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“
Remember! Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, BYEEEEEEEE!
„
~ Bill's most famous quote.
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It's time we do a little redecorating! I could really use a castle of some kind! And how about some bubbles of pure madness?! This party never stops! Time is dead and meaning has no meaning! Existence is upside down and I reign supreme! Welcome, one and all, to WEIRDMAGEDDON!
„
~ Bill bringing forth Weirdmageddon.
Bill Cipher is the main antagonist of Disney's Gravity Falls franchise.
He is an extremely powerful dream demon from the Second Dimension known as Euclydia who is trillions of years old and desires to open a gateway between the Nightmare Realm and the Fourth Dimension to cause an event known as Weirdmaggedon and spread his madness everywhere. He is also the archenemy of the Pines family, especially Dipper and Stanford, being the latter's former best friend and "muse".
While he has numerous comedic moments throughout the series and is a very funny character in general, none of them detract from his heinousness, with most of them showing just how cruel, sadistic, and vile he truly is.
While he does occasionally show standards and affability in The Book of Bill, given how the entire book is used to manipulate it's readers, it's debatable if these are genuine redeeming qualities or complete lies.
It is in fact, demonstrated that Bill is frequently lying in the book after Ford's warning to the reader that Bill will try to manipulate them by distracting them with absurd, obviously impossible claims like knowing how to turn ducklings into nuclear bombs, with the very next page having Bill looking into a door marked "The Secrets Of The Universe", offhandedly mentioning that it contains the knowledge to turn ducklings into atomic bombs.
Bill also lied about his origins, telling the reader on his book that he was loved by everyone on his home dimension Euclydia and that he was regarded very highly for his rare mutation, his eye, that granted him the ability to see the third dimension, when in reality he was ostracized by everybody for having that mutation.
While "The Love Triangle", a book by him, shows he had a relationship with Tabitha Lustheart, not only is the realness of this ambiguous but the relationship seems extremely twisted as Bill only admires her for her Black Hole-like eyes.
Despite claiming that the Henchmaniacs are his "friends" and sometimes treating them affably, he does not actually care for them, as he is only kind to them so he can be praised and admired by them.
He angrily yelled for Paci-Fire to walk off their injury, threw a temper tantrum that almost destroyed his castle with them in it when he could not escape the borders of the town, and only got annoyed when they were beaten during their fight with the Shacktron rather than feeling concern for them, criticizing them for their failure instead. Additionally, he refers to them as worthless when they don't break him out of the Theraprism, and he put them through extreme hazing to join his gang.
The Oracle also goes through the effort of finding an asylum for the Henchmaniacs in case Bill returns, implying that Bill is extremely wrathful and would likely kill them all for their inaction if he escapes.
He devoured at least thousands of beings, such as Grebley Hemberdreck of Zimtrex 5 and the rest of his once-proud race, and gave them fates worse than deaths by trapping them inside of him.
Background[]
Going against the laws of his home world, he showed them the 3rd dimension, which resulted in his entire species getting violently ripped apart in a fiery chaos, killing all those he had ever known, including his own family and few friends, and effectively wiping out his entire species. The few details Bill remember make it clear this was a very agonising death and that the incident resulted in his whole dimension being destroyed except for a single atom.
While it was unintentional as the Axolotl claimed in Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure! that Bill genuinely misses his home world, and there are several hints both in the Book of Bill and Thisisnotawebsitedotcom that he feels bitter about it or misses his family, this ultimately does not hold up as a prevention, as he refuses to take responsibility for the act and it's shown that he's instead more focused on maintaining his twisted worldview than feeling any of the remorse he initially had, even insulting his family in the book's ending.
Bill even delusionally thinks that he freed himself and others from the world by destroying his home dimension, and thinks that everyone was fine and loved him for doing so, which makes him a hypocrite since even though he thinks he did a good thing, he also refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
While it is also stated that he had a bad relationship with the people in Euclydia and on to some extent his parents, it regardless does not make him justified or serve as an excuse for his actions at all. Furthermore, it’s revealed that Bill’s parents, while suppressing his visions, genuinely cared for him, making his insults towards them even more heinous.
