"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
-GLaDOS, Portal 2
"Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment center."
-GLaDOS, Portal 1
What is Portal?
Portal is a first-person puzzle video game franchise developed by Valve that takes place within the Half Life universe. In both the first game and it's sequel, you play as Chell, one of Aperture Science's many test subjects, as she is forced to complete a series of test chambers created by the A.I supercomputer, GLaDOS. (genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System)
The tests that GlaDOS made required use of the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", dubbed as simply the "Portal Gun", which create human-sized wormholes between two flat portal-conducting surfaces. People and objects can move through these with ease in order to get to otherwise unreachable areas. Various other mechanics alongside the portal gun are provided to aid test subjects such as cubes, buttons, lasers, bridges made out of light, energy pellets, etc.
Both Portal games have received overwhelming amounts of praise, and have sold millions of copies worldwide.
(Do not feel obligated to read all of this i just love portal's story so so much, might as well include all of it in my shrine dedicated to it LOL. if you do though i will be eternally grateful)
"Fine! No, absolutely fine. It's not like I don't have, you know, ten thousand other test subjects begging me to help them escape. You know, it's not like this place is about to EXPLODE."
-Wheatley, Portal 2
Portal's story:
Portal 1:
Act 1: The Test Chambers
Portal 1 begins with the player, Chell, waking up in a Relaxation Vault, where shortly, she is given a quick briefing by the disembodied voice of GLaDOS, before being released from the vault via a portal. Chell is then introduced to the mechanics that come with the testing process, she then obtains the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. As Chell navigates through the various test chambers across Aperture's Enrichment Center, it becomes increasingly clear that the facility is devoid of human life, minus chell herself, and that GLaDOS is testing Chell through her own distorted view of science.
Throughout the facility are hidden den-like spaces, containing scribblings from an unseen person warning others of GLaDOS' true intentions, as her test subjects are motivated by cake at the end of the testing track. As testing goes on, the chambers grow increasingly more complex. Once GLaDOS no longer has any use for Chell, she attempts to kill her by lowering her into an incinerator. Chell escape's her fiery fate using quick thinking, and her Portal Gun, and she escapes through the inner facility via maintanence shafts.
Act 2: The Escape
While Chell makes her way through the facility, GLaDOS attempts to lure her back with promises of cake and a party, and explains to her that the murder attempt was simply a misunderstanding. Once she realizes her attempts are in vain, GLaDOS results to taunting Chell while continuing her effort to kill her. Eventually, Chell reaches GLaDOS' lair, where she finally comes face to face with the rogue A.I.
It is revealed that GLaDOS had murdered everyone in the facility using deadly neurotoxin. GLaDOS attempts to do the same to Chell. Using the Portal Gun, Chell defeats GLaDOS by removing the personality cores attached to her and depositing them in a nearby Emergency Intelligence Incinerator, resulting in a large explosion that blows a hole in the roof dragging both Chell and GLaDOS upwards. Chell awakens to find herself above ground in the parking lot of the facility, with the burning remains of GLaDOS surrounding her.
Portal 2: Lab Rat
The Lab Rat comic bridges the gap between Portal and Portal 2, which introduces us to Doug Rattmann, a scientist at Aperture Science who survived the Neurotoxin after GLaDOS' first activation at the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, which made her self-aware and initiated a lockdown on the facility, and killed most of the scientists with neurotoxin.
you can read it here!
Portal 2:Chapter 1: The Courtesy Call
Following the events of Portal 2: Lab Rat, Chell is awoken 50 days later in her new relaxation chamber, which has the appearance of a motel room, for a 'mandatory physical and mental wellness exercise'. After a brief 'exercise', Chell returns to her sleep. She is awoken an undetermined amount of time later (a pre-recorded message says "Hello, you have been in suspension for - NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE NI-"), to the room intercom warning of an imminent core explosion. Her room is in a state of disrepair, and soon, an unfamiliar voice greets her.
