Bill Cipher - Gravity Falls

Bill Cipher is a two-dimensional interdimensional demon from the now destroyed dimension, Euclydia, formerly existent only in the Mindscape before succeeding in gaining access to the real world. He had been running amok in Gravity Falls, Oregon since being summoned by Ford Pines over thirty years ago. Known for his mysterious demeanor and sadistic humor, Bill is the main antagonist of the overall series. He does not play a central role in the series until his first physical appearance in "Dreamscaperers", though he is pictured throughout the entire series, such as the rug in the Mystery Shack, the window in the building's attic and is pictured in the title sequence.

Ten hears prior to the events of the series, Bill Cipher originated from a two-dimensional universe known as Euclydia. When he was born, he had Velcro shoes and was beloved by everyone so much that the mayor declared his birthday a national holiday. On his birthday, Bill gave out free knives to everyone as a gift. In spite of this, however, Bill despised living there, describing it as a dimension of "flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams." During a drunken rant, it is implied that his claims of a good childhood are false and that he was actually ostracized for his mutation, giving him the drive to finally make his race understand what he saw. In an event known as the "Euclidian Massacre", he "liberated" his dimension by plunging it into burning chaos, along with everyone he had ever known, including his own parents.[5] Possibly due to the inherent trauma of the event, he is unable to fully recount the details of the massacre; meaning whether he even intended to commit the act to the extent that he did still remains unclear. He eventually took over a boiling and shifting intergalactic foam between dimensions: a lawless and unstable crawlspace known as the Nightmare Realm. Unfortunately, due to the Nightmare Realm's lawlessness and lack of any consistent physics or rules, it was fated to eventually collapse on itself.[8] After coming to learn of a prophecy that stated he would merge the Nightmare Realm with the third dimension, Bill started coming into contact with humans to accomplish this.

Without a physical form, however, Bill could only access the dreams of the third dimension's beings. In order to make his dealings with mortals easier, he took on the name "Bill Cipher" as his real name would "evaporate one with an expression of horror and ecstasy on their face."[9] Among his targets were the natives who lived in what would become the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon.

Bill once asked a local shaman named Modoc the Wise to build an interdimensional gateway to the Nightmare Realm, but the result was made out of twigs. When Modoc learned of the prophecy that foretold of an apocalyptic event that would stem from interactions with Bill Cipher, he committed suicide by setting himself on fire in an effort to avert it.

The natives eventually discovered a way to defeat Bill by using a zodiac with ten symbols. They left behind elaborate cave paintings about their encounter with the demon, including how to summon him, and more importantly, a warning never to read the incantation that would summon Bill aloud. The valley was deemed a "cursed land" by the natives, who evacuated around 1000 AD.[10] The area would eventually be rediscovered by Quentin Trembley and repopulated by pioneers, giving rise to the town of Gravity Falls.

In 1952, Bill possessed a dead body of an infamous conman named Silas Birchtree, who used his charisma to start a cult named Ciphertology in the Kansas town of Orchard Lake. Almost every citizen became the member of his cult, except for Emmaline Butternubbins, a local nag who knew about his true identity. Bill then ordered his members to build a portal for him, but before he could finish it, his signals were picked up by the law enforcement, who arrived to shoot down the cultists, along with Bill in Silas' body. Bill tried to deliver one last message to people, but Silas' body got decapitated, as he left it, and his cult seemingly disbanded.

In the late twentieth century, a young man named Stanford Pines, who had spent the past six years investigating the town's plethora of unnatural creatures and oddities, hit a roadblock in his research and was left without answers as to how the improbabilities of Gravity Falls had come to be. During the roadblock, he uncovered the ancient cave containing the ancients' stories of Bill Cipher. Heedless of the warnings, Ford repeated the incantation aloud, summoning Bill into his mindscape. Bill recognized Ford's brilliant but cocky and insecure nature, and his near-friendlessness as ideal conditions for manipulation, choosing to introduce himself to Ford as a muse who chose one brilliant mind every century to inspire.

t was Bill who revealed to Ford that Gravity Falls' weirdness was caused by a rift between dimensions, through which the other side's weirdness leaked through. With Bill's assistance, Stanford drafted blueprints to create an inter-dimensional gateway beneath his home (later becoming the Mystery Shack) and recruited his college friend Fiddleford McGucket for assistance. As Bill and Ford's partnership seemingly grew to friendship, Ford seemed to develop an obsession with Bill's powers, collecting triangular memorabilia such as rugs and statues, modeling his home's architecture in his image, converting his private study into a place of worship. He even allowed the demon to enter his mind; this, along with the amount of information he seemed to simply produce on the spot, made Fiddleford increasingly uneasy of the portal and of Ford's mysterious collaborator, as Ford never mentioned Bill's identity to his partner.

