The Clone, the Cube, and the Construct: Part 3

April 15th, 2008 · 41 Comments

All Alone

While I would like to investigate what GLaDOS says in this section (I invite players to unpack the audio and listen for themselves, or play through the final sections of the game again), I wanted to first explore what GLaDOS does throughout the game of Portal for this final critique and analysis of the game, as it’s probably the most important facet of the game and carries the most weight out of all of the designer’s decisions when making the title.

The Construct: Suicide by Chell.

One of the most amazing things to me that I found upon reflection after beating the game for the first time was how well the designers hid the learning process of the game in plain sight. By making the levels an unabashed and unapologetic tutorial section, players learned how to use the tools necessary to complete the game while staying engaged in the fiction. While this is standard operating procedure for pretty much any new IP (although rarely this successful), it is interesting to note that almost the entire game is the tutorial lesson, right up until you reach the end of course 19.

Even more interesting, however, is the idea that the designers used GLaDOS to do the teaching. We could brush this aside and say that it is merely a function of game design, but there was an important conscious decision made by the designers here. It is she, GLaDOS, and not bozo boxes (what some in the industry use to describe the pop up instructional dialog boxes), nor a narrator that guides the player as Chell throughout the test, giving hints and instructions as we make our way through the ever more dangerous obstacle course. This accomplishes two very important things:

It maintains the illusion of immersion of isolation by not introducing foreign elements or individuals.
It (intentionally or not) sets up the narrative that GLaDOS is teaching you how to kill her.

Many will pointlessly dispute the second point here, claiming that the game design requires the player to learn how to play the game, but they would be missing the point (by foolishly arguing that I take the game at face value). The fact that the player needs to be taught is not the issue. The decision to have GLaDOS be the one guiding the player is.

Not only does she hand you the tool that will allow you to reach her, and then educate you in its use (and even cheers for you like a Mother for her child learning to walk when you get it right), but she even instructs you on how to properly incinerate her once you find her. As if that wasn’t enough, she made sure to populate a course intentionally with live fire turrets so you would learn how to avoid them, and use that information to learn from the rocket turret you meet later. The very idea that all of these things combined could be just some kind of a happy coincidental game design accident is almost insulting, as the culmination of this learning process results in the “boss battle” where you take everything she has taught you and use it against her.

Is she surprised? Hardly. She taunts you by telling you that you’re heading the wrong way, and that you don’t even know where you’re going (you don’t; you think you’re escaping and she’s actually leading you right to her). And when you finally find her, she delivers one of the most amazing and revealing villain monologues I’ve ever heard:

Well you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it?
Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you’ve managed to break so far is my heart

I love this line. So passive aggressive, so maternal. And possibly so telling. Is she informing you that she’s upset you haven’t killed her yet? The only thing you’ve managed to break, so far, is her heart? This implies that you’ve either failed at breaking more, or that she knows you’re about to break something else.

Maybe you could settle for that, and we’ll just call it a day.
I guess we both know that isn’t going to happen.

While there’s apprehension in the first line (something I touched on briefly yesterday, possibly due to her love for Chell, and possibly because even though she’s orchestrated it, she fears her own demise), there is acceptance of the inevitable in the second line. Not only does she know that you will destroy her (after all, she’s taught you how to do it and given you the tools to reach her), she literally leaves you no choice by stacking the deck against you.

You chose this path [we did??], and now I have a surprise for you.

What is interesting here is that this situation begins with a stalemate. You have a portal gun. She’s stuck hanging upside down and can’t reach you. Neither party has real means of harming the other. And yet, she drops her morality core. Throughout the game, whenever GLaDOS becomes emotional (specifically during the “Wheeeeeeeeeee” moment when you fling yourself, although there are a few others), she manages to short out electrical equipment. The fact that her morality core drops off of her at the moment where she attempts to deploy the rocket turret against you is no accident, despite her tone to the contrary. Did she know that would happen when she tried to kill you? She has orchestrated this meeting from the word “Hello” at the beginning of the game. It seems only proper that even something as accidental as this would still be just another pawn in her scheme.

She then baits and taunts you to the point where the only thing left to do is drop the eye through the incinerator (just like she showed you with the cube), if for no other reason than to shut her up. Of course, this breaks the stalemate, and she deploys the rocket turret. The same one she’s already taught you how to use against her.

She even drops nerve gas on you, in order to ensure that you have no choice but to use her rockets against her. You already know how to avoid them. You could theoretically avoid them forever (you are an android, after all), so she gives you a pressure device which forces you to resolve the situation she’s thrown you into.

