History TearJerker / Portal

** The Space Warden Cave Johnson gets shived by criminals during a power blackout. He is actually in the process of dying when he addresses you.

** One of the things she says after [[spoiler: supposedly deleting Caroline]] is [[AC: "Killing you? Is hard."]] She has Chell [[spoiler: trapped in a situation with no escape, faced with four turrets, killing her would be extremely easy... Yet [=GLaDOS=] just sings her a song.]] Killing Chell isn't hard for her ''physically'', but '''''emotionally'''''.

*** By that time, the Sun would have reached the end of its main sequence lifespan, swelled up, swallowed Earth and exploded its outer layers, leaving a white dwarf behind. Chell and GLaDOS would both have died in their sleep, meaning that the announcer's audio could have just been broken and repeating itself.

* The Curiosity Core is a childish, naive little AI that asks questions about anything it sees and cheerfully greets you once it recognizes you, all in a cutesy voice that sounds like the turrets but absent the creepiness. [[spoiler:It's also the second core you incinerate. Its scream is also pretty horrible to listen to.]]
* '"Look, we're both stuck in this place. I'll use lasers to inscribe a line down the centre of the facility! And one half will be where you live, and I'll live in the other half. We won't have to try to kill each other, or even talk if we don't feel like it!"' [[=GLaDOS=]] actually sounded a bit freaked out here...or as much as a computer/robot/AI thing could.

*** By that time, the Sun would have reached the end of its main sequence lifespan, swelled up, swallowed Earth and exploded its outer layers, leaving a white dwarf behind. Chell and GLaDOS would both have died in their sleep meaning that the announcer's audio could have just been broken and repeating itself.

*** By that time, the Sun would have reached the end of its main sequence lifespan, swelled up, swallowed Earth and exploded its outer layers, leaving a white dwarf behind. Chell and GLaDOS would both have died in their sleep.

* The Curiosity Core is a childish, naive little AI that asks questions about anything it sees and cheerfully greets you once it recognizes you, all in a cutesy voice that sounds like the turrets but absent the creepiness. [[spoiler:It's also the first core you incinerate. Its scream is also pretty horrible to listen to.]]

** The real moment is just at the end of his rant. [[spoiler:Even though it sounds mostly in [=GLaDOS=]' usual monotone, something about this moment...]]

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* At the end of the game, [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] has Chell trapped on the elevator where the turrets could have easily delivered a lethal blow. However, she lets Chell go. [=GLaDOS=] is demonstrating how sincere her last words to Chell were and possibly even suggesting that she could've killed her at any moment but just chose not to; be it out of caring or curiosity.]]

** The turret voices have been updated in ''Portal 2'', with a heartrending "Nooooooo!" if you fling them into space. [[spoiler: Thankfully, the turrets forgive you in the end and sing you a song.]]

** It doesn't help that the Earth is already ravaged by the Combine. Who knows what horrors are waiting for her on the surface? For all we know, she could've been shot by a Strider or turned into a Zombie.

** Even after Chell gets out of Aperture science and she's totally in freedom with her companion cube, remember something, in the start of the game, you woke up to do your physical exam, just 2 months after Chell killed [=GLaDOS=] (The announcer said 50 days), and when you go back to sleep, you find out that Chell was "Asleep" (Well, she maybe sleeped in a cryo-genic chamber)for 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 years if you count the nines the announcer said in the game files, if you give those nines to google it will spit out 2.73791e56, the calculator will give you 3.129488844409788e24, put the number back and it will give you 778684960148.6571, those are the years that Chell had been sleeping for. [[spoiler: You know what it means,right? She's like the last human on earth, maybe, after [=GLaDOS=] killed the humans that were left on the old Aperture, and remember too that Portal is on the Half-Life universe, Gordon Freeman may be dead, Alyx, Kleiner, Everyone, dead. Or they just maybe succeeded and saved the human race and their civilization, and everything that Chell knew tons of ages ago, will have nothing to do with the present. And maybe there will be some humans left, but she is isolated, and she's maybe going to die alone, helpless, with a companion cube, she will have it hard trying to find food, a comforting bed, and maybe, civilization out of that field. ]]

