Portal 2

Frankly, Wheatley's plans might well have gotten Chell (or even other test subjects; who knows how many he released before he got to her?) killed by accident any number of times; it's only her tenacity (and some Applied Phlebotinum) that lets her live as long as she does.

edited 7th Apr '14 12:56:39 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Five. Chell was the sixth subject he tried, he says as much during the Boss fight. He's not a Sweet Precious Innocent baby or anything. It's also implied that something went wrong with the Relaxation center's power at large and there wasn't really anything Wheatley could do about it.

And of course Chell's tenacity is the reason she survived, but keep in mind Wheatley did save your life after G La DOS had you in the testing track again. And disabling the turret and neurotoxin generators wasn't a dumb idea at all, as was demonstrated when you got to Her chamber the second time. Trying to reduce him to Bad Decision Maker kind of does the character a disservice.

edited 7th Apr '14 1:15:27 PM by odafangirl

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

But that was part of his explicit characterization. GlaDOS days that was his purpose as one of her restraint cores.

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... G La DOS said that. You're taking G La DOS' word for it?

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

Potatos as well, who apparently doesn't have enough power to lie. Because that makes sense, in an Aperture sort of way.

I have a message from another time...

She said that when she was incapable of lying.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

She also claimed to be an AI. Glados doesn't know everything and can be wrong.

And just to be clear I'm NOT saying Wheatley was a good person/core/AI/what-have-you. I just prefer to think of him as a complicated character.

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

He was designed to sabotage GLaDOS' intelligence by confusing her with bad ideas. Wheatley's plans are usually workable to an extent, but they are always some combination of: (a) ill-founded, (b) not thought properly through, (c) unnecessarily dangerous, (d) self-defeating.

Remember, if he were "can't add 2+2" stupid, he wouldn't be nearly the threat that he is. He is actually quite clever, just cursed with the inability to foresee consequences and a very low threshold of boredom.

edited 7th Apr '14 1:52:28 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Hence, he failed to realize that simply not firing bombs anywhere near the pipe would've meant Chell couldn't use portals, right?

🏳️‍⚧️she/her | Vio Rhyse Alberia

Right. His reasoning went as follows.

---

Problem: Chell beat GLaDOS by throwing rockets back at her, and because she didn't turn on the neurotoxin immediately. Also, GLaDOS' obvious (and only) plan is to get him tossed out of the mainframe by the management routines.

Solution:

1. No portal surfaces.
2. Start the neurotoxin immediately.
3. Shields to block the bombs.
4. Bombs to throw at Chell.
5. Booby-trap the stalemate button.

He didn't take the further step of making sure there was nothing in the arena besides himself that could be broken by bombs. In fact, routing the Conversion Gel into the room could have been a subconscious move by his programming to sabotage his own plans.

He also entirely missed the larger picture, which was that he was diverting all his resources to kill Chell while the facility was scant minutes from blowing up.

---

Edit: GLaDOS is an AI. She is the product of a great deal of development and programming, but it also happens that there's a human being's mind built into her as well. She's a synthesis of a lot of things. To claim she is human rather than AI is missing the point.

edited 7th Apr '14 2:15:42 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I see it more as Wheatley makes bad decisions, but they may not instantly be horrible decisions, but more so in the long run. He also doesn't seem to be conscious of his processes, like someone who is a klutz and trips on things without realizing it. He isn't aware of what he's doing is the wrong way about things.

At a few points though, I feel like it does get a bit flanderized to where the decision is so obviously the wrong one with little logical backing to it. But, Portal runs off of Rule of Funny, so I don't care enough it bothers me.

I'm a critical person but I'm a nice guy when you get to know me. Now, I should be writing.

I don't think Wheatley was planning to take over the facility from the get-go, but Wheatley's not really that complex of a character either. He's a self-serving opportunist who, as noted, was explicitly programmed to make poor decisions as a Restraining Bolt for G La DOS.

Which, itself, is a product of another bad decision, because he thought he fixed that when he turned off the emergency speaker that was announcing the facility would explode.

Wheatley is creative and clever about both the development and execution of his terrible, terrible ideas. Think of him as someone with spectacular INT and CHA scores, but a WIS of 4.

edited 7th Apr '14 3:19:14 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

I think a lot of people dilute him to being a 'Bad Decision Maker' and nothing more since he was intended (by Aperture that is) to be a personality core and thus a personality trait of G La DOS rather than his own entity.

I'm a critical person but I'm a nice guy when you get to know me. Now, I should be writing.

Agreed. Even if that was all he was at the beginning, remember he's had 99999 wandering around the facility with nothing much to do but develop. All the other cores we meet were unlucky enough to be in the Corrupt Core Bin all that time, which is why I think they're all so shallow. Possibly excepting Rick, but he's difficult to get a read on in the time allowed.

