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Aug 2, 2024 · Fans of the show and readers of the original copy of Journal 3 will know some things about Bill and Ford's relationship: Ford looked up to Bill, saw him as a mentor, and then was betrayed when he realized the portal Bill was helping him build would lead to Bill's apocalypse.
- Oliver Curry
- Overview
- History
- Personality
- Appearance
- Summoning ritual
- Preventing Bill's chaos
- The Cipher File
- Journal 3
- Abilities
Bill Cipher was a triangular interdimensional dream demon, 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 and was also known for his mysterious demeanor and sadistic humor. Bill is the main antagonist of the 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 that has a triangle with one eye, and the triangle window in "Tourist Trapped".
Background
Trillions of years prior to the events of the series, Bill Cipher originated from a two-dimensional universe known as the second dimension. Bill despised living there, describing it as a dimension of "flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams." He "liberated" his dimension by plunging it into burning chaos, along with everyone he'd ever known, including his own parents. 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. 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." 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. The area would eventually be rediscovered by Quentin Trembley and repopulated by pioneers, giving rise to the town of Gravity Falls. 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. It 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, 1982, 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.
Season 1
Bill's likeness is often seen in the series, as each episode contains 'hidden triangles' and even images of Bill himself, such as in "Fight Fighters", can be seen. "Dreamscaperers" is the first time Bill is directly addressed and introduced in the series. In an attempt to take over the Mystery Shack once again, Gideon Gleeful summons Bill. Gideon tells him to steal "Stanford" Pines' safe combination directly from his head so that Gideon can steal the Shack's deed. Bill thinks about this since Ford is still trapped between dimensions, after checking he realizes that Gideon is talking about his brother, Stanley, who was trying to reactivate the portal and thought this could be useful for him. So, he agrees, but in return, Gideon would have to help him in his own plans, which are not revealed to the viewer at the time. Gideon agrees immediately and the two shake on it. Unbeknownst to Gideon, Mabel and Soos witnessed the deal in the forest, and get Dipper's help to follow him into Stan's mind. Once inside Stan's head, Bill confronts the trio and brags that he even knows what they're all thinking. To prove his statement, he summons Xyler and Craz from Mabel's imagination. He tricks Mabel and Soos into looking for the memory of Stan's safe combination first, knowing they'd lead him straight to it. At some point, Soos is separated from everyone else, and Bill takes his place. Once they find the correct memory he takes it and nearly escapes with it. But while he reads the combination out loud to Gideon (to whom he is connected), Mabel shoots the memory door into another memory of the bottomless pit with a nyarf dart. Gideon breaks off the deal, to Bill's fury. Bill then turns his anger toward Mabel and Soos by bringing their nightmares to life and killing Xyler and Craz. Dipper returns in a timely manner and tells Mabel and Soos that while they are in Stan's mindscape they can do whatever they want. They battle Bill and he is nearly defeated. Just as though it seems he will be forced out of Stan's head, he puts a stop to everything instead. Impressed, he decides to let them go, and after warning them of a mysterious darkness that will change everything they care about, he tells them that he'll be watching them. He leaves in a representation of the zodiac, almost identical to the one that appears in his entry in Journal 2.
