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First, because if Ford actually thought of it as truly killing his own brother, he wouldn’t have collaborated with it. He wouldn’t have participated in the switch. Instead, he would have offered Bill the equation. He was fully willing to doom the entire universe to save three people in Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, which lets very clear where his priorities are (with his family, that is, not with the greater good):

You might be thinking, “he would do it if it was for the benefit of the kids!” but I think, as a person who has written at length about Ford’s love for Stan’s before, that Ford would find himself paralyzed and unable to do it and likely rather risk making a deal with Bill to maybe perhaps perchance save his entire family than go along with Stan’s plan, to Stan’s utter despair.

The action of prioritizing young children over the life of an old man is also a rational, balanced “greater good” decision, exactly the kind of decision we have learned Ford, for all his talk and pose, doesn’t actually make. If Stan had intervened, Ford wasn’t going to choose the nobler, selfless option (to save the world with billions of children in it, children even younger than Dipper and Mabel), but the option related to protecting whom he, personally, loved the most. When it comes to just love and nothing else (which was exactly the force behind Ford’s impulse here), the children aren’t hierarchically above Stan for him.

Borrowing an excerpt from my meta I just referenced to illustrate my point:

Even if Bill, through some miracle, did end up keeping his word, we saw Bill’s plans for Earth in his daydream fantasies: taking a bite off the planet, drawing a smiley face on its surface as millions died... What a guy, that Bill! If the Earth was wrecked beyond repair, where would Stan and the kids live? How would they survive among all the chaos and destruction of the literal apocalypse? With nightmarish creatures lurking in every corner? With what food, what water, what shelter? Answer: they likely wouldn’t. The probability of human survival would be abysmally low.

That, my friends, was the kind of insane decision Ford Pines was willing to make and would have made if Stan hadn’t stopped him—with zero guarantee that Bill, known conman, manipulator, and sadist, was going to keep his word—just because those three people were his loved ones and precious to him. Dooming the entire universe and billions of innocent people in the process, too. He’s way more similar to Stan than fans seem to think.

Do you really think he would be willing to shoot Stan if, instead of the memory gun, he had in his hands an actual gun? When he is the kind of man who is willing to go that far to keep his loved ones safe just because... well, he happens to love them?

Second, because I consider it a disrespectful and ableist notion. I know, I know. But bear with me. It shocks me that people on this website are so careful to be respectful about four mental illnesses/disorders total, these being autism, ADHD, anxiety, and depression, and yet so careless with literally everything else.

Long story short: I have a grandmother with dementia. She doesn’t recognize me as her granddaughter anymore, she doesn’t remember my name, nor what I am in relation to her. And yet, I assure you, she’s still very much alive. She still talks, sings, laughs, make us laugh, acts endearing, acts aggressive, acts like her old self. I watch my mother’s great investment in her well-being every day, to the point of enormous anxiety, and to having confessed to me that she would still be devastated by her eventual death.

You don’t stop being alive because you don’t have your memories, and I can’t believe I have to spell that out. You’re still a human being, you are still capable of complex thoughts and feelings, you’re still very much there, breathing, heart beating.

Guys, Stan didn’t have Alzheimer or any kind of dementia—which meant he was actually in a much, much better situation. He could learn new information, store and retain it. If he learned that Mabel was his grandniece one day, for example, in the following day he would still remember it, and his brain would be ready for more details about their relationship. He could still build things from the ground up, they could still recount him their shared tales and inform him about the man that he was with optimal results. I can’t say the same about my grandmother.

Third, because Ford’s devastation comes from the fact that he is the one being punished, not Stan. I’m going to borrow Alex’s words in a 2016 TVInsider interview to illustrate my point:

If Stan’s memory had been fully erased, it wouldn’t punish him so much because he’d be gone, but it would punish Ford, Dipper and Mabel most.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not downplaying Stan’s sacrifice here. To actively choose to have your own memories erased is incredibly brave, and to go through that, the horrible expectation of knowing that they’re going to be destroyed, must be not only horrifically anxiety-inducing but also an experience worthy of heavy grief and intense mourning. I wouldn’t trade my own memories for all the money in the world. But after that, though—after he managed to go through it and face Bill—he was pretty content with just not remembering things. Pay attention to his face, his overall behavior. Unlike his loved ones surrounding him, he’s happy. He’s at peace. I’ll go so far as to say he’s unburdened by all his traumas, his shames, his self-loathing, his... daddy issues. Free to start anew, if he wanted to, without any negativity weighing him down.

I mean, this was how he suffered before, with all his memories intact, in the original Not What He Seems script:

Not saying that Stan would ever freely choose to have his memories erased if it meant he would lose his memories of his family, of course not. He has obvious priorities. But it would have undeniably freed him from a lot, and that’s exactly the great temptation of the memory gun, the temptation that Fiddleford struggled so hard with to the point of it ruining his life (to the point some consider it a good representation of drug addiction), the temptation that even Wendy and Mabel struggled with to some extent in the episode The Society of the Blind Eye.

And of course, he’ll choose to make an effort to recover his memories, but for their sake, not his.

You could argue that Ford at least has killed Stan’s “personality,” but he didn’t really do that, either. At least not completely. You can notice in the gif above that Stan, despite being indeed more upbeat and vulnerable than his past self, still has that same old man humor, that spark that makes him so beloved.

What Ford did kill was the Stan who remembered him; his relationship with Stan, their shared history and memories, their decades-long bond and all their moments together. Memoryless Stan didn’t remember Ford, didn’t have any reason to love him. That is more than enough to devastate anyone, let alone someone like Ford, who had such a deep love for Stan and a lot to regret and feel guilty about. The fact, for example, that if Weirdmageddon was indeed Ford’s fault (and in Ford’s head it was), then what Stan was forced to do to stop Weirdmageddon and save them all was also undeniably Ford’s fault, even if there was nothing else that could have been done in the circumstances.

I definitely get why people believe in this comparison, though. Fandom spaces live for drama, for poetic language, for intensity. To say “Ford killed Stan” hits so much harder, right in the feelings. As someone who loves their relationship, I do consider that a very understandable urge.

