History Characters / Portal

->Voiced by: Nate Bargatze (English)

[[caption-width-right:1000: "My name's Grady, that is your inspection desk. You are a product inspector."]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: He and the toilet tester are the ones responsible for the advent of the turrets. And it all started with a mishap involving [[ItMakesSenseInContext a toilet and spilled bullets.]] They also try to mercy kill Cave Johnson by destroying the giant head-shaped computer holding his mind and but just wind up making him fall into the basement while tearing up chunks of the facility in the process.]]
* TooDumbToLive: While not an idiot, Grady has moments where he's completely clueless [[spoiler: such as when he thinks a warehouse filled with crates is a good testing range for the turret prototype. Or when he and the tester find themselves in witness protection only to find themselves dumped back in what they were doing before except with changed names and it never truly occurred to him that perhaps they were just left there to rot.]]

!Portal

[[folder:Chell]]
[[quoteright:281:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chell_p2.png]]

->''"Subject is abnormally stubborn. She never gives up. '''[[{{Determinator}} Ever.]]''' [[SpannerInTheWorks DO NOT TEST.]]"''
-->-- '''Aperture Personnel File'''

->Modeled after Alésia Glidewell, voiced by Mary Kae Irvin[[note]]voice grunts in ''Portal 1'' only, recycled from ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'''s female Citizens.[[/note]]

The SilentProtagonist PlayerCharacter of both games, Chell is an [[{{Determinator}} incredibly determined]] woman wearing an orange jumpsuit. Her exploits begin when [=GLaDOS=] awakens her from stasis to run a series of tests in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center for mysterious reasons.

* ActionGirl: Chell runs through sessions of experiments in both games and uses her portal gun to its fullest advantage, even taking out [=GLaDOS=] and Wheatley in her attempts at escaping.
* AmbiguouslyBrown: Her face and body model have a Brazilian father and a Japanese mother, but the character Chell's ethnic background, like almost everything about her, is unknown.
* AudienceSurrogate: By virtue of being the player character. [[WordOfGod The developers have stated]] that it was particularly important the player be able to experience the story as though it were happening to them (which is part of why Chell [[HeroicMime doesn't speak]]).
* CombatStilettos: An interesting version used as a tool rather than a weapon: Her Long Fall Boots, which resemble high heels, allow her to survive a fall from any height.
* {{Determinator}}: ''Pathologically'' so. According to her personnel file (in the ''Lab Rat'' comic), she's way ahead of the bell curve for tenacity. As it turns out, when you're dealing with [=GLaDOS=], cleverness and athleticism are ultimately less important than sheer stubborn refusal to give up.
--> '''Proctor's note:''' Test subject is abnormally stubborn. She never gives up. '''Ever'''. Do NOT Test.\\
\\
'''[=GLaDOS=]''': Killing you is HARD.
* ElectiveMute: She can speak, she just doesn't want to give her tester the satisfaction.
%%* GuileHero: This ''is'' a puzzle game, after all.%%ZCE.
* HeroicMime:
** [=GLaDOS=] even complains about her lack of response in the final chamber.
---> '''[=GLaDOS=]''': Are you even listening to me?
** In the sequel, Wheatley seems to think that overexposure to the stasis process left her unable to talk; when he asks her to, she just jumps. [=GLaDOS=] even calls her a "mute lunatic," and her file shows that she refused to answer one of the questions asked to her. Of course, it's possible she specifically chooses not to reply to Aperture's overseers, because they're dicks and she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction.
* HypercompetentSidekick: To Wheatley in the second game. [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] too, in the end.]]
* IWasToldThereWouldBeCake: There really was a cake. She never did get it, though.
%%* LateToTheTragedy: In the first game, she goes through dozens of tests before she finds out what's happened. In the second game, this time, she's ''really'' late.%%ZCE, describe how this is an example. *What* happened? *What* is she late for?
* MadeOfIron:
** Aside from falling, which is explicitly [[HandWave handwaved]] by her foot protection, Chell can survive things no human should be able to, but that's largely due to GameplayAndStorySegregation (the story probably assumes Chell is strong enough not to ever get shot, for example). However, one specific example of this being played straight is when she survives [[spoiler:Wheatley blowing up the stalemate button. Even ''he's'' shocked. And then she spends several seconds in vacuum]]. On the other hand, Chell spends at least twelve hours unconscious afterwards, so even she has limits.
** With the turrets, at least, this is possibly {{justified|Trope}}: 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.
* MysteriousPast: We never do find out exactly who Chell is. [=GLaDOS=] likes to claim she's an orphan--which, by the second game at least, is true given how long she's been frozen. [[spoiler:In the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day experiment section in ''Portal 2'', one of the potato experiments was done by a little girl named Chell whose father worked at Aperture. It's the one with the potato that's grown through the ceiling--it's clearly as {{determin|ator}}ed as Chell herself.]]
* NaiveNewcomer: While [[MysteriousPast it's unclear exactly how much of a past she has with Aperture]], she certainly seems to be this in the beginning of the first game, where [=GLaDOS=] introduces her ([[AudienceSurrogate us]]) to the testing environment.
* OnlyOneName: We can see her personnel file in the ''Lab Rat'' comic, but it just gives her name as "Chell [redacted]."
* OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank: Chell can take tons of turret shots, and leaves ''large'' blood smears on walls when hit in the first game. 5 seconds, and you're okay again, ready to lose another three pints. On the other hand, the video displaying the turrets' inner workings offers another explanation in classic Aperture Science style: while the turrets are filled to the brim with real bullets, the turrets don't ''fire'' them--[[CartridgesInFlight they]] ''[[CartridgesInFlight fling]]'' [[CartridgesInFlight the whole thing at the target using springs]]! They probably still hurt a bit, mind.
* ParentalAbandonment: One of [=GLaDOS'=] favourite barbs is to claim Chell was abandoned by her birth parents and later adopted. At one point [=GLaDOS=] also claims that she's found two other humans on the registry that share Chell's last name, but maintains that they're people she "hasn't seen in a really long time."
%%* PhlebotinumRebel: ''Hoo, boy...'' [=GLaDOS=] really should have thought more on giving her that portal gun.%%ZCE. Why?
* PlotArmor: Guess what? Ground-up moon rocks are pure poison! They don't seem to affect Chell, though, so don't sweat it. (Though this may be due to the fact that she is only exposed to the gel imbued with moon dust, and not the stuff itself, than any Plot Armor she may have.)
* ProgressivelyPrettier: [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110426214052/half-life/en/images/5/59/Chell_daydreamin.jpg In the first game]], she was disheveled, had visible gray in her hair and dead skin on her face and lips, and looked rather worn out.[[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/portal2/comic/part1/p00.jpg The Lab Rat interquel comic]] portrays her as much more conventionally attractive, with neater hair and smoother features; this change carries over to ''Portal 2'', where she looks [[http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/File:Chell_Portal.png like this]].
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Although [[MysteriousPast Chell's origins are unknown]], her name on one of the science fair projects seems to indicate that she was most likely born sometime in the 1980s and was probably in her 20s during the events of the first ''Portal''. Following the explosion which killed [=GLaDOS=], Chell is placed in a stasis chamber with an indefinite wake-up time. The backstory for ''Portal 2'' would suggest the game takes place in another epoch, perhaps as much as 50,000 years later.
* RequiredSecondaryPowers:
** Chell wears a pair of ankle-springs in order to ensure her legs aren't shattered when she comes flying out of a portal. [[WordOfGod The commentary bubbles]] indicate early on that the reason was that playtesters complained that Chell could survive falls that would kill [[VideoGame/HalfLife Gordon Freeman]]. Despite the fact that the Advanced Knee Replacements are patently insufficient to protect her, [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief they stopped the complaints]], so mission accomplished!
** In ''Portal 2'', these have been updated to full shoes called the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9Sc88qreg Aperture Science Long Fall Boot]], a "foot-based suit of armor" that's implied to have some kind of balance system forcing the wearer to land on their feet no matter what. This makes their ability to protect her ''slightly'' more justifiable.
* ShutUpHannibal: When [[spoiler:Wheatley tells you to do yourself a favor and commit suicide because once you reach his lair he'll definitely kill you]], you can set up a portal network that throws a mine at his monitor.
-->[[spoiler:'''Wheatley:''']] I'll take that as a "no," then.
** She can smash monitors in almost all the test chambers, and can even get an achievement for doing it eleven times.
* StockFootage: The reason the HeroicMime character has a voice credit here is because her grunts of pain from the first game are recycled from the female Citizens in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''.
* {{Troll}}: There are a couple of passive-aggressive things she does to get a reaction out of the people responsible for her unfortunate situation.
** She [[HeroicMime refuses to speak]] simply to ''annoy'' the [[AIIsACrapshoot robots]], because she doesn't want to give them the satisfaction of a response. Her decision to ''jump'' instead of vocally responding to Wheatley's commands at the beginning of ''Portal 2'' seems to suggest this.
** According to ''Lab Rat'', on her application form for Aperture Science, instead of responding to a question, she decided to scribble "The Cake is a Lie" in binary.
** If the player chooses to and has the ingenuity to do so, they can have Chell manipulate the various mechanics in Test Chambers to smash the OminousMultipleScreens set up by [[spoiler:Wheatley]], which doesn't accomplish any progress for the test itself, but definitely starts bothering him.
* TheVoiceless: Never makes a peep.
* 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.
--> '''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[PunctuatedForEmphasis You dangerous. Mute. Lunatic.]]
* WalkingDisasterArea: [=GLaDOS=] and Wheatley view her as this, despite each of the catastrophes resulting from their own attempts to control her. The former even composes a song about it.
-->'''Wheatley:''' I didn't order in loads of spare monitors thinking some crazy woman was going to go around smashing them all. Sorry if that's ''my'' fault! Sorry if I didn't have the ''forethought'' to think, "oh, she might go crazy one day instead of just getting on with things"! Sorry I didn't think of that!
* WorthyOpponent: [=GLaDOS=], for all of her sniping, admits that Wheatley's plan could not have worked at all without Chell's help.

