Upcoming Review: Gravity Falls - Season 1

[cdrood]

But then you get the unicorn episode where everyone is shilling her relentlessly and when she finds out she's been tricked, takes the Grunkle Stan approach despite the fact that she had no real right to what she was after in the first place.

[CharlesPhipps]

But then you get the unicorn episode where everyone is shilling her relentlessly and when she finds out she's been tricked, takes the Grunkle Stan approach despite the fact that she had no real right to what she was after in the first place.

The Pines family are all flawed people, which is part of what makes them entertaining. None of them are presented as moral or emotional paragons.

That's Soos.

[CmdrKing]

Even Soos has room to grow and find his faults... until about midway through season 2, then he's pretty much an exemplar of human morality.

The main thing to remember is that Dipper and Mabel are on opposite paths. Dipper doesn't really know who he is yet, and is rushing head-first into things he ultimately KNOWS are bad for him in his haste to grow up. Mabel knows very clearly who she is, and her struggles (which we haven't seen much of yet) are recognizing where she has to adjust rather than assuming she's right, while not compromising who she is (pretty much her biggest fear: that she'll have to become someone she hates in order to make it in the world.)

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

It's worth remembering as well that Gravity Falls was designed as a limited series with a clear endgame, meaning a lot of these patterns are established to create greater impact down the road.

For Posterity: https://sfdebris.com/videos/animation/gravityfallss1_3.php

Kind of, it was originally going to have 3 seasons, but Hirsch got so burned out on season 1 he nearly quit after it wrapped, so he merged the plans for seasons 2 and 3 into the second season to hurry up and get it over with, which is why season 2 has less filler episodes of the characters getting into supernatural hijinx and with the exception of one or two episodes, every episode has something that matters to the overall plot or development of the characters. This limited number is why some episodes got scrapped like the one episode Wendy was supposed to get where she got weather control powers and would show her family off a bit, which apparently got scrapped because they didn't know how to have Wendy be lose her calm personality, despite the fact that in Society of the Blind Eye she confesses she's only pretending to be calm and collected and is always stressed out and just hides it well. I once heard that all the constant hiatuses were becasue Disney were trying to talk him into doing a season 3.

I think Hirsch made the smart move by taking time to make these episodes as it was a case of quality over quantity. I mean, look at Star vs. the Forces of Evil, which has nearly twice the episodes Gravity Falls has and came out much quicker, yet had some real problems in the last season and a half with an ending that came off as though the writers didn't think it through very much.

[SigilBreaker26]

The main thing to remember is that Dipper and Mabel are on opposite paths. Dipper doesn't really know who he is yet, and is rushing head-first into things he ultimately KNOWS are bad for him in his haste to grow up. Mabel knows very clearly who she is, and her struggles (which we haven't seen much of yet) are recognizing where she has to adjust rather than assuming she's right, while not compromising who she is (pretty much her biggest fear: that she'll have to become someone she hates in order to make it in the world.)

But this is the problem - Dipper is someone who wants to grow up too fast (as shown by his obsession with Wendy which is more or less the biggest symbol of this character flaw for him). Mabel, on the other hand, is someone who is too rooted in the situation now and is content, and is resistant to growing up and fearful of change. But too often the series kind of indulges her in her sometimes dangerous immaturity, even when her refusal to face reality causes problems. I don't want to post any more since a lot of this is stuff that will become more relevant down the line, but the series consistently refuses to allow Dipper to get away with his character flaw and resolutely critiques him for it, which is why his character is written so solidly; that Mabel's character isn't written as clearly and is cut too much slack is the biggest flaw with her writing (and in my opinion the biggest flaw in the show).

[CharlesPhipps]

But this is the problem - Dipper is someone who wants to grow up too fast (as shown by his obsession with Wendy which is more or less the biggest symbol of this character flaw for him). Mabel, on the other hand, is someone who is too rooted in the situation now and is content, and is resistant to growing up and fearful of change. But too often the series kind of indulges her in her sometimes dangerous immaturity, even when her refusal to face reality causes problems. I don't want to post any more since a lot of this is stuff that will become more relevant down the line, but the series consistently refuses to allow Dipper to get away with his character flaw and resolutely critiques him for it, which is why his character is written so solidly; that Mabel's character isn't written as clearly and is cut too much slack is the biggest flaw with her writing (and in my opinion the biggest flaw in the show).

Honestly, I disagree with this strongly.

