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Broken Base / Gravity Falls

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While Gravity Falls is a well loved show, there are some parts of it that fans feel divisive about.


Examples:

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    General 
  • At the end of "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", fans became divided over who among the protagonists is at fault for the rift breaking (figuratively and literally): Is Ford liable when he insisted in not communicating the danger to anyone but Dipper, and not applying the adhesive immediately to the Rift? Is Dipper responsible for not talking with Mabel and getting her input before making a life-changing decision that would obviously impact her too? Or is Mabel accountable for getting mad at Dipper for exercising his right to decide his own future, and for trying to freeze Gravity Falls in time so she wouldn't have to deal with her problems? Even Stan has been brought into the debate, since he's the one who indirectly created the Rift in the first place.
  • After "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", some fans see Dipper and Mabel's relationship previous to Ford's arrival as the ideal sibling relationship that they should be trying to return to, and see Ford's offer for Dipper to live with him separately from Mabel as a horrible thing (since their refreshing, loving, non-squabbling sibling team-up is one of the things that drew people into the show). Others interpret Ford's offer as him trying to provide a way for Dipper to grow out of the pattern of unhealthy co-dependence and identity issues that being a twin has given both him and his sister—something Stan and Ford didn't manage to do peacefully, hence their awful relationship as adults.
  • The resolution of the Bill Cipher Zodiac mystery in the Grand Finale is controversial. It turns out it was an ancestral ritual to vanquish Bill but ends up being a Red Herring since Stan and Ford end up fighting in the middle of it and ruin the ritual, so they have to defeat him by another means. Depending on the fan, this was a huge cop out that made one of the most popular sources of Wild Mass Guessing in the series completely pointless or is a brilliant subvertion of expectations and think the actual climax of the series fits more with the show than everything getting resolved by a mere Circle of Friendship.
  • By far, the biggest source of Broken Base in the fanbase is Stanley quickly recovering his memories after his Heroic Sacrifice in the Grand Finale. Half of the fanbase sees it as a cheap Ass Pull that was rushed into the narrative to give Stanley a happy ending and felt that Stanley losing his memories for real would have being much more powerful, while the other half are fine with it, thinking the alternative would be too depressing and wouldn't fit with the tone of the ending (not to mention, for all of his edginess Gravity Falls is still a Disney cartoon) and are glad that Stanley earned his happy ending after everything he has being through.
  • The comic "Don't Dimension It" from Gravity Falls: Lost Legends focusing on Mabel's actions that lead to Weirdmageddon has split fans. A good portion of the fanbase was very happy with the comic and argue that it was a nice addition to canon, while others think it didn't do enough to redeem Mabel's actions or address her flaws as a character.

