Filbrick Elmer Pines is the overarching antagonist of Disney's Gravity Falls franchise. He was the abusive and neglectful father of Stanford and Stanley Pines.
He was voiced by Jonathan Banks.
What Makes Him a Hate Sink?[]
In General[]
- He's one of the few villains in the franchise to lack any comedic moments and is taken completely serious.
- While he lose his chance to live a rich and lax life without having to work, he otherwise never faced any punishment, especially for his treatment toward Stan.
- Although it's implied that Ford ratted him out to the authority, there's nothing to support this. The same applied him being believed to have died in poverty.
- Despite his short screen time, he shows enough personality to not be a Generic Doomsday Villain, and had a clear goal of greed, which paints him as outright selfish, especially since he only wants money for himself and doesn't care about anyone else, and his actions against Stanley and Stanford paints him as someone who's fine with crossing as many lines as possible as long as his goal is achieved.
- Although Word of God states that Filbrick and his parents immigrated to America from an unknown European country during World War 2, this is never confirmed and even if it's true, it remains ambiguous as to whenever he was affected by having to leave his old home in anyway.
- None of the care he gave to his family are genuine or sticks: His care for Stan is subverted once he disowned him, his care for Ford is pragmatic and it's not confirmed he even cared for Caryn (which even if he did, it would be pragmatic), on top of him divorcing her after disowning Stan meaning he would subverted this care anyway.
- On top of that, it's clear that Filbrick would have no hesitation or remorse for throwing his family under the bus, either out of selfishness or in a cowardly attempt to save his own skin.
- Compared to many supernatural anomalies in the series, Filbrick's crimes are portrayed very realistically, as in this modern time where child abuse is becoming a big problem, people like him will always exist in the real world.
In series[]
- He's extremely abusive to both of his sons, especially Stanley whom he views as the inferior twin and is envious over them getting along together.
- As a person, he's extremely wrathful and a perfectionist who never felt impressed by anything and always looked down on other people's efforts.
- He shows numerous signs of hypocrisy:
- He accused Stan for banking on Ford's intelligence for his own benefits, even though Filbrick is no better since he did the same so he could live a lax life without having to work.
- He preach to Stan about hard working, yet he himself is a sloth who refused to work and wants to get rich by exploiting Ford's intelligence.
- Despite showing annoyance over Stan's habit of slacking and making his brother doing all his work, he makes no effort to help him change for the better, only know to punish him and when this led to Stan breaking Ford's project by mistake, instead of realizing his faults, he blames it all on Stan.
- When he disowned Stan, he stated about the latter exploiting Ford's intelligence for his own gains, a statement that actually suits him more than it suits Stan. It doesn't help that when Stan use his brother's name, he was able to make money through his business at the Mystery Shack all by himself, something that Filbrick is not shown to be able to do.
- He's not smart at all, and it doesn't help that he's short-tempered and tend to use brute forces over anything:
- His lacks of effort to help Stan change for the better ultimately led to him getting nowhere on his way to made money from Ford.
- Despite wanting money to be bought into the house in anyway possible, he allows Caryn to throw away money, by blatantly trying to scam/overprice people over the phone, with Filbrick doing nothing about it.
- His favoritism to Ford is purely pragmatic: he only wants to use him as a cash cow for him to live a lax life without having to work, and never valued him as a person.
- He accused Stan of stealing his golden chains and make him and Ford find it for him, and while it's true that Stan stole it, not only he did it with good intentions (to write "#1 Dad" on it), but Filbrick also lacks any proof that Stan stole it and he distrust his son for no reason. It doesn't help that he still ground Stan nonetheless.
- On two occasions where Stan failed his history exam, he cruelly made him stand outside for two days straight holding a sign saying “Extra Stan-3 Dollars or a better offer” (the first time) and “Extra Stan, 3 Dollars or Better Offer” (the second time), which left Stanley traumatized, even as an elderly man.
- He signed up Stan for boxing lessons without the latter's consent, and while he may have done it out of good intentions, and Stan did benefit from it and was grateful to his father for them, he ultimately subverted them.
- His harsh treatment toward Stan led to the latter applying what his father did to him to Dipper under the assumption that what Filbrick did is beneficial for him.
- His most infamous act is evicting Stan out of his house because he broke Ford's project and got him rejected by his dream university, even though what Stan did was purely an accident.
- Journal 3 revealed that the suit with the fez Stan put on most of the time is the same suit Filbrick made Ford wearing it in his wedding, and again couldn't care less about whether Ford liked it or not.
- While he did seem to care for Stan at first, such as him signing him up for boxing lessons being done with good intention, and his appreciation toward the gift Stan gave him in Lost Legends appears to be genuine, all of these were ultimately subverted by the end.
- Although he claims that what he did to Stan is to help him grow, this is nothing more than a lie, or a delusion at best, that he use to justify the abuses he inflicted under the reason that "Spare the rod, spoil the child".
- After his son's "death", he didn't attend his funeral.
- What's worse is that it's implied he may have been aware that Stan faked his death, yet is unimpressed by his survival, once again showing how he look down on others's efforts.
- To make things worse, even Bill Cipher, who is absolutely vile and monstrous, comments on this in a slightly appalled tone.
Trivia[]
- There is a popular fan theory among the Gravity Falls fanbase, that the reason why Filbrick didn’t show up to Stanley’s faked funeral was out of genuine guilt and shame for how he treated Stanley/his actions in general and that going to his son’s funeral would have reminded him too much of the past. If this was confirmed, then Filbrick would most likely not be a Hate Sink, for being too remorseful for his actions (even if he didn’t outright redeem himself).
- Ironically, Jonathan Banks also portrayed Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, a Magnificent Baddie and the polar opposite of Filbrick's status as Hate Sink.
External Links[]
- Filbrick Pines on the Villains Wiki
- Filbrick Pines on the Pathetic Pinhead Wiki
[]
 Hate Sinks
| ||
|
Animated Features |
The Matchmaker |
Chi-Fu | Jack-in-the-Box | Mertle Edmonds | Agent (Bolt) | The Fenner Brothers | Woodchuck Bully | Maui's Parents | King Runeard | Ebenezer Lynxley Pixar Others Live-Action Features Star Wars Marvel Studios Animated Television Darkwing Duck Kim Possible American Dragon: Jake Long Phineas and Ferb Gravity Falls Star vs. the Forces of Evil DuckTales (2017) Marvel's Spider-Man (2017) Big Hero 6: The Series Amphibia The Owl House The Ghost and Molly McGee Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Others: Live-Action Television Video Games Shorts Literature Musicals See Also: | |