History Characters / GravityFallsGrunkleStan

* CollectorOfTheStrange: It's a given when you own the Mystery Shack.

* CoolUncle: For starters, he punched a pterodactyl in the face to rescue his great-niece's pet pig.

* EyepatchOfPower: Wears a superfluous one while the Shack is open.

* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler:Had Stan never accidentally broke Ford's science project or at least told him about the condition of the device so that Ford could fix it, assuming it wasn't literally ''damaged beyond repair,'' [[note]] both from Stan's initial perception and that of us viewers, who predictably haven't seen developments for the concepts behind a perpetual motion machine so far and have no idea how it would/''could'' be fixed [[/note]] Stan's relationship with his family would have been much better. Also, the events of the entire series would have played out completely different]].

* HeroicBuild: Had one as a younger man and uses a dapper suit to make it look like he still does.

--->'''Stan:''' "You're dead to me. DEAD TO ME!"

* IWasQuiteALooker: Here's a flashback to him in the 70's. Hello, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_s1e17_stan_and_carla_dancin2_6100.png Handsome]].
* IconicOutfit: Grunkle Stan is usually seen in a fez and a black tuxedo. When sitting around the house, he is almost always dressed in nothing but a tanktop, blue-striped boxers, and the fez.

* RegretfulTraitor: [[spoiler:While he refuses to give Ford the satisfaction of resurfacing his life without lunking to Stan, it's clear that Stan knows Ford's iciness goes beyond simply refusing to thank him for saving him, and that he took advantage of Ford trusting and confiding him to hide the Journals the one time there was nothing preventing him from ''not'' doing that, regardless of whether he was right to have a beef with Ford or not. While he knows he can't ever really make it up to Ford in a way that can make them both happy, he's still willing to sacrifice as much as he possibly can for him by letting him bond with the kids and tend to whatever he thinks should be tended to while he [[Recap/GravityFallsS2E12ATaleOfTwoStans runs for mayor.]] He ''does'' owe him that much, and Stan sees no reason to weasel his way out of it, even if Ford never ends up forgiving him. [[EarnYourHappyEnding Luckily for him...]]]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Even though he's a greedy con artist and is AmbiguouslyEvil, it's very unsutbly made clear by him personally that cares about Mabel and Dipper's safety above all else even before "Scary-Oke" reveals that [[spoiler: he always knew about the supernatural goings-on in the town.]] Come season 2, [[spoiler: after it's revealed the Author is his brother]], it turns out that ''everything'' he has done was really for his family, for their safety, their love, and their protection.

* HeroicComedicSociopath:
** His {{greed}} verges on this now and then, but his RefugeInAudacity on-screen criminal behavior and his WouldHurtAChild tendencies (toward Gideon - not his family) place him firmly in this territory.

** The various crimes he manages to pull off [[RefugeInAudacity on-screen]] also cross into this.

* RegretfulTraitor: [[spoiler:While he refuses to give Ford the satisfaction of resurfacing his life without lunking to Stan, it's clear that Stan knows Ford's iciness goes beyond simply refusing to thank him for saving him, and that he took advantage of Ford trusting and confiding him to hide the Journals the one time there was nothing preventing him from ''not'' doing that, regardless of whether he was right to have a beef with Ford or not. While he knows he can't ever really make it up to Ford in a way that can make them both happy, he's still willing to sacrifice as much as he possibly can for him by letting him bond with the kids and tend to whatever he thinks should be tended to while he {{Recap/GravityFallsS2E12ATaleOfTwoStans runs for mayor.}} He ''does'' owe him that much, and Stan sees no reason to weasel his way out of it, even if Ford never ends up forgiving him. [[EarnYourHappyEnding Luckily for him...]]]]