In his own words, he has eaten gods and seduced galaxies.
In his "glory days", he became the most feared being in reality, freeing mental patients from asylums, robbing banks and killing various dimensional authorities with an explosive element he created and even making a clubhouse out of it.
During this time, he also crashed two planets together to make them kiss each other and threw a Nightmare Realm Prom that resulted in 300 deaths just for fun.
During his brawl with Time Baby, he destroyed at least six planets.
While it's unclear if he intended to destroy them or not, he still doesn't show remorse for doing so and even bragged about getting them destroyed.
He blasted Time Baby out of the Nightmare Realm, causing him to crash into the Earth and create a shock wave that boiled the oceans and wiped out the dinosaurs.
While Bill does say "whoops" after talking about this, it's clearly sarcastic and nonchalant, showing that Bill really couldn’t care less about causing the extinction of an entire race.
He made the ancient Egyptians make a portal for him, which worked, but only for ten minutes and let a jackal-headed man escape the Nightmare Realm, which made Bill furious. He would then torment them all in their nightmares, which made them construct the pyramids (statues of Bill) in hopes of making the nightmares stop (the arms and tophats would eventually break off).
He had the Aztecs sacrifice 9,000 people so he could use their heads to make a portal for himself.
He once tormented "Modoc the Wise," a Native American shaman, from the lands that would later become Gravity Falls, and after foreseeing a catastrophic event involving Bill that could potentially destroy the entire world, he set himself on fire in an effort to prevent it.
In The Book of Bill, Bill's story with the shaman gets expanded, where it gets revealed that the shaman's attempt to build the portal resulted in the creation of the Bottomless Pit, made a man's face turn to stone, released two lake monsters, and briefly turned the sky red. While these results were unintentional, Bill shows no concern for what happened.
In the Dark Ages, he commissioned a wizard named Xqrthx the Unpronouncable to build a portal, only to get trapped in a circle of unicorn hair, and after escaped by getting so angry the portal and hair melted, Bill proceeded to burn down Xqrthx’s castle using his pet phoenix and curse the entirety of Europe with nightmares for 100 years even after the wizard apologized.
In 1692, in the form of a goat named Vinegar Pete, he manipulated abused townswoman Mary Dower-Thatch into renouncing all other gods and becoming a sadist who drank blood and caused mischief around town, planning to burn down the city one night with him, with Mary also recruiting other women to her cause.
While Bill's actions did help Mary and her fellow women get away from their oppressive husbands, it seems that Bill only did this to take advantage of their desperation and convince them to cause chaos instead of actually helping them.
It's also implied that Bill's actions lead to the start of the Salem Witch Trials, leading numerous innocents to be accused of witchcraft and killed.
He offered to help the founding fathers of America defeat the British, but when they didn't like his first draft of the constitution, he tormented them with nightmares until they put him on the dollar bill to make him stop.
In 1901, he tormented Thurburt Mudget Waxstaff III with visions of a nightmare-filled reality until he helped build a portal for him, also cursing four people with banishment, firing, divorce and despair, with their despair being so great that they considered destroying their brains to get rid of him.
Thanks to his actions, Bill indirectly caused Thurburt to get locked in an insane asylum for over three years and lose his wife.
In 1930, he planned to ally with Elias Inkwell and gain popularity in the entertainment industry so he could use an entire army of child labor to build his portal.
In 1952, he possessed the corpse of infamous conman Silas Birchtree, using him to find the cult of Ciphertology, indoctrinating hundreds to his cause and taking over the local government and town.
During this time, he also brainwashed his followers into holding mass possession rituals, deprived them of healthcare, branded them on some undisclosed body part and convinced them to harass and unnerve others. He also got them to hijack a local TV station and force everybody in the region to listen to Bill's erotic geometric fiction.
When the cult was destroyed by the US military and a local old lady, Bill tried to force all of his cultists into committing suicide by drinking poison and would later tell them to stand in line holding hands in defiance to the police, resulting in their deaths and the town's complete annihilation.
