Gideon Charles Gleeful, better known as Li'l Gideon, is the secondary antagonist of the Disney Channel/Disney XD animated series Gravity Falls, serving as the main antagonist of Season 1 and the secondary antagonist of Season 2.
A phony child psychic, he is the owner of the Tent of Telepathy and has an obsessive crush on Mabel Pines; he has also been harboring a grudging against Dipper Pines for "ruining" his relationship with Mabel, and has a longstanding business rivalry with Stan Pines that began some time prior to the show.
He was voiced by Thurop Van Orman, who was the creator of the Cartoon Network series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack as well as the voice actor of the main character.
Appearance[]
Gideon is a short, stout kid with white pompadour hair, an upturned nose, blue eyes and three freckles on each of his cheeks. He wears a baby blue suit with an American flag pin on the left side of his collar, a black shirt inside, with brown, polished shoes. Gideon also originally wore a bolo tie with a jade amulet on it during his first appearance, which is later replaced by a white tie as of "Irrational Treasure". Following his arrest in the Season 1 finale, Gideon wears an orange prison uniform. He later returns to his regular outfit in the series finale.
Personality[]
Li'l Gideon is a self-proclaimed psychic who uses his charisma and adorableness to make money and mask his true personality. His thick Southern accent and babyish appearance often lead people to underestimate him, and while he may appear trustworthy, he is anything but. However, Gideon has built up such a spotless reputation that people refuse to believe the worst of him: when he orders Dipper and Mabel arrested for trying to murder him, Officer Blubs and Durland instantly believe it without any evidence whatsoever.
Behind the mask, Gideon is a selfish, obsessive, power-hungry, unscrupulous, and distinctly sociopathic boy. Determined to get his way, he will not take "no" for an answer. When he became romantically interested in Mabel Pines, he forced her to continue dating him through crowd pressure, and considered Dipper's attempt to break up with him on Mabel's behalf as grounds to murder him. Even after being formally dumped, his obsession with her refuses to wane, and he believes that he can make her love him, even if it means keeping her imprisoned.
He is also a shameless fraud, not only presenting himself as a psychic to gullible audiences through cold readings, but he is also not above invading their privacy through hidden cameras; he shows little remorse for such behavior and even less respect for the people of Gravity Falls, at one point happily providing his catchphrase to a group of townsfolk ("It's my li'l secret,") and dismissing them with a mutter of "mouth-breathing fools" under his breath.
Gideon is extremely contemptuous and abusive, especially towards his parents - who are among the few people who see his true colors. Upon being reprimanded by Bud for trashing his room, he responds by screaming that he can simply buy and sell his own father. When Bud tries to cheer him up by tickling him, Gideon throws a temper tantrum and proceeds to verbally abuse his father at length, before storming out. While Bud remains seemingly unfazed by his son's sociopathic nature (likely due to him regularly wiping his own memories via the Blind Eye Society's memory eraser), his mother's sanity has badly frayed after constant exposure to Gideon's tantrums, and as a result, she spends most of her time obsessively cleaning the house while muttering "just keep vacuuming".
At his heart, Gideon wants power, be it power over people, over Mabel, over the town, over his enemies; most of all, he wants the power that he believes the Journals can grant him, intending to rule Gravity Falls with Mabel as his queen. When deprived of his amulet, he is content with achieving this by humiliating Stan, at least for a time. However, when the chance for ultimate power looms, he will go to any lengths to achieve it, and his megalomania can make him extremely spontaneous and reckless: though he makes extensive use of Journal 2 as a source of magical information, he proves to be exceptionally ambitious and purposeful to pay any heed to the Author's stern warning not to summon Bill.
Trivia[]
- Gideon is a direct contrast to Flapjack, the character his voice actor played before Gravity Falls.
- It's unknown why Gideon was sent to an adult prison rather than the juvie, as he is technically a minor despite everything he's done.
- Gideon's first and last name are a pun on the phrase "giddy and gleeful". The name "Gideon" also means "destroyer". Additionally, it means "feller of trees", as well, which is interesting since he has a rivalry with a family whose last name is Pines.
- Lil' Gideon will become the enemy of Winnie the Pooh, Ash Ketchum, Littlefoot, Twilight Sparkle, Skarloey and their friends in Winnie the Pooh Goes To Gravity Falls.