Line #56 YMMV/Portal2


1	* AccidentalAesop: Cave Johnson's final, and most {{memetic\|Mutation}}, recorded message, a take on the "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" moral. While it goes OffTheRails almost immediately and was clearly intended as simply a funny line, the idea of "be assertive, don't let life push you around" is a good, if [[HardTruthAesop unconventional]] message.
2	* {{Adorkable}}: Wheatley's a stuttering, not too smart bit of adorable technology.
3	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
4	** [=GLaDOS=]:
5	*** Did she really [[spoiler:delete part or all of Caroline]]? If she did, was it just a matter of [[spoiler:deleting Caroline's memories, or did she murder an actual consciousness? Or was it not a murder but a MercyKill]]? If she lied, was it [[spoiler:a deliberate bluff to intimidate Chell, or [[BlackComedy meant to be taken as a joke]] after everything they went through]]?
6	*** Does she see Chell as [[spoiler:her lover, daughter, friend, enemy]], or some combination of these?
7	*** How much of her crazy do we attribute to the mainframe, the personality cores, the trauma of [[spoiler:Caroline's uploading, and/or Caroline's original personality (after all, she didn't seem to mind Cave's ComedicSociopathy...)]]?
8	*** [[spoiler:How separate are [=GLaDOS=] and Caroline, anyway? When she speaks of Caroline as a separate person, is she just trying to distance herself from emotions she'd rather not have, or is there more to it? Is it even a meaningful question now that we know her personality cores are fully sentient on their own? If they're truly separate, is that something that developed over time as [=GLaDOS=] lost her memories and had personality cores added on, or were they always two people? Did [=GLaDOS=] have a fully sentient mind of her own even before Caroline was shoved into it? If Caroline's always been a separate person, was she dormant all this time, or [[AndIMustScream conscious but unable to communicate]]?]]
9	*** [[spoiler:Is [=PotatOS=] really unable to lie? If it was true when she said it, is she still unable to lie after the extra jolt from the portal gun?]]
10	*** When, at the end, [=GLaDOS=] says [[spoiler:"And killing you? Is hard.", is that because she's grown emotionally attached to Chell, or is just admitting that Chell is [[TheDeterminator impossible to kill]]?]]
11	*** Did the turrets [[spoiler: fake-out their BolivianArmyEnding and instead sing Chell a farewell song]] on [=GLaDOS=]'s orders, or ''in spite of them''?
12	*** During the ending song, when she sings [[spoiler:"Goodbye my only friend. / Oh did you think I meant you? / That would be funny if it weren't so sad"]], is she still mocking Chell, or is this a tacit admission that Chell really is [[spoiler:her only friend]]?
13	** [=Wheatley=]:
14	*** As with [=GLaDOS=], how much of his turn to insanity can we attribute to the mainframe's influence? It cannot have had ''more'' of an influence on him, which means the starting points may have been different. He expresses huge delight in his newfound power and comments on how tiny and insignificant Chell is now. His traps are far more deadly and while [=GLaDOS=] is only testing Chell with timed experiments as revenge for killing her, Wheatley wants to kill her to keep in power. Even if being plugged in rattled his circuits more than he'd expected, he does hint repeatedly that he dislikes humans and seems to treat Chell as a means to an end regardless.
15	*** The exact nature of his stupidity. Is his ability to come up with decently clever plans because they will result in the dumbest outcome, the facility exploding? Or is he just another Aperture Science invention that doesn't work the way it is supposed to?
16	*** Was being plugged in Wheatley's plan all along? It's not like he would have grown legs and been able to walk if he'd gotten out - Chell would still have had to carry him everywhere.
17	** What if Cave Johnson is actually a freaking genius and natural/scientific philosopher, and the rest of the world (especially Black Mesa, who practically ended the world) is instead floundering in the gaping maw of madness?
18	*** There may be some truth to this because in a alternate reality Cave Johnson buys Black Mesa and the first thing he dose is shut down their plans to make a Resonance Cascade and tells them that he has enough common sense to know it will end the world.
19	* AlternativeJokeInterpretation:
20	** In the "Valentine's Day Gift Buying" promotional trailer, when the girlfriend eats the chocolate her boyfriend got her, she gets an allergic reaction and a swollen head followed by the sound of an off-screen explosion. Did her head explode, or was she so mad at her boyfriend for getting her something she was allergic to, she literally "blew up" at him?
