MovieChat Forums > Gravity Falls (2012) Discussion > timeline problems in "Northwest Mansion ...

timeline problems in "Northwest Mansion Mystery"

posted 10 years ago by magolding
5 replies | jump to latest

#1:

In the teaser it is said to be 24 hours before the big party starts. After Ptolergeist activity Mr. Northwest decides Dipper is the one to exorcise the ghost.

But the tv news coverage says the party will be tonight just before Pacifica arrives to ask Dipper. When they arrive back at the mansion Mr. Northwest says it is an hour before the guests arrive. Thus 23 hours - minus the time it took the travel back and forth and the time it took for Dipper and Mabel and her friends to get ready - have elapsed since Preston Northwest decided to get Dipper.

What happened in the probably more than 20 hours before Pacifica left the mansion to get Dipper? Did Preston Northwest call the Mystery Shack several times only to be ignored because the phones had caller identification, and then decide to send Pacifica in person as a last resort?

#2:

The ghost mentions 150 years twice in his account.

He says that the Northwests asked the lumberjacks to build a mansion at the top of the hill 150 years ago to the day. Since Gravity Falls is set in the summer of 2012, that must have been in the summer of 1862.

The Lumber ghost says that it took years to build the Northwest mansion. After it was finished the townsfolk arrived for the first annual party they had been promised but were locked out. With his dying breath the ghost said that he would take bloody vengeance if the Northwests did not let the townsfolk in to party 150 years in the future.

Thus the confused story told by the ghost seems to imply that the episode is exactly 150 years to the day after two separate events which were years apart.

Possibly one of the writers calculated that the summer of 2012 would be 150 years after building started in the summer of 1862 and another writer calculated that 2015 would be 150 years after 1865 and thus there could be up to three years between the starting and the completion of the mansion, without realizing that the second season of Gravity Falls has a fictional date of 2012 and not 2015.

[–] Deadpool_vs_theLeprecorn 10 years ago

1: the way I saw it, was that Pacifica went to get Dipper first thing in the morning, around 9 am or so. (It would have been highly rude to go and get him in the middle of the night when he was sleeping, so those hours are out.) That gives him most of the day to get ready and get his ghost fighting stuff together.

2: yes, your right that the time line for this is a little off. But remember, the ghost is mad about Northwest breaking the promise that was made when construction first started. So if you think of the curse starting 150 after the promise was originally made, then it all works out.

Edit: Here's another possible solution to number 2.

The ghost might know about the coming apocalypse, and fearing that the Northwests might die before he could get his revenge, he came back a couple of years sooner then he had intended.

[–] Happy_Chaos 10 years ago

I always took it as 150 years from when the first party happened because that was the day they broke their promise and the ghost was killed.

"Hot Belgian Waffles! Wait, I'm alone! I can swear for real! Son of a--" Stan Pines

[–] magolding 10 years ago

I always took it as 150 years from when the first party happened because that was the day they broke their promise and the ghost was killed.

That's what I thought. And that is what the Ghost's curse says. But earlier the Ghost says it was 150 years ago to the day that they started building the mansion, and he also says that it took years to build the mansion.

[–] mddwbsst 10 years ago

Yeah I agree.

Still I suppose its possible he was simply rounding, I mean saying a 150 while inaccurate, does flow a lot better than say 154. Considering the point was the to convey what happened, with full dramatics, its possible it was just a conscious choice to make the story sound better.

[–] magolding 10 years ago

So if 150 years means 145 to 155 years and Gravity falls is in 2012, the mansin was started and completed in 1857 to 1867. If it took at lest two years to complete it would have been started about 1857 to 1865 and completed about 1859 to 1867.