Pacifica Northwest

Pacifica Elise Northwest is a recurring character in Gravity Falls. She is considered the most popular girl in Gravity Falls, Oregon. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the supposed founder of the town, Nathaniel Northwest, and due to this, she treated everyone snobbishly in order to keep up her family's high status and reputation. Before Dipper gave her the courage to speak up against her parents, she was a recurring enemy of the Pines family, mainly as Mabel Pines' arch-rival.
==Background==
===Personality===
Up until the events of "Northwest Mansion Mystery", Pacifica was a stereotypical wealthy blonde girl, acting stuck-up, sarcastic, rude, arrogant, and mean. She had looked down cruelly on "weirdos", such as Mabel and her friends Candy and Grenda, and often used her ancestry to raise up her status and boss other people around. In "Northwest Mansion Mystery", it is revealed that she has her bully nature is because of her parents' very strict high standards and expectations for her, tied in with Pavlovian behavioral conditioning, possibly including some form of abuse. At the end of the episode, she ignores her father to do the right thing, and has a complete change of heart, befriending the common folk of the town. After seeing all the horrible acts her ancestors have committed, she was greatly appalled, showing that she does indeed have morals of her own.
According to Alex Hirsch, Pacifica is very insecure about herself, possibly the reason why she demonstrated such pride in getting Mabel's feelings down.
===Physical appearance===
Pacifica has long blonde hair with blunt-looking bangs and dark blue eyes. Observant viewers will notice that, in the second season, she has a part in her bangs. Her main outfit features a dark purple jacket with a short lavender dress, black leggings, and cream colored boots. As accessories, she wears lavender hoop earrings and a periwinkle belt. She's also noticeably seen wearing heavy purple eye shadow.
During Pioneer Day, she wears a light turquoise colored dress with a purple belt wrapped around it, and a gold to yellow belt buckle in the front. Just like her main outfit, she wears her black leggings underneath and cream colored boots. She also wears a brown hat with a raccoon tail attached to it, and purple arrowhead shaped earrings, including a skinny purple bracelet around her arm.
While playing mini golf, she wears a purple polo shirt with her monogram stitched in pink on the right side of it, a white skirt, pink socks with purple diamond patterns, and white golfing shoes. As accessories, she wears diamond earrings, a purple wristband on her left arm, and a white glove on her right.
At the Northwest Fest, she's first seen wearing a "lake-foam green" dress with a green bow around her waist. She also wears matching green gloves, a matching choker with a diamond set in it, including her same diamond earrings from her golfing outfit. There is also noticeable waves in her hair. Later on when she's enlisted to get Dipper's help, she wears a cream coat with a brown belt, her same black leggings and cream colored boots, including a purple polka dotted headwrap tied inside of her coat. She also wears her hoop earrings and a pair of black sunglasses. During the party, she wears a purple dress with black puffy shoulder sleeves (and a similar black rim at the bottom of the gown), including lighter purple-pinkish high heel shoes with a diamond on each. As accessories, she wears an oval purple neck-piece, and earrings sporting two diamonds per ear.
During Weirdmageddon, she's seen reduced down to wearing purple stitched rags and her same cream colored boots. Afterwards, Mabel loans Pacifica her llama sweater, which is a yellow ruffled sweater with a brown emblem of a llama on it, facing the right. She also appeared the change into her leggings to wear underneath.
===Abilities===
Pacifica is a rather skilled athlete, as shown in "The Golf War." With training from her personal trainer Sergei, it's shown that Pacifica is an extremely excellent golfer, and puts hard work and practice into achieving that goal. As she and Mabel compete for the party crown in "Double Dipper", it's shown she's an excellent singer, and implied to be a good dancer. Pacifica previously used her popularity to manipulate other people, as shown when she used intimidation to get the crowd to applaud for her in order to beat Mabel.
