Gravity Falls' Theories

Pines Family Timeline

Jesus Ramirez this took forever.

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1931-32. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother Pines, living on the American east coast, give birth to twin sons, naming them Stanford and Stanley. I originally got Stanford's age from the wiki, but I found out later that it came from an unreliable source. However, the age of 80 fit so well with my timeline that I've decided to keep it.

1930s-40s. Stanford is weak, and a constant target for bullies. So, great-grandfather Pines signs him up for boxing lessons.

1950. Stanford and Stanley leave the house. I originally had them going to college, but this was only because I didn't consider the other possibilities at that point. There is no real evidence for or against this.

1954. Stanley and his wife have a son (Mr. Pines). Originally, I had Stanley moving to Gravity Falls in this year, but I later was forced to rethink this conclusion. That evidence will come later on. Now, I also realize that this puts Mr. Pines at 45 years old when his children are born. That's about the end of a parent's child-bearing years. But because of events that occur later in the timeline, I couldn't really delay his birth.

1950s-70s. Stanford goes to see Grandpa the Kid in theaters. As he is waiting in line, he spots a thief trying to steal Carla McCorkle's purse. Stanford stops the thief with a well-timed left hook, jump-starting his relationship with Carla. I was forced to place it in this time frame not only because that's where it fits in the story, but also because the theater looks perfectly normal for that period.

Meanwhile, Stanley's wife leaves him at some point, forcing him to take care of his son. Stanley discovers later on that he can build a portal, which would benefit all mankind by opening a gateway to infinite new worlds, thus heralding a new era in our understanding of the universe. He wants to collect parts for the portal but has other responsibilities at home. This would also explain Stanford's anti-marriage jokes, specifically in the episodes The Legend of the Gobblewonker and Little Gift Shop of Horrors. Stanley wanted to build the portal, but was tied down with a kid.

1972. One day, Stanford and Carla go out to the Juke Joint. But Thistle Downe crashes the party with his transcendentalist hippie music. He steals Carla away from Stanford. At about the same time, Mr. Pines leaves the house. Stanford calls up his brother and both explain their dilemma. Stanley thinks up a way to make them both happy: they would meet up and pull heists around the world, in order to collect parts for the portal. In one heist, the team acquires a grappling hook which now belongs to Mabel. As per Stan's own admission, the first event happened in the 1970s. As for the grappling hook, Stan's interview with the Gossiper podcast reveals that that grappling hook was acquired in a heist 40 years ago. Also, I originally had Mr. Pines going to college, but again, it's because I didn't consider the possibilities. There's just no real evidence on this because, except for one picture, we haven't seen him at all so far.

1972-75. Stanford and Stanley continue their heists. In another instance in Columbia, something goes wrong. Somehow, Stanford is caught in the act of pulling off the heist, but Stanley escapes. Stanford spends some time in a Columbian prison, creating a one-sided friendship with his inmates Jorge and Rico. Eventually, Stan escapes (legally or illegally, we may never know) and heads back to rejoin his brother.

1974-75. Stanford and Stanley have all the parts they need. The only thing they need now is a place to build the portal, preferably off the grid so that the cops can't find them. So after searching around, they find the perfect site. The brothers pack up and move to 618 Gopher Road, Gravity Falls, Oregon. They quickly discover that Gravity Falls is a town plagued by the supernatural. Stanley takes a job as a researcher. He finds anomalies in Gravity Falls and catalogs them in a journal. At this point he still works alone. Now, I fought with this point on the timeline quite a bit to make it work. Journal #3 had to be started on June 18th, 6 years after Journal #1. Each of the first two journals then had to have taken roughly 3 years to write. Journal #3 had to have a substantial number of pages, but also had to be cut off about halfway through. For reasons I will discuss later, I decided that the author stopped writing in 1982. I deduced the date of 1974 or 75 by working backwards.