* The end of Chapter 5, if you think about it. You're so close to achieving your goal, [[spoiler:Wheatley is getting you out at long last,]] only for the triumphant music to suddenly take a dark turn... and you watch as everything starts to go terribly wrong and [[spoiler:Wheatley, your one friend]] starts to lose it[[spoiler:, [[DrunkWithPower mad with power]] and suddenly turning on you, claiming your work was his]]. The worst bit? When the music swells again, you can hear nearly the exact same victorious music from merely a MINUTE ago, when you had seemingly won, but now it serves as a [[DarkReprise Dark Reprise]] of what you almost had together. [[spoiler:Why, Wheatley? Why?...]]

** What makes the above (including the farewell) even more sobering is when you stop and actually realize that these recordings are all that's left of Cave Johnson, and that they'll almost certainly never be heard again. [[spoiler: They, along with his image and the parts of the facility he oversaw himself, will now sit underneath Aperture Laboratories forgotten, in silence, forever]].

*** "Haec omnia transeunt" [[spoiler: All things pass away]]
** [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments It's implied in the Co-op mode, however, that]] [[spoiler: [=GLaDOS=] eventually got to link herself with the old facility's power grid, which means that she, along with her new batch of test subjects, hasn't seen and heard the last of Cave Johnson]].

** The recording you hear before the [[spoiler: Conversion Gel]] chamber.[[spoiler: "Welcome to the Enrichment Center...*cough*"]] At this point, [[spoiler: with just that one line of dialogue, you already know everything about Cave's situation. He's broke. He's sick. He's completely demoralized. The enthusiasm of a once magnificent entrepreneur and one of the greatest minds of a generation, gone. All that remains is science, and so, almost as soulless as the robots installed to replace his management, Cave greets you with a simple line...and yet the way he says it, all the subtext of a defeated man...]]

** For a bit of horror mixed in, remember that this IS the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' universe, and there are very likely to be mind-breakingly horrible things [[spoiler: in space.]]
* At the end of ''Portal 2'', [[spoiler: when [=GLaDOS=] says she's letting Chell go and deleting Caroline. She could've killed Chell and deleted Caroline easily while you were knocked out, but she didn't. It's implied by her actions and "Want You Gone" that she lied about deleting Caroline to intimidate Chell into never coming back, probably because [=GLaDOS=] is worried she'll go insane again.]]

** What's more, in another tear-jerking occasion at the end and also possibly a contradiction, [[spoiler: the turrets singing the "Cara Mia" opera at the end. Translated, the lyrics are a final farewell to Chell as she ascends to the surface, possibly organized by the Caroline part of [=GLaDOS=].]] Personally, it was perhaps the most emotionally affecting part of the whole ending ([[spoiler:and not because of the beautiful soprano]]).

* When you wander into the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day Science Fair in ''Portal 2''. [[spoiler: There are names on all of the projects, and on the very last project, in small grade-schooler scrawl, is written 'Chell'. This has led to theories that she was a daughter of scientists working there, and they were most likely killed by [=GLaDOS=].]]

** When picking up the Oracle Turret for the first time, she just sounds so relieved and sad and exhausted in those two words: "''Thank you...''"

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9t6zGesLi0&feature=related Here's]] another music video, made specifically for a contest, with Wheatley singing it. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Well, that is until you realize that he's singing it [[spoiler: in space...]]
* Is Caroline's consciousness really stuck inside [=GLaDOS=], alone and unloved, for eternity? That's pretty heartbreaking. %% Speculation on this point does not belong here.

