Today I’m trying a new approach to typing that I’m hoping will be more succinct and less vulnerable to stereotyping. I’m going to identify the most defining characteristic of the character, then map that characteristic to the character’s dominant cognitive function, then show how the characters actions reveal which auxiliary function supports that dominant function. This should be easy with Chell, because the comic Lab Rat explicitly states the characteristic that distinguishes Chell from other people:
Tenacity is not a cognitive function and an explicit “Chell has some tenacity” is a handwave, but one that gesticulates in the right direction. The best example I’ve found of Chell expressing this heralded tenacity is when she solves Test Chamber 09 from the first game.
Just as Chell enters the chamber, GLaDOS apologizes that the test is impossible and tells Chell she should make no attempt to solve it. Without having any reason to doubt GLaDOS or the idea of the chamber being unsolvable, Chell proceeds to explore the puzzle from every angle until she finds a way to defy her AI overlord and complete the test. This particular form of tenacity betrays Chell’s dominant Ti. Ti is an extraordinarily thorough function which compels its users to explore concepts from every conceivable angle in order to verify truths with absolute certainty. This allows and even compels Ti-doms to see solutions that other types are blind to, because unlike other types, Ti-doms are incapable of accepting any statement until they have personally and exhaustively verified it. Thus, when Chell hears that the chamber is unsolvable, she is incapable of accepting it until she has exhaustively demonstrated that impossibility to herself.
Chell’s Ti is supported through Ne exploration. This is notable in every test chamber, but especially in Test Chamber 19, where the majority of the test involves Chell exploring her environment and using her knowledge of portaling to reach new areas. In the GLaDOS’s chamber, however, is where we see the most revealing example of Chell’s intuition. When the Morality Core is dropped, Chell has no concept of its usefulness. She doesn’t realize she can destroy GLaDOS yet, and likely doesn’t even see this as a potential goal. However, when she sees the Core, she decides without hesitation to explore what she can do with it and how it interacts with the other equipment in the room. Next, when GLaDOS employs a rocket turret, Chell repeats the same approach. When Chell explores, she explores interactions, associations, and connections rather than physical spaces and the limits of what she can accomplish with good aim, timing, and skill, and this proves a preference for intuition over sensing, revealing Chell’s type to be incontestably INTP.
Chell clearly doesn’t test merely because she’s forced to. It becomes evident in both games that she enjoys testing and becomes quite hungry for it. She’s a puzzler, and she likes pushing the limits of what she previously thought possible. And she follows her curiosity wherever it takes her. These are the qualities of an INTP, and they separate her from her ISTP counterparts.
Many sites and threads will type her as ISTP because portaling is a physical activity, and INTPs are, I suppose, incapable of any physical exertion whatsoever. Puzzles that involve moving are only solvable if you’re an S. But ISTPs are tinkerers, not puzzlers. They like building things, and testing them out themselves. They like taking stuff apart and putting them back together again to see how they work. They like breaking the rules just to break them; not for curiosity but for a sense of adventure. Chell does none of these things. Chell doesn’t build and doesn’t care how the Aperture Science equipment works. She cares what it implies, what effects it has on the bigger picture and what’s possible because of it. These are the traits of an INTP in her happy place. Even if she has to jump through a portal to do it, she isn’t tinkering. She’s puzzling.
Also, there’s an ISTP way to play the game. You can employ good timing and aim to jump extraordinarily high or skip entire sections of the map. You can throw cubes and skip over puzzle elements. By keeping a discerning eye and an attraction to athletics, you can actually puzzle much more quickly and efficiently than the game intends. For more information, google Portal Done Pro or check out cube throwing tricks in Portal 2. If Chell were supposed to be an ISTP, these elements would be part of the level design rather than a happy accident.
It may be frustrating to see a typing for a character like Chell because all of Chell’s decisions are the decisions of the user. Anyone of any type can play and enjoy Portal, and the structure of the game itself is what causes certain behaviors, not type. And this is true. I didn’t type the user. What I analyzed was the thinking style that the game was trying to bring out in its users; in other words, I analyzed who the designers intended Chell to be. Chell has a right to have a type, even if other types can play her, because while other types may behave like Chell in the game, they won’t behave like Chell on their own.
