History Characters / HalfLifePlayerCharacters

* {{Expy}}: [[{{Film/Aliens}} Marine Corporal forced to take command whilst surrounded by hostile alien monsters? "Someone wake up hicks."]]

* WalkingArmory: Over the course of his journey, he acquires a [[WrenchWhack pipe wrench]], a combat knife, a {{Laser Sight}}ed [[HandCannon Desert Eagle]], several alien {{Living Weapon}}s, an [[ColdSniper M40 sniper rifle]], and various other CoolGuns.

* ProgressivelyPrettier: Was somewhat homely in her original hologram appearances. The HD model and Decay would later [[push her age down from 31 to 25]], clean up her creases and make use of the higher polygon count to give her a prettier face.

->Voice Actor: Mike Shapiro (English)[[note]]'''Other Languages''': Olivier Deslandes (French), Erich Redman (German), Han Choi (Korean), Oleg Miroshnikov (Russian Valve dub), Dmitry Filimonov (Russian Buka dub), Javier Alcina (Spanish)[[/note]]

-> Voice Actor: Creator/MerleDandridge, Ozioma Akagha (''Half-Life: Alyx'') (English)[[note]]'''Other Languages''': Caroline Crier (French), Britta Gartner (German), Eom Hyeon-jeong (Korean), Larissa Kuznetsova (Russian Valve dub), Zhanna Nikonova (Russian Buka dub), Mari Luz Rodrigo (Spanish)[[/note]]

* EarlyBirdCameo: He's the Security Guard seen knocking at a door when you're passing by with the tram at the very beginning of ''Half Life 1''.

* YouAreInCommandNow: Shepherd finds himself the senior surviving NCO when encountering other marines who were left behind in black mesa. He can then lead them in skirmishes.

* ButNotTooBlack: Noticeably fairer-skinned than her father, commonly mistaken for a tanned Caucasian woman (even though she's half African-American, half Malaysian). This is likely a leftover from when her father was intended to be a Caucasian military man named Captain Vance, who became Eli Vance through mid-development story changes.
** Downplayed in ''Half-Life: Alyx'', as her [[https://combineoverwiki.net/images/2/21/HLA_Alyx01.jpg rebuilt 3D model]] has noticably more darker skin than her ''Half-Life 2'' model.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: After we got his own experience of the direct aftermath of the resonance cascade in ''VideoGame/BlueShift'', he became one of the most active members of the Resistance against the Combine, working for years as a [[TheMole mole]] within the Civil Protection to exfiltrate citizens of City 17 to the outskirts and protecting Kleiner's lab. After Freeman reemerged and destroyed [[TheAlcatraz Nova Prospekt]], he led the Resistance troops in the battlegrounds of City 17 for over a week, and in ''Episode One'', helped organizing the evacuation of the remaining residents of the City before its annihilation by the Citadel's destabilized core, then left on a train to an unknown location, presumably continuing his adventure somewhere else.

->'''Age:''' 27.
->'''Education:''' [=PhD=] in Theoretical Physics, MIT.
->'''Employer and Position:''' Black Mesa Research Facility, Research Associate.
->'''Assignment:''' Anomalous Materials Laboratory.
->'''Clearance:''' Level 3.
->'''Administrative Sponsor:''' Classified.
->'''Disaster Response Priority:''' Discretionary.

->'''Age:''' [[Main/VagueAge Unknown.]]
->'''Education:''' 2 years Martinson College, Undecided Major.
->'''Employer and Position:''' Black Mesa Research Facility, Security Guard.
->'''Clearance:''' Level 3.
->'''Disaster Response Priority:''' Preservation of facility equipment and materials
->'''Secondary Priority:''' Welfare of research personnel
->'''Low Priority:''' Personal safety

->'''Age:''' 22.
->'''Training:''' United States Marine Corps, Special Forces.
->'''Assignment:''' Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, Santiago, Arizona.
->'''Mission:''' Classified.

->'''Age:''' 25. [[labelnote:Note]]31 in unused files.[[/labelnote]]
->'''Employer and Position:''' Black Mesa Research Facility, Research Associate and Hazardous Environment Supervisor.
->'''Education:''' [=PhD=] in Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering, Caltech. [[labelnote:Note]]Applied Physics in unused files.[[/labelnote]]
->'''Clearance:''' Level 4.
->'''Administrative Sponsor:''' Richard Keller. [[labelnote:Note]]Classified in unused files.[[/labelnote]]

->'''Age:''' 31. [[labelnote:Note]]37 in unused files.[[/labelnote]]
->'''Employer and Position:''' Black Mesa Research Facility, Research Associate.
->'''Education:''' [=PhD=] in Electrical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon.
->'''Clearance:''' Level 4.
->'''Administrative Sponsor:''' Richard Keller. [[labelnote:Note]]Classified in unused files.[[/labelnote]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: When [[spoiler:The G-Man shows her Eli's death in the future, she immediately jumps at his offer to save him without considering the ramifications. The G-Man, of course, was counting on this.]]

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In ''Half-Life: Alyx'', [[spoiler:the G-Man shows her Eli's death five years in the future with little context, knowing she'd impulsively do ''anything'' she could to stop it. So when he offers her the chance to do so, she takes it without a second thought, changing the future - [[DealWithTheDevil and then realizes she messed up bad]] when he talks about the consequences of such an action. Alyx doesn't take it well right before she's put into stasis as a replacement for Gordon.]]

* {{Irony}}: All his papers and the game manual info taken into account, Gordon's only been at Black Mesa for maybe some odd couple of weeks or so, and his resume inclines that he wrote a thesis about studying the effects of shooting energy at crystals; by all means, M.I.T. Graduate or not he's a green-behind-the-ears nobody that got a special recommendation by Kleiner to be where he was at the definitive ground zero of the Resonance Cascade, bordering on AlmightyJanitor since he didn't even know any bigger details of the project whatsoever and was little more than a hands-on chore guy for the experiment. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And he was late to work]], earning more than a few [[NoRespectGuy ribbings from his co-workers.]] And yet in spite of all of this, that "nobody" ends up defining himself as [[ActionSurvivor one of the deadliest beings on Earth.]]

* BareYourMidriff: [[DownplayedTrope If you can call what could be at most couple of centimeters of skin a "midriff", then yes]].

* BadassNormal: As with Freeman and Calhoun. In his case though, he manages to fight through and survive against a unit of highly-trained Black Ops agents ''and'' two simultaneous alien invasions.

* SleptThroughTheApocalypse: He's rendered unconscious at the start of the game and only comes to around the same time as the HECU decides to pull out of Black Mesa, which is during the second day of the invasion.