Not only that, but the show itself hints/leads you to think that the old Stan has “died”:

(Notice Stan’s characteristic dark humor, again.)

And I’ll concede that—I think you could say someone really did die, and that person was Stan’s old self, his self with memories of his family; not Stan himself, as a person, as a human being. Yes, it’s true enough that, as Alex chose to put it, the old Stan “would be gone,” and the new Stan is a different man altogether. In that sense, it is understandable to say the Stan we knew “died,” at least symbolically. Ford pointing a memory gun to his brother’s head is a clear visual metaphor. I’m not denying that, it’s obvious!

But I get the feeling that’s not what a lot of people mean when they say Ford “killed” Stan, given the context of where it’s inserted and how things are usually presented when I encounter them in fanfiction, meta, and other kinds of fan content. I get the feeling that they mean that exactly as they phrase it, in a very direct way. That erasing Stan’s memories was indeed the same as killing Stan, the man, the human, everything that he was, and every inch just as terrible. That the “Stan” in question, the one who was killed, was not simply a metaphor for a side of Stan, but Stanley Pines, himself, and with him all his personhood, all his future prospects, all the possibilities of change. And this way of thinking is not just accidentally insensitive, it’s also deeply wrong.

I’m not accusing anyone, nor saying everyone who says Ford killed Stan is being evilly ableist on purpose. I’m not that removed from reality. I know the great majority is not. I know that they didn’t even stop to think about it, especially because they didn’t have a personal experience with dementia like me.

You don’t need to have great observation powers to notice that Ford moves the plot. His character sometimes almost feels like an incarnate plot device, with his every action generating an important consequence.

In fact, his very purpose as a character was to cause a rift. According to Alex in his A Tale of Two Stans DVD commentary:

Ford is designed for what would bring out the most amount of conflict in the family. What would be Dipper’s hero, what would be Stan’s rival, and who’s somebody that we could empathize with everyone and their take and how they felt about it.

Even his personality was built off the impact his character had on Stan, according to Alex in his interview with HanaHyperfixates and ThatGFFan:

Ford was very much us building backwards. The same way you know a black hole is there by the light warped around it, it’s like, you know the damage someone’s family has done to them by all of their weird tics and behaviors. So who is the character who would result in Stan being this hurt and needy and mad and also longing?

Besides Ford’s role in the narrative, some people have pointed out before that Ford isn’t as likeable as Stan is—in the sense that Stan’s charisma protects him from the out-of-universe fallout of his actions. Simply put, the fandom loves his for something they would hate in Ford, because Ford doesn’t have Stan’s charm. I think this idea has some merit.

For example, this excerpt in Journal 3:

Ah, just Ford being haughty and considering himself superior to other people, am I right? Classic Ford.

Or not, seeing as Stan says the very same thing in the Hide Behind short episode, except in a way that sounds more funny than haughty.

I think this goes even further, though. Stan’s role as a more domestic comic relief has saved him many times, as there are lower stakes involved. He was the lovable Jerk With a Heart of Gold, funny and down-to-earth. Ford, on the other hand, was the Author of the Journals, an action hero, Bill’s main opposition, associated with the darker, weirder themes of the story. They represent very different themes in the narrative, almost contrary, despite always mirroring each other.

What else do we have?

Stan’s obvious favoristim towards Mabel, left especially obvious in the episode Carpet Diem. Not discussing here the reasons for its existence or how Filbrick might have influenced Stan’s views on gender and masculinity, but rather its portrayal and impact. In this exchange between him, Dipper, and Mabel, for example:

The projection of his own emotions onto Mabel, as the twin he related to the most, as evidenced in Little Gift Shop of Horrors:

Considering this exchange between Mabel and Waddles was in a story made up by Stan himself, it isn’t hard to see the inspiration behind it. The episode is often dismissed as non-canon (due to its hidden keyword being “noncanon”), but like I mentioned in a previous meta, even if the events in it didn’t actually happen, the characterization remains very much real.

Versus, of course, Ford’s favoritism towards Dipper, which is taken more seriously, and his projection onto him—as evidenced, for example, in Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future but also in Journal 3:

That brings enormous consequences to the plot as he acts on it beyond just mocking and bullying (Stan’s approach) and attempts to separate the twins—well, it just about brings Weirdmageddon on their heads, even if indirectly!

The point remains that if Ford owes Mabel any apologies for his treatment of her, the same can be said of Stan and his treatment of Dipper.

And, of course... the fact both of them were deceived and betrayed by con artists, again with very different stakes involved.

Stan says it himself, in the episode Roadside Attraction:

A line that seems to echo Ford’s own feelings about Bill, mentioned in The Last Mabelcorn:

Ford, of course, seems to think such a thing would never happen with Stan, as he explains in Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls:

But such a thing did happen with Stan, didn’t it? The difference is that when it happened with Stan, it was treated more as comic relief than anything. Was it about Stan’s sexist underestimation of women? Would Stan have been deceived by Bill if only Bill had boobs? Was Ford right about Stan identifying Bill as a threat, but not due to the reasons he was probably imagining? We’ll never know, since a clear parallel isn’t drawn between the two moments. Stan’s mistake isn’t given that much thought.

Sometimes, being the comic relief is detrimental to Stan as well. Not always, as he has the advantage of his mistakes usually not bringing as many consequences to the other characters and the plot (unless it’s a dramatic moment, of course, such as his stubbornness in Weirdmageddon). His life choices are a different story too, since life did suck for him, with Ford shoving in his face that he had ruined his own life in AToTS as the cherry on the top of the disaster ice cream. This is not to say Stan had it easy in the consequences department, especially as the writers loved to punish his low stakes cruelty with low stakes punishment in the lower stakes episodes. But Ford’s mistakes, in comparison, started up as putting the whole universe at risk, so even in screwing things up, Ford managed to surpass him. (Stan might have created a small rift by bringing Ford back, but Ford’s attitudes towards the kids were the catalyst to Bill’s apocalypse.)

Stan does end up as the butt of the joke more often, though, as you can see here, in the Lost Legends comics:

“One was a brave adventurer, the other was Stanley!”

