While all of us know that there are people who are
Jerkass or probably has
Hidden Heart of Gold or
Innocently Insensitive in this
show,
they are not entirely wrong with their words or action. Here examples below:
Season 1
- In "Boss Mabel", it's shown that while Grunkle Stan is certainly a greedy con man, all of his policies for the Mystery Shack (being extremely strict with employees, using tons of fake exhibits, never offering refunds ever) exist for a reason, and when Mabel decides not to enforce them, it results in the Shack not taking in any profits. note Specifically, being lax with employees results in them either blowing off work or doing their jobs badly, real exhibits are too dangerous, and Mabel's people-pleasing attitude means that she'll give refunds back to anybody who asks for it.
- In "The Land Before Swine", while Mabel's and Dipper's reactions to Stan's and Soos' Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moves were kind of harsh, they were correct that Stans' dislike of Waddles placed over his safety is what led to the gang to come to rescue him and Soos' interference with their mission only worsens their situation.
- Stan has a point himself though. An animal that is going to go around the house chewing on things (a habit Mabel actually encourages) really should be kept outside, at least until it's better trained.
Season 2
- In Sock Opera has this from Dipper and Mabel towards each other and then Bill towards both twins:
- In "Soos and the Real Girl" has Stan being harsh towards Soos, but he did have a point that Soos had rather poor chances with women at the start of the episode due to being eccentric and having poor social skills. When Wendy tries to make Soos feel better by telling him he's a sweet guy with a steady job, Stan pointedly asks if that means she would date him, to which she meekly retreats from the conversation. It goes to show that despite Soos being a Nice Guy, women still aren’t going to be magically attracted to him and he must put himself out there and be himself.
- In "Blendin's Game", Blendin' reasons that lead to Dipper and Mabel's Jerkass Realization: Blendin' points out that the twins were willing to play with time to get what they wanted—Wendy or Waddles—with no thoughts to the consequences, especially to a time traveler like him. He has a good reason to hold a grudge against them but still wants to fight them fairly in the gladiator arena.
- In "The Love God", whatever one thinks of Wendy's Jerkass behavior, she does point out that it's not cool of her best friend to go dating her ex "behind her back," especially when said ex was a manipulative and needy boyfriend and Wendy doesn't know about the extenuating circumstances. Mabel ought to have realized that before pairing Wendy's ex Robbie with her best friend Tambry via love potion.
- The same can be said of Nate, as he states that Robbie knew about his own crush on Tambry.
- Whilst Dipper's a jerk for wanting to leave Robbie wallowing in self-pity in the open grave, he's not entirely unjustified when one considers his past relationship with Robbie has almost entirely consisted of Robbie making snide comments about Dipper & even threatening to beat him up.
- In "A Tale of Two Stans", The Author, the real Stanford Pines, chews our Grunkle, Stanley Pines out for using the Universe Portal to bring him back to Earth. While it seems like Ford is being an Ungrateful Bastard, he was right; The Universe Portal was incredibly unstable, the gravitational anomalies caused all sorts of damage to the town, and ultimately Stan was gambling the Earth on a dangerous device he didn't understand to bring back someone who he didn't know was alive or dead. In the next episode we learn that the Portal created a rift in space-time that is the first step in the Big Bad's plan to bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
- When Dipper apologizes for not trusting Stan in the previous episode, Stan admits that all considered, he wouldn't believe himself either.
- Being an actual genius, Ford has several moments such as the very beginning with telling off Stan with how much damage the portal could have done and is pretty much-committing identity theft by using his name. It's also implied that one reason for his order to hide the journal is because, after everything he's learned, Stan could be in danger if he stays by him long enough.
- Stan of course likewise has a bit of a point when they meet again the second time in their adult lives: Ford just calls him out of the blue, barely explains anything, and tries to send him off after having not seen him for years on end. You can't blame Stan for getting angry at this abruptness. Ford's ramblings and continued bitterness certainly didn't help his case.