21	** [=GlaDOS=] begins the game discovering that Chell [[AdoptionDiss is adopted]], and [[EvilIsPetty repeatedly taunts her with petty jokes about how her birth parents don't love her]]. [[BrickJoke Later in the game]], as [[EnemyMine the two end up having to work together against a common enemy]] in the form of [[spoiler:Wheatley]], said enemy tries to relay a childish "[[BigStupidDooDooHead fatty fatty no parents]]" taunt, and [=GlaDOS=] jumps to Chell's defense and calls him out on it ("What's wrong with being adopted?"), only for her to whisper under her breath to Chell "For the record, you ''are'' adopted, and that's terrible, but just work with me here." She's clearly just trying to find a reason to mess with [[spoiler:Wheatley]], but there's some contention as to whether her aside to Chell is a HypocriticalHeartwarming joke (implying [[KickTheDog she still thinks being adopted is shameful]]), or a sudden PetTheDog moment (sympathetically acknowledging that it's terrible that her birth parents gave her up).
22	* AluminumChristmasTrees: Apparently, the moon rock poisoning Cave Johnson was afflicted with is a real hazard. Lunar dust is just as destructive to human lungs as [[{{Irony}} asbestos]], which means like Cave, you will suffer a slow, horrible death if you breathe too much of the stuff in. The effects are similar to silicosis, symptoms of which are displayed by Cave. Many scientists have even noted that lunar dust poisoning will be a significant issue if/when humanity eventually colonizes the Moon[[note]]Lunar dust is dangerous because without the erosion provided by wind and water on Earth, it remains very sharp and spiky on a microscopic level, which tear up the inside of the lungs[[/note]].
23	* AwesomeEgo: "Rick" the corrupted Adventure Sphere is so self-absorbed in his own ego that you can't help but love him for it.
24	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[AwesomeMusic/{{Portal 2}} It was a triumph, indeed]].
25	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The [[spoiler: turret orchestra that plays during Chell's ascent to the surface at the end of ''Portal 2'']]. There is some minor foreshadowing, but it's out of the way. [[spoiler:In Chamber 16, prior to Wheatley helping you escape, there's a vent guarded by a turret which leads to four turrets practicing.]] You can come up with some justifications - [[spoiler:the lyrics seem to suggest it's [=GLaDOS=] and/or the turrets and/or Aperture as a whole bidding a fond farewell to Chell, who grew up there]] - but that doesn't make it much less bizarre.
26	* BrokenBase:
27	** There are two real camps of ''Portal 2'' fans, those who find it to be an excellent game and often say it's one of the best games ever, and those who think it's far too short and the focus on Co-op and relative ease of puzzles makes it simplistic. The former are decried as newbies to the Portal franchise who don't understand what made the first game great and the latter are decried as StopHavingFunGuys who can't enjoy the story.
28	** There's some disagreement on the ending: [[spoiler:is it a happy conclusion to the story with [[http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/halolz-dot-com-portal2-fuckscience.jpg Chell finally getting the relief and peace of mind she deserves after all that hell in the company of her old friend]], or is she trapped in the middle of nowhere with no one to help her after being exposed to various harmful chemicals and the vacuum of space doomed to a slow death of dehydration or worse]]? Then there are those players who [[TakeAThirdOption view it as both]].
29	* CrazyIsCool: Cave Johnson. He is ''insane'', but this leads to him making some truly great things. Don't want to deal with your workers leaving their cubicles while on duty? Corral them with frickin' laser beams. Think the advance of technology is too slow? Take it leaps beyond your current decade just because you can. Don't like dealing with the laws of physics? Invent your own! And of course the one concept that started it all: don't like dealing with mildew-growing shower curtains? Create a quantum tunneling device that lets you instantly travel between any two surfaces you want.
30	* CreepyCute: The Sentry Turrets. Sure, they’re loud killing machines and [=GLaDOS’=] most direct method of murdering you, but their computerized childlike voices, their calls for help when knocked over, and their polite way of speaking makes them seem like [[AdorablyPrecociousChild adorably precocious children]].
