Old Man McGucket: a Character Analysis
I'm going to preface this essay by saying, I have not read any of the books except for screenshots from people who actually have them, so this essay is strictly going to be about the show and maybe like... five book pages idk-
Spoilers, duh. But the essay is better if you haven't watched the show, but don't read it if you're ever planning to. This is like majorly important plot spoilers.
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Old Man McGucket. The crazy old guy who actually turns out to have a hell of a lot of plot relevance in a crazy twist that was foreshadowed in a way that people generally overlooked as "crazy shenanigans from the crazy shenanigans show". Wait a minute...
(vine boom goes here)
Yeah, McGucket and Simon are pretty similar for multiple reasons. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about the incredibly dark reality of Old Man McGucket. A man who didn't lose his mind, but instead, locked it away himself.
THE SHOW:
We are introduced to McGucket in the second episode of the first season, The Legend of the Gobblewonker. Grunkle Stan drags Dipper and Mabel to go fishing with him, as they're there, they see this crazy old man screaming about something called a "Gobblewonker" a strange Loch Ness Monster type creature that hides out on a mysterious island off the shore. Everyone calls him crazy, but Dipper and Mabel decide to go hunt down this Gobblewonker and take a picture of it to win a photo contest, ditching Grunkle Stan in the process. Eventually they learn that the "Gobblewonker" isn't actually real, but instead a robot made by the crazy old guy at the start in order to get attention from his son. This crazy old guy is Old Man McGucket.
Immediately from this first episode intro we learn a couple of things about Old Man McGucket. He has a son, who is never mentioned ever again in the show. His wife left him. He has a knack for machinery. He's generally viewed as crazy by the characters, and, let's be honest... he is. Now immediately you have a couple of questions. Why is this crazy old guy a robot genius? He doesn't seem like a mad scientist type, more like a hillbilly. So what's up with that? Good question. Keep that in your pocket for now.
For the rest of the season McGucket never really shows up in any prominent roles. He's really just a crazy old hillbilly prospector-y guy who just so happens to be pretty good with machines. It's not really questioned. It is brought up multiple times, but otherwise ignored. So, whatever. Crazy shenanigans from the crazy shenanigans show, right? Well not this crazy shenanigans show, because, ultimately, Gravity Falls is made for theorists and mystery solvers. Encoded messages. Hidden clues. Itty bitty details that all allude to the bigger picture. The solution to the question... what is going on in Gravity Falls? That and who wrote The Journals, but that's not the point.
The point is that the Gravity Falls fandom is full of people who look into every little detail to solve mysteries. So McGucket being good with machines? No way that's just a crazy shenanigan.
So, what do we know about the author of the journals? He had six fingers. He was good with machines. He's probably been in Gravity Falls for a while. And Journal 3 is his last journal he was writing before he mysteriously... stopped.
McGucket fits two of those. Good with machines and lived in Gravity Falls for a while. But... we can reasonably make him fit the other two. Six fingers? His right arm is in a cast. Maybe he used to have six fingers, maybe something happened. Writing mysteriously stopped? McGucket is repeatedly shown to be basically insane so... maybe that's why he stopped writing the journals. Because something so horrific and terrible happened to him that he lost his mind, and so he stopped writing. That's it. All the signs point to-
Oh. Nevermind then.
Now that the theory is no longer that McGucket is the author of the journals, and instead it's Stan's secret twin brother... then who is McGucket?
For that... we need to look at season 2.
Specifically the episodes 2, 4, and 7.
