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Disambiguation: Gideon redirects here. For Ramona's pet cat, see Gideon (cat).
Quote1 Hey Scott...This is Gideon. When would it be convenient for you to die? Quote2
Gideon

Gideon Gordon Graves is Ramona Flowers' seventh evil ex-boyfriend, the leader and founder of the League of Ramona's Evil Ex-Boyfriends and the main antagonist of the Scott Pilgrim comics series. Gideon isn't seen much throughout the series, except for a blurry picture taken by Wallace Wells, and briefly in the shadows at the end of Volume 3. He also appears in the fourth volume in the form of a mysterious shadowy figure, and in book five, though he's not actually seen. He finally appears in Volume 6 with surprisingly pointy hair and a nasty attitude.

History

Relationship with Ramona

Gideon first met Ramona at a party in New York and the two quickly formed a relationship. Despite Ramona's feelings for Gideon, Gideon saw his relationship with Ramona purely as an experiment, during which he inflicted Ramona with The Glow. Fed up of him constantly pushing her away, Ramona decided to leave Gideon, leaving nothing except a letter. Unfortunately for Ramona, Gideon walked in on her just as she finished the letter. Ramona, filled with intense emotions, became overwhelmed by The Glow and vanished into Subspace, taking the letter with her. After Ramona left, Gideon got totally wasted out of his mind and put up a huge drunken rant on Craigslist about her. This got the attention of Ramona's other six evil exes who contacted him. Gideon used this opportunity to form the League of Ramona's Evil Exes, which he would use to control the future of Ramona's love life.

Memory manipulation and observation

At some point in between Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life and vs. the World (most likely soon after Matthew Patel's defeat), Gideon started spying on Scott and Ramona through Scott's Subspace. Whilst there, Gideon altered some of Scott's memories, adding his likeness to Simon Lee, Kim's ex and "enemy" of Scott's.

Gideon Graves

"No comment." Gideon appearing at a Sex Bob-Omb show to observe Scott

In Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, during Scott's battle with Todd Ingram, Ramona's third Evil Ex, Todd has a mental breakdown while overwhelmed by his own vegan powers and a series of flashbacks as the pair battle/race through Honest Ed's department store. The largest of the three flashbacks, right after his own father and Lynette Guycott, is Gideon saying "Just use your vegan powers or whatever, he'll never know what hit him, right?" He also appears again at the end during Sex Bob-omb's performance telling the recording crew following The Clash At Demonhead "No comment" and giving us a darkened profile view of him. It's safe to assume Gideon didn't come to see the show, but to size up Scott while he fought Todd. Judging from his response, he is not impressed.

In Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Gideon is referenced to by Roxie Richter when Scott leads Knives' father, bent on killing him, into Ramona's house, and the two face off with katanas. Roxanne's first line upon seeing him is "Did Gideon send you?" which sends her into a rage believing no one has any faith in her, starting the fight. This is the same question Ramona asks when first attacked by Knives in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, possibly suggesting that Gideon often hires assassins.

Also in Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott accidentally intrudes upon Ramona's head and finds her kneeling beside a sinister dark figure sitting on a throne. Though the shadowy figure's face is never revealed, it can be assumed this was Gideon, or at least a manifestation of him representing the part of Ramona still attached to him.

At the end of Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, Scott receives a phone call from Gideon to taunt him, asking when would be a convenient time for him to die.

Encounter with Scott

Scottpilgrim 06 174-175

Scott, fighting Gideon's monstrous, god-like form inside Ramona's head

In Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour, Scott finally encounters Gideon on the street while he and Envy Adams are talking about their past. Scott is so frightened by Gideon's presence, he immediately runs away.

Later, after confronting his mistakes by merging with NegaScott, Scott goes to the Chaos Theater to confront Gideon once and for all. Gideon ends up stealing the Power of Love from Scott and impaling him with it. Scott returns to life thanks to the 1-Up he gained from defeating Todd Ingram, and he and Ramona begin to fight Gideon. It is then revealed that Gideon is keeping six of his other ex-girlfriends suspended in cryogenic stasis on the ceiling of Chaos Theater, enabling him to thaw and date any one of them at any time of his choosing, and desired to add Ramona to the final capsule.

Using The Glow, Gideon manipulates their emotions, causing them to argue with each other. Ramona tries to leave through Subspace, but Gideon stops her escape by impaling her, and then teleports himself into her mind. Scott then enters Subspace through Ramona's Subspace Suitcase to enter Ramona's mind, where he finds that Gideon has transformed himself into a powerful God form and is lording over Ramona. Scott headbutts him, giving Gideon the Glow and transforms him back to his original size, releasing Ramona from his influence in the process. Infuriated, Gideon tries to kill Scott with his sword, but Ramona enters her own Mind Subspace and casts the three of them back into the real world where she blocks the attack with her Subspace Suitcase, causing it to explode whilst disarming Gideon. Ramona then takes the Power of Love, which heals her wounds allowing her to continue fighting. During this time, Envy asks Gideon if he is OK. Gideon coldly rebuffs her in response.