31	* CrossoverShip:
32	** [=GLaDOS=] is often shipped with [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 The Sniper of Team Fortress 2 fame.]] The gag for it being that their voice actors are married in real life.
33	* DiscreditedMeme: Valve said that they don't include cake in ''Portal 2'' since they got tired of TheCakeIsALie jokes. [[spoiler:There's still one reference to it though: [=GLaDOS=] tricks you with a door marked as her emergency shutdown and cake dispensary. One of Doug Rattmann's murals at the beginning of the game also shows [=GLaDOS=] holding cake out to you.]]
34	* DracoInLeatherPants: [=GLaDOS=], to some extent. While there are still a large contingent of players who love her for being crazy and evil, there are a few who downplay or straight-up ignore all of her actions from before [[spoiler: being put in a potato]] to characterize her as a loving mother figure, instead of the verbally abusive and homicidal AI that she has been.
35	* EnsembleDarkhorse: The Space Personality Core. Imageboards and Youtube comments in particular around the time the game came out were inundated with screams of SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE.
36	* EsotericHappyEnding: The co-op ending is very silly and upbeat, [[spoiler: having [=GLaDOS=] finding a horde of human test subjects. Very good for [=GLaDOS=]. Not so much for the test subjects.]]
37	* EvenBetterSequel: The first game was already highly acclaimed for its unique concept and excellent script. This game improves on literally everything from the first. It’s much longer (with an extensive modding scene thanks to the built in level editor so you’ll be hard pressed to run out of content), adds a ton of new and creative elements to the puzzles, features very imaginative level design, adds co-op, has even more memorable (and [[FountainOfMemes quotable]]) characters and dialogue. Really the first game comes across as a demo in comparison.
38	* FanNickname:
39	** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyOzzd53ssY Portal Kombat]]": The release date coincided with that of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''[='=]s; the temptation to switch out the "M" in "Mortal" for a "P" proved to be too great. It doesn't help matters that both Noob Saibot and Scorpion have [[FinishingMove fatalities]] involving creative use of portals, and the former's babality even involves portals.
40	** Similar to how the Adventure Core claims to be named "Rick," some the fandom has begun to call the Fact Sphere "Craig," based on the portion of his monologue where he claims that Craig is the best name, according to the world's most advanced algorithms.
41	* {{Fanon}}: After the release of ''Portal 2'', it was revealed that [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] was once human, or at least [[SharingABody shares a body]] with Caroline's consciousness]], which naturally made many people believe that all cores were created the same way. It's also believed that Wheatley's [[spoiler:human form]] greatly resembled Stephen Merchant.
42	** Virtually ''everybody'' assumes that [[HeroicMime Chell]] is the daughter of Aperture's founder Cave Johnson and his secretary Caroline. There is evidence to suggest she was the daughter of ''someone'' at Aperture (her apparent signature appears on a children's science project in the 'Bring Your Daughter to Work Day' display) and the assumption is sort of understandable since Cave and Caroline are the only other human characters named in-game and [[spoiler: SelfDemonstrating/GLaDOS, who has Caroline's mind inside her, is obsessed with Chell]], but nowhere does it imply she was anything near as important as ''the daughter of the founder''. There are also several pieces of evidence that strongly indicate that they aren't related, such as the fact that Chell is mixed race Japanese-Brazilian while Cave and Caroline are neither of those things and the timeline not really matching up. Cave Johnson died in the early 1980s and was already [[https://i1.theportalwiki.net/img/7/78/Cave_Johnson_Painting_2.png an old man]] at that point (he looked like [[http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR1St-hilbYCDv9ozHZgfB2kbfPRdp8DoT2ZUjaFIUzChkRUtq7 this]] circa 1943), while in the first game, Chell looks like she could maybe be a young-looking forty-something at oldest, and in the higher-quality graphics of the second she doesn't look a day over 30. Cave ''could'' have [[MadScientist invented something]] to keep his daughter young or himself and Caroline fertile, and he's crazy enough to force people to spend years in stasis or something, but you still have to be ''really trying'' to interpret him as Chell's father to make it work.
