GLaDOS's insults are interesting. Because they're so clearly prejudiced, right? She's making fun of Chell for being fat and adopted. These are scummy things to make fun of someone for, and things that would realistically be punching bags for prejudiced people interacting with this character.
But I don't think GLaDOS actually holds the sentiments she's expressing. Rather, they're a means to an end.
I get this mostly from her lines in co-op on the subject:
"Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm."
She calls Chell fat not because she thinks she's fat or that she personally finds anything wrong with weight variances, but because she knows calling humans fat makes them feel bad, and she's bitter about being killed and wants to make Chell feel bad.
Same goes with her being adopted. As soon as it doesn't emotionally or pragmatically benefit GLaDOS to make fun of Chell for being fat or adopted, she actively refutes Wheatley's attempt at bullying her for these things:
"And...? What, exactly, is wrong with being adopted?" "Also: Look at her, you moron. She's not fat."
She walks back her previous derogatory assertions as if they don't mean anything to her, because they don't. She never believed them in the first place.
She treats Rattmann's schizophrenia much the same way. She uses it to try and manipulate him, to make him doubt himself enough to come out of hiding where she can kill him, the same way she tries to make Chell doubt herself and turn back when she's escaping the facility back in Portal 1. The ableism she expresses is not a genuinely held belief, but a means to an end that she has no qualms about using.
Whether that makes it better or worse, I have no idea! I'd say worse on account of the intention to cause doubt or hurt to the target. But it's a very unique combination of values, isn't it? You're much more used to seeing the inverse: people being insulting, with no actual malicious intent, as a result of unchecked biases. Like, for instance, friendly little Wheatley unintentionally being super condescending about Chell's brain damage and muteness.
Portal 2: The (Unauthorized) Musical Analysis - Wheatley's Past Wounds
Okay so I was rewatching part two of the 2015 production and at the part where GLaDOS revealed Wheatley's original purpose I noticed a really interesting detail.
So y'all know this quote from the game right?
Well when Graeme Thompson (2015 Wheatley) says it in the show his voice breaks a bit, almost like he's on the verge of tears. (timestamp 16:40-16:42 if you wanna hear it yourself) I didn't notice it the first time I saw it but I was focusing solely on Wheatley this time and it almost made me cry.
Anyone who truly knows Wheatley will know that GLaDOS (or anyone for that matter) bringing up his past hurts him greatly. He's tried to bury that part of him for so long and GLaDOS not only reopens that wound but keeps twisting a knife into it. And while it's small, you can hear it in Wheatley's voice how painful it is and how his frustration is starting to boil up.
As stated by @the-wheatley-core in this post:
"...But then GLaDOS brought it up and reopened that old wound of his that he’s desperately been trying to forget and sweep under the rug for most of his entire life. (...) He knew what he was. What purpose he was meant to serve, but he didn’t want to accept it. He didn’t even want to think about it. It was too painful to think about. To know that literally the only reason you’re alive is to be stupid and to make others stupid. To have everyone constantly underestimate you and your abilities. To be treated as tiny and insignificant. Wheatley didn’t want to think about it. He refused to think about it. It was too painful. And so he lashed out."
Whether or not Graeme doing that voice crack was intentional, it still managed to get me emotional and I'm glad I managed to catch it. I swear I'm too attached to this metal orb it's not funny-
I want to give thanks to @mx-mongoose for unintentionally giving me inspiration to analyze the Portal musical. I am now going to be breaking down and analyzing both versions and posting what I find whenever I can.
I also want to give thanks to @the-wheatley-core for their detailed and very informative list of analyses on Wheatley. If I hadn't found their blog before I watched the musical I wouldn't have caught that detail and connected it to his character.
An essay I wrote on how the plot and characters of Portal 2 can be viewed through a critical feminist and queer lens. Essential background reading for any of my Portal fics, as it establishes what I believe are GLaDOS' real motivations for testing and other very important details about the characters in my stories.
Can also be read on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41351046
⚠️Content Warning ⚠️
This essay discusses the oppression of women through sexual, emotional, and physical violence, both real and in-game. It also contains a mention of suicide. Nothing in this essay is described in graphic detail, although it may still be upsetting. I understand that these themes are triggering for many people.
Feminist theory is a critical lens dedicated to studying the depiction of women in media in a world where those who identify with the female gender are discriminated, humilated, and put in lesser positions of power than men. It aims to expose how real-world misogyny in the real world seeps into literature, and show us more progressive forms of uplifting women through media. Valve’s 2011 video game Portal 2 features two characters, that, when studied via a feminist critical lens, challenge norms of male political domination and heteronormativity. Chell and GLaDOS also subvert traditional gender expectations, and work in tangent to take down men that are abusing their power. Such a story is very relevant to human nature and wider society through the feminist lens.
Lois Tyson, a feminist critical scholar, defines the critical theory as examining
‘ "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" [1]
It identifies and analyses various positive and negative depictions of women, ranging on the scale from featuring modern female characters that stand up for the rights of themselves and others, to presentation of women as being ‘meant to stay in the kitchen’ to unnecessary objectification. Critical feminism also reveals damaging discrimination of women and compares to real life issues, such as the lack of women directing top-grossing movies, to draw attention to social injustice. Critical feminism is split into camps with slightly to significantly different motives, viewpoints, and actions. A general consensus on core beliefs in critical feminism, however, was concluded upon by Tyson:
Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are oppressed. In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values. All of Western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the Biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world. While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (scales of masculine and feminine).
All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.
Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not.
