portal and feminism - plot!

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she's still alive!



I really love it when pop culture actually makes me think. TBH, when I first heard of Portal, I didn't think it sounded all that interesting. And when I first heard of all the "Portal as a great feminist manifesto" buzz surrounding the game, I was like WTF, people take this shit way too seriously. Having played both Portal 1 and 2, I can now say: in both cases, I was so very wrong. And now! I want to yak at length about my thoughts re: the game, the characters, and, yes, the very awesomely (read: non-shrill/militant/batshit/beat-over-head) feminist subtext in the game.

Now, first things first:

1. THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS!

2. If you haven't already played Portal and Portal 2, or at least seen some youtubes of choice moments ... please do. It's amazing.

3. Seriously, go play it. Or watch some clips.


Plot Summary

Okay, so! First ... er, second thing I should probably do is actually give a rundown of the plot. So, uh, again. SPOILERS AHEAD. This plot summary's gonna be put in in-game chronological order, which is in fact wildly out of playthrough order, but will allow the rest of this post to make more sense. I'm also going to try to be as factual and non-opinionated as possible here.

Without further ado, here's how it all happens:

* Pre-1950s - Cave Johnson, this very stereotypically jolly-macho-50s-guy starts up Aperture Fixtures, which manufactures shower curtains. Hence the logo -- it was originally the aperture on the shower curtain. He makes big bucks.

* 1950s/1960s - Having made a zillion bucks, Aperture Fixtures becomes Aperture Science Innovators. Gradually, Cave Johnson becomes fixated on Science! and starts running experiments. Possibly around this time, Caroline becomes Cave Johnson's assistant. Cave obviously has a very "behind every great man is a great woman" outlook -- in other words, despite repeatedly praising her intelligence, Cave expects Caroline to always play second fiddle to himself. Mostly, she gets praised on her ability to follow instructions, perform as expected, and look pretty.

* During this era, test subjects are recruited from the best and brightest: astronauts, war heroes, etc. Always lagging behind his direct competitor Black Mesa, Cave Johnson becomes increasingly obsessed and cheerfully sociopathic. As part of his experimentation, portal technology is developed. Halfbaked experiments result in test subjects getting injured, maimed, diseased, and dead. Aperture Science Innovators gets dragged before Senate hearings, goes bankrupt.

* 1970s - Aperture becomes Aperture Laboratories/Aperture Science, Inc. Cave continues running batshit experiments, now on transients and bums. He's clearly growing more shorttempered and embittered. Caroline sticks by him.

* 1980s - Having contracted cancer from his own experiments, Cave Johnson is now dying and continues frantically performing experiments to try to save his own life. Caroline is still sticking by him. Employees are required to undergo mandatory testing. As a result, employees begin quitting en masse. Cave Johnson begins developing sophisticated AI to replace human test subjects.

* Around the same time, in a last-ditch plan to preserve himself, he researches uploading his personality into a computer.

* Ultimately, he dies before he can succeed. However, his research eventually bears fruit: the supercomputer GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). He also leaves instructions to upload Caroline into the computer's personality if he's dead, and to let her run Aperture Science. Additional personality cores are attached to GLaDOS to regulate her behavior/performance.

* Sometime in the late 90s, Aperture Science holds Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. Kidlet Chell is brought into work on that day. It's claimed (by GLaDOS) that Chell was adopted; there's some speculation that she might be Caroline's adopted daughter. Also on that day, GLaDOS is booted up for the first time.

* Within a picosecond of bootup, GLaDOS becomes self-aware and floods the facility with deadly neurotoxin, killing a lot of people.

* Engineers manage to attach a Morality Core to GLaDOS to prevent her from directly harming the facility's employees.

* GLaDOS presumably continues to exhibit hostility, albeit in a passive-aggressive form.

* At some point, unable to regulate her behavior, engineers attach an Intelligence Dampening Core (Wheatley) to GLaDOS to dumb her down and make her behave.

* Eventually, GLaDOS succeeds in killing and/or placing all facility occupants into stasis.

* About 10-15 years later, in the early 2000s, GLaDOS wakes Chell up from stasis and runs her through experiments. Chell performs remarkably well; GLaDOS becomes increasingly passive-aggressive-hostile while promising cake, grief counseling, and victory candescence. There are also a few signs of weird attachment ("When testing is complete, you will be ... missed!").

* As part of the testing, Chell bonds with a "Companion Cube," told he's her best friend, and then is forced to incinerate it to continue.

* Eventually, at the conclusion of testing, GLaDOS attempts to kill Chell. Chell escapes, travels through the bowels of the abandoned facility, and confronts GLaDOS.

* Chell knocks the morality sphere off GLaDOS. GLaDOS's voice changes subtly, becoming more human. At the same time, GLaDOS turns on deadly neurotoxin.