One could even argue that we weren’t even playing a game at all here. We, the player (or Chell), has merely been walking through one giant elaborate suicide machine of GLaDOS’s design. She even laughs in our face at our own ignorance, telling us:

This isn’t brave, it’s murder. What did I ever do to you?
You don’t even care, do you?

GLaDOS comes right out and tells us that we’re not defending ourselves, we are here to murder her (the “What did I ever do to you” is a hilarious joke, or another passive aggressive maternal rewording of “After everything I have done for you”). But the most telling line is “You don’t even care, do you?” There’s so much weight in that sentence.

She’s remorseful that you haven’t seen through her scheme; you are unaware of the plan.
She’s sad that you don’t care that you’re killing her.

I think there’s even remorse that you and she have finally met face to face, and GLaDOS has made it impossible for there to be a joyful reunion, since she has designed you from the start to kill her. While you may have been the daughter of the CEO in a previous lifetime, GLaDOS has taken your DNA and turned you into an android capable of negotiating the impossible terrain it would take to find her and destroy her. The testing course isn’t there to test the portal gun. It’s there to test and teach you. She has taken your brain scan and downloaded the new knowledge gained from every new part of the maze you accomplish before you die, and installs it in a new cloned version ready to take on the course, each new replicant making it further than the last. It doesn’t matter how long it takes each try.

The only thing that matters is that you eventually find her, destroy her, and free her from her confines.

I’m not even sure if it matters that you survive.

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Tags: combat · critique · design

41 responses so far ↓

1 Odinmagick // Apr 16, 2008 at 3:04 am

Very interesting stuffs man, I totally get what you’re saying. ^_^
2 Drew // Apr 16, 2008 at 7:16 am

Excellent critique. I hope to see more.
3 Prekabreki // Apr 16, 2008 at 3:29 pm

Still not sure about the whole android thing, but I agree with everything else!
4 Dastardly Josh // Apr 16, 2008 at 4:33 pm

I just realized I never played all the way through with the commentary on yet. I have to get on that.
The only thing I have trouble following is the clone aspect. No where in the game (and in the arg web pages) does it even suggest that Aperature Science Center was working on androids or cloning.
Excellent analysis though. IF only more developers put that much thought into creating games…
5 Jake // Apr 16, 2008 at 4:46 pm

My last thought here: when I played through test 19 I always thought she was regressing into an angry child. She starts to make lots more comments of the variety: “Well Im right cause I say so!” Her words all seem to be from a spoiled child more than caring mother. I think this means to me is this:

Chell is not GLaDOS’s cherished child. More over, Chell is GLaDOS’s toy. Cherished yes, but as soon as the toy doesn’t want to play GLaDOS starts throwing fits instead of doing psychological torture. We know she is emotionaly capable of this, but the change is very descisive.

Again, this android thing doesn’t work with the story, as its proven that GLaDOS cannot build or repair things, only change test rooms. She would need humans to make any androids. For instance, there is the turret repair room. It shows that the turrets cannot be fixed once broken, since there are no people to fix them.

I still doubt the clone scenario, but it seems alot more likley than any android contrivance.

Jake
6 Donovan // Apr 16, 2008 at 6:27 pm

Possibly, the companion cube is GlaDOS’ “broken” heart, in the sense that destroying it shows that you are capable of murder, which would upset a parent, but the constantly sarcastic GLaDOS is glad that her “heart” is broken and thus you are capable of killing her.
7 bryon // Apr 20, 2008 at 8:25 pm

@ Donovan…
I think you have hit it spot on.

“Well you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it?
Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you’ve managed to break so far is my heart.”

Up to this point Chell has only incinerated the companion cube, marked by a heart.
8 Eric // Apr 22, 2008 at 10:57 am

Portal is as deep as Team Fortress 2. You’re taking this way out of line, as ‘Still Alive’ was written to be a playful song, not a Stairway to Heaven.
9 Jason Anderson // Apr 22, 2008 at 11:05 pm

Her? The Cube is a male. And don’t even start with the “Well, maybe Chell is a lesbian” thing. Chell is a human female. The Cube is a male. A sensitive male at that. Like me.
10 her // Apr 23, 2008 at 6:43 am

Well I can see where you are trying to go…
but I don’t agree with the notion that GlaDOS is teaching you how to kill her.