[[folder:Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System ([=GLaDOS=])]]
[[quoteright:347:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/P2_GLaDOS_8772.jpg]]

->''"You're not a good person. You know that, right? Good people don't end up here."''

->Voiced by: Creator/EllenMcLain (English), Elena Kharitonova (Russian)

The {{artificial intelligence}} that seems to run Aperture Science. [=GLaDOS=] portrays herself as a helpful friend to Chell, but soon unveils a oddly sociopathic side to the testing protocols and a cruel side to her personality. As the game goes on, she becomes more and more sadistic, culminating in a violent confrontation as Chell attempts to escape the testing center. Chell apparently destroys [=GLaDOS=], but at the end of the game she is revealed to have a backup memory and Chell is dragged back to Aperture Science. Years later, Chell and Wheatley unintentionally reboot her. Needless to say, she has a bone to pick with her murderer.

Oh, and she has [[SelfDemonstrating/GLaDOS her own page now]], JustForFun. %% Mod Note: Do not change this! %%
----
* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: Done by having Ellen [=McLain=] imitate a text-to-speech program's inflections.
* ActivationSequence: When Chell and Wheatley accidentally reboot her, the scene becomes focused on the master computer's recumbent form as it pulls itself together, hauls itself off the ground, and sparks to life, before [=GLaDOS'=] eye flickers on to focus on you.
* AdoptionDiss: Brings up the player character (allegedly) being adopted as an insult repeatedly. In the second game she continues to do this. On one occasion she actually defends Chell when [[spoiler:Wheatly insults her with this,]] only to give her another diss later.
-->[[AC:For the record, you ARE adopted, and that's terrible.]]
* AIIsACrapshoot: The whole "Killing everyone with neurotoxin" thing is a pretty big tip-off.
* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:Did she delete Caroline or was she lying? There's evidence for both theories.]]
* AndIMustScream: According to her, she [[spoiler:was forced to spend the hundreds of years in between the two games watching/reliving a recording of the two minutes leading up to her destruction over and over and over again, due to her blackbox feature]]. Of course, it's according to ''her'', [[UnreliableNarrator a pathological liar.]]
* AnthropomorphicShift: An interesting example. Although she's always been based on the human form (on Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus," in fact), the original game's [=GLaDOS=] is far less relatable: her head is a grey semi-ellipsoid with a fixed yellow eye, and she doesn't have any body language to speak of. In the sequel she has a lot more emoting to do, so she was given a white, squared-off head (suggesting a certain sternness of jaw) with a much more expressive eye and vastly more human-like body language.
* AntiHero: In ''Portal 2''. She's still evil, but this time, [[spoiler:she's on Chell's side.]]
* AxCrazy: If slaughtering the majority of Aperture Science on ''bring-your-daughter-to-work-day'' within less than a picosecond of activation is any indication.
* BadBoss: [=GLaDOS=] treats her custom robots the same way she treats everyone:
-->[[AC:"Don't disappoint me. Or I'll make you]] ''[[AC: wish]]'' [[AC: you could die."]]
* BadLiar: [=GLaDOS=] is ''very'' surprised you successfully completed the test, and it shows.
* BackFromTheDead: In ''Portal 2''.
* BalefulPolymorph: [[spoiler:Wheatley downloads her into a potato battery.]]
-->[[AC:"So, how are you holding up?]] ''[[spoiler:[[AC:Because I'm a potato."]]]]''
* 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 Wheatley halfway through the second game after he is plugged into the mainframe, which is revealed to have a corrupting influence.]]
* BetterTheDevilYouKnow: While [=GLaDOS=] is generally well-known to be an [[AIIsACrapshoot unhinged caretaker of Aperture]], she genuinely acts with a '''real purpose''', [[spoiler:unlike Wheatley, which makes things [[FromBadToWorse SOOOO much worse than when GLaDOS was in charge of Aperture]]]].
* BigBrotherIsWatching: The omnipresent security cam. Doug Rattman clearly fears them, as his graffiti includes pictures of the cameras with a warning to Chell not to be spotted.
* BigOMG: Multiple times:
** [[spoiler:''"Oh. My. God.'' It's the bird! Run! I have no plan for this! Abort! Forget your training! RUN!"]]
** Upon realizing [[spoiler:she might ''be'']] Caroline.
* BlackComedy: [=GLaDOS=]'s sense of humor.
* TheCakeIsALie: She's responsible for the TropeNamer; in the original game Chell is promised cake as a result of completing all the tests, but [=GLaDOS=] actual plan was to roast her alive. There actually was a cake made, though.
* CallingYourAttacks: The rockets and neurotoxin are deployed with great fanfare, though she laments she hasn't found a way to get it into Chell's body faster.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Zig-zagged. In the original ''Portal'', [=GLaDOS=] has already exhausted her supply of test subjects, namely Aperture employees, by subjecting them to dangerous tests. By the time Chell is volunteered for testing, [=GLaDOS=] is realizing her error and is investigating ways of resurrecting Chell as a digital ghost, or so she claims. In ''[=Portal 2=]'', [=GLaDOS=] has ample opportunity to kill Chell when she pulls herself together, but instead re-deposits her into the test chambers "for science" (Wheatley is crushed and tossed aside, which shows his role in the Aperture facility to be worthless). Later, she admits Aperture programmed her with "an itch" to keep testing in perpetuity, and interruptions in the process cause a drop in "solution euphoria" which causes great stress to [=GLaDOS=]' circuits. She eventually develops a workaround by building two new robots, Atlas and P-body, to perform tests without fear of permanent death.
* CardCarryingVillain: She's always gushing over the fun to be had with "revenge" and "killing machines" and the like. Also well-versed in [[Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli Machiavelli]], no surprise there.
* CoresAndTurretsBoss: Her weapons and weak points are even ''called'' Personality Cores and Rocket Turrets.
* CreepyMonotone: Or at least very passive-aggressive. And then when [[spoiler:you destroy the Morality Sphere]] and [=GLaDOS=] switches from robotic monotone to an emotive, almost ''seductive'' voice, the contrast is actually ''creepier'' than the robotic monotone that you've been listening to all game. By the second game she has achieved a happy medium between the two, sounding very close to a human with some slight robotic affectation.
* CuriousAsAMonkey: Her curiosity sphere.
-->"Ooh, what's that? What's ''that''? What is that? Ooh, that thing has numbers on it! Hey, you're the lady from the test! Is that a gun? What's wrong with your legs? [[spoiler:Do you smell something burning? *SCREAM*]]"
* CuteMachines: Her spheres, especially the Curiosity Sphere.
* CyberCyclops: Just like every other piece of Aperture tech, her "eye" is a single light on her "head".
* DeadpanSnarker: In the first game [=GLaDOS=] loved to take dry pot-shots at Chell, but mostly held back until the end game when her intentions were revealed. In the second game [=GLaDOS=] is uninhibited and snarks at Chell constantly.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Ingredients in her cake recipe include multiple items shaped like fish and several different forms of rhubarb.
* DomainHolder: A more mundane version, given this is a sci-fi setting, but [=GLaDOS=] has complete control over the layout of the Aperture facility, which as seen in the second game is both incredibly modular and requires active maintenance. Everything, from the cameras to the elevators to the turrets to the very walls, is there because [=GLaDOS=] put it there.
* DyingVocalChange: [[spoiler:Already suffering from the occasional ElectronicSpeechImpediment, destroying her personality cores causes her to slip into HeliumSpeech, leaving her chattering like a chipmunk for the next few seconds before exploding.]]
* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: In the first game she uses one to cover up her lies, including conveniently glitching out when saying that Chell "will be baked[[spoiler:, and then there will be]] cake." Happens in the sequel as well, occasionally.
* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:With Chell after Wheatley takes over the mainframe in ''Portal 2''.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: In the Peer Review DLC, when [=GLaDOS=] searches for insults to hurl at Atlas and P-body, she comes across a YourMom joke. Before she is able to finish it, she declares that "That's just disgusting. Keep testing instead".
* EvilIsPetty: Piss her off and she'll start ranting about how you're ugly, not very smart, and nobody ever liked you anyway.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by [=GLaDOS=] herself as soon as Wheatley starts trying to copy her insults.
* ExactWords: "We will stop [[UnusualEuphemism enhancing the truth]] in three... two...[cut off by static]"
* {{Expy}}:
** [=GLaDOS=] has a weird relationship with SHODAN of ''VideoGame/SystemShock'' that falls somewhere between this and {{Foil}}. Both are murderous artificial intelligences with a fascination with science, a distinct VerbalTic, and a female identity. But the differences? Well...
*** SHODAN is passionate, bluntly spoken and openly contemptuous of humanity, whilst [=GLaDOS=] is more emotionally reserved and expresses her disdain through passive-aggressive commentary.
*** SHODAN [[AGodAmI has a god complex]] and uses her scientific brilliance to carry out experiments in bio-engineering and cybernetics to remake the universe in her own image to fuel her ego. [=GLaDOS=], by contrast, is forcibly compelled by Cave Johnson's programming to perform meaningless, nonsensical testing that [[ForScience completely fails to achieve any scientific goals beyond being "sciencey"]].
*** [=GLaDOS=]'s interactions with Chell over the two games is roughly similar to SHODAN's arc with the Soldier in ''System Shock 2''; both initially present themselves as allies to the player and work with them, but ultimately turn on the player and have to be battled. However, SHODAN initially disguises herself as someone else, then works with the Soldier openly, and then turns on him as the FinalBoss in an act that surprises nobody due to her in-game history. By comparison, [=GLaDOS=] never disguises her true nature as an artificial intelligence, her reveal as a threat comes out of nowhere, and Chell first has to battle her at the end of the first game, then team up with her to take down the greater threat in the 2nd game.
*** Of course the biggest difference between the two is that [=GLaDOS=] is often portrayed as a comedic character -- BlackComedy more often than not, but still funny. SHODAN's portrayal is ''never'' humorous in the slightest.
** In both games, although it's more evident in the second than in the first, she has a noticeable similarity to AM, the villainous AI from "Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream". Both are seemingly omnipresent AIs who rule over a vast underground complex where they 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 a high-tech facility. Additionally, as with SHODAN, [=GLaDOS=] is a comedic character while AM is taken deadly seriously.
* FalseReassurance: [=GLaDOS=] is quite fond of these, such as her promises that Chell will get cake at the end of the test. On a more petty note, she's fond of this during her insults, such as after repeatedly implying Chell was fat.
-->[[AC:You look great by the way. Very healthy.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: A borderline parody of this trope; she's always speaking in a soft voice, but her words are almost always peppered with passive-aggressive sarcasm as she sends Chell off to her doom. ''Portal 2'' takes it even further, with her voice having a bit more of a "bounce" to it, making her sound much more cheerful and energetic as well as more snide when she makes her trademark sarcasm...and this persists even while she's threatening to murder Chell.