* In Co-Op mode, one of the voice-overs [=GLaDOS=] is her saying you both have gotten very close, and she's known one other team like you. [[spoiler: One was "an imbecile" she had to destroy, the other she doesn't elaborate on. Obviously, this is referencing Wheatley and Chell, and how they did have a friendship between each other as they tried to escape the facility, before Wheatley goes [[DrunkWithPower mad with power]]. Thanks for depressing me with the reminder that Wheatley is stuck in space, unable to apologize for what he did, game!]]
** Most of [=GlaDOS=]' comments in Co-op are sad when you realize she's saying things she told Chell in single player [[spoiler: Because she might miss her after all]]. Like the deer, the weight thing, ect. [[spoiler: Plus her reference about how human subjects are better doesn't help... She says it in a cruel way, but that's just how [=GlaDOS=] is. Tsundere much?]]
* In the final Co-Op level, when you [[spoiler: find the vault containing human subjects]] you see a reprogrammed turret which screamed [[spoiler: "I need to protect the humans!"]] The turret is quickly killed off by [=GlaDOS=] just so she could deploy blue gel (and possibly silence the turret).

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcBVf5Nq-To PotatOS Lament]], the menu theme that plays while you're in [[spoiler:the old Aperture Science testing spheres]] is a sad piece of music on its own, but it's made even sadder due to who's singing it: [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] herself, after being usurped by Wheatley, turned into a potato, and tossed down an elevator shaft into the depths of Aperture]]. The sheer emotion in [[spoiler: her]] voice is enough to shed tears.
** Fan theories have suggested that [[spoiler: it's actually ''Caroline'' singing and not [=GLaDOS=] ]]. This actually makes things worse: [[spoiler: Caroline had already gone through the procedure that would transform her into [=GLaDOS=] and went crazy, but at least she had control over the Aperture Science facility as a consolation. Now she's been stripped of even that, and thrown into the depths of Aperture Science, where (had Chell not found her) she would have laid. [[AndIMustScream Forever]] ]].
* This is definitely YMMV given people's opinions, but [[spoiler: every single time Wheatley says "I! AM! '''NOT!''' A MORON!"]] can be a TearJerker, because he sounds not only offended, but heartbroken that [=GLaDOS=] and even worse, his best friend, thinks he's stupid, and the fact that [=GLaDOS=] constantly asserts he is one makes all of his plotting look like someone desperately FeigningIntelligence. The idea that Wheatley tries to kill someone just so they'll think he's smart is eerily similar to the behavior of neglected children who do terrible things so their parents will be proud or even just notice them.
* Once again YMMV, but [[spoiler: during the final boss battle, one of Space Core's lines. Even though he's a robot, in any other situation...]]
--->[[spoiler: Space Core: Dad! I'm in space! [low-pitched 'space' voice] I'm proud of you, son. [normal voice] Dad, are you space? [low-pitched 'space' voice] Yes. Now we are a family again."]]

* This is definitely YMMV given people's opinions, but [[spoiler: every single time Wheatley says "I! AM! '''NOT!''' A MORON!"]] can be a TearJerker, because he sounds not only offended, but heartbroken that [=GLaDOS=] and even worse, his best friend, thinks he's stupid, and the fact that [=GLaDOS=] constantly asserts he is one makes all of his plotting look like someone desperately FeigningIntelligence. The idea that Wheatley tries to kill someone just so they'll think he's smart is eerily similar to the behavior of neglected children who do terrible things so their parents will be proud or even just notice them. ]]

* In regards to whether [=GLaDOS=] [[spoiler:deleted Caroline]] or not, WordOfGod confirms [[spoiler:[[http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/26/erik-wolpaw-on-portal-2s-ending-the-spoiler-is-probably-lurking-out-there-somewhere/ she did]].]] Except for ''now'' WordOfGod says that [[spoiler:[[http://www.fastcompany.com/1750003/portal-2-valve-eric-wolpaw-jeep-barnett-doug-lombardi she only ''might'' have deleted Caroline.]]]] Oh Valve and your ability to change your mind that leaves things up for speculation! [[spoiler:So Caroline might not be deleted after all!]]

