Home Is Where The Heart Is

RULES VERSES RPS LIVEPLAY ANALYSES Hello! Welcome to my blog, that I made. A proper blog. Very well customized. Ask me questions, and If you happen to have a space shuttle or vehicle, or rocket of some description feel free to send it across my way at any time. No rush, up to you. [Ask/RP blog for Wheatley of the Portal series This is a secondary blog. Tracking: the-wheatley-core.]

[the-wheatley-core]

Analysis Index:

Here’s a table of contents for all of the Wheatley analyses and headcanons I and others have done in the past, organized for your convenience. A ★ signifies some of my proudest work:

Portal 2 Liveplay:

★★★★ The Entire Liveplay Index ★★★★

Wheatley Analyses:

Headcanon/Analysis: Communication Issues

Wheatley’s Emotional Problems

Wheatley’s Behavior in the chassis

Wheatley’s Motives

Wheatley being a china cabinet

★ Being Taken Advantage of 

Wheatley having Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria

A small but Interesting little detail

Wheatley, vengeance, addiction and emotional deregulation

★ Analysis: Wheatley knew all along 

Wheatley and paradoxes

★ Why you can’t trust everything the writers tell you 

★ A Personal Name / Wheatley Laboratories

★ Analysis: An accent from beyond

Things to keep in mind when writing Wheatley

Portal 2 and Moral Greyness (A wonderful analysis by @melancholy-starlight​ )

★ Headcanon/Analysis: Wheatley is in constant pain

Wheatley’s Broken Handles

About the Aperture Scientists lying to Wheatley

Wheatley’s lack of a synthesized voice

The Last Corebender

So I just replayed Portal (A wonderful analysis by @if-im-only-daydreaming)

Wheatley is not Fearless (A Wonderful analysis by @imreallyhereforportal​)

Wheatley’s love of roleplaying

★ Analysis: It’s a Wonderful Life (If Wheatley didn’t exist)

Wheatley and his relation to Exile Vilify

Wheatley while he was attached to GLaDOS

Wheatley having a sense of smell

Wheatley’s personality without the insecurities or worries

Had the core transfer gone down differently (Bonus)

★ Examples of Wheatley studying in-game

Wheatley and ghost stories

Wheatley being likely to become more timid and withdrawn after the events of Portal 2

Wheatley’s apology

Wheatley’s repeated behavior of bottling up his grievances

Wheatley being a good person with imperfections

Wheatley MBTI analysis by @space-and-nebulochaos

★ Wheatley’s behavior suggesting that he was watching movies while in the chassis

Wheatley having anxiety as opposed to being delusional

★ Analysis: Motivation, Heroes and Roleplaying

Wheatley simply being a sentient AI as opposed to having a human mind uploaded into his core

Wheatley and the 5 test subjects he tried to escape with

Wheatley ignoring his injuries

Wheatley keeping things bottled up

Wheatley’s reappearing handles

★ Wheatley’s blind faith in the scientists

★ Wheatley’s Height

★ Wheatley’s opinion on the other cores

Wheatley’s accent (A brilliant analysis by @kaispeakshermind​ )

★ Wheatley was never actually legitimately employed at the Relaxation Center in the first place

Wheatley imitating GLaDOS’s behavior in the chassis.

Wheatley deserves a hug + Wheatley assuming that he was the one being betrayed (A lovely analysis by @humanwheatleyslefttoenail​)

Wheatley’s moral greyness, coping mechanisms, psychology + Valve’s shoddy writing.

