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Still trying to decipher Finn’s underwater dream from BBL

We already concluded that Finn’s hat is his safe zone and every time he takes it off, he shows his true, honest human self (and exposes his vulnerability?)

So why would he run away from it in the ocean?

Maybe running away from what is…

Brainstorming a bit, so this is kinda free-form, but I think we have to keep in mind what the ocean represents as a whole, as well.  After all, Finn isn’t afraid of water, just the ocean.

The ocean is this humongous expanse, that you can stare at and not see what’s on the other side.  It makes sense that, on some deep and primal level, Finn would be afraid of the unknown.  Yes, even as an adventurer, who thrives on exploration.  There are two aspects to the unknown: the things we want to know, and the things we’re afraid of knowing, or that may be unknowable in their entirety.  Coupled with water’s generally spiritual connotation, it’s a fear of the inner unknown - of his faults which this season have bordered on self-destructive.

It can also be fear of the vastness of the world outside of himself.  Like the Jordan, Lord of the Fairies said in this episode, he’s like “a tiny blade of grass in a maelstrom.”  It’s pretty natural for human beings to separate themselves from the world around them psychologically for any number of reasons, and we already know that Finn has a tendency to become existentially introspective, such as his becoming soul-searchy in “Susan Strong” and his silent contemplation in “Gotcha!”  And Finn lives in a world of multiple worlds, of many dimensions of death and space and concepts.  There’s so much out there, and while part of it is exhilarating to him, part of it may also be inherently terrifying to him as well.  His adventurous nature might even be the reason he’s aware of this at all.

Finn’s hat as his comfort zone - the Finn that goes on adventures, the Finn that is a hero - and the whale as an agent of change seem extremely viable as interpretive elements here, especially in regards to water’s other symbolic role as a cleansing agent, washing away a previous self, so to speak.

In the dream, there’s also massive variations in the relative size of objects, which again lend to a fear of that which is conceptually bigger than himself.  And everything in his dream is much larger than he is in a literal sense: the ocean, his hat, the whale, the destroyed buildings and sunken ships.

“Even heroes have slumps,” and Finn’s definitely been in one, and seems to realize it.  Finn’s hat may represent his comfort zone, but we also deeply associate it with Finn, as it’s part of his design and iconography; his own moral code, his own heroism, feels distant, and disassociated from them those traits become another part of that vast not-Finn of which he is afraid.  Finn the Hero as compared to Finn the Human.

When Finn surfaces and his hat does as well, it takes on a form made of the ocean itself, enforcing a lot of the dream’s earlier symbolism.  Finn struggles until the whale - the agent of change - jumps out of his hat.

And it’s for Billy - for the hero he admired while possibly feeling he could never live up to him, for everything he thinks being a hero is and should be - that he stops struggling and accepts being eaten, accepts change and metaphorical cleansing.  So, he is facing his fears, but not just his literal fears of the ocean.

Or something like that, I dunno.  Obviously it’s all up to interpretation.  But no matter what any of it actually “means,” the symbolic elements are definitely there.

EDIT: There’s also that whole “swimming out of a cave” thing - moving from a place of darkness to a place of light and such. (Note that the cave ends up being his hat.)  Also, he’s swimming out of himself, in a way, so more disassociation there.

4 years agoMarch 20, 2014 Reblog