Ghosts are the souls or spirits of deceased people or animals that can appear, in either visible form or in other manifestations, to the living. They are divided into ten categories based on their threat level, Category One being virtually harmless & friendly, Category Ten being the most dangerous and hostile, as seen in "Northwest Mansion Mystery." The first ghost encounter seen in the series was in "The Inconveniencing" when Dipper, Wendy, and her gang had an encounter with two ghosts when they broke into the Dusk 2 Dawn convenience store.
Categories[]
Category | Name | Description from Journal 3 |
---|---|---|
1 | Eh. | We start at the not-so-deadly end of the scale.
Ghosts in this category pose no threat to humanity. In fact, their fondest wish seems to be an impossible desire to rejoin the human race—or at least, become the best friend of whatever person they can latch on to. The category One I encountered in Dan's cabin kept trying to keep me involved in "G-rated adventures," oblivious to the fact that I am a man in his thirties and not a thirteen-year-old-girl. KINDA CUTE. In other words, the only way a Category One can harm you is by annoying you to death. Making things float is their only real power. Remember: show no interest in them and they will disappear. One word of kindness is enough to keep them around for years to come! |
2 | Pranksters | Pranksters are ghosts that get a kick out of playing pranks and jokes on unsuspecting victims. They always carry signs with phrases like "Kick me" and "Possess me" to put on the backs of people. |
3 | Gluttons | Gluttons are large, smelly, and intangible ghosts who, as their name suggests, like to eat. Although lacking a tangible form, they are able to produce incredible amounts of body odor.
Because they have no physical body, any food they eat won't be digested. Instead, all food they consume just falls on the floor below them. |
4 | Haunted Paintings & Image-based Spectres | These ghosts can inhabit paintings and different images and can even travel from picture to picture.
The only way a Category Fours can be trapped is with a silver mirror. |
5 | Soul Suckers | Soul Suckers are exactly what they sound like. They feed off the souls of their prey and given enough time, they can consume their victims entire life force. If caught early, you can keep it from doing any damage. |
6 | Phantoms of Pain | The ghosts dress in black leather and often have painful-looking "jewelry." The main goal of these ghosts is to inflict pain on human prey. The only way they can hurt you is if you summon them. They will often try to trick you into thinking you summoned them. |
7 | The Eternal Key | The Eternal Key is one ghost chosen from a generation to transform into an apparition that is supposed to complete a certain task. Unfortunately, it has no idea what that task is. The task is to open the Petrifying Rock, unleashing KRXSKXL the Unperceivable. |
8 | The Petrifying Rock | The Petrifying Rock is the other part of the team between it the Eternal Key. When brought together, they unleash KRXSKXL the Unperceivable.
They never have appeared in the same place in the same time, which is probably a good thing. |
9 | Dream Hipster | These ghosts aren't satisfied by just scaring you to death. They want to be able to admire their handiwork by making you have the most realistic, scary nightmares, and then taunting you about it.
They have very large egos, thus making their victim beg for their mercy. They often make very bad puns after the nightmares they engineer. |
10 | Danger | This category includes several different ghosts, such as the Grave Filler, the Slim Creeper, and the most famous, the Reaper. |
History[]
At some point before the events of the series, Ford came across and studied ghosts, recording their powers, appearance and threat levels in Journal 3.
Season 1[]
In "The Inconveniencing," Dipper, Mabel, Wendy and her friends encounter two ghosts, named Ma and Pa at the Dusk 2 Dawn convenience store. Dipper calms them down by doing the Lamby Lamby Dance, and they allow him and his friends to leave the store.
In "Irrational Treasure," ghosts are mentioned by Sheriff Blubs when he takes out a book about them to read with Deputy Durland.
In "Fight Fighters," Soos says that when his house was haunted, he learned how to "eat ghosts" from an arcade game.
Shorts[]
In "Mabel's Guide to Fashion," Mabel dresses as a ghost to scare Thompson while running through the cemetery.
Season 2[]
In "Scary-oke," the page in Journal 3 appears when Dipper tries to make the agents believe him.
In "Sock Opera," Bill Cipher takes over Dipper's body, leaving the latter as a ghost inhabiting the Mindscape. Dipper uses a sock puppet to warn Mabel of this, and she fights Bill until he faints and is forced out of the body so Dipper can re-enter it.
In "Northwest Mansion Mystery," there is a ghost haunting the Northwest Manor. Dipper was able to capture him in a mirror, however, he escaped and turned the Northwests' party guests to wood. The ghost demands that the Northwests let the common people attend the party, and when Pacifica opens the gates to them, he ceases to haunt the party, restoring the people he turned to wood and passing on.
In "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality," the page for category 10 ghosts in Journal 3 is shown when Bill's eye flashes through the journal's pages.
Physical traits[]
According to Journal 3, ghosts always have a reason for the things they do. The ghosts Dipper encountered in "The Inconveniencing" seemed mean and angry at first, but their anger diminished when they found out he was "technically not a teenager."[1] In "Northwest Mansion Mystery," it is shown that according to Journal 3 there are different levels of ghosts ranging from one to ten, the highest number being the most dangerous form. According to the journal the only way to survive a level ten ghost is to "pray for mercy." Each type of ghost has different ways to be dealt with and captured. For example, they can be trapped in silver mirrors if they came from a painting, and then an exorcism must be performed to dispose of them.
Sightings[]
Season 1
- 105. "The Inconveniencing"
- 108. "Irrational Treasure" (mentioned)
- 110. "Fight Fighters" (mentioned)
Shorts
- 9. "Mabel's Guide to Fashion" (likeness)
Season 2
- 201. "Scary-oke" (pictured)
- 204. "Sock Opera"
- 210. "Northwest Mansion Mystery"
- 219. "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality" (pictured)
Games
- PinesQuest (mentioned)
Trivia[]
- Several of the pictures in Journal 3 for the ghost category entries are references:
- Category One's picture resembles Casper the Friendly Ghost.
- Category Three is a reference to the Slimer from the film Ghostbusters.
- Category Six is a reference to the Cenobites from the Hellraiser series.
- Category Seven and Eight are references on the Gatekeeper and Keymaster demons from Ghostbusters.
- Category Nine is based on Freddy Krueger from the film A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Gallery
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References[]
- ↑ "The Inconveniencing." Michael Rianda, Aaron Springer (writers), Joe Pitt (director). Gravity Falls. Disney Channel. July 13, 2012. No. 5, season 1.