User blog:The Puppeteer King/Gravity Falls Symbolism

Gravity Falls highlights the value of childhood and the fear of growing up. The show revolves around the central characters of Dipper and Mabel Pines who are 12 years old and they are sent to a town called Gravity Falls to live with their great uncle Stan for the summer while also befriending his employees Soos and Wendy. While the theme is downplayed or ignored but there is a subtle theme of discovery, maturity, aging and identity.

Along the way they meet the prominant characters Ford Pine, Pacifica, Robbie and Gideon. The cycle of growing up impacts each of these characters in seperate ways The mystery shack is a tourist trap that shows imaginary creatures to stupidly gullible tourists despite being being a mere few meters away from genuine oddities that can actually build more profits for Stan. The shack symbolise a childs mind similar to how a child would use their imagination to build an adventure for themselves despite the actual adventure being outside for them to experience.
 * Dipper follows the path of science and logic in a former attempt to find the author of the journals
 * Mabel accepting that she can't be selfish or abuse the generosity of others
 * Wendy choses to not humiliate Dipper for commiting an act of selflessness
 * Stan dedicates his life to rescuing Ford from an alternate dimension
 * Soos and Robbie accepting that the past is not worth dedicating your life to
 * Ford following the path of science to research irregularities and abnormalities in Gravity Falls
 * Pacifica choosing to make her own identity rather than follow the expectations of her family
 * Gideon accepting that violence and aggression never fulfills a desire

Compared to the disney shows or movies in the past, Gravity Falls shows brutal honesty towards growing up and how it isn't as great as it sounds. Disney in the past basically said that growing up is merely just the next adventure but Gravity Falls tells you that the you will hate being a teenager and you will desire to be young again however the show shows that you can always be a child at heart.

A common belief is that in Stan and Ford reflect Dipper and Mabel due to Ford and Dipper following logic whereas Mabel and Stan being social magnets but if you think about it Dipper and Stan have more similarities while Mabel and Ford have more similarities.

Like Stan, Dipper has commited selfless acts for a sibling who is self centered and is inconsiderate of their feelings such as Mabel mocking Dipper and Ford being insensitive to Stan's attempts to be closer to him or to rebuild their friendship. Dipper is also unlucky with romance and takes advantage of the irregularities for personal gain similar to how Stan has had a string of failed relationships and creates imaginary creatures for money.

Gravity Falls has always had a downplayed theme of the journey of the self and maturity of the characters but the character who has the most reluctance to grow up is Mabel who unwillingly retreats to a fantasy world called Mabelland in order to reject reality and to stay young but she eventually accepts that imagination can never compensate for reality.

When the series ends it means that Dipper and Mabel are no longer children and are now teenagers, if the Mystery Shack is destroyed in the ending then it symbolises the end of Dipper and Mabels childhood imagination and that they now have to embrace the life of an adult.

To end this blog I will say that the symbolism behind Gravity Falls has always been the least thought about or has never been considered because there is more important things to think about rather than alternate views of characters but Gravity Falls has always been a fun series to watch and while I hate to see it end, I am more happy with the fact that it exsisted.