Or here, with his insecurity and inferiority complex towards Ford being relentlessly mocked by Bill on the TBoB website:

And sure, that’s Bill, and Axolotl knows Bill is not respectful of Ford either (far from that), and Bill does hate Stan particularly, but I don’t think Ford’s own suffering had quite this undercurrent of... how do I put it... patheticness to it. If Ford had his own fears exposed like that, I imagine they would be slightly humourous and paranoid, since it’s Gravity Falls, but less ridiculous and more reasonable.

Ford gives us a reason why they didn’t meet: parallel!Fiddleford explains that he had been leading a portal expedition to a certain dimension, but one of the security officers ran into his parallel self and as soon as they touched hands, the entire dimension started to warp and fizz with static. Fiddleford and his team barely escaped alive!

But that’s the thing: as soon as they touched hands, only! Not as soon as they saw each other, or as soon as they were in the same room together, or as soon as they talked to each other, like you sometimes see in fanfic! No, it very much required actual skin-to-skin contact. You would think that Professor Stanford Pines, celebrated star of the scientific community, founder of the International Institute of Oddology, and our Ford, 12 PhDs (or fewer PhDs at the time) would have enough sense and self-control to... just not try and touch each other? Or, for security reasons, stand at least a few meters away from each other? If they feared an accidental touch so much, they could have talked through a glass panel or some kind of physical divide. I do believe every Ford must be a deeply curious individual, and you’re telling me that parallel!Ford, known genius, wasn’t capable of creating a way to enable himself to interview his parallel selves safely? Wouldn’t you be very curious to meet your parallel self? I think it’s more likely than not that other versions of Ford would end up pushed through the portal, so our Ford might not even have been the first Ford to visit that dimension.

But instead Fiddleford goes so far as to detain our Ford and hold him captive without even attempting to explain things first! A bit overkill, no? You could say, “but Fiddleford just didn’t want impulsive, reckless Ford to go and run to his parallel self upon seeing him for the first time!” But herein lies the crux of the matter: even after Fiddleford explains things to our Ford, even after our Ford understands he couldn’t touch his parallel self... He still doesn’t meet or talk to parallel!Ford. Wasn’t he trusted enough/allowed to do so, even then?

My Doylist explanation (which considers what led the author to choose a certain path) for that is: the writers just didn’t want the two Fords to meet and wanted to leave it ambiguous. It’s really not that deep! Sometimes, apparent inconsistencies are just plot-convenient and don’t mean anything more.

My favorite Watsonian (in-universe) headcanon for that, though, is: Fiddleford didn’t want them to meet.

Now, would Fiddleford ever lie to Ford? Yes. In fact, he already did, in our original timeline! Ford asked him to destroy the memory gun, Fiddleford apparently agreed. “He was crestfallen by my advice, but after some discussion he came to see the wisdom in it. He said that he didn’t want to risk forgetting his wife and son. I ordered him to destroy the gun, and he did.” (“Ordered”... Oh, Ford, never change...) Reality: Fiddleford hadn’t destroyed it at all, and in fact used it on Ford to erase his memories without Ford’s consent or knowledge.

So even though I don’t think this was, necessarily, either Alex’s or Rob Renzetti’s intentions, I like to think parallel!Fiddleford was bullshitting our Ford a bit. To what extent, I don’t know. The thing about the parallel selves touching and causing a dimension to end might very well be true (in fact, according to Alex’s Word of God, it is! he has said on Twitter that parallel selves really can’t meet in their home dimensions, but can meet in the in-between spaces!) BUT because of the reasons I explained above, it’s my headcanon that it wasn’t the main reason why Fiddleford didn’t want the two Fords meeting.

I just love, love the vibes of A Better World. I love how utterly smitten with that world our Ford is. He describes himself as “drawn” towards the Institute “like a moth to a flame,” and mentions his desire to “revel in [his] parallel self’s success.” He’s utterly smitten it with it despite never once meeting his parallel self. He imagines his parallel self as the happiest man on Earth despite never once meeting his parallel self. He leaves that dimension sighing wistfully despite never once meeting his parallel self. I love how parallel!Ford is just... shrouded in this very ambiguous mystery. It all sounds a little bit ominous to me. Is he happy? Is he satisfied? Does he like what he accomplished?

Our Ford, of course, imagines that he is. Our Ford doesn’t seem to wonder about parallel!Stan, at least as far as we know. If he did, he didn’t write it down, and Stan certainly wasn’t the focus of that journal entry, because that’s who Stanford Pines is: self-centered as all hell, hahah. He has many qualities, but that in particular in one of his biggest flaws. His brother doesn’t even cross his mind, since he’s dazzled by his apparent great success and the fulfillment of his dreams. I think he subconsciously assumed parallel!Stan must have been fine, or else he would certainly have been worried—he loves his brother very much, as I have dedicated a whole meta to point out.

What’s my usual headcanon re: the fate of parallel!Stan? Oh, well, he’s very much dead, or at least missing and believed to be dead. And parallel!Ford, the man Ford believes to be so lucky, is actually miserable. Fiddleford was merely protecting our Ford from the truth.

If you want to get a bit darker, just look at this excerpt from the Not What He Seems script:

Meanwhile, in the Lost Legends comics, specifically Comix Up, Ford is saying shit like this:

We stan an insensitive king who is utterly and blissfully oblivious to his brother’s dangerously low self-esteem and borderline suicidal thoughts...

Before TBoB, I might have been reluctant to think something so dark could happen in GF, since it still is, after all, a cartoon for kids, and Stan’s a main character!

And true enough, supervising producer and story editor Rob Renzetti’s own headcanon for A Better World, asked of him in a HanaHyperfixates’ interview, seems considerably more light-hearted than mine, with Stan blackmailing Ford (adapted a bit for better readability):

I think, maybe, I’d like to think that Stan gets his shit together. Not that he comes back and that him in Ford are reconciled, probably that never can happen. But probably that he extracts some price from his brother, especially when his brother becomes a success, that like, Stan gets set up in some way, in that Ford is maybe happy to do it. [...] It’s more transactional. Like, “well, you hid the Journal for me,” and Stan’s like, “unless you want me to bring that back and unearth that thing, how about a little daily allowance for your brother here?” [...] You know, like, maybe Stan opens his own, a different Mystery Shack somewhere else. Who knows? [...] I don’t know. I think Stan, in that world, is probably doing better than Stan in our world does until they’re reconciled, you know, because he can hold something over his brother’s head.