On January 18, 1983, Ford and Fiddleford performed their first trial with the active portal, which quickly went awry, as the rope that was attached to the dummy they intended to send through the portal became tangled with Fiddleford, sending him briefly through the portal head-first. Upon his return, an alienated Fiddleford muttered incoherencies before uttering a prediction about "the beast with just one eye." In Gravity Falls: Journal 3, it is revealed that Fiddleford saw Bill removing his exoskeleton to feed. He promptly abandoned the project.

The suspicion planted in him by Fiddleford led to a confrontation between Ford and Bill, during which Ford learned that Bill had tricked him, as the portal was meant to act as a gateway to the Nightmare Realm, allowing the demon to bring chaos and destruction into their universe. Horrified and betrayed, Ford shut down the project and attempted to destroy all knowledge of the portal, before accidentally falling through it himself. Bill either could not see Ford in the thirty years he spent lost in other dimensions or did not care to, as Ford would remark that they had not seen each other in many years. With the loss of his human pawn, Bill also lost physical access to the third dimension.

At first, Bill Cipher seemed to be a charming and charismatic figure, willing to help people with their problems while making deals with them, but this easily changes within minutes of his debut, especially when he reveals himself to be a highly intelligent and manipulative individual, who only wants to benefit himself. Because of his harmless appearance and charismatic nature, he often enjoyed playing games with people, either to make himself more trustworthy or because he likes manipulating people, regarding how easily they fall into his traps. It also gives whoever doesn't know his true nature the false impression that he isn't evil when in actuality, Bill is a completely heartless and psychopathic monster. He was unfailingly nice and friendly to his so-called "friends" as well as long as things go the way he wants. However, when this is not the case, he is quick to lash out to them and does not care about their well-being.

He usually spoke with a high-pitched voice with a synthesized effect, but when furious or expressive, it becomes very deep and intimidating in a way that's more in line with traditional demon depictions. When Bill got mad, he becomes full of rage, as he attacks without mercy and for the most part, stops fooling around. He is also very masochistic, as he enjoys hurting himself, as shown when he tortured Dipper's body while possessing it, even exclaiming that pain is hilarious. He also has no problem killing or hurting children like Dipper and Mabel, as shown when he purposefully harmed Dipper's body while possessing it and nearly killed one of the twins to force Stanford to surrender to him. An expert manipulator and a masterful liar, he is clearly capable of fooling others into trusting him long enough for him to betray them in a heartbeat and is falsely affable enough to influence others into becoming one of his many pawns or making deals with him (which he will almost always double-cross to his advantage). Bill also wasn't above using people's personal issues and feelings to manipulate them, such as when he manipulated Dipper into making a deal with him by simply reminding him of everything the latter had sacrificed for Mabel's sake, particularly highlighting the fact that she had done nothing for him in return.

However, while an easily angered madman, he is also highly authoritative, perspicacious, influential, pragmatic, and decisive, knowing when to pull out of a fight. Over the course of the show, it became more and more obvious that Bill is an extremely calculating, conniving and diabolical mastermind. Sometimes, even those who are aware of how depraved he is fall for his charm. Bill is also known for his complete disregard of rules and morals, as he considers laws and physics to be quite senseless and doesn't even care about the consequences of his actions even if they can endanger the fabric of existence; likewise, the idea of destroying the Earth is a mere game to him. Ultimately, he dedicated his existence to spreading complete chaos and followed his selfish philosophy of doing whatever he wants without any care for the consequences.

In his final moments, Bill was shown to be absolutely terrified of dying as seen when being exploited by his own weakness. Also, he is implied to have some guilt about destroying his homeworld and killing his own parents but is unable to admit it, as seen in Axolotl's words: "Misses home but can't return. He says he's happy; he's a liar. Blames the arson for the fire". This is explained upon in The Book of Bill, where it's revealed Bill destroyed his home dimension on complete accident and tried to bring it back, but gave up on it and decided that nothing is his fault, showing how egotistical he is. Bill seemingly hates perverts, shown when a fan asked him if his triangular sides were equilateral or not, Bill replied: "THAT'S A SICK QUESTION YOU PERVERT." His madness might stem from the restrictions of his own homeworld, as shown when he talks with Stanford and his extremely negative relationship with his family that was confirmed to be "worse than Stan's". However, this does not serve as an excuse for his crimes, because it only shows how heinous he really is, and highlights his desire for utter chaos with no restrictions.