43	** There is also a common belief that Chell has no memory of anything before ''Portal'' based purely on the fact that we are given no information on her backstory, and possibly the fact that she ''seemed'' to not know [=GLaDOS=] was evil. The idea that she cannot speak, or has difficulty speaking, is also common despite WordOfGod specifically saying otherwise, although this could be seen as a justified belief, as Valve ''has'' shown that she avoids every opportunity to speak, even in the ''Lab Rat'' comic.
44	* FountainOfMemes:
45	** At the time of the game's release almost every word out of Cave Johnson's mouth became a meme of some kind.
46	** The Space Core is just as quotable as Cave Johnson.
47	* GameBreaker: There's a minor example for those with the Razer Hydra motion controller. The extra features added for Sixense's map pack work in the main campaign, though not in co-op. While the tests are designed in such a way that you usually can't reach the buttons unless you can walk to them in the first place, and the gel sections generally don't need precision, the ability to place cubes at a distance does make your job somewhat easier. It also makes [[spoiler:placing the cores on Wheatley a breeze, since your don't have to jump on the Repulsion Gel]]. Conversely, Thermal Discouragement Beams can be a lot harder to aim.
48	** With the addition of the Challenge maps in the DLC, the Hydra has become a true gamebreaker. With the ability to move portals and boxes, it's possible to beat courses with less portals than should be possible (without outright cheating).
49	* GeniusBonus:
50	** The "lemons" rant is funnier when you realize citrus fruit oils are, in fact, [[http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/fruit-fireballs/ highly flammable]].
51	** Cave's comment in one of the trailers about how turrets fire the whole bullet when shooting is even funnier if you know a bit about how guns work and pay attention to the mechanisms seen. The turrets appear to use a spring-loaded piston, which is impractical in a gun. At worst, a single bullet would give the target a bruise, which rather well explains how Chell can take over twenty bullets to the chest before going down.
52	* GoodBadBug: A design oversight in the first half of co-op chamber 5-5 allows you remove the cube from there and take it with you to the second half, completely bypassing that portion of the test.
53	* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Creator/StephenMerchant has gotten some of the biggest kudos of his acting career for his performance as Wheatley; everyone expected his character to be [[TypeCasting a one-trick pony]] but, in typical Creator/{{Valve\|Software}} grand fashion, he shattered everyone's expectations. Merchant himself has described playing Wheatley as [[http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011/05/12/stephen-merchant-wheatley-portal-2-portal-3/ some of the most challenging and exhausting work he's ever done]], and initially had no interest in doing it again, but has admitted that all the acclaim the game has received has softened his stance on that.
54	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: Given that in ''Radio/TheRickyGervaisShow'' Karl and Ricky both constantly make fun of Stephen Merchant's appearance and even imply he's genuinely worried about DyingAlone, Human!Wheatley being involved in so many ships can be genuinely cathartic for his fans.
55	* HilariousInHindsight:
56	** One of the taunts Wheatley gives for making you jump down the pit is the supposed pony farm he has down there. If only Valve knew of a certain PeripheryDemographic of a certain [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic cartoon show]] that suddenly was popular about the time of the game's release... Then [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q1QIRmSplck/TcmVxYBzjBI/AAAAAAAAEVQ/u0Buxeo3u0c/s1600/pony_farm__portal2_spoilers__by_don_komandorr-d3g1cvv.jpg this]] came up to mock this very concept. And let's not forget that at the end of the game, [[spoiler:Wheatley gets banished to the moon.]] It turns out Gabe Newell is a fan of the show!
57	** The Space!Cave universe in the Perpetual Training Initiative, where said Cave keeps getting frustrated at his subjects attempting to "uncover the conspiracy" of being in space (and often getting killed in the process) despite him mentioning they're in space ''every half hour''. What was likely originally a reference to the big twist in ''[[spoiler:Film/DarkCity]]'' has taken on a new dimension with the release of a game with a similar twist less than a year later: ''[[spoiler:VideoGame/{{Inversion}}]]''
58	** After playing the absurdly irresponsible portal scientist Cave Johnson, JK Simmons went on to play [[spoiler:the Author]] in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', another scientist who works with a portal, and is extremely serious about the safety issues involved.
59	** [[http://www.deviantart.com/art/Death-of-GLaDOS-111958533 This piece of fanart]] (or, more specifically, the first two sentences in the artist's comments) predicted part of [=GLaDOS's=] backstory in 2009.