In the 1980s, when posing as a computer, he struck deals with tech nerds to make the first computer capable of mass hypnosis, although the programmers instead all committed suicide and the floppy disk ate a kids finger.
Though Bill does say "oops", it is clearly sarcastic.
He manipulated Stanford Pines into making the portal for him in order to cause Weirdmageddon through charm and flattery, making Stanford think that Bill was his friend, inadvertently causing Fiddleford McGucket to go insane from what Bill was planning.
During this time, Bill constantly switched from showering Ford with praises and reminding him of how he was alone before he met Bill, making Ford doubt the few people left in his life.
While it’s implied that there was genuine love between the pair, this was only written from Ford’s perspective when he was unaware of Bill’s true nature, making Bill even worse as he tricked Ford into thinking he actually loved him.
Furthermore, while Bill seems to be in denial about whether he actually loved Ford or not, his general actions throughout the series make it clear that their relationship was toxic no matter how much Bill actually treasured his “friend”.
After Ford found out about Bill's true plans, Bill trapped Ford within a waking nightmare of paranoia and physical violence, telling Ford that he'll be all alone again if he tries to defy him.
He possessed Ford's body as payback for trying to cut off contact with him, using his voice to leave a suicide message to Stanley and say that Stanford never loved him, while also blaming Stan for Ford's supposed suicide.
Bill would also use Ford's possessed body to make him slap a policeman's stomach, eat spiders and get embarrassing tattoos among other things, all of which he would blackmail him with.
When Ford arrived in the Nightmare Realm, Bill sicced his Henchmaniacs on him to torment and catch him.
After Ford escaped, Bill went and got drunk out of despair for losing his minion and only pathway out of the Nightmare Realm, which made him go on an intoxicated rampage, causing damages in the restaurant he was in, mutilating and warping several people, as well as stealing a phone from a distressed waitress.
Season 1[]
Under Li'l Gideon's orders, he tried to steal the code from the Mystery Shack's safe, hoping that Gideon would help him with Weirdmageddon.
He fooled Mabel and Soos into searching for Stan's safe combination memory before anyone else, knowing they would lead him straight to it.
After separating Soos from the group, Bill disguised himself as Soos to replace him and once they located the right memory, Bill stole it and proceeded to mock them for their stupidity.
After failing to bring Gideon the code to the Mystery Shack's safe, he tried to kill Dipper, Mabel, and Soos by using horrific nightmares against them, planning on destroying Stan's mind when he was done.
While he did let Dipper, Mabel, and Soos off the hook, it was pragmatic as he genuinely believed that someday they would prove to be of use to him.
Season 2[]
He tricked Dipper into allowing him to possess his body, and during his time in Dipper's body, he destroyed the laptop that Dipper was using to find the author, abused Dipper's body in multiple ways, and tried to destroy the journal.
It's also revealed in Gravity Falls: Journal 3 that after destroying the journal, he planned on jumping off of a water tower in Dipper's body to leave the latter stuck as a ghost forever and make it look like Dipper committed suicide, with it also being implied that he would have either possessed Mabel to leave her stuck as a ghost as well or gaslit her into committing suicide out of guilt.
He possessed Blendin Blandin so he could trick Mabel into giving him the inter-dimensional rift under the pretext that he would make summer endless so Dipper would not take an apprenticeship with Ford and leave her behind, before using it to bring about Weirdmageddon, in which he caused havoc and destruction throughout Gravity Falls.
He imprisoned Mabel in the Prison Bubble so she would remain there forever, and while Mabel was much happier there than in the real world, the place was a lie, and its inhabitants were disguised monsters who tempted Dipper, Wendy, and Soos into remaining there forever.
While he did create sentient copies of Xyler and Craz to accompany Mabel despite his vehement hatred of them, this is pragmatic so as to keep Mabel completely satisfied and unwilling to leave.
He had the Eye Bats turn most of the citizens of Gravity Falls into statues and stack them into a "frozen throne of human agony".
He deformed Preston Northwest by changing his face, causing him to scream in pain.