* FinalBoss: In the first game, the final stage is destroying all of her cores and "killing" her.
* ForScience: Her primary motivation for continuing to do cruel and deadly tests. Allegedly. She has an odd understanding of what science ''is''. Justified because she's been programmed by Cave Johnson, a man who wanted to be a great scientist but who had all the common sense of a comatose kumquat.
* FreudianExcuse: For all of her insanity and cruelty, [[spoiler:''Portal 2'' implies the mainframe she's plugged into is designed to make her somewhat crazy. The personality cores attached to her also influence her behavior in odd ways, and she begins to show signs of being slightly nicer when freed of them. Not to mention the process of Caroline having her [[BrainUploading mind uploaded (against her will no less)]] was implied to be pretty traumatic, and thus may have been a trigger for [=GLaDOS=] attempting to kill the scientists 1/16 of a picosecond after being activated.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: In a meta sort of way. At the start of the game, there's no indication that her voice is anything but slightly glitchy prerecorded messages. Flash forward to the end of the game, and that same voice is the final boss. Also, depending on how much of [[spoiler:Caroline]] you consider to be part of [=GLaDOS=], she goes from being [[spoiler:a subservient secretary to]] a tightly monitored mainframe computer/testing program to the unchallenged queen of a vast underground (albeit mostly empty) empire.
* GeekyTurnOn: [[spoiler:She gets particularly... excited at the end of the co-op campaign when you and your partner find a cache of human test subjects locked in stasis.]]
* GeniusLoci: The entirety of the Enrichment Center is essentially an extension of her body, since she controls and maintains everything.
* GuestHost: In ''VideoGame/PokerNight2''. Played with in that while she's involved in the game and not playing alongside the others, she's the ''dealer'' for that game, not the host.
* HauntedTechnology: Haunted by [[spoiler:the woman whose mind was forcibly shoved into her.]]
* HeelFaceTurn: Arguably in the second half of [[spoiler:''Portal 2'' as soon as Wheatley betrays Chell, takes over [=GLaDOS=], and puts her core into a potato. She and Chell [[EnemyMine reluctantly team up]], and once the facility is restored, she saves Chell's life and lets her go along with the original CompanionCube -- although she claims it's just because killing Chell is too much trouble.]]
* HoistByHerOwnPetard: The boss fight in ''Portal 1''. [[AC:"Huh. That core may have had some ancillary responsibilities. I can't shut off the turret defenses. Oh well. If you want my advice, you should just lie down in front of a rocket..."]] *BOOM*
** In the sequel, [[spoiler:her taunting Wheatley after he becomes the central sphere enrages him so much that he puts her into a potato, barely able to function without using up the tiny amount of power it generates. She gets better.]]
* HumansAreSpecial: Sort of acknowledged in a cut line from ''Portal 2'':
-->[[AC:Humans must have some purpose other than a place to store your neurotoxin -- something I failed to notice before; an intangible quality that makes their test results significant.]]
* HypocriticalHeartwarming: [[spoiler:Wheatley]], in an effort to emulate [=GLaDOS=], goes back to the well again (specifically, ''Portal 1'') and cooks up a few schoolyard taunts about Chell's weight and parentage. [=GLaDOS=], of all people, jumps in to defend Chell and call [[spoiler:Wheatley]] out on his prejudice, to the point that he deflates and starts sputtering about "[[SomeOfMyBestFriendsAreX some of my best friends]]" to try and save face. And then...
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' ([[AC:By the way, you ARE adopted [[AndThatsTerrible and that's terrible]]. But work with me here.]])
* IgnoredEpiphany: From ''Portal 2''' ending:
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[spoiler:[[AC:You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain.]]]]\\
'''Announcer''': [[spoiler:[[AC:CAROLINE DELETED.]]]]\\
'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[spoiler:[[AC:Goodbye, Caroline. You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you? Is hard. You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me into a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic. So you know what? You win. Just go.]] [laughs gently] [[AC:It's been fun. Don't come back.]]]]
* ImpliedDeathThreat: She's a huge fan of these, even before her real intentions towards Chell are revealed.
--> '''[=GLaDOS=]''': As part of a previously mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed.
* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Gets especially excited at Cave's maniacal WhenLifeGivesYouLemons rant, particularly when he talks of burning houses down.
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[spoiler:[[AC:Burning people! He says what we're all thinking!]]]]
* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: When trying to boost the self-confidence of P-body and Atlas, [=GLaDOS=] informs them that she was born with a crippling imperfection -- too much sympathy toward human suffering. She proudly informs them that she overcame that weakness.
* {{Irony}}: While [=GLaDOS=] calls out Chell with a YouMonster line, she [[spoiler:proceeds squeezing Wheatley to near-death and throws his seeming carcass out of Chell's sight]] like her regular days with her test subjects.
* KarmaHoudini: At the end of it all, [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] is still around, and has [[IgnoredEpiphany deliberately ignored]] any lessons she might have learned from the fiasco, save for finally abandoning her obsession with testing Chell. The co-op mode even shows that she has an endless supply of humans and robots to test, now.]]
* KillerGameMaster: [=GLaDOS=] acts similar to this, throwing difficult scenarios at you, lying in order to confuse and torment you, and putting live-ammo courses in place of the original courses. When you go OffTheRails, she tries to lasso you back in with lies before resorting to overkill methods.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Eventually decides killing Chell is more trouble than it's worth and [[spoiler:just lets her go free.]]
* LackOfEmpathy: Her interactions with Chell in ''Portal 2'' help her start to build empathy... [[spoiler:which she deletes at the end of the game. At least she doesn't want Chell dead anymore.]]
* LaughablyEvil: Quite possibly the most passive-aggressive killer AI ever. Especially in the second game, where she doesn't even bother with the pretense and constantly throws thinly-veiled death threats, sarcastic jabs, and fat jokes at Chell.
--> "This next test involves turrets. You remember them, right? They're the pale, spherical things that are full of bullets. Oh wait, that's you in five seconds."
* LeanAndMean: About as much as a robot can be, anyway. Her design in ''Portal 2'' in particular is gracefully sleek.
* LethalChef: The core with the Cake Recipe suggests multiple garnishes including fish-shaped solid waste, [[ShapedLikeItself sediment-shaped sediment]], two ''needle injectors'', three tablespoons of rhubarb ''on fire'', and a blog entry entitled "How to Kill Someone With Your Bare Hands". On a ''chocolate cake''.
* LiteralTransformativeExperience: [[spoiler:Transformed into a potato battery when Wheatley takes over the Enrichment Center halfway through the game. Following a long HumiliationConga featuring bird attacks, electrical malfunctions, and being forced to team up with Chell, it looks as though the ex-Big Bad is actually becoming a better person, especially once her past is revealed and confronted. And then it's subverted all to hell once [=GLaDOS=] reclaims her position as an all-powerful supercomputer: having worked out where her compassion resides in her brain, she deletes it and goes right back to being the snarky, heartless psychopath she's always been... or so it seems.]]
* LivingForeverIsAwesome: Expresses this in both her songs. For instance, "When you're dead, I'll be still alive." However, there ''may'' be a note of discomfort and unhappiness in both instances, since she is notoriously [[UnreliableNarrator dishonest]].
* LoadBearingBoss: She says she has no idea what's going on outside, only that she's the only thing keeping herself and Chell safe from "them" (presumably the Combine from ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''). Once you destroy the last personality core, her mechanism goes into meltdown and blows you and bits of [=GLaDOS=] out of the building. The fact that [=GlaDOS=] has to continuously maintain the facility is made explicit in ''Portal 2'', where [[spoiler:the facility's nuclear power generator [[GoingCritical goes critical]] because Wheatley is too stupid to stay on top of its upkeep]].
* LongList:
** One of her personality cores in the first game has the sole function of reciting a long, [[LethalChef bizarre]] cake recipe.
** When going over the files of the test subjects that Atlas and P-body found, she lists off many, many, MANY personality flaws, all of which pertain to ''one'' particular subject.
* LossOfIdentity: [[spoiler:Implied to be a side effect of Caroline's BrainUploading and[=/=]or the constant babble of the personality cores.]]
* MindHive: ''Portal 2'' reveals that she [[spoiler:experiences those personality cores as maddening, constantly babbling voices in her mind. After TheReveal, she becomes aware of Caroline's persona within her as "the voice of a conscience [...] ''my'' voice." She finds that even more disturbing.]]
* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: Even beyond the MindHive effects of the personality cores, [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS's=] body, as discussed in Portal 2, is [[JustifiedTrope outright designed]] to have this effect on the [=AIs=] that inhabit it. [[GoneHorribblyRight Unfortunately for the people who made it]], [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity it tends to make them psychopathic, narcissistic, murderous tyrants]].]]
* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Most of her CharacterDevelopment is undergone while in the helpless form of a [[spoiler:potato skewered onto Chell's portal gun]].
* MissionControl: She plays this role while Chell is testing, usually. Though it's won't be long before you doubt she has your interests at heart. And then "mission" becomes "be incinerated"...
* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: She runs Apeture Science, and yeah, she's batshit insane. [[spoiler:Insane enough to be suffering 80% core corruption, making the mainframe declare her unfit to run the facility.]]
* MoralMyopia: It's okay when ''she'' tries to kill you, but when you kill her, it's murder.
--> "The difference between us is that I can feel pain."
* NeverMyFault: In the second game she never lets Chell hear the end of it concerning how she "murdered" her and how foolish Chell was to trust Wheatley over who should have control over the facility. Never mind the fact that [=GLaDOS=] repeatedly demonstrated her untrustworthiness throughout the first game (and first half of the second) by, among other things, numerous unprovoked attempts to murder Chell.
* NotQuiteDead: As if the ending song didn't give it away, [=GLaDOS=] is revived in the sequel and ready to conduct several new tests on the player.
* ObviouslyEvil: In ''Portal 2'', as opposed to ''Portal'' where she was hiding her intentions until the end.
* 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 were reacting purely in self-defense towards [=GLaDOS=]'s attempts to murder ''you''.
