| “ | Oh this isn't over, this isn't the last you see of lil ol' me... | „ |
| ~ Li'l Gideon |
Gideon Charles Gleeful (better known as his stage name, Li'l Gideon) is the main, later secondary antagonist turned supporting protagonist of Gravity Falls. He is the owner of the Tent of Telepathy and has an obsessive crush on Mabel Pines. He holds a grudge with Dipper Pines for interrupting what he perceived as a date with Mabel. He has a rivalry with "Grunkle" Stanford Pines that began before the show under unknown circumstances.
He is voiced by Thurop Van Orman, the creator of the Cartoon Network series, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
History
The twins, Dipper and Mabel, both witness a television commercial promoting the "Tent of Telepathy", claiming that the owner of the tent, Lil' Gideon possesses psychic abilities, particularly in mind-reading. Despite the fact that Grunkle Stan forbids them from going due to Gideon being a rival business competitor; the twins, along with Soos, visit the tent to test Gideon's authenticity.
During the show, Gideon notices Mabel in the audience and confronts her the next morning, asking is she wants to join him at his dressing room to perform makeovers, an offer to which Mabel agrees. Eventually, however, Gideon expresses his love for Mabel, stating that he wants to be more than just friends, but Mabel, on the other hand, does not quite feel the same for him. She reluctantly agrees, as long as it were to be only one date.
At a local restaurant, however, Gideon, through the help of a macaw, proposes another date in the presence of restaurant spectators, leaving Mabel no choice but to accept. Stan, disapproving of the engagement after hearing about it, decides to talk to Gideon's father, Bud Gleeful, to call off the marriage, but Gleeful agrees to give a lot of money to Stan if Mabel and Gideon are both engaged.
Dipper soon realizes that this is beginning to present a problem for Mabel and offers to discuss the situation and Mabel's breakup to Gideon in private. Although Gideon manages to suppress his anger towards Dipper during this, he is convinced that Dipper is purposely getting in between their relationship and begins to plot his revenge. He calls Toby Determined, a journalist for the Gravity Falls Gossiper, and gives him Shandra Jimenez's phone number, a news reporter whom the journalist has a crush on. In exchange, Toby calls Dipper, getting him to go to Gideon's factory, where Gideon nearly kills Dipper with a powerful amulet, which gives him his psychic abilities, including telekinesis. However, Mabel shows up, formally breaks up with Gideon, and uses the amulet to defeat him, but spares him.
Afterwards, Gideon is seen plotting his revenge with a wooden play-set of the Mystery Shack, complete with miniature version of Dipper, Mabel, and Grunkle Stan. It is then revealed, like Dipper, that he owns a mysterious book of his own, but marked with the number two, instead of three.
Gideon makes his next appearance in Irrational Treasure. He dresses up as a tomato farmer (As he puts it: "A humble tomato farmer, selling his wares!") on Pioneer Day and teases Stan by throwing tomatoes in his eyes after he insulted Gideon by saying he looks less girlier than usual. He is also the main antagonist of the episode Little Dipper where he plans to shrink Grunkle Stan so that he can become bigger, but was ultimately foiled by Dipper and Mabel when they tickle him, causing him to be rolled right away from the Mystery Shack.
He is a main antagonist of the episode Dreamscaperers where he summons a pyramid demon named Bill Cipher in order to figure out the combination to Stan's locker so that he can get Stan's deed to get the Mystery Shack from him. Bill was nearly successful in getting the deed but lost it in the bottomless pit memory. This causes Gideon to call off the deal of Bill getting money from him, causing Bill to get upset and turn into a giant to try and get Mabel, Soos, and Xyler and Craz, but with Dipper's help, they are able to defeat Bill. Dipper realizes what Stan meant to him and they embrace with Dipper giving a short friendly neck hold to Stan. Unfortunately, this moment is short lived, as Gideon had successfully taken Stan's deed to the Mystery Shack, via blowing up the safe and half of the shack with dynamite, and then getting his dad to drive a wrecking ball with Gideon on it laughing evilly as Bud uses the wrecking ball to destroy the Mystery Shack and claim it for himself and his son Gideon, leaving the episode on a cliffhanger.