But then TBoB went and revealed to us that Dipper and Mabel died horrible deaths in all the other timelines, and while I do take that with a grain of salt because it was revealed to us by Bill Cipher and Bill is not trustworthy at all but a professional liar, just the fact Alex acknowledged and played with the possibility of the two protagonists dying horribly in official GF material is already pretty telling in and of itself...

I think that once parallel!Ford called Stan after a decade, unwittingly gave him hope, and then ripped it out from his hands... yeah. We know how important Ford is to Stan. Reconciliation with Ford might very well have been what was pushing Stan forward. Stan can be very, very stubborn—working on a portal for 30 years—when Ford is involved. But having no Ford at all, that’s something else. I think it’s quite believable that Stan might have lost his will to “go on” in such circumstances. Perhaps not by actively killing himself, perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to do that; but by passive lack of resistance against the many threats that came his way. Parallel!Ford might have planned to call Stan back after his issues were solved and the danger of Bill was fully neutralized, but by then it was probably too late.

There’s no way that a Ford of any dimension would react well to the disappearance or possible death of his brother. It’s not the kind of thing he can easily move on from, as even his relationships with other people in his life were shaped by his need to replace Stan (and not due to Stan’s death, but Ford’s own rejection of an alive Stan), like Alex’s commentary on Society of the Blind Eye lets us know:

Ford as somebody who lost Stan is kinda looking for—even though he rejected his brother, he kinda needs, he needs that other person, and he tried to find that in this kinda sweet prodigy and he just pushed him too far.

(More on their codependency here.)

I’m going to start with something a tad (or very) controversial. Among my Gravity Falls merch, there’s my sticker album. This is how they describe Ford (translation below) 👇

“Differently from his twin brother, [Ford] is valiant, intelligent, and has six fingers.”

“Valiant” is basically a fancier way to say “brave,” so... yeah.

The friends I’ve showed this to were indignant on Stan’s behalf. My album was being unfair to him! And yes, I agree. If Stan wasn’t brave, he wouldn’t have faced Bill alone. And regarding his intelligence—Alex has commented before that all four Pines are quite intelligent, just in different ways. Mabel, for example, has much more emotional intelligence than Ford. But I digress. That isn’t the subject of this post.

The thing is: I wasn’t very surprised about Ford being considered more stereotypically intelligent than Stan. Ford is, after all, a recognized genius, of a very obvious sort. His nicknames go from “IQ” to “Brainiac.” But Ford being considered braver than Stan... where does that come from?

Certainly, old Stan has never behaved in a cowardly way in situations where Ford in his place would never, right?

Or perhaps... perhaps he has.

Meanwhile, Ford was doing a Ford-core speech about the true meaning of being a hero.

Was this an exception to the rule? Or the norm?

Looking at Stan’s and Ford’s expressions as Probabilitor the Annoying appears, probably the norm.

Or Stan’s behavior in these self-explanatory moments from the comics:

“But,” you might say, “Stan had so many brave moments too! Against the zombies, against Bill!”

Yeah! He sure did!

But what did all of those badass moments have in common?

Ah, yes! His family—mostly Mabel and Dipper—being in any kind of danger and/or needing his help.

In fact, what I found hilarious about the very first moment, with Waddles, is that he started off as a complete coward. The same kind of man who ran away screaming from the goat. Attempting to sacrifice poor Waddles while he hid beneath the mushroom, survival instincts kicking in. But if it truly concerns Mabel’s happiness? And, let’s be honest, Waddles’, because he does have a soft spot for the pig? Then he finds it in himself to face a dinosaur!

Waddles knows how he works, hahah.

Stanford Pines, meanwhile, is a different breed of dog.

When in danger, his first impulse doesn’t seem to be fear, but pure, unbridled rage.

That’s pretty much his default mode. Ford has a classic, very obvious type of bravery that is easily identifiable as such. I could keep giving you guys examples, but if you’ve watched GF or read Journal 3 at all, I won’t need to. I think it’s self-explanatory given that this guy wanted Dipper to suppress his fear by focusing on his intellect:

To him, emotions are a weakness. They hinder his clear thinking. They need to be suppressed.

I also find it fascinating that he canonically endured insane levels of torture at Bill’s hands. He was emotionally, psychologically, and physically abused—Bill manipulated and deceived him, haunted his dreams, controlled his body like a puppet, threatened to commit suicide with it, hurt it all over to the point of giving it bruises, used it to ruin his reputation with the townsfolk, tattooed it without his consent, made his eye bleed, drove a nail through his hand, made him eat live spiders, pulled his bones out of their sockets, threatened to erase his memories, messed with the meaning of words in his brain, hunted him down, humiliated and mocked him publicly, turned him into a golden statue, electrocuted him—overall violated his consent and bodily/mental autonomy in horrific levels and subjected him to excruciating pain. And yet, every time he faces Bill, he faces him with impressive courage, always confrontational, always resolutely angry. He never wavers in that anger, not even for a second.

Ford’s biggest moment of fear as a lone hero, even if brief, was when Bill threatened him with, “I’ll make you talk! It’s only a matter of time,” before beginning the very torture pictured above.

That’s still him being courageous, of course. Courage is not the absence of fear, but doing the brave thing despite the fear, and we watch him resisting Bill’s torture resolutely after that.

Remember, though, how I said Ford conducts himself as if emotions are a weakness? Despite all of Ford’s bravery and resistance, Bill is right when he tells Ford, in that very scene, “Everyone has a weakness, tough guy!” Because what finally, finally breaks Ford is to see his family—the most important people in his life—in danger.

It’s the same old weakness Bill used against him in TBoB, calling Stan’s number to threaten suicide in Ford’s voice—the one thing that made Ford say, “But then [Bill] crossed a line” and “No. [Bill] wouldn’t,” in despair, even after all the terrible things Bill had done to him.