After realizing that he and Gideon are more similar than he thought, Scott earns a new sword - the Power of Understanding, and begins the final battle alongside Ramona. Gideon takes his backup sword (installed in the back of Envy's dress) and begins to fight. Gideon reveals during the battle that he was spying on Scott and Ramona through Scott's head via the subspace highway, "spicing up" some of Scott's boring memories along the way. This has further increased the memory problems Scott has throughout the series and prompts Ramona to exclaim "His brain doesn't need any extra damage from you!" Infuriated even more, Ramona disarms Gideon once again, leaving him at the mercy of the duo.

Defeat

SP&RFXStrike

Gideon's demise.

Before his final defeat, Gideon claims that getting rid of him won't solve anything and that both Scott and Ramona are their own worst enemies based on their past actions throughout their lives. They soon deny this, however, and reply that Gideon himself is much worse due to his own actions. Having said this, Scott uses the Power of Understanding while Ramona simultaneously uses the Power of Love on Gideon and perform an X-Strike, creating a X-shaped slash mark in his chest. Gideon then explodes into $7,777,777 worth of coins which fall (very painfully) all over the onlookers below.

Powers

GItGlow

Gideon spreading The Glow in a powerful beam

Subspace control

Gideon still holding control over Ramona's mind through Subspace

Gideon is an epic mastermind, genius and inventor. Gideon created The Glow; a powerful weapon described as "emotional warfare" that causes those who are affected to be overwhelmed by their own hangups, effectively sealing them within their own minds. It accomplishes this by manipulating the Subspace within the minds of those who contract the Glow. Gideon claims that he cannot be affected by the Glow as he's "been locked in his head since the day he was born."

Using the Glow, Gideon can also manipulate Subspace and used his abilities to remain in control of Ramona's head even after the two broke up, he also used his abilities to alter some of Scott's high school memories. Whilst in Ramona's head, Gideon was able to transform himself into a grotesque, god-like form, adored by all his exes.

Gideon is also shown to be a competent fighter, as he was able to quite easily beat Scott into submission. During the fight, Gideon removes the Power Of Love from Scott's chest, leveling him down. With the Power of Love, Gideon shows himself to be very proficient with swords, as he uses the sword with great skill. Considering this, along with the fact that he hid a sword in Envy's dress, it can be assumed that swords are Gideon's weapon of choice.

Personality

As a villain, Gideon is portrayed as a stereotypical evil mastermind. He is rich, intelligent, and extremely arrogant. He is normally cool and collected and tends to plan ahead greatly. He's easily angered when his plans don't come to fruition, monologues, and is generally conniving and calmly insults his enemies, pointing out their personal flaws. He is also a highly manipulative and charismatic puppet master who stays in the shadows throughout much of the story, while sending the other Evil Exes to fight Scott for him. Gideon is also quite sadistic, as demonstrated by his psychotic grin when he stabs Scott, and later Ramona.

In many ways Gideon is a typical case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: he possesses a highly grandiose, idealised and very unrealistic view of himself, and reacts with extreme anger and defensiveness whenever reality even slightly contradicts his illusions. His entire perception of the world is filtered through his ego, and this extends to his relationships, which are emotionally abusive, over-demanding, and devoid of any real affection. Instead, he views the girls he dates as accessories to his greatness, giving them the bare minimum emotional attention and otherwise neglecting and exhausting them, yet his messed up ego causes him to react violently when they dump him, wanting to punish them for suggesting he is anything less than amazing.

When it comes to relationships Scott and Gideon share a lot of common traits like being a dick, womanizing, and mistreating their significant others (though Scott does the latter thing unintentionally, while Gideon derives pleasure from it). However, by the time of their final battle, Scott comes to accept and understand the kind of person he's been while Gideon continues to view himself as flawless which leads to his downfall. One of the ten secrets Bryan Lee O'Malley revealed to Schwartzman about the character was that "Gideon is very passive aggressive, and so he’s not overtly evil. He smiles a lot, just kind of “kill ‘em with kindness,” but you can feel that it’s not sincere almost instantly." Schwartzman also stated that he really liked learning about this aspect of the character.