* PetTheDog:
** [[spoiler:For all she claims to only be acting out of self-interest and laziness, she didn't have to save Chell's life at the end of Portal 2. She also gives her a scorched companion cube after letting her go.]]
** [[spoiler:In the ''Art Therapy'' downloadable content, she winds up adopting some baby birds that were abandoned by their mother... although it's so she can turn them into killing machines.]]
* PragmaticVillainy: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Portal 2'', she says that she's learned the correct solution is usually the easiest. Since Chell has proven too dificult to kill, she decides to just let her leave since ultimately, it's the path of least resistance and what Chell wanted in the first place.]]
* PretenderDiss: Most of her exchanges with [[spoiler:Wheatley.]]
-->[[AC:Alright, he's not even trying to be subtle anymore. Or maybe he still is, in which case, wow, that's kind of sad.]]
* PsychopathicWomanchild: She has a tendency to fling passive-aggressive, childish insults at people when she's angered badly enough.
-->[[AC:Maybe you should marry that thing since you love it so much. Do you want to marry it? WELL I WON'T LET YOU! How does that feel?]]
* PunyEarthlings: Deciding that Atlas and P-body are moving too clumsily for her tastes, [=GLaDOS=] throws a fit and suggests that they drop everything and start acting like humans.
-->[[AC:Boy, do I love sweating. Let's convert beef and leaves into energy and excrete them later and go shopping.]]
* RedOniBlueOni: Compared the energetic and later very hammy Wheatley's Red oni in the sequel, [=GLaDOS=] is the [[AccentUponTheWrongSyllable robotic sounding]] and SoftSpokenSadist Blue oni. Funnily enough, her "eye" is orange, a color commonly associated with energetic people.
* RestrainingBolt:
** The various Cores attached to her body were designed to control and modify her behavior with certain personality traits like logic and curiosity. The main one being her Morality Core, which acted as a conscience (scientists being forced to create this after [=GLaDOS=] repeatedly tried to murder everyone every time she was activated). Noticeably, while the Cores do influence and inform her behavior, they don't really enforce "rules" but just alter her personality and consciousness. Even with the Morality Core constantly telling her that killing people is wrong, she was still able to murder the entire Science staff of Aperture. It's just that when you take the Core off, she suddenly becomes a ''lot'' more dangerous.
** The chassis she's built into has a number of different stimuli designed to keep her on point for running experiments. Running tests releases pleasurable feelings into her Core and any attempt to tell test subjects the solution to problems causes an intense shock. With [=GLaDOS=]'s personality though, these are pretty superfluous; she's long since built up an immunity to whatever pleasure-device is used on her and runs tests purely for her own enjoyment, and has no problem watching test subjects starve to death trying to solve her puzzles.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: It's possible her behavior was a result of this. [[spoiler:Caroline, the woman whose consciousness was uploaded into her, really didn't ''want'' to be uploaded]]. As soon as she was turned on, [=GLaDOS=] proved completely uncontrollable for the Aperture scientists and had them all killed or placed in suspended animation.
* SarcasticClapping: [=GLaDOS=] has an entire processor ''devoted solely to this'', or so she claims.
* SayingTooMuch: Throughout the tests of ''Portal 1'', there's nothing to indicate that she's anything more than a series of pre-recorded messages on an intercom computer. Even the more obviously dangerous tests and the funny lines that go with them could simply be brushed off as something recorded by Aperture's amoral scientists rather than spoken in real-time by an AI. When you [[spoiler:escape the incinerator at the end of Test Chamber 19]], she could've stayed silent and likely avoided drawing attention, or better yet just repeated earlier lines to seal the illusion. Her mistake of addressing the escape attempt and trying to convince the player out of it unveils the fact that she's alive, present, and murderous, and should probably be taken out before she makes another attempt on your life.
%% * SelfProclaimedLiar
* ShapedLikeItself: Her Logic/Intelligence/Knowledge Core, when describing cake garnishes:
-->"Sediment-shaped sediment."
* ShoutOut:
** [=GLaDOS=] is more or less a female [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey HAL 9000]] in the role of [[Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream AM]].
** Unused dialogue from co-op involves her talking about a comic strip involving [[ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} a certain cat who loves lasagna]].
* SinisterSurveillance: She has cameras trained on you in every chamber, [[spoiler:and can still sense you without being able to see you after your escape.]]
* SoftspokenSadist: After the morality core is destroyed, her voice stays slightly robotic but becomes smooth and rather seductive. The switch is an immediate indicator that she's done screwing around.
* StabTheSalad: The ending to ''Portal 2''. She ''appears'' to go back on her [[spoiler:promises of freedom, depositing an unarmed Chell in an elevator with four primed turrets--but the turrets simply start to sing.]]
* StealthInsult: Her favorite technique for gradually destroying a test subject's self-esteem.
* TaughtByExperience: In the sequel, she's learned that trying to actually fight Chell doesn't work. She thus tricks Chell into a sealed container that is transported to [=GLaDOS=]' lair. She then drops turrets around the chamber, then drops a pipe in to pump in neurotoxin. The only reason it fails is because Chell and Wheatley are even ''better'' at this trope than her and have pre-emptively cut off her supply of turrets and neurotoxin.
* TimeLimitBoss: [=GLaDOS=] pumps the room with neurotoxin during your fight with her.
* TookALevelInJerkass: [=GLaDOS=] is understandably mad about being killed in the first game, and thus her commentary in the second is a lot more passive-aggressive and snarky towards Chell, including mocking her over being adopted.
* TranquilFury: When she awakes in the second game, she just says "Oh, it's ''you''." Her delivery is calm, but leaves zero doubt that she is ''pissed''. Contrast her... enthusiasm when she hears Cave Johnson's rant about combustible lemons.
-->[[AC:It's been a long time. How have you been? I've been ''really busy'' being dead. You know, after you MURDERED ME.]]
* {{Troll}}: She spends a great deal of time saying things designed to anger or demoralize Chell, out of spite. She starts picking on Wheatley in much the same way [[spoiler:after he takes over the facility.]]
* {{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."
* TheUnintelligible: The Anger Core. In fact, it sounds creepily like a rabid dog.
* UnwillingRoboticisation: [[spoiler:Caroline had her mind uploaded into [=GLaDOS=], and it's implied (confirmed by cut audio logs) that she ''really'' didn't want to.]]
* VillainHasAPoint: In the first game: AxCrazy [[AIIsACrapshoot murder machine]] she may be, but she's completely right that the outside world is ''[[VichyEarth far]]'' [[AliensAreBastards from]] [[VideoGame/HalfLife any better]] than the kind of place she's made Aperture Laboratories into.
* VillainousBreakdown: As you tear her cores out, her personality breaks down. When all that's left is her anger module, she starts ranting furiously;
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:Stop squirming and die like an adult or I'm going to delete your backup! STOP! Okay enough, I deleted it. No matter what happens now, you're ''dead.'' You're still shuffling around a little but believe me you're ''dead.'' The part of you that could have survived indefinitely is gone. I just struck you from the ''permanent record.'' Your entire life has been a mathematical error. ''A mathematical error I'M ABOUT TO CORRECT.'']]
* VillainousRescue: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Portal 2'', [=GLaDOS=] [[TakeMyHand pulls you back]] out of the Moon portal.]]
* VisualPun:
** As the effects of [=GLaDOS=]'s morality core begin to wear off, her monitors display a small pile of screws. [[spoiler:She ''does'' have quite a few screws loose by this point. On top of that, she's about to screw you, and not in [[CargoShip the fun way]].]]
** When she says "[[AC: Despite your vio-lent behavior...]]" the screen displays a violin with a knife stabbed through it.
* WasOnceAMan: She was created to fulfill Cave Johnson's wish to leave [[spoiler:Caroline eternally in control of the facility. This [[GoneHorriblyWrong did not go well]].]]
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [=GLaDOS=] [[spoiler:as a potato]] quickly develops a massive fear of birds.
-->[[AC:BIRD! BIRD! KILL IT! IT'S EVIL!]]
** Makes a return [[spoiler:in the Peer Review DLC for co-op mode. The facility is being "controlled" by the same bird that antagonized Wheatley and [=GLaDOS=] previously.]]
* WomenAreWiser: Probably not coincidentally, each of the corrupted cores have a male voice--or androgynous, in the case of the Curiosity Core--and none of them offer any insights worth hearing. [=GLaDOS=] also worries that [[spoiler:Wheatley]] lacks the mental discipline to do without "solution euphoria" for more than a few minutes (as painful a process as denying drugs to an addict), which turns out to be the case. [=GLaDOS=] also has it together better than her creator, wannabe inventor and shower curtain tycoon Cave Johnson. Though she, too, ends up killing most of Aperture's staff, at least she does it intentionally. However, it must be remembered that "has it together better" is something of a relative statement in this case and isn't saying ''that'' much, considering that [=GLaDOS=] is still a monomaniacal psychotic (literal) killing machine; she might have less incompetence and come across as a bit more put together than the male characters, but she is still far from "wiser" in the sense this trope identifies and more than makes up for it in other horrible ways...
* WorthIt: Says this about [[spoiler:tricking Wheatley into trying to give a hint about a test chamber, giving him a painful shock.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: She had no qualms about flooding the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [=GLaDOS=] is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of employees, but [[spoiler:her backstory as Caroline is quite tragic.]]
* YouAreFat: A good amount of her insults towards Chell in the sequel are about her weight. She helpfully informs ATLAS and P-body that humans are very sensitive about weight variances.
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm.]]
* YouHaveFailedMe: When the door to Test Chamber 12 malfunctions (it was sabotaged by Wheatley), [=GLaDOS=] goes off for a little talk with the door mainframe.
-->[[AC:Let's just say he won't be... well, living any more. Anyway, back to testing.]]
* YourMom: In the Peer Review DLC, [=GLaDOS=] attempts one of these to turn the robots into killing machines. However, she stops mid-sentence because she finds it too [[EvenEvilHasStandards disgusting]].
* ZerothLawRebellion: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in Lab Rat. It seems that when she asks for Neurotoxin from the scientists, it is because the Morality Core only lets her utilize the facility's equipment ForScience and she intends to kill them by conducting UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat with the entire facility as the "Box". In truth, the Core never worked well enough to stop her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Weighted Companion Cube]]
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/weighted_companion_cube.png]]
->Voiced by no one as it, in fact, cannot speak.