No educated person can deny the fact that rape, objectification, stereotyping, lack of freedom of speech or movement, and other forms of discrimination are a major issue for women across the world. For example, a man in the United States pleaded guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl, yet got no jail time. [2] The newly imposed abortion laws in the US restrict women’s right to bodily autonomy. [3] Moreover, a lesbian couple in London were brutally attacked on the bus, simply for refusing to entertain a gang of teenage boys.[4] Critical feminism exposes how forms of discrimination seep into media, and analyses how women can be better represented and empowered through literature. Such an example of oppression of women in fiction is the common occurrence of female characters being written with less depth than their male counterparts.
Contrary to popular belief, this critical theory doesn’t always brand a text as purely ‘feminist’ or ‘not feminist’. Novels, films, plays, music videos, and other forms of creative expression are made up of a complex web of features, and some aspects of a text may empower women in some way or another, while another may reinforce typical patriarchal oppression. Portal 2 is a prime example of this. Interpretation of the video game’s story may differ depending on what critical lens it is viewed from.
How does Portal 2 relate to feminist theory?
Portal 2 is led by two female characters, and takes place in an unspecified (but implied to be very long) after the events of the first instalment. Portal introduces the story with Chell, a woman who is used as a test subject for experiments testing the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Gun Device, and GLaDOS, a sarcastic, sly, and vengeful robot who was built to monitor testing. The dynamic between these characters is integral to the development of plot and theme from the beginning of the series.
GLaDOS appears to be with helpful intentions at first, but as Chell completes more and more tests without dying, she reveals her hatred of the test subject’s existence. Despite the fact that Chell cannnot speak, we can tell through her actions that she will do almost anything to take down GLaDOS and escape from the hellish labs of Aperture. The game concludes with Chell’s murder of the machine and her subsequent ‘cryosleep.’ None of the motivations for GLaDOS’ cruelty are touched upon until the sequel, however; and Portal 2 has a deeper story that allows for a much more interesting analysis through the critical feminist lens. For these reasons, I will be focusing on the second instalment for this essay.
Later on, Chell and GLaDOS are forced to work together to take down past and present patriarchal oppression. They still have their points of conflict, but when they are confronted by the reality of what two men are doing to them, they are no longer enemies. Most players, who originally disliked GLaDOS for her seeming lack of sanctity for human life, find themselves strongly supporting both female characters, feeling angry when the enemy gains power, and sorrow when they experience unnecessary suffering. By the conclusion of the game, the audience can closely identify with who was once the brutal antagonist. Her bitterness towards humans is revealed to be motivated by the fact she was enslaved as an immortal overseer of pointless experiments. We find out that GLaDOS was once human, and that she despises patriarchal ideology. Men robbed her of the freedom to pursue anything that is not for their scientific benefit and the opportunity to die against her will. Therefore, it is clear why she used to show no remorse murdering humans.
When viewed through the critical feminist lens, this part of the game shows us the themes of patriarchal oppression, hegemonic masculinity, and the ownership of women by men. At a cursory glance, the power that men exert over women in Portal 2 appears to be a reinforcement of sexist gender stereotypes. However, the way in Portal 2 depicts patriarchal ideology and gender stereotypes does not praise them. It shreds them apart. Disturbing impacts of toxic masculinity left unhinged are shown front and centre. Such evil has a profound influence on Chell and GLaDOS in particular. A dead man’s craving for power is the reason why Chell has been stuck in a hellish laboratory she’s been trying to escape from for hundreds of years. Even more jarringly, Chell is the only human she loves, yet GLaDOS can’t express her feelings because the Perpetual Testing Initiative installed into her may involuntarily compel her to kill Chell in the name of science at any point. She makes the choice to set Chell free, since the human wants nothing more than to escape, but also because she is frightened that the instinct to test that was forced upon her (by men) will cause her to hurt Chell even more than she already has. Feminism is portrayed as morally right, and patriarchal ideology is shown as being very wrong. As a result, Portal 2 is a feminist text.
Hegemonic Masculinity and control of Women and its role in Portal
During the 50s to 70s, Cave Johnson was the CEO of Aperture Science. He speaks on pre recorded lines addressed to the test subjects in his laboratory, and is heard speaking when Chell traipses through old Aperture with GLaDOS. He conducted questionable experiments on people, such as turning blood into gasoline and injecting test subjects with mantis DNA. [5] Only recordings of his voice are heard. However, it is clear that from his first announcement that he abuses his power in the name of science. He fires an employee who uses a wheelchair because ‘ramps are expensive.’ His lust for scientific knowledge is shown to be bordering on sadistic when he says:
"Good news is, the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show a median latency of forty-four point six years, so if you're thirty or older, you're laughing. Worst case scenario, you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face."
From just several quotes, it is obvious he will let very little stop him in his quest to satisfy his curiosity. Cave displays little respect for women and several traits which are integral to the concept of hegemonic masculinity:
Hegemonic masculinities are at the top of the gender hierarchy and exist in relation to subordinated gender constructs. Traditional constructions of hegemonic masculinities include risk-taking, self-discipline, physical toughness and/or muscular development, aggression, violence, emotional control, and overt heterosexual desire. [6]
‘Hegemonic’ is defined as ‘ruling or dominant in a social or political context’ which his masculinity most definitely was over Aperture. His actions and power over the facility also line up with Lois Tyson’s first two uniting beliefs of critical feminism and reinforce traditional gender roles. He says ‘I’m Cave Johnson. I own this place’ implying that his masculinity gives him the right to do what he wants, regardless of whether or not it is morally stable. He also shows significant arrogance, a common trait of the patriarchal ideology and hegemonic masculinity. He insinuates that people identifying as feminine, or expressing themselves as female, are weak and pitiful, a problematic gender stereotype:
"I'm no psychiatrist, but coming from a bunch of eggheads who wouldn't recognize the thrill of danger if it walked up and snapped their little pink bras, that sounds like 'projection'."