Upon opening the door she finds herself face to face with a more modern-looking Personality Core whose name is later revealed to be Wheatley, the jovial AI in charge of the test subjects storage facility. After warning Chell of the likelihood of her having serious brain damage, Wheatley moves her relaxation chamber through the storage facility, crashing several times and largely destroying the room in the process, all the while ranting about the huge responsibility of taking care of the test subjects.
After successfully navigating the room to the main testing facility, Wheatley instructs Chell to go retrieve a "gun that makes holes," as it will be needed for their escape from the facility. Upon successfully acquiring the device, Wheatley and Chell make their way to GLaDOS' chamber where Wheatley claims an escape pod to the surface is located.
They find the chamber partially destroyed, with overgrown wildlife everywhere, and in the middle of the chamber lies the lifeless body of GLaDOS. After reaching the breaker room under the chamber, Wheatley attempts to find the breaker for the lift. In the process, he accidently reboots GLaDOS. Bitter at the cause of her death, she crushes Wheatley and tosses him away before dropping Chell into the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator, into the incinerator room.
Chapter 2: The Cold Boot
GLaDOS instructs Chell to retrieve the Dual-Portal Device, before guiding her back into the facility's test chambers by navigating backward through Test Chamber 19. Fixing the broken down facility while Chell is once again put through testing, GLaDOS, bitter at her murder, informs Chell that her black box forced her to relive her own murder again and again forever.
Chapter 3: The Return
When GLaDOS isn't watching, Wheatley pops out from behind a test chamber wall and reveals he survived their encounter with GLaDOS. He asks Chell to play along with the testing until he figures out a way for them to escape.
Chapter 4: The Surprise
It becomes clear that Chell does not have much time left, as GLaDOS insinuates her usefulness is coming to an end. While in a test chamber, the power is cut out and Wheatley reveals himself from behind a wall panel, under the false impression GLaDOS cannot detect him. When she does, he and Chell make a run for it through the inner facility with GLaDOS attempting to halt their progress.
Chapter 5: The Escape
Along the way, they pass a 'potato power' exhibition, held on the ill-fated 'Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. While making their way through the Turret production facility, Wheatley reveals he plans to sabotage the Turrets and neurotoxin supply so that when they face GLaDOS she will be unarmed. They successfully carry out their plan by replacing the master Turret template with a Defective Turret and using portals to redirect a Thermal Discouragement Beam to cut off the neurotoxin supply lines.
Hopeful, they make their way to GLaDOS' chamber once again for a showdown. GLaDOS, once again, attempts to kill Chell but is unsuccessful due to Wheatley's and Chell's sabotage. It is at this point that the Announcer informs them that the central core, GLaDOS, is 80% corrupt and because Wheatley is present, a core transfer is initialized. This requires both cores' approval, and when GLaDOS objects, a stalemate is reached. The Announcer informs them that a stalemate associate is required to press a stalemate resolution button for the core transfer to occur.
GLaDOS desperately attempts to block Chell from doing so but is unsuccessful, and the core transfer occurs. Wheatley is transferred into GLaDOS' body and she is removed from power. In a jubilant mood, Wheatley sends Chell on her way to the surface. He begins laughing, but it becomes unusually powerful for Wheatley. He lowers Chell back down, going on about how he did it.
GLaDOS taunts him, telling him that Chell did all the work, and in a fit of rage, he takes her core apart and places her in a potato battery. He tells Chell that he is the boss now and that she can no longer order him around. PotatOS is then shown off; Wheatley's attempt is to humiliate her. It is at this point GLaDOS reveals that Wheatley was designed to be a moron, in order to dampen GLaDOS' brainpower so that she wouldn't attempt to murder everyone in the facility. Angered by this revelation, Wheatley throws her in the lift with Chell and in a fit of rage smashes the lift downwards, where the lift floor collapses, and they fall into the depths of the facility.