** Even after Chell gets out of Aperture science and she's totally in freedom with her companion cube, remember something, in the start of the game, you woke up to do your physical exam, just 2 months after Chell killed GLaDOS (The announcer said 50 days), and when you go back to sleep, you find out that Chell was "Asleep" (Well, she maybe sleeped in a cryo-genic chamber)for 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 years if you count the nines the announcer said in the game files, if you give those nines to google it will spit out 2.73791e56, the calculator will give you 3.129488844409788e24, put the number back and it will give you 778684960148.6571, those are the years that Chell had been sleeping for. [[spoiler: You know what it means,right? She's like the last human on earth, maybe, after GLaDOS killed the humans that were left on the old Aperture, and remember too that Portal is on the Half-Life universe, Gordon Freeman may be dead, Alyx, Kleiner, Everyone, dead. Or they just maybe succeeded and saved the human race and their civilization, and everything that Chell knew tons of ages ago, will have nothing to do with the present. And maybe there will be some humans left, but she is isolated, and she's maybe going to die alone, helpless, with a companion cube, she will have it hard trying to find food, a comforting bed, and maybe, civilization out of that field. ]]

* This is definitely YMMV given people's opinions, but [[spoiler: every single time Wheatley says "I! AM! '''NOT!''' A MORON!"]] can be a TearJerker, because he sounds not only offended, but heartbroken that GLaDOS and even worse, his best friend, thinks he's stupid, and the fact that GLaDOS constantly asserts he is one makes all of his plotting look like someone desperately FeigningIntelligence. The idea that Wheatley tries to kill someone just so they'll think he's smart is eerily similar to the behavior of neglected children who do terrible things so their parents will be proud or even just notice them. ]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgiNKEXtx7I This unused song for GLaDOS]]. It shows [[AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther the side of GLaDOS we never saw, but always suspected was there]]. What's it called, you ask? "Don't Say Goodbye".

* At the end of the game, [[spoiler:GLaDOS has Chell trapped on the elevator where the turrets could have easily delivered a lethal blow. However, she lets Chell go. GLaDOS is demonstrating how sincere her last words to Chell were and possibly even suggesting that she could've killed her at any moment but just chose not to; be it out of caring or curiosity.]]

** Even after Chell gets out of Aperture science and she's totally in freedom with her companion cube, remember something, in the start of the game, you woke up to do your physical exam, just 2 months after Chell killed GLaDOS (The announcer said 50 days), and when you go back to sleep, you find out that Chell was "Asleep" (Well, she maybe sleeped in a cryo-genic chamber)for 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 years if you count the nines the announcer said in the game files, if you give those nines to google it will spit out 2.73791e56, the calculator will give you 3.129488844409788e24, put the number back and it will give you 778684960148.6571, those are the years that Chell had been sleeping for. [[spoiler: You know what it means,right? She's like the last human on earth, maybe, after GLaDOS killed the humans that were left on the old Aperture, and remember too that Portal is on the Half-Life universe, Gordon Freeman may be dead, Alyx, Kleiner, Everyone, dead. Or they just maybe succeded and saved the human race and their civilization, and everything that Chell knew tons of ages ago, will have nothing to do with the present. And maybe there will be some humans left, but she is isolated, and she's maybe going to die alone, helpless, with a companion cube, she will have it hard trying to find food, a comforting bed, and maybe, civilization out of that field. ]]

** Even after Chell gets out of Aperture science and she's totally in freedom with her companion cube, remember something, in the start of the game, you woke up to do your physical exam, just 2 months after Chell killed GLaDOS (The locutor sayed 50 days), and when you go back to sleep, you find out that Chell was "Asleep" (Well, she maybe sleeped in a cryo-genic chamber)for 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 years if you count the nines the locutor sayed in the game files, if you give those nines to google it will spit out 2.73791e56, the calculator will give you 3.129488844409788e24, put the number back and it will give you 778684960148.6571, those are the years that Chell had been sleeping for. [[spoiler: You know what it means,right? She's like the last human on earth, maybe, after GLaDOS killed the humans that were left on the old Aperture, and remember too that Portal is on the Half-Life universe, Gordon Freeman may be dead, Alyx, Kleiner, Everyone, dead. Or they just maybe succeded and saved the human race and their civilization, and everything that Chell knew tons of ages ago, will have nothing to do with the present. And maybe there will be some humans left, but she is isolated, and she's maybe going to die alone, helpless, with a companion cube, she will have it hard trying to find food, a comforting bed, and maybe, civilization out of that field. ]]