In the season 1 finale episode Gideon Rises he has now taken the Mystery Shack, claiming he plans to turn it into Gideon Land. However he really plans to find the first Journal which he believed was hidden somewhere in the Mystery Shack. Dipper and Mabel try to go home, but Dipper tries to call in the Gnomes to stop Gideon, but Gideon uses a whistle to hurt the Gnomes's ears and cause them to get Dipper and Mabel out of his sight. In the process, Gideon takes Dipper's book #3 and taunted Dipper claiming without the book he was nothing. Dipper and Mabel have no choice but to go back home. After seeing it was the third book and not the first as he assumed, he gets furious after figuring out that he needs all three books in order to go to an alternate dimension. Assuming that Dipper has the 1st book, Gideon gets on a giant Gideon robot powered by motion capture that Old Man McGucket made to try and track the twins down. He tries getting them, but Soos now a bus driver was somewhat able to avoid him. Dipper and Mabel are now on the edge of a cliff, and manage to escape on to the mine cart tracks. Gideon then uses the robot to hurt Dipper and kidnap Mabel in order to force her to become his queen. Dipper at first gives up, but then charges toward the Gideon bot, he smashes through the window used as an eye and attacked Gideon from the inside. Although Gideon first fights back, Dipper manages to overpower him, however as Gideon was still hooked to the robot, it replicated his fight as such it knocked the robot off the tracks sending all three of them toppling off the cliff into the ground. Fortunately, Dipper and Mabel survive when Mabel uses her grappling hook to hook on to a tree branch. Gideon also survives, and tries to get Sheriff and Deputy Blubs and Durland to arrest the twins, but Stan arrives and shows the Gravity Falls residents that Gideon's psychic abilities were fake, revealing Gideon's buttons he had given out were really secret camera's so he could spy on everyone and convince them he was psychic, causing the residents to turn on Gideon. Also, Blubs and Durland arrest Gideon and take him to jail and Grunkle Stan gets the Mystery Shack back and the twins are able to stay with him. At the end of the episode, Stan is revealed to have the book marked with the number one, and gets all three books to open a portal to an alternate universe. Before Gideon was sent to jail, he swore to the Pines family that he will be back for revenge.
He appeared in prison in the season 2 premiere right after Grunkle Stan turned on his portal in his secret bunker.
He reappears in "The Stanchurian Candidate," on a video screen in his jail house working with Bud to get him elected president and out of jail, when Stan starts winning he forcibly posses Bud's body and attempts to have him kill Dipper, Mabel and Stan by blowing them off a mountain. At the end credits we see a Bill Cipher poster and he draws an eye on it, claiming he's ready to make a deal, thus making him Cipher's minion.
He remains Bill Cipher's minion upon being broken out and helps his apocalypse plan in Weirdmageddon: Part 1 so that, in return, he will have all of eternity to get Mabel to love him. He and his prison brawlers chase down Dipper and Wendy in their monster trucks and surround them before they can reach Mabel. However, after Dipper explains to him that he can't force Mabel to love him, he decides to be less selfish and is determined to prove himself as a hero by taking on his former master. He leaves Dipper, Soos, and Wendy with the key and drives off with his gang members to face the chaos god.
In Weirdmageddon 2: Escape from Reality, Bill learns of Gideon's betrayal, but is unmoved by it, saying that Mabel's bubble is the most diabolical trap he ever created and that it would be impossible to escapre from it. Bill orders his monsters to fetch Gideon and his gang and bring them brought forward to face punishment for betraying him.