In general, Gideon is ruthless and completely uncaring about the people around him (including the other members of the League and even Ramona herself). At the same time, Gideon does not cope well with being rejected or dumped (another thing he and Scott have in common). When Ramona leaves him, he loses control of himself, gets drunk, and posts an inflammatory rant on Craigslist, leading to the creation of the League of Evil Exes. His motivations for wanting to control the future of Ramona's love life stem not from any feelings he may have had for her, but rather out of a need to maintain his own ego. As Gideon himself puts it, he's a guy who's trapped inside his own head, but he doesn't see this as an issue.

In vs. the World

EvilEx7

Jason Schwartzman as Gideon Graves in the film adaptation

Gideon is played by Jason Schwartzman who has also starred in Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited. Jason has also done a variety of music for films including Funny People, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Marc Pease Experience.

The role of Gideon takes on two fold in the movie. He plays the role of the leader of the league of evil exes naturally, but also is a music mogul who, looking for talent, hosts the band tournament Sex Bob-omb enters. Scott Pilgrim doesn't know this initially (nor does anyone else) as he's at first referred to as "Mr. G", "G-man Graves" and simply "G-Man." These names may be a reference to G-Man, a mysterious being from Valve's Half-Life series who seems to appear in the distance, and in hallucinations of the main character.

Compared to manipulating Scott's memories and Ramona's feelings in Book 6, here, he controlled and held hostage Ramona using a microchip on the back of her head, luring Scott to the final battle.

Gideon uses a Katana hidden in his cane to fight against Scott in the final battle. A slash with this sword from Gideon is able to completely shatter the Power of Love. Gideon then tries to kill Scott, but loses his sword when Knives kicks it out of his hand. While Knives attacks Ramona, Gideon and Scott fight in hand-to-hand combat. Scott eventually throws Gideon off the pyramid steps so he can stop Ramona and Knives' fight. However, while he's trying to explain things to them, Gideon impales Scott in the back with his katana, and utters the words "Game Over", as Scott falls to the floor, dead.

When Scott retries the stage (after revival from the Extra Life), the Power of Self-Respect overpowers Gideon, causing him to be knocked down, earning Scott an even 7000 points. After Scott settles things with Ramona and Knives, Gideon gets back up and impatiently demands that Scott fight him. He then summons his Pixel Katana and renews the battle. Even though he shatters the Power of Self-Respect, he is still overwhelmed by the combined forces of Scott and Knives Chau who use moves from Ninja Ninja Revolution to defeat him.

It should be noted that Gideon makes use of 2 different swords in the battles. During the first he uses a katana concealed in his stylish cane, and this is the same one he uses to impale Scott with. During the second fight he summons a blue pixelated katana (by using hand seals from Naruto) that is much more powerful, and destroys the Power of Self-Respect.

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Scott defeats Gideon, kicking him in the face causing his body to shatter into coins

As he dies, he chides Scott that it took him two hours to get Ramona's exes' contact information in order to form the League, and then tries to once more hope for some last moment villainish demoralization, but instead, Scott boots him in the head shattering him. Coins shower all over the theatre netting Scott another 7,000,000,000 points. Realizing that Sex Bob-omb's deal with Gideon is over, Stephen Stills hastily begins grabbing as much of the reward money as possible.

Even though he's physically destroyed, Gideon appears to live on through his stylish hipster glasses and once picked up, introduces Scott to Nega Scott before being finally discarded.

In the Game

Super-Gideon

Super Gideon's Boss Art

Super Gideon Game Pic

Super Gideon Graves

Gideon is the final boss of the game and is fought in World 7. He appears in three different forms; the first appears after you make it down the elevator shaft to the Chaos Theatre. In this form, he is known as Super Gideon, and is extremely buff. His moves are similar to those of Gill, the final boss of the Street Fighter III games; he can melee-attack, rush at the player in an angel like form, throw fireballs, and rain down meteors on the player. After being knocked down, he is likely to become invincible, glowing white and rushing about the battlefield. After you defeat him in this form, you are forced to enter a Subspace Highway from a glowing blue star-shaped hole in his chest and make your way across a narrow glass walkway, while drops of blood fall in spots, waiting to knock you down, Mega Man style. Not to mention those Medusa heads, hailing from Castlevania and doing what they do best, knocking you off ledges and mid-air jumps.

Gigadeon-Graves

Gigadeon Graves' Boss Art

Gideon Good Mode Game Pic 2

Ramona DATED this guy?!

Once you reach the end of the Subspace Highway, you find the Power of Love embedded in a cloud. Moving forward, you fight Gigadeon Graves, a grotesque form of Gideon made up of the faces of the six exes and his body. In this form, he is known as Gigadeon Graves a reference to Final Fantasy VI's Kefka Palazzo. You fight the faces first which send out energy orbs in the order they were defeated in and can shock you. Once they're beaten you face the body form of Gideon who can also shock you as well as constantly punch you to the end of the screen, rain down lightning and fire red skulls from his heart and spitting the skulls out of his mouth. When he's not blocking his heart, he will break off parts of the stage. This will send the player flying away from him, making him a major dick to fight.