** [[spoiler: After it becomes clear that Ford has no interest in reconciling with his brother and won't even say "thank you" for bringing him back to our dimension, Stan point blank tells him that Mabel and Dipper are the only family he has left as far as he is concerned, even if {{RegretfulTraitor he's very obviously not proud of it.}}]]

* RegretfulTraitor: [[spoiler:While he refuses to give Ford the satisfaction of resurfacing his life without lunking to Stan, it's clear that Stan knows Ford's iciness goes beyond simply refusing to thank him for saving him, and that he took advantage of Ford trusting and confiding him to hide the Journals the one time there was nothing preventing him from ''not'' doing that, regardless of whether he was right to have a beef with Ford or not. While he knows he can't ever really make it up to Ford in a way that can make them both happy, he's still willing to sacrifice as much as he possibly can for him by letting him bond with the kids and tend to whatever he thinks should be tended to while he {{Recap/GravityFallsS2E12ATaleOfTwoStans runs for mayor.}} He ''does'' owe him that much, and Stan sees no reason to weasel his way out of it, even if Ford never ends up forgiving him. {{EarnYourHappyEnding Luckily for him...}}]]

* WellDoneSonGuy: [[spoiler:Disowned by his father for accidentally ruining their chance at a fortune, Stan spent years trying and make money to be accepted back. Fittingly, {{FreezeFrameBonus one of the books he owns is called ''Daddy Issues''}}]].

** In Stan's flashback in "A Tale of Two Stans", [[spoiler:after he accidentally broke his brother Ford's science project, Stan was kick out of the house by his father and Ford would not even speak to him. This led to Stan spending years with no one to talk to. When Stan managed to meet his brother again, it led to a huge fight that led to the latter getting sucked into another dimension. This caused Stan to feel that he might be left all alone again]].

* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler:Had Stan never accidentally broke Ford's science project or at least told him about the condition of the device so that Ford could fix it, assuming it wasn't literally ''damaged beyond repair,'' [[note]] both from Stan's initial perception and that of us viewers, who predictably haven't developed/seen developments for the concepts behind a perpetual motion machine yet and have no idea how it would/''could'' be fixed [[/note]] Stan's relationship with his family would have been much better. Also, the events of the entire series would have played out completely different]].

-->'''Stan:''' [[spoiler: [=/=] [[Lampshade Hanging "Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!"]]]]

-->'''Stan:''' [[spoiler: "{{LampshadeHanging Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!}}"]]

-->'''Stan:''' [[spoiler: "{{Lampshade Hanging Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!}}"]]

-->'''Stan:''' [[Lampshade Hanging [[spoiler: "Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!"]]]]

-->'''Stan:''' {{LampshadeHanging [[spoiler: "Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!"]]}}

-->'''Stan:''' [[spoiler:{{LampshadeHanging "Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!"}}]]

* RegretfulTraitor:

* SandInMyEyes: Two of the times we've ever seen Stan get teary-eyed (once during the funeral for his wax replica and the other when Mabel knit him an "Our Hero" sash), Stan has the tendency to say he's got something in them rather than admit he's crying.

* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: He's rude, grumpy and money-grubbing and makes no secret of it. He's also old, so he can get away with it.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Generally not liked among the town, despite playing himself up as this grand mysterious figure. The town eventually [[spoiler:warms up to him a bit after the events of "Gideon Rises".]]

* TallDarkAndHandsome: Believe it or not. It's more noticeable in "Little Dipper", when he's seen without his fez.

* WellDoneSonGuy: [[spoiler:Disowned by his father for accidentally ruining their chance at a fortune, Stan spent years trying and make money to be accepted back. Fittingly, one of the books he owns is called ''Daddy Issues'']].
* WellIntentionedExtremist: "Trust me. Everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!" [[spoiler:And that "everything" includes committing various felonies, deceiving and endangering his own family, deliberately causing gravitational anomalies that at the very least destroy a good chunk of the town, and gambling the entirety of the human race on the off chance that the Portal in his basement, despite all evidence to the contrary, won't end the universe. His actions in ''Not What He Seems'' in particular are so extreme that even Soos is temporarily against him by the end of the episode.]]

