Important Traits of Portal Characters
Originally I was going to make this post a heck of a lot more specific and in an essay format, but then I realized it might be more useful to expand it and use a quicker format so it could potentially be used as a reference, so~!
Letâs go over some positive, negative, and neutral traits of three of Portalâs characters: Chell, GLaDOS, and Wheatley. (Please let me know if I forgot anything here!)
If folks like this, maybe Iâll try to make one for other characters too! So letâs get started.
+ She never gives up. Ever. Due to her utterly insane tenacity, Chell was chosen by Doug Rattmann to take down GLaDOS. Even when faced with the most hopeless circumstance, Chell will not give up.
+ She is good at testing. Though this is related to her tenacity, of course.
+ She is resourceful. While she doesnât plan, sheâs good at figuring things out as she goes along, and it seems to work pretty well for her.
~ [I got nothing. We really donât know a lot about Chell.]
- She is abnormally stubborn. This is both a positive and a negative trait; Chell is stubborn in situations that could get her into trouble. There are situations in which it may have been beneficial for her to speak to the robots, but she remains silent.
- Her hatred of robots keeps her silent. Chell is not muteâshe can speak, but chooses not to because she does not want to give the robots the satisfaction.
+ She is incredibly smart. Sheâs essentially a giant computer the size of half of a state; of course sheâs smart.
+ She has a motherly side. She genuinely cares about her âlittle killers,â even calling herself their âmommyâ and talking softly to them. This sort of care could possibly extend to others depending on how close she lets herself get to them.
+ She can be humble enough to work with others. GLaDOS is not so stubborn that sheâll let herself die rather than work with an enemy.
+ She is a good singer. Though she seems to keep that to herself.
+ She has a sense of humor. âGLaDOS Emergency Shutdown and Cake Dispensary.â
~ She loves Science. GLaDOS loves Science enough to create some pretty fascinating things, like other robots. But she also loves it enough to commit atrocities in the name of it.
~ She has a fear of birds. Though perhaps she lost that after raising her little killers?
~ She is obsessed with Chell. Chell was just another test subject at firstâthen she was one of the first test subjects to escape. Then she was a murderer. Itâs not hard to figure out why GLaDOS thinks about her a lot.
- She is amoral. GLaDOS generally doesnât consider right and wrongâand when she does, she finds it distressing.
- She is sadistic. She enjoys inflicting pain to a rather alarming extent, even using Science as an excuse to hurt or kill others.
- She frequently jumps to murder to solve her problems. Even if that problem is as small as âI am angry and need to take out my anger on someone.â
- She is passive-aggressive. âHow have you been? Iâve been really busy being dead. You know. After you murdered me?â
- She is incredibly prideful. GLaDOS will not often admit when sheâs wrongâwhen she does, itâs usually when sheâs PotatOS and isnât really in a position to be gloating.
- She verbally abuses others. Apparently insults are great motivation for testing.
- She is a liar. So much so that itâs sometimes hard to tell when sheâs telling the truth.
+ He is optimistic. Wheatley may get panicky and twitchy at times but heâs quite good at bouncing back from a bad situation and keeping a positive attitude⌠unless things go very, very wrong.
+ He can be selfless. Wheatley first tagged along with Chell because he wanted to use her to escape the decaying facility, but he came back to rescue her again when the facility was stabilized and he was out of danger. He had nothing to gain by rescuing her from GLaDOSâhe genuinely wanted to help her escape.
+ He is creative. His ideas might not always work, but he has an endless stream of them.
+ He can be brave. While heâs afraid of a lot of things, he can sometimes face his fears when he feels he needs to.
+ He learns from mistakes. When he actually realizes heâs made a mistake, heâs quick to acknowledge it and attempts to fix it. Whether his attempts work or not is another matter.
+ He is contrite. âI am genuinely sorry. The end.â
~ He has a fear of birds. Seems common with Apertureâs robots.
~ He has a fear of heights. âOne⌠two⌠THREE! Itâs too high! Isnât it, really, thatâŚâ
~ He likes to talk. DO I NEED TO ELABORATE.
~ He is a bad liar. âYou look terriâgood. Looking good, actually, if Iâm honest.â
- He is frequently selfish. While he can be selfless at times, more often than not he only looks out for himself and his own interests, even if it means others have to suffer or even die for it.
- He is not empathetic. âDid you find the portal gun? Also, are you alive?â He also doesnât seem to have that much remorse over killing 10,005 humans.
- He harbors bitterness. While he doesnât forget about wrongs against him, he doesnât often bring them up, either⌠until his emotions boil over.
- He has incredibly low self-esteem. When called a âmoron,â he either reacts violently or goes to extreme measures to try to prove that he is not a moron.
- He doesnât always think ahead. Wheatley tends to think of his immediate situation, not considering things like what he would do if he did escape the facility, or what he would do if the facility really was on the verge of exploding. And when he does plan ahead (i.e. Part Five), he doesnât think ahead far enough.
- He is incredibly gullible. He believed that turning on his flashlight or dropping off of his rail would kill him.
- He is weak-willed. He almost instantly succumbs to the testing euphoria addiction.
- He is a coward. âOh! Iâve just had one idea, which is that I could pretend to her that Iâve captured you, and give you over and sheâll kill you, but I could⌠go on living. Whatâs your view on that?â
- Most of his ideas are bad. While he can come up with good ideas on occasion, heâs the Intelligence Dampening Core for a reason.