60	** One thing Computer!Cave Johnson does to try and stave off boredom is to add [[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} ghost-busting]] to every work of fiction on Earth. Come 2015, we get to see the Ghostbusters themselves (and many others) visit Aperture Science [[spoiler: and even work alongside [=GLaDOS=]]] in ''VideoGame/LegoDimensions''.
61	** One of the alternative Caves' claims about not having to prepare for Godzilla because Godzilla only attacks Tokyo became doubly hilarious after the King of the Monsters devastated San Francisco and parts of Hawaii in ''Film/Godzilla2014'', with additional cities on US soil falling victim to the [=MUTOs=] in the same film.
62	** All of the alternate universe shenanigans, and particularly Cave hitting it off with "Dark Cave", are even funnier in the wake of the show ''Series/Counterpart2018'', where the lead played by J.K. Simmons meets his more violent and cynical (but not necessary evil) "Prime" self, and the two manage to gain a grudging respect for each other.
63	%%** [[ActorAllusion Meow.]] [[Creator/JKSimmons Meow meow-meow meow, meow.]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}} Meow meow meow meow meow.]] Meow.
64	* InferredHolocaust: Both explicitly and implicitly.
65	** In addition to the countless Aperture Science personnel who were killed, Wheatley also mentions that besides Chell, there are at least 10,000 other test subjects being kept in stasis, and they're most likely all dead.
66	** At the end of the single-player campaign, [[spoiler:Chell is abandoned in a field of grain with nothing but a CompanionCube for company]]. Depending on how the world of ''Portal'' interacts with the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' universe, she could be very screwed. The humans presumably beat the Combine within that time, and they seem to have accomplished some rebuilding since the wheat field appears to have been actively cultivated, but who knows what else is going on? However, it's also inverted: since Earth's atmosphere is still breathable and there are still birds and plants, we can infer that the Combine was defeated before they managed to xenoform the planet.
67	** Given Cave Johnson's progression from recruiting the "Best of the Best of the Best" as test subjects in the 50s to street bums in the late 60s and finally his own employees (and their children, no less) in the 80s, it's very strongly implied that most if not all of them died.
68	** Wheatley tells you that the turrets are programmed to feel pain, of a sort. How good do you feel about all those turrets you knocked into pits, incinerated or carried through Emancipation fields now?
69	** Chell's been continually exposed to the various toxic substances that Aperture Science created, especially during her sojourn in the old test chambers. How long is she going to last, really, after the game is over?
70	** At the end of the co-op campaign [[spoiler: [=GLaDOS=] gets her hands on a huge supply of fresh human test subjects. After making it abundantly clear that as far as she's concerned, it isn't proper science if the test subjects don't die horribly.]]
71	*** In the "Art Therapy" DLC, [[spoiler:she says she's been trying to turn them into "killing machines", only to find that they were "surprisingly fragile, and surprisingly vocal about how fragile they are" compared to "you-know-who". Now they're all dead.]] Bonus points for the fact that occurred in the span of ''one week''.
72	** The blue screen for the reactor prompts the user to press any key to vent radioactive material into the atmosphere, [=GLaDOS=] likely did this because the reactor was in the final stages of meltdown at the time and wouldn't go out of the way to save human life.
73	* ItsShortSoItSucks: ''Portal 2'' was said in prerelease materials to have a 10 hour single player and 10 hour co-op mode. In the game proper, each mode can be beat in somewhat less than that.
74	** On a smaller scale, the final boss battle has been critiqued for the time limit being too short to allow you to hear all the dialogue in one playthrough.
75	* ItWasHisSled: The fact that [[spoiler: Wheatley betrays Chell]] is widely known. Also, the ending about [[spoiler: [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace the SPAAACE!!!]]]] is pretty famous no less.
76	* JerkassWoobie:
77	** Cave Johnson. We get to listen to him descend into bitterness and despair [[spoiler:shortly before his death]].
78	** Wheatley, that lovable idiot, [[spoiler:floating in space potentially forever. He says he's sorry, and how much of it was ever really his fault?]]