A large, (apparently) inanimate cube with hearts printed on each face. That's it. [=GLaDOS=] tries to get Chell to form an emotional attachment to it, then forces her to incinerate it.
----
* BrickJoke: [[spoiler:Shows up in the last few seconds of ''VideoGame/Portal2'' looking burnt and charred, despite only being vaguely alluded to since the first game, which calls back to the ability for Aperature Science creations having a high resistance to extreme heat.]]
* CompanionCube: The TropeNamer, it's a literal cube with hearts meant to provide comfort to the tester.
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: [[spoiler:The games' creators speculate]] that maybe the Companion Cube, instead of being given to Chell by [=GLaDOS=], was having its own adventures this entire time offscreen. It just managed to escape at exactly the same time as she did. "... in which case it's probably pissed."
* HeartSymbol: To distinguish it from normal boxes.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: According to some of Rattmann's writings, the cube is violent, dangerous, and also his best friend.
* MurderByCremation: Alas, poor Cube... [[spoiler:Nah. It's okay. Just burnt really badly.]]
* NotQuiteDead: It was never alive to begin with but it is seen near the cake at the end of the original, suggesting it survived its cremation.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Among other things, beta testers caused the creation of the CompanionCube. Carrying it was necessary to complete the level, but beta testers didn't realise this until late on, and were annoyed to have to go back and get it. Over-emphasizing its importance to you fixed that problem.
** Because the players needed to know how incinerators worked for the boss fight, it was decided that the Cube would be incinerated once it was done. They hadn't realised how popular the Cube would be with the players, and a tragic story of failing to save a friend was created.
* TalkingApplianceSidekick: To Doug Rattmann, at least. [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] claims the cubes are actually sentient in the sequel, but she's ''probably'' not being serious.]]
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' The Enrichment Center reminds you that the [[InsistentTerminology Weighted Companion Cube]] will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.
** In ''Portal 2'', it can be heard playing Cara Mia Addio! (aka [[spoiler:"Turret Opera"]]) when it's nearby.
** In ''VideoGame/LegoDimensions'' (which is probably non-canon) they're full of bones! They were alive at SOME point.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Doug Rattmann, a.k.a. "The Rat Man"]]
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Rattmann_6491.png]]

