The Wayne-Player-Gordon Entity
(Spoilers for HLAGE. Seriously, go watch it. Also long post warning)
I really love the way this series explores the boundaries between the figures of Wayne, the Player, and Gordon. It may seem simple on the surface: Wayne is the actual real-life person behind HLVRAI, who is fully aware that the "AIs" are really his friends goofing around. He streams to produce a YouTube comedy series. To create HLVRAI’s story, he acts the character of the Player, who has just picked up a special copy of Half-Life. To the Player, the AIs truly are AIs. He streams because that is what streamers do and solely exists in the story/universe created by Wayne. And, of course, the Player gets in-character as Gordon, the main character of Half-Life and the person the AIs perceive the Player as. Gordon solely exists in the videogames the Player plays. Wayne explains this distinction himself:
But I’d argue that these beings are not always so separate. The boundaries between them blur greatly, to the point where separating the three can be difficult. And in a story about a video-game streamer encountering AIs who try to take over his real-life body, this boundary-blurring pushes HLVRAI to the next level.
I like to conceptualize this dissolution of boundaries as the Wayne-Player-Gordon entity. The vast majority of the time Wayne is not a true part of this entity, but his involvement is still important, and I'll get to his part later!
Player-Gordon
In both HLVRAIs, the Player and Gordon take center-stage. The Player needs to get in-character for the advanced AI to work, and he’s very good at it. It’s difficult to tell if he reacts to certain things as the Player or as Gordon. When the AIs start killing NPCs, is his incredulity due to the brazenness with which his co-workers commit murder, or is it due to him not expecting the AIs to be this chaotic?
Additionally, because Gordon is a silent protagonist in the original Half-Life, a blank slate, the Player can project his own personality onto him. He’s kind of mean; he likes Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days; he wants to be a streamer. So how much of Gordon is the character the Player acts as, and how much is he the Player himself?
I’d argue the distinction is almost obsolete: Gordon basically is the Player. Really, the main difference is that the AIs view him as Gordon. To them, he’s a real member of their universe, so in order to not break their minds with the realization their world is fake, the Player must become Gordon. This situation benefits the Player, too: becoming Gordon immerses him fully in the story, allowing him to believe it’s real, even when he knows in the back of his head it’s just a videogame. In this way, Gordon as the Player’s in-game self can be conceptualized as the Player-Gordon entity.
We can actually see certain things affect Player-Gordon as a whole - mainly when his hand is cut off in HL1VRAI and when he starts forgetting his friends’ names in HL2VRAI. You would expect an act of violence against the virtual body of Gordon to not affect the Player, but it does. He reacts mentally and emotionally as if he really has just lost his hand, even though he should theoretically be able to assure himself it’s not real. And why would the Player be forgetting characters’ names? This memory loss does not seem to come from being too immersed. In fact, he starts experiencing effects (blurred vision and possibly headaches) before he learns that the water causes memory loss. It’s as if something in the VR experience is targeting Player-Gordon as a whole - reaching through the virtual Gordon to affect the Player outside the game. Corroborated by this hearted comment:
Wayne-Player
And then there’s Wayne. As stated before, he doesn’t quite interact with the Player the same way the Player does with Gordon. However, because the dialogue is improvised and the story streamed live, his genuine reactions shine through at times. For example, Player-Gordon’s reaction in HLVRAI to the Science Team trying to shoot a bunch of moths was a result of Wayne’s genuine surprise, and in HL2VRAI when a cop attacks him for no reason, Player-Gordon’s confusion and anger is due to it being an unintended technical difficulty. Wayne’s reactions here fit very well as Player-Gordon’s reactions, blurring the lines between them.
But that’s not the main point of this section. Instead, I’d like to examine the way Wayne streams the series on his own Twitch channel affects how the story is told - especially in HLAGE.
In HLAGE, Gordon does not exist the same way he does in HLVRAI, and not just because the main character of Half-Life: Alyx is, well, Alyx. The Player is not trying to get in-character at all. This time, he’s simply focusing on completing a challenge, talking to Twitch chat and his friend Baaulp along the way. Very importantly, these are Wayne’s Twitch chat, composed of his real-life fans and viewers, and Wayne’s friend Baaulp, who is a cast member of HLVRAI. Both the chat and Baaulp refer to the Player as Wayne.
Of course, Baaulp is not his true real-life self in HLAGE. He’s putting on an act to maintain the illusion that the gnome is really a sentient AI and not a TTS that several people are feeding lines to. However, he still exists as the Player’s friend as well as Wayne’s, blurring the boundary between Wayne and Player.
HLAGE is presented through Wayne’s Twitch account in order to heighten the viewer’s immersion. When you are watching a livestream on a real person’s account that tells the story about a streamer who shares the same name and friend as said real person, it’s easier to believe that the events of the livestream are truly happening as presented.
Even in HLVRAI, the Player is at first referred to as Wayne in the video description and captions. They don’t start referring to him as Gordon until later. Screenshots courtesy of @girlradiotv.
In this way, Wayne and Gordon have similar relationships to the Player. If Gordon is a facade for the Player’s in-game self, then Wayne is a facade for the Player’s out-of-game self. Or, Wayne is to the viewers as Gordon is to the AIs: a way of conceptualizing the Player’s existence to others so that the illusion that everything is real isn’t broken.
The Complete Dissolution of Boundaries in HLAGE
If you’ve watched the finale of HLAGE, you know this is where things get wild. In this series, Wayne-Player-Gordon fully manifests. Not only does it manifest, it is forced into being, holding great implications for the future of HL2VRAI.
As stated before, Gordon doesn’t exist in HLAGE the same way he does in HLVRAI. Or at least, he shouldn’t exist. Gordon is not a character in Half-Life: Alyx, and the Player is not attempting to immerse himself in the game or appear like a member of the game’s world to any AIs.
But then enters the gnome. The gnome is aware that he is in a game. He talks to both Twitch chat and Baaulp, and he makes frequent references to the challenge the Player is trying to complete. He is under no impression that the Player actually exists in his world.
And yet he still calls the Player Gordon. The Player resists this at first, telling him he’s got the wrong game, that they’re in Half-Life: Alyx, but the gnome persists. Eventually the Player gives in. This culminates in the Peppa Pig movie, which claims it was made by Gordon, and in which Peppa Pig speaks directly to Gordon. The Player does not comment on not being Gordon; he immediately accepts it by saying "I didn't make this."
Through the insistent use of that name, the gnome and Peppa forcibly turn the Player into Player-Gordon. Even without intending it, the Player is still Gordon to the AIs. The AIs then trap the Player in the game, rendering him unable to leave. Like this, he is fully immersed, he fully exists in that world; he is fully Gordon as much as he is the Player.
And then there's Wayne. When the gnome takes over streaming, his Twitch chat becomes front-and-center. No longer regulated to a small box in the corner, it now takes up a third of the screen. It has become a part of the show itself. The chat asks for Wayne, demanding for him to be returned, desperately trying to contact Baaulp, while the gnome responds "Who is Wayne? Who the fuck is that." Chatters are banned for asking for Wayne or Baaulp. These actions affirm the existence of the Wayne-Player entity. Wayne’s Twitch channel has been taken over, and Wayne himself is nowhere to be seen. Just as the Player is gone, Wayne is gone, too. And they have both been forcibly associated with Gordon.
In HLAGE, Wayne is the Player is Gordon. They have collapsed into one entity: Wayne-Player-Gordon. And I imagine they will not be so easily separated in HL2VRAI.