The courses where after all an experiment, and the progressive difficulty increase was part of the tests.

I think that GLaDOS wanted to die as you stated, but not to get free from a prison, maybe free to process new data, after all she is happy because there is science to do
11 Kalad1 // Apr 23, 2008 at 9:35 am

Well, while I personally have issues with the “Death of the Author” philosophy(namely, if an author comes out and says something means something, that’s what it means, but if the author doesn’t, it is admittedly a tad more mutable.), I find this to be an interesting read. The GlaDOS=mother parallel you present does seem to be at least somewhat self supporting. However, the android part seems just a tad iffy, considering Chell is A. Fleshy and B. Female. The term android, while generally gender neutral, carries masculine connotations. As such, the terms Gynoid or Bioroid would probably be more appropriate. However, assuming GlaDOS is either A. Mad as a Hatter or B. has to work around her own programming routines bypasses most of the terminology issues.

I would also point out that there are a few key moments in the game where GlaDOS HAD to help you proceed further in the game, most notable being the missle turret/glass window sequence. Had she not booted that thing up, you’d have been stuck.

As to other’s comparisons of her changing ‘mood’ in regards to either suicide or motherhood, well, it’s likely based in panic-induced erratic behavior. Going with the ‘deluding herself to bypass programming restrictions to achieve suicide/escape/whatever’ thought line, in the beginning stages, it’s easy to delude herself, because they ARE just like normal tests, even if she’s teaching you essential skills to take her out. However, once you bypass the test and start crawling through the bowels of the center, it gets harder and harder to deny what she was trying to do, causing programming conflicts and further erratic behavior. Like Hal in 2001.
12 nihilix // May 3, 2008 at 11:01 pm

still alive…

This game is top-notch, because of the theme and the story, on top of first grade FPS technology.

Since I’m fascinated/obsessed with the game myself, your riffing on it is wonderful. Even if I disagree at spots.

I assume ‘the author is dead’ is shorthand for the lit crit thing where you take the work up from the table w/o thinking what the author meant. That you have to take the story as an isolated bit of art, and just analyze it from there.

I hate that. I’m a champion of context and shared knowledge and author intent does make a difference. And the commentary lines give some pretty good insight into how they were thinking.

(OTOH, you are telling a story about Chell and GlaDOS and that story itself is a story to take seriously. I guess that’s it - even if I disagree with your interpretation I appreciate the story you told.)

There are only five characters in this story - Chell, GlaDOS, the Weighted Companion Cube, the turrets, and the person who wrote on the walls. You’re making the statement that GlaDOS being the one who teaches you the levels as evidence that she’s assisting you as the tool for her suicide. Who else can teach it, though? There’s some marking on walls, but the WCC can’t, the turrets are there to kill you not help you, and getting behind the walls is a third-act-only thing.

I’ve got a bit of industry experience, and while Valve releases good games, that are tight and well integrated, stuff gets released that ‘kinda fits.’ So if there was supposed to be a rat-fella who was living behind the wall, and they took him out but left his traces, I think it’s unfair to say ‘no wait, that was pre-Chell.’

I have to give you huuuuuge props for the drawing of bondage GlaDOS. As you said, drawing it creeped you out, and looking at it creeps me out. I’m replaying the final battle for the second or third time, trying to catch all the sound cues, and thinking of her like that makes it really ooky.

Powerful, but ooky.

Thanks again!
13 Alex Sayers // May 5, 2008 at 1:06 pm

I don’t know if anyone has picked up on this yet, but I thought I’d point out that GLaDOS seems to have been designed simply as a fuel de-icing system. If you play through again you’ll notice that the projector in one of the conference rooms is displaying a presentation arguing why Aperture’s Fuel System Icing Inhibitor is better than Black Mesa’s; it also says that this system is called GLaDOS, and is “arguably alive”:

“A Case Study: Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

Defense Logistics Agency solicits bids for development of fuel system icing inhibitor (FSII).

Black Mesa FSII proposal:
-Costly: Black Mesa personel overpaid given limited skillset/ambitions.
-Design inhibits ice - nothing more.