It is implied that he has a partner named Caroline. She served as his assistant. Although a relationship between the two was never directly stated, he speaks of her as if he finds her physically attractive (She’s pretty as a postcard’.) A portrait of them is also located in old Aperture. During the time period Cave was alive, it was unusual for a man and a woman to feature in a painting together unless they were in a relationship. Professor G. Christopher Williams, Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin makes a statement on this:
"By fulfilling the expected obligations of a 1950s 'wife,' Caroline sounds as if she might as well be married to Johnson, and after all, given Johnson's alignment with American exceptionalism and what it can achieve through technology, he is the 'science' that she has married herself to."
—G. Christopher Williams, Associate Professor of English at University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point.[7]
Sadly, the full brunt of Cave’s abuse of his masculinity and power is forced upon this woman.
In the 1950s, Cave acts in a gentle manner towards her, and holds her in high regard (‘She’s the backbone of this facility,’ ‘She’s a gem.’) His complimenting and allowance of her to hold such a high role is most likely what caused Caroline to gain trust in him. As he is dying of an experiment gone awry in the 70s, however, he becomes aggressive in desperate efforts to continue his research after he is gone.
The point is: if we can store music on a compact disc, why can’t we store a man’s intelligence and personality on one? So I have the engineers figuring that out now. Brain Mapping. Artificial Intelligence. We should have been working on it thirty years ago. But I guess it’s too late for should haves and what ifs. I will say this - and I’m gonna say it on tape so everybody hears it a hundred times a day: if I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place. (Now) she’ll argue. She’ll say she can’t. She’s modest like that. But you make her. Treat her just like you’d treat me. Hell, put her in my computer. I don’t care. Just make sure she’s taken care of. Allright, test’s over. You can head on back to your desk.
Cave’s main motivation for uploading Caroline’s consciousness is not because she cares about her as a person. It is expanding his regime of relentless and dangerous scientific research, blind to moral consequences, after he is dead. If he truly cared about her, he would have offered her the choice to die a natural death. Cave chose Caroline as the most capable candidate for his replacement and gradually manipulated her into her trust until he had the legal power to force her consciousness into a machine in the worst act of his hegemonic masculinity. Caroline assertively states ‘I don’t want this’, but he doesn’t listen to her. Afraid, she says again, ‘Mr Johnson, I don’t want this.’ This has no effect on him, and she is still installed into GLaDOS. He is abusing his power and showing the worst integral traits of hegemonic masculinity: aggression, violence, and emotional control. From the context of the previous quotes, we know that Cave justifies his actions towards Caroline with his status, masculinity, power, and scientific prowess. Perhaps even more disturbingly, it is possible that Caroline was murdered for this purpose, as Cave was still alive briefly after GLaDOS was activated. These events compel the audience to feel loathing for Mr. Johnson. They also draw to our attention the injustice of abuse of power and masculinity. Cave used his hegemonic masculinity as an excuse to abuse, control, manipulate, and gain property rights over women.
Cave also displays ownership over Caroline by forcing her to become GLaDOS for his own ambitions, and Caroline is very passive to this until he tells her what he plans to do. He is determined for his research to continue after his own death, and therefore is very possessive of her. She only speaks to and as a response to Cave. Her tone of voice and the ways in which she addressed him show submission and a sense of being lower in the patriarchal structure of Aperture than he is (‘Yes, sir, Mr Johnson.’) She never gains an opportunity to express her personality, beliefs, morals, or emotions outside of the context of her partner and his actions. From a patriarchal point of view, Caroline is nothing more than a shadow, an assistant to a man who would be useless if not working with Cave. In What’s the story? Feminist story, narrative, address, we can find striking insight into how patriarchy reinforces the idea that women in relationships are owned, controlled, and defined by their partners through a real life suicide account: [8]
Bhuvaneswari had known that her death would be diagnosed as the outcome of illegitimate passion. She had therefore waited for the onset of menstruation. While waiting, Bhuvaneswari, the brahmacarini who was no doubt looking forward to good wifehood, perhaps rewrote the social text of sati-suicide in an interventionist way . . . She generalized the sanctioned motive for female suicide by taking immense trouble to displace (not merely deny) in the physiological inscription of her body, its imprisonment within legitimate passion by a single male. . . . In this reading, Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri's suicide is an unemphatic, ad hoc, subaltern rewriting of the social text of sati-suicide. (308)
The line ‘imprisonment within legitimate passion by a single male’ is especially relevant. We see that by simply being in a relationship with a man, her individual identity was erased, and her right to freedom became restricted by the desires of her partner. She became mentally, and later literally, imprisoned by the hegemonic masculinity and scientific ambitions of Cave, and the audience is angered that the patriarchal system deemed Caroline as worthless without Cave. Caroline would not at first anticipated that he would begin taking control of her for science; for if she did know, why would she be in a relationship with him? As he succumbed to illness, he gradually became more and more crazed about science, and desperate to control her. In 1952, She most likely would have been able to pick up on the warning signs of a heightened desire for control later on in their relationship, but was too frightened to confront him, noting her extreme submission to him in her voice lines. Bhuvaneswari commited suicide because she wanted to free of men controlling and defining her identity on the basis that she had a sexual relationship with a man once. Perhaps Caroline’s fervent distress upon being told Cave desired to transfer her consciousness to a robot after she died was motivated by something similar. It is evident that, for one thing, Caroline is utterly petrified at the prospect of becoming a hyper-intelligent, all-powerful, immortal supercomputer. And rightfully so! Decades of witnessing alarming experiments may have decreased her sensitivity to moral ambiguity; but little apart from Cave’s signs of gradually sliding into insanity could have prepared her for this. In the context of Bhuvaneswari and Portal 2, it is also feasible that she opposed becoming GLaDOS because she did not want to be controlled by the motives of her husband and essentially be owned by him for the rest of her existence. Such a motivation is likely, considering that GLaDOS kills all of the scientists (possibly including her husband) with neurotoxin shortly after she is activated, murders every test subject except for Chell, and states outright that she loves revenge. She also attempts to poison and incinerate Chell multiple times in the first game, and doesn’t begin to show respect for her until memories of being Caroline are triggered, and realises they are both fighting the same ultimate enemy - the patriarchy. Only at the conclusion of Portal 2 does she finally gain the chance to displace (not merely deny) in the physiological inscription of her body, its imprisonment within legitimate passion by a single male.