79	** [=GLaDOS=]. Apparently spent the time between games [[spoiler:reliving her own destruction over and over and over again, if you believe her own report. Has her head painfully ripped off her body while she screams in horror. Attached to a potato battery purely as humiliation. Has to listen to someone she knows to be a complete moron gloat about his victory over her and watch him ruin her beloved facility. Oh, and we find out how maddening the influence of the personality cores and the mainframe must have been all this time. And that's without even getting into the whole Caroline backstory, which is pretty sad and traumatic no matter how you interpret the details.]]
80	* LesYay: Obvious and lampshaded. Chell is female, and [=GLaDOS=] at least sounds that way.
81	%%* MemeticBadass: The Adventure Core.
82	* MemeticMutation: See [[Memes/Portal2 here]] for a list.
83	* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: [=GLaDOS=] once again sings over the end credits.
84	* {{Narm}}: [=GLaDOS=]'s scream of agony [[spoiler:while she's being forcibly ripped from the control center by machines]] is supposed to be scary and shocking, and for many it is... but the thing about her voice is that when she screams in agony, it sounds like she's an overly-autotuned singer.
85	* NewerThanTheyThink: The "Cara Mia" Turret Opera, though you might think it was some old aria the developers borrowed for the sake of a big finish, was actually written for the game by composer Mike Morasky. Creator/EllenMcLain ([[TheCastShowoff a trained opera singer]]) used her knowledge of Italian to come up with the lyrics herself.
86	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: Some younger gamers have played this for the first time in the 2020s and decried its popularity since they find its peppy, irreverent and rapid-fire comedic dialogue to be too much like modern games and movies (primarily the [[Film/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]])...not realizing that it basically ''pioneered'' this style of writing and contributed to a large tonal shift in media of all stripes over the ensuing decade.
87	* RoboShip:
88	** Chell/Wheatley is growing increasingly popular. Most of the fics based off of it either involve Wheatley sometime AfterTheEnd, [[spoiler: desperate to apologize to Chell for what he did]] and suddenly finding a means to do so, or Human!Wheatley, typically based off of Creator/StephenMerchant.
89	** The [=GLaDOS=]/Chell ship (which was already popular after the first game) is still going strong here.
90	** The cores are often shipped with each other. Space Core/Curiosity Core ("Spaciosity") or its rival Fact Core/Curiosity Core ("Factiosity") have become quite popular, as has Fact Core/Adventure Core ("Factventure").
91	** The two cooperative mode robots were being shipped together by [[FanArt fan-artists]] before we ever saw videos of them. Images like [[http://portalwiki.asshatter.org/images/c/ca/GI_58_bots.jpg this]] helped.
92	* SignatureScene: The finale. [[spoiler:[[DarkestHour Wheatley just destroyed the button needed to transfer, Chell is implied to be badly injured, the facility is mere seconds away from detonation, and she has absolutely nowhere to shoot a second portal.]] Then the roof collapses, [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments revealing the moon]].]] The entire scene has been cited by players as one of the most iconic moments of not just the franchise, but of video game history.
93	* StopHavingFunGuys: Admittedly, it's fun to mess around with cheats every once in a while, but then you have a staggering amount of {{Jerkass}}es who will ''only'' play co-op with cheats enabled and deride anyone who doesn't want to use them.
94	* SuspiciouslySimilarSong:
95	** After entering [[spoiler:Old Aperture]], a piece of music (titled [[spoiler:"Music of the Spheres"]] in the soundtrack) plays that is very obviously inspired by, and sounds a lot like, the famous prelude from ''Film/{{Vertigo}}''.
96	** People have noted that Robots FTW, the ending theme to the Co-Op campaign, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=022pdmjQ6AI sounds suspiciously similar to]] [[Music/LemonDemon BRODYQUEST]].
97	* ThatOneAchievement: "Professor Portal", which requires you to play through the co-op Calibration Course with a friend (as in an invited one) who has never played before, is the bane of everyone looking for 100% completion. There are threads on every dedicated forum searching for people who qualify so others can unlock the achievement. It has the third lowest completion percentage of all achievements, trailing behind "Friends List With Benefits" (hug three friends) and "Still Alive" (complete Course 4 without either player dying).
98	** Speaking of which, "Still Alive" is rather difficult to pull off, even with two players that communicate well. Most of the chambers punish screw-ups with death, forcing you to go back to the first chamber and start again. The final chamber is all that and more, since it's filled with turrets, spikes, and pits.