Season 2
Bill Cipher appears again in "Sock Opera," when Dipper is trying to figure out the password for the laptop from "Into the Bunker." He offers the laptop's password in return for a favor, but Dipper refuses the offer remembering how he acted in Stan's mind. Later, at the moment the laptop is on a countdown for complete data erasure after too many failed password entries, he appears again and Dipper accepts the deal of trading a puppet to obtain the password. Bill takes over Dipper's body as his "puppet" and destroys the laptop. He then follows Mabel to her puppet show in pursuit of Dipper's journal, which is being used as a prop in the show. After Mabel has been informed of Dipper's body having been stolen by him, he finds her with the journal as she is retrieving it for Dipper. He almost swindles her out of it but ends up in a fight with her due to her having a change of heart. He ends up losing because Mabel uses Dipper's physical weakness and exhaustion to her advantage. As he collapses, he is thrust out of Dipper's body. Bill possesses the Dipper puppet afterward and says that he will return. However, Mabel activates the pyrotechnics of the play, destroying the puppets and removing any vessel Bill could use to talk to the kids. In "Northwest Mansion Mystery," he appears on a tapestry hovering over a forest fire with two men either begging for mercy or worshiping him while skeletal corpses are underneath them, foreshadowing bad events. At the end of "The Stanchurian Candidate," after a prison-bound Gideon fails to get his father elected mayor, he is shown to have drawn Bill Cipher's zodiac on his cell wall and hidden it behind a cat poster. The symbols on the zodiac have been changed around, and some have been altered. Gideon tears down the poster and completes the drawing by adding Bill's eye before telling it he's ready to make a deal. In "The Last Mabelcorn," Bill Cipher appears in one of Ford's dreams, telling him that he has been preparing for "the big day," going on to say that Ford cannot keep the interdimensional rift safe forever. Bill throws a projection of the rift down to the ground, opening a red triangular portal in the sky and setting fire to Ford's mindscape. Furious, Ford yells at Bill to leave his mind, telling him he has no dominion in the real world. Bill leaves through the portal, telling Ford that "things change." Far later in the episode, Bill appears in flashbacks as Ford explains his time spent with the demon to Dipper. In the past, Bill and Ford were partners. Bill could enter Ford's mind at any time, and with his help, Ford built the portal. However, after Fiddleford came out of the portal traumatized by the horrifying things he saw, which were Bill's actual plans, Ford realized Bill had lied to him. He confronted Bill, who revealed his plan to merge the Nightmare Realm he comes from with the real world, causing the apocalypse. Ford broke off his partnership with Bill then and there, despite Bill's warnings that he couldn't stop the rift from happening. Ford shut down the portal and swore never to trust Bill again. At the end of the episode, Bill watches from the Nightmare Realm as Ford and Dipper manage to create a "Bill-proof" barrier around the Mystery Shack by using moonstones, mercury and unicorn hair. Undeterred, Bill decides to possess someone outside the shack instead. Near the end of "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future," Bill, possessing Blendin Blandin, appears before Mabel, recognizing Mabel's wishes of wanting summer to never end. The possessed Blendin convinces Mabel to give him the inter-dimensional rift, which he says can be used to create a "time bubble" that can make time stop. Mabel gives Blendin the rift, which he promptly drops on the ground and frees it from its containment. Bill reveals himself and leaves Blendin's body, knocking out Mabel and Blendin with a snap of his fingers (though the latter does manage to send a warning to his comrades) and initiating Weirdmageddon. In "Weirdmageddon Part 1," after opening the rift, Bill gains a physical form and imprisons Mabel in a bubble. He introduces himself to the people of Gravity Falls, claiming to be their new ruler as well as introducing his friends to the people. The townsfolk refuse to submit, but Preston Northwest welcomes him instead, offering to be one of his "horsemen of the apocalypse." Bill sardonically feigns thinking about the offer but instead decides to disfigure Preston's face, as he had overstepped his boundaries, creating fear in the people. He begins "redecorating" the town by unleashing Eye-Bats that petrify and abduct the townspeople, summoning the Fearamid, and sending out bubbles that instill madness in everything they touch. As a result, Bill recreates the opening theme song in the process. When Bill and his friends prepare to cause havoc, Ford attempts to shoot Bill back into the rift with his quantum destabilizer but only hits his tophat. When Bill notices Ford and Dipper, he blasts the clock tower. Ford, pinned under rubble, begins to tell Dipper that he knows of one other way to defeat Bill, he then tells Dipper to take his journals. He is cut short when Bill appears, towering over Ford. Bill