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This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
When Gravity Falls and Earth become sky, beware the beast with just one eye.
What is the work?[]
Gravity Falls does not need much introduction. Released in 2012 on the Disney Channel, despite its short run of two seasons, Gravity Falls smashed several ratings for Disney XD, received several awards and recognition, and kind of inspired several future cartoons with story-driven plots like Amphibia and The Owl House to name a few.
Gravity Falls features fraternal twins Dipper and Mabel Pines who go to Gravity Falls, Oregon, to spend vacation with their "Grunkle" Stan. While there, Dipper discovers a journal belonging to a mysterious author who catalogued much of the weirdness and oddities that happen in Gravity Falls. The first season establishes the characters and the mystery with the second season expounding on it. And of those mysteries is one in particular. A certain... triangle dream demon if you will.
Who is Bill Cipher? What has he done?[]
Bill Cipher. Vinegar Pete. William Lucipher. Or whatever alias because knowing his real name would probably melt your brain. Bill is the main antagonist of the series, the archenemy of the Pines family, and probably one of the most iconic villains of the 2010s.
Trillions of years ago, Bill was born in the Second Dimension where he hated the limitations it had. So... one day when he was trying to introduce the Third Dimension into his... it caused a horrific incident that killed everyone in the realm aside from Bill. After that, Bill would leave that dimension and ends up finding himself in the Nightmare Realm where he would lead a group of monsters known as the Henchmaniacs. From there, Bill would build himself up as the most feared being of the Nightmare Realm. In his own admission, he freed mental patients from asylums; crashed two planets together to make them "kiss"; unleashed a Nightmare Realm Prom that killed a lot of people. The list of atrocities went up around the same time as his bounty. Oh, and apparently he woke up to find that he was the ruler of another dynasty.
However, the Nightmare Realm had its problems; for one, the laws of physics was making the realm slowly decay. In due time, it would be nothing more. So, as a solution, Bill set his eye on the Earth seeing that existed in a spot between dimensions so was compatible. From there, Bill would try numerous schemes and make several deals. Bill would wait until mankind developed more. His first encounter was with a Native American tribe and "befriended" the Shaman and nearly gets him to make a portal machine out of redwood trees. However, the Sham gets a vision and destroys the portal and evacuates his people. He also gave a prophecy "Ten Cosmic Symbols, Aligned in Harmony" and gave instructions on how to defeat Bill.
The Dorito chip would go around the world: Ancient Egypt; the Dark Ages; partake in witchcraft and convincing witches to burn the city founders for funsies. We get to America where he is the one on the back of the dollar bill and... the Anti-Cipher society. To summarize: Bill ruins the lives of four people who form the Anti-Cipher Society with the goal of killing the Beast With Just One Eye. But... while a noble quest, they are considered laughingstocks. Now, to Bill's favorite victim.
Stanford Pines travels to Gravity Falls, Oregon becoming amazed by the anomalies of the town. He hits a bump in his research and, despite warnings by the Shaman, summons Bill. At first they seem to hit it off fine with Bill giving Stanford the catharsis he wanted. But... Stanford's assistant and best friend McGucket, accidentally catches a glimpse at the Nightmare Realm and goes mad. Stanford confronts Bill, and vows to put an end to it all. Bill... would horrifically psychologically torture him and even had the gall to call up Stanley "Grunkle Stan" to tell him that he was going to take a dip in a frozen lake and if he did not hear back from him, it meant he never loved him.
Eventually, Stanford closes down the portal and eventually ends up getting sucked into it during a fight with his twin brother. Bill would bide his time until his first physical appearance in "Dreamscapers" when Li'l Gideon wanted his assistance in getting the code to the safe that Grunkle Stan held the deed to the Mystery Shack. To briefly sum it up: Bill meets Dipper and Mabel and voluntarily leaves cryptically telling them that there was an event coming that would change the world as they knew it.