Aperture proposal:
-Less expensive.
-Bonus to DLA: Aperture FSII inhibits ice but is also:
–A fully functioning disk operating system,
–Arguably alive.”
14 Tseng61 // May 7, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Whoever said there is no evidence AS was working on androids, you’re wrong it’s there it’s just incredibly subtle there are papers on desks that have a sketh of some sort of weird thing that certainly doesn’t look human or animal, more like a mix of technology with both of said things. It also has #19 on it or something and is stamped FAILED
15 Tseng61 // May 7, 2008 at 5:49 pm

by the way the above comment was @ dastardly josh also a correction, when I said sketh I meant sketch
16 Haoshiro // May 14, 2008 at 4:30 pm

I think you would get less objection to your articles if you simply replaced “android” with “cyborg”, which seems a more fitting and understood definition.

A human/machine hybrid.

If you’ve played through Half Life 2, you’ve seen those leg attachments before.

It seems unlikely GLaDOS itself would not have made those modifications, unless it can be done via the holding beds.
17 Rik // May 15, 2008 at 4:38 am

Yes, I felt GLaDOS intentionally trained “us” to kill her, and gave us the tools to do it.
18 MemBrain01 // May 17, 2008 at 12:11 pm

And how, exactly, is an android going to be harmed by a neurotoxin? =P
19 Benjamin Kraft // May 19, 2008 at 9:46 pm

Hey,

After having read your article series on Portal (including the bondage piece and the Venus piece), a thought sparked in my head: What if the CEO, Johnson, was so maniacal in his ways that he took his daughter, Chell, and integrated her into the Aperture Science computer system? We have seen how truly mad Aperture is inside the game, when we are allowed to view board rooms with endless powerpoint slides about the company…

This would also give GLaDOS access to Chell’s DNA, because GLaDOS IS Chell. This would also lend to the creedence that GLaDOS wants to die, because otherwise, as a computer system, she cannot die, unless she has an outside destructive force.

So, perhaps she is prodding a clone of herself to break the mobius strip she is stuck on — an unending loop of suffering and pain, due to the fact that she had her mortal life taken from her, and was granted an immortal life as GLaDOS?
20 Luke "Ruku" Sheehan // May 23, 2008 at 1:00 am

Very nicely done analysis here. Definitely bought up some excellent points about Portal and the universe surrounding it.
21 Finger // May 30, 2008 at 4:14 pm

I have to differ. While I do agree with the wide scale manipulation, and the idea of a multitude of Chell clones, I believe that GLaDOS does, in fact, enjoy her science. It wouldn’t make sense for her to be not designed to enjoy her work.

But I believe that for one thing, GLaDOS does actually hold control over her own portals. I get this from the vortex portal opening up at the end of the game; without her control, we basically see a portal storm. It may not be the same as Chell’s portals, but she does have portals.

I’m a bit uneasy about the concept of brains constantly being downloaded. I’m more inclined to believe that GLaDOS has constantly modified the course each time, and carefully calculated her comments in order to create, as you suggested, a tool. But we have to differ again; while you suggest that GLaDOS is being… well, selfish, I believe that GLaDOS is actually being more so selfless. I believe that these constant trails have all been designed to create someone capable of handling the outside world. GLaDOS almost certainly, in my mind at least, had the goal of creating, through experimentation, an individual that “thinks with portals”, is overall capable of heartlessness (the turrets have cutesy line for a reason). I think GLaDOS is actually trying to help the world. If she’s been growing clones from the CEO’s daughter, since lock down occurred in 1993(or later) and the Mesa incidents take place some where around 202X, that gives GLaDOS painstaking time to grow clones from scratch to an age of around 30.

It makes sense in my twisted mind anyways.
22 Hughes // Jun 1, 2008 at 7:34 pm

There have been some posts saying “something everyone ignored:…” and this is one of those.
Hello! GLaDOS *doesnt* die!!!
Remember? at the end, when you see hundreds of her eye things light up, and theres some commotion, possibly a mechanical crane thing moving one around (i think i remmebr something like that) the thing i DO remember is all teh other eyes you saw on GLaDOS and threw in a fire. theres a HUGE store room of em!

secondly, in the song she says she’d prefer to stay inside
and that her testing is for the good of us who are still alive. maybe shes trying to help humanity against what ever is above the surface that makes her want to stay inside. so i dont think GLaDOS’ end desire is to be killed. it might just be another step on a longer path.
23 Mattz // Jun 7, 2008 at 10:49 pm

“And how, exactly, is an android going to be harmed by a neurotoxin? =P”

You’re missing the point that to be an android doesn’t mean the human brain gets taken out and replaced with AI.