captures Ford and presents him to his friends, telling them that Weirdmageddon wouldn't be possible without Ford. Bill makes an offer with Ford and tells him it's not too late to join his side. Ford refuses, so Bill turns him into a golden statue to use as a "back-scratcher." Dipper, who has gotten back to street-level, yells that he's had enough. Bill flies over to Dipper, asking the boy what he could possibly do to defeat him in one shot. Dipper flips through Journal 3, trying to find Bill's weakness. With no answers, Dipper panics, and leaps towards Bill, trying to punch him. In response, Bill creates a forcefield around his eye, knocking Dipper backwards, causing him to fly into a tree. Bill then telekinetically seizes the three journals, burning them in front of Dipper, with two crippled pages surviving. Bill tells 8 Ball and Teeth that they can eat Dipper for a snack. Bill then converts a normal car into a sleek getaway ride for himself and his other friends. The car flies away to the Fearamid leaving Dipper, 8 Ball, and Teeth behind. Dipper manages to run away before they eat him. Three days later, Bill and his friends are later seen having a rave party inside the Fearamid. Suddenly, the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron, Blendin Blandin, and Time Baby barge in, attempting to arrest Bill for possessing Blendin and almost destroying reality. Bill vaporizes the Time Police and Time Baby instantly, and the party resumes. 8 Ball and Teeth approach Bill, informing him they failed to eat Dipper. They ask him if he's worried about Dipper freeing Mabel, but Bill says he's not concerned, and that he has "Someone on the case." In "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality," Bill has been in power for four consecutive days. Most of the townsfolk have been petrified and stacked into a "massive throne of frozen human agony" for Bill. He announces his plan to take Weirdmageddon worldwide, and the demons make their way toward the edge of Gravity Falls. But instead of escaping to the rest of the world, they hit a strange force field-like energy dome that keeps Bill and his chaos stuck in the town. Later in the episode, Bill is angered and unable to understand why he and his friends aren't able to extend their reach and leave Gravity Falls to dominate the world. He realizes that Ford is the only one able to understand the shield and contemplates his next move. He is interrupted by Keyhole, who informs him Gideon, Mabel's jailer, has failed to stop Dipper, allowing him and his group to enter Mabel's bubble. Bill is not worried by this, calling Mabel's bubble one of his most diabolical traps yet. He asks for Gideon and tells Keyhole to take the day off. In "Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back The Falls," Bill reverts Ford from his gold state. He explains to Ford that he, along with the rest of his friends, can't escape Gravity Falls. Ford thinks that this is due to a natural magnetism attracting weirdness to Gravity Falls, the event he's studied for years, a force so strong that it forms a barrier that prevents that weirdness from going outside the town. He says there's a way to break this barrier, but he'd never tell him. Bill tries to persuade Ford by telling offering him unlimited power in a world without restrictions or laws. Ford again refuses, calling Bill insane. Bill laughs and calls himself insane either way. He then decides to find the equation needed to break the barrier in Ford's mind. However, Ford reminds Bill he can't unless he shakes his hand. Bill decides to try and find Ford's weakness and force him to make the deal, chaining him up further. Bill is later seen torturing Ford by blasting him with lasers until he agrees to his deal. Though Ford is in pain, he still refuses to give in. Before Bill can start torturing Ford again, he is interrupted by the Shacktron, a gigantic mech created by Old Man McGucket, with the help of Dipper, Mabel, and various townsfolk. They converted the Mystery Shack into a powerful machine to fight Bill and rescue Ford, who knows Bill's weakness. Bill finds it "adorable" that the refugees are fighting back, and orders his henchmaniacs to fight them. However, his minions are quickly defeated by the Shacktron, and Bill is upset as Ford congratulates Dipper and Mabel for their efforts. Bill realizes Ford cares about the twins, and wonders if torturing them will be more effective than torturing Ford. Bill turns Ford back into a gold statue and flies over to the Shacktron. He attempts to crush the Shacktron with a giant fist, but it remains intact thanks to the "Bill-proof" barrier surrounding the Mystery Shack. Bill becomes enraged and repeatedly punches the Shacktron. The refugees use the dinosaur attached to the Shacktron's left arm to tear out Bill's eye and distract him. Realizing now is their chance to rescue Ford, a team composed of the twins, Stan, Soos, McGucket, Wendy, Pacifica, and Sheriff Blubs is ejected out of the Shacktron, using parachutes made out of Mabel's sweaters to land inside the Fearamid. Everyone lands right next to the human throne, but Dipper is unable to figure out how to unfreeze everyone. Gideon Gleeful, trapped in a cage hanging from