* YoungerThanHeLooks: Mild example. He's possibly 58 or, at most, in his early sixties. Darlene mistakes him for over seventy. It's only that noticeable as he has an [[spoiler: identical twin brother]] who is in significantly better shape[[note]] though it is possible that time moves differently beyond the portal and that Stanford is actually younger[[/note]], while Stan wound up with a lot more grey hair and health issues due to a life of stress, [[spoiler: on-and-off poverty,]] and the resulting bad habits. On top of that, he has FatSlob tendencies and has a tendency to be extremely lazy around the Shack.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Like the rest of the family. Creator/AlexHirsch originally stated that [[https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/547218052178145280 the Pines family is not canonically Jewish]], but after being questioned about Journal 3 stating that Stan had a Bar Mitzvah, he [[https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/758547032554344448 suggested that Stan was raised Jewish and became an atheist later in life]]. It also helps that he's a big-nosed [[AllJewsAreCheapskates miser]] who speaks with a Jewish American dialect, including [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage the occasional "Oy!" and "Holy Moses!"]].

* AttentionWhore: As seen in "Headhunters". The below quote is also the page quote

* BadassNormal: He's just a normal guy with no special powers or cool tech, but he still punches pterodactyls in the face and kills zombies by punching them with brass knuckles.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: He comes across as rather bumbling and silly over-the-top at times, but make no mistake, he's actually very sharp when he puts his mind into it, particularly as a salesman (and [[TheBarnum Con artist]]).

-->'''Stan:''' [[spoiler:"Good thing you got your smarts, Poindexter. I got the other thing. What's it called? Oh, right. Punching!"]]

* CombatPragmatist: His fighting advice to Dipper is along those line.

* DidYouJustScamCthulhu: [[spoiler: How he and Ford defeat Bill Cipher. While Bill was chasing Dipper and Mabel, they switched out clothing so Stan would become Ford. After Cipher gets caught in Stan's mind, Ford erases them with gun. ]]

* EasilyForgiven: Despite the fact that Stanley outright lied to them about his intentions and deliberately witheld information from them, as soon as Dipper, Mabel, and Soos heard his story, they immediately forgave him without any signs of distrust towards him. This is especially the case for the former considering that Dipper isn't really the type to let go of a grudge easily as shown with Pacifica.

* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler:Had Stan never accidentally broke Ford's science project or at least told him about the condition of the device so that Ford could fix it, Stan's relationship with his family would have been much better. Also, the events of the entire series would have played out completely different]].

--->'''Stan:''' "Yes, yes... ''Burn the child''..."

** [[spoiler: After it becomes clear that Ford has no interest in reconciling with his brother and won't even say "thank you" for bringing him back to our dimension, Stan point blank tells him that Mabel and Dipper are the only family he has left as far as he is concerned.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: In "Boss Mabel", it is shown that his iron handed rule over the Mystery Shack, use of fake exhibits in the museum and strict no-refunds policies are in fact necessary to run the Shack properly. When Mabel attempts to run things her way, Soos and Wendy either take advantage of her lax attitudes or screw up their jobs, putting real monsters in the Shack proves to be a disaster that hospitalizes two visitors, and Mabel's liberal refund policies ends up costing them nearly all their earnings.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Even though he's a greedy con artist and is AmbiguouslyEvil, in season 2, [[spoiler: after it's revealed the Author is his brother]], it turns out that everything he has done was really for his family, for their safety, their love, and their protection.

** And in "Dipper vs. Manliness" he's the one to tell Dipper that standing up for what he believed in was a manly thing to do.
** And in the very first episode, he let Mabel and Dipper choose something from the shop to cheer them up.

-->'''Man:''' These wax statues come at a ''terrible price!''\\
'''Stan:''' $20? I'll steal them while you're distracted.\\
'''Man:''' What?\\
'''Stan:''' I said I'm going to rob you.

* MadeOfIron: In "Not What He Seems", he gets slammed into a metal pipe hard enough to buckle the metal and crack the stone wall behind it, and he's ''completely unharmed''. Its shown in "The Tale of Two Stans" he's had this from childhood, as he didn't even notice the multiple splinters in his hands (from breaking a plank) until he saw them.

