I've been wondering for a while why I focus more on Journal 3 and Book of Bill whenever I think of Gravity Falls. Like, yes, of course I think of the show, but my favorite bits (and the ones I find the most fascinating) come from those two books. And I think I finally figured out why.
The show is, of course, family friendly. It centers around two 12 year olds just trying to grow up. They have their own quirks, and we grow with them as the show progresses, which is fun and so so charming. But there's always some ambiguity when it comes to child characters because they're exactly that. Children. They're not fully developed, and they are allowed to make mistakes (I WILL NOT TAKE MABEL SLANDER I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD). And because of who the main characters are, the show is a lot more family-friendly. I mean, we still see monsters and terrifying creatures- thank you, Alex Hirsch- but it never strays too far from that PG line.
But the books focused on the past are so goddamn interesting because they're ALLOWED to be complicated. They're allowed to be complex, especially when you remember who the authors are. You see McGucket- a character we almost never get to see pre-insanity- struggling to hold a marriage together. Or try desperately to reconnect to someone who he holds a little too dearly, depending on how you read his interactions with Ford. You see Fiddleford's anxiety on full display, his complicated emotions about the project he doesn't voice fully until it's too late, and you know exactly what happens to him when he exits the picture, which makes everything all the more heart-wrenching.
You see Ford Pines- a character in barely 8 episodes- fully fleshed-out as this egotistical, insecure, lonely, and incredibly charismatic and whimsical human being who is manipulated time and time again because he deems himself both above and below everyone else. You see his need to prove himself to the world, that he's more than just his extra fingers, and it damages everyone around him so severely he still feels immense guilt in his sixties! You see him spiral, lose hope, be TORTURED, and all the while you watch him try to desperately claw himself out, to fix what he considers his doing, when it was Bill, preying on his insecurities and manipulating him to the point Ford can only see himself at fault.
You see Bill Cipher- someone who terrorizes the entire Pines family, someone who TORTURES so many- completely fall apart as he struggles to patch over his issues. To refuse help, to cover up the fact that he ruined the only relationship he has ever had that wasn't cemented in fear. He gave everything to someone, and they proceeded to "betray" him, spend 30 years finding a way to kill him, and then actually manage to do it. Bill is irredeemable, and yet there's humanity there that has been scribbled over by red and blue triangles, buried beneath the need to stay in control and never be vulnerable.
And then.... there's Stanley. And Stanley is the worst one because we know next to nothing about what he went through. He writes no entries. He doesn't have a journal, or a glorified scrapbook. And he's not around anyone that can document his behavior, like Ford did with McGucket. We see glimpses of his time after being kicked out. He ran scams, was arrested and jailed in 3 different countries, and a second dumb mistake made him lose his brother before they could work out the first. We get a smash-cut to his 30 years running the Mystery Shack. He spent 3 decades teaching himself things Ford needed help with, and he didn't even know if he'd get his brother back in the first place. He was living off the soul idea that if he did this, things would be okay. He lived off that notion, pushed through each day to prove to himself that everything would be okay. He wouldn't overthink. He wouldn't question where his brother was, or if he was even alive. He just has to fix this.
And that's all context clues. None of that is ever shown. But with so little to work with, and knowing his character, that's the only conclusion to draw. The fact we know so little means the gaps we fill are terrifying, and even some of the things we do know now thanks to thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com makes thinking about Stan's story so fucking devastating.
Safe to say, the adults and their struggles make me want to throw up. That's why the show is so dear to me: it's charming and fun, and yet when you delve into you, you get some of the most interesting and tragic glimpses into characters you love.