#uhhh mild spoilers for Jane Eyre and Gravity falls?

[rubydracogirl]

I think it’s a thing that, when you’re obsessed with something, you see it everywhere, including unlikely places, right? (This isn’t really a question, I know full well how mad obsession can drive you 😂) Anyways, big fat ramble about Stan and Ford Pines below the cut.

This has been on my mind because I just finished rereading Jane Eyre for the first time in a long time (it’s been years good lord). I love that book so much, it’s exactly the kind of story I can lose myself in.

So, even with my previous hyperfixations, I always read Jane Eyre as its own thing, with no outside influence from other media. This last read through was a bit different.

When I got to the descriptions of Jane’s ‘love interests’ (Mr. Rochester and St. John) I started seeing parallels to Stan and Ford Pines. (St. John was never a true love interest, but humor me.)

It started with the description of Mr. Rochester’s appearance. Jane describes him as being square, rugged and short with a strong athletic build. That instantly made me think of Stan, I’m embarrassed to admit. The further I read though, the more I felt compelled to compare Stan with Mr. Rochester. They were both the black sheep of their family, and both of their fathers were obsessed with gaining wealth. Both of them hid a terrible secret and lived a double life, and both proved themselves to be good men who are willing to sacrifice themselves. I'm not saying they're mirror images of each other, not at all, but I think there's a lot of similarities that they share.

When I got to the later part of the book after Jane escapes from Thornfield and finds shelter with Diane, Mary and St. John, I noticed one really big similarity between Ford and St. John. Ambition.

Both Ford and St. John are obsessed in their endeavors to strive to be more. The methods and ideologies they follow are different, but both of them have an instinct to push others away, to focus their attention on their end-goal and to become closer to those that they perceive as a means to an end.

For St. John, that came in the form of missionary work, and his purpose in proposing to Jane was that he recognized that she could be useful to him in his work. But he doesn't love her, and refuses to compromise with her when she offers an alternative to his desire.

For Ford, his ambition was to build the portal, to prove his theory of universal weirdness. It's undeniable that Ford is incredibly lonely and isolated, but he does this to himself and he only grows close to Bill Cipher because he believes Bill has the answers he so desperately wants.

Ford literally only reaches out to Fiddleford and Stan because he sees them as a means to an end. He used Fiddleford to help with building the portal, often at the cost of Fiddleford's well-being and ultimately his spiral into madness.

He called Stan to hide his journal (but not destroy it). When it becomes clear that Ford didn't reach out to reconcile, Stan is understandably incensed.

Even when the world was in danger, Ford refused to give up his ambition, to his own detriment.

In a way, both St. John and Ford give up their lives for their ambition.

The similarity ends there for St. John and Ford because where Ford gained humility and perspective, it's unlikely that St. John ever did. Ford reconciled with his brother in the end, while St. John continued to pursue his missionary work to the bitter end.

One other, smaller trait they share is restlessness. Ford hates going to sleep because he needs to keep busy and St. John cannot bring himself to settle into a domestic lifestyle because he also feels compelled to keep working.

That's all the thought I have about it, I guess, it was brewing in there and my thoughts wouldn't shut up about it XD If you took the time to read this mess of a ramble, thank you. If you have any thoughts about it, I'd love to hear it.