Sunday, August 18, 2013

Trixie vs. Gideon - Character Comparisons

So once again, I'm about to reveal some spoilers in this next character comparison, this time for Gravity Falls.  Which, incidentally, if you're still not familiar with, check out Disney's official website here:

http://disneychannel.disney.com/gravity-falls

And be sure to go here for more info on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic:

http://www.hubworld.com/my-little-pony/shows/friendship-is-magic/videos

So moving on, now we're getting to another pair of characters who are quite similar...  Let's get a glimpse of that, after the break!



Trixie Lulamoon (at least according to the toy?), also more commonly known as the GREAT and POWERFUL TRIXIE!, is from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and has quite the following in it's fandom.  She is a traveling showpony, showing of feats of dazzle and amazement, which usually amount to simple parlor tricks and fireworks, which is here her unicorn magic focuses on.  She is also has a very arrogant personality, and brags about her talents, to the point of fabricating incredible feats, such as defeating an enormous Ursa Major.  Originally just a one-off character, she would appear again in a later episode, getting her revenge for the humiliation she suffered in the original episode.

Gideon Gleeful, better know by his stage name Lil' Gideon, is a major character from Gravity Falls.  He's a 9-year-old "child psychic" who owns the "Tent of Telepathy" and a business rival to Stan Pines and his Mystery Shack.  Much like Stan, though, he's mostly a fraud, correctly guessing various things about the people who go to his tent and also spying on them to know their secrets.  He is also able to manipulate the people of Gravity Falls, due to his cuteness and influence, into doing whatever he wants.  However, in reality, he's a spoiled brat who throws a fit when things don't go his way, and ends up becoming a rival of the whole Pines family, after a tiff with Dipper and Mabel (who he as a crush on).  He also has book #2... or rather, had, until the end of season 1.

So you can probably see some similarities already.  Let's list them out, just to be clear.

-Both are considered rival characters towards the main characters of their respective series.  Trixie wasn't that much of a rival until her second appearance in the episode "Magic Duel", though that didn't stop the fandom from perceiving her as a rival until then.  Gideon was merely a business rival to Stan, but after he tried to kill Dipper for thinking he's responsible for why Mabel won't go out with him, he's now the rival of the entire Pines family (in Gravity Falls, anyway).
-Both characters are essentially frauds.  Trixie's showmanship magic is real, but her claims are either extremely exaggerated or straight up not true.  Gideon isn't a psychic at all, and earns his reputation by both guessing the obvious (the people of Gravity Falls are stupid enough to be fooled) and spying on them.  Though in his first episode, he DID have psychic powers, but they were from an amulet he had as a a bolo tie, which was shattered by the end of his first episode.
-Both were initially loved by the public before falling from grace.  Mane 6 NEEEEEEEEEIGH-sayers aside, the rest of Ponyville seem to either truly believe her stories or were entertained with her tricks, even if some of them came at the expense of Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity.  By the end if her first episode, Boast Busters, when she failed to stop a baby Ursa Minor from rampaging through the town while Twilight did, she ran off in shame, and according to Magic Duel, was unable to show her face in any other town for fear of mockery.  Gideon, as said before, had the entire town of Gravity Falls wrapped around his little finger, up until the season finale, in which Stan revealed to the entire town that Gideon had been spying on them all, and was promptly arrested for doing so.
-Both had a character or characters that catered to their every wimp.  With Trixie, it was Snips and Snails (though this came to bite her when they decided to bring an Ursa Major [really a baby Ursa Minor] into town so they can see her defeat it).  With Gideon, it's his father, Bud Gleeful, who seems oblivious to his son's overbearing nature.
-Both, at one point, possessed an amulet that gave them incredible powers.  Trixie had the Alicorn Amulet in Magic Duel, while Gideon had his aforementioned Mystic Amulet.
-Both are associated with a light blue color, though I'm not entirely sure if they're the same shade of light blue.
-Both have sought revenge on their perceived rival, and temporarily succeeded.  Trixie managed to beat Twilight and kicked her out of Ponyville in Magic Duel.  Gideon has made several attempts to one-up Stan and the Pines family before finally successfully taking the Mystery Shack at the end of Dreamscaperers.  In the end, though, the heroes of both series managed to defeat them.
-Both get a rather impressive evil laugh at one point.

That's quite a few similarities, more then I originally anticipated, in all honesty...  Now lets get to some differences.  Setting aside that one's a unicorn and the other is a small boy with enormous hair...

-Despite being arrogant and gloating a lot, Trixie isn't truly evil, and even regrets her actions in Magic Duel enough to apologize to Twilight for them.  Gideon, on the other hand, is unquestionable unstable, as in his first episode, he tried to cut out Dipper's tongue, and won't hesitate in resorting to similar tactics to defeat the Pines family.
-Even though her claims are overly exaggerated, Trixie actually is a talented magician; her talent is just in showmanship rather then general impressive feats of magic.  Gideon is just a straight-up fraud when it comes to his "psychic abilities" (again, except when he's wearing the amulet).
-Gideon got his own villain song, while Trixie didn't (much to the dismay of her fans)
-Trixie is a traveling magician, while Gideon's base of operations is only in Gravity Falls.
-Trixie's revenge is simply to show that she's the better unicorn compared to Twilight Sparkle.  Gideon's revenge is specifically to steal the Mystery Shack from Stan, which is later revealed to be because he believed book #1 was hidden somewhere on the property...  at the very end of the episode, it's revealed that he was right!
-Trixie, despite her popularity, only appeared in 2 episodes of the main series.  Gideon has made several appearances in Gravity Falls, and is even briefly featured in the opening sequence (a picture of him can be seen near the end of the song)

Weird, I had a hard time thinking up differences...  probably because Trixie's only appeared in 2 episode, and Gideon, while a major character, had only a handful of episodes where he actually did something.  Here's a little bit of trivia to help even things out:

-Trixie is voiced by Kathleen Barr, who later voiced the villain Queen Chrysalis.
-According to some of the merchandise, Trixie attended Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.
-Gideon is voiced by Thurop Van Orman, the creator of the Cartoon Network series, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, which Alex Hirsch wrote for before creating Gravity Falls.

That was fun, as always.  I'm glad I got back to this, because there's probably one or two more that I want to get to before I'm finished with this...  I hope you enjoy reading this, and comment on any other similarities or differences you may have noticed with these characters!  Don't forget to share, if you don't mind...  After all, this blog started getting a lot more views after making these!  Maybe people really do care about what I have to say...

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