In this sense, Stan and Ford are perhaps opposites of each other. Look at how, even though Ford looks defeated here, Stan’s expression hardens in the second gif—with determination.

Look, too, at how Ford looks away, how his hands shake when he has to erase Stan’s memories, the sacrifice that Stan is making so stoically, due to his feelings for Stan:

(Read this meta, if you want, for more on how this must have been terrible for Ford.)

Why do I say Stan is making the sacrifice so stoically? Why does he acquire this look of determination as Ford is hopelessly planning to give himself up to Bill? Well, Alex seemed to imply in the commentary of Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back The Falls something I already believed to be true: that it was Stan who offered himself up/volunteered as the one to have his memories sacrificed to save all their asses, not Ford who suggested it to him. (“And even though it’s Stan who agrees to—‘I’ll be the one! Erase my mind! It’s fine. It’s worth it.’—like, it’s a sacrifice for both, like, Ford at this point is willing to get his brother back and has to lose him again.”) Stan shines when his family is in danger!

Meanwhile, when does Ford’s brand of bravery shine the most? I think it’s telling that, despite the jokes about Ford being a damsel in distress, you still have a man who survived thirty years completely alone in the multiverse while having a bounty of an entire galaxy on his head. In a way, I think Ford is way more in his element, so to speak, when he’s his own company, he’s the only one in danger, and he just has to take care of himself. He’s the lone hero, after all.

Even with Dipper, before whom he peacocks by showing his more cavalier side, sometimes to the point of recklessness (according to Alex and Rob Renzetti in the DD&D commentary, Ford would never act that irresponsibly around Stan), he seems to get hindered by his responsibility to care for his nephew, as it was shown in Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future with their fight against alien technology. The robots wouldn’t even have been activated, after all, if not for Dipper’s adrenaline levels.

Stan, on the other hand, is at his core a family man. He will make himself brave even in occasions he wouldn’t normally be, for his family! All for his family!

In the commentary of Not What He Seems, Alex and Matt Chapman point out the badass side of Stan:

Alex Hirsch: When I saw the storyboards, they managed to make Stan this awesome action hero while still keeping him Stan. [...] He steals a wallet, he smashes somebody against the wall, he sasses him but he also has this just great Inception moment, and it’s because we’re building to a big question about “who is Stan?,” I felt a moment of seeing him be kind of awesome further increases your “who is this guy?,” right? He keeps going back and forth between like “oh geez my back” and you’re like “all right that’s the Stan I know” and then like “whoa, he just did an awesome jailbreak! Is he some kind of super villain? Who is he really?”

Matt Chapman: And in Scary-oke early on too, you know, you get to see Stan—the street-fighter in Stan come out too.

Alex Hirsch: There’s more of Ford in Stan than I think Stan realizes. I think it only comes out in certain moments.

Stan’s badass moment in NWHS was, too, in service of his family, particularly one member: Ford. Stan needed to escape the agents, to ensure that the portal was fully activated and successfully brought Ford back. He needed to be there for Ford. The “Ford in Stan” that Alex mentions does come out when Ford himself was in (perceived) need of Stan.

If Ford’s bravery (or at least his suppression of fear) comes from focusing on his intellect, as he advised Dipper, Stan’s bravery comes from the opposite thing: focusing on his emotions, on his feelings for his family. Ford might be right about emotions being a weakness, but they are his weakness. They are Stan’s strength, in the same way their loved ones are Stan’s strength and Ford’s weakness.

At the end of the show, Ford learns that Stan has been so terribly brave and noble and saved the world for the sake of those feelings. That is part of the weight that Ford’s “You’re our hero, Stanley” carries.

Behold the scene in question:

I think it’s so obvious that Ford was projecting and actually talking about his and Stan’s relationship here that I won’t even attempt to prove that, hahah.

Now, is this Ford... a) talking about his true feelings regarding his and Stan’s relationship when he was young, even before the science fair incident, or b) lying to himself, as he presumably started to do ever since (but only after) the science fair incident?

First, I’d like to invite you to actually listen to Ford’s voice/watch his mannerisms as he says this, here (timestamped). The thing is that... he doesn’t sound very bitter! He doesn’t sound like he’s throwing shade at Stan. Instead, he sounds and looks—pay attention to his eyebrows—like he’s genuinely puzzled. Does Dipper... really think he’s not meant for something more? Why! He’s so brilliant, with so much potential! Just like Ford when he was younger! The poor boy must be really attached to his sister...

Second, I’d like to invite you to not be so harsh on Ford, as he says that it, nor she is suffocating—the relationship Dipper has with the girl, not the girl herself. Not that Ford can’t be mean! He can be terribly mean, sometimes, especially out of spite. But the man has some limits. He wouldn’t say this about his twelve-year-old niece.

Another thing to be taken into consideration is that Ford was convinced Mabel would be fine, since she had “a magnetic personality.” This is a trait he very likely also attributes to Stan! In TBoB, for example, he was convinced of Stan’s ability to make the waitress laugh. There’s a lot of evidence for the fact that Ford had no idea of how badly Stan was faring and/or would fare without him, due to the idealized version of Stan Pines in his head.

That said, here is the behind-the-scenes commentary on Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future:

Alex Hirsch: Ford offers Dipper [an] apprenticeship because Ford sees Dipper as somebody who’s special like himself. And that’s Ford’s great flaw, that arrogance. He believes there are special people and everyone else.

Jason Ritter: And that you can be held back by your siblings, maybe.

Alex Hirsch: Yeah, he believes that attachments are actually weaknesses.

It has been said before Alex is too harsh on Ford, hahah. (If you have actually read enough of his interviews and listened to all his commentaries, like I did, you’ll realize he’s harsh on most of his characters, including Dipper and Stan!) That is, however, something also made canon in J3 in many, many excerpts, and stated by Ford himself quite plainly here:

“I thought being a great man meant being alone.”

And of course, his advice to Dipper in the show itself:

“Don’t let anyone hold you [back].” His choice of words is interesting. “Anyone,” not “anything.”

