Analysis / Gravity Falls

Wildlife of Gravity Falls:

Many animals and wildlife have been seen throughout the course of Gravity Falls, seen in the forest, lake, and even inhabiting buildings.

Non-paranormal wildlife seems to mainly consist of small to medium sized mammals you might find in the average forest. The selection of birds is rather unique, including bald eagles and pelicans. The animals include:

Non-Paranormal Wildlife

• Alligators
• Bears
• Beavers
• Birds
  • Finches
  • Pelicans
  • Owls
  • Cardinals
  • Bald Eagles
  • Chickadees
  • Woodpeckers
• Deer
• Fish
  • Sockeye Salmon
  • Trouts
• Goats
• Insects
  • Butterflies
  • Caterpillars
• Mountain Lions
• Opossums
• Rabbits
• Raccoons
• Rats
• Squirrels
• Wolves

Paranormal Wildlife

• Bigfoot
• Boy Band Member Clones
• Eye-Bats
• Fairies
• Ghosts
• Giant Vampire Bats
• Gnomes
• Gravity Falls Gobblewonker
• Gremloblin
• Manotaurs
• Mermen
• Multi-Bear
• Question Quails
• Plaidypus
• Scampfires
• Soothsquitoes
• Unicorns
• Zombies

For more information, go here.

Pines family color analysis

Stan and Ford

Visually, Stan and Ford have a lot of similarities and differences. One major similarity they have are their color scheme. Aside from some variations in shade, and Ford having a few more colors thanks to his slightly more complicated design, their colors are almost exactly the same. This is interesting because Stan and Ford didn’t wear the same colors before Ford came out of the portal. Stan always wore maroon/yellow colors, while Ford tended more towards blues, oranges, yellows, and browns. This is particularly interesting because Stan’s color scheme is from their mom, while Ford’s is from their dad.Note that Stan and Ford’s zodiac symbols (Stan’s fez and Ford’s Journal), have the same colors. Both are a golden symbol on top of a maroon background. Again, they’re almost exactly the same color.

Now onto the designs themselves. Stan and Ford have the same basic build; however, Stan slouches and wears shoulder pads, so his shoulders start a little past his ears. Ford has good posture, so his shoulders are almost level with his chin. However, whenever the two characters are standing next to each other, the animators deliberately make sure that their heads, hands, and crotches are at about the same place. Due to Stan’s shoulders starting far above Ford’s, this causes Ford’s proportions to look slightly off in comparison to Stan’s. Due to this deliberate positioning of limbs, Ford’s arms often look much shorter than Stan’s, due to Stan’s higher shoulders/slouching and shoulder pads. Stan looks like he has regular length arms with the extra shoulder length/padding, while Ford’s look awkward. Another major difference between them is that Stan’s consistently drawn with a slightly wider chin, bigger nose (with some sort of bumps), and bigger ears. Ford’s head is distinctly squarer, while Stan’s has a slight tilt on the sides that usually match up with the sides of his fez. Stan is also much more top heavy while Ford has a very lean upper body. This could be accounted for by the fact that Stan regularly punches things, and has let himself go over the years due to years of homelessness, poverty, and the resulting poor eating/self care habits, so he’s far more chubby than Ford is.

Ford, on the other hand, has far thicker legs than Stan does. Stan’s legs are very thin under his pants, and while we haven’t seen Ford’s legs without his boots and pants on, his boots are shaped to his leg, unlike Wendy’s, indicating that his legs fill the whole of the bootleg. Ford’s legs could be thicker because he kicks things instead of punches. He mentions in at least two journal entries (specifically, the Leprecorn and the Gnomes entry) that he drop kicks away creatures that annoy him or bug him too much.

Also, another parallel in Stan and Ford’s design is that Stan’s design is more of an upside down triangle thanks to his top heavy design, while Ford’s is like a regular triangle when his coat flairs out at the bottom.

Other small details about Stan and Ford’s designs:

• Stan’s has more straight lines/edges, while Ford's is rounder (examples being: Stan’s square glasses, Ford’s curved glasses, Stan’s flatter/pointier hair, Ford's fluffy/rounder hair)

• Ford’s cowlick is half-frayed, more about that in the Pines family section.

