Ford Pines

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

So. Ford Pines from the cartoon Gravity Falls is one of my favourite animated characters of all times.
Rudolph Van Richten from Ravenloft is one of my favourite NPCs of all times.
Coincidence? I think not.

Both are
- Scholars turned heroes (bordering on anti-heroes) following a terrible personal trauma.
- Fill the role in their world of that character you'd believe me if I told you that they'd once done almost anything cause they'd canonically been through weirder stuff.
- Supposed to be that wise old mentor, but simultaneously kinda dumb in a way only really smart people can be, and need to be rescued by other adventurers more often than you'd think.
- Is still carrying the weight of the trauma that marked them as heroes, still feeling guilty, and it makes them act distant and aloof in way that would be insufferable IRL but in a story you're given enough foreshadowing to know they just need a hug. (And, in Rudolph's case, a 'remove curse' spell.)
- Is succeeded by a pair of twins, one more bookish and one more extroverted, whom are sort of his niblings but not exactly.
- Mostly famous for their books detailing info about monsters & stories about how they encountered those monsters, books also published as merch IRL.

So.
Alex Hirsch is clearly familiar with D&D. Enough to make his characters obsessed with a fictitious version of it (See S2 EP13).
Do you think he was inspired by Van Richten when creating Ford, or they were both just driven from the same general horror tropes?
(Disclaimer: I'm saying inspired by, not copying. Ford is a character with its own value.)

And, knowing how much of a nerd Ford is, do you think he'd like Ravenloft?