Season 2, episode 2, Into the Bunker is partially an episode about Dipper's crush on Wendy and partially a lore episode. Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy head on an adventure to find the author of the journals's secret hideout, which is apparently in a tree. They find it and make it in. While down there they find a shapeshifting monster that tries to kill them and steal Journal 3. They escape, trapping the monster in a cryochamber and immediately leaving the secret hideout. On the way out, Soos managed to grab what he thought was a briefcase. As it turns out, the "briefcase" was, in fact, an only slightly wrecked laptop with the words "Property of F" written at the top. Soos says he can fix it and that's the episode. (Minus Wendy and Dipper stuff)
Season 2, episode 4, Sock Opera. Soos has finally fixed the laptop so now all Dipper and Mabel need to do is open it and they'll figure it all out. The author of the journals, the secrets of Gravity Falls, all of it at the click of a button! Exceepptt the laptop is unfortunately password locked. An eight letter word is between them and... essentially, everything the show has built up toward. Mabel gets distracted making a sock opera to impress a boy, and in an act of desperation, Dipper makes a deal with Bill Cipher, the main antagonist of the entire show, for a vessel in exchange for the password to the laptop. Bill takes over Dipper's body and immediately smashes the laptop thereby destroying any chance of opening it and we never find out the password. Bill is defeated in the end, but the laptop is destroyed and they're no closer to finding the author of the journals than before. Or are they? (Vsauce music starts)
Season 2. Episode 7. Society of the Blind Eye. We open on Lazy Susan closing up the diner. We see her kick out some rats, and Old Man McGucket from underneath a table, then on her way out she sees the gnomes from episode one stealing her pie. She's shocked, startled, bamboozled, but before she can really react a bunch of people wearing red coats just... take her away. Then the opening plays.
We're back to Mabel and Dipper trying to find the author of the journals, and upon closer inspection of the destroyed laptop that supposedly belonged to the author, they see a branding thing on it. This little piece of metal that says "McGucket Labs" so they piece together that McGucket could be the author of the journals. His first name is Fiddleford (I think this is the first time we learn that in the show), and the laptop says "Property of F", and all the evidence adds up. Of course, most of the fandom by now has moved on from the McGucket theory. So there's no way that's all there is to this episode. Of course not. That'd be incredibly stupid and a huge waste of time covering this episode.
So Mabel and Dipper go running to find McGucket. They find him with his house being vandalized by teens writing the words "Mc Suck-it" and McGucket promptly shooing them off his property. Dipper tells McGucket to drop the act and that he knows who he is, but McGucket says he hardly remembers anything. So they got to the last place he can recall in his memory which is the museum.
At the museum they discover a secret passageway which leads them to a secret meeting between a bunch of people in red robes. They all watch as the robed men erase Lazy Susan's memory of the gnomes with some weird looking ray gun. They conclude that the weird robed guys are the reason McGucket can't remember anything. That they did something to him to make him the way he is. So they resolve to find McGucket's memories and bring them back so he can remember everything.
After fighting the Blind Eye Society and then erasing all their memories of the society ever existing, they finally go to watch McGucket's memories and figure out everything that happened. And this... is where everything is revealed.
They play the memories, and we see a young man on screen. He's wearing glasses, a blazer and tie, and looks to be of good health and sound mind. He introduces himself as Fiddleford Hadron McGucket. He explains that he, for the past year, has been helping this scientist, the author of the journals, build some kind of... machine. But... something went wrong. Something terrible. So terrible that it haunts McGucket every day. So he invented something. Something to erase this terrible memory of what he helped build. The ray gun that the Blind Eye Society used. The very first thing he erases from his mind is erased right in front of us. He erases... "Fiddleford". The very first thing McGucket took away from his own brain... is himself.
We watch him come up with the Society of the Blind Eye. A society made to help people forget the terrible things they've seen. To help everyone live in blissful ignorance of what's really going on in Gravity Falls. The zombies. The gnomes. Everything.
We watch as McGucket erases more of his memories. We watch him get older, we watch his hair grey, we watch his beard grow, his glasses break and eventually disappear. We watch as he starts to forget words, talk faster. We watch him progressively lose his mind more and more. We watch him erase his own memories... to the point of no return. No one did this to McGucket. He did this to himself.
But... what happened to drive him to such drastic measures? What made him become so paranoid and so scared that he locked his memories away in hopes of never thinking about it again? What did McGucket see?
For that... we need to go back. Way back.
FIDDLEFORD HADRON MCGUCKET:
Fiddleford McGucket. Grew up on a hog farm in Tennessee with, well, not exactly what you call a lot of money.
He was, however, skilled in mechanics, and was pretty smart, which got him into Backupsmore University in the mid-1970s where he met Stanford Pines. The author of the journals and the twin brother of Stanley Pines. After he graduated he made his own computer business called "Fiddleford Computermajigs" but in the middle of his work he received a call from Ford saying he needed a mechanical genius to help him build a transuniversal poly-dimensional metavortex in his basement in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Fiddleford agrees, leaving his wife and son behind.