I do believe this line meant exactly what we think it did, since Ford, for all his “Mabel will be fine,” immediately guessed that she didn’t take it well as a visibly upset Dipper returned to his side:

When did he start developing this mindset, though? Before or after the science fair?

I think some of you might have read the (in)famous TVInsider 2016 interview in which Alex states Ford saw his brother as a “bumbling leech” (ouch!) his “entire life.”

In terms of Stan and his brother’s conflict, we always wanted a moment where Ford saw that he was wrong. Ford’s spent an entire life imagining himself as this lone solitary hero and imagining his brother as this bumbling leech. From a narrative point of view, for Ford to see Stan be the hero finally lets Ford see the true side of his brother that he’s been too blinded by pride to see.

Now, an important fact is that—I think many people fail to grasp this—Ford looking down on Stan doesn’t mean Ford not loving Stan. My boy can and will multitask!

And, of course, “entire life” didn’t actually mean Ford’s entire life! It was definitely an exaggeration on Alex’s part, meant to convey that for most of Ford’s life, presumably from late teen years old to the current age, Ford looked down on his brother.

We know for sure that baby Ford never looked down on Stan, and in fact defended him from the Sibling Brothers in the last Lost Legends comic!

But one thing we also see is how baby Ford already shares, to a certain extent, adult Ford’s ambition:

Another trait, equally important, early on: the tendency to think he was special and/or different from everyone else, for better or for worse. Like one of the very first things Stan told us in his childhood retelling in AToTS, “As if his abnormally high IQ wasn’t enough, he also had a rare birth defect: six fingers on each hand. Which might have explained his obsession with sci-fi mystery weirdness.”

As he grows up, he also grows, understandably, very proud of his accomplishments. In Stan’s words, “Ford’s brains seemed to get more impressive every year.”

He grows to embrace the “freak” part of him more and more, both ashamed and proud of not fitting in. Like Bill so gently phrased it in TBoB: “The ego of a king. The insecurity of a circus freak.” (I take all his words with a grain of salt, of course, but sometimes he hits the nail on the head.)

But what does this mean for his relationship with Stan?

I think the first thing we have to know is that Stan is Ford’s identical twin, something that is heavily alluded to in canon and confirmed by Word of God. The first comment from Alex regarding this matter that I could find was this tweet from 2015. Then it was further confirmed in many episodes of the DVD commentaries (the first ones already mention it) and indirectly implied by Bill on the TBoB website.

Why is this even important? Twins of the same gender, especially identical aka monozygotic twins, tend to struggle with identity issues. Not only the same birthday, but the same face—that without having to share even a name.

The second thing is that they only ever had each other. I talk more about their codependency here, elaborating on the differences between the relationships of Dipper & Mabel and Stan & Ford.

Again, I borrow Alex’s words when asked about Shermie’s role in the family as Stan and Ford’s brother in HanaHyperfixates’ and ThatGFFan’s interview:

In terms of Shermie, I remember asking Rob or somebody at some point, like, “Would Shermie be here, logically? Do we have to see him?” I don’t really wanna see him. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in Stan and Ford being—sort of having only each other and then losing each other because of their different life paths.

Let’s not forget, too, the only time Ford ever mentions Shermie in Journal 3—“Sherman Pines’s,” surname and all:

The best example we have of this in the show is probably Stan’s line in AToTS, “Those bullies may have been right about us not making many friends, but when push comes to shove, you only really need one.” Stan not only acknowledges their dynamic, but sounds very content with it.

Was Ford content with it, tough? That’s... more complicated.

Like we’ve established, these two were identical twins (unlike Dipper and Mabel, fraternal and of different genders) and only had each other (again, unlike Dipper and Mabel), which not only exacerbated their codependency but also their identity issues. They were used to being two halves of a whole. It’s very telling that in AToTS, “the Pines twins” are both called to the principal’s office, even though only Ford should have been called. They were seen as a single entity.

And don’t get me wrong, Ford has always loved Stan so much. Perhaps part of him even enjoyed the fact his brother trusted and leaned on him so much, depended on him both emotionally and to... get a passing grade.

But for some reason, even before the science fair... things still grew quite awkward. From Stan’s Land Before Swine commentary (DVD extras):

Anyway, cut to high school, the guy’s never kissed a girl, prom is coming up, and he asked me for advice. “Stanley, I know things have been a little weird between you and me with college, but can you talk to me about girls?”

The interesting thing here, to me, is that Ford... straight up recognized the “weirdness” between them to Stan’s face! And the fact Ford felt the need to mention it, as if he couldn’t simply ask his own twin brother for advice about girls without making a sort of acknowledgement first! These brothers once told each other everything... How did things get to this point?

First, notice how Stan says “prom is coming up.” The same prom at which they laughed together and shared a moment of camaraderie after Stan threw punch at himself to share Ford’s humiliation.

Which to me points to the fact it was something gradual, happening little by little, hand in hand with the sweetest moments in their teen years.

Imagine you’re Stanford F. Pines, not yet PhD.

You know you are special. You’re both a genius and a freak. You are always praised by adults around you, by your teachers. This starts to go to your head. You cling desperately to the “genius” part of your identity, so you can be more than a bullied freak. You grow even more ambitious. You can see a future for yourself.

You have a twin brother. You love him more than life itself. But everyone talks, and... aren’t they right, somewhat? Just a little bit right? Stanley isn’t a genius, like you are. That’s a fact. Stanley also doesn’t have ambition, like you have. Stanley isn’t a freak, like you are. It doesn’t mean Stanley isn’t cool! But you are... different from him...

And yet, despite all that, he’s your identical twin brother! You can only ever be one half of a duo. A single entity. Even your name, you share with him. He doesn’t seem bothered by that, but you are. Can’t you just be Ford, for once, no Stan? (Ironically, the fact is lost on you that your brother was always more under your shadow than you ever were under his.)

You start to think that the Stan O’ War isn’t anything more than a beautiful, but ultimately childish, dream. It isn’t very realistic, is it? You could be so much more than that. You could actually make a difference. You could prove everyone wrong about ever calling you a freak. You try to breach the subject with Stanley, but all he wants to talk about is this damn boat. And you care about it too, of course you do, but... Doesn’t he care about anything else?