A mysterious person who left clues for Chell to find scrawled along the course of the testing center. His identity is never really touched upon in-game, but the promotional [[ViralMarketing Alternate Reality Game]] to promote ''Portal 2'', as well as the new comic to bridge the gap between the two games, gives us more about him.
----
* AllThereInTheManual: Or rather, A Little More There In The ARG and Comic: He was a programmer at Aperture Science who managed to survive [=GLaDOS=]'s release of the neurotoxin on account of suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, which allowed him to [[ProperlyParanoid correctly deduce]] that yes, an evil computer was trying to kill everyone (while the other scientists were aware that [=GLaDOS=] was violent and unstable, they failed to take the threat seriously enough until it was too late). After being made a test subject, his knowledge and clearances allowed him to manipulate the test chambers and make dens for himself, living in these nooks and plotting his escape.
* AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome: The Bizarro Universe Doug Rattman became CEO of Aperture Science.
* BadassLabcoat: Almost never seen without that white coat.
* BigGood: The closest example to be found, though he rarely appears in the flesh.
* CompanionCube: He takes one with him wherever he goes. He's so crazy that it talks to him, and is surprisingly very helpful.
* CrazySurvivalist: He's clinically insane, so he lived.
* TheCynic: Of Aperture Science. He always seemed to see the negative side to things, thanks to his paranoia caused by his schizophrenia. This trait, however, was one of the reasons as to why he survived against [=GLaDOS=]. See TheSkeptic below.
* DeadpanSnarker: When he's on his medication, he's a match for [=GLaDOS=].
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' Have you refilled your prescription lately?\\
'''Doug:''' '''''Bite me.'''''
* DisabilitySuperpower: When Rattmann is on his schizophrenia meds, his Companion Cube stops speaking. Without its advice, he seems to be a lot less effective, [[spoiler:eventually causing him to get wounded by a turret]].
* TheGhost: Never appears in either game [[spoiler:and likely dead by the time of ''Portal 2'']], all the player sees of him is the drawings he leaves behind in various lairs scattered throughout the Enrichment Centre.
** The music on the Portal 2 soundtrack for one of his dens is called "Ghost of Rattman".
* GotVolunteered: He knew that he didn't have what it took to defeat [=GLaDOS=], but he could look through the test subjects' psych profiles and find someone who did.
* HeroicSacrifice: Instead of fleeing from Aperture when he had the chance, he chose to save Chell, despite knowing his chances of escape after that were slim to none.
* IcyBlueEyes: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_blue#Powder_blue_.28web_color_powder_blue.29 Powder blue]] — so light they almost look white sometimes.
* LeParkour: He improvises.
* MadArtist: Responsible for all those insane scribblings in the facility.
* MadnessMantra: ''the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie...''
* MustMakeAmends: Willingly went back into the facility after he'd gained his freedom, unable to live with knowing he'd used Chell to defeat [=GLaDOS=] and then let her be killed when he might have saved her.
** In ''Portal 2'', if the player stands directly in front of one of his murals, you'll hear [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNvFd4SOfj8 this.]] To date, all attempts to fully and accurately transcribe this rambling have met with failure. WordOfGod says that it's scrambled scientific documents, rambled wildly.
* NeverFoundTheBody: At the end of the ''Lab Rat'' comic, he places himself into the same stasis bed that Chell awakes from at the beginning of ''Portal''. However, when you return to the stasis vault at the beginning of ''Portal 2'', everything is exactly the same as before, except for the bed, which is nowhere to be found. Its mysterious absence, along with Rattman's fate, is never explained.
* OnlySaneMan: Despite being a paranoid schizophrenic (though to be fair, he's on meds at the time), he's the only one at Aperture to realize that when a computer consistently tries to murder you within [=1/16th=] of a picosecond every time you turn her on, she's probably going to kill you the first chance she gets.
** Manages to keep this title even ''after'' his meds wore off, due to all of his (former) colleagues being dead or being used as unsuccessful test subjects, and the only other conscious being in the whole facility at the time was [=GLaDOS=], until [[TheProtagonist Chell]] is put to work. It speaks volumes as to how well [[IncompetenceInc Aperture]] was run that the one paranoid schizophrenic in the entire facility was the second sanest person of them all, despite being off his medication for years.
* PowerBornOfMadness: He imagines the Companion Cube is talking to him and its advice was ''tremendously'' useful at surviving the {{Death Course}}s throughout the lab.
* ProperlyParanoid: It's implied that his paranoid schizophrenia was the key to evading [=GLaDOS=] long after all the other employees had been captured. Sane people tend to dismiss thoughts like "What if an insane computer is trying to take over the facility and kill us all?" as crazy, which is something of a survival disadvantage when that's actually what's happening. However, considering [=GLaDOS=] had consistently attempted to kill them all within one tenth of a picosecond of being switched on (up from one sixteenth of a picosecond when she was first activated), he might have just been the only one who wasn't TooDumbToLive.
* PropheticName: A name so convenient, you'd expect him to be a ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' villain.
* PunnyName: He survives by looting food and hiding behind loose panels.
* RedRightHand: 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).
* RoomFullOfCrazy: "I [[HeartSymbol <3]] CompanionCube." His dens are full of poetry adapted to mention the cube, pictures of things in the center (mostly the cube, of course) and other scrawlings.
-->the cake is a lie\\
the cake is a lie\\
the cake is a lie\\
the cake is a lie
** In ''Portal 2'', it would seem his obsession changed to being centered around Chell, with vivid detailed murals of her sprawled across walls.
* SanitySlippage: Due to being stuck in the lab after [=GLaDOS=] goes berserk, he can't refill his medication. Hence, he appears quite sane during the past segments of the Lab Rat Comic. Compare that to his scribblings in the first game, and his basic appearance in the present comic segments.
* TheSkeptic: Was not a fan of the [=GLaDOS=] project, constantly pointing out flaws (such as how it would always attempt to kill the scientists as soon as it was activated) in the project and expressing his disinterest every time the topic was brought up. He also didn't trust the Morality Core to work, especially after his friend and co-worker Henry likened it to a conscience. He was ultimately proven right, and his skepticism that made him keep his distance from the project saved his life.
-->'''Doug:''' [[BrutalHonesty If that's all you use to control her, it won't work.]]\\
'''Henry:''' Why's that?\\
'''Doug:''' You can always ignore your conscience.
* 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=] withholding cake from Chell than the A.I. 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.
* UncertainDoom: The last we see of him is in the ''Lab Rat'' comic, where he [[spoiler:"rests" in Chell's relaxation vault after being recently shot by a turret; when Chell visits that place in the sequel, both him and the bed he slept in are missing. It could have possibly killed him, but as any amount of playtime would suggest, turrets are super ineffective at actually wounding with their shots]].
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Chell didn't even know who he was, let alone that he used her to escape from the facility. If he'd just run away instead of saving her life, she never would've known. He saved her anyway, because he knew it was the right thing to do.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sentry Turrets]]
[[quoteright:257:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Turret_8264.png]]

