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alias_sqbrI don't know if anyone cares but my brain has been pondering these characters and their relationships to each other.
If you haven't played Portal and Portal 2 they're (a)amazingly awesome puzzle games and (b)Have pretty good science fiction plot integrated between the puzzles with a very strong focus on some great, if loosely sketched, female characters.
SPOILERS!
n.b. I'm going to ignore the plot holes and Doyle-ist explanations for things and pretend it's all one coherent story.
I find Caroline fascinating. What was she like? How much of GLaDOS is a reflection of her? Yes, she acted as a conscience of sorts, but "more unwilling to kill people than GLaDOS" doesn't tell you much about a person.
GLaDOS has always read as an older woman to me, her demeanour reminds me of some of the polite, passive aggressive, implacably steely female scientists in their 50s-60s I've met. (Though they have all been much nicer and not remotely homicidal) And Caroline must have been at least 50 when she was scanned.
It was interesting reading the timeline for the Halflife and Portal games. I haven't played Half Life, though I have read Concerned which is basically the same, I'm sure :)
Here's a video of Caroline being introduced and then Chell looking at the portrait of Johnson and a woman one assumes is Caroline.
A collection of Johnson and Caroline audio files including some unused quotes of her saying "I don't want this Mr Johnson".
Caroline joined the company some time before 1961, which is about when the first recordings we hear were made. She looks to be at least in her 30s in the picture from the 1970s. So let's assume she was born around 1935. That would put her at her around 50 when Johnson started dying and said she should be put in charge, and around 60 when GLaDOS started coming together. She was presumably scanned sometime during this period.
It's not clear what happened to Caroline after she was scanned, maybe she was still alive during the events of Portal, which is set some time in the mid 2000s when she'd have been around 70. Unless she was put into storage, of course, or it was a destructive scan. Or, given that the "GL" in GLaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform, maybe she's literally part of GLaDOS. I doubt that Caroline was ever in charge of the company as a human or she'd have not allowed herself to be scanned. Unless she just didn't want to be in charge and was ok being scanned, HMM.
It seems from Johnson's comments and that audio that she didn't want to be scanned and put in charge, but that she was very enthusiastic about science. I'm assuming she can't have been totally against the testing or she'd have quit, and GLaDOS reacts in a very positive way to Johnson's statements. For a woman of that era being a assistant to the head of a science company was about as close to being a scientist as she was likely to get unless she was willing to really rock the boat.
I looked up the voice actress and she comes from Tennessee, googling the history of the region I was reminded that gender was not the only barrier to advancement in those days. The game utterly glosses over race as an issue though, for example Chell's ethnicity is deliberately vague (but plausibly Latina)
Now, Chell. As discussed on the wiki she was probably born some time in the late 80s, the adopted daughter of a Aperture employee. She came to "Bring your daughter to work day" as a child and survived the neurotoxin attack and then was stuck in the centre with the other survivors (which may or may not have included her father) until the events of Portal. No wonder she refuses to speak to GLaDOS, she must hate her.
GLaDOS is complicated.
There's the main computer (that Wheatley is plugged into for a while), the basic GLaDOS personality core that gets put onto the potato, and the extra personality cores.
The main computer forces the controlling core to want to test with a combination of euphoria and withdrawal. It also seems to inspire homicidal megalomaniac tendencies.
The four personality cores affecting GLaDOS during Portal were morality, curiosity, knowledge and anger.
The basic GLaDOS core seems to be very much based on Caroline. Like the original GLaDOS she is snarky, resentful, passive aggressive, and arrogant, but much more sensible, empathetic and calm. (I don't know if she's as intelligent, she certainly doesn't help solve any of the puzzles, even though she's seen them all before *mutters, ignores the fact that this would have ruined the game*)
GLaDOS clearly sees herself as the same person whether she's plugged into the main computer or not, as does Wheatley. She describes the other personality cores as voices in her head trying to confuse her, while Caroline is her own voice. It seems to me that any AI is a combination of a primary I personality, some unconscious drives it can't control (such as the need to test), and extra personalities which shout in it's head but don't get to make any direct decisions. It seems like even the pared down GLaDOS core contains both a GLaDOS "I" and a separate Caroline personality, though the two are very closely linked.
I liked Wheatley but don't have much to say about him except that I don't think he is actually all that stupid (and the way the term "moron" was used about him skeeved me a bit, since unlike the "fat" and "adopted" insults it wasn't blatantly unwarranted), while not particularly intelligent his main flaw is poor judgement, which is different.