Okay, next is "Sock Opera." In desperation of trying to access a laptop left by the Author, Dipper makes a deal with Bill who, after all, wanted a puppet. As in Dipper's body. He vacates Dipper's soul and giddily does several things that harm Dipper's body like falling down the stairs or slamming Dipper's arm in a filing cabinet repeatedly. Even worse is that, in Journal 3, Bill decides that for a grand finale, he would make Dipper jump off the water tower and sinisterly asks Mabel if she wanted to join her brother. But, of course, Bill gets kicked out of Dipper's body because of him heavily exhausting it.
After Stanford returns to the Earth, Bill reunites with him which kickstarts "The Last Mabelcorn" where they would need unicorn hair that would prevent Bill from entering the Mystery Shack. However, Bill, being the chess player he is, chooses someone from the outside since he could not infiltrate the shack. He possesses Blendin Blandin, a time traveler, and manipulates Mabel into handing him the Interdimensional rift, a byproduct from when the interdimensional portal was opened. Bill smashes the container on the ground causing the Nightmare Realm to start merging with the Earth. He also gains a physical form.
Now I give you... Weirdmageddon.
You get the entire shebang: bubbles of pure madness. A throne of human agony made of the petrified bodies of Gravity Falls citizens who were randomly gathered. Nothing but a pure hellish dilemma. When Time Baby (the last of a race of giants) and his police force arrive, Time Baby demands for Bill to stand down saying that his actions could cause the destruction of reality itself. But Bill shows how much he cares by obliterating Time Baby and his forces (don't worry; Time Baby will be back with his particles reassembling in a thousand years. Though he'll be especially cranky by then). However, Bill's plan hits a road bump: there is a force field that is keeping him from spreading his weirdness worldwide that needs an equation. He goes to Stanford to force the answer from him by first offering him a position in his new world order, to shocking him repeatedly, and then to deciding to make Dipper and Mabel into corpses. Yeah... Disney was sleeping there when they let Bill say that he was going to make two kids into corpses.
After fighting with the heroes and imprisoning several in banners, Bill catches the twins and says he should probably kill one of them now for the heck of it. Before he could eradicate one (likely Mabel), Stanford seemingly relents and allows Bill to enter his mindscape. Except it wasn't Stanford. It was Grunkle Stan, sucka!!
On the outside, Stanford activates the Mind Eraser gun which starts destroying Stan's mindscape. Bill tries to pull out of the deal but it is too late. Far from the dreaded god-king he fancied himself as, Bill desperately falls on his knees and begs Grunkle Stan to spare him by offering him money, fame, infinite power... Stanley, however, chews him out saying that he was a real wise guy, but he made the fatal mistake of messing with his family. Bill has some weird T-9000 moment where he starts falling apart and reassembling himself while saying what at first sounds like gibberish. He angrily yells out "STANLEY!" and gets punched into oblivion by the con man. Weirdmageddon is averted, and it should be the end...
Except that gibberish? Turns out that Bill was saying a message in reverse: "A - X - O - L - O - T - L!! My time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return!!" The Axolotl is more or less the top god of the Gravity Falls universe a reference to Xolotl, a god from Aztec mythology who is curiously the god of twins and carrying the dead to the afterlife. He pleads his case saying he is too cool and fun to die while dismissing how he tried to kill the two brothers. The Axolotl, pre-knowing that Bill would say this, says that he would have to pass his program and he would be reincarnated. Bill believed that he deceived the frilly god, but the Axolotl pulls one over on him.
Bill is sent to the Theraprism outside of space where he would be there for the rest of eternity unless he could show that he felt remorse for everything he had done. The Book of Bill itself is illegal contraband Bill tried to slip to any potential human so he could get them to go to Gravity Falls and shake hands with the statue that was his physical form. He would then switch places with the poor schmuck and kickstart Weirdmageddon 2.0 and get revenge on the Pines and kill them with sharp objects and make a piñata out of their organs.
Enraged, the demonic tortilla rants on his miserable family, Grunkle Stan, his worthless Henchmaniacs declaring that he didn't need anyone else. He was fine.
Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?[]
Bill's Backstory[]
| “ | Sixty degrees that come in threes. Watches from within birch trees. Saw his own dimension burn. Misses home and can't return. Says he's happy. He's a liar. Blame the arson for the fire. If he wants to shirk the blame, he'll have to invoke my name. One way to absolve his crime. A different form. A different time. | „ |
| ~ The Axolotl from Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure!: Select Your Own Choose-Venture |
So, pretty... interesting. In the series, Bill explains to Stanford how he originally hailed from the Second Dimension (which in turn appears to be a reference to Flatland) where he grew tired of living in a "pancake of a reality" and so decided to "liberate" his world. Cue a planet burning in his eye. From that, we come to the conclusion that Bill destroyed his own dimension by burning it down. We further get some elaboration on it from the Axolotl when Dipper asks the celestial amphibian about Bill.
The Axolotl explains that Bill "saw his own dimension burn" and that he "misses home, but couldn't return." According to the all-knowing god salamander, the triangle actually did miss his world and that, strikingly, he feigns being happy to hide how much pain he is in. However... the Axolotl also notes that Bill, while he does feel sadness over what happened, he is not willing to take accountability that it was his own fault. To me, this feels a lot like an Emperor Belos situation where, much like how Belos does feel bitter about murdering Caleb, the destruction of the Second Dimension is Bill's greatest mistake, but, much like the witch hunter, Bill refuses to ever own up to his guilt and would rather double down and blame outside sources for his home's destruction.
Now comes Book of Bill. Out of the gate, Bill claims that he was actually beloved by all, so much so, the mayor made his birthday a "holiday" and gave out free knives. However, this is Bill we're talking about. For all his insistence that he was admired by everyone, we have moments like with how he went on a drunk rampage from drinking too much "I'm Fine" juice when he lost Stanford, we get a very different impression of Bill's story: from what we can conclude, Bill was actually mistreated for the mutation that caused him to see the Third Dimension and, when he wanted to show the others what he saw, he accidentally destroyed his dimension. From the book, an excerpt:
| “ | IT WAS TIME TO PUT ON A SHOW! I came up with a plan to show everyone what they were missing! I simply-███████████████their screams getting louder and louder as I████████████████████████so much blood!!! SO MUCH ████████████████████ mandibles ████████████████████ my hands shaking as I realized I could never undo th█████████████████████████ was the last one breathi████████████████pisodes of "Family Matter████████████████ until there was no one left but me, covered in blood, alone in the universe. Huh, that's weird! For some reason, whenever I try to talk about that day, there's this loud buzzing in my ears and I black out for 30 seconds. Well, we can come back to it! The important thing is, I freed myself from my suffocating world, and freed everyone else too, and everyone loved me for it, and everyone was fine! | „ |
| ~ Bill remembering the apocalyptic destruction of his world. |
Not only was this purely an accident on Bill's part, but anytime he thought back to the traumatic incident, he would hear a buzzing in his ears and black out for 30 seconds. He also keeps the last atom of the Second Dimension as a keepsake. During a conversation he and Stanford were having about the times where either wished that events in the past happened differently (Stanford having a falling out with Stanley for instance), Bill shows him the last atoms of his destroyed reality and notably is distant about it. Bill resorts to his typical "a monster destroyed my home" schtick, once more trying to deny that he did anything wrong, and joylessly laughs when Stanford offered to help him find the monster to exact vengeance.
Bill would like to paint himself as well-intentioned, but when Stanford calls him out on being insane, Bill takes the insult with stride. It is pretty clear that he only pushes that narrative because he would otherwise be tormented by the fact that he accidentally destroyed his own dimension hence why he uses insistent terminology of "liberating his dimension." And agency is no issue either: Bill knows how the human mind works, knows what hurts people the most, and takes advantage of the desires of those he makes deals with.
This would be more striking if not for the fact that when Bill recounts his story to the reader, he's more or less like "Wow. I passed out for a while... oh well, moving on!" How I stand on this... I don't think the book fully goes into the backstory to where it is mitigating. We get some snippets and breadcrumbs to work out what happened, but there is not that much focus on it to where I think it's too heavy. Bill, much like some other examples of this, can definitely feel guilt for their actions, repress them even, but ultimately, they refuse to take responsibility and would rather kill that potential remorse in pursuit of their goals.
