in "Ricardio the Heart Guy."

Also, in "What Have You Done?," she displays a non-hesitant willingness to torture Ice King after he infects the Candy Kingdom with a Freezer Burn flu (in an attempt to woo the Princess) and refuses to assist her in curing them by screaming voluntarily. However, in this case, she does understand what she was attempting to do was wrong, and cries in stress and guilt when Finn exposes this. In "The Lich ," she is shown randomly cutting the limbs off of tiny round creatures with scissors and reattaching them in different places when Finn sneaks in, although the creatures show no pain and seem perfectly happy to be reconfigured.

When she is 13 years old in "Too Young," she exhibits a playful attitude and a willingness to perform pranks with Finn. Just before Princess Bubblegum is returned to her normal age she mentions that she enjoyed temporarily being 13 because she was free from the responsibilities that came with being ruler of the Candy Kingdom and that she could act like a kid again. In Princess Bubblegum's own words, being thirteen was "bloobalooby," while being 18 was "plop-dumps and waggle-sags."

Princess Bubblegum acts noticeably more childlike when she is not in her role as the princess. She dresses and talks more casually when she isn't busy with her work, as seen in "Video Makers" and "What Was Missing." As a princess, she is prim, poised, and straight-laced, but is quite capable of loosening up and dressing/acting like a regular teenager with her friends.

She regularly organizes and attends events and showpieces such as scientific conferences, parties, and talent shows.

After the events in "Mortal Recoil," Princess Bubblegum is afraid of her own mortality, and since then, she has been more of a "mysterious" character. She worries what would become of the Candy Kingdom should she die, as pointed out in the episode "Goliad." She considers the possibility of living forever is not scientifically possible yet so she creates an heir in the form of Goliad.

Princess Bubblegum is also very confident in herself and science, as shown in the episode "Lady & Peebles" when Lady Rainicorn is discussing the dangers. Princess Bubblegum believes that she cannot lose as long as she has science on her side.

Abilities
Aside from her scientific prowess, she has many abilities and talents. She has spoken German in "What Have You Done?," "Go With Me," and "Slumber Party Panic," and is capable of understanding Lady Rainicorn, who speaks Korean, suggesting she knows the language. In "What Was Missing" she manages to successfully play BMO as a high-tech instrument, and in "Dream of Love," she combined her scientific abilities with her musical talents at her concert. There is a possibility she may be a good whistler as she was shown practicing for a Whistling Choir Death Match Championship, even though in the scene where you saw and heard her practicing her whistling was no more than unimpressive and off-tune. She is also an ambidextrous writer as she wrote with her left hand in "Slumber Party Panic," "Goliad," and "What Was Missing" and her right hand in "Five Short Graybles," "Burning Low," and "The Lich."

Princess Bubblegum's scientific aptitude is shown in "Slumber Party Panic" where she concocts a potion to reanimate dead Candy People and "Five Short Graybles" when she creates the "most perfect sandwich" that has ever existed. She also created Lemongrab, Goliad, and Stormo in her lab.

In "Lady & Peebles," she shows her capabilities in fighting when she fought in hand-to-hand combat with Ricardio. She also demonstrated her strength when she carried an injured Lady Rainicorn, as well as healing and rescuing Finn, Jake, and the Ice King when she brought them to the Candy Kingdom.

Her crown and matching earrings are capable of blocking the wearer's mind from the Lich's influence, as she reveals in "Mortal Folly." The gem of power is also used for the Enchiridion (book) in "The Lich."

Curiously, Princess Bubblegum seems to age differently than other candy people seen in the show. In "Princess Cookie " she is seen in a flashback visiting an orphanage for candy children. She appears to be the same age as she is now, while Baby Snaps (one of the orphans) had physically aged since then. Also, in the promo art for "Burning Low," Flame Princess appears to be very young, about 5 years old, while Princess Bubblegum is standing next to her lamp but still has the same appearance of being 18. It seems that more candy biomass given or taken away can change her age, seen in "Too Young."