I can see, so easily, the influence of other people on Ford slowly (and subconsciously) growing, even though his love for Stan didn’t diminish. I can see him noticing the mismatch between his ambition and Stan’s ambition, his academic achievements and Stan’s academic achievements... or lack thereof. Again, this is the teenage version of the little boy getting starry-eyed about seeing his own face in the papers. Except now, the possibility of Stan being there with him... doesn’t seem as likely.

Alex on A Tale of Two Stans (DVD commentary), confirming that the rift between them had started before the principal’s words:

A lot of different ideas that we came up with to suggest, you know, what was the moment where things started to change between them? When they went from best friends—and it felt, as we went to draft, that the right moment would be—sort of—as they’re entering the end of high school they have to make a choice about college and the rest of their lives, they’re speaking to guide counselors. That’s when the world at large is pointing out, “by the way, one of you is amazing!” And the toll that would take on Stan.

Alex being mindful of the difference between love and respect, as seen by his commentary on Stan’s condescending love for Mabel in Land Before Swine:

But this idea that Waddles is sort of a metaphor for what Mabel loves. And Stan loves Mabel but he doesn’t—he doesn’t really think that anything she thinks is necessarily smart or right. You know, he loves like her, ah, she’s my sweet niece, but [Stan’s voice] “she doesn’t know anything.”

I can see, also very easily, Ford having some intrusive thoughts, then immediate guilt over them. For example, after someone mocks Stan for his grades, Ford comforts him while thinking, “but yeah, maybe Stanley could really put more effort in—wait, what? He’s my best friend! I can’t think like that about him!”

Stan’s narration over this scene: “The future was looking bright... for both of us.” Oh, Stan... Ford’s smile looks painfully awkward.

Just notice the difference between Ford’s posture and body language there and here in college!Ford’s picture (and, again, look at Ford’s eyebrows, but also the way he leans in Stan’s direction):

It’s important to remember that this, too—the scene in which Ford smiles awkwardly—was before West Coast Tech.

But now, with West Coast Tech, he finally has something solid. Something tangible. A real way to make a name for himself. And he loves it. Now this is the face of true happiness!

He manages to win even the approval of his famously “not impressed” father!

Borrowing my words from another meta:

Pay attention to Filbrick and Caryn’s shocked faces when it’s revealed to them that Ford’s genius can, actually, earn them millions! Pay attention, too, to the way Ford looks at Filbrick when he’s praised by him. He’s very surprised and ecstatic to receive his father’s approval, a very brief, “I’m impressed,” that wasn’t even expressed directly at Ford. Ford doesn’t act as if it’s something he receives every day or casually. He was in fact feasting on crumbs.

Ford also knew it was not unconditional acceptance. From Ford’s point of view, at least, he was worth exactly just as much as he could earn Filbrick, and Bill’s threat in TBoB (“your father won’t want you returning without millions”) touches on that insecurity.

But... What about Stan?, you might be thinking. That was, funnily enough, the only thing that Caryn (who didn’t smile or praise Ford once) wanted to know, too.

He’s visibly very upset by having his brother insulted like that, and he didn’t know Stan was on the other side of the door overhearing their whole conversation. But he also doesn’t defend his brother, like Stan likely would have, and Stan doesn’t see Ford’s facial expression. He just hears silence from him.

And no, young Ford had zero difficulty in standing up for himself or for Stan, as seen in Lost Legends and as explained at length in my previous analysis. My own interpretation is that Ford finds it harder to defend himself or Stan from things that, deep down, he considered to be true: the fact that his polydactyly made him a freak, as pointed out by Crampelter and the Sibling Brothers, and Stan’s lack of ambition (and lack of future born out of said lack of ambition), as pointed out by the principal. I don’t think he appreciated his brother being called “a clown” at all, in the same way he didn’t appreciate being called a freak, but I also don’t think he could bring himself to disagree with the point being made here.

This moment in the series was also probably inspired by a real moment in Alex’s life that inspired the scene in which Mabel overhead Ford’s proposal to Dipper, according to the commentary of Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future:

This idea of Mabel overhearing Dipper and feeling left out actually came from a real thing that happened between me and my sister. This is a weird anecdote about me and my sister but we did this kind of like, sort of competitive improv games when we were in middle school, very nerdy. And we did pretty good, like, our team made it to the international competition every year, and there was this high school team... [...] We had a pretty good team, but there was a team above us, the high school team, that was like, legendary, that we wanted to be like. And when me and my sister went from junior high school to high school, like, this is going to be our last year to do this sort of competitive improv, and I got a call from the high school team saying “hey, guess what? we already raided your team for the standout members, we’ve taken the people from your team that always do good scores and we’re combining the high school team and the middle school team into a super team and we would like you to be on the high school team. And I was like, “what about Ariel?” And they were like, “well, there’s only seven members per team—” and Ariel was listening on the conversation and I remember her like, bursting into tears because they had basically been like yeah, we got two Hirsches [and] we only want one, and I didn’t even blink. I just said, “no, I refuse to be on this team.” Like, I couldn’t, it was just like, this is so messed up, you’re breaking this whole thing apart, like yeah, it’s a great team, yeah, you guys are awesome, but I’m not gonna do this without Ariel. And I just remember being this awful moment where some external pressure was telling us like, oh, you gotta choose, you gotta make a choice. Um, like, and it was like this very personal thing. And so like, that’s a big part of the inspiration of like, somebody comes and says, like, you but not you.

Based on Alex’s reaction to such a proposal, it’s not a stretch to think Ford’s silence here was indeed telling, from a narrative viewpoint. It was a deliberate choice from the creator.

And then... Oh boy, the swingset talk.

“Joke’s on them if they think you wanna go to some stuffy college on the other side of the country,” Stan says, then proceeds to boast about their future adventures, only to end it all with a painful expression that shows he doesn’t believe what he is saying. He knows what Ford is truly going to choose.