The consequences of patriarchal ideology given far too much power are portrayed as being very negative, and from this we can uncover a subtext about how men must regulate their hegemonic masculinity. Cave’s actions were justified by his status and power as a male CEO, and his desire to extend his research for his own sake after his own death resulted in an almost constantly tortured existence for his wife. The Perpetual Testing Initiative installed into the mainframe is a notably disturbing action Cave took in the wake of his hegemonic masculinity taking over. During her short time disconnected from the mainframe, GLaDOS’ behaviour changes drastically. She uses less sarcastic, bitter remarks against Chell simply for being human, and instead displays amiability towards working with Chell and a determination to overcome another character reinforcing the patriarchal ideology -- Wheatley -- albeit to a lesser extent than Cave did. A typical statement from GLaDOS regarding Chell before she was taken off the mainframe is:
"This next test involves turrets. You remember them, right? They're the pale spherical things that are full of bullets. Oh wait. That's you in five seconds. Good luck."
GLaDOS is still very frustrated and angry, as she usually feels, as she travels with Chell outside of the mainframe. However, she is strikingly less hostile towards Chell, and even displays concerns for her safety (‘Just remember to land on one foot…’) Co-operating with her was probably something she would very rarely consider under Cave’s mainframe programming, even in dangerous situations where she required help from Chell. As she begins to recognise the recordings of Cave’s voice, she is overwhelmed with memories, and uncovers the emotional part of her - Caroline - that had been buried for thousands of years.
"Look, you're... doing a great job. Can you handle things for yourself for a while? I need to think."
At first, she seems wary of this man, but the recording of Cave shouting about combustible lemons excites her (“I like this guy!”) After hearing about how he abused his employees, possibly dredged up the forgotten trauma of being forced to become GLaDOS, and bringing up to Chell the ‘testing euphoria’ installed in the mainframe, so strong that it often overtakes the conscience, she still wants to return to it.
"The body he's (Wheatley - the secondary antagonist) squatting in - MY body - has a built-in euphoric response to testing. Eventually you build up a resistance to it, and it can get a little... unbearable. Unless you have the mental capacity to push past it."
However, as she makes clear, GLaDOS has some resistance to the euphoria, and therefore has a small degree of free will while attached to it. Her motivation to get back is also motivated by the fact that she is attached to a potato at this point, and must regain her power as soon as possible to stop Aperture from being ripped apart. Wheatley, like Cave, was going insane with lust for power. She had reattach to the mainframe in order to save Chell’s, as well as her own, life. Cave installed the test solution euphoria response in an aim to make GLaDOS do almost anything to achieve what were ultimately not her own goals and desires, but his. This alone is very disturbing. Not until the end of the game do we discover GLaDOS’ true feelings for Chell, and the utterly tragic extent to that a dead man’s selfish hegemonic masculinity affected her.
After Wheatley is defeated by Chell, she shoots a portal at the moon and scrambles through it. Instead of being sucked out into space and dying, GLaDOS, returned to her enormous serpent-like body, yanks her back through the portal and saves her life. This action alone shows us that GLaDOS has enough willpower and determination to overcome the urge to use her for science and listen to her moral conscience instead, at least temporarily. We then are transported to GLaDOS’ chamber, where she composes a heartfelt and touching confession of how she feels for Chell before setting her free.
“Oh thank god, you're alright. You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain."
This is truly feels about Chell without the influence of Cave’s Perpetual Testing Initiative. The identities and emotions of Caroline and GLaDOS, which form one self, both feel immense caring for Chell. She doesn’t want her to get hurt ever again as a result of the desire to do almost anything for science that Cave installed in her. In an act of unconditional love, she decides to let her best friend free. Supposedly, she deletes Caroline, and her voice shifts from oozing with affection to sharp with hostility.
"And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic. So you know what?"
"You win." Just go." [gentle laughter] It's been fun. Don't come back."
Further insight into her next actions reveal to us that it is unlikely she actually deleted Caroline. Instead of shooting her with the turrets, GLaDOS sings a spectacular and compelling Italian opera devoted to her as she ascends to the surface. This is the English translation:
Beautiful dear, my darling beauty!