While Preston absolutely deserved it, Bill only did it for fun.
He unleashed bubbles of pure madness, causing multiple citizens to go completely feral and insane.
He tried to convince Ford to join him along with his henchmaniacs, turning him into a gold statue to use as a back-scratcher when he refused.
He destroyed all three of Ford's journals before ordering 8-Ball and Teeth to eat Dipper alive.
He tortured Gideon by forcing him to do a cute dance in a cage for the rest of eternity after he betrayed him.
Even as Gideon decided to work with the group, he still ordered Gideon to dance.
It's revealed later in The Book of Bill that Gideon still has nightmares of the sailor costume he was forced to wear, making Bill even more heinous for traumatising the child. Furthermore, Bill sarcastically insists that Gideon “loved it”, showing his depraved side.
He killed Time Baby and most of the Time Police, while also not caring about Time Baby telling him that Weirdmageddon could end the very fabric of existence itself.
Furthermore, by doing this Bill "fulfilled" his deal to Blendin that Time Baby and his coworkers wouldn't tease him anymore, displaying his sick sense of humor.
He planned to expand Weirdmageddon to the entire world and then the universe, only to be stopped by Gravity Falls' law of weirdness magnetism.
He once again offered Ford a chance to join him in exchange for learning how to bring down the barrier keeping him trapped in Gravity Falls, and when he refused, Bill tortured him with hundreds of volts of electricity for the information.
While the scene in which Bill plays "We'll Meet Again" after un-petrifying Ford parallels his advice on how to woo back an ex-partner in The Book of Bill, said advice shows that this process is meant to break the will of the victim, once again showing that any affection Bill has for Ford is twisted. It's also likely that Bill planned to seduce Ford into giving him the equation this way, showing that he only sees him as a valuable pawn.
In a vision Bill showed to Ford to get him to comply, Bill drew a happy face on the United States, which caused apocalyptic destruction and millions of deaths before Bill took a bite of Earth and allowed his friends to play with the other planets, which is all but stated to be his plans for when Weirdmageddon is expanded.
When the resistance of Gravity Falls came to fight Bill in the Shacktron, Bill had his Henchmaniacs fight it to kill everyone inside.
After failing to get the information to escape Gravity Falls from Ford by torturing him, he then decided to threaten his family to get him to comply.
He turned Wendy, Gideon, McGucket, Robbie, Soos, and Pacifica into posters for his castle right in front of the Pines family, with them being conscious since they are shown screaming.
After Dipper and Mabel escaped to buy Stan and Ford time, Bill turned into a more demonic form so he could kill Dipper and Mabel, "make them into corpses," and "disassemble their molecules".
He threatened to kill Dipper and Mabel if Ford didn't tell him how to take Weirdmageddon global, and then tried to kill one of them while having Stanley and Stanford watch "just for the heck of it," with it being seen through his eye that he would've killed Mabel first.
In his final moments, he started panicking like crazy and tried to offer Stan the chance to have anything he wanted in an attempt to make him spare his life, and when such act failed, he unsuccessfully tried to kill him for tricking him into going into his mind instead of Ford's, resulting in Stan punching him out of existence.
Because of his actions, especially everything he did to the Pines family, his death is completely deserved.
The Book of Bill[]
After he invoked the Axolotl's power when he was killed, he was sent to the Theraprism, where he was given the choice to be reincarnated if he completed a therapy program and showed remorse over his actions, only for Bill to actively refuse to change.
He continued to plot against the Pines family, with one section implying that Bill wishes to one day watch the Pines twins fight other versions of each other who didn't get the same happy ending they received.
While he does express some fondness for Mabel and Quentin Trembley, this is just Bill being impressed at how chaotic Mabel is and how insane Quentin is, with Bill even plotting to recruit Mabel one day.
Furthermore, while he does bond with Xyler and Craz in Mabel's mind, this was simply to gain access to her darkest secrets and any good deeds he did were forced by an inescapable montage sequence.