Wheatley being an empathy core. (A cute analysis by @humanwheatleyslefttoenail​ )

Wheatley’s dislike of turrets and his aversion to the Oracle Turret

Wheatley developing his own personality from scratch as opposed to having once been human

★ Valve’s mishandling of Wheatley’s character during Test Chamber 15 leading up to The Part Where He Kills You 

★★★ Wheatley displaying signs of having BPD

Wheatley feeling very tiny and insignificant

Wheatley’s false memories

Wheatley’s use of lewd wording

Evidence of Wheatley not being a moron:

★ Analysis: Intelligence

Wheatley does not find insults towards his intelligence to be endearing

Occam’s Razor

Wheatley being far more distracting than he is stupid

Analysis: Literacy / Wheatley being capable of reading

★ Wheatley and ADHD

Wheatley Vindication Meme by @trashdayis​ 

★ Analysis / Rebuttal: This isn’t about “letting Wheatley be dumb”

People only having a surface level view of Wheatley

Intelligence and accents

Wheatley vindication meme by @jessister​

Wheatley: Beyond the Moron (A wonderful analysis by @morgulsquirrel​)

★ Wheatley’s Intelligence and lack of focus

Wheatley admitting to not being a genius but not wanting to be treated as stupid

★ Wheatley Vindication / Rebuttal

Allowing yourself to be open-minded in regards to studying Wheatley

Portal 2′s writers failing to write a stupid character in Wheatley

Wheatley’s many clever ideas / Rebuttal

Messing With Wheatley: A Page Torn From The Ole’ Bastard Handbook (A brilliant analysis by @the-evilanon​ )

Wheatley having a wide vocabulary as noted by @kaispeakshermind​

★ Wheatley was never meant to be stupid to begin with

Things and topics Wheatley is aware of.

Wheatley and Relationships / Socialization:

Fear of being taken for granted

Wheatley being more interested in friendships rather than romantic relationships

★ Wheatley being an extroverted ambivert

Wheatley being motivated by friendship

★ Wheatley being depressed as opposed to being aromantic

Wheatley and affection

Wheatley being hugged part 1

Wheatley being hugged part 2

Wheatley being hugged part 3

Wheatley’s desperation for companionship (Bonus)

Wheatley, Chell and Reason

Wheatley wishing that Chell would communicate with him

Wheatley letting Chell get away with things because of his guilt

Wheatley putting Chell’s needs before his own

Wheatley’s fear of abandonment and his clinginess with Chell

Wheatley being more concerned with friendship than romance

Wheatley and Space Core having a brotherly relationship

Wheatley’s abandonment issues

Wheatley being clingy and affectionate towards the people he has a close bond with (Bonus)

★★★ Wheatley displaying signs of having BPD

Wheatley and GLaDOS’s mental age gap

Chelley or ChellDOS? Neither! GLaDOS and Wheatley deserve better.

Platonic kisses

Portal 2 Analyses:

★ Portal 2 Estimated Timeline of Events

Portal 2 Critique Analysis of Chapter 8, Test Chamber 12-15 leading up to The Part Where He Kills You

Portal Stories: Mel: Virgil critique

★ A fact about cores that a lot of people seemed to overlook

So I just replayed Portal (A wonderful analysis by @if-im-only-daydreaming )

★ Some facts about Atlas and P-body

★ About Atlas and P-body’s Personalities

Portal 2 and Leitmotifs

GLaDOS Liveplay and Analyses by @ask-glados​

Portal 2 being one mass cycle of miscommunication

★ An insensitive franchise

Aperture’s Batteries (Bonus) (Bonus)

The concern of Valve losing focus in regards to the portal franchise

★ The height of a personality sphere

★ What the personality cores think about each other

Some fun facts about Stephen Merchant

Wheatley Headcanons:

Teamwork

Sparking

Whistling

Singing (Updated version)

Names

★ Frankenturrets in the facility

Space Ramblings 

Wheatley and roleplaying

Communication Issues

Motivational Quotes

★ English

★ Being Taken Advantage of

What Wheatley smells like

Wheatley’s fears

Dream Job

Creative Outlets

Wheatley and judging others

★ Insecure Ap-Sap

★ A personal name

Losing a friend, animal lives and witnessing a crime

Wishing on a star

Wheatley’s chatty personality and need for attention

★ Wheatley’s anniversary 

★ Shades of color

Wheatley’s opinion on video games

Wheatley and heroism

Some lovely headcanons by @i-joined-portal-late​

Crossword Puzzles

★ Infallibility (Bonus)

Wheatley’s taste in music

Wheatley when choosing his own name

★ Reappearing Handles

Wheatley being ace

★ Wheatley and Space Core having a brotherly relationship

Wheatley and D&D

Wheatley being likely to enjoy espionage films

Wheatley doesn’t celebrate his birthday/anniversary (Bonus)

Wheatley’s handle discomfort

Wheatley having seen the enigmatic G-man before (And Chell potentially being tied to Half Life’s overarching story)

Wheatley’s phobias

Wheatley’s dislike of The Stanley Parable’s narrator.