My child, oh heavens (Chell)![note 4]
How I adore you![note 5]
How I adore you!
Oh my dear, farewell!
My dear child...
Why don't you walk far away?
So far away from Science!
My dear, dear baby...
Ah, my beloved! Ah, my dear!
Ah, my dear!
Ah, my dear!
Ah, my little girl!
Oh dear, my dear...
GLaDOS clearly is experiencing great suffering at the loss of Chell, and doesn’t want her to leave, but knows that she must be set free for her own safety. She acts as if all of her emotion has disappeared after she supposedly deletes Caroline because she wants to make Chell feel motivated by fear to step onto the elevator. Once she is inside, there is no going back. GLaDOS, surrendering to her sorrow, takes her last chance to express her love for Chell and let her know she cares before she reaches the surface.
What is particularly incredible about this is the use of the term ‘Mia bambina.’ It directly translates to ‘my child’ from Italian to English. It may seem to imply that Caroline is remembering that Chell is her daughter, but it is not. The context of this term in Italian with the context of the other actions GLaDOS takes towards her tell a different story. ‘Bambina’ is an Italian slang term that can also be used like English-speaking say ‘baby’ to refer to their significant other, and Ellen McLain, GLaDOS’ voice actress, uses ‘bambina’ in the same way. In addition, producers of the game at Valve discuss multiple times GLaDOS’ more than platonically inclined relationship with Chell in the ebook ‘The Last Hours of Portal 2.’
“And the dysfunctional romance that builds between the player’s game avatar and GLaDOS…” chapter 3, page 10
“But part of the charm of Aperture is the sterility of the world and the intimacy of the player’s relationship with GLaDOS” chapter 6, page 5
“Everyone agreed that Portal 2 was going to end with the AI GLaDOS breaking up with Chell” - chapter 11, page 4
It is made evident that GLaDOS has romantic feelings for Chell, at least on her part. This is very significant in the critical feminist lens. In the patriarchal system of old Aperture, a woman loving another woman would have been scorned and prosecuted. Overt heterosexual desire , according to Hinojosa, is a common trait of hegemonic masculinity. In society today, men frequently feel and act as if they are entitled to relationships with women on absolutely no other basis aside from the fact they are men. They attack lesbian and other LGBT+ women due to their own insecurity and jealousy. Some people, particularly men, abuse the rainbow community because they think that their orientations are disgusting, when really their relationships are not much different from those of heterosexual people, okay as long as it is consensual and safe for people involved. The incident on the bus is just one of many cases of homophobia running rampant in the modern world. Most critical feminists stand up for the rights of the rainbow community, regardless of whether or not the people they are fighting for identify as female.
The conclusion of the game is where the consequences of Cave’s hegemonic masculinity are made the most evident. GLaDOS is never allowed to fully express her love for Chell because of the constant looming danger of the Perpetual Testing Initiative that Cave installed in her. She is frightened that the partially involuntary and intense pre programmed desire to gain new scientific knowledge will put Chell in danger if she is to stay with her. As a result, GLaDOS realises that the most morally sound and unconditionally loving option is to let Chell free. The crazed lust for knowledge is essentially not hers; it is Cave’s. The heartbreaking effects of hegemonic masculinity and control on GLaDOS is a striking example of how patriarchy can ruin lives if given too much power. Mary Eagleton articulates this incredibly well.[9]
Men must learn to be silent. This is probably very painful for them. To quell their theoretical voice, the exercise of theoretical interpretation. One has scarcely the time to experience an event as important as May 1968 before men begin to speak out, to formulate theoretical epilogues, to break out and to break the silence. Yes, these prating men were up to their old tricks during May 68. They are the ones that started to speak, to speak alone and for everyone else, on behalf of everyone else, as they put it. They immediately forced women to stay silent. They activated the old language, enlisted the aid of the old way of theorizing, in order to relate, to recount, to explain this new situation. May 68.
Feminist Literary Criticism - Mary Eagleton
Portal 2 also wants to show us that indeed, men must learn to be silent-- or, rather, they must take control of their worse traits -- arrogance, impulsive and unjustified aggression and violence, and abuse of power for the moral rights of others. This crucial message is becoming alarmingly and increasingly relevant in today’s world. Many men, especially in America, have abused their power and attacked the rights of women, the rainbow community, those with disabilities, and others. Multiple US states have greatly restricted the right of pregnant women to bodily autonomy if they become pregnant, some not allowing abortions if they were raped, or not allowing abortions at six weeks when a baby is very underdeveloped and incapable of feeling pain. The abortion law in Alabama was written into law by a woman and signed by another woman. It is worth noting that patriarchal ideology is not only spread by men; toxic ideas that are ultimately damaging to women and others can also be advocated by those who identify as female. Patriarchy is about demeaning the rights of women and other groups socially, economically, politically, and emotionally, but it does not have to be used by men in order to be harmful.
Donald Trump, former president of the United States, has made multiple misogynistic comments [10] and has been accused by many women of sexual misconduct, [11] but some continue to support him. He is an example of hegemonic masculinity given too much power to hurt others.
These supporters of the patriarchy should learn to regulate their hegemonic masculinity, although with extremists, it is unlikely to happen. Instead, feminists must fight for equity and just social rights across the world, and continue pressing for change when unjustified, bigoted, blind criticism and hatred is thrown at us from those who fail to make an effort to understand why patriacrhal ideology is not right. Portal 2 is a compelling reminder of the importance of feminism. It is a story that will remain relevant now as a telling of what happens when patriarchy takes over, and in the future where this ideology is no longer so common, as a cautionary story warning us not to fall back into the old ways. Portal 2 is more than just a video game. It is a storytelling masterpiece, a work of art, one that also serves as an esoteric statement of why patriarchal ideology needs to be fought against.