the ceiling, explains that Mayor Tyler is the load-bearing statue in the human throne, and if he's pulled out, the whole throne will fall apart. When Dipper does so, it sets off a chain reaction. As the chair collapses, Gideon's cage is knocked to the ground and breaks, freeing him. Gideon rips off his sailor suit only for his normal outfit underneath, yelling "No more sailor suits!!!" The residents are returned to normal, and Ford unfreezes as well. When Dipper and Mabel ask Ford what Bill's weakness is, he explains that the way to thwart Bill is by using a zodiac with ten symbols. When each person that correlates with a symbol stands on a drawn version of the zodiac and they hold hands, it can create a force strong enough to vanquish Bill. Meanwhile, Bill is still fighting the Shacktron after having regenerated his eye. It manages to pin Bill to the ground, but Bill realizes its legs aren't inside the Bill-Proof barrier. Bill utilizes this weak spot to flip the Shacktron over, tear off a leg, and smash it into the Shacktron, sending it flying, whilst making leg and golf puns. Back in the Fearamid, the townsfolk that is not represented in the zodiac run away, leaving only Dipper, Mabel, Soos, Wendy, Gideon, Robbie, Pacifica, McGucket, Ford and Stan. For a moment, it seems that they will be able to complete the ritual. However, after Ford corrects Stan on his grammar, Stan pushes Ford, breaking the link as the duo begin to fight. In the confusion, Bill appears above them, having beaten the Shacktron. Bill sends a wave of fire at them, burning the zodiac away. He also traps Stan and Ford, binding them with ropes. The resistance prepares to fight against Bill, but when one of them makes it clear they are not afraid of him, the demon asserts that they should be, and then snaps his fingers and turns everyone but the Pines into tapestries showing their screaming faces to prove his point. Bill then imprisons Dipper and Mabel in a triangular cell. Bill says he'll spare the twins if Ford lets him into his mind, giving him one last opportunity. Angered, the twins yell at Ford not to do it, causing Bill to fly up to them. Mabel quickly takes out a can of spray paint and sprays Bill's eye, distracting him again and freeing Stan and Ford. While Bill's distracted, Dipper takes out his size-altering flashlight and enlarges the cell, making it so he and Mabel can walk through. He and Mabel run away. Stan and Ford try to escape, however, Bill places them inside a larger cell like the one he put the twins in. Now enraged, Bill then changes into a monstrous red and yellow form and chases the kids throughout the Fearamid, threatening to disassemble their molecules. After recapturing the twins, he gives Ford an ultimatum—let him into his mind, or one of the twins will be killed. Ford reluctantly surrenders as Stan objects. Bill removes the cell and ties up Stan. Ford's only condition to the deal is that he lets his family go. Bill accepts as he shakes hands with Ford. Bill's physical form turns to stone as his mental form goes inside Ford's mind. Bill is happy that inside Ford's mind is "a perfect, calm, orderly void" (a bleak white landscape) with a single wooden door. When Bill opens it, he's greeted by Stan playing paddleball inside the Mystery Shack. Stan reveals that while the demon was chasing Dipper and Mabel, he and Ford swapped clothes and pretended to be each other so that Bill would enter the wrong mind. Realizing this, Bill furiously calls off the deal, implying that he intends to kill both Stan and the kids to demoralize Ford into letting him into his mind. However, anticipating that Bill would double-cross them, Ford takes out the Memory Gun, setting it to erase Stan's memory completely. In the mindscape, the door shuts and the room becomes enveloped in blue flames thanks to the Memory Gun's influence. Stan explains Bill is going to be erased for good, but the demon retorts, asking Stan if he realizes that his mind is also being destroyed. Bill tries to escape and resorts to bargaining with Stan, but Stan refuses to listen as he has had enough of Bill's actions. Stan tells him that while Bill may be a real wise guy, he has made one fatal mistake that he never should have made: messing with Stan's family. Bill refuses to accept by claiming that Stan is making a bigger mistake and that he will give him anything that he would desire, until his form becomes heavily distorted as he speaks backward messages (Translated to: A-x-o-l-o-t-l my time has come to burn, I invoke the ancient power that I may return) and attempts to reach out to Stan. Unperturbed, Stan punches the weakened Bill, shattering the demon into pieces as Stan's memory is completely wiped. Following Bill's death, everyone trapped as the tapestries are freed. Outside the Fearamid, Bill's cronies are sucked back into the rift, with the disassembling Fearamid not far behind. The rift itself is then sealed off and explodes into a great shockwave, restoring the entirety of Gravity Falls to its former glory. The only thing that remains of Weirdmageddon is Bill's now-permanently petrified physical form. After the credits, Bill Cipher's petrified form is shown in live-action, isolated deep in a forest.