Chapter 6: The Fall
Falling several miles down, Chell awakens to find herself in the very bowels of Aperture and the ruins of the old facility. She witnesses the potato GLaDOS being abducted by a bird before making her way through the ruins and entering through a closed-off area to find the old Aperture Science facility. A voice recording plays, welcoming the visitor to Aperture.
The speaker introduces himself as Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture, and introduces his secretary, Caroline. As Chell makes her way through the old facility via enrichment spheres, Cave Johnson guides the player through the tests while gradually revealing the history behind Aperture. It is discovered that Cave Johnson founded the company in the 1950s as a curtain manufacturer, becoming a self-made billionaire, before expanding into a science research company.
He built the facility in large salt mines beneath Michigan with the intention of competing with Black Mesa. In between lawsuits against his company for various mishaps and his personal rivalry with Black Mesa, who he claims stole much of his company's research, Cave slowly runs the company into the ground.
Chapter 7: The Reunion
It is revealed that in a misguided move in the 1980s, Cave bought $70 million worth of moon rocks to grind up. The resulting gel was toxic, and Cave Johnson falls gravely ill. Chell is reunited with the potato GLaDOS, found in a bird's nest, and GLaDOS insists they need to stop the corrupted Wheatley before his actions cause the destruction of the facility.
While traveling with Chell, GLaDOS comes across a portrait of Cave Johnson and Caroline, whom she finds vaguely familiar. She then finds herself unwittingly parroting a conversation between Caroline and Cave Johnson. Highly stressed, she manages to overload her battery and shuts it off temporarily. Cave Johnson's voice on the recordings now sounds frail and it is clear his health is quickly deteriorating.
In a last-ditch attempt to survive, he instructs his engineers to start research into artificial intelligence, so that his mind can be transferred into a computer. Angry at the state of affairs, he instructs his employees that if he dies before the AI is complete, Caroline is to take charge of the facility, against her wishes.
He also informs them that she can take his place in the AI. No more recordings are made, but it becomes clear that Caroline's mind was inserted into the AI, and is now a part of GLaDOS. Learning this, GLaDOS' attitude slowly changes. She begins praising Chell's progress and claims to have turned a new leaf. While making their way back up to the facility, GLaDOS observes a poster about robot paradoxes and comes up with a plan to stop Wheatley when they face him.
Chapter 8: The Itch
Chell, and GLaDOS return to find the facility in chaos. Several core meltdowns are in progress while Wheatley has been busy modifying the test chambers to his liking, including constructing Frankenturrets - crudely made walking Turret/Weighted Storage Cube hybrids.
They confront Wheatley and GLaDOS attempts to shut him down by presenting him with a logical paradox. It fails as he nonchalantly provides a false answer, apparently too stupid to understand it. The Frankenturrets, however, short-circuit, humorously indicating that they are smarter than Wheatley.
Having Chell and GLaDOS back in his clutches, Wheatley forces them to carry out his tests, revealing the need to test is an 'itch' hardwired into the AI system. Initially, Wheatley is satisfied with the testing but soon the euphoria of watching Chell and GLaDOS being tested wears off, as he builds up a resistance to the euphoric response.
Growing frustrated with them, Wheatley hints he has found other test subjects (Atlas and P-body) and that he has a 'surprise to die for' coming soon. He unleashes his surprise early when Chell steps on a booby-trapped Aerial Faith Plate, which transports Chell and GLaDOS to a platform surrounded by spiked crushing plates.
Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You
Escaping the trap, Chell and GLaDOS make their escape through the inner facility, avoiding Wheatley's attempts to kill them. They come across a room containing rejected corrupted cores and GLaDOS formulates a plan. She stays behind to carry it out while Chell makes her way to Wheatley's lair for the final confrontation, where he reveals the facility will self-destruct in six minutes.
They do battle and during its course, Chell manages to attach 3 corrupted cores onto Wheatley. This results in a core corruption of 100% and the Announcer intervenes to initiate a core transfer. GLaDOS inserts herself as the substitute core and hurries Chell to press the stalemate resolution button. Wheatley, anticipating this outcome, has booby-trapped the button and it explodes as Chell attempts to press it. She survives the explosion, to the disdain of Wheatley.