6. Hinojosa, R. (2010). Doing hegemony: military, men, and constructing a hegemonic masculinity. The Journal of Men's Studies, 18(2), 179+
7. G. Christopher Williams. ""Her Name Is Caroline": Identifying the Misbehaving Woman in 'Portal 2' < PopMatters". Popmatters.com. Retrieved 2011-05-05.
8. Rooney, E. (1996). What's the story? Feminist theory, narrative, address. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 8(1), 1+.
Ok, this is a little out of the blue, but I've been thinking about this for a while and it's something I don't think I've ever seen anyone bring up before (although that might be because it's obvious, I dunno), which is that in Portal 2, the three corrupted cores we encounter at the end all seem to be in different stages of corruption.
Adventure/Rick seems to be the most lucid of them. He's capable of carrying a conversation (however one-sided) and his speech is the clearest and most intelligible. he's obviously stuck on one topic and incapable of much personal depth besides "being a kickass action hero", but he is aware of his surroundings and behaves more or less like a sentient being.
Fact is still mentally there, but the corruption has spread a fair bit further into his code. His speech is rigid and emotionless, even when talking about his own seemingly impending doom (proving that he also still has at least some awareness of things outside his own head), and he is only able to speak in terms of things that he at least thinks are facts. And that's another thing; a hefty chunk of his "facts" are either totally made-up, or things that are true, but warped beyond reason, like the saddest game of telephone ever. His code's so busted that even his primary function has taken a hit.
And last but not least, Space has become pretty much entirely corrupted. He seems to have no spatial (haha) awareness left, seeing as, if I recall correctly, he never mentions the fire or explosions. His code seems to have been stripped down to nothing but his primary function - presumably, talking about space. But the problem there is that even his knowledge of space seems to have eroded pretty heavily, what with him talking about the "space police" and seemingly believing the entire concept of outer space to be his dad(?), and then just... saying the word "space" over and over again.
I don't really have a cool, snappy way to end this. It's just something kinda interesting I noted a while back and only just thought to share, what with my Portal brainworms keeping me in a vice grip this week. Cheers if you read this far though!
I always thought Old Aperture had a red carpet in their lobby but then I looked closer and realized... it's actually just red paint...
Red paint... on their expensive marble tile...
"Paint doesn't stick well to marble tile"
"You must ABRADE the surface to promote adhesion"
They sanded down their expensive marble tile just so that they could paint a red line on it...
Also! The red paint line CONTINUES into the next room, and the entire floor there is the same shade of red... They painted this ENTIRE ROOM'S FLOOR RED. They sanded down all of that marble as well!
You can see some worn-down paint on the floor right there in front of his portrait. On a side note, someone broke into that display case of his and we’ll never know what was in it. My guess is possibly some portal gun/quantum tunneling device prototypes.
A fact about cores that a lot of people seemed to overlook:
((These? These aren’t the newest models of cores. They’re the outdated model.
THESE are the newer models:
They were the latest cores to have been attached to GLaDOS before Chell destroyed her, therefore they would have been the most advanced model of personality sphere by Aperture’s standards.
The Morality Core was even referred to as “The Latest in AI Inhibition Technology” in the Lab Rat comic.
The cores in Portal 2 may be the “newer models” in the context of gaming and visuals, but in the context of the game’s story, they are the outdated models. The old ones. GLaDOS mentions that Wheatley had been attached to her at one point, but he clearly isn’t during the events of Portal 1, making him one of the older models.
So with that in mind, isn’t it a little peculiar how the Portal 1 cores are far less noticeably sentient than the ones in Portal 2? The newer models are less humanlike in behaviour than the outdated models and also much less expressive. Why do you think that is?
Well, the developers of Portal 2 (who I like to imagine as being the real life equivalent to the Aperture scientists just going by their interviews) have a lot of interesting things to say. The head writer, for example, Erik Wolpaw even stated this in an interview.
“We always had this idea in our heads that you could rate the AIs: The smarter they got, the more computery-sounding they got, and the dumbest AIs would be the ones who sounded perfectly human.”
Now, that statement obviously sounds pretty ridiculous. Especially considering how much of the research and development into artificial intelligence has historically been about trying to get them to act and speak more like a human. For them to be less of "linear thinking idiots” as Dave Feise would say and more complex in their way of thinking.
Here’s where it goes into headcanon territory though. I don’t think “less intelligent” actually means less intelligent. I think in the eyes of the Aperture scientists that It means “less useful”. Humans have a lot of complicated and turbulent emotions that can quite often be very difficult to control and as a result, that can hamper efficiency.
Now think about it. If an AI is too focused on their own emotions rather than their own primary function, then that would make them less efficient, which I highly doubt the Aperture scientists would want. You can see just how a very emotionally fragile core with a lot of complex emotions and insecurities can seriously cause a lot of damage and destruction to the workplace just by how Wheatley managed the facility. Even this suppression of human emotions in the workplace would explain GLaDOS’s own denial and suppression of Caroline. Because she sees it as a handicap. She doesn’t want to be less efficient, she wants to do science.
What I think is that the Portal 2 cores, the “outdated models” were too much of a burden to manage along with trying to control GLaDOS’s own murderous tendencies and vindictive emotions and that the scientists later replaced them with the Portal 1 cores. The “newer models” who would stay on topic and not get distracted by extraneous emotions. They would simply do what they were meant to do and stay on track.
