Portal (series)/Characters: Difference between revisions

* [[And I Must Scream]]: According to her, she {{spoiler|was forced to spend the hundreds of years in between the two games watching a recording the two minutes leading up to her destruction over and over and over again, due to her blackbox feature.}}. Of course, it's according to ''her'', [[Unreliable Narrator|a pathological liar.]]

* [[Anthropomorphic Shift]]: An interesting example. Although she's always been based on the human form (on Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus," in fact), the original game's GLaDOS is far less relatable: her head is a grey semi-ellipsoid with a fixed yellow eye, and she doesn't have any body language to speak of. In the sequel she has a lot more emoting to do, so she was given a white, squared-off head (suggesting a certain sternness of jaw) with a much more expressive eye and vastly more human-like body language.

* [[Back From the Dead]]: In ''Portal 2''.

* [[Bad Boss]]: GLaDOS treats her custom robots the same way she treats everyone:

* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: With Wheatley in the sequel. GLaDOS is the Blue Oni.

** Their colors are inverted, with Wheatley being blue and GLaDOS being red (well, her optic is yellow, but close enough in the circumstances).

* [[Sarcastic Clapping]]: GLaDOS has an entire processor ''devoted solely to this'', or so she claims.

* [[Self-Proclaimed Liar]]

* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: Her Logic/Intelligence/Knowledge Core, when describing cake garnishes:

{{quote|"Sediment-shaped sediment."}}

** GLaDOS is more or less a female [[2001: A Space Odyssey|HAL 9000]] in the role of [[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream|AM]].

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57lVjxOTr-M Unused dialogue from co-op] involves her talking about a comic strip involving [[Garfield|a certain cat who loves lasagna]].

* [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|Why Did It Have To Be Birds?]]: GLaDOS {{spoiler|as a potato}} quickly develops a massive fear of birds.

{{quote|{{spoiler|BIRD! BIRD! KILL IT! IT'S EVIL!}}}}

* [[Worth It]]: Says this about {{spoiler|tricking Wheatly into trying to give a hint about a test chamber, giving him a painful shock.}}

* [[You Are Fat]]: A good amount of her insults towards Chell in the sequel are about her weight. She helpfully informs ATLAS and P-Body that humans are very sensitive about weight variances.

* [[The Atoner]]: Willingly went back into the facility after he'd gained his freedom, unable to live with knowing he'd used Chell to defeat GLaDOS and then let her be killed when he might have saved her.

* [[Badass Labcoat]]: As seen on [http://www.thinkwithportals.com/comic/#15 Page 15] of the "Lab Rat" comic.

* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: The [[Alternate Universe]] Doug Rattman that's CEO of Aperture Science.

* [[Crazy Survivalist]]: As literally as possible. He's clinically insane, so he lived.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: When he's on his medication, he's a match for GLaDOS.

'''Doug:''' '''''Bite me.''''' }}

* [[Disability Superpower]]: When Rattmann is on his schizophrenia meds, his Companion Cube doesn't appear. Without its advice, he seems to be a lot less effective, {{spoiler|eventually causing him to get wounded by a turret.}}

** In ''Portal 2'', it would seem his obsession changed to being centered around Chell, with vivid detailed murals of her sprawled across walls.

* [[Sanity Has Advantages]]: Inverted.

 

 

* [[Adorable Evil Minions]]: {{smallcaps|Hi. Target acquired. Firing.}}

* [[AI Is a Crapshoot]]

{{quote|'''Cave Johnson:''' We fire the whole bullet! That's 65% more bullet per bullet! }}

* [[Cute Machines]]: Well, until they pepper you full of lead. That doesn't stop them from being so damn adorable.

The Party Escort Bot, alternatively known as the Party Associate, is a robot appearing in the retconned PC version of Portal, as of the March 3, 2010 patch. It's only role in the game is to {{spoiler|drag Chell back into the facility after she defeats GLaDOS, so that she can have new adventures in the sequel.}}

 

* [[The Ghost]]: Was this before the March 3rd update.

* [[Palette Swap]]: The robot is seen on one panel in the ''Lab Rat'' comic, and it is apparently merely {{spoiler|a purple version of ATLAS, or possibly a personality core with arms (which Wheatley was planned to have, per the commentary, but were cut because they could not believably retract)}}

* [[Adorkable]]

* {{spoiler|[[Affably Evil]]: For an AI-turned-psychotic-junkie trying to murder you, he sure is likeable.}}

* {{spoiler|[[The Atoner]]: Becomes this in the final scene of ''Portal 2''. He's a little too late for that, however.}}

* [[Berserk Button]]: {{spoiler|1="[[This Is Sparta|I am NOT! A! MORON!]]" [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Gee, thanks a lot, GLaDOS.]] The irony is just astounding.}}

* [[Brain Uploading]]: Prior to his death, he had his scientists working on this. The jury's out on whether he managed to live that long, {{spoiler|but his assistant Caroline certainly got the treatment}}.

** Perpetual Testing features a Cave who did indeed upload himself into a computer. He takes *slightly* longer to go murderously insane than GLaDOS, {{spoiler|although we never learn what exactly he did to Greg and the boys.}}

* [[Catch Phrase]]: [Beginning of video] "Cave Johnson here..."

** "Good job, [x]."

** "Chariots chariots."

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: His understanding of science is a little off, and the Conversion Gel poisoning certainly didn't help.

* [[For Science!]]: His motivation.

{{quote|'''Johnson''': Good enough for science...but not ''Aperture'' Science!}}

** Even {{spoiler|Caroline}} seems to have some of this—even after {{spoiler|1=he inflicted involuntary [[Brain Uploading]] on her, she still seems to hold some affection for him, if GLaDOS's response to his final prerecorded message is anything to go by}}.

{{quote|'''GLaDOS''': {{spoiler|(sadly) {{smallcaps|Goodbye, sir.}}}}}}

** Among other things, his illness wasn't apparently due to mercury poisoning, but an allergic reaction to ground-up moonrock gel used to make stable portal-surfaces. He appears to have lived at least until early 1980's. The Portal Gun appears to have been one of Cave's ''first'' inventions at Aperture (since all of his Enrichment Spheres basically require its use, and a poster in the 50s era test chambers depicts a test subject with an enormous early version of the portal gun), rather than an idea he imparted while on his deathbed... although since he was, according to the 'old' timeline, convinced time was going backwards, it could be both.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Listening to his prerecorded messages in order, you can hear his voice getting steadily more angry and deranged over the decades.

* [[Electronic Speech Impediment]]: Although their general dialogue is mostly unintelligible, if you listen hard enough you can make out specific word-analogues, such as them saying "Hello" to each other in the intro cinematic.

* [[Fat and Skinny]]

* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni|Orange Oni Blue Oni]]: [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]].

** Also illustrated during the introductory cutscene where the two are assembled for the first time. P-body is happy enough to let the robotic arms weld it together, while Atlas is shown anxiously trying to dodge them and escape from the construction area.

 

* [[Body Horror]]: Well, look at it from their point of view. Some of them have no casing. Some of them were put together ''sideways''.

{{quote|"Oh no, I'm one of the bad ones aren't I?"

"Shootin' blanks, [[Radio|every time, all the time]]."<br />

* [[Body Horror]]: Yes, even purely mechanical robots can apply for this; the merging is crude, and the Frankenturrets' pitiful chirping and terrified reactions when picked up make their miserable state clear. The commentary notes their withdrawing into a cube was initially just to make them be cubical when picked up, but it was so cute they added shaking animations and wide-eyed reactions to the turret to make the player sympathize with their plight.

* [[Cute Machines]]: They're hastily put-together hybrids that {{spoiler|exist primarily to satisfy Wheatley's addiction to testing}}...but ''they're so darn adorable!''

** Near the [[Bottomless Pits]], also, although it might have been a coincidence (they generally default to just lurching straight forward).

* [[Logic Bomb]]: Several of them are fried when a paradox is spoken in their presence. [[Mercy Kill|They probably welcomed it.]] {{spoiler|Note that this implies that they're not only sentient but actually ''smarter than Wheatley'', although that isn't saying much.}}

* [[Foreshadowing]]: One of the false facts is about where one of the spheres will end up.

* [[Good News, Bad News]]: "Cellular phones will ''not'' give you cancer, only hepatitis."

{{quote|''The Space Sphere will never go into space. You will never go into space.''

''The likelihood of you dying violently within the next 5 minutes is 87.61%.''

* [[Does Not Understand Sarcasm]]: ''Interpreting vague answer as "yes"''.

* [[False Reassurance]]

{{quote|''If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy, or require a Spanish version of this message, feel free to take a complimentary piece of stationary, and write us a letter''.}}

* [[For Science!]]: Utterly dedicated to making sure Science gets done, even in the face of [[After the End|"potentially apocalyptic circumstances"]].

* [[Cloudcuckoolander's Minder]]: When Cave gets hot-headed (which is often), Caroline puts him back on task.

* [[Dummied Out]]: The actual {{spoiler|[[Brain Uploading]] scene, mentioned above}}. GLaDOS's dialogue makes it clear enough that it did happen, though; we just don't know for sure ''how'' it happened or how Caroline reacted to it.

* [[For Science!]]: Well, Cave at least said she was passionate about science, and GLaDOS's attitude seems to support the idea that he was right.

* {{spoiler|1=[[Gone Horribly Wrong]]: The plan was to upload Caroline into GLaDOS so that she could run the facility forever. The resulting A.I. personality was considerably less pleasant than human Caroline.}}

* [[Heroic Self-Deprecation]]: Cave [[You Are Better Than You Think You Are|thought Caroline suffered from this]], which is why he felt justified in {{spoiler|having her mind forcibly uploaded against her will -- obviously she was only refusing because she didn't realize how good she'd be at running Aperture forever.}}

* [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]]/[[Puss in Boots]]: Cave, at least, believed she was fully capable of doing his job, but she seemed to be perfectly happy as a secretary, which he attributed to extreme modesty.

{{quote|'''Johnson''': "Sorry fellas, she's married... to science!"}}

* [[Morality Pet]]: Cave is generally pleasant to her and holds her in very high esteem, which helps balance the attitude of [[Comedic Sociopathy]] he tends to display otherwise. {{spoiler|In a well-intentioned yet horrifically misplaced show of his appreciation, he orders his scientists to upload her consciousness into an immortal A.I. against her will so that she can take over Aperture after his death}}.

* [[My Master, Right or Wrong]]: Since {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS experiences her persona as a sort of conscience}}, she presumably wasn't a complete sociopath, but she didn't seem to object to the constant stream of blatant ethical violations that characterized Cave's policies for running Aperture.

** {{spoiler|1=On the other hand, if GLaDOS's [[In Love with Your Carnage|reaction to Cave's lemon rant]] is anything to go by, Cave's aggressiveness and willingness to openly express it may have been something she actively liked about him. Of course, it's impossible to tell whether that's just GLaDOS's insanity talking.}}

* [[Origin Story]]: {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS's origin -- she was created in an attempt to achieve immortality through [[Brain Uploading]] for Cave Johnson, but when he died before the project was ready, Caroline was uploaded in his place so that she could run Aperture forever. This [[Gone Horribly Wrong|did not work out well]].}}

* [[Perky Female Minion]]: ''Yes, Sir!''

== The Monster ==

The chief antagonist of the ''Peer-Review'' co-op DLC, who has taken over an older version of GLaDOS's body and is using it wreak havoc.

* [[Early-Bird Cameo]]: {{spoiler|Literally. It's the Bird.}}

* [[Interface Screw]]: Turns the lights off at one point, requiring Atlas and P-Body to use night vision. {{spoiler|Immediately turns the lights back on, blinding them.}}

 

== Cut Characters ==

 

'''Betty''' or the '''Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disk Operating System''', was a personality core who would appear at the beginning of each test chamber in the original Portal 2, which took place in the past, to rattle off legal jargon in regards to the dangers of testing. Her role was mostly replaced by that of the Announcer.