With the last of her strength, she grabs the Handheld Portal Device and shoots a portal at the Moon's surface. The resulting portals cause everything in the room to be sucked into the vacuum of space, including Chell, but she manages to hang on by grabbing hold of the panicking Wheatley. GLaDOS uses a mechanical arm to detach Wheatley from his body, who is then sucked into space and pulls Chell back through before closing the portal.
Chell wakes up later to find a worried Atlas and P-body watching over her and GLaDOS back in her body and back in charge of the facility. She thanks Chell for helping her find the Caroline inside her, before promptly deleting all traces of her. She reveals she has become weary of trying to kill Chell, and that the best course of the solution is to give Chell what she wants: her freedom.
She sends Chell on her way to the surface, where along the way she is serenaded by a Turret Opera. Reaching the top, a door opens, and Chell steps out into a picturesque sunny cornfield where the door promptly shuts behind her. Taking in her freedom, GLaDOS surprises Chell by throwing out the Weighted Companion Cube she incinerated in Portal and the door down to the facility is closed shut. The game ends with a wistful Wheatley floating aimlessly in space, admitting if he was able to go back, he would say he was sorry.
Portal's Characters:
Chell
Chell was a test subject of the Aperture Science computer-aided Enrichment Center, and was involved in the testing of the Company's Handheld Portal Device (commonly known as the Portal Gun).
She is the silent protagonist of Portal and the single-player campaign in Portal 2. Very little is known of her past, beyond her possible abandonment at birth and her stubborn will to live.
Throughout the series, Chell is antagonized by the AI and facility overseer GLaDOS during her testing courses. Wielding only the Handheld Portal Device, she eventually utilizes this device as a means of avoiding hazards and bypassing various sections of the Facility in order to escape.
According to one timeline, she likely has soulless clones made from her DNA.
Cave Johnson
Cave Johnson is the founder of Aperture Science and the posthumous overarching antagonist of Portal and Portal 2, which evolved from its precursor, Aperture Fixtures and later Aperture Science Innovators.
Cave Johnson first appeared by a username and password scrawled in one of the Rattmann's dens during Portal, and was fleshed out and provided with additional details during the Portal ARG.In Portal 2, Cave Johnson became a prominent character through a variety of automated audio recordings from 1952 to as late as sometime in the 1980s. His current status and whereabouts are unknown, but he is presumed dead due to his exposure to the toxic by-products created as a result of refining moon rocks.
Cave Johnson is voiced by American actor J. K. Simmons.
Caroline
An unseen character in the single-player campaign of Portal 2, Caroline was the personal assistant to former Aperture Science CEO Cave Johnson, until later becoming his successor.
Not much is known about her character, as she is heard at one point, briefly, through a small portion of Cave Johnson's prerecorded audio messages.
She is also mentioned in Chapter 5, "The Escape", when the player picks up the Oracle Turret on the second conveyor belt.
From the recordings, it is clear Cave Johnson holds her in high regard, remarking that "she's the backbone of this facility". Johnson later appointed her as his successor as one of his dying wishes.
Although the length of her tenure as CEO is unknown, it is clear that Johnson prized her enough to have her essence extracted into a core to oversee the Facility's operations, the core of which became GLaDOS.
Caroline is voiced by Ellen McLain.
Doug Rattman
Doug Rattmann, also nicknamed as simply the Rat Man, was a scientist at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center.
Prior to the events of Portal while GLaDOS began flooding the entire facility with neurotoxin, Rattmann is the only known employee to have survived.
A paranoid schizophrenic, he is dependent on anti-psychotic medication as a means of keeping him sane.
Rattmann does not appear in-game in any form, instead leaving behind paintings and murals which can be found throughout the backstage of various testing chambers in Portal and the single-player campaign of Portal 2.
GLaDOS
GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) is the central core designed to control, guide, and oversee the Aperture Science computer-aided Enrichment Center.