Hence, -neuro-toxin.
24 Jon // Jun 10, 2008 at 1:51 pm

for you (the main story writer) i agree and disagree.

and possibly a thing for this whole neurotoxin stuff GLaDOS put that in because chell (might) think she is human so that scares her into killing GLaDOS quicker (cause as the main story writer say she seemed mad for one reason as to why it took her so much time to find her (and kill her ))
25 Dibbler // Jun 10, 2008 at 3:05 pm

Something else that doesn’t seem to have been considered here….
The first fling into the proper guts of the Centre, just after the escape from the flame pit? Something has already crashed through those metal bars that are all twisted and caved in. A human body would just rebound and fall into the flame pit again. So there’s definitely some weight to the idea of an android-style body making the escape before.
26 Matt // Jun 13, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Another clue that help support the clone theory is that in the end, it shows a storeroom full of GlaDOS backups booting up. If there were only one Chell, what would one run through the course accomplish? That one Chell would obviously not run the course again to the same end, thus leaving one option: copies. If GlaDOS really wants to die, she must remove all of her own backups using Chell’s.
27 Mike // Jun 13, 2008 at 3:00 pm

While I think you did a great job thinking through the story, I can’t help but feel while reading all of your articles that you simply skip over a few possibilities, jumping to your own conclusions. I’ll specifically reply to the GlaDOS part here.

I don’t think that GlaDOS is leading you to kill the machine. I haven’t thought about it enough to come up with my own conclusion yet, though I most defiantly will, but something very important that I think is left out of your reasoning is the credits. The machine clearly isn’t dead, and it clearly knows it isn’t through with you. During all of the ‘PS’, ‘PS PS Extra second side note to the PS’ part of the credits, near the end, it’s constantly saying that it’s still alive. If GlaDOS had just been freed by Chell, why would it say it’s STILL alive, as if Chell had failed? If it wanted Chell to have done this, to free it, why would it be taunting with ‘I’m still alive’, implying that in Portal 2 (assumption), you will run into GlaDOS again, instead of just thanking Chell.

There is more to this, and I still think you did a good job uncovering a lot of details. This is inspiring me to come up with my own conclusions. Feel free to email with a response.
28 Shazzbaa // Jun 17, 2008 at 9:49 pm

Wow, very interesting dissection and some very well-thought-out theories here! I very much enjoyed all your articles on the subject.

I have to say, while I’m a fan of the Chell-is-a-clone-and-the-Ratman-is-a-previous-Chell theory, I’m not so big on the android thing. There’s not sufficient evidence to support it, and her being an android doesn’t really solve anything, in my mind, so it makes it much simpler to assume she’s just a clone. I prefer to see her as a modified human clone, with heel springs grafted onto her leg bones and a copy of the previous version’s mind.

Though, if she’s a clone, that also explains all the hand-prints in the “ratman” graffiti. How better for a future Chell clone to verify that the information is coming from a reliable source — namely, herself — than to find *her own handprint* beside it?

The argument for the Enrichment Centre as a vehicle for GLaDOS’ suicide is a remarkably plausible one. The only place I have difficulty believing it is when Chell escapes her “victory candescence” — GLaDOS sounds genuinely panicked, and I have a hard time buying that this reaction and subsequent glitch are an act. The only way I can reconcile this theory is to assume that GLaDOS is actually *programmed* to kill Chell (perhaps not intentionally programmed that way, but that’s a discussion for another day), and is subverting her own programming by trying to egg Chell on, trying to trick the woman into destroying her. This, even more than GLaDOS’ alleged denial, would explain her weirdly polar behaviour, occasional short-outs and glitchiness — she’s a machine trying to do the opposite of what her programs dictate.
29 oscar_sp // Jun 24, 2008 at 12:43 pm

this some of the most convincing stuff i’ve ever read.
30 Block // Jun 24, 2008 at 3:25 pm

I haven’t even played portal (no money ) and still I find this very interesting.
31 Andy of Comix, Inc. // Jun 26, 2008 at 1:39 am

Portal’s story makes more sense after you’ve played Narbacular Drop.
32 gary // Jul 14, 2008 at 2:19 pm

if there is blood how is it not a human
33 Fraser Stevenson // Jul 25, 2008 at 6:32 am

There’s actually a line in the final boss battle when GLaDOS says they she has deleted Chell’s backups. Why else would Chell have backups if it wasn’t for some kind of replication.. Unless Chell is the final Cylon..;)

It’s also true that the death of a copy would not be mourned. If Chell was adopted, assuming GLaDOS was telling the truth, then C Johnston would not necessarily have any problem at handing over his ‘daughter’ for replication/testing.
34 Ari // Jul 26, 2008 at 12:44 pm