* Eventually, Chell knocks all other spheres off (Anger, Curiosity, and Logic/Cake) and tosses them all in an incinerator. GLaDOS shuts down, the facility blows up, Chell lands on the surface, unconscious... and is dragged back below and placed into stasis by automated robots.

* Without GLaDOS regulating the facility, things go seriously awry. Chell is awoken automatically after 50 days in stasis ... and then not again for hundreds of years. When she's awoken again, the facility is in shambles, the upper levels taken over by nature again.

* Wheatley -- who hints he may have tried to escape with other test subjects and failed -- comes to get her help in escaping. Together, they head for the surface and get there ... but wake GLaDOS in the process.

* GLaDOS immediately puts Chell back in testing while cleaning the place up. There's plenty of gloriously PA insults here. "Fat" "ugly" and "adopted" are GLaDOS's favorite insults.

* Chell escapes again. Accompanied by Wheatley, Chell sabotages the gun turret production line and the deadly neurotoxin. Then they go confront GLaDOS and succeed in switching Wheatley's personality into the mainframe.

* Now all-powerful, Wheatley promptly turns on Chell, preventing her from leaving and lumping her in with GLaDOS. He also puts GLaDOS into a potato battery.

* GLaDOS recognizes Wheatley as her Intelligence Dampening Core and denounces him as a moron.

* In a fit of rage, Wheatley punches them both into a Very Deep Pit. They're separated (GLaDOS is abducted by a bird).

* Chell ends up in the cavernous, sealed-off underbelly of the facility, where tests were held in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Gameplay note: these were some of the most impressively huge gaming environments I've ever been in. The size of the world was just mindblowing.

* Moving up through this area, the history of Aperture is gradually revealed. About halfway through, she reunites and forms and alliance with GLaDOS, who explains that Wheatley was busy running the place into the ground -- almost literally -- and that everything would blow the fuck up if they didn't stop him.

* While continuing to journey up, GLaDOS eventually comes to realize the role Caroline plays in her own personality.

* Eventually reemerging into the main facility above, Chell's immediately taken captive by Wheatley again and forced to run through more tests. At first he seems to experience, uh, gratification through her solving the puzzles. That quickly wears off -- as GLaDOS explains, the computer mind builds a tolerance. After that, Wheatley starts insulting Chell a la GLaDOS in an attempt to motivate her. GLaDOS effectively stuffs Wheatley in Chell's defense.

* Wheatley attempts to kill Chell and GLaDOS. Chell escapes again and begins to move ever closer to Wheatley's lair. Along the way, they discover a stash of corrupted personality cores, which GLaDOS suggests they attach to Wheatley to force another core transfer.

* Prior to confronting Wheatley, GLaDOS has a brief heart-to-heart with Chell where she assures her that she won't betray and attempt to murder her again. GLaDOS goes on to explain that all her life she's heard voices of various personality cores designed to modify her behavior, but that now she's hearing her own voice for the first time, and that voice has a conscience. Immediately prior to the last battle, she pep-talks Chell rather memorably: "Even if you still think we're enemies, we're enemies with a common goal: revenge. You like revenge, don't you? Everybody likes revenges. So let's go get some!"

* They go up; GLaDOS hacks the system to give Chell cores, and in a poetic reversal of prior events, Chell attaches cores one by one onto Wheatley and forces another core transfer. Cores are: Space core (SPAAAACE-obsessed), Macho core (endlessly regales Chell with his manliness/hits on Chell/tells Chell to get back in the kitchen, figuratively, while he takes care of business), and Fact core (totally retarded; gives out grossly inaccurate facts).

* Wheatley boobytraps the core transfer button! The facility, by this time, is about to melt down; the ceiling caves in and exposes the moon. Injured but not dead, Chell opens a portal ON THE MOON.

* Space vacuum sucks Chell, Wheatley, and the Space core out onto the moon. Space core is ecstatic; other personalities, less so.

* GLaDOS successfully takes over again, knocks Wheatley into outer space, hauls Chell back in, and closes the portal. Hours later, when Chell wakes up, GLaDOS explains that she's realized Chell is her best friend, and that she experienced a surge of compassion whilst saving Chell's life. She also explains this surge allowed her to pinpoint Caroline's imprint in her memory banks, and promptly deletes Caroline.

* GLaDOS then makes good on her promise and lets Chell go -- rationale being it's easier to let her go than to try to kill her again. On her way out, Chell is regaled by a turret symphony singing an opera that essentially says "Goodbye, my beautiful child; why don't you stay away from science?"

* Chell emerges on the surface. The companion cube, charred but otherwise intact, is hurled out after her. Door slams. Game ends!

OMFG, that summary was like 2394872398798x longer than I thought it would be. A LOT OF SHIT HAPPENS, OKAY.

Now I'm too tired to finish this rant. I'll muse more tomorrow!

1 comments:

kai said...

I didn't think it was possible for there to be more details in this game summary than you had already fanboy-squee'd to me. I confess I was wrong. I also wanna play now.

For SCIENCE.

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