I Fucking Love This I Don't Know Why Or Describe Why

I fucking love this I don't know why or describe why

A personal interpretation of the Axolotl poem (UPDATED)

WARNING: This post is the updated version of the same post I wrote in 2019. Since I deleted the old blog, I did not want to lose my work (it’s the first analysis I ever wrote!), so here it is. I hope you will keep enjoying it even thought I’m not THAT deep into Gravity Falls anymore.

Also, as said in the previous version of this post, this is a personal interpretation, so feel free to disagree/agree and, if you want, you can also explain why and we can all have a nice chat.

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If you watched Gravity Falls, you probably know about this poem too. If not, please notice this poem appeared on “Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates’ Treasure!: Select Your Own Choose-Venture”. The book isn’t canonical nor related to the original Gravity Falls series, however Alex Hirsch himself said it contains “a enormous ‘canon’ secret”.

Aaand the canon secret is probably this poem the Axolotl himself said, when Dipper asked him what does he know about Bill Cipher:

From the first two lines, we can notice this poem is clearly about Bill: Equilateral Triangle, Tradesman of the middle class, watching from something that has his same image: yep, it’s Bill.

Now it comes one of the most important lines: “saw his own Dimension burn”.

I believe there’s a reason behind the choice of this specific verb. Alex Hirsch could have used hundreds of different verbs, to make us realize us that Bill himself burned his own Dimension. Instead, he used “saw”.

Of course, a lot of people in the fandom thought the same: Bill saw his Dimension burn, therefore he did not have an active role in its destruction, but a passive one. That means there was another reason we do not know, that caused his Dimension’s death and all he could do was looking at the destruction.

It is a good interpretation, I admit it. This idea can lead to a lot of interesting theories and stories and I love to see what every single person can do with that.

But there is something that bothers me. And that something is a line Bill said during Weirdmageddon.

When he was in the Penthouse suite with Ford, he started talking about his own Dimension. The famous “Flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams” line. But what did he say after that?

“I liberated my Dimension, Stanford, and I am here to liberate yours.”

Uhm. This is quite strange. If burning his Dimension was an accident and he did not want to do it, why did he talk about that as a “liberation”? Was he lying?

I don’t think so. Just look at the episode: when Bill starts talking about his home Dimension, this is the only moment in the entire show in which Bill is completely, 100% serious.

Just look at this expression. Does he look like someone who wants to put on a show? Someone who is lying? No, this is a serious face. This is the only time Bill is completely serious, without maniacal laughters and crazy ideas. He is talking about something that is very important for him. There is a personal, emotional involvement and I highly doubt he was even thinking about lying.

So, if Bill wasn’t responsible for his Dimension’s destruction, why does he talk about it as a liberation?

In my opinion, Bill burned his Dimension. The poem’s line “saw his own Dimension burn” is not a way to prove his innocence, but an admission of guilt: Bill saw his Dimension burn and did nothing to stop it. He just looked at it, no regrets. He saw it and considered it a favour: he was liberating his world from its own awfulness.

But wait: if Bill feels no remorse, how can the following line (and probably the most important line in the whole poem) be explained?

“Misses home and can’t return”

He probably liked his place, his family or his world. He must feel remorse, otherwise why would he miss home?

This is what Alex Hirsch said on New York Comic-Con in 2015. So I think we can rule out that Bill liked his family. And, considering how he talked about his place (”flat mind in a flat world with flat dreams” he didn’t like his place either.

So how can Bill dislike his Dimension so much, but miss it at the same time?

In the English language (and probably every other language), the word “home” does not represent just a place. It can represent your family, too. But it can also represent an abstract concept. When people say that, in some place, they feel like home, they talk about a feeling. Something inesplicable, that is connected to the safe space we spent our childhood. A feeling that makes us feel safe and sound, that reminds us of a better moment in our life.

This is the ‘home’ Bill misses. This is the real “home” the poem talks about, the place where Bill can’t return. Not because it burned down, but because it is a feeling he lost forever. He may try to recreate it, with his friends and by finding “a new universe to call my own”, as he said during Weirdmageddon. But this feeling is deeply related to the joy of childhood, to his own childhood, a joy that is lost forever to him.

Why? Because he grew up. He became old. The same that happens to all of us: when we become older, we always think of our childhood as a magical, perfect moment in time lost forever. The same happened to Bill: he lost that magical moment, things worsened with his family and the perfect happiness disappeared.

“Says he’s happy, he’s a liar”

In a way, this has a lot in common with Stan’s story (another point to the Same Coin Theory): Stan’s childhood was all adventures and fun, then he became older, things got worse with his family (especially with Ford) and that magical happiness was lost.

But while Stan managed to still be a good person, Bill chose a different path. He became crazy and insane, he probably destroyed lots of worlds and did a lot of awful things. And yet, the Axolotl offered Bill a way to “shirk the blame”, to avoid dealing with what he did.

Now we can ask ourselves a trillion questions about why, if it is part of a bigger plan, why giving Bill a second chance with a new form and not just burning him down, like he did with his Dimension.

In my personal opinion, the answer lies within the Axolotl itself. Because the Axolotl is not a God that  decides what is good and what is evil and punishes you if you are bad. He is above the concept of good and evil. This is why he prefers to offer Bill a way to escape his punishment and redeem himself, by giving him a different form, in a different time.

So the Axolotl is not like a cosmic judge, but more of a “escape from prison” card. Something that is above judges and rules, in a place where there is no time or space, detached from the morals mortals creatures have. But that is another story.