Bill is a cunning, blasphemous, eccentric, sadistic, psychopathic and physically irreverent demon who finds most things amusing, particularly if they cause distress or harm to others. He is outrageous and outlandish, as well as a quick talker and thinker. Though he may come across as simply annoying, he shouldn't be underestimated; for when he is angered, he is a force to be reckoned with as he will unleash his near-omnipotent powers on those unfortunate enough to make him angry. When accused of being insane, Bill proudly agrees with the statement. He is also shown to be somewhat obnoxious, as seen when he makes his presence known to Dipper when the latter is trying to figure out a password within a limited amount of time. occasionally, his voice tumbles to a lower pitch (usually when emphasizing a statement).
As a demonic dealmaker, Bill is also shown to be a highly manipulative, very charismatic and charming conman being able to easily trick Ford Pines into believing that he was just a humble muse who simply wished to help benefit the human world by providing him with forbidden knowledge when in reality he was only ever using the researcher for his own purposes with Ford noting that the only other person who could've possibly seen the ruse for what it was, was his brother Stan Pines, who was himself an expert conman.
Bill is not one who believes in rules. Instead, he follows his own selfish philosophy which means doing whatever he wants without care for the consequences. He thinks of laws and physics as senseless and displays an irresistible urge to break those rules down by causing absolute chaos however he can. The lives he ruins hold no merit to him and he finds amusement in tormenting and turning people's worlds upside-down. He also sees reality as an "illusion," and values its destruction.
When possessing Dipper's body, Bill is shown to be rather masochistic, hurting himself in various ways for the thrill of it, exclaiming that "pain is hilarious." He seems to have little knowledge about the human body, specifically its physical limits. This comes back at him when he fights Mabel over Journal 3, as he eventually falls down, exhausted.
Bill is a yellow, two-dimensional, triangular creature who 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's simply a visual effect to bring attention to his appearance.
He has a single large eye with a snake-like iris, rimmed with four short black lashes on the top and bottom, though sometimes he has 3 on the top and 4 on the bottom. He moves around mostly by floating about, and rarely actually stands on his own two feet. 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 much larger than 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.
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.
To summon Bill Cipher, one needs a picture of one's intended victim. The eyes of the victim in the picture must be crossed out before it is surrounded with an octet of candles in a circular formation. Then the following incantation must be recited: "Triangulum, Entangulum. Meteforis Dominus Ventium. Meteforis Venetisarium." Once recited, the summon...
In order to prevent Bill's chaos inside someone's mind, one must light a nonet of candles and place one's hand on the victim's forehead. Say the following incantation: "Videntis Omnium. Magister Mentium. Magnesium Ad Hominem. Magnum Opus. Habeus Corpus. Inceptus Nolanus Overratus. Magister Mentium. Magister Mentium. Magister Mentium." One's eyes will then turn blue and one will be brought to the victim's mind the way one pictures it. One will then have to find a way to stop Bill oneself.
There are also three known preemptive methods to stop Bill from entering minds. The first known method is a shielding spell that involves moonstones, mercury and unicorn hair, which also protects against Bill's chaos when he gains corporeality. The second method is placing a physical barrier around the mind, such as Ford's metal plate, though Ford stated it is not the safest method. The last method is "encrypting" a subject's thoughts, making them too difficult for Bill to read. It is safer than the second method and more mobile than the first, but very time-consuming, as it involves "thinking the right way," which is a skill that must first be learned.