Gideon-Graves

Gideon Graves' boss art

Gideon Game Pic

Gideon's final form

After you defeat him in this form, you fight your way through Techno Base, until you finally reach his normal form. In this form he uses a sword which can send pixelated shock waves at you. Once this form is beaten, the arena fades to darkness, and it is then revealed that the final fight was in a fake arena generated by a machine inside the Chaos Theater by the real Gideon, and that what you just defeated was actually a robot. After the generator deactivates, Gideon comes out from behind the controls, begging for mercy on his knees. (A Reference to Dr. Wily's final defeat in Mega Man 2 for NES) One final hit fully defeats him, causing him to burst into $35.95. You then run from the premises as it explodes around you. Then near the end of the end credits, it is revealed that he is trapped in subspace but may have found a way out through a subspace door.

GameInformer Magazine, in their top 50 games of 2010 article, listed Gideon Graves as #10 on the years Top Ten Video Game Villains. Game Informer said that "even if you don't like the Scott Pilgrim series, you will hate Gideon Graves for all the right reasons." 

Game Sprites

  • The design for Gideon's sprite appears strikingly similar to Otacon's sprite from Metal Gear Solid 2 during the photo upload sequence at the end of the Tanker chapter.

Trivia

  • When Ramona first arrives in Toronto from New York, Julie Powers infers that Ramona has had "a big breakup" because "she just keeps mentioning some guy named Gideon." (Vol. 1)
  • Ramona says she moved to Toronto because her employer, Amazon, needed someone there "and Gideon always says Toronto is one of the great cities, so ..." (Volume 1)
  • Gideon's main hangout in New York is a venue called Chaos Theatre, which he duplicates in Toronto. (Envy, Vol. 3)
  • He has a habit of calling Scott "buddy".
  • Gideon dresses in an attire of black, square frame glasses, and varying black and white dress coats. This is the iconic look for a number of hipster archetypes. (Vol. 3)
  • It is suggested that Gideon doesn't really love Ramona, but she's come to believe this from what little attention he gives her. (Vol. 3)
  • It is possible that Ramona may still had some (if not very little) feelings towards Gideon as she was with him in her mind (Volume 4 and 6) and agreed that part of her does still belong to him, but it is unknown whether it was due to manipulation from the Glow, his power over Subspace, or simply leftover affection for her ex.
  • He formed the League of Evil Exes after posting an embarrassing drunken rant on Craigslist when he realized Ramona wasn't coming back.
  • Gideon's name comes from the Hebrew name meaning "Destroyer," "Mighty Warrior," or "Feller (of trees)."
  • His company's logo is three triangular "G"s pointing downward in the shape of a triangle, an inverted tribute to the Triforce from the Legend of Zelda series, though the shape can also be rotated into a position where the Gs appear as three stylized 7s.
  • Gideon's master plan to freeze Ramona Flowers, along with his other 6 ex-girlfriends, could be also a reference to the The Legend of Zelda series. In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the master plan of the main villian Ganon also includes of sealing away seven girls inside magical crystals. While in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, only Princess Zelda gets held hostage inside an magical crystal; her prison looks very similar to Gideon's coffins. Interesting to note is also that like in A Link to the Past, we never actually get to know those other girls, besides one dialogue after their rescue. Not to forget that "Ganon" and "Gideon" sound very alike.
  • Gideon has many references to the number 7, such as the letter "G" being the 7th letter of the alphabet, having 7 ex-girlfriends, being 31 making him older than Ramona and Scott by 7 years, every hit against him is worth 700 points, he gets x7 stats when he summons the Pixel Katana, during the final fight in the movie, a blow from Knives causes him to swallow his gum, which he declares will stay in his digestive tract for 7 years and when he is defeated he gives a reward of $7,777,777 in coins (the number 7,777,777 also has seven digits). Another possible reference could be when Scott gets impaled in the chest by Gideon's katana in the film after fighting him for the first time, which is almost identical to Aeris' death in Final Fantasy VII.
  • Gideon's God form is based on Kefka's final from Final Fantasy VI, also the background in the battle against Gideon looks like the background in the battle against Kefka in Final Fantasy VI seeing as they are both in their God forms, battling in a cloudy dimension.[1]
  • Ramona owns a cat, whom she named "Gideon", as a way to help her deal with the break-up.
  • Despite his age being revealed as 31 in Volume 6, in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, Gideon's age is listed as "unknown".
  • Gideon's full name "Gideon Gordon Graves" has 6 letters in each word. This forms the number 666 which is often associated with the Devil. The three G's in the beginning of each word also look similar to the number 6.

References

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