My vague personal canon is that Aperture made the non sentient backbone of the main computer system, then made the GLaDOS personality from Caroline and stuck her in. And then she tried to kill them, and refused to run the tests. So they added extra personality cores and the testing compulsion and kept fiddling until she seemed to work the way they wanted, at which point the original Caroline personality wasn't very evident. The other option is that they never developed scanning, they used a combination of personality cores to model her. Or, in the other direction, every sentient personality core is based on scans of one or more real people, a bit like the personalities in DollHouse (as I saw someone point out somewhere, the name Caroline pops up in both)
I want you gone (which has lyrics) seemed like a very femslashy song to me, though that may be my love of rivalries with doomed tragicomic femslashy subtext showing. But after reading up on Chell's history, even apart from the age gap GLaDOS is a bit too much of a weird evil stepmother figure for me to ship them, it would be a bit like shipping Rapunzel and Gothel. I'm not put off by the fact that GLaDOS is a giant computer and it seems like the closest thing she has to a sexuality is running scientific tests, though :) EDIT: Heh, just spent afternoon reading Chell/GLaDOS fanfic. Turns out it doesn't squick me if I assume GLaDOS and Caroline are fairly distinct and that Chell escaped for ten years or so somehow or... something.
And in further "That's a weird intense dynamic they've got there", a translation of the operatic bit at the end, which can be summed up as "Oh my dear, my beautiful child. Chell, it's too bad, goodbye. Why don't you stay so far from science?"
ANYWAY. Those are my thoughts. I have some further thoughts about the way Aperture science worked as a company at various points in it's history and what will happen to Chell now based on my shallow understanding of the HalfLife universe but this is rambly enough. I may go play Portal again now :)
If you haven't played Portal and Portal 2 they're (a)amazingly awesome puzzle games and (b)Have pretty good science fiction plot integrated between the puzzles with a very strong focus on some great, if loosely sketched, female characters.
SPOILERS!
n.b. I'm going to ignore the plot holes and Doyle-ist explanations for things and pretend it's all one coherent story.
I find Caroline fascinating. What was she like? How much of GLaDOS is a reflection of her? Yes, she acted as a conscience of sorts, but "more unwilling to kill people than GLaDOS" doesn't tell you much about a person.
GLaDOS has always read as an older woman to me, her demeanour reminds me of some of the polite, passive aggressive, implacably steely female scientists in their 50s-60s I've met. (Though they have all been much nicer and not remotely homicidal) And Caroline must have been at least 50 when she was scanned.
It was interesting reading the timeline for the Halflife and Portal games. I haven't played Half Life, though I have read Concerned which is basically the same, I'm sure :)
Here's a video of Caroline being introduced and then Chell looking at the portrait of Johnson and a woman one assumes is Caroline.
A collection of Johnson and Caroline audio files including some unused quotes of her saying "I don't want this Mr Johnson".
Caroline joined the company some time before 1961, which is about when the first recordings we hear were made. She looks to be at least in her 30s in the picture from the 1970s. So let's assume she was born around 1935. That would put her at her around 50 when Johnson started dying and said she should be put in charge, and around 60 when GLaDOS started coming together. She was presumably scanned sometime during this period.
It's not clear what happened to Caroline after she was scanned, maybe she was still alive during the events of Portal, which is set some time in the mid 2000s when she'd have been around 70. Unless she was put into storage, of course, or it was a destructive scan. Or, given that the "GL" in GLaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform, maybe she's literally part of GLaDOS. I doubt that Caroline was ever in charge of the company as a human or she'd have not allowed herself to be scanned. Unless she just didn't want to be in charge and was ok being scanned, HMM.
It seems from Johnson's comments and that audio that she didn't want to be scanned and put in charge, but that she was very enthusiastic about science. I'm assuming she can't have been totally against the testing or she'd have quit, and GLaDOS reacts in a very positive way to Johnson's statements. For a woman of that era being a assistant to the head of a science company was about as close to being a scientist as she was likely to get unless she was willing to really rock the boat.
I looked up the voice actress and she comes from Tennessee, googling the history of the region I was reminded that gender was not the only barrier to advancement in those days. The game utterly glosses over race as an issue though, for example Chell's ethnicity is deliberately vague (but plausibly Latina)
Now, Chell. As discussed on the wiki she was probably born some time in the late 80s, the adopted daughter of a Aperture employee. She came to "Bring your daughter to work day" as a child and survived the neurotoxin attack and then was stuck in the centre with the other survivors (which may or may not have included her father) until the events of Portal. No wonder she refuses to speak to GLaDOS, she must hate her.
GLaDOS is complicated.
There's the main computer (that Wheatley is plugged into for a while), the basic GLaDOS personality core that gets put onto the potato, and the extra personality cores.
The main computer forces the controlling core to want to test with a combination of euphoria and withdrawal. It also seems to inspire homicidal megalomaniac tendencies.
The four personality cores affecting GLaDOS during Portal were morality, curiosity, knowledge and anger.