==Appearances==
===Season 1===
Pacifica debuts in "Double Dipper", where she attends the Mystery Shack's party in hopes of claiming the party crown. When told she needed to compete against someone else in order to win it, she picks on Candy Chiu and Grenda as examples, calling them "Lizard lady" and "Fork girl." Seeing this, Mabel sticks up for her new friends by announcing that she would compete against Pacifica for the crown, thus beginning their rivalry. They both compete off in a karaoke and dancing contest, which the winner is determined by whoever gets the loudest applause. Mabel receives louder applause then Pacifica, and noticing this, Pacifica uses intimidation to get people to applaud for her, causing a tie. Out of annoyance, Pacifica then cheats by bribing Old Man McGucket with money to applaud for her, resulting her in winning the crown. Pacifica then announces she would be hosting an "after-party" on her parents' boat in celebration of her victory, thus the crowd leaves with her, carrying her away on their shoulders.
In "Irrational Treasure", it is Pioneer Day, which is a festival celebrated annually in the town of Gravity Falls. Being the great-great-granddaughter of the "founder" of Gravity Falls, Nathaniel Northwest (which is later revealed to be a fraud), Pacifica's family hosts the event. She presents a speech on stage, encouraging the people in the crowd to come up and show their pioneer day spirit. Mabel is enthusiastic about the idea of "audience participation", and runs onstage. As Mabel gets the crowd to start chanting "USA", Pacifica outwardly tells Mabel that she is not "serious enough" for the celebration, and noticing her sweater and nacho earrings, questions her if she always acts as silly as she does. Mabel grows humiliated, and thus leaves the stage, hurt by Pacifica's comment. Pacifica then appears later on, where she encounters Stan Pines who is being held in stockade, attempting to escape. She offers to let him out, only if he says that "the Northwest family is the best family in Gravity Falls." Stan asks her if she wants it in writing, and she hands him a pen and notepad. Instead, Stan writes "YOU STINK!" across the paper, insulting her. She then grabs the attention of a few local town folks, signaling them to pelt Stan with tomatoes. Later on, she is informed by Dipper that her great-great-grandfather, supposedly the founder of Gravity Falls, was a huge fraud. This causes her great worry, as she calls out to her mother in distress as they drive away.
During "The Time Traveler's Pig", Pacifica appears at the Mystery Fair alongside her friends, where she makes a sarcastic and rude remark about Mabel. Later, when Mabel and Dipper are traveling through time, the two go to an alternate timeline where Pacifica is the winner of Mabel's prized pig, Waddles; this horrifies Mabel, who desperately begs Dipper to go back in time and reverse the incident. At the end of the episode, Pacifica is seen being attacked by a chicken which she had won instead of Waddles.
She makes an extremely short cameo in "The Deep End" at the Gravity Falls Pool, swimming in the water. However, only the back of her hair can be seen.
She makes another cameo in "Boyz Crazy", attending the Sev'ral Timez concert with her friends. She is seen buying tickets, and later watching the concert, holding up a sign that says "Sev'ral Timez."
In the season one finale, "Gideon Rises", she is shown through one of Gideon's surveillance cameras, throwing darts at a picture of Mabel.
===Shorts===
In one of the series shorts, "Mabel's Guide to Color", Pacifica surprisingly takes part in Mabel's survey, where Mabel interviews a few townsfolk about their favorite colors. Despite her signature color, is purple, Pacifica reveals that her favorite color is actually hot pink.
===Season 2===
Pacifica's next major appearance is in the episode "The Golf War", where she and her family are at the mini golf course. Upon seeing the Pines and Soos, she approaches them tauntingly, "greeting" them each with an insult. Dipper then makes a retort about how she is doing, now that she knows her great-great grandfather is a fraud. Oddly, Pacifica happily replies that it has all worked out, stating that her family's wealth "makes problems go away." After Mabel boasts up being a "mini golf champion" and Pacifica one-up's her, Mabel angrily insults her, calling her a "Walking One Dimensional Beach Blonde Valley Girl Stereotype." This enrages Pacifica, and the two decide to have a rematch. However, due to the weather, Pacifica moves the competition to take place at midnight. After discovering the Lilliputtians, under Dipper's request, Mabel has them sabotage Pacifica's game for her, and whatever which group of Lilliputtians can sabotage the competition the best wins a golden sticker that Stan had given to her earlier. However, one group attempts to kill Pacifica instead, requiring Mabel to save her. After they get away from the Lilliputtians, Mabel, realizing how dumb rivalries are, apologizes to Pacifica and wishes to set things right between the two of them. Pacifica grudgingly accepts both Mabel's apology and an offer of a ride home. While in their car, Mabel hands Pacifica a taco, surprising her that she's allowed to eat in the car. Pacifica reveals that she is not allowed to take hand-outs, to which Mabel responds she is just sharing—a word Pacifica is not familiar with. Afterward, they drop her off at her mansion, and Pacifica tells Mabel that she actually had fun, even compliments Soos, and thanks them for the ride.