* MysteriousPast: He claims to be from the East Coast originally, and that Gravity Falls is the only town where the police don't know where he is. "Not What He Seems" shows that he's accrued a number of false [=IDs=] over the years. It's revealed later on that he's from New Jersey, in "the lead paint district." [[spoiler: That said, there's still things we don't know, like how he was jailed in three countries and escaped, what he did when he "went around the world", and why he escaped a car trunk by chewing his way out.]]

* NeverMyFault: Shows shades of this in ''Land Before Swine'' when he claims "It's not my fault your pig's potentially delicious!". [[spoiler: That said, it's still an improvement over how he used to be, with him unable to accept that he accidentally ruined his brother's chances of going to a good college, and that he was a LazyBum.]] He's [[CharacterDevelopment grown out of this as the show's progressed]], being fully willing to acknowledge that he's screwed up. As proof of this, [[spoiler: he currently blames no one but himself for his own misfortunes in "A Tale of Two Stans". In the present, anyway. However, in the finale, he did accuse Ford of causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Yes, Ford ''did'' build the portal, but it was a huge mistake and was a potential for disaster, while Stan constantly disregarded ''every single written instruction'' by Ford ''not'' to use the portal for any reason whatsoever, even if it was to save him, and Stan's one use of the portal led to a rift that Bill was able to open. That said, during Bill's NearVillainVictory, Stan accuses himself of being a screw-up and makes things right with a HeroicSacrifice on his part]].

* TheSmartGuy: Much like Dipper, Stan is a lot smarter and more cunning than he lets on. Scenes from "Not What He Seems" even show his report card with consistent As, except in Gym class. [[spoiler:However, it seems that report card was actually his brother's, with a flashback in "A Tale of Two Stans" presenting him as a comparatively lazy and poor student in comparison. Never the less, through pure effort he managed to teach himself nearly everything he knows.]]

* BewareTheSillyOnes: He may be a goofy grunkle who runs a tourist trap with absurd attractions, likes to slack off, joke around, and lie down in a seat when he's not running the shack, and has committed what is likely hundreds if not thousands of petty crimes and has been arrested multiple times for said petty crimes. But let's remember, he's a convict and professional conman who runs a successful business with said tourist trap and who can throw a nasty punch with all the boxing lessons he's taken, who [[spoiler:has stolen radioactive waste from a government facility, operated a powerful interdimensional portal to summon his brother back to their home dimension, and [[DidYouJustScamCthulu conned]] [[BigBad '''Bill Cipher''' into going into his burning mindscape before [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulu punching him out of existence.]]]]

!"Grunkle" Stan Pines

->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AlexHirsch, Stuart Allan/Declan J. Krogman (young)\\\
''"When there's no cops around, anything's legal."''

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: * Grunkle Stan's situation in his youth [[spoiler: after being kicked out [[TragicDream becomes even more tragic]] given the fact that he had gotten himself banned from New Jersey, his own home. Even if by some miracle he had managed to get out of destitution and made the money to get his parents' approval and forgiveness, his own mistakes means that he cannot ever come back home without the risk of being arrested.]]

* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler:Had Stan never accidentally broke Ford's science project or at least told him the condition of the device so that Ford could fix it, Stan's relationship with his family would have been much better. Also, the events of the entire series would have played out completely different]].

''"When life gives you lemons, you call them 'yellow oranges' and sell them for double the price."''

* BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame: In an epic moment of his career as a shyster [[spoiler:he gives [[DealWithTheDevil Bill Cipher]] a lousy deal of his own]].

** He has no compunction with trying to punt Gideon, blind Gideon, or smack around with a broom, although Gideon [[EnfantTerrible more than deserves it.]]

** He has no compunction with smacking Gideon around with a broom, although Gideon [[EnfantTerrible more than deserves it.]]

* PlayingGertrude: Stan is 60+ years old. His voice actor, [[DescendedCreator series creator]] Creator/AlexHirsch just turned 30 in 2015. [[invoked]]

* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Choleric: Ambitious with a hair-trigger temper.