Appearance
Princess Bubblegum dresses as a traditional princess in a puffy-sleeved flowing pink gown with pink trim at the sleeves, purple trim at the scoop-neck collar, a purple sash, and a golden tiara with a turquoise gem at the top. Her skin is usually colored light pink. She has long pink bubblegum hair which covers her ears and is actually made of bubblegum, as shown in "To Cut a Woman's Hair" when Finn gives the Tree Witch the piece of it. She has fifteen outfits in the show besides her regular dress. In "Trouble in Lumpy Space" she wears a white gown with purple sleeves and pink ruffles with purple flats.

In "The Other Tarts" she wears a ball gown that resembles a tart while the gown covers her feet with a pink underdress. In "The Real You" she wears in the beginning a yellow T-shirt with a red rainicorn on it with white shorts and knee high white socks with pink sneakers. She wears a science suit in the same episode. In "Death in Bloom" she wears a wavy fuchsia and magenta dress and in that episode, after eating the Princess Plant her hairstyle becomes a shorter bob. In "Susan Strong" she wears a light blue tutu and dress with a light pink sweater with flats and in that episode a dress with blue, turquoise, and light blue shading.

In "Go With Me" she wore a blue dress with it going to her shoulders and the fact that in "What Was Missing" when she said that she wears a shirt gave to her by Marceline even though for pajamas she wore a yellow and pink polka dot night gown. In "Video Makers," she wore a pink sweater and purple jeans and when she was filmed she wore a white gladiator dress. In "Mortal Folly," she wears a purple and pink meditating outfit. In "Wizard Battle," she wore a Purple dress with a very puffy and pink collar and magenta shoes. In "What Was Missing," she wears a light purple sweater with a pink dress with knee high boots the same color as her jacket.

In "The Creeps" she wears a mask that looks like a swan with a pink dress and matching high heels with a long pearl necklace. In "Goliad" she wears polka dotted pajamas which also contradicts the fact in "What Was Missing" that she wears a shirt from Marceline as pajamas. In "Burning Low" she wears a short pink dress with purple ruffles with high heels and a long magenta dress during the end. In "Lady & Peebles" she wears a fuchsia coat and boots for most of the episode to see she is wearing a purple suit. In "You Made Me" she wears a pink shirt with purple pants and flats and in "Reign of Gunters" she wears a gypsy dress with large yellow earrings and purple shoes.

As a thirteen-year-old, in "Too Young," Princess Bubblegum wears a pink V-neck dotted with white top with puffed sleeves, a ballgown bottom with a big, purple ribbon around her waist, and no shoes. Her hair is shorter and curls at the bottom. When she turns back to eighteen, her outfit also changes back to her original one, and her hair grows back to its original length. In "Burning Low," she wears a high-knee pink dress with a purple collar, purple short heels and a light-pink purse.

She has had many different hairstyles, as seen in  "You Made Me," "Reign of Gunters," and "What was Missing."

Quotes
​See Princess Bubblegum/Quotes

Major appearances

 * Animated Short
 * "Slumber Party Panic"
 * "The Enchiridion!"
 * "Ricardio the Heart Guy"
 * "The Duke"
 * "What Have You Done?"
 * "The Other Tarts"
 * "The Real You"
 * "Go With Me"
 * "Mortal Folly"
 * "Mortal Recoil"
 * "Too Young"
 * "Wizard Battle"
 * "What Was Missing"
 * "The Creeps"
 * "From Bad to Worse"
 * "Five Short Graybles"
 * "Goliad"
 * "Princess Cookie"
 * "Burning Low"
 * "Lady & Peebles"
 * "You Made Me"
 * "Reign of Gunters"
 * "The Lich"
 * "All Your Fault"

Minor appearances

 * "Trouble in Lumpy Space"
 * "What is Life?"
 * "Dungeon"
 * "Power Animal"
 * "To Cut a Woman's Hair"
 * "Death in Bloom"
 * "Susan Strong"
 * "Video Makers"
 * "No One Can Hear You"
 * "Holly Jolly Secrets Part I"
 * "Holly Jolly Secrets Part II"
 * "Incendium"
 * "Dream of Love"
 * "In Your Footsteps"
 * "Hug Wolf"
 * "Princess Monster Wife"
 * "King Worm"
 * "Jake The Dog"
 * "All the Little People"
 * "The Great Bird Man"