He created the titular book using a human spine, human brain matter and a soul for the materials to trick the real life humans who read it into freeing him from the Theraprism so he could restart Weirdmageddon.
Thisisnotawebsitedotcom shows that Bill managed to drive many readers insane with the book, such as Charlie Day and MatPat.
He imprisoned Scrimbles the Elf inside the book, leading it so when the reader turns the page, they end up crushing him to death.
From what is seen, Scrimbles has been chained up for a long time and begs for mercy, and after the page is turned, Bill mocked his death and insinuated he has used Book Elves before.
He showed off his collection of six disfigured heads that are always screaming in constant agony.
While he did create an apology video for attempting to destroy the universe, it was clearly only a joke mocking apology videos and wasn't genuine.
He tried to trick the reader into switching bodies with him so that he could take over Gravity Falls and unleash a Weirdmageddon 2.0, not caring at all that could have had a death toll of 7.8 billion.
He planned to disembowel the Pines and use their organs in a pinata as revenge.
At the end of the book, he had a villainous breakdown after failing to escape the Theraprism, stating he learned nothing in therapy and cursing the Henchmaniacs, Ford, Stan, and even his own family.
While the final page could have been seen as somewhat pitiable, with Bill shown to be alone and repeatedly insisting that he's "fine", his fate is once again absolutely deserved and he has no one to blame for it but himself.
He is implied to have possessed his creator Alex Hirsch, given the glitchiness of the author's credits page and Alex's photo showing him with blank eyes.
ARG[]
It's implied that he murdered the Oregon Parks ranger Gus Burnside by burning him alive when he started investigating him.
This is indirectly confirmed on the Bill Cipher's Personal Injury Hotline where if you press 4, the option for being burned alive, Bill will laugh maniacally and then will say "Sorry Gus!".
If you type "Burnside" on the website computer, you will be greeted by a text saying "BURNED INSIDE", and if you look up "BURNED INSIDE" you will see a brief image of a burned Oregon Parks ranger patch and badge.
He trapped the Bill Cipher's Personal Injury Hotline operator inside the phone until the heat death of the universe, who can only be freed if the caller agrees to grant him death.
In a letter to Dipper, he mockingly told him he’s alive and told him to burn his eyes in the sun.
He attempted to corrupt Soos, and when that failed due to his blind good nature, Bill briefly possessed him to sabotage the website.
When he came across Robbie and Thompson in the woods, he tormented them by showing how they die before attempting to kill them.
While Robbie did summon him out of a morbid curiosity, it's not shown anywhere that he wanted to see his death or what he wanted from Bill in particular, meaning that Bill did all of this just for fun.
Out of sheer pettiness for being defeated, Bill spilled all of Stan's darkest secrets.
When clicking on the "How He Beat Me" tab, Bill goes on a full-on villainous breakdown, cursing Stan and threatening to torture the reader. The poem at the end implies that Bill plans to take his revenge on Stan if he escapes.
It's revealed that in an attempt to start Weirdmageddon, Bill trapped Pacifica in a nightmare and tried to manipulate her into making a deal.
It's implied that had the Lumberjack Ghost not intervened, Bill would've killed Pacifica when she refused.
He trapped Weird Al Yankovic in the computer for all eternity.
He at one point tricked a woman into making a deal with him, causing her to get a tattoo of him on her chest and cause mischief such as pull the teeth from animals' mouths.
Trivia[]
Ironically, Bill's voice actor Alex Hirsch would later on voice the Pure Good King Clawthorne in The Owl House, with even their voices being almost identical. Even more ironically, Dana Terrace, the creator of The Owl House, previously worked as a storyboard artist for Gravity Falls and took several inspirations from Hirsch’s work.
To further the irony, during Season 1 of The Owl House, there was a popular fan theory that King was a reincarnated Bill following his death in the series finale.
The second part of Weirdmageddon originally had a different plot; Mabel was meant to find out what the Prison Bubble actually was, and Bill would have imprisoned her and Dipper in their photo album, where they would have relived their worst memories. Had this been published, it would've made Bill even worse, as he puts Dipper and Mabel into a fate worse than death.
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