Mabel and Dipper

Mabel and Dipper’s designs actually have a lot of similarities to them, beyond the fact that they have the same face/body types. Both wear a type of clothing that shows off their legs (shorts, skirt), white ankle socks, flat black shoes, a similar style of t-shirt, something over that shirt (vest, sweater), and headgear (pine tree hat, headband).

Now, to compare their colors. This is a little hard since Mabel wears so many different outfits, but we're gonna use both of their main designs.Aside from the shooting star on Mabel’s sweater, both designs’ colors are actually more similar than one would realize. Both wear a bright red color, with a more neutral tone for their shorts/skirt. and again, both wear white socks and black shoes, which help offset the bright red colors. Dipper’s pine tree hat and vest, and Mabel’s shooting star, help to add variety to their outfits and to differentiate between the two character’s designs more.

• The fact that Mabel wears so many different outfits helps to visually show her colorful personality and creativity, and it contrasts with Dipper’s outfit, which only changes a few times over the course of the series (which also tells us that Dipper rarely, if ever, changes his clothes).

The family together

There are a few things that the Pines family all have in common. First is the family cowlick, which is mentioned earlier. Every member of the Pines family has this little cowlick at the back of their heads, which consists of two parts. Ford’s is mentioned earlier, is slightly different from the rests. It’s half frayed on one side. This is visual symbolism to show his and Stan’s frayed relationship before the finale.

Another similarity that the family shares (also pictured above) are stress lines around the eyes. Mabel is the one exception to this. Stan has lines around his eyes thanks to his harsh life, Ford has them thanks to his time in the portal, and Dipper has them thanks to his naturally anxious and stressed personality. They could also just be genetic, because both Stan and Ford are shown to have them in their late 20's.Similar to the stress lines, each member of the family has some reddish mark on their face. Dipper, Stan, and Ford all have a red nose, while Mabel has red cheeks instead.

And finally, all four members of the Pines family wear some shade of red as their main color. Stan and Ford wear a dark maroon shade, while Dipper and Mabel wear very light shades of salmon and hot pink. The fact that Stan and Ford wear such dark shades could be because they’re both much older and both have dark pasts, histories and regrets (when Ford came out of the portal, he was dressed in all black!). Mabel and Dipper however, are very young and innocent, and they don’t have the kinds of pasts and regrets that Stan and Ford do. It's a very smart and convoluted way to show all members are twins. The creators managed to avert going the easy way and make them wear the same clothes as doing that would probably make them boring.

The choice of red as a color theme for the family is interesting too, because red is often depicted as a “heroic” color, or the color of the main character in a story.

Character Archetypes of Gravity Falls:

Some of the residents of Gravity Falls are similar in dress styles, occupation and operation to the kind of people much of society and the media regards as untrustworthy, dishonest, fraudulent and disreputable.

• If one wants a specific example, then look no futher than Stanley Pines (aka: Grunkle Stan) and Gideon Gleeful (Aka: Lil' Gideon).
  • Grunkle Stan is the owner of the Mystery Shack (the fallen 'S' renders it "Mystery Hack"), A small back woods shop that sells souvenirs and Mystery and Conspiracy paraphernalia. He is not above taking courses of action that range from Morally Ambiguous to wrong, like committing Massive Tax Fraud, lying to police and people and general, and stealing to keep business afloat, have his way or for the "Greater Good". For all intents and purposes, for those not in the know concerning his more significant and meaningful activities in relation to the mysteries that surround Gravity Falls, Grunkle Stan is a 'Hack'. He's also kind of a jerk.

  • Lil' Gideon and his business vaguely resembles an odd mix of a traveling gypsy psychic and the popular image of the child preacher/tent televangelist, dressing and behaving as such. He uses his charisma and cute looks to manipulate people and have his way by getting people to trust him. His amulet used to give him special powers but afterwards, without it, he was brought back to a common conman of his occupation, using sly and subtle tactics to uphold his psychic reputation. He is also seeking the journal in a bid for power.

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