Mentioned

 * "Business Time"
 * "Still"
 * "Apple Thief"
 * "Marceline's Closet"
 * "Hot to the Touch"
 * "Gotcha!"
 * "I Remember You"

Trivia

 * On the Cartoon Network official website (in 2010), Jake referred to her as "a horrible mutant mix of bubblegum and human DNA." When he brought up Finn's crush on her, Finn replied "it's just 'cause of the radiation."
 * Her original name was Bettie, but Pendleton Ward changed it to Bonnibel because Bettie is his mother's name.
 * Princess Bubblegum loves pink, as stated in "The Real You."
 * In "To Cut a Woman's Hair," she reveals that she loves spaghetti. She has since been seen eating it in multiple episodes.
 * As seen in "Mortal Folly," "The Creeps," and "Reign of Gunters," Princess Bubblegum wears earrings but does not appear to have ears.  However, in "All the Little People," little Princess Bubblegum is shown with ears.
 * Princess Bubblegum's gender-swapped character is Prince Gumball.
 * Princess Bubblegum has a bio suit in Project Exonaut.
 * In the Animated Short, the gem in her crown is magenta, but in the series it is turquoise.
 * In "Video Makers" and "Mortal Folly," she consumes other Candy People. According to Adam Muto, this is to replace lost candy biomass.
 * In the episode "Susan Strong," there is a portrait of Princess Bubblegum and an old woman in the top left corner of her room. In the same episode she mentions a great uncle Gumbald.
 * She makes a cameo appearance in "Hug Wolf" in the background of the Candy Kingdom chasing after a black or dark gray cat. She was wearing the same clothes as in "The Real You."
 * In the German dub of Adventure Time, Princess Bubblegum speaks German and Turkish.
 * Princess Bubblegum has a bird called Morrow.
 * In the Facebook game, Pet Society, there is a costume of Bonnibel.

Names in other languages

 * Her Spanish name is Princesa Chicle, which translates to Princess Bubblegum.
 * Her Latin American Spanish name is Dulce Princesa, which translates to Sweet Princess.
 * Her Brazilian Portuguese name is Princesa Jujuba, which translates to Princess Jellybean.
 * Her French name is Princesse Chewing Gum, which translates to Princess Chewing Gum.
 * Her Dutch name is Prinses Bubbelien, which does not have a direct meaning. Her name is a mixture of the word bubblegum and the feminine suffix -ien. An English variation of this name would be Princess Bubbeline or Princess Bubbleleen.
 * Her Italian name is Principessa Gommarosa, which translates to Princess Pink Bubblegum or Princess Pink Chewingum.
 * Her Norwegian name is Prinsesse Sukkersøt, which translates to Princess Sugarsweet or Princess Sweetened.
 * Her Arabian name is اميرة العلكه (Amiratul 3elka), which translates to Princess Gum or Princess Bubblegum.
 * Her Swedish name is Prinsessan Tuggummi, which translates to Princess Chewing Gum.
 * Her Polish name is Królewna Balonowa, which translates directly to Princess Balloon, but her name is short for "guma balonowa" which is Polish for "bubble gum."
 * Her Danish name is Prinsesse Sukkermås, which translates to Princess Sugarbottom or Princess Sugarmay.
 * Her Turkish name is Şeker Prensesi, which translates to Princess Sugar.
 * Her Romanian name is Prinţesa Gumiţă, which translates to Princess Bubblegum (gumă - bubblegum, iţă - diminutive suffix).
 * Her Finnish name is Prinsessa Purkkapallo which translates to Princess Gumball.
 * Her Persian name is شاهدخت ادامس which translates to Princess Gum.

Appearance in other media

 * There is a licensed Halloween costume of Princess Bubblegum.
 * She is mentioned as Bubblegum Princess in MAD's Avenger Time.
 * In the popular Facebook game called "Pet Society," there is a Princess Bubblegum costume.