Stan asks him what would happen if the college board was impressed with his experiment. “Well then, I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country!” Which indicates he clearly didn’t expect Stan to come with him, either.

Then The Accident happens, and Ford reacts accordingly.

It’s fascinating to me that Ford knew exactly what would bring someone like Stan to do something like sabotage his machine. He doesn’t accuse his brother of feeling jealous of his success or of the attention of their father and teachers! Oh no, that’s not your typical sibling drama of competitiveness, nor an easily solvable lack of communication. Instead, he accuses Stan of sabotaging his machine so Ford would stay with him! Which proves he was aware of Stan’s feelings, despite what a good part of this fandom seems to think! And, while it had been just an accident, a dumb mistake on Stan’s part instead of a deliberate act... Ford is right! Stan really couldn’t handle Ford going to college on his own.

He’s right, because we know Stan’s feelings about this. Stan says, in so many words: “Without Ford, I was just half of a dynamic duo. I couldn’t make it without him. And now, thanks to that dumb college, I was gonna lose my brother forever.” I know the “forever” was perhaps Stan being a bit melodramatic (understandable considering his distress) but it also shows us he didn’t expect their relationship to go back to normal, or for the college to be just one passing fancy. He knew it would be just the start of his brother’s career.

And perhaps this is the last thing you’d expect me to bring up at this point, but...

Do you remember this episode? Little Gift Shop of Horrors? It’s often dismissed as non-canon (due to its hidden keyword being “noncanon”), but even if the events in it didn’t actually happen, the characterization remains very much real.

We talk about Ford projecting on Dipper about a relationship being “suffocating,” but Stan was doing some impressive amount of projecting here too, hah, considering that he was more likely than not making up all the stories.

Just. This entire conversation:

Stan couldn’t be more unsubtle if he tried. And of course, Waddles chooses Mabel, his favorite person in the world.

We know whose “favorite person” Stan wants to be...

But again, back to Ford.

Yay, Ford is free of his suffocating relationship with Stan! Free to do things like looking at pictures of Stan with yearning! Writing that he misses Stan in code while yearning! Staring at the Gravity Falls’ lake with yearning because it reminds him of Stan! The last one in particular is very amusing to me because to study anomalies was basically Ford’s dream job and he loved Gravity Falls and... and yet! There is no place in Gravity Falls he would rather stay than the lake...

You might want to read this for the full extent of Ford’s clownery, but just the fact that Ford canonically (per Word of God) carried a picture of baby Stan in the breast pocket of his coat at least as early as his Gravity Falls researcher days to remember his brother by, is... telling.

That is, without even counting the fact that he has actively attempted to replace Stan with Fiddleford, Bill, and then even poor Dipper! Because, again, he yearns! From Alex’s commentary on Society of the Blind Eye:

Ford as somebody who lost Stan is kinda looking for—even though he rejected his brother, he kinda needs, he needs that other person, and he tried to find that in this kinda sweet prodigy and he just pushed him too far.

Yeah, I know. Ford is quite... confusing. What does he want? To use three other people (or triangle) to fill the role of Stan in his life but still reject and stay away from Stan himself? Everything and nothing, at the same time?

And now I need you to bear with me and read this entire excerpt of the HanaHyperfixates’ and ThatGFFan’s interview, most important parts highlighted in bold:

Ford was very much us building backwards. The same way you know a black hole is there by the light warped around it, it’s like, you know the damage someone’s family has done to them by all of their weird tics and behaviors. So who is the character who would result in Stan being this hurt and needy and mad and also longing?

And so we came up with this guy who kinda seemed too perfect. And is distant. He’s aloof, and distant, and he’s too perfect. And it’s like, “oh! I think he’s also aloof and distant from himself.”

I think he is, uh, deeply deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships. He doesn’t have friendships, he doesn’t have romantic relationships, he is someone trapped in a tower of his own mind and estranged.

We know Ford has always loved Stan very deeply—and yearned for his company just as badly—through his entire adult life. So what, exactly, changed in old Ford for him to invite Stan to sail away together again, post-Weirdmageddon?

Well. I have some hypotheses.

First, he spent forty years separated from Stan, and then almost lost him forever (or at least their relationship), from a certain point of view. Have you ever heard that saying that you only know the value of something or someone after you lose it? Teen Ford had never lost Stan, and didn’t know how much he would miss him.

On that same note, all those years separated allowed him to develop a personality and identity of his own, and a very defined and strong one at that. (Yes, poor Stan meanwhile spent that time pretending to be Ford. Ironic.) The Stan twins have also managed to be competent at what was once their weak spot, something they relied fully on their brother for. Stan has managed to learn and understand complex physics to fix the portal. Ford, on the other hand (and we’re focusing more on his feelings, here), has definitely learned how to defend himself physically.

Second, Ford was severely “humbled by the narrative,” so to speak. He thought he would get to be the hero, when the hero (at least in Ford’s own point of view, which is the only point of view that matters) was actually his brother. “Stanley Pines was the man who saved the world, not me.” His pride—and Stan’s own pride as a reaction to Ford’s pride, but again, this analysis is focused on Ford—was a great barrier between him and Stan. And on what regards his self-loathing and subsequent thirst for external validation, he has learned to seek love in the right places. His family. Stan.

Stan, who has always loved him unconditionally, who never considered him a freak in the first place, who has always tried to make him feel as if he belonged, if only on an old boat. Stan, who after Weirdmageddon is now his priority, above his scientific ambition, symbolized by the journals he was no longer reluctant to destroy.

Another excerpt from the interview I’ve referenced lastly wraps things up perfectly:

[...] and it’s always sweet to see [Stan and Ford] come together again, because they’re so full of themselves, but they are also both so damaged they desperately need each other.

The codependency is mutual—people really should understand this. I don’t think it ever really went away, not in an emotional, psychological sense, despite the two of them having developed separately for decades, as I have elaborated here. They didn’t return to the same place they started because they have matured as individual persons, but the love they had for each other never did decrease. They know, now, exactly how it’s like to stay away from each other, and they... actively prefer not to.

After all, like Ford himself said, “I don’t just want someone to come with me, Stanley, I want it to be you.”