More to be added as I make future analyses and headcanons, hope you all enjoy!

[akindplace]

Most of my problems seem to stem from this belief in my core that I am unworthy of so many things. That I have to earn anything, any little thing at all. Basically what I'm trying to do is to allow myself good things even if I feel undeserving of them, and I want to focus on pushing myself to take good care of who I am even though it's hard, even though I feel so lost and undeserving because in all honesty if I don't keep trying to develop a habit of caring for myself without earning it I will never feel like I deserve anything, no matter what I ever achieve.

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

i’m trying to be less ashamed of my failures and more grateful to where they have brought me. without them, i would have so much less growth in my life.

[akindplace]

Mentalhealthceo

[the-wheatley-core]

I think a lot of the stupid wheatley stuff is people feeling like wheatley /deserves/ to be made fun of for all the shit he does in portal 2 (betraying and trying to kill you ) and less... how he actually is

((A lot of it comes from people only having a surface level view of Wheatley and not really digging deeper into it.

Kinda like with Cave’s lemon rant. It’s funny to hear at first, but then it dawns on you that it’s the frenzied ramblings of a dying man desperately trying to cling onto life for as long as he can.

A lot of things in Portal is actually quite bittersweet. Which is to be expected from a dark comedy, but there are a lot of deeper meanings in the game that people don’t seem to grasp.

It’s actually quite ironic. Because Wheatley has been given a demeaning purpose he never wanted. Upon his activation he’s been told that he was meant to be stupid. Imagine that. Imagine at a young age that your superiors tell you that you exist to be stupid and then constantly proceed to make you feel tiny and insignificant. That would contribute to some severe psychological scarring growing up. And then despite that, Wheatley still tries to be a good person and help out Chell despite it being of no benefit to him. And then he’s given the robotic equivalent of cocaine (The developers literally equated being in GLaDOS’s body to consuming cocaine) and then he starts acting out as any person would who’s suffering from a childhood trauma and then given drugs as a form of escape.

But nobody realizes the nuance. That’s the ironic part. Is how relatable Wheatley’s trauma is. Because there are tons of people out there who suffer from childhood trauma, who get picked on for having a disorder that they have no control over, who live in an abusive household and who then go on to engage in substance abuse as a way to cope. But these kinds of people often never get the help that they need because they’re always shunned and ostracized from society. From their friends and family. It’s incredibly ironic how Wheatley’s struggles somehow seem to reflect reality seemingly by accident on the part of the writers and that nobody seems to realize it.))

[the-wheatley-core]

Analysis: Wheatley was never meant to be stupid to begin with

((You know, I always found it so odd how Portal 2 tries to convince you that Wheatley is meant to be stupid. Because when you’re playing the game for the first time, he really doesn’t come across that way.  It’s only until GLaDOS says this that in your mind you begin to try and deliberately look for acts of stupidity to justify her claims. 

But Wheatley really never came across as stupid for me.  My first impression of him was that he’s a reckless expositional character who would introduce you to the game’s mechanics right after taking the courtesy to utterly destroy your bedroom. 

And that he also happens to be clumsy.