With the ability to shift and move facilities and various chambers, GLaDOS is able to achieve a seamless and almost infinite testing design whilst residing in the Central AI Chamber.
In possession of a feminine programming, she is the antagonist of Portal and the first half of the single-player campaign in Portal 2.
During the later half, she becomes the game's tritagonist. In the game's cooperative campaign, GLaDOS is the testing supervisor of Atlas and P-body.
Wheatley
The Intelligence Dampening Sphere, more commonly known as Wheatley, is a personality core of masculine programming and English West Country accent who appears in the single-player campaign of Portal 2.
He serves as the game's deuteragonist, guiding Chell through her efforts in escaping the Aperture Science Enrichment Center.
However, half-way through the game he and GLaDOS switch roles as she becomes Chell's deuteragonist and Wheatley becomes the game's main antagonist.
Wheatley is voiced by British actor and comedian Stephen Merchant.
Atlas
Atlas (referred to as Blue by GLaDOS), is P-body's short and stout companion, and is one of two playable android Test Subjects built by GLaDOS for her Cooperative Testing Initiative, which was devised to phase out human testing.
Gameplay-wise, Atlas is played by the host of the Co-op session; the player that sends an invitation.
P-Body
P-body (referred to as Orange by GLaDOS), is Atlas' tall and wiry partner in testing, and is one of the two playable android Test Subjects built by GLaDOS for the Cooperative Testing Initiative in Portal 2, which was devised to phase out human testing.
Gameplay-wise, P-body is played by the guest of the Co-op session; the player that receives an invitation, or the second player on a home console in split-screen mode.
The Adventure Core (Rick)
The Adventure Core (who calls himself "Rick") is a corrupted personality core of male programming who appears in the single-player campaign of Portal 2.
He is one of the cores retrieved by GLaDOS for Chell to attach onto Wheatley, in attempt to initiate a core transfer procedure via corrupting his control of the central core body.
The Adventure Core speaks in the manner of a stereotypical "tough guy", spending most of his time boasting about his bravery and excitement for danger. Upon seeing Chell, he flirts with her and makes increasingly chauvinistic comments. He even tries (but to no avail) to convince Chell to take a "lady break" while he deals with Wheatley by himself.
Rick, along with the other corrupted cores and the defective turrets, is voiced by Nolan North.
The Fact Core
The Fact Core is a corrupted personality core that appears in the single-player campaign of Portal 2.
Fact is one of the cores retrieved by GLaDOS for Chell to attach onto Wheatley, in order to initiate a core transfer procedure via corrupting his control of the central core body.
The Fact Core speaks like a stereotypical "know-it-all", spending most of its time rapidly rattling off various facts. While a small portion of the listed facts are true, most of them are incorrect and downright illogical. (Sometimes altering true facts into nonsense)
The Space Core
The Space Core is a corrupted personality core of male programming who first appears in Portal 2. He is the first of three cores attached to Wheatley by Chell in order to initiate a Core Transfer Procedure.
The Space Core is an example of a personality core that went insane. Because of this, the Space Sphere speaks in a hyperactive manner, constantly talking about his infatuation with outer space and how he would like to one day go to space.
His dream of going to space is fulfilled after he gets sucked through a portal that sends him and Wheatley into space. However, a small portion of his dialogue states that he eventually gets bored of space and wants to return to Earth. After the song "Want You Gone" at the end of the game, the Space Core can be seen along with Wheatley.
My personal connection to Portal:
These games are probably some of the best experiences ive had with video games to date. Which is kind of crazy, given the fact I only got into it in early 2022. I probably would've gotten into it much earlier in my life if it weren't for my 10 year long warrior cats special interest taking over my entire life. You know how it is.
I say this because indirectly through my previous fixations, I got exposed to Portal many times, some of which I had no idea were even from the games. For example, you know that one song, The Device Has Been Modified by Victims Of Science? That song has been haunting me since I was at least 10 years old. And I loved it at the time. Really wanted to know more and the character featured in it, which turned out to be GLaDOS, which I would learn many years later. Another song, Exile Vilify by The National also got this treatment from me. I discovered it specifically through a Warrior Cats M.A.P, and I remember really liking it.