His Punishment[]
So the second thing to go into is his fate: the Axolotl hears his prayers and, being the benevolent god he is, does offer the Dorito demon a chance at reincarnating, the catch being that he would have to go through his program in order to live again. Bill is imprisoned in a dimension outside of space called the Theraprism where several "loser-tier" villains and other intergalactic threats are sent to to be rehabilitated and can reincarnate into lesser lifeforms if they genuinely regretted their actions. Obviously, this is a fate that is probably too good for the bastard triangle: because of his refusal to take responsibility for any of his atrocities, he is likely trapped forever and his attempt at getting the reader to go to Gravity Falls to shake his hand to kickstart Weirdmageddon 2.0 is thwarted.
In the ending, Bill naturally says he learned absolutely nothing and is still as unrepentant as ever. We also get into Bill's real opinion of his family: he calls them "miserable" for trying to stunt his talents; further demonstrates his abusive tendencies for his Henchmaniacs, and insists, defiantly, that he does not need anyone, he doesn't miss any of the people he knew madly saying he's fine. The next to last page has Bill all alone in the void muttering to himself that someone would let him out. So, kind of a bit of "Cry for the Devil" where the audience can feel sympathy, maybe even pity, for Bill, but the book takes the stance that, as much of a self-inflicted hellhole it is, he deserved nothing less. This is different from someone like say All For One who tried to make himself appear to be purely evil but ultimately is just a lonely old man who wanted to see his brother's face again which clarified some already preexisting hints that he did love Yoichi in a twisted way.
Stanford Pines[]
Whew. So... anything else? Stanford Pines. Bill discovered him as a potential pawn that he goes to pretending to be a Muse. He affectionately gives him the nickname "Sixer" and the book goes into more of what their relationship was like prior to Bill's betrayal. If anything, Bill appeared to have a twisted fondness for the Author of the Three Journals while it still being blatant he is only appealing to Stanford's good side and gave him the validation he craved by telling him things he wanted to hear. Then... when shit hits the fan, Bill's interactions take a... unnerving tone. Like no dip, Bill's mannerisms are disturbingly like those of a domestic abuser. He bombards Stanford with superficial charm only to violently mind rape him when Stanford was becoming wise on what the triangular demon really wanted. While possessing Stanford, Bill has him eat spiders; slap a police officer's tum tum; even drive a nail in his hand. To further paint the notion of this being way too much like domestic abuse, Bill tries to blame him for his own actions and threatens to inflict his body with excruciating pain.
After "losing" Stanford, Bill's... in kind of a mood. He claims that he does not need him... but gets drunk on I'm Fine juice and goes on a drunken rampage. During Weirdmageddon, Bill turns him into a golden statue that he kept to himself but had no qualms shocking him in order to get the equation and tries killing the kids. Ultimately, while he does have some odd fascination with "Sixer," Bill sees him as an entertaining toy at best, but a disposable tool at worst.
His Comedy[]
Without lying, Bill is a really hilarious villain. His mannerisms are otherworldly; his sense of humor is twisted to all hell. He is literally a knock on the Eye of Providence with a top hat and bow tie. In some ways, he acts like how you'd imagine a teenager would which, apparently, he is a preteen in terms of his species. Even The Book of Bill has some of his atrocities played for dark laughs if only because it's Bill himself recounting them. But at the same time, Bill is consistently painted as a threat to all existence and come Weirdmageddon, he gets increasingly frustrated when he was not getting the equation to where he arguably drops the comedic schtick and flat out threatens to bloodedly murder two kids and his defeat is taken with gravitas especially when you compare how he is beaten to say Darlene who gets a giant boot dropped on her.
Even with The Book of Bill, the ending rips away Bill's humor to show that he is making himself miserable because he refuses redemption.
Heinous standard[]
He sets the standards. Destruction of a dimension (albeit on accident); destroying planets; trying to merge the Nightmare Realm with the Earth to throw the ultimate rave at the cost of the destruction of reality itself. Murdering Time Baby; threatening to brutally kill two children. Bill has it all and is probably the most horrifically evil of Disney Channel animated villains aside from Emperor Belos.