* The first episode of Gravity Falls is her getting kidnapped by homicidal pedophile gnomes.
* She ends up being hunted by her deranged stalker in Lil' Gideon because she was nice to him and wanted a friend.
* Her failed romance with Fishboy.
* They almost get arrested because of their need to prove weird Presidents are good.
* She almost goes insane/evil because of her obsession with Clone Direction.
* The less lunatic consequences of the fact Pacifica gets to win the dance competition because sometimes money is more important than talent.
* Her crush on Puppet Lad backfires horribly.

Mabel episodes have her try to grow up in the more traditionally feminine way of dating and they have the same horrible consequences as Dipper's attempts. She also wants to show up Pacifica and be popular--which never works out for her.

Mabel actually does want to grow up every bit as much as Dipper but we don't recognize it because we're conditioned to think of girls doing this as normal when she's, again, way too young for her desires.

Like keeping singing slaves.

[Percysowner]

But this is the problem - Dipper is someone who wants to grow up too fast (as shown by his obsession with Wendy which is more or less the biggest symbol of this character flaw for him). Mabel, on the other hand, is someone who is too rooted in the situation now and is content, and is resistant to growing up and fearful of change. But too often the series kind of indulges her in her sometimes dangerous immaturity, even when her refusal to face reality causes problems. I don't want to post any more since a lot of this is stuff that will become more relevant down the line, but the series consistently refuses to allow Dipper to get away with his character flaw and resolutely critiques him for it, which is why his character is written so solidly; that Mabel's character isn't written as clearly and is cut too much slack is the biggest flaw with her writing (and in my opinion the biggest flaw in the show).

Honestly, I disagree with this strongly.

* The first episode of Gravity Falls is her getting kidnapped by homicidal pedophile gnomes.
* She ends up being hunted by her deranged stalker in Lil' Gideon because she was nice to him and wanted a friend.
* Her failed romance with Fishboy.
* They almost get arrested because of their need to prove weird Presidents are good.
* She almost goes insane/evil because of her obsession with Clone Direction.
* The less lunatic consequences of the fact Pacifica gets to win the dance competition because sometimes money is more important than talent.
* Her crush on Puppet Lad backfires horribly.

Mabel episodes have her try to grow up in the more traditionally feminine way of dating and they have the same horrible consequences as Dipper's attempts. She also wants to show up Pacifica and be popular--which never works out for her.

Mabel actually does want to grow up every bit as much as Dipper but we don't recognize it because we're conditioned to think of girls doing this as normal when she's, again, way too young for her desires.

Like keeping singing slaves.

Thanks for this. I was unhappy with how fans reacted to Mabel during Gravity Falls. She gets more blame than I think she deserves. She is growing, but her progression is female one and those tend to get downplayed as being trivial and unimportant. Plus, Dippers interests and obsessions are central to the plot of GF, whereas Mabel's are more personal so are more easily dismissed. I will talk about this more as the episodes get reviewed.

[CharlesPhipps]

I pretty much lost all respect for their other Grunkle (grandpa?) when he dismissed Mabel on what I presume to be sexist grounds. He only focused on Dipper and tried to get him to even ditch Mabel. Because 12 is the perfect age to assume when a person is going to develop an interest in STEM or not. Apparently, you can pick and choose relatives to encourage the interests of.

[Kendrakirai]

I pretty much lost all respect for their other Grunkle (grandpa?) when he dismissed Mabel on what I presume to be sexist grounds. He only focused on Dipper and tried to get him to even ditch Mabel. Because 12 is the perfect age to assume when a person is going to develop an interest in STEM or not. Apparently, you can pick and choose relatives to encourage the interests of.

Actually it was because Dipper actually had an interest, seemed the more intelligent of the two (exactly as he and his own brother were) and he had *massive* trust issues about siblings. If Mabel being a girl had anything to do with it it was much further down the list than intense identification with Dipper and his frustrations with Mabel and being certain that she was just going to drag him down and get him trapped in a multiverse of danger and horror due to incompetence or, more likely (in his mind), deliberate sabotage.

[CmdrKing]

Mind you, some of those assumptions do have a sexist underpinning, or would in real life. And a lot of Dipper’s journey involves him grappling with stereotypical manliness, so the last stop before the finale being that sort of STEM-lord lonely genius nonsense is a logical last temptation, just as the first part of the finale is Mabel’s.

E: sorry, didn’t finish my thought. Anyway, it’s not *wrong* to read a little sexism into the situation, but the issue is much closer to jealousy and no small sense of intellectual superiority/inferiority driving the two apart, and Dipper having to realize that rejecting chest-thumping macho man masculinity in favor of smarty pants intellectual masculinity doesn’t actually get him any closer to being a good man.