Filbrick Elmer Pines is the overarching antagonist of the Gravity Falls franchise.
He is the abusive and neglectful father of twins Stanley and Stanford Pines, whom he initially showed false tough love towards, only for their teenage years to show how little he truly loved either of his sons, with Filbrick’s cruel actions resulting in both the decades long ruin of Stan and Ford’s very close brotherly relationship with each other and Stan becoming the infamous con man he is.
He is voiced by Jonathan Banks.
What Makes Him Pathetic?[]
- Even before Stanley and Stanford where born, he didn’t care about either of them, as when he was asked to name both of his sons, he just gave them names with the name “Stan” in it because he couldn’t be bothered to think of anything else. While he wasn’t expecting twins (despite the scans obviously saying otherwise), it was still somewhat cold on Filbrick’s part to be so uncaring of his own son’s identities.
- After his gold chains went missing one summer, he immediately assumed that Stanley had stolen them and grounded him, while giving him and Ford 24 hours to find them. While it does turn out that Stanley did steal them, not only was it for good intentions (to write “#1 Dad” on it), but Filbrick had no actual proof Stanley did this and just distrusted him for no good reason. Additionally, even when they get returned to him, he still decides to ground Stanley anyways (though he was at least grateful for Stanley’s honesty and let him and Ford spend time together).
- As the boys approached their teenage years, Filbrick planned to take advantage of Ford’s high intellect, solely to live a financially comfortable life, rather than doing any proper hard work himself and putting in much effort, while also looking down on Stanley, always verbally putting him down instead of bringing his son back up (despite otherwise being confused by his son’s behaviour). Additionally, he hypocritically accused Stanley of trying to bank on Ford’s intelligence, despite Filbrick himself doing the exact same thing.
- On two different occasions when Stanley miserably failed a History exam, Filbrick cruelly made him stand outside for two days straight holding a sign saying “Extra Stan-3 Dollars or a better offer” (the first time) and “Extra Stan, 3 Dollars or Better Offer” (the second time), which left Stanley traumatised, even as an elderly man.
- After discovering that Stanley accidentally broke Ford’s invention and cost him the chance to go to a great College as a result, Filbrick coldly grand and throws Stanley out of the house (while cruelly calling an “ignoramus”), while stating he never wants to see him again until he makes millions for the family.
- Even after he learnt that Stanley apparently died in a car crash (when in actuality he faked his death), he refused to show up to his son’s funeral. Even Bill Cipher (who is a cataclysmic maniac) of all people considered this an utterly horrible thing to do and was somewhat disturbed by it, further cementing how vile of a human being Filbrick truly was.
- He fully subverts any possible care he may have once had for his sons, when he disowns Stanley, tries to bank on Ford’s future success and his relationship with Shermie not being given any sort of depth to determine if he loves him or not (this also includes subverting a “Pet the Dog” moment he had about a decade before infamously kicking Stan out, where while he still grounded Stan for stealing his gold chains, he still let Ford spend time with him, because of Stan’s good intentions). Additionally, while he does seem to get along with Caryn well enough given his nature, their relationship is barely expanded upon enough to call it a redeeming quality.
- While his main motivation for his actions in his admittedly very little screen time throughout the series, is to obtain enough money to not have to work for the rest of his life, not only is this straight up selfish rather than sympathetic (even in his case), his methods of exploiting Ford (his own son) to try and get said money out of his bright future, as well as his other vile actions against Stanley, are all utterly disgusting, with his motive not being played for any sympathy either. This is also made even worse by how selfish he truly is, as he doesn’t want the money for his family, he solely wants it for himself, so he doesn’t have to work another day in his life, despite his hypocritical and abusive preaching about hard work to Stanley many times over his childhood. Additionally, while Word of God states that Filbrick and his parents immigrated to America from an unknown European country during World War 2, this is given absolutely no expansion upon to determine if he was affected by having to leave his old home in anyway (or if there was even any tragedy so to speak of him having to do so).
- Despite Gravity Falls being a mostly comical show (where even the purely evil Bill Cipher has many comical moments), Filbrick and the impact of his actions are taken completely seriously by the narrative, despite only having both a single Episode and book appearance throughout the entire franchise.
What Makes Him a Pinhead?[]
- While not given much depth overall, it’s heavily implied that he was a bad business owner (given that his company was hugely failing) and he was relying upon his literal teenage son (regardless of intelligence) to make a living for him, rather than do much to help himself (while hypocritically accusing Stanley of slacking off and trying to leach on his brother’s academic success).
- Despite absolutely despising Stanley’s habit of slacking off and making Stanford pretty much do all of the hard work for him throughout their school years, he makes no actual effort to help his son grow out of this/become a more independent person, which obviously leads to Stanley accidentally breaking Ford’s invention (which could have got him into an expensive College for free) and Filbrick immediately kicks him out of the house instead of realising his own mistakes led up to this accident (even if physically, Stanley is still technically at fault and didn’t make much effort to take responsibility for his actions). So overall, if Filbrick actually tried to help his son rather than immediately abuse him, maybe he would have actually gotten somewhere in his selfish pursuit of a wealthy life.
- Despite wanting Stan to come up with a profit out of literal nowhere for him (after he accidentally broke Ford’s invention at the science fair), Filbrick once again makes no actual attempt to help himself in this goal, by helping Stanley (or at the very least giving him a fair starting point to slowly build up to the intended millions, weather financially or emotionally). Plus, even if Stanley successfully made the money over the years, there still would have been no intelligent influence on Filbrick’s part, given it would have been Stanley that did all the hard work. Also, there’s no proof that Filbrick even attempted to help Ford fix his invention or at the very least properly get to the bottom of the problem by trying to analyse what happened and how to fix the problem.
- Additionally, despite wanting money to be bought into the house in anyway possible, he allows Caryn to throw away money, by blatantly trying to scam/over price people over the phone, with Filbrick doing nothing about it despite financial comfort being his overarching goal (even if done very poorly).
Trivia[]
- Ironically, despite his Pathetic Pinhead status, the same year that the Gravity Falls episode he guest starred in (“A Tale of Two Stans”) aired, Jonathan Banks reprised his role as Mike Ehrmantraut in Better Call Saul (who is a Magnificent Baddie).
- There is a popular fan theory among the Gravity Falls fanbase, that the reason why Filbrick didn’t show up to Stanley’s faked funeral (after he faked his death) was out of genuine guilt and shame for how he treated Stanley/his actions in general and that going to his son’s funeral would have reminded him too much of the past. If this was confirmed, then Filbrick would lose his Pathetic Pinhead status, for being too remorseful for his actions (even if he didn’t outright redeem himself). However, because this is only a fan theory and not at all supported by what’s said in the main series (in fact the series leans towards the exact opposite if anything), so Filbrick still retains his Pathetic Pinhead status.