** [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Wheatley's]] VillainousBreakdown during the final boss fight. His TheReasonYouSuckSpeech is less like an villain's evil gloating and more like the ranting of a heartbroken child who doesn't understand why everyone has turned against him, or maybe that of a scorned lover who hates you for choosing someone else. As he starts to lose it more and more, he accuses you of taking advantage of him all along as a means to escape, then abandoning him when he needed you most so that you could run off with your "best friend over there." He even brings up the fact that you didn't catch him when he dislodged from his management rail, which he honestly believed would have killed him, and hysterically accuses you of missing on purpose because you wanted to get rid of him. (This is made much, much worse by the fact that even if you honest-to-god tried to catch him, [[CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption it's impossible to do so.)]] What makes it even worse is that, if you listen closely to his voice during the rant, he sounds an awful lot like he's ''crying''.

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* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgiNKEXtx7I This unused song for GLaDOS]]. It shows the side of [=GLaDOS=] we never saw, but always suspected was there. What's it called, you ask? "Don't Say Goodbye".
-->"You won't say goodbye...''[[PleaseDontLeaveMe never say goodbye...]]''

** Although still sad, some of this is tempered a bit by the fact that the only reason you 'abandoned' him was that he went insane, double-crossed you, trapped you in an elevator and punched you down an elevator shaft. Not to mention that all his ranting about how you've been manipulating, bossing and betraying him all along [[UnreliableNarrator is the exact opposite of]] [[SelfServingMemory how events actually transpired]].

** Although still sad, some of this is tempered a bit by the fact that the only reason you 'abandoned' him was that he went insane, trapped you in an elevator and punched you down an elevator shaft. Not to mention that all his ranting about how you've been manipulating, bossing and betraying him all along [[UnreliableNarrator is the exact opposite of]] [[SelfServingMemory how events actually transpired]].

** Although still sad, some of this is tempered a bit by the fact that the only reason you 'abandoned' him was that he went insane, trapped you in an elevator and punched you down an elevator shaft.

*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlFRkP6C8Ps This]] video probably sums Cave Johnson and Carline's story perfectly. Expect to shed tears.

* [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] sounds so sad and alone when singing 'Want you Gone'. The strongest part of the song is either how she tries to retract the lines "maybe I'll stop feeling so bad", but still stays them, or the part when [=GlaDOS=] says "I don't need anyone now." The way she sings it is really sad: a bit deeper, and her voice trembles as much as it's possible for a robot. It sounds as she's forcing herself to say it and/or is in the verge of crying.]]

* This is definitely YMMV given people's opinions, but [[spoiler: every single time Wheatley says "I! AM! '''NOT!''' A MORON!" can be a TearJerker, because he sounds not only offended, but heartbroken that GLaDOS and even worse, his best friend, thinks he's stupid, and the fact tha GLaDOS constantly asserts he is one makes all of his plotting look like someone desperately FeigningIntelligence. The idea that Wheatley tries to kill someone just so they'll think he's smart is eerily similar to the behavior of neglected children who do terrible things so their parents will be proud or even just notice them. ]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcBVf5Nq-To PotatOS Lament]], the menu theme that plays while you're in [[spoiler:the old Aperture Science testing spheres]] is a sad piece of music on it's own, but it's made even sadder due to who's singing it: [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] herself, after being usurped by Wheatley, turned into a potato, and tossed down an elevator shaft into the depths of Aperture]]. The sheer emotion in [[spoiler: her]] voice is enough to shed tears.

** You think the song's sad enough on it's own, right? Well, guess what Someone made a stop-motion music video of the song with Rattmann and Chell. It makes the song go from tearjerking to outright '''depressing'''. You can watch it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwkGFw226U here.]]

** [[HopeSpot It's implied in the Co-op mode, however, that]] [[spoiler: [=GLaDOS=] eventually got to link herself with the old facility's power grid, which means that she, along with her new batch of test subjects, hasn't seen and heard the last of Cave Johnson]].