| “ | 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
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” |
GLaDOS, known in full as the 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, she is able to achieve a seamless and almost infinite testing design.
She is the antagonist of Portal and the first half of the single-player campaign in Portal 2. In the later half, she briefly becomes a deuteragonist. In the game's cooperative campaign, GLaDOS is the testing supervisor of Atlas and P-body.
Biography
GlaDOS was a creation of Aperture Science, a personality core designed exactly to be fitted as a central computer mainframe. The project began under the oversight of Cave Johnson over the company, and was an attempt to create a fully functional, advanced artificial intelligence which was originally intended to be occupied by Johnson as one of his attempts to cheat death. After it became apparent to Johnson that he may die of moon rock poisoning before development on GLaDOS would be completed, Johnson motioned for the personality core to be based on Caroline instead, where she then ultimately became GLaDOS herself.
After a decade's worth of hard work, GLaDOS was officially activated in 1998, as part of one of the many events during the company's "Bring Your Daughter to Work" day. Since she is able to take control of the entire building, GLaDOS began killing most of its inhabitants by flooding the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin. However, only few if not only one of the staff such as Doug Rattmann had survived her attacks. The destruction of the company also coincided with an invasion of Earth, which had occurred two days after at Aperture's rival company, Black Mesa. This ultimately led to the negligence of the outside world from realizing Aperture's fate, as all attention had been diverted to Black Mesa and the aforementioned invasion.
As Doug Rattmann was able to evade her previous attacks, he sneaks into several departments and begin tampering with the test subject roster, rearranging Chell to the top of the list as Test Subject #1 instead. Since then, he has went into hiding as there was no possible escape from the Enrichment Center after the lockdown initiated by GLaDOS.
Now beginning the events of Portal, GLaDOS continues to operate the company all while residing in the Central AI Chamber, and at some time-frame, awakens Chell for mandatory testing. After putting Chell through a number of tests with the Handheld Portal Device, Chell was able to escape her attempt to incinerate her at the conclusion of Test Chamber 19. From there, Chell makes her way throughout the Enrichment Center to escape, only to find that the only way she could was to confront GLaDOS in her chamber, a conflict which Chell won. During the conflict, GLaDOS was heavily damaged, and remained in a dormant status for an unspecified amount of time, during which the facility degraded.
Beginning the major events of Portal 2, she was eventually reactivated through the accidental efforts of Wheatley and Chell as they try to access an escape lift to the surface in the Central AI Chamber, as both of them were trapped in the building following GLaDOS' destruction. She immediately realizes the presence of Chell and Wheatley standing before her. Despite her newly profound hatred for Chell having destroyed her, she uses Wheatley as an object for relieving her anger by crushing him.
GLaDOS then decides to return Chell to the facility's science experiments to further her cause of science, but often makes various taunts in hopes to crush her morale. However, Wheatley later resurfaces and was still alive despite the critical damage inflicted onto him by GLaDOS. With his help, Chell was able to escape from GLaDOS' testing tracks and went through the facility to sabotage her vital strategy components, such as the production of neurotoxin. Finally reaching her newly rebuilt chamber, they were then able to defeat GLaDOS together, replacing her with Wheatley as the facility's overseer. Wheatley, intimidated by GLaDOS' response to how useless he is, traps GLaDOS in a potato battery and throws her into the depths of the Enrichment Center alongside Chell.
After Wheatley became corrupted by his new position and power, GLaDOS and Chell worked together, initially as unwilling partners, to restore control over the facility (which further degraded and corrupted under the influence of Wheatley, to the point where the facility's reactor core will undergo a meltdown). During this time, the duo try to find their way out of the depths of the Enrichment Center where they approach several vintage Test Chambers previously managed by Aperture CEO, Cave Johnson and his secretary Caroline. As Chell and GLaDOS continue to journey through the pasts of Aperture Science located in the salt mine deep beneath the Enrichment Center, GLaDOS slowly becomes familiar to Johnson and Caroline. As they are finally ready to leave the salt mine, GLaDOS has an epiphany on who Caroline is but remains silent on the matter.
The duo then have made their way back to the modern Enrichment Center, where Chell later escapes Wheatley's testing tracks and attempt to battle him in the Central AI Chamber. GLaDOS proposes that Chell is to attach her back into her body to resume her control over the facility. Their attempts were eventually successful, resulting in the exile of Wheatley to outer space and the reconciliation between Chell and GLaDOS.
After repairing the entire facility to its state prior to Wheatley's control, GLaDOS begins to become even more affected by her recently acquired morality and consciousness after discovering who Caroline was. She realizes that Chell was not an enemy, but a close friend. GLaDOS then states that a surge of emotion had vibrated through her body had taught her where Caroline resides in her programming, shortly before the Announcer and her claimed to have deleted her. She then expels Chell from the facility in order to avoid further trouble to her control as she claims. However, Chell is comforted through her elevated ride to the surface by a Turret Opera which remains unknown as to why the event occurred.