Ford Pines has a file containing information on Bill Cipher and various sightings of him throughout history. The file contains pictures and a page ripped out of a book, with images of a pyramid (presumably in Egypt) and the Eye of Providence. Another page in the file is titled "Alligans Contractus" (which is Latin for "Binding Contract" with a picture of an old man shaking Bill's hand, both of which are surrounded by a blue flame, signifying the man is making a deal.) There is also a trifold paper with three sections titled: Our World (with a drawing of a human head), Mindscape (with a drawing of a person and Bill and the coded message: Black and White), and Nightmare Realm (with a picture of Bill).
The page ripped out of a book ("book excerpt" on images to the right) reads:
In Journal 3, behind Bill's name, is a message encrypted with a symbol substitution cipher. When decoded it reads: "Liar. Monster. Snappy Dresser."
Bill is described as a "dream demon," he displays some of the characteristics historically attributed to demons, like the creation of contracts.
In the Mindscape
As Bill can't access the third dimension physically at first, summoning him seems to put the people around him into a sleep-like trance that allows him to manifest. The people observing are unaware they've fallen asleep until Bill leaves, after which they usually awake with a jolt. Bill can also enter another person's mind through that person's dreams.
Once within the trance, or within someone's mindscape, Bill's powers are vastly magnified; he becomes capable of changing his appearance, changing the appearance of other people's dream selves, and changing the area at will. He can also pluck information from any others who are also inside and bring those ideas and images to life, as was the case with Xyler and Craz being summoned in Stan's mind as he is proving this to Mabel, Dipper, and Soos. Bill can communicate with his summoner using his body as the screen of a video phone; he can also use his whole body as a projector, displaying past and future events as live video footage.
As Bill often mentions, he is close to omniscient: he knows the truth of many well-known conspiracies and can see the future (such as the destruction of the Gideon-bot and that Gideon Gleeful would go to prison), an ability he often flaunts by offering to tell a person the exact time, date and cause of that person's death - he seemingly predicted Ford's death, by heart attack at the age of ninety-two. Bill has the ability to see things through the eyes of any image of himself , which is why his image appears hidden throughout many items and places in Gravity Falls.
Bill also has the ability to, with the original owner's consent to an appropriately worded "deal," remove people's minds from their bodies, taking possession of the empty body himself. The real owner of the body is stuck in a spirit-like form within the mindscape, unable to affect the rest of the world unless that person finds a vessel. This vessel does not have to be a living creature, as revealed when Dipper used his sock puppet caricature to communicate with Mabel while stuck as a disembodied spirit.
The interaction upon the death of Bill Cipher and itself is shown where Bill request to be resurrected. Bill speaks to the Axolotl, stating that he saw no big deal with trying to attack the Pines family and asks to be reborn to the Axolotl's disappointment.
Sep 7, 2024 · Although a Gravity Falls revival could ruin the perfect ending of the show, The Book of Bill proves that Dipper and Mabel don't need to be the series' starring characters for it to work — or that's what Bill, in his tongue-in-cheek way, wants his mere mortal readers to believe.
- Kate Bove
The Book of Bill is Bill's chance to tell his story, from his evil origin to an interactive array of puzzles and ciphers, all brought to you by the mastermind himself. This is Gravity Falls as you've never seen before. Even better, the Barnes & Noble exclusive brings you even more Bill.
Sep 12, 2024 · In Gravity Falls lore, the Theraprism is meant to rehabilitate the deceased, but, by his own admission, Bill Cipher shows no signs of changing. During one of his therapeutic arts-and-crafts sessions, Bill makes a book — in a meta twist, The Book of Bill — so that we can help him escape his extra-dimensional prison.
People also ask
Why does Bill Cipher make a book?
Who is Bill Cipher in the Book of Bill?
Does Bill Cipher survive Gravity Falls 'Weirdmageddon'?
Where did Bill Cipher come from on Gravity Falls?
How do Dipper and Mabel thwart Bill?
Why did Bill Cipher get his name?
Why do you think that is? Because of his abilities, sadistic nature, and just all around power. Bill can change reality as we know it, as seen in Weirdmageddon, as well as create new ones, like Mabel Land.
