The Tragedy of Simon Petrtikov and Betty Grof

For those who care, this contains spoilers for Adventure Time and Fionna and Cake. For those who don't care, enjoy or don't. 

Simon and Betty are soulmates who were never meant to be. They were fiancés, and never got to be more than that. In his Ice King state, Simon was obsessed with marrying princesses because Betty was his princess and the woman he wanted to marry. She left him after he tried on the crown for the first time. Or so he thought. When Ice King lost his magic and reverted back to Simon, he made a portal to ask Betty where she went. She took this opportunity to jump into the portal to reunite with him. Betty's "disappearance" was just her making an impulsive decision to travel to the future to be with Simon. However, this simple act backfired on both of them. The disappearance of past Betty is what caused Simon's spiral into insanity. He kept the crown, which allowed him to survive the nuclear war that came a few years later, but he lost what was most important to him. He spent centuries looking for his princess, and once he finally got her, he needed his magic. Without the crown, he would die. But, he lost his memories of himself and Betty.

 This is what caused Betty to feel the need to "fix" Simon. She saw that Simon was a shell of himself as Ice King and made it her mission to save him. However, she lost herself in this fruitless endeavor. She couldn't fix the crown and she went insane trying to save him. She couldn't accept that Simon was stuck as the Ice King. When she became Magic Woman, Betty used illusions to make him remember her and their past. But, it didn't work and Betty went to the extreme. In "Elements," she tried to use the Enchiridion to reset the crown. She briefly fought with herself on whether or not she was doing the right thing, but ultimately settled on going through with this plan. In the end, she couldn't save him by destroying the crown, but she did so by using it. There was no way they could be happy together, but she made sure that Simon would be protected and that he wouldn't be a prisoner in his own mind anymore. With her wish, she became a goddess of chaos and was able to stop Simon from being Ice King, but they could never see each other again. 

Simon, finally himself again, couldn't accept this fate. He waited so long to see Betty again and be with her, she eluded him once again. He fell into a deep depression and couldn't let her go. This leads us to the events of Fionna and Cake. Simon somehow acquired magical items such as the Enchiridion and captured evil Choose Goose. He used the magical energy to perform a ritual that would take him to Golb, or more accurately, Golbetty. Simon, like Betty in the original series, was searching for a way to "fix" her and bring Betty back to him. However, he ended up summoning Fionna and Cake. Throughout this series, Simon is battling his feelings on Betty and his place in the world. Fionna is a direct parallel to him (I'll write a blog on this later). Simon is so lost and deep in his despair that he decides to become Ice King again. He figured that if he cannot be happy as himself, he'll be happier as Ice King. As the series progresses, we get insight into his relationship with Betty and how he saw it. Eventually, he makes it to Golbetty after he tries to put the crown back on. It is this reunion that we see what their relationship looked like on Betty's side. 

In the last two episodes of Fionna and Cake, we realize that Betty sacrificed her entire life for Simon. Everything she did, she did for him. Betty let him take credit for finding the Enchiridion, she forwent her trip to Australia twice, and just did what she thought Simon wanted her to do. Her ultimate sacrifice being becoming Golb. This wasn't Simon's fault though. He loved her, but was blind to the sacrifices she was making. He wanted to give her everything he could, not realizing that all she wanted was him. In their final conversation, Simon goes on the bus with her, like he wished he had, but he knew that there was no changing the past. Betty knows that he is remorseful and reassures him that she was still happy with what they had. "We made our choices, we could've made better ones, but I have no regrets." She moves on and Simon finally accepts that she is gone and decides to live his life. 

It's sad that they never got their happy ending, but, in the end, this was best for everyone. Simon finding the crown allowed him to survive the nuclear war and meet Marceline. Marceline being protected by Simon, and then her father (who Simon summoned) later on, led her to eradicating the vampires and saving the humans. The humans were able to settle on an island, and Finn was born. If Simon had gone with Betty, he never would have found the crown and Adventure Time wouldn't have happened.