Before Chell could leave the Enrichment Center for good, GLaDOS decides to return Chell's Companion Cube from her tests in Portal by ejecting it from the lift and onto her before the door to the Enrichment Center could shut itself.
Abilities and Traits
As the overseer and operator of the facility, GLaDOS is seemingly omnipotent, able to reconfigure rooms and carry out actions at her will. She monitors the facility and its test chambers through cameras mounted on walls. She also mentions that she cannot resist thinking of paradoxes if one would happen to be brought up. GLaDOS had displayed little to no emotion within her voice tone in the first half of Portal, due to being bound by the consciousness of other personality cores attached onto her for the sole purpose of restricting her control. She then becomes increasingly more agitated and is portrayed as intimidating near the end of the game. In Portal 2, she becomes extremely bitter after the events of Portal, frequently insulting Chell until the very end - where she realizes that Chell was "all along [her] best friend".
GLaDOS' consciousness had been controlled by personality cores throughout the events of Portal. If the cores are removed, the traits and morals which the cores contain would be permanently detached from GLaDOS as well, causing her to fall back to her more human and intimidating voice tone, resembling to that of her Genetic Lifeform component Caroline.
It was eventually revealed that GLaDOS was also able to reconstruct the components on her own body as well, now without the cores restricting her thoughts. She had replaced most of the broken and or missing components on her body since her awakening in the chapter, The Courtesy Call. Her newer components are sleek and black, and is of little resemblance to the original ones from her body during the awakening and Portal.
Development and Acting
GLaDOS is voiced by Ellen McLain. During Anime Midwest 2011, Ellen revealed that the concept of GLaDOS had always been a robotic voice that would pretentiously guide someone and often intimidates them. At this time, the developers had used copyrighted voice samples as a placeholder (temporary placement). As Ellen McLain had voiced the robotic the dispatcher of Combine Overwatch radio transmissions throughout Half-Life, the developers had chosen her for the role of GLaDOS. During this time, developers had kept the project a secret and had left Ellen unaware what game it is that she is voicing for. Ellen was later made aware of her work and success when Portal was finally released.
In Portal, GLaDOS' initial designs prior to the game's release vary greatly. The earliest known design of GLaDOS was a large disc with a red eyeball in the center, with the disc surrounding it and welded onto the eyeball. This concept of GLaDOS appears to be the most favorable version towards several community members and was then recreated for use by a new character entirely for the community-made machinima series, The Underground. Later on in development, the design of the large eyeball was then scrapped into a robotic body hanging upsidedown from the ceiling, with four discs surrounding above it this time. This concept has since been kept for the release of Portal, with minor adjustments such as the addition of personality cores.
The earliest known concept of GLaDOS in Portal 2 demonstrates that her body's plating was completely torn and scrapped, leaving only her head the most intact - nearing the design of her spherical-cylinder shaped head in the game's release. She had also been given a red eye color in this concept rather than her trademark yellow that was given to her in Portal. Not much else is known of her design changes for the sequel, except that the developers established that the current design of GLaDOS in Portal 2 was to signify a more antagonistic appearance and shape.
In addition, a reskin of GLaDOS' design from Portal can be found in the game files of Portal 2, presenting rust stains and scratches possibly to be used for her components scattered around in her chamber.
Gallery
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Trivia
- The acronym "GLaDOS" is a pun of the name "Gladdys" and the term DOS (Disc Operating System).
- Ellen McLain, the actress that voices GLaDOS, also provides the voice for the Administrator in Team Fortress 2 and the Combine Overwatch in the Half-Life series. This makes Ellen McLain the only voice present in every game included in the The Orange Box.
- The most favored character that Ellen McLain has voiced is none other than GLaDOS. She reveals that despite the hard effort in pulling off the voice of the Administrator from Team Fortress 2 and her unique way of ordering things, GLaDOS' character had a greater impact on her through her popular passive-aggressive behavior and subtle insults.
- During the development of Portal 2, playtesters were uncomfortable with GLaDOS as she was far too vindictive in the single-player campaign, and the developers concluded that some of her dialogue was too extreme. Due to this, elements of her dialogue were reworked, which resulted in the creation of a more amicable, passive-aggressive personality for GLaDOS.
- The acronym "GLaDOS" was never pronounced or spoken in full in the entire series. The only instances of her name are through in-game captions from both games and one of her disc generators from which the acronym was only present in Portal. In Portal 2 however, Wheatley would only refer to GLaDOS as "her" or "she".
- When GLaDOS was in potato battery form, she is commonly nicknamed by the community as "PotatOS".
See also