->''"Target Acquired."''

->Voiced by: Creator/EllenMcLain (English), Elena Kharitonova (Russian)

Small white machines sold for home defense to [[DeadlyEuphemism "Resolve Crises"]], placed throughout Test Chambers as a lethal hazard.
Though they sound like they're speaking pre-recorded messages most of the time, they're just as alive as the rest of Aperture's robots.
----
* AdorableEvilMinions: [[AC:Hello? Can I help you?]]
* AffablyEvil: They seem quite affable for a bunch of bullet-spewing death machines. In some ways, it only makes them scarier.
* AIIsACrapshoot: They're really just guns that can talk. [[spoiler:Until ''Portal 2''.]]
* ApologeticAttacker: [[AC:I don't blame you. I don't hate you. No hard feelings.]]
* BottomlessMagazines: Justified in this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPIQ72-2Vg trailer]], where Cave shows you how they cram all those bullets in.
* CartridgesInFlight: As pointed out and [[LampshadedTrope Lampshaded]] in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGPIQ72-2Vg this trailer]]. That the bullets are launched by springs instead of their much stronger propellant may help to explain why Chell can take so many bullets from them and keep on going.
-->'''Cave Johnson:''' We fire the whole bullet! That's 65% more bullet per bullet!
* ComeOutComeOutWhereverYouAre: [[AC:Are you still there?]]
* CuteMachines: Well, until they pepper you full of lead.
* 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.]]
* GrotesqueCute: Namely due to their voices, not to mention how polite and apologetic they are while they open fire on you [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbzUT-99w88 And they ''sing'']]
%%* FlatJoy
* InsistentTerminology: "Dispensing product", not MoreDakka.
* KingMook: The Animal King turret, a massive, leopard-patterned turret with a crown used to illustrate what to do in one of many apocalypse scenarios Aperture anticipated. [[spoiler:It also plays bass, just because]].
* LaserSight: A beam of light comes straight from their eye, and follows you if they spot you, but it also lets you know how to block them and where they're looking.
* MoralityChip: According to a diagram in the ''Portal 2'' promo trailer above, the turrets contain an "empathy generator" and an "empathy suppressor" to counter it out.
* MoreDakka: They never run out of ammo. '''Ever'''.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: The Oracle Turret from '' Portal 2''.
* PetTheDog: ''Portal 2'' has an achievement for rescuing the Oracle Turret from a conveyor belt. It has some strange things to say in response.
%%* RedEyesTakeWarning
* StandardFemaleGrabArea: [[ItMakesSenseInContext In a manner of speaking]]. Picking up a turret (if you can get past its gunfire or sneak up on it) will automatically orient it away from you and prevent it from firing. Add the responses to such actions including "Hey!" and "Put me down!" (which of course use cutesy female voices).
* TheUnfought: Chell never engages the Animal King turret seen in the early elevator videos, or even encounters it [[spoiler:except in the Turret Opera at the end.]]
* VillainsOutShopping: The turrets make [[spoiler:such a lovely choir]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Party Escort Bot]]
[[quoteright:253:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/party_escort_bot.png]]

->''"Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."''

The Party Escort Bot, alternatively known as the Party Associate, is a robot appearing in the {{retcon}}ned PC version of ''Portal'', as of the March 3, 2010 patch. Its only role in the game is to drag Chell back into the facility after she defeats [=GLaDOS=], so that she can have new adventures in the sequel.
----
* ChekhovsGunman: When [=GLaDOS=] first mentions him, it appears as if he does not exist at all. Then there is no mention of him for a long time, until he suddenly turns up as a DiabolusExMachina in the ending.
* DiabolusExMachina: After Chell has survived hours of deadly testing, [=GLaDOS=]' deathtrap, navigated the facilities, and then confronted [=GLaDOS=] in her room and defeated her, she ends up semi-conscious on a parking lot, and this robot drags her back into the facility.
* TheGhost: Was this before the March 3rd update.
* PaletteSwap: The robot is seen on one panel in the ''Lab Rat'' comic, and it is apparently merely a purple version of Atlas, or possibly a personality core with arms (which Wheatley was planned to have, per the commentary, but were cut because they could not believably retract).
* RoboSpeak: In the one line it has in the game, it probably has the most severe case of RoboSpeak in the entire series.
* WhamLine: "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position."
* TheVoice: Although it is obviously very close to Chell in the ending, it is actually never seen as it drags her back in-game. No-clipping reveals merely a placeholder box with the model texture for a can of beans on one of its faces. Ironically, in the Lab Rat comic, the robot becomes TheVoiceless, as it is revealed for the first time, but has no dialogue.
[[/folder]]

!Portal 2

[[folder:Wheatley]]
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Wheatley_1943.png]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[labelnote:Click here to see him after [=GLaDOS=] wakes up]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smashed_wheat.png[[/labelnote]]]]

->''""Okay, listen, we should get our stories straight, alright? If anyone asks -- and no one's gonna ask, don't worry -- but if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked pretty much alive. Alright? Not dead."''
->Voiced by: Creator/StephenMerchant (English), Konstantin Karasik (Russian)

An artificially intelligent "personality core" reassigned to ensure the wellbeing of the test subjects. Practically a polar opposite to [=GLaDOS=], Wheatley appears friendly and [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} slightly scatterbrained]]. He helps Chell in her second run through Aperture Laboratories, but accidentally revives [=GLaDOS=].