Overall, Bill Cipher is a cunning, malevolent, sinister, blasphemous, charismatic, egotistical, deceptive, highly manipulative, self-centered, chaotic, ruthless, omniscient, and sadomasochistic con artist who has absolutely no regard or remorse whatsoever for the crimes he's committed; as far as he's concerned, billions of people (including children, infants, and animals) can die for all he cares as long as he gets what he wants and achieves his goals in the end. His sick-minded personality is best portrayed both during and after the events of "Sock Opera", where he threatened to let go of the rope that was holding Mabel up, obviously fully aware of the fact that if he let the rope fall out of his grip, the young girl would be seriously (and possibly fatally) injured.

Not to mention, he planned to kill Dipper and make it appear to be a suicide, and after he was done with Dipper, he was either going to repeat the process with Mabel or he expected her to also take her own life due to madness caused by grief, showing how much of an atrocious and merciless individual he truly was. And during the four-part series finale "Weirdmageddon", he described his plans to Stanford if he was victorious, which showed him tracing a smiley face over North America (particularly the United States) with his finger, completely disregarding that that alone would lead to tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of lives lost. What's more, he even ate part of the Earth itself, once again not caring about the millions of innocent lives that his actions would take, which further proves his cruelty and viciousness to everyone but himself. In the end, Bill didn't value anyone but himself, nor did he value his Henchmaniacs to the extent that they were useful to him and his plans.

As revealed in The Book of Bill, despite claims of having a good childhood when he was loved by all, Bill was actually bullied as a child and was ostracized by his race for his rare ability to see into the Third Dimension. This would cause Bill to despise living in the second dimension as he was unable to get people to understand concepts of higher dimensions and thus, decided to show his race all what he saw, which resulted in the complete destruction of his dimension excluding him.

However, while it's implied that Bill did feel guilt and deep remorse for destroying his home dimension, he has willingly buried any regret under deep layers of hedonism and narcissism, focusing only on how he tried to help his people and feeling that he is owed thanks for "liberating" his dimension which is detailed during the "Morality" chapter where he uses a three step plan of "Denial, Rationalization, and Detatchment." Furthermore, despite his parents having shown deep care towards him and implications that Bill still misses them, he refuses to acknowledge their love and even curses them for giving him medication meant to suppress his 3D visions, displaying his obsession with maintaining his worldview. Thus, while Bill may have genuinely felt bad for the destruction of his whole dimension in the past, his refusal to acknowledge his fault in its destruction has led him to favour evil over even the slightest hint of remorse, causing him to devolve into the monster he is today. As such, in contrast to the show's themes of growing up but still retaining a measure of childlike wonder, Bill has forsaken self-growth and an ability to change for wilful hedonism, making him the complete opposite of the Pines twins, be it Dipper and Mabel or Stanley and Stanford.

Bill is a yellow, two-dimensional and triangular creature that bears a strong resemblance to the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States, which in turn consists of the Eye of Providence and an unfinished Egyptian pyramid. The color of his body briefly becomes lighter when he speaks. Often when he appears, the area he appears in takes on a washed-out monochrome appearance. It is unknown whether this effect physically occurs, or if it is simply a visual effect to bring attention to his appearance.

He has a single large eye with a slit pupil, rimmed with four short black lashes on the top and bottom, though sometimes there are three on the top and four on the bottom. He moves around mostly by floating about and rarely actually stands on his own legs. He has thin, black limbs, wears a small, black bow tie and a tall, thin, black top hat that floats just above his head. He has no mouth whatsoever, though has been shown using his eye as one to drink something. His arms do not seem to be in any fixed position and can move along the perimeter of his body without any difficulty. He occasionally carries a small black or yellow cane. The lower part of his body has a brick-like pattern of lines. He has no fixed size and he has been shown to be as small as a hand and tower over the Mystery Shack.

In the book Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure!: Select Your Own Choose-Venture it is strongly implied by the Axolotl's poem about Bill that he's an equilateral triangle: the first verse says "sixty degrees that come in threes", and equilateral triangles have three internal angles of 60° each.[14]

However, when he gets angry, his voice deepens significantly, the color of his body turns red and his eye turns black with a white pupil, (in close-up, his eye shows a red iris.) and everything on his body that was previously black turns white.

When possessing someone, that person's skin becomes pale and their eyes become yellow with black slits like Bill's. The voice also changes to Bill's.

In the Book of Bill, after being sent to the Theraprism, Bill is now shown cracked with glitches being exposed after being punched by Stan.