- At the end of the episode, Ford gives Stan until the end of the summer before kicking him out of the Mystery Shack. While this will leave Stan homeless and jobless, Ford has every right to want his house and identity back. Expecting him to sleep in the basement and on couches indefinitely in his own home is absurd, and he at least does give Stan time to make other arrangements before he has to leave.
- And while he could've worded it far more tactfully, the Stan twin's principal was right that Stan was a "clown" who was barely passing his classes and, as a result, wouldn't have very good prospects outside of minimum-wage work, which wouldn't be enough to leave the town.
- In "Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons", Mabel seems to have one when Dipper says he hangs out with Stanford partially because he's cool, but also because he, unlike Grunkle Stan and Mabel, doesn't make fun of him. Unlike her dramatic realization in "Sock Opera", this one is very subtle and we don't see her response directly.
Mabel: You're uh, spending a lot of time with old Fordsy lately, huh?
Dipper: You have no idea. I knew the author must be cool, but he's better than I imagined! And... he doesn't make fun of me all the time, like you and Grunkle Stan do.
- In "The Stan-churian Candidate", Gideon makes a "Not So Different" Remark to Dipper and Mabel while putting them in a Death Trap. Given that the two used a mind-control necktie on Stan and Soos several times in the episode (despite witnessing Soos' terrified reactions to being controlled by it), he's not entirely wrong.
- As "morally ambiguous" the mind-control tie was, Stan, is forced to admit that the twins weren't completely in the wrong when his attempt at campaigning his way costs him popularity.
- In "The Last Mabelcorn", Stan had a point when saying that Ford's work was dangerous since Ford nearly brought about the end of the world by creating a portal that links to Bill's world and wanted the instructions hidden rather than destroyed. Fiddleford would agree if he were in town and cogent enough to see Ford's return.
- While she turned out to be a huge dick and didn't mean a word of her "pure of heart" shtick, Celestabellebethabelle wasn't wrong about one thing: doing good deeds to make yourself look good isn't all that noble.
- In addition, Mabel was making the good deeds all about making herself look good instead of a way to protect the Mystery Shack (and ultimately her home dimension). Only when she beats the crap out of the unicorns for their hair, picking doing the right thing over looking good, does Ford tell her that she really is a good person.
- In "Roadside Attraction", even though Stan is portrayed in the wrong for convincing Dipper to be more confident on the road trip. He isn't wrong and he was, in fact, more helpful than Mabel in getting Dipper to move on from Wendy. Dipper did become more confident around girls and did learn to accept Wendy's rejection. He just didn't expect Candy to fall for him, or to see the other girls again.
- In "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", When Dipper voices his misgivings about accepting Ford's offer to stay in Gravity Falls as his apprentice (considering that Mabel would be left alone with their parents in California if he did, and they've never really been apart before), Ford - clearly projecting his troubled childhood and relationship with Stan onto Mabel - asks if always being together is “suffocating” and says that she'll be fine on her own due to her "magnetic" personality. While Ford’s clearly wrong to encourage Dipper to split up from Mabel entirely (they're only thirteen years old, and would take a permanent separation even worse than Stan and Ford, who were high school seniors, did) or imply that they should grow apart, he's right that Dipper shouldn’t always be lumped as a “package deal” with Mabel and deserves to choose what he wants to do with his life independently of her.
- In “Weirdmageddon Part 3: Take Back the Falls", Stan points out that his brother was stupid to take on Bill since it led to Ford getting captured. He also doesn't have to say that holing up in the Shack and saving the survivors was more effective than Ford's Senseless Sacrifice since if Stan hadn't done so, Dipper and Mabel wouldn't have had Chekhov's Army to lead an assault on Bill. Later on, at the campfire he quite astutely points out that Ford caused the end of the world.
- Gideon and Pacifica shout at Stan for being stubborn when The Chosen Many has to complete a circle and Stan is refusing because of his grudge with Ford.