All of your insight into the Portal story is utterly fascinating; it gives me chills every time I read it, and yes, I do keep coming back to read it. Its brilliant. Even if you’re pulling meaning out of something that in actuality, means nothing, you’re still weaving a brilliant story that the developers of the game would be jealous of. The depth of this is amazing.
35 Tyren // Jul 27, 2008 at 9:56 pm

For everyone complaining about how GLaDOS didn’t die, thats the whole point of his look at the “Still Alive” song. That song is very, very different if you apply the sarcasm that is GLaDOS’s trademark to it.
36 Tyren // Jul 27, 2008 at 9:58 pm

For everyone complaining about how GLaDOS is still alive, please read this guys look into the song “Still Alive”. Once you apply GLaDOS’s trademark sarcasm, it explains it quite well.
37 TheTurnipKing // Aug 4, 2008 at 4:02 am

and the cake in the basement surrounded by Glados’s “eyes”?
38 JQP // Aug 15, 2008 at 12:50 am

I believe that, firstly, interpretation of the “bring your daughter to work day” comments as maternal is somewhat stretching the meaning of that statement as I seem to recall the aperture site very heavily hinting that the GLaDOS incident started on bring your daughter to work day. You are most likely the CEO’s daughter and he did die before the portal project explaining the orphan comment GLaDOS makes. Most importantly I don’t think GLaDOS’ goal was suicide as the song and the image of more cores at the end of the game seem to be pretty explicitly pointing out she is still alive. If suicide was GLaDOS’ final goal she would have lead you to her backups. Instead I choose to take these items a little closer to face value and think of GLaDOS more similarly to the G-man; testing Chell and preparing her for her [most likely] unfinished and important role in the combine confrontation.
39 JRS // Aug 22, 2008 at 3:18 pm

The clone idea could not be far from reality. Valve is adding the portal flash game map pack to the portal still alive game for the 360. If you have played that, you’ll see there is a cloning room with chell.
40 JRad // Aug 23, 2008 at 4:42 pm

As I stated before you made great points…but some of the dialogue of GLaDOS in the final battle makes me disagree.

“You were giving every opportunity to succeed”

You mentioned that this and other quotes of her were her subtle ways of letting you know she wanted this from the start. But what makes me disagree is the line she says DIRECTLY after this one. And it goes:

“There was even going to be a party for you…”

Yeah that whole shpeel. That line was obviously a lie like everything else she says. By saying this line with the other one, I think she actually WANTS you to believe that the “victory condolences” (when headed for the pit of flames) was you succeeding and that there was going to be a party if you would have just stayed on that platform.

Which leads me to another point. You mentioned when GLaDOS feels strong emotion, she malfunctions. Going by this, when you leave the platform, she glitches saying something like:

“HEY…WHAT ARE YOU DOING…I..I..IIIIIII…………………..We are pleased” blah blah blah

Going by what your saying, wouldn’t the emotion causing the glitch be relief or happiness at the fact that Chell is now one step closer to killing her as she wants? The more appropriate emotions I sense at this part is astonishment, and more importantly, panic. And because this was shocking and unexpected to her, she really doesn’t know what to say to stop you so she turns to even more petty, childish insults and lies, making herself look even more desperate to stop you. As I read, almost like a child throwing a temper tantrum and throwing a fit because her toy isn’t doing what SHE wants it to do. (Meaning burn in the flames and die.)

And as for WHY she is doing all this w/ the training and the portal gun can be answered in the final battle by GLaDOS:

“I let you survive this long because I was curious about your behavior. But you’ve managed to destroy that part of me.” (Hence when you destroy that yellow/orange curiosity eye.)

I don’t doubt that Chell was a pawn in GLaDOS’s little game. But the only game I see is her just toying with Chell just for fun and curiosity to see what she’ll do. And one might say “Hey, GLaDOS always lies so whose to say she wasn’t lying about being curious?” Very true. But the fact that she said this directly after you destroyed the “curious” eye is very coincidental.

And I must admit that your whole breakdown of the song was very intelligent. But unfortunately, even taking into account the immense sarcasm, I feel the song is nothing more than a light slap-in-the-face to Chell for not succeeding in her goal of killing GLaDOS and, ultimately, setting up for a Portal 2.
41 Rametarin // Aug 25, 2008 at 8:17 am

..Are those… Team Fortress characters on the aperturescience.com tree!?