In "Northwest Mansion Mystery", the Northwest's are seen setting up for their annual party taking place the next day. Pacifica enters the dining room and is instantly scolded by her mother for wearing the wrong shade of green for the parties theme. Pacifica attempts to explain that she actually likes the dress she was wearing, but is instantly drowned out by her father ringing a bell. Knowing fighting with her parents would be hopeless, she sighs and proceeds to go change. Suddenly, various objects around the manor start floating and attack Pacifica and her parents. Pacifica is then enlisted by her father to go find Dipper, and hire him to help her get rid of the ghost that was haunting their mansion. She does as told, and heads down to the Mystery Shack and asks for his help. Though he refuses her request at first, Dipper then accepts, in return that Pacifica has to invite Mabel and her friends to the party. Once they arrive at the manor, Pacifica directs Dipper to the room where the paranormal activity had been happening. After accidentally summoning the ghost and realizing they were dealing with a category 10 type, they both flee the room in hopes of finding a silver mirror. From a distance, Dipper exclaims to see a silver mirror in the room ahead of them but is stopped by Pacifica before he can go in. Pacifica frantically tells him that her parents would kill her if they tracked mud inside of the room. They both begin to fight over the journal, thus landing them in a secret room behind a portrait. The ghost finds them and nearly kills Pacifica, but she is saved by Dipper who traps the ghost in another silver mirror. Gratefully, Pacifica hugs Dipper but then pays him to not talk about it after realizing what she did. Later on, she then bids Dipper farewell, even though she implies she wanted him to stay at the party. Upon Dipper being informed by the ghost that he only attacked for revenge because of the promise the Northwests broke 150 years ago, he returns to the party and accuses the Northwest's of lying. Pacifica begins feeling upset that Dipper is angry at her, and attempts to apologize, but is silenced once again by her parents' bell.
Afterward, when the ghost escapes and turns everyone to wood, Dipper seeks out Pacifica for her help to stop the ghost, thus finding her in the secret room they found earlier. Pacifica explains to him how she feels ashamed that she cannot talk back to her parents, and shows him portraits of her ancestors committing bad deeds, explaining that the room is "a painted record of every horrible thing that [her] family's ever done." Dipper apologizes about accusing her earlier and assures her that she does not need to be like parents just because she is their daughter. Dipper and Pacifica then run back to the main room, where they see that all of the party guests, including Mabel and her friends, have been turned into wood. Instead, Dipper once again tries to trap the ghost in a mirror but is turned into wood. Upon seeing this, the ghost tells Pacifica that the only way to save everyone was for her to open up the gates and let the common folk in. Before she can, her parents come out of hiding, ringing the bell repeatedly, begging her not to pull the lever. After glancing at Dipper and struggling to disobey her parents, she opens the gate, allowing the townsfolk to come in. Pleased that Pacifica upheld her ancestors' promise, the ghost restores the people to normal and leaves peacefully. At the end of the party, Dipper and Pacifica are ruining her parents' favorite carpet pattern with their muddy shoes, both laughing and enjoying each other's company.
Pacifica makes another cameo in "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", where she appears walking alongside her parents in town.
At the beginning of the multi-part series finale, "Weirdmageddon", she is seen again when her dad offers his servitude to Bill Cipher, and she attempts to stop him. Pacifica then witnesses his face being disfigured by Bill, horrifyingly screaming in response as she clings onto her mother. It's possible that her mom had abandoned her afterward, as she was seen running off in the background with the crowd, Pacifica nowhere to be seen. Sometime after this incident, Pacifica and Stan crossed paths, as she is later seen having joined Stan's Resistance Group, who reside in the Mystery Shack. However, she appears somewhat battered down, reduced to only wearing stitched rags. Upon Mabel questioning why she was wearing a potato sack, Pacifica makes a retort about still being able to look better than her.