99	** "Schrodinger's Catch" in single-player mode is entirely a LuckBasedMission. To get this achievement, you have to catch the caged box covered in Repulsion Gel in Chapter 6 before it hits the ground. However, the box's trajectory the moment it breaks out of the cage is completely random, so there's no way of knowing where the box will go. You have to be really lucky and hope that it comes your way to get this achievement.
100	* ThatOnePuzzle:
101	** The final puzzle of the eighth chapter tends to be the only one that completely stumps everyone to the point of having to use a guide. [[spoiler:You have some turrets that you can't easily get behind or past, there are no cubes to take them out, but there is repulsion gel. Up to this point, you usually just had to make a portal to redirect where the gel travels and splash it on the turrets. Here, though, you have to get creative with an excursion funnel...which would be a lot more obvious if its reverse switch wasn't way far and away from the button you have to press to drip out the gel.]] This puzzle also hands down requires the most timed steps out of any puzzle in the game, meaning it's not one that easily runs step-by-step; it's a long sequence of steps that must be done ''in order'' one after the other. And it also doesn't help this chamber also has an achievement inside it that ''requires you to violate some of the established game rules'' to complete it!
102	** Additionally, some of the in-between sections during the second act can be a real pain, since they require extremely long distances of traveling and tediousness, and are often games of finding that one tiny white dot you can stick a portal onto.
103	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: [[spoiler: While Caroline being [=GLaDOS=]' original persona is a good concept, it falls flat when you realize that Caroline's presence only amounts to five lines which really don't give much of an impression. It could have been interesting if we got a deeper exploration of her character and see where similarities and differences between [=GLaDOS=] and her are.]]
104	** Ellen [=McLain=] herself portrayed Caroline's personality as somewhat similar to [=GLaDOS=] when she did her own version of Cave Johnson's famous lemon rant.
105	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: A FunnyBackgroundEvent in Chapter 8 lets you spot P-body running through a door, suggesting the Cooperative Testing Initiative duo is active during [[spoiler:Wheatley's takeover of Aperture Science]]. This HeroOfAnotherStory setup is never followed up on, as all of the co-op campaign takes place after the main story with no insight into what Atlas and P-body were doing during Chell's adventures.
106	* UglyCute: [[spoiler:On the one hand, it's an old potato. On the other hand, [[CutenessProximity DAWWWW [=GLaDOS=] IS SO SMALL LOOK AT HER]].]]
107	* UnderusedGameMechanic:
108	** The game proper doesn't make much use of the Frankenturrets in terms of boxes with legs. Some community made levels have explored this idea.
109	** While it can be seen at one point in the game to move the story forward, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOH6BprN9FI Pneumatic Diversity Vent]] never made it into any of the test chambers.
110	* ViewerGenderConfusion: [[http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-10-portal-2-how-valve-opened-up-portal-2?page=2 According to this interview]], P-Body -- A.K.A. Orange -- [[{{Fembot}} is actually female]]. And if you look closely, you can actually see some femininity in her design (i.e. thinner limbs, feminine leg shape). Despite this, most fans refer to her as male. Not helping is that [[CrossdressingVoices she]] and ATLAS are both voiced by Creator/DeeBradleyBaker (albeit her voice is higher-pitched) ''and'' players can [[GirlsWithMustaches customize her with two different mustaches]] (possibly implying she was meant to be male at one point).
111	* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome:
112	** Muppeteer Karen Prell did an ''incredible'' job of giving Wheatley so many facial expressions--and he's just a robotic eyeball!
113	** The destruction of your "hotel room" in the opening. Check out the commentary bubble after the scene and see just how much work was put into the one sequence; ''nearly nine months' worth of effort.''
114	* TheWoobie:
115	** It's hard not to feel bad for those Frankenturrets. Especially when they look at you with big eyes, shivering after you picked them up.
116	** The defective turrets. They're blind, bulletless, casing-less, and fully aware they're defective. You also have to feel kind of sorry for the functional turrets that get rejected, shouting, "I did everything you asssskeddd" as they get incinerated.
117	** The "Space" Core. All it wants is to go to space. [[spoiler:And it gets its wish!]]

Context YMMV / Portal2