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Fridge / Half-Life

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Fridge pages are Spoilers Off, so the different entries were folderized as a security measure. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

Individual games:

The franchise in general

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    Fridge Brilliance 
  • It's pretty obvious that the lambda symbol was chosen for the Half-Life logo as lambda is used in Real Life to represent the decay constant of a radioactive substance, which is closely related to its half-life. Less obvious is that the lambda symbol looks like an arm holding a crowbar.
  • Barnacles can be killed by the Crowbar in one hit. Barnacles tend to be scraped off of ships with objects like, you guessed it, a Crowbar.
  • The G-Man is responsible for all of the Benevolent Architecture that we've learned to take for granted in games; every single door you need to go through being conveniently unlocked, for instance.

    Fridge Horror 
  • The first time you realize that headcrab zombies are most likely semi-aware, either from the Zombines calling for help over their radios or accidentally happening across the reversed zombie audio on Youtube.
  • No matter what chapter with the HECU or the scientists, everything feels like it was heavily manipulated by our friendly G-Man. The Soldiers had clear pre-orders to evacuate everyone in Black Mesa but as they entered the domain, abuse of miscommunication was in FULL effect like the HECU were killing traitors!
  • Even before the alien invasion, America is already in such an authoritarian state that the government has no trouble executing both citizens and soldiers during the Black Mesa incident. Then there's also the implication that the U.S. government is in bed with the G-Mannote , which makes it all the more terrifying to ponder why the government wanted to kill the only people with the knowledge to stop the upcoming Combine invasion so much.
    • With greater revelations as the series has continued, these "Employers" seem to have more and more overseeing knowledge of the grand scheme of the world's oncoming events, to the implication of straight up having someone like the G-Man bending and altering time itself, and wanting the Combine on Earth deliberately for unknown reasons. If it's still some sort of Earth-inherent faction rather than genuine alien manipulations, it's effectively the equivalent of an super secret Illuminati-esque council controlling reality, intentionally having Earth nearly go extinct and humanity put through its greatest trials imaginable in horrific calamity, and then setting up the countermeasures to clean it up to leave us with the aftermath. And if Epistle 3 was anything to go by in plans, and Portal 2 is still held as canon to the timeline, Earth will recover — but it doesn't answer what these people wanted.
  • Those who died in the Black Mesa Incident were technically the lucky ones. The survivors of the incident would be forced to deal with Survivor's Guilt and live through the horrors of the Portal Storms, the Seven Hour War, and the Combine Occupation.

    Fridge Logic 
  • Gordon Freeman is never seen wearing a helmet, making his resistance to Headcrabs, Gunshots and Explosions quite strange.
    • Better yet, the PCV, which protects you from all the same things the HEV suit does but only covers the torso, sure the shield covers the whole body (Just like the HEV), but still.
    • Shephard averts this. In addition to wearing the PCV vest, he also wears high grade military boots, a sturdy combat helmet and a gas mask. Considering all this, one might say that he's better off than Freeman.
    • At one point someone actually asked Marc Laidlaw himself about how Gordon has a HUD if he doesn't have the helmet on. Marc's response was that they didn't actually think about that, and that maybe the suit puts his HUD onto his phat specs.

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