But he never truly came across as stupid to me. I remember every time I would watch the core transfer/the fall, it always seemed so out of place to me. GLaDOS would call him stupid and I remember always being like “…Really?” Because it had honestly never occurred to me. Wheatley just never came across as stupid during the first act of the game. Clumsy, reckless and impulsive? Yes. But not stupid. Every time his stupidity was brought up in the game or in the fandom, I’d just look at him in confusion and go “…Are you sure?” Because it was his idea to disable GLaDOS’s defenses in the first place, he’s the one who redirected the faith plate to launch Chell into his trap and he studied GLaDOS’s boss battle footage so that he wouldn’t repeat her same mistakes. All of these actions only serve to prove against the whole narrative of him supposedly being stupid.  For a year or so now, I’ve been analyzing Wheatley non-stop. I’ve made countless analyses breaking down his character and just further explaining in depth why the writers failed at writing a stupid character. But recently I had a bit of an epiphany.  You remember this moment here?

Originally, that was supposed to be the end of Wheatley. He was supposed to die right then and there, but the playtesters liked him too much so the developers decided to give him a bigger role in the game. 

But the thing is… prior to GLaDOS crushing him, Wheatley never came off as stupid. His character traits had established him to be clumsy, reckless, “not-so-sure-of-himself”, frantic and impulsive. Those were the character traits that had originally been established for Wheatley early on and because he was never meant to play a bigger role in the first place, there was absolutely no narrative reason to convince the player of his stupidity. Because he was never written as stupid to begin with.  Now the thing with Valve is that when they gave Wheatley a bigger role in the story, they didn’t actually change any of his character traits. In fact, they seemed to make him pretty darn clever considering just how much he helps you out in the game. Such as devising a plan behind the scenes to break you out without GLaDOS noticing, only having to give away his position because he was forced to enact the escape plan ahead of schedule due to GLaDOS increasingly hinting at her plans to kill Chell earlier than expected.

Knowing what GLaDOS’s defenses are and coming up with a plan to disable them,

Guiding you through the dark,

Coming up with the solution for the turret control puzzle if you can’t figure it out on your own,

and many more. Valve failed exponentially at trying to write a stupid character and seemed to actively do the opposite with no changes or rewrites to Wheatley’s personality.  You know what’s a good example of a stupid character?

You know what’s a bad example of one? 

Someone who studies before a boss battle to ensure his victory. The only reason Chell emerged victorious was because she somehow miraculously survived a bomb blast. 

And also because Wheatley’s procrastination on fixing the facility resulted in the ceiling to crumble and reveal the moon that Chell would use to shoot a portal at like the lunatic that she is. 

But aside from that, it was a foolproof plan. So much so that the devs actually had to scale it back just so that it could be beatable. 

Valve failed at writing a stupid character. That much is a fact. But they needed to give Wheatley a reason to exist within the story. They needed to give him a motivation to drive his actions. As @the-evilanon​ said in their analysis on the matter:

“While the statement “Wheatley is dumb” is devoid of merit and rendered dishonest by canonical material, it makes for an excellent plot-device. It gives an otherwise simple, potentially one-dimensional character depth. Because he now has this insecurity he’s been given something to feel over, something to get angry about, to be haunted by, gutted by, and later corrupted by. Without his fear of appearing stupid, and his disdain for being the Intelligence Dampening Sphere, Wheatley is just friendly.” 

Which is an entirely accurate statement to make because more often than not, Wheatley’s negative actions are influenced by his insecurities. 

With the knowledge of his origins, you can easily infer that he’s been picked on in the past going by how strongly he reacts to being reminded of his status as an intelligence inhibitor.

It’s an old wound of his that he’s desperately been trying to forget about until GLaDOS brought it back up. I’m often reminded of this comment I once saw on a youtube video: 

So with the knowledge that Wheatley’s past is something that he’s ashamed of and that has caused him some degree of psychological trauma judging by his strong reaction, we can determine that the cause for Wheatley’s perpetual anxiousness and his subsequent actions going forward are the result of his lifelong status as someone who is meant to be considered stupid within his environment. This is what brings him anxiety, this is what makes him insecure, this is what drives his actions

This is what gives his existence meaning in the game:

Wheatley isn’t stupid at all. Valve failed miserably at writing a stupid character. But without that insecurity of appearing stupid to others, Wheatley has no motivation to drive the story along and therefore has no reason to exist.  Wheatley was never meant to be stupid in the first place. He’s always just been this clumsy, reckless, “not-so-sure-of-himself”, frantic and impulsive expositional device who was supposed to introduce you to the game before getting crushed by GLaDOS early on. His role in the story changed along with his motivations, but his character never did and I think that is why the reveal of his origins always felt so out of place to me. Wheatley is not motivated by stupidity but he is motivated by his insecurities and this constant desire to want to go against his assigned purpose and to become something else. He wants to be something that’s worthy of appreciation. It’s why he loves roleplaying so much (There is an actual voice line of his where he says exactly this: ”Dashing rogues! The both of us. Like Robin Hood or something! Role playing. Love it. Absolutely love it.“) because he gets to be something unrelated to being an “intelligence dampening sphere” and sort of live in this fantasy world where he doesn’t have to suffer a demeaning purpose all his life. Heck, he likely changed his name to Wheatley just to further distance himself from the idea of being an intelligence inhibitor. If you actually pay attention to Wheatley in the game, you can easily see this to be the case. Wheatley is not a genius, but he is far from being “the dumbest moron who ever lived” and this is honestly something that I wish more people would come to understand about his character.)) 

[killerrobot-killingmatch]

Bracket 4, Round A, Attack 5

Star Dream Propaganda

Wheatley Propaganda

Star Dream (Kirby) Vs. Wheatley (Portal 2)

Star Dream

Wheatley

Voting ended onJan 27, 2024

[killerrobot-killingmatch]

Bracket 3, Round B, Attack 4

Wheatley Propaganda

Yes Man Propaganda

Wheatley (Portal) Vs. Yes Man (Fallout New Vegas)

Wheatley

Yes Man

Voting ended onJan 17, 2024

[roboswagbracket]

Bracket B round 1

Round bois

One-One propaganda

Wheatley propaganda

Who is cooler?

One-One (Infinity Train)

Wheatley (Portal 2)

Voting ended onJan 20, 2024

[thinkpink212-deactivated2025123]

Teach yourself the things your parents failed to teach you.

[oeming]

Some of my pages from the PORTAL 2 Lab Rat comic with @TKosmatka   and Andrea Wicklund from Valve- http://www.thinkwithportals.com/comic/

[oeming]

I helped design the Portal 2 cover a million years ago. We did hundreds of drawings and concepts all together. I found a few, these totally didn’t work, but were the kind of stabbing in the dark and reaching that goes on while designing and finding a design. 

[killerrobot-killingmatch]

Bracket 1, Round C, Attack 1

They're the cringefail Robots of all time but they're also both the funniest about it I think.

CL4P-TP/Claptrap Propaganda

Wheatly Propaganda

Claptrap (Borderlands) Vs. Wheatly (Portal)

Claptrap

Wheatly

Voting ended onSep 29, 2023

[the-robot-bracket]

Semi Finals

Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid) vs GLaDOS (Portal)

Hatsune Miku

GLaDOS

Voting ended onSep 18, 2023

Hatsune Miku propaganda

GLaDOS propaganda

Yes, Miku is considered a robot for this tournament, so don't complain about it like with Janet or Hal9000

[the-robot-bracket]

Semi Finals

Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid) vs GLaDOS (Portal)

Hatsune Miku

GLaDOS

Voting ended onSep 18, 2023

Hatsune Miku propaganda

GLaDOS propaganda

Yes, Miku is considered a robot for this tournament, so don't complain about it like with Janet or Hal9000

[the-robot-bracket]

Semi Finals

Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid) vs GLaDOS (Portal)

Hatsune Miku

GLaDOS

Voting ended onSep 18, 2023

Hatsune Miku propaganda

GLaDOS propaganda

Yes, Miku is considered a robot for this tournament, so don't complain about it like with Janet or Hal9000

[the-robot-bracket]

Semi Finals

Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid) vs GLaDOS (Portal)

Hatsune Miku

GLaDOS

Voting ended onSep 18, 2023

Hatsune Miku propaganda

GLaDOS propaganda

Yes, Miku is considered a robot for this tournament, so don't complain about it like with Janet or Hal9000