I unfortunately forgot about Exile Vilify for years until I finally played Portal 2 for myself, where the song is played via radio in one of the test chambers. This surprised me immensely, and now that I was at an age where I could properly comprehend the song's meaning, I sat in that chamber for a good 10-15 minutes just listening to it, and thinking about it. I remember shedding real tears after I left that room and unintentionally destroyed the radio as I walked through the imancipation grill. It was like I had just lost a lover.
Music has always been extremely important to me, so it was no wonder I was extremely affected by Exile Vilify. I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the many reasons these games latched onto my brain like a leech, refusing to let go, with the heavy impact it had on me. It's quite funny to me how most of my early memories of Portal are all connected to music relating to it. Another instance of this is me discovering a remix of one of songs from Portal 2's ost, Your Precious Moon. It was featured in an animation meme, and me being extremely into those videos at the time just assumed it was just a regular song without any pre-existing ties to it.
Unfortunately, aside from the above, that was all the exposure I really had to Portal up until 2020, where it had multiple audios trending on TikTok [I was 14 at the time]. One of them was one of GLaDOS' speeches, and another was one of Wheatley's. Specifically his "You know what you are? Selfish. You've done nothing but boss me around-blahblahblah" speech. I don't remember if it was used with him or another character that fit the audio, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter though, Is my surprise at hearing it again when I properly got into Portal two years later.
I also had absolutely no clue how much Wheatley was going to alter the chemistry of my brain, either. He was the first Portal character i got to know outside of his source material through my Tumblr Sexyman special interest. My fixation on sexymen deserves a whole shrine of it's own at this point with how much I have to say about it, most of it being unironic. Eventually, this would lead me to becoming curious about Wheatley's source material, and so I began looking into getting into Portal. I originally was going to do this through watching a longplay of both games on YouTube, but my friend suggested watching him stream it instead. Which is exactly what I did.
Said friend had been an avid Portal fan since he was 4, so I knew I could trust him when it came to anything relating to that franchise. 6 hours later, He had beaten Portal 2 once again, and I was completely unaware of the tiny worm wiggling in my brain that I like to call "Wheatley Virus".
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A couple of hours after this event, I ended up drawing my friend's Wheatley gijinka, alongside a small doodle of his regualr core form. I would display this for fun but it is old and I don't like it anymore. I also have my own personal Wheatley gijinka now, which you can see plastered all over my art gallery. Though, this was not the thing that truly made me utterly deranged about Portal, but rather when I finally played both games for myself for the first time.
This is when my autism hit the fan when it came to Portal, and especially Wheatley. I would soon come to appreciate and care for pretty much every character in both games, which is rare for me, I should note, but it was Wheatley who I was the most strongly connected to out of the bunch. Here's a seperate dedicated page I made for him, because otherwise we'd be here for even longer. TLDR, he altered my brain chemistry in such an insane way that hadn't been seen since the Komaeda Incident of 2020, and also that I love him. Moving on.
Portal truly is a special case for me in terms of the media I like, because It'll sometimes hibernate for awhile whenever I'm consuming new media and starting the become fond of new characters, but it's always at the back of my mind. Usually when a media I get into dies down, It's gone for good, and It turns out it was just a short term fixation. Luckily for me, as Portal is one of the few medias I truly enjoy indulging in, those games stayed with me, and I expect them to stay with me for a long time into the future, as many of my special interests have.
It's also one of the few games that I still play that I own a physical copy of, thanks to my dad. He surprised me with a version of it for his ps3 not even a day after I talked about it with him.
Statistics:
- > First played: July 9th, 2023
- > Last played: July 9th, 2023
- > Achievements unlocked: 3/15
- > Total playtime: 73 minutes
Portal 1:
Portal 2: