#chell analysis

Apart from that hope you have an awesome day! You really have a great analistic skill (idk if it's well said but you know, I mean that you analize characters really well, you get the point xd) and I hope you work on the entertainment industry, cause I would really like seeing where your analysis and construction of characters would lead a story! I think it would be an amazing story ^^

Alright, this is a long ask, sorry about that, have a good day!! (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)

Canonically, Chell is robophobic and Aperturphobic. She doesn't like anyone or anything in Aperture and she's just storming around the place in a consistent state of anger, refusing to talk to anyone.

So, I'm not much of a shipper. I don't get caught up in pairing characters romantically or anything but I do like to look at each character individually and analyze their emotional needs and wants. So, we already know how Chell feels about everyone in Aperture. As for Wheatley... he doesn't seem to be romantically attracted to Chell so much as the fact that he just idolizes her and considers her his favorite person. He has this very idealized version of her in his head as this sort of legendary hero who defeated GLaDOS and who wants to escape and she's basically a celebrity or an all inspiring hero to him. He wants to be friends with her. His entire reason for helping her in the first place was to escape the facility before it could explode since all reactor core safeguards have become nonfunctional. And as someone without any limbs who can only rely on a rail to get around, he needs the extra help to escape certain doom. However, once GLaDOS wakes up, she fixes the problem, so Wheatley no longer has any reason to want to help Chell. The facility is fine, Wheatley is safe as long as he avoids GLaDOS. No reason to come back to help Chell. But he does anyway despite it being of no benefit to him. And this is an impulsive spur of the moment decision too. He wasn't thinking about the potential consequences of what would happen if he decided to help Chell, he just did so because he wanted to. Because he got attached to her. And this is proven in this line right here:

Because he had just spent a couple hours following Chell around from test chamber to test chamber, devising a plan behind the scenes and breaking her out of the testing track and only THEN when they've made it to the turret control center, is he realizing the potential dangers and getting cold feet. So the entire time prior to this, he really just decided to help Chell because he wanted to. Because he got attached to her. And it's clearly not his intention to throw Chell under the bus here either so much as it's just a fear induced intrusive thought of his being fuelled by the risk of GLaDOS potentially crushing him again if things happen to go wrong. Sometimes Wheatley just lacks a filter and blurts out the first thought that comes to mind when he gets scared or nervous.

And he doesn't want Chell to leave him either. It's very subtle and pretty easy to miss, but Wheatley seems to display some signs of separation anxiety. Or more specifically, a fear of being abandoned or left behind by someone for not being useful enough to them.

And this is how I interpret his lines here: Wheatley: "Wait, where are you going? Where are you going? …." (No- wait- don’t panic, she’s not leaving you. Maybe she’s just thought up an idea) "Ohhhhh, have you got an idea?" (Well, okay, this is fine. She’s just thought up an idea, she isn’t leaving you. She’s going to go do whatever she does and then she’s going to come straight back.) "Okay, well, alright. Just do your idea and then come straight back!" Chell: [Going further away/Taking a while to return] Wheatley: "Sorry, what's going on over there? You know, I'm actually over here, still thinking really hard!" (I swear, I’m still useful to you, I’m still working really hard, I’m still thinking up ideas, I’m still trying to help you, please don’t leave me, I swear I’m helpful, please don’t leave.) And this seems to be supported by a later line during his boss battle when he says this: Wheatley: "And another thing! You never caught me... I told you I could DIE falling off that rail and you didn't catch me... Didn't even TRY. Oh! It's all becoming clear to me now. Find some dupe to break you out of cryosleep, give him a sob story about escaping to the surface, squeeze him for information on where to find a portal gun, then, when he's- when he's no more use to you, he has a little ACCIDENT, doesn't he? 'Falls' off his management rail, doesn't he?"

And this line certainly seems to confirm that Wheatley thinks that he will be abandoned/discarded if someone, namely Chell doesn't consider him useful. But not only that, Wheatley gets very upset when he starts assuming that Chell doesn't value him. In fact, he doesn't turn against Chell when he lowers the lift. He turns against Chell when GLaDOS discredits him. Wheatley: "I did this! Tiny little Wheatley did this!" GLaDOS: "You didn't do anything... She did all the work." Wheatley: "Oh really? That's what THE TWO OF YOU think, is it?"

He IMMEDIATELY assumes that Chell has sided with GLaDOS in discrediting him and that's when he turns against her. Because the fact of the matter is that Wheatley is quite emotionally needy. He craves constant validation and approval from those who he admires but the problem is that Chell refuses to talk to him and is very emotionally unavailable in general. So Wheatley is left to assume what she's thinking. And since he's someone with low self esteem who happens to be very paranoid and insecure, he ends up assuming the worst. And Chell not speaking to him makes it worse because it allows him to spiral the more and more he thinks about it. Wheatley: "Enough! I told you not to put these cores on me. But you don't listen, do you? Quiet. All the time. Quietly not listening to a word I say. Judging me. Silently. The worst kind."