In the series finale Weirdmageddon 3: Takes Back the Falls, Gideon is locked up in a cage while his gang members and petrified added to Bill's throne of human agony. Gideon then is forced to do cute dance against his will to Bill's pleasure until Dipper and Mabel frees him and the other victims of Bill's throne (including the gang members). Gideon stays by to help Dipper, Mabel and their friends to stop Bill, but he and the others (except for the Pines family) are transformed into tapestries by Bill. Fortunately, Stan manages to destroy Bill by tricking him into entering his mind (since it happens to be Bill's weakness) while his twin brother Ford uses the Memory Eraser to erase Stan's mind to ensure that Bill will be erased from existence for good. Following Bill's death, Gideon and the others are turned back to normal and Weirdmageddon has finally ended, much to everyone's delight. Gideon and his family would later attend Dipper and Mabel's 13th birthday party, admitting that he's changed for the better as a good kid. Despite Gideon's redemption, he maintains a mischievous streak; as shown when he's trying to ride on a skateboard, one kid makes fun of him, resulting an offended Gideon to send his gang members (who are presumably pardoned for their crimes) to beat up the kid in retaliation.
Personality
Li'l Gideon is a self-proclaimed psychic who uses his charm, charisma and adorableness to fool people and mask his true personality. His thick Southern accent and babyish appearance make it easy to be fooled and while he may appear a trustable figure he is anything else but people still appear to do so, an example is when his Gideon-Bot was destroyed and he pinned it on Dipper and Mabel Pines, Officer Blubs and Durland instantly believed it without any evidence whatsoever.
In reality Gideon is a selfish, spoilt, conniving, bratty, power-crazed and somewhat sociopathic boy. Gideon is someone who always gets his way and does not take no for an answer. He began to develop a crush on his rival Stan Pines niece, Mabel and went to any lengths to have her, when Mabel was too afraid to end the relationshi she asks her brother, Dipper, to do it which causes Gideon to believe that it was Dipper who stood between their relationship, enraged the Li'l psychic uses his Magic Amulet to attack and attempts to murder him. Fortunately Mabel arrives to break his heart along with his amulet which causes Gideon to lose his powers but he claims that he will be back.
Aside from his true personality, Gideon is a fraud. He gives people badges of himself (which are actually hidden cameras) and then spies through them so that it might appear he is psychic. He is also two-faced, when he gives his catchphrase to a group of strangers "it's my li'l secret" and then walks away while under his breath he says "mouth-breathing fools." He revels himself not above blackmailing someone, when he had shrunk and kidnapped Dipper and Mabel, he used them as leverage so he could obtain the Mystery Shack.
Gideon is extremely abusive, especially towards his parents who are the few people who see his true colours. When his father had asked him to clean his room he responds by screaming "I could buy and sell you old man!" This also shows when Bud attempted to cheer his son by tickling whcih prompts Gideon to have a tantrum and speaks towards his father as if he were the child and storm out. While Bud remains ignorant to his sons brat-like nature (although this is probably due to him being a member of the Society of the Blind Eye) it's his mother who responds the most to Gideon's tantrum, almost acting like a traumatised soul who "just keeps vacuuming."
Gideon has a very obsessive nature, which shows when he became romantically interested in Mabel Pines but even after being rejected by the girl, he still believed that there was a relationship between the two and thought that it was her family that stood in between them. He then wished revenge against the Pine twins, so he became obsessed to obtain their Mystery Shack which went as far to attempt to trick Stan and actually summoning an enigmatic demon.
In his final moment, Gideon proved to be megalomaniacal as when he attempted to locate the three Journals so that he may rule Gravity Falls and have Mabel as his queen. And also very reckless as when he summoned the demon Bill Cipher depsite Journal 2's warning not to summon at all costs all so he may gain possession of the Mystery Shack.
Trivia
- Gideon was seemingly the main antagonist of the series throughout Season 1, until Bill Cipher proved to be the true main antagonist, having manipulated Gideon along with everyone else to further his own goals and having much bigger plans than any other villain.
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