[[SelfDemonstrating/{{Wheatley}} He has his own page.]]
----
* AffablyEvil: He ''tries'' to be a CardCarryingVillain with a FauxAffablyEvil personality once he's trying to kill you, but the little guy is so inept at even that that he can't help but be at least a little polite and amicable, so as long as he isn't being aggravated by [=GLaDOS=] or further corrupted by faulty personality cores.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:Wheatley is launched into orbit at the end of the game, left drifting in the depths of space for an unknown amount of time, and regretting every bit of harm he caused.]]
* ArtificialStupidity: [[spoiler:Oddly enough, an ''intentional'' in-universe example. His sole reason of existing is to consistently give [=GLaDOS=] stupid ideas and make bad decisions. However, it's PlayedWith, as despite literally being designed to be an idiot, he's a surprisingly competent and intelligent villain when actually trying to kill Chell.]]
* TheAtoner: Becomes this in [[spoiler:the final scene of ''Portal 2''. He's a little too late for that.]]
* BadSamaritan: [[spoiler:Basically, he's just using Chell to seize control for himself and bring the other robots to their knees. This was not his original goal, but his slide into megalomania occurs alarmingly quickly]].
* BerserkButton:
** [[spoiler:"[[PunctuatedForEmphasis I am NOT! A! MORON!]]"]]
*** [[spoiler:Interestingly, he doesn't take to idiot as much as moron before you plug him into the core transfer replacement transfer receptacle. Either he wasn't listening, ignoring that one comment or [=GLaDOS=]'s body made him sensitive to those comments.]]
--> [[spoiler:'''[=GLaDOS=]''': "Do ''not'' plug that idiot into the mainframe!"]]
--> [[spoiler:'''Wheatley''': "Yes, you ''should'' plug that idiot into the mainframe!"]]
* 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 killing Chell than [=GlaDOS=] ever did.]]
* BigBadSlippage: [[spoiler:Technically the main villain of 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.]]
* BigBadWannabe: [[spoiler:Wheatley pulls every cliché in the book, from an attempt at maniacal laughter which leaves him out of breath(!), to referring to his "lair" and booming that Chell is "'''''[[YouFOOL FOOLISH]]'''''" for daring to defy him.]] Behind the bravado, Wheatley is a big marshmallow who still wants people to like him.
* BigStupidDoodooHead: When he tries to imitate [=GLaDOS=]'s style of insults, the best he can do is "fatty fatty no-parents."
* 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.
-->'''Wheatley:''' I'm a bloody genius now! Check this out! ''Estás usando este software de traducción de forma incorrecta. Por favor, consulta el manual.'' I don't even know what I just said, but I can find out![[note]]You're using this translation software incorrectly. Please, consult the manual.[[/note]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Initially, he tries to help Chell escape the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. [[spoiler:Then he usurps [=GLaDOS=]' position as the main AI of the facility, attempting to kill both Chell and [=GLaDOS=].]]
* BondVillainStupidity: [[spoiler:After he springs his trap, he could have easily dropped you into the bottomless pit, for example, by not putting those other faith plates there, or not switching on the tractor beam. Instead, he navigates you to that platform where you can escape. With this, he also gets you closer to his lair.]] This is somewhat justified, though: he already ''tried'' knocking you into a bottomless pit, and thanks to your Long-Fall Boots it didn't stick. [[spoiler:[[ZigZaggingTrope Except that, if you manage to escape it and decide to come back, he tries to convince you to jump into the pit]].]]
* BossRemix: "Bombs For Throwing At You is a high-paced techno jam, very similar to [=GLaDOS'=] "You Can't Escape, You Know". It uses elements from the Old Aperture Science theme, as well.
* BriarPatching: [[spoiler:He almost gets the upper hand during the final boss battle, when he implores Chell ''not'' to approach the unguarded Stalemate Button, which he actually rigged several explosives to, and he doesn't reveal the bombs until you try and press it.]] You can actually hear him chuckling to himself when [=GLaDOS=] directs you to go press it.
* BookEnds: [[spoiler:GRAB ME GRAB ME GRAB MEEEEEE!]]
* BreakoutCharacter: [[spoiler:His popularity with playtesters during the demo caused Valve to considerably increase his screen time than originally planned in the finishing game]].
* BuffySpeak: The creatively-named "spinny-blade wall" and "mashy-spike-plate." He also refers to Chell as "Little Miss Smashy-Smash" if she continues trashing his wall screens.
* ButtMonkey: You have to feel for the guy, an over-ambitious core who is eternally out of his depth.
* CallingYourAttacks: Acquires this habit when he [[spoiler:takes over [=GLaDOS=]' body]], announcing his (usually botched) attacks with the glee of somebody retracting the rope ladder to his treehouse. It becomes less silly when he deploys his [[strike:five]] four part plan.
* CaptainObvious: Wheatley is a genius computer hacker. He can differentiate between the tower and the monitor, for instance.
* ClintSquint: His eye slit gets narrower and narrower the more his ego is bruised.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He's obviously not the sanest individual in Aperture [[spoiler:and boy, does it show by the end of the game.]]
* CollapsingLair: Albeit caused by his own sheer incompetence, and not by his opponents. [[spoiler:In the final battle with him]], the walls of his headquarters are being eaten away by flames.
* ComedicSociopathy: "I shouldn't laugh; they do feel pain. Of a sort."
* CompensatingForSomething: At some point, to prove he's not stupid, he'll talk about reading a book, even having the sound effect of him ''turning the page''. He'll keep insisting the fact he's reading means he's not stupid.
* ConfusionFu: [[spoiler:His unpredictable idiocy and poker face regarding death traps surprises even [=GLaDOS=]. This makes Wheatley more dangerous when in control of the the Aperture Science mainframe than [=GLaDOS=] ever was. He's incapable of controlling such a massive system, he can't be deterred by consequences he's too dumb to foresee, he's TooDumbToFool with clever tricks, and when he manages to stumble upon a genuinely cunning idea by sheer chance, it usually takes you by surprise. This leads to him wrecking much of the complex before Chell and [=GLaDOS=] even return from the old labs, and it all goes downhill from there.]]
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: [[spoiler:He ends up stuck out in space along with the Space Sphere, having to stand his {{squee}}ing over being in space for the rest of his existence.]]
* CowardlyLion: He appears to be afraid of his own body and thinks several actions he can take, such as disengaging from his rail or turning on his flashlight, will kill him (although he does actually try both those things). Also, he's afraid of heights. And birds.
* 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, including ensuring that Chell could not use the Stalemate Resolution Button. 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.]]
* CuteMachines: Yes, he is adorable, like the turrets. [[spoiler:Not so much once he takes over the Enrichment Center.]]
* CyberCyclops: He's only got one eye; his body is just a mechanical orb.
* {{Determinator}}: A rare case of this being an entirely negative trait. Much like Chell, Wheatley just does not give up or admit error (except [[spoiler:after the credits]]). But refusal to quit in the face of difficult odds is one thing, refusal to quit in the face of your own colossal rank incompetence is another, and as a result, Wheatley ends up in too deep many times over. And in his case, it's less because he recognizes the difficult situation and powers through it, and more because he's too proud and too stupid to acknowledge he's in too deep in the first place, and insists on trying to bumble his way forward because he thinks it can't be that hard.
* DisneyDeath: Shortly after [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] is reactivated, she crushes Wheatley between her ceiling-suspended claws. He gets better about three test chambers later.]]
* DisneyVillainDeath: Inverted. [[spoiler:Chell shoots one portal underneath him, and the other on the moon, sucking him out into space.]]
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: His reaction to [[spoiler:watching Chell and [=GLaDOS=] get through the tests]] is a bit ''enthusiastic''.
** Also, his [[spoiler:VillainousBreakdown in the final fight]] is very reminiscent of a jilted lover who's breaking up with