Later on, upon learning that her parents had been turned to stone, she hesitantly admits they are bad people, but they didn't deserve the fate they got. As the Resistance planned on making the shack a robot, Pacifica is seen reading a magazine as they worked. As the days progressed, the resistance is sitting outside near a campfire, all wearing Mabel's sweaters for warmth, while Pacifica appeared to be freezing to death. With no other choice, she bitterly puts on Mabel's llama sweater, claiming she didn't like it. When they set out to save Ford, she tells the group that if she dies, she's using all of them. Later on, as Ford begins explaining the plan on defeating Bill using the Cipher Wheel, Pacifica asks him if he's drawing a complicated game of hopscotch, which he corrects her that it's a prophecy, but would make a pretty fun hopscotch game. Afterward, upon learning she's the llama on the wheel, she steps up on her symbol, freaked out. She initially refuses to touch McGucket's hand but does once her parents tell her to. Unfortunately, when the plan fails, Bill turns her, along with the other symbols, into a tapestry and hangs her on the Fearamid wall, eventually being released from this prison after Bill's defeat.
At the end of the episode, upon learning her family's wealth had been destroyed and she had to live elsewhere, she didn't think much of it until she realized she could only own one pony. Despite this and her earlier antagonism towards Mabel, she, along with the rest of the town, attends Dipper and Mabel's party and gives them gifts, claiming she couldn't wait for them to open them. In a clever nod to "The Golf War" and "Northwest Mansion Mystery", her gifts for Mabel and Dipper are a mini-golf club and a Ghost Harassers DVD, respectively. It is unknown where she is residing now, but she apparently signed Dipper's goodbye card before he and Mabel left Gravity Falls.
==Relationships==
===Mabel Pines===
It should be noted that Pacifica's serious personality is arranged to completely contrast with Mabel's more sillier personality.
Upon meeting at the Mystery Shack party, Pacifica and Mabel are ultimately introduced to be rivals. While Pacifica took the rivalry more seriously, Mabel normally ignored Pacifica's rude remarks, even occasionally seeing their rivalry as "water under the bridge." Pacifica viewed Mabel as an outcast because of her extreme silliness and choice to hang out among the "weird" crowd. Pacifica frequently teased Mabel about her personality and practically everything she did, thus increasing tension to the point of being archenemies. Mabel's feelings were noticeably hurt from time to time by Pacifica's words, and she often stood back up to Pacifica, which added to their animosity. However in "The Golf War", she seemed to gain some common ground with Mabel after they fought the Lilliputtians who run the golf course. At the end of the episode, Mabel shared a taco with Pacifica and Pacifica even admitted that she had fun hanging out with Mabel.
Following this, the rivalry between the two appeared to have become one-sided; when Pacifica asks for Dipper's help in "Northwest Mansion Mystery", Mabel gives her a friendly greeting, as opposed to the annoyed scowls from their previous encounters. In contrast, during the last parts of the Weirdmageddon arc, Pacifica initially still acts aggressive towards Mabel, retorting that she was still able to look better than her despite wearing a sack, and not wanting to wear the sweater Mabel had made for her. Despite this, however, at the end of the finale, she attended the twins' birthday party and got Mabel and her brother a gift, even signing their goodbye card.
===Dipper Pines===
Pacifica appeared to act rather indifferent towards Dipper, barely acknowledging him and somewhat having a more passive demeanor around him, just dismissing him as "lame." Dipper harbored a great dislike for Pacifica, due to the way she treated his sister. Unlike Mabel, Dipper appeared to be more hostile toward Pacifica, liking the idea of "getting back" at her and willing to leave Pacifica to get killed by the Lilliputtians.
In "Northwest Mansion Mystery", as they're forced to work together on stopping the ghost from haunting Northwest Manor, they then begin to demonstrate amiable behavior toward one another. Even after stopping the ghost, she reveals that she even wanted him to stay at the party. However, their newfound acceptance is quickly strained afterwards when Dipper learns the real reason why the Northwests enlisted his help on capturing the ghost. As Dipper confronts the Northwests about this, Pacifica attempts to apologize, revealing she wanted to tell him the truth. After this incident, he later apologizes to Pacifica when he sees that she's ashamed of her family and herself, and assures her that she doesn't have to be like her parents. Later, upon seeing Dipper turned to wood by the ghost, Pacifica overcomes the will of her parents, saving him and the other guests. They are seen enjoying each other's company afterwards.
