History Characters / Portal

* BewareTheSillyOnes: A cute little core and [[spoiler:literally designed to be]] an idiot...but he also is able to [[spoiler:successfully come up with a fairly brilliant plan to defeat [=GlaDOS=] that had it not been for him getting DrunkWithPower would've permanently taken her out of the picture...then goes on to come closer to kill Chell than [=GlaDOS=] ever did.]]

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Clearly a fatal flaw of his. Such as when he steals a set of appliances from the housewares dpt to use as target practice or the hazards of firing live ammunition in a small space.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: He and the player are the ones responsible for the advent of the turrets. And it all started with a mishap involving [[ItMakesSenseInContext a toilet and spilled bullets.]]

* SoleSurvivor: It's implied that due to her cryogenic stasis lasting for possibly thousands of years, she's the only playable character of the entire Half Life universe to still be alive due to the rest being long gone from old age.

* MadnessMantra: TheCakeIsALie

** With the turrets, at least, this is possibly {{justified}}: Aperture Turrets "fire the whole bullet" via a spring launcher, which is most likely less damaging then being shot by a normal bullet. But then again, getting shot does leave blood splatters on the walls behind her.

* BigBad: The A.I. controlling the entire facility and responsible for all of the tests that Chell is forced to go through. [[spoiler:She loses this position to Wheatly halfway through the second game after he is plugged into the mainframe, which is revealed to have a corrupting influence.]]

* BigBadSlippage: [[spoiler:Technically the main villain the second game, he actually starts out legitimately helping Chell. It's only when he's plugged into the mainframe that he turns against her.]]

* {{Tsundere}}: A really, really, ''really'' extreme version -- oh, she hates Chell, [[{{Yandere}}but there are definite hints that her emotions toward her are considerably more complicated than ''just'' hatred.]] Many players see it as a case of StalkerWithACrush or MyBelovedSmother, depending on how you interpret her personality and the hints about her background. Erik Johnson, the game's program manager, compares her to "a jealous ex-girlfriend."

* {{Tsundere}}: A really, really, ''really'' extreme version -- oh, she hates Chell, but there are definite hints that her emotions toward her are considerably more complicated than ''just'' hatred. Many players see it as a case of StalkerWithACrush or MyBelovedSmother, depending on how you interpret her personality and the hints about her background. Erik Johnson, the game's program manager, compares her to "a jealous ex-girlfriend."

* MismatchedEyes: In the comic, Doug's pupils are almost consistently of uneven size, and when there is a noticeable difference, his right pupil is always the larger of the two. It is not known if this is a purely stylistic choice (perhaps meant to artistically emphasize Doug's psychosis), or if the artist intended him to have [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisocoria anisocoria]] (pupils of unequal sizes).

* WalkingSpoiler: Notice the amount of blanked text for this entry compared to other characters?

* MythologyGag: Greg was the original incarnation of Caroline in early drafts of Portal 2's story. His name and role ended up being reused for the Perpetual Testing Initiative storyline.

** In both games, though it’s more evident in the second than the first, she has a noticeable similarity to [[Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream AM]] as well. Both are seemingly omnipresent AIs who force the protagonists to run through different tests and situations and openly despise them. The main difference is that AM is a genuine RealityWarper, while GLaDOS is simply the MasterComputer of the entire facility.

* CreativeSterility: PlayedWith: When it comes to designing testing chambers, he's incapable of doing anymore than making simple ones or stealing ones [=GlaDOS=] already made...however, when it comes to [[spoiler:actually trying to kill Chell]], he's ''far'' more creative and competent than [=GlaDOS=] ever was [[spoiler:given [=GlaDOS=]'s go to solution to that problem is 'turrets and deadly neurotoxin.' He even explicitly watched Chell's fight with her and went out of his way to come up with a solution to everything Chell did against her that never seemed to occur to his predecessor. If it hadn't been for the pipe of gel, which Wheatley didn't even seem to know what it was, Wheatley would've been effectively unbeatable.]]

* AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome: One alternate Cave sells Aperture Science's inventions to the public, which leads the company to be so successful that he buys out their main competitor Black Mesa and renames it Blaperture Mesa. When he hears about the anomalous materials experimentation that would cause the [[AlienInvasion resonance cascade]], he has shut down, preventing the events of the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series from ever occurring.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Dark Cave's portal guns work on any smooth surface, not just moon rock gel covered ones. This serves to make his test subjects much more difficult to deal with.

** Mantis!Cave, who informs test subjects that they're postponing injections with Homo Sapien DNA.

* GeniusLoci: Planet!Cave.

* AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome: One alternate Cave sells Aperture Science's inventions to the public, which leads the company to be so successful that he buys out their main competitor Black Mesa and renames it Blappature Mesa. When he hears about the anomalous materials experimentation that would cause the [[AlienInvasion resonance cascade]], he has shut down, preventing the events of the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series from ever occurring.

* BilingualBonus: After he gets [[spoiler:planted in [[=GLaDOS=]]'s body]], he starts reveling in how smart he is, including his newfound ability to speak Spanish.

* SkewedPriorities: "TheCakeIsALie" is supposed to be a [[BlackComedy darkly humourous warning]] that [=GLaDOs=] is not to be trusted. The humour in part comes from Rattmann worrying more about [=GLaDOs=] witholding cake from Chell than the AI trying to murder her. The darkness comes from his warning about [=GLaDOs=] being absolutely correct, as well as his skewed priorities being due to SanitySlippage from being trapped in the Aperture Laboratory for so long.

* CloudCuckooLandersMinder: When Cave gets hot-headed (which is often), Caroline puts him back on task.

* ForScience: Well, Cave at least said she was passionate about science, and [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=]'s attitude]] seems to support the idea that he was right.

-->'''Johnson''': "Sorry fellas, she's married... to science!"

-->'''Johnson:''' Say goodbye, Caroline.\\
'''Caroline:''' Goodbye, Caroline.

* EnemyMine: A mild version in ''2'', after[[spoiler:Wheatley takes over the facility, the turrets seem just as eager to shoot at him (or at least his monitors) as they are at Chell.]]

* PassiveAggressiveKombat: Not only is she a psychotic murderous AI, she's also ''incredibly'' passive aggressive. Most of her dialogue in ''Portal 2'' (or at least the first half) is her insisting how she's actually surprisingly unbothered that you ''murdered her'' while simultaneously reiterating the fact that you ''murdered her'' over and over again, just in case you missed the fact that you ''murdered her'', while also casually letting you know all the horrible things that are in store for you over the next sixty or more years of being trapped as a test subject for her as a consequence of ''murdering her''. And that's when she's not otherwise directing barely-veiled snide jabs [[EvilIsPetty about your weight and being adopted]] at you. You ''murderer''. And of course, for all her snideness any halfway reasonable observer (not that she is one) would be able to tell that you was reacting purely in self-defense towards [=GLaDOS=]'s attempts to murder ''you''.

* PassiveAggressiveKombat: Not only is she a psychotic murderous AI, she's also ''incredibly'' passive aggressive. Most of her dialogue in ''Portal 2'' (or at least the first half) is her insisting how she's actually surprisingly unbothered that you ''murdered her'' while simultaneously reiterating the fact that you ''murdered her'' over and over again, just in case you missed the fact that you ''murdered her'', while also casually letting you know all the horrible things that are in store for you over the next sixty or more years of being trapped as a test subject for her as a consequence of ''murdering her''. And that's when she's not otherwise directing barely-veiled snide jabs [[EvilIsPetty about your weight and being adopted]] at you. You ''murderer''.