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Finn
Adventure Time character
First appearance	Adventure Time (Original Short)[1] "Slumber Party Panic" (First Episode)
Last appearance	"Come Along With Me"
Created by	Pendleton Ward
Voiced by	Zack Shada (Pen) Jeremy Shada (Finn) Jonathan Frakes (adult)
Information
Full name	Finn Mertens
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Family	Martin Mertens (Biological Father) Minerva Campbell (Biological Mother) Jake the Dog (Adoptive brother) Jermaine (Adoptive brother) Joshua (deceased adoptive father) Margaret (deceased adoptive mother) Charlie (Adoptive niece) T.V. (Adoptive nephew) Viola (Adoptive niece) Kim Kil Whan (Adoptive nephew) Jake Jr. (Adoptive niece) Bronwyn (Adoptive grandniece) Shoko (Past incarnation) Stormo (Shared DNA) Fern Murtons (Alternate self) Roselinen Mertens (Wife) Jay and Bonnie (Children in "Pillow World") Shermy (Future incarnation)

Finn Mertens (also known as Finn and Finn the Human) is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the American animated television series Adventure Time created by Pendleton Ward. He is voiced by Jeremy Shada in most appearances. The character made his debut in the original pilot, where he was named Pen and voiced by Zack Shada, Jeremy's older brother.

The character has been met with largely positive critical reception.

Biography

Finn debuted at age 12 but has aged over the course of the show. He is currently 17 as of season 10. Finn sets off on magical random quests around the Land of Ooo. He would gladly fight or beat up anything evil, but would not harm anything good or "neutral" as shown in "The Enchiridion!" when he refused to squash an innocent ant. Having a strong moral code, Finn swore that he would help anyone in need and often performs heroic feats to save the day; however,^[2] Finn's enthusiastic nature becomes more toned down as the series progresses, suggesting he is both maturing and developing as a character as he ages. As shown in "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain", Finn appears to have been abandoned in the woods during infancy. He reveals that he had made "boom boom"—a euphemism for defecation—on a large leaf, fallen on it, and lay there crying until Joshua and Margaret, Jake's parents, rescued him from the wilderness and took him in to raise him alongside Jake, who became like a brother to him. As such, Jake is also Finn's adoptive brother. In "Henchman", when Finn is asked about his parents, he says Jake told him that he came from a cabbage, in jest. In the episode "Susan Strong", Finn states that he knows nothing of his human parents or any other humans. He is one of the few characters in the series (along with Flame Princess) who ages regularly. According to the episode "The Vault", Finn has had a number of past lives. In "Red Starved" it is revealed that Finn is color blind, believing that an emerald was a ruby.

In the Season 6 opener "Escape From the Citadel", Finn has lost half of his right arm, up to his elbow, from which a flower protruded. He later regains his arm, now as a prosthetic, in the episode "Breezy", only to lose it once more in the episode "Reboot" when his grass arm transforms itself into a humanoid, sentient being. In the following episode "Two Swords", Finn gets fitted with a new robotic arm by Princess Bubblegum, to replace the missing arm. In the Season 9 finale "Three Buckets" it is revealed that this arm can transform into many different weapons.
In the series final episode, "Come Along With Me", Finn loses his robotic arm while entering GOLB's mouth, the entity biting it off and making it fall to the ground. 1000 years on the future, a pair called Shermy and Beth finds that robotic arm after it fell from a Prize Ball Guardian's feet.

Age

Finn is currently 17 years old as revealed in the season 10 episode "Seventeen". At the beginning of the series, Finn was a 12-year-old boy who is supposedly the only known human in the Land of Ooo. During the episode "Mystery Train", Finn turned 13; it has been stated that the episode first airing date (March 14) is Finn's birthday.^[3] After season 3 ended, Pendleton Ward stated in an interview that Finn was 14. Finn was 15 years old in the second half of Season 5, according to Adam Muto.^[4] In the Season 6 finale, "The Comet", Finn reveals that he has reached 16 years of age. And finally, during the episode "Seventeen", Finn turned 17 years old. This means that unlike in many other cartoons where characters stay the same age or age through time skips, in Adventure Time, time passes mostly regularly (from Seasons 1 to around 5). However, at some point, the rate time passed in the show became slower and it stopped being in real-time, as Finn is only 17 by the ending instead of 20.

Status as the last human

Until the episode "Betty", Finn was the only known human in the Land of Ooo. A common theory explaining the etymology of his name includes the French word "fin", meaning "end". Another possibility is that his name is Irish, Finn being a name of a mythological Irish hero, whose name is derived from "fionn", the Irish language word for blond; Finn the Human is blond as well.

The cause for him being the last human is alluded to by Finn and many other characters as "The Great Mushroom War", which was a nuclear war that wiped out the majority of humanity. Up until the character "Susan Strong" is introduced, Finn believes that he has never met another human. When Finn encounters Susan Strong, the other members of Susan's tribe of "Hyoomen" are revealed to be mutants, and Susan's identity as a human or mutant was left ambiguous. In the episode "Beautopia", it was hinted upon that Susan may also be human, but was not confirmed at the time.