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

Wheatley being able to develop can also be considered a facet of his purpose.

By comparison, the Fact Sphere is programmed to know facts. Its facts are consistently wrong - probably a facet of being so corrupt - but it also displays personality by sharing unkind "facts" about the Space and Adventure Spheres, such as, "The Adventure Sphere is a blowhard and a coward." The Fact Sphere is ironically very opinionated.

By contrast, the Space Sphere is programmed for one thing: space. Space is it's end-all and be-all, and it shows.

Wheatley is programmed to generate a constant stream of bad ideas; this demands creativity, flexibility, and adaptability. He needs to be able to think outside the box in order to consistently come up with the worst ideas, regardless of context or scenario. Being so consistently stupid demands a higher level of artificial intelligence than loving space or storing cake recipes would. You have to be brilliant to be as talented as Wheatley is at being dumb. He is an extremely competent incompetent.

edited 8th Apr '14 9:05:13 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

It's worth mentioning that early versions of the script had you interacting with a number of personality cores, including the three who show up in the final battle. This was dropped when developers realized that players got more attached to a single character that became an integral part of the plot rather than to a bunch of minor characters who'd only have a chapter or two each and then disappear.

"He is an extremely competent incompetent."

This is the best summary of Wheatley's role that I've seen yet.

edited 8th Apr '14 9:34:36 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Look at the final battle. His four-point-plan was pretty flawless aside from the conversion gel pipe running through the room. And even that's negated by booby-trapping the stalemate button to secure his "victory". Said victory being Aperture exploding, a far worse idea than just surrendering or anything such as that.

He displays short-term intelligence all for the sake of subconsciously achieving the most idiotic long-term result.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Not necessarily. I don't think anybody under her control likes Gla DOS. At all. Considering there's been six others who died trying to get out, and all. Blowing up the entire lab to ensure that that monster doesn't get back into power? Not so idiotic. They're computers, and they seem to be getting corrupted by her. It's like committing suicide to avoid becoming a zombie, or to get away from a cruel dungeon keeper.

Ok I like Wheatley as much as the next fangirl, but there's no way he was intending the Facility to blow up. If he wanted to ensure G La DOS never came back to power he could have just waited until it went on its own the first time around.

Wheatley (pre-character development) is incredibly self-centered. He's using the test subjects as a walking, button pushing, puzzle solving means to an end. If he cold have gotten out on his own he would have done so ages ago. And even if you argue that the Chassis made him crazy (which I do think happened to some capacity) he's never about just keeping G La DOS out of power, he's about ensuring he stays in power and satisfies the Itch. Whatever the hell Wheatley is, self-sacrificing ain't one of them.

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

If he wanted to ensure G La DOS never came back to power, he could have squished the potato. Or never even put her in a potato to begin with, and just ran a magnet down her motherboard or something instead.

"He wanted the facility to blow up so she couldn't regain control" has a major flaw in it, and that flaw is that at one point, midway through the story, he had absolute control over her fate.

...which, as an aside, is probably the single most terrifying position anyone can be in, being at the mercy of Wheatley.

edited 8th Apr '14 11:12:03 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

He never wanted to kill her; he wanted her to suffer the humiliation that she'd made him feel.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I was responding to this point in the post above me:

"Said victory being Aperture exploding, a far worse idea than just surrendering or anything such as that."

Blowing the lab up to prevent that monster from coming back ISN'T a far worse idea than surrender. At all. Aperture should blow up. And I never said Wheatley was doing it on purpose. But I, apparently, keep Running the Asylum and not explaining myself nearly well enough for you guys.

Should Aperture, as a business concern, continue to exist? Well, they don't, really. Everyone who ran the place is long dead, having been used as test subjects and/or gassed by GLaDOS before the events of the first game. It's a derelict facility being run by a megalomaniac AI. Blowing it up might be the best option for the world in general, but that would mean that we couldn't have hilariously awesome games set there.

Maybe in a few hundred years when the nuclear fuel for its reactors is spent, the facility will power down and GLaDOS will settle into the sleep of ages, to await the next idiot who stumbles in and reawakens her.

edited 8th Apr '14 11:43:31 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Not to mention something that big exploding in a Nuclear fashion might take something like half the state with it. Along with Chell, Potados, Wheatley, all the Cores, and depending on your headcanon maybe even the still sleeping Rattman.

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

Nah, it's mostly underground. Even a multi-megaton detonation wouldn't do much more than contaminate the local landscape and make a huge crater as everything collapses inward. The facility is built miles deep into the earth.

edited 8th Apr '14 11:43:11 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"