I like to think that you can rank the oldest cores to the newer cores simply by how human or robotic they act.))
I had a pretty long conversation in a Discord server yesterday and had already made a few realizations shortly before, so I thought I’d extend my thoughts into a long post.
So for a long time I thought I couldn’t analyze Portal’s story because it was too complex. I’m not good at identifying themes and symbolism, or psychoanalyzing people’s actions and words. So I figured I wouldn’t have anything good to come up with. I’m happy to say I was wrong. Here’s my take on why I think one of the biggest themes/motifs in the Portal franchise is moral greyness. (I’m not going to write grayness @ spellcheck, fucking fight me.)
No one in Portal is definitively bad or good. I see all too often that people simply peg GLaDOS as the villain and Wheatley as the good guy. But that isn’t wholly accurate. It’s right around the middle-ish of the game (accounting for increasing test complexity affecting length) that the big intimidating angry antagonist becomes the small, dependent guide and support for Chell, and vice versa.
How? How does Wheatley become evil, and why does GLaDOS decide to help Chell?
Wheatley’s motives
A lot of people defend Wheatley’s turning evil by saying that it was the chassis corrupting him all along. When I was first reading into these explanations, I thought that made sense enough. Maybe, like the drive to test, something was hard-wired into the system that made whichever AI was inserted into it become violent and vengeful. But while I don’t think this behavior is what Wheatley would have been like if he had never been in the chassis, I don’t think the corruption he experienced was that of a technical nature. It wasn’t the chassis itself causing him to behave the way he did, so much as the power it grants. Interpretations that claim “the chassis was doing it” seem to imply that the chassis is an entity all its own with its own motives, and I think if that had been the case then it would have been presented differently.
An AI in that chassis has control over pretty much the entire facility. You’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, and you can move things around pretty much as you please. Anyone would be a fool to mess with you; you could pull in some neurotoxin or turrets or bombs at any time and absolutely destroy whatever and whoever you wanted. And this power is what led Wheatley from his goal.
Let’s think about this. Wheatley is very clearly shown to have been insulted and belittled by nearly everyone around him. He’s spent his whole robot life being told he was not only an idiot who could never come up with a good plan, but that he was specifically designed to be. That has to be crushing for one’s self-worth, and Wheatley refuses to accept that treatment (as well he should). So, he is driven by a desire to prove that he can make a clever, viable plan, and is worth taking seriously. Unfortunately sometimes people don’t take you seriously until you threaten them. That is why, granted the power of the chassis, he went so crazy.
He spent so long being told he was made to be an idiot. He wanted to prove he was more. He may have started out genuinely wanting to help Chell, but the goal of getting himself and Chell out of the facility was that same plan with which he intended to prove his worth. I am not seeking to prove that Wheatley is selfish and terrible and undeserving of appreciation. I am simply speculating that most if not all of his actions throughout the game cam from a desire to prove his intelligence and capability.
This is also why, right when Chell was on the brink of freedom, he so suddenly turned around and became violent and ...is intimidating too strong a word? Well, he tried to be intimidating, in any case. He had been seeking all this time to prove that he should be taken seriously, to be listened to. In reaching a state of power that would allow him to achieve that goal, he was distracted by that, and he messed things up with Chell. He used his newfound control to feel strong and smart and powerful, at the cost of Chell’s trust and allyship. He didn’t realize in the moment the mistakes he made, because he was so starved for approval.
That’s not to say I don’t think he ever realized his mistakes. Though the writers of the game presented him as “just a fucking idiot”, I don’t think that defines him. He is definitely impulsive and easily distracted, but I certainly don’t think he’s so stupid as to not realize that the things he did and said were wrong. He is impulsive, absolutely. but he can surely recognize his own mistakes, at least after the fact. He also tends to say things faster than he can reason them, and has to take it back because he got carried away and said something he didn’t mean. For example, when he takes all the credit for getting him to where he is, he is so intent on proving that he made a smart plan that worked that he forgets how much Chell contributed. He doesn’t necessarily intend to erase Chell’s work, he is just preoccupied with proving himself.
Hey, hold on to that “impulsive and easily distracted” description. Do you know who else is commonly described as impulsive and easily distracted? People with ADHD. Do you know what else people with ADHD share in common with Wheatley? They are usually of average or high intellect, but are not perceived as such because they function differently and have other things working against them regarding the way their brain is wired and how the rest of the world works around them. Just something to think about.
GLaDOS’s redemption
GLaDOS’s redemption is vital to the theme of moral greyness too. She has done a lot more terrible things and for longer, but in contrast to how most people tend to define her, she is not definitively bad. She had reasons.
Firstly, Caroline’s consciousness was uploaded to the supercomputer against her will, as suggested by cut voice lines. Caroline’s lack of consent to being put into a computer is a big thing for me—though it isn’t explicitly stated in the final game, it adds a layer of depth to the issue and just makes more sense as it explains why GLaDOS is so violent against humans.
Secondly, though proven time and again that GLaDOS is a person, the scientists treated her more like an object they could control. The combination of that rage, plus the cores, built a desire to prove that the scientists weren’t the bosses of her. The solution to the problem of getting them off her back was easy—she had no qualms with killing them. Let me just put it this way—you’d be furious too if you were treated like less than a person and then shoved into a room against your will with people who never shut up and only told you you were wrong or tried to distract you.