However, in the Season Six episode, "Dark Purple", Susan's hat was taken off, revealing that she is indeed human, but with a cybernetic implant on the left side of her head, which meant she was a cyborg. The businessmen that Finn meets in the "Business Time" episode were once human, though they had mutated over time. In the episode "Her Parents", Lady Rainicorn's parents (Bob and Ethel) attempt to eat Finn because they thought they would never get the chance to eat one, as they believed humans were extinct. Finn's female counterpart Fionna the Human is a human living in the Land of Aaa, though it has no official name; however, she does not actually exist. Fiona exists only in a fictuitous parallel universe conceived by the Ice King, when he wrote a fan fiction based upon his life and experiences with Finn and Jake. There are many other characters in the show that appear to be human but have been confirmed to be humanoids or mutants. In the episode Be More, the character Moseph "Moe" Mastro Giovanni, who is the creator of BMO, was once a human, but to ensure his immortality, he has replaced most of his body parts (except the skin) with artificial ones, which makes him virtually a cyborg. In the episode "Betty," Betty Grof (known as Simon Petrikov's former fiancee) was brought from the past into Ooo, and later in "Escape From the Citadel" Finn's father, Martin, is introduced, making Finn no longer the last human.

However, during the Season Six finale event, two episodes and their events bring a return to Finn's status as the last human on Ooo. In "You Forgot Your Floaties", Betty Grof becomes Magic Man's apprentice and in return for helping Magic Man, he promised her a cure for her fiance. Things go awry and at the end of the episode, where Betty takes Magic Man's hat, thus becoming a wizard and losing her status as a human. Additionally, in the season finale episode, "The Comet", after Finn learns of his past and declines an offer to become a higher being, his father, Martin, takes the offer and ascends to another level of being, likely bringing an end to his human form. In the episode, "Preboot", it was revealed there are other humans outside of Ooo, then at the end of "Reboot", Finn destroyed Susan's cybernetic implant, making her fully human in the process.

During the miniseries "Islands", Finn being the last human was completely dispelled. It was revealed that around one thousand years after the Great Mushroom War, a group of surviving humans left Ooo and moved to a chain of islands. After many generations there are still humans there. Finn's mother, named Minerva, is on Founder's Island, one of the islands, and was a medic in service to her society. She uploaded her mind to a network of robots after the island was ravaged by an illness. In addition to meeting his biological mother, Finn met many other humans. Although Finn hopes that the humans of the archipelago may venture out of the islands and back to Ooo one day, they have thus far largely refused to emigrate. However, in the episode "Come Along With Me", it's shown how those humans return to the land of Ooo in several ships, along with a screen that presents Minerva.

Physical appearance

Finn is a 5-foot tall teenage human. He has blond hair, of which the length differs due to occasional haircuts. His eyes and eyebrows appear black from a distance, but according to lead character designer Andy Ristaino, they are blue. Although, originally dots, his eyes are ovals by Season 7. He wears a white bear hat, short blue pants, and a light blue T-shirt. He also has a green backpack, black shoes, and socks rolled down to his ankles. Finn has peach color skin.
Finn is a teenage boy who is average height and weight. His arms and legs are very thin, but he has a wide torso. He is missing several teeth because they often face monsters that hit him in the face, also he often bites rocks and other hard objects. These teeth are sometimes round or pointed and constantly changing place, depending on the occasion. In the episode "The Enchiridion!" it can be seen for a moment that his left eye is green while his right eye is blue as if he has heterochromia. However, Andy Ristaino confirmed that this was a "special occasion" and that in fact, both eyes are light blue, which is not visible to the naked eye. He also points out in that episode that Finn had a small round nose but this is considered more of an error or humorous scene.

In "Escape from the Citadel", Finn had lost a right arm after it was pulled off after an attempt to reach his father, which was then coated by the blood of a Citadel Guardian that made it grow into a small flower. He later got his arm back in the episode, "Breezy," where the flower stub matured into a tree and broke away like a cocoon, revealing a new limb. In the seventh season finale, "Reboot", Finn lost it once more when his grass arm tries to attack a savage Susan and transforms into a sentient grass being called Fern the Human. Starting with the eighth season premiere, "Two Swords", Finn has been fitted with a new robotic arm by Princess Bubblegum, who fastened it in his amputated part since his old arm was no longer part of his body.

According to Jake, Finn is about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall. This is revealed in the episode "Dungeon Train", in the second half of the fifth season. In the 23rd episode of the sixth season, The Pajama War, it is seen that he has grown considerably, being almost as tall as Princess Bubblegum, who, biologically, is many years older than Finn. In "Elements, Part Five: Slime Central" Finn states that his shoe size is size 10.

Costuming

Finn typically wears a Munsell blue T-shirt, short blue pants, a two-toned lime green circular backpack, rolled-down white socks, and a pair of black shoes. Finn's most prominent attire is a white hat with two "ears" sticking out on top that covers his entire head minus his face. The hat is inspired by a character called Bueno, a bear from a Pendleton Ward comics. Finn can occasionally be seen in variations of his standard outfit. In "Ocean of Fear," his footwear appears to be black booties with white cuffs. In "It Came from the Nightosphere", Finn has a small pocket sewn onto his shirt that he carries Jake in. This appears again in "Davey" where he uses it to hide Jake while Finn steals the keys from the guards as he breaks the former out of jail. During "In Your Footsteps," the Bear wears Finn's clothes, which suggests that Finn has multiple sets of the same outfit, including his hat. However, in "Little Dude," when Finn's hat comes to life and is set free, Jake tells Finn that they should go skin an evil bear, which implies that Finn only had one hat.

Aside from his normal outfit, Finn can be seen wearing a cream-yellow sweater in colder areas such as the Ice Kingdom but currently wears his pink sweater made by Princess Bubblegum. In "Holly Jolly Secrets Part II," he wears a dark blue sweater with Christmas decorations on it and a green scarf. Finn also wears white briefs that make their first appearance in "City of Thieves". In "Who Would Win," he was shown to wear a different pair with red elastic. Finn sleeps in red footed pajamas that appear in many episodes, but in the animated short, he sleeps in a red sleeping bag in his regular clothes. In the series, the sleeping bag is beige.

References

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Adventure Time.

• 
  McDonnell, Chris (2014). Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-1-4197-0450-5.