From then on, Fiddleford was Ford's research assistant. He helped Ford with all of his studies and any machine building needs, and even was so nice as to get him a Christmas present, yet forgot to get one for his actual wife. By the way, the password to his laptop, the one found in the bunker, was "Stanford" which is certainly a choice. But we're not here to talk about doomed old man yaoi, back to the normal conversation.
So, while Fiddleford was working with Ford, a Gremloblin, half goblin, half gremlin, attacks Fiddleford staring him right in the eyes which makes him see his worst nightmare. We don't actually know what Fiddleford saw in the Gremloblin's eyes. But we do know how it affected him. In the physical copy of Journal 3 we learn more. Stanford writes that he's been worried about Fiddleford since his encounter with the Gremloblin, saying that he hasn't slept or even fixed his Rubik's Cube since then. He tells Fiddleford to "use his creativity to solve his problems" intending to talk about meditation and such, but as we know... Fiddleford didn't quite take it like that. He used his creativity alright. He used it to build the mind eraser gun. Soon enough Fiddleford started to rely on the gun for everything. Every bad memory, every painful experience, everything he just didn't want to think about anymore. It worked like a drug, and boy, was Fiddleford an addict.
When Ford confronted him, Fiddleford, instead of dealing with his problems, simply erased Ford's memory of the gun entirely so he could use it freely without Ford knowing. Ford, of course, already wrote about the gun in the journal, so while he forgot about it, it was written down so he knew it existed. It's also implied that Fiddleford used the gun multiple times on Ford.
Nonetheless construction continues on the transuniversal poly-dimensional metavortex. During a test run where they sent a dummy into the metavotrex, Fiddleford's leg got caught on the rope and he was therefore dragged through the metavortex, seeing the other side briefly before Ford saved him.
Once he emerged, Ford asked what he saw and Fiddleford immediately told Ford that the portal was in fact dangerous and he never should've built it in the first place. He said it would bring about the end of the world and to "fear the beast with just one eye"
What? This guy? He's a floating dorito chip, I'm sure he's harmless...
(He's wanted in the entire multiverse.)
So, Fiddleford quits the project saying he'd "just as soon forget" and so... he erased his mind of what he saw on the other side of the portal. And he started... the society of the blind eye. In Journal 3, Ford writes about how he's had weird dreams of Fiddleford looming in the dark with a red robe on, and he wonders if they were really just dreams. Fiddleford has probably erased a lot from Ford's mind and plenty of the townsfolk, but to no degree near what he's erased from his own mind.
It only got worse. And worse. And worse. Until he, of course, became the Old Man McGucket we see at the start of the show. Of course, he still retains just a little bit of his former identity, before he became what he is. This shows in his skill with mechanical engineering, and also his knowledge of things like the Gobblewonker. Even in this... state, he can't ever truly forget everything he's tried so hard to.
Fiddleford went through a great trauma that left him mentally unwell, and how did he cope? By shoving it all into a high security prison in the corner of his mind where he never had to think about any of it ever again. This of course is a terrible coping mechanism because, none of it is actually ever gone... it's just hidden from view. And it'll never be fully gone of course, but shoving it away only makes it worse, like prisoners working out and getting super buff in prison.
All of this damaged McGucket's brain so badly that the memory gun couldn't even be used on him anymore. That's how bad it got.
In The Book Of Bill, Bill actually talks about an attempt to possess Fiddleford. And this... is what urged me to write this essay. Bill Cipher, the person who literally laughs at pain, like literally laughs, he enjoys it, went into Fiddleford's mind and he says that he's never been in a mind so damaged, so broken, so shattered beyond repair, that it actually hurt. And, in his words, "for the first time, I felt a pain that wasn't funny."
Bill Cipher, the guy who finds great pleasure in being a manipulative asshole and TORTURING PEOPLE, said this. The unimaginable pain and suffering McGucket must be going through, the torture that was inflicted on him as well as the torture he inflicted upon himself... it was so bad, that not even Bill Cipher could laugh. What was originally just a crazy old guy with possible ties to the Author... turned out to be a deeply damaged and traumatized man.
This is the most tragic character in Gravity Falls. I don't even know how to end this essay... I can't even make a joke.