The basic GLaDOS core seems to be very much based on Caroline. Like the original GLaDOS she is snarky, resentful, passive aggressive, and arrogant, but much more sensible, empathetic and calm. (I don't know if she's as intelligent, she certainly doesn't help solve any of the puzzles, even though she's seen them all before *mutters, ignores the fact that this would have ruined the game*)
GLaDOS clearly sees herself as the same person whether she's plugged into the main computer or not, as does Wheatley. She describes the other personality cores as voices in her head trying to confuse her, while Caroline is her own voice. It seems to me that any AI is a combination of a primary I personality, some unconscious drives it can't control (such as the need to test), and extra personalities which shout in it's head but don't get to make any direct decisions. It seems like even the pared down GLaDOS core contains both a GLaDOS "I" and a separate Caroline personality, though the two are very closely linked.
I liked Wheatley but don't have much to say about him except that I don't think he is actually all that stupid (and the way the term "moron" was used about him skeeved me a bit, since unlike the "fat" and "adopted" insults it wasn't blatantly unwarranted), while not particularly intelligent his main flaw is poor judgement, which is different.
My vague personal canon is that Aperture made the non sentient backbone of the main computer system, then made the GLaDOS personality from Caroline and stuck her in. And then she tried to kill them, and refused to run the tests. So they added extra personality cores and the testing compulsion and kept fiddling until she seemed to work the way they wanted, at which point the original Caroline personality wasn't very evident. The other option is that they never developed scanning, they used a combination of personality cores to model her. Or, in the other direction, every sentient personality core is based on scans of one or more real people, a bit like the personalities in DollHouse (as I saw someone point out somewhere, the name Caroline pops up in both)
I want you gone (which has lyrics) seemed like a very femslashy song to me, though that may be my love of rivalries with doomed tragicomic femslashy subtext showing. But after reading up on Chell's history, even apart from the age gap GLaDOS is a bit too much of a weird evil stepmother figure for me to ship them, it would be a bit like shipping Rapunzel and Gothel. I'm not put off by the fact that GLaDOS is a giant computer and it seems like the closest thing she has to a sexuality is running scientific tests, though :) EDIT: Heh, just spent afternoon reading Chell/GLaDOS fanfic. Turns out it doesn't squick me if I assume GLaDOS and Caroline are fairly distinct and that Chell escaped for ten years or so somehow or... something.
And in further "That's a weird intense dynamic they've got there", a translation of the operatic bit at the end, which can be summed up as "Oh my dear, my beautiful child. Chell, it's too bad, goodbye. Why don't you stay so far from science?"
ANYWAY. Those are my thoughts. I have some further thoughts about the way Aperture science worked as a company at various points in it's history and what will happen to Chell now based on my shallow understanding of the HalfLife universe but this is rambly enough. I may go play Portal again now :)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 04:14 am (UTC)It's also worth noting that all of the dialogue characterising him as "stupid" and so on is from GLaDOS. She's not exactly portrayed at any point as a good source of accurate descriptions of other people.
The thing is, though, Wheatley isn't particularly intelligent. He can't work out some fairly basic things, like how to deal with the scanner that checks the turrets, he doesn't notice when he's opened a door, which implies that he pretty much did it by fluke since he was then still trying to "hack" it, the testing chambers he devises without using ones GLaDOS designed are ridiculous, and he falls for GLaDOS prompting him to speak of the solution to a puzzle immediately after finding out that doing just that gets him some kind of automated punishment.
I'm not sure where "ablist tropes about intelligence" fits, to be honest. They rather more seem to be dodging some. Wheatley is articulate, never says the word "Duh", and is interested and engaged in trying to solve problems that present themselves to him. Despite being overall presented as kind of the Aperture Science robotic equivalent of a total loser, he does get some snappy dialogue, and despite being engineered to be bad at everything, he doesn't fail at everything he does.
And his turning evil isn't because he rose above his due station in life or anything, it was the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" trope instead.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-21 10:03 am (UTC)I agree: Wheatley isn't very clever. But (as I think you agree) it's not his defining flaw, he's much more intelligent than the Space Sphere, for example. I also agree that the problem with Wheatley getting in charge isn't that he's less intelligent than GLaDOS, it's the way he lets the power go to his head and refuses to do obvious sensible things like dealing with the reactor meltdown. I don't know that's he's ever any more evil than GLaDOS, anyway. He's just slightly more dangerous, making her the "better" choice by default.
t's also worth noting that all of the dialogue characterising him as "stupid" and so on is from GLaDOS. She's not exactly portrayed at any point as a good source of accurate descriptions of other people.
Yes, GLaDOS is very unreliable. But when she calls Chell fat or makes fun of her for being adopted etc she is either contradicted by the text or at least not supported by it, we're obviously not supposed to take her side. But when she calls Wheatley a moron he is behaving in a not very intelligent, thoughtless, counterproductive way, and there's jokes where he says "I am not a moron!" while simultaneously demonstrating his lack of intelligence/poor judgement etc. I think we are supposed to sympathise with GLaDOS in those moments, and thus think she's at least somewhat justified in calling him a moron.