So do I ship Chell and Wheatley? Not canonically. Maybe if the writer portrays Chell as being more kind, compassionate and understanding, but with her canonically being robophobic and being emotionally unavailable all the time, she's just not the right fit for Wheatley. Wheatley needs someone who is attentive to his emotional needs and who can communicate openly and honestly with him without making him feel insecure or like he's not good enough. Chell in the end just proved that pairing an emotionally unavailable girl with an emotionally needy core who has an insecure attachment style is just not a good match in the long run. As for ChellDOS? We run into the same issue of Chell being robophobic and emotionally unavailable. GLaDOS has a lot of complicated feelings and emotions of her own and it's likely that she's quite lonely herself and craves some form of social interaction or at the very least someone to bounce her ideas off of. Although she's in heavy denial of it and won't outright admit it. Constantly trying to convince herself and others that she doesn't need anyone. There's also the fact that GLaDOS is afraid of Chell. She has some mixed feelings. While she considers her one of her only best friends, she concludes that she's far too much trouble than it's worth and sends her away.

GLaDOS: "I never expected you to make it this far. To be honest, after your performance in the calibration test I was ready to break down your cores and put them back in the scientific calculators I took them from. But you two have become quite the team. Extremely close. I have only met one other team closer and one of them was an imbecile I had to destroy. The other? Well... I don't think I want to go through that again."

She has warmish but complicated feelings towards Chell and ultimately considers her to be a source of trauma for her.

Even in the co-op DLC, while we later find out that it was a bird messing with the prototype chassis, she at first thinks that it's Chell coming back to torment her. GLaDOS: "It looks like our mystery woman in the prototype chassis is sending us a message: She's not AFRAID of me... But don't worry, I've got a plan. Let's keep testing and show HER we're not afraid either." GLaDOS: "Mission accomplished. Now SHE knows WE'RE not afraid of HER either. GLaDOS: "Think about that: She doesn't care about you. I don't either, of course. But I'm not trying to permanently kill you. It's a benevolent indifference." GLaDOS: "The prototype chassis room is just down this hallway. Remember your training. You are kill-- She's turned the lights off! Night vision! Night vision! Your move, Mystery Wom -- She turned the lights back on! Night vision off! Night vision off!"

Isn't chell mute tho?? She doesn't talk at all in the first game either nor in the comic iirc. Sign language wasn't exactly an option either considering she's always having to hold the portal gun. Talk wise I don't think she was being stubborn, but in what she chooses to DO action wise she was being stubborn

@dapper-robot​ ((Nope. According to the developers, Chell is indeed capable of speaking, but she actively chooses not to. She isn’t mute, she’s just incredibly stubborn and robophobic and doesn’t want to talk to anyone.))

((I’m glad I was able to help! :)

Well, the developers say that Chell hates all robots and that she doesn’t even want to dignify them with hearing her voice, so essentially she’s just disgruntled most of the time but has no choice but to work with them.

I think when it comes to Wheatley, she’s mostly apathetic towards him. He’s nowhere near as rude and malevolent as GLaDOS. He’s not even as rude as his own voice actor hilariously enough, so she can’t treat him with the same sort of scrutiny as she does to GLaDOS.

Like at the stairwell, for example, when Wheatley is panicking about Chell dropping him. She doesn’t do it. You actually can’t let go of Wheatley during that part. The game doesn’t allow you to, so that was Chell’s own decision to hold onto him and to not let him fall and that shows that Chell doesn’t really fully hate him. Although, since she still refuses to speak to him, you can see that she’s just tolerating him.

It actually doesn’t matter how nice a robot is to Chell, she will still refuse to talk to them because she’s robophobic. Or at least that’s the canon of it all going by what the developers have to say and how she behaves in game.

But either way, you can still make your own interpretation of Chell regardless of that since the game allows for player choice. It’s as the developers said: ))

As for Wheatley I think final act was proof that Chell actually did forgive him and looked at him as a friend. She could let him go but she was still holding him.

((I don’t really think that the final act is proof. Chell was only holding onto him because If she didn’t, then she would have flown out into space and die. Of course, the developers made sure to leave Chell’s feelings vague by having GLaDOS be the one to exile Wheatley into space instead of Chell just letting go of him so that they could have the player project their own feelings onto the situation, but considering what we already know about Chell - with her being too stubborn to say anything and just being “pissed off” at everyone all the time, it seems like she’s just done with all of the robot shenanigans and is dying to leave the facility already.)) 

For Lego dimension, it was already confirmed that it's not canon and I see why, whole story is rushed, Chell is constantly annoyed by anything, etc. As for the file and not answering, she actually did answer in binary code, "the cake is a lie" was an answer when they asked her is someone gonna miss her if she goes missing or something like that. And I think GLaDOS used that against her, it does make sense because of both games.