What is Life?

"What is Life?" is episode number fifteen in season one of Adventure Time.

Synopsis
Finn creates a Never-Ending Pie Throwing Robot (NEPTR) to prank Jake, but it unexpectedly comes to life! Yet when he decides to use some of the Ice King's power to further develop it, this ultimately leads to a moral dilemma for the new living machine.

Plot
While Finn is playing video games, Jake shows up with a big trash-bag and throws it at Finn, showing that the bag was full of butter. Finn wants to get back at Jake and decides to build a robot that will throw pies at Jake, who then takes a nap. The robot doesn't work and Finn throws it out, but then it comes to life when it's struck by lightning. The robot calls Finn its creator and introduces itself as NEPTR, short for Never-Ending Pie-Throwing Robot. As Finn is ready to prank Jake, he realizes that NEPTR has some technical problems, and decides to help his robot by going to the Ice Kingdom to get more lightning bolts from Ice King.

Finn and NEPTR get to the Ice Kingdom by Balloons, who are revealed to be grade-A pranksters. They sneak through Ice King's castle while he is talking to one of his penguins named Gunter and playing video games. However, they trigger Ice King's alarm and are being chased by an Ice Bull. Finn and NEPTR make it to Ice King's lightning bolt storage, but it gets destroyed by Ice King and his Ice-o-pede. As Ice King is going to strike lightning on Finn, the blast hits NEPTR and he gains his full capacity. NEPTR throws pies at the Ice-o-pede and he and Finn escape on the Balloons, but NEPTR begins acting strange, claiming to have added poison to his boysenberry pies. Ice King notices it too and follows them back to Finn's home.

When Finn gets NEPTR ready to prank Jake, NEPTR says he has a desire to capture princesses. Finn gets concerned about NEPTR's new behavior and when he opens the door, Ice King is there and kicks Finn away, then freezes him. Ice King decides to raise NEPTR as his son, revealing that Ice King's lightning blast gave NEPTR some of his personality. Ice King then takes NEPTR, along with Finn who uses his free hand to go with them, to Ice King's imagination zone, where the Ice King shows NEPTR all the beautiful princesses he can capture if he decides to be the Ice King's son, claiming to desire his alligance because he can mate with robot princesses. They go back to the real world, and Finn breaks out of his frozen imprisonment, and then fights Ice King. After a short battle, they both decide that they should let NEPTR choose who to be with. NEPTR chooses Ice King, but reveals that he only chooses Ice King to prank, and throws a pie at Ice King's face. Ice King is furious and attempts to shoot NEPTR and kill him. Finn jumps and screams "NEVER" and kicks Ice King, causing him to fall to the ground and pass out. Finn and NEPTR then leave Ice King to go prank Jake, while Ice King dreams of him and NEPTR watching the sunset, dreaming that NEPTR is his son. This suddenly causes a tear to come from Ice King as the sounds of NEPTR and Finn throw the never ending pies at Jake as he wakes up.

Major Characters

 * Finn
 * NEPTR
 * Ice King
 * Balloons
 * Gunter
 * Ice-o-pede

Minor characters

 * Jake
 * Ice Toads
 * Ice Bull
 * Video Game Girl
 * Video Game Frog
 * Snail

In Ice King's Imagination Zone

 * Bee Princess
 * Embryo Princess
 * Ghost Princess
 * Emerald Princess
 * Engagement Ring Princess
 * Jungle Princess
 * Lumpy Space Princess
 * Mini Queen
 * Muscle Princess
 * Nut Princess
 * Princess Bubblegum
 * Princess Princess Princess
 * Purple Princess
 * Space Angel Princess
 * Orange Princess
 * Turtle Princess
 * Wildberry Princess
 * Zombie Princess
 * Reptile Princess
 * Laurel Princess

Music

 * Never Ending Pie Song

Trivia

 * As a joke, when Finn is reading a book to find how to get back at Jake, the pictures and descriptions of what Finn reads are not matching.
 * This episode was originally called "Ice King and Son".
 * Gunter makes her/his first appearance in this episode.
 * The Balloons, who made their debut in "Ricardio the Heart Guy," are grade "A" pranksters.
 * This is one of the few times that Jake is absent for much of the episode.
 * While Finn is building Neptr, he sings the Never Ending Pie Song without being auto-tuned, unlike his previous singing performances which have been.
 * Despite making just a cameo appearance, this episode has the most princesses appearing than any other episode.
 * Frederator Studios released a character design image that shows most of the princesses that appear in this episode. Among them are several princesses that had not yet been shown in other episodes, including Turtle Princess, Nut Princess, Bumblebee Princess, Embryo Princess, Skeleton Princess, Purple Princess, Orange Princess, Jungle Princess, Space Angel Princess and Princess Princess Princess. All of them (with the exception of Reptile Princess and Laurel Princess) would reappear in the season two episode "Loyalty to the King."
 * Three main princesses did not appear in Ice King's Imagination Zone: Slime Princess, Hot Dog Princess and Raggedy Princess, though they did appear in "Loyalty to the King."
 * Princess Beautiful, Breakfast Princess, Toast Princess, Cotton Candy Princess, Desert Princess and Old Lady Princess don't appear either.
 * This is the first episode where nearly all princesses appear. The second is "Loyalty to the King."
 * A larger portion of Ice King's castle is revealed in this episode.
 * Ice King has a room where he keeps a surplus of lightning.
 * This is the first instance that Finn and Jake's garage is seen.
 * The Balloons appeared to have a suicidal attitude as one of them said, "Finally! We can die!" This is odd because Cartoon Network rarely displays death as humor in a kids show.
 * In this episode, Finn's cheeks are fat when he talks sometimes, and his eyebrows were shown through the episode.
 * The avatar in the video game the Ice King is playing has the same headgear and hairdo as Princess Bubblegum.
 * In this episode, Finn's nose is seen, which is a rare occurrence, as the character designers do not usually draw noses on Finn.
 * The balloons cheered "To the mesosphere, finally we can die!" This is incorrect as balloons usually pop in the stratosphere.
 * Finn was wrong when he said, "If anything, he's my son!" because he was NEPTR's creator but he was not completely related to Finn, and Ice King infused Neptr with his DNA making Ice King his real father.
 * When Finn is building NEPTR, he attaches the robot arm to the upper side. However, when Neptr comes to life, the arm is moved lower to make room for the face.
 * When Finn is reading the book for have a better idea to prank Jake, a thief girl appears, which may be a reference to Penny from the episode "City of Thieves."
 * Also while he was reading the book there is a picture of a girl playing video games. Finn reads that she is a young girl in love but the book calls her a nerd.
 * The alarms inside the Ice King's castle are 2 frog-like lionhead statues shouting "ALARM!" repeatedly.
 * When Finn is playing video games, there seems to be a 20-sided die next to the couch.
 * The title card with balloons attached to Finn is similar to the house attached with balloons from the CGI-animated Pixar film "Up".
 * In the title card, an airplane makes the title. However, no planes have been shown throughout the series.
 * The episode title might be a parody of the song "What is Love."

Censorship
''This episode was censored on Cartoon Network Australia. See Censorship of Adventure Time in Australia for more information.''