    Characters 
  • Fans struggling to decide who is "correct" between Dipper and Mabel's differing perspectives has caused this multiple times throughout the series. Depending on which side fans are on, Mabel is either the "good" twin or the "dumb" twin, and Dipper is either the "bad" twin or the "smart" twin. Ironically, the show has gone out of its way to imply that these labels being used towards them in-series have actually been quite limiting and damaging to both twins' sense of self. ("If I'm not the smart guy/a good person, who am I?")
    • There's also division over which of them is more selfish, which began around "The Time Traveler's Pig" and had only grown since.
  • Mabel ended up becoming the main focal point of controversy after "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", becoming easily the biggest base breaking character of the series. Detractors feel Mabel had been too selfish, rarely faced consequences for her actions, learned nothing from her mistakes, and fell back into her impulses often, while defenders cite that she was just a kid and that she showed signs of maturing in the finale. Fans so intensely debated Mabel's character even years after the fact that an Interquel story in Gravity Falls: Lost Legends attempted to address her negative traits and clarify that she eventually admitted to her role in Weirdmaggedon and had indeed begun to mature at the end of Gravity Falls, simultaneously again addressing the fact that she can be very self-centered. However, the offscreen nature of Mabel's confession of culpability in that comic, Dipper's rejection of the apprenticeship still standing, and whether or not the post-cartoon side story focus was too little, too late for her character continues to divide fans.
  • Waddles has a big fanbase who find him cute, and love the dynamic between him and Mabel, but he also has detractors who believe that he causes Mabel to become selfish when he's around.
  • Robbie has fans who see him as a great recurring Foil to Dipper, and others who dislike him and see him as a Jerkass and The Bully. He also suffers from inevitable Die for Our Ship at the hands of Wendy/Dipper fans.
  • Fans are split on whether or not Gideon's a hilarious character or one of the most annoying characters on the show.
  • Wendy falls into this, as some fans feels she doesn't fit cleanly with the rest of the ensemble, and has little story function outside being Dipper's crush. While other fans enjoy Wendy's simple, straightforward characterization as a cool teenager, this group at best laments that she never got her own episode or two to flesh her character out.
    • Happens again when some fans felt Wendy Took a Level in Jerkass in "The Love God", where she, Nate and Lee get mad when they learn that Tambry and Robbie are dating, and agrees with Nate and Lee on not going to the Woodstock Festival together despite Dipper and Thompson's pleas (especially Thompson, who did not want to go back to being friendless and even sold his watch to get tickets, not much to Wendy, Nate, and Lee's concern).
  • While Stanford Pines' introduction was well-received, arguments that he's The Scrappy and a Jerkass was fairly common, considering that he held bitterness towards Stan for decades from a mishap on his chance to get into his dream college. The fact that Stan accidently got him trapped in another dimension for 30 years did not improve their relationship.
    • He falls into this again in "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", when he asks Dipper if being a twin is "suffocating" and projects his own frustrations about his relationship with Stan onto Dipper and Mabel. Or, alternatively, when he gave Dipper a chance to develop as an individual and live separately from his sister, unwittingly causing a huge division between him and Mabel.

    Episodes 
  • "The Love God" is probably second only to Weirdmageddon 2: Escape from Reality in terms of most divisive episode in the series. Some found it to be a hilarious episode while others hated it due to everybody acting like jerks.
  • In general, there's some contention around whatever the episodes between "A Tale of Two Stans" and "Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back The Falls" (besides "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future") are as good as the first season and a half of the show or if they are a minor case of Seasonal Rot.
  • "The Last Mabelcorn." While many praise its empowering message about how others' judgments do not decide who you are, some fans saw the unicorn's "pure of heart" requirement being a scam as the writers deliberately dodging a good opportunity for Mabel to have some character development via self-awareness, essentially calling the twist a cop out. Alternatively, it has been interpreted by some as a poorly done Take That, Critics!, considering the way it handles those who criticize Mabel.
    Wendy: Mabel's a straight up saint, you judgmental hoofbag!
  • The moral in "Roadside Attraction" has caused this, with some seeing the episode as a good depiction of the complexities and issues with flirting and pick-up artists as a whole, and others seeing its insistence that Dipper is entirely in the wrong for the girls' misunderstanding as unapologetically Anvilicious and one-sided.
  • "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape from Reality" is by far the most divisive episode of the series. Some consider it one of the best episodes for its creative premise, the excellently-crafted hidden creepiness of Mabeland, and the reconciling of the relationship between Mabel and Dipper in a heartwarming way. Others think the exact opposite, considering the episode to be one of the worst in the show (if not the worst), feeling it to be a pointless Breather Episode in the otherwise much more plot-heavy Weirdmageddon arc and believing that it ends the arc between Dipper and Mabel in a frustrating Status Quo Is God way where Dipper once again sacrifices the thing he wants for Mabel. (Others think that the episode is about Dipper realizing he doesn't want to become Ford's apprentice, based on his declining Mabel's offer to stay if he wants, but for some that wasn't enough.) Generally speaking, the opinion one has on the episode depends on their view of Mabel.


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