In the "Old Man" McGucket's Conspiracy Corner segment "Relation Shipping", Old Man McGucket talks about various romantic relationships occurring in town, mentioning Pacifica and Dipper's relationship. This either implies that Pacifica and/or Dipper may have romantic feelings for each other, or the town seems to think so. However, this is followed by a clip of Dipper and Mabel recoiling in disgust (taken from "Bottomless Pit!"), implying that the twins are not keen on the idea.
===Preston and Priscilla Northwest===
Pacifica's parents often hold up high expectations for her, pressuring Pacifica about her status as a Northwest and driving her into valuing looks and fame. They show little to no moral support for her, as shown in "The Golf War" where they'd rather go to a fancy party then watch her mini-golf tournament. Her parents are very controlling, using Pavlovian behavioral conditioning to keep her in line. She holds a fear of going against her parents because of this, but eventually conquers it in "Northwest Mansion Mystery." This is shown again in "Weirdmageddon Part 1", where she willingly speaks up against her dad's wishes.
In "Weirdmageddon Part 3: Take Back the Falls", upon learning her parents have been turned to stone, she is distraught to the point of tears. She hesitantly tells the resistance that her parents are "bad", but even they didn't deserve the fate Bill gave to them. When her parents are unfrozen, she called out to them in happiness, as they happily open their arms wide ready to hug her.
According to Dipper's entry in the journal, he writes that "(her parents) ring a bell to call her like a butler and punish her with groundings and credit card cutoffs when she disobeys."
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*Her name is a pun on the U.S. region "Pacific Northwest", a region containing Oregon, the state in which the show is based and where creator Alex Hirsch spent his summers.
*Pacifica is unfamiliar with the concept of proper courtesy or mannerism, as implied in "The Golf War." She isn't familiar with the word "sharing" and couldn't even pronounce the word correctly. However, in "Northwest Mansion Mystery", she's apparently familiar with words such as "sorry."
*She and Ford Pines are the only two characters known to be designed as foils to other characters, Mabel and Stan respectively.
*Pacifica is represented by the llama in the zodiac.
*When asked which character Alex didn't expect to become popular, he responded with Pacifica, due to her purpose being designed as a "literal diametric opposite" to Mabel. Because of her fan reception, Alex decided to give her some development.
*Pacifica Northwest resembles 'Diamond Tiara' from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Both were introduced as "diametric opposite" to the heroes (Mabel and Dipper in Pacifica's case, the Cutie Mark Crusaders in Diamond's case) who acted as mean-spirited bullies to them. However, a key episode later revealed that they were pressured into their villainous bullying ways by their respective abusive parents (Preston Northwest and Spoiled Rich), and the same episode has the heroes convincing them to defy their abusive parents and change their mean-spirited ways, turning them into valuable friends. However, Diamond Tiara is more mean-spirited than Pacifica.
*Alex Hirsch stated in an interview that he imagined Pacifica getting a side job at Greasy's Diner working with Lazy Susan after her family lost Northwest Manor.https://vraikaiser.com/2017/07/06/an-interview-with-alex-hirsch/
*Pacifica Northwest loosely inspired the personality of Anne Boonchuy, protagonist of Amphibia.https://twitter.com/DisneyBrandTVPR/status/1136683048345395201
*Pacifica's natural hair color is inconclusive likely a reference to both her parents being brunettes giving credence to the idea that her blonde hair is dyed or she may have inherited that trait from a recessive gene (1:4 odds) or one of her parents could natural be a blonde 
*Pacifica's favorite color is hot pink despite the fact that purple is her signature color 
==References==
==External links==
*Gravity Falls Wiki: Pacifica Northwest
es:Pacifica Northwest
nl:Pacifica Northwest
pl:Pacyfika Północna
pt-br:Pacifica Northwest
Category:Characters
Category:Disney characters
Category:Females
Category:Gravity Falls characters
Category:Pre-teens
Category:American characters
Category:Animated characters
Category:TV Animation characters
Category:Neutral characters
Category:Anti-heroes
Category:Heroines
Category:Athletes
Category:Villains
Category:Kids
Category:Teenagers
Category:Characters in video games
Category:Anti-villains
Category:Disney Channel characters
Category:Disney XD characters