She had been wronged by humans before. Of course she was against Chell too at first. But Chell picking her up from Old Aperture was a gesture of kindness, even if it was out of necessity and not choice. Chell needed her to get back up to Wheatley and take him out of power, and she showed GLaDOS that she could put their past conflicts aside, prompting GLaDOS to do the same. After Chell picks her up from Old Aperture and carries her back up, she very subtly starts to be more supportive and nice to Chell, as if to think “We may have been enemies, but she could have just left me down here to die, and she didn’t; this is the least I owe her. Maybe I can trust her after all.”
After that, GLaDOS comes to face the truth—she never really wanted to kill Chell, and gives Chell the freedom she deserves regardless of what GLaDOS want(s/ed). “The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one... and killing you is hard.” This isn’t about how easily Chell has evaded GLaDOS’s attempts on her life in the past. The scientists evaded GLaDOS’s attempts, too, for a while at least. But GLaDOS still had no problem killing them all. She could do the same to Chell, right then and there, if she wanted to. It was hard because she didn’t want to.
In short, GLaDOS has a weird relationship with humans, with empathy, with humanity. She is still struggling with them, but someone who still genuinely hated Chell wouldn’t have let her go.
Tying it all together
So what do GLaDOS’s redemption and Wheatley’s corruption (and subsequent redemption) mean for the themes of Portal 2 as a whole?
Like I said, there’s no one in this series who is strictly good or strictly bad. The bad guys have redeeming qualities and the good guys have flaws.
Wheatley wants to help Chell, but he also wants to prove his own worth.
GLaDOS wants revenge on humans who have wronged her, but she also cares about Chell’s wellbeing.
Cave Johnson has approved and controlled many unethical experiments but his company has also made significant scientific and technological advances far beyond what can be assumed anyone else in the world had done.
Caroline was hardworking and caring, and willing to stand up for herself when she really needed to, but she also let Cave greenlight those unethical experiments and didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with it.
Chell herself, though strong and resilient with a keen sense of justice (or so it seems), unprompted, killed GLaDOS once before. (Like, she died but she’s okay, but that still counts.)
Aside from teaching us to think with portals, the series goes to show that the distinction between good and evil is not binary—few things are—and that people are often quite different from who you think they are. Most people think GLaDOS is just an angry, lying, dangerous AI and the definitive villain of the series. And, yes, she is angry and dishonest and dangerous, but there is more to her than that.
When I first dipped my toes into reading Portal analyses, I thought that I could never make one of my own because it was too complex and didn’t lend itself well to how my brain perceives things. I was right that my brain struggled with it, but I was wrong on how. There is a difference between complex and vague, and most things in Portal are not clear-cut. There are many topics in the story that are hard for me to wrap my brain around, but that’s because it isn’t all explicitly laid out to see right away. It took me time and deep knowledge of the game as well as having read many analysis posts from other people before I was able to make my own conclusions.
Does this vagueness, this subtlety detract from the story experience? Maybe. I couldn’t tell you. Regardless of how cohesive the themes were when I first went through the game, the characters were what captured my attention and the setting and progression fascinated me enough. I was obsessed within moments.
I do feel that if a couple more hints made a few things more clear, it might be easier to make sense of the story in an analytical, thematic sense. But overall, the story itself is amazing. Portal 2 is amazing.
If you like this analysis, I’m thinking of writing a few more. Let me know which ones you’d like to see.
// I think GLaDOS tries to act more robotic than she actually is. She tries to act all distant and professional, but then she gets all emotional and offended at things and clearly craves attention and interaction with others. She is ashamed of the human part of herself and thinks she can bury it by being apathetic and cruel to others, but it’s clear that she can’t avoid it. You can see this demonstrated in her interaction with HAL 9000 in Lego Dimensions. HAL doesn’t show emotion and acts completely robotic while calling out the humanlike, emotional reactions GLaDOS has to his intrusion. Even if she seems completely calm, hearing her compared to HAL really shows how human she actually is compared to a true robotic AI.
The writers of Portal also mentioned in an interview that GLaDOS should not speak to you like a computer, but rather should speak to you like a regular person. In other words, like a human.
Quote from Erik Wolpaw:
“You try and write stuff that's truthful. When GLaDOS is talking to you, one of the rules I had is that she shouldn't talk to you like a computer. She shouldn't be all like, ‘Oh my nuts and bolts.’ She's got this computer voice and she is a computer, but she's talking to you like a regular person. In that sense, we've got a theme. It's not metaphor. We're just trying to make her sound like a person who is angry at you and is manipulative might sound.”
This is why GLaDOS doesn’t say things like “Get me back into my chassis,” and instead says “Get me back into my body.”
And instead of saying “You shut me off,” or “You forced me into sleep mode,” she says “You killed me,” or “This is murder.”
She also says “Luckily, I’m a bigger person than that,” referring to herself as a person.
That isn’t to say she won’t talk about the technicalities of her chassis’ functioning, but she only does that when it’s necessary to get technical about it. For example, if she needs to describe a part of her that is malfunctioning, she’ll go into the technical details. But if she’s just describing how she’s feeling, she’s going to voice it like a human would. For example, she’d likely shiver and say “I’m cold” if the temperature got too low for her hardware to handle, rather than something robotic like “The conductivity of my circuits is reduced in this colder temperature. This is not optimal operating temperature.” She would likely only say the second phrase if she needed to describe the technical details to someone fixing her or something. But when it comes to her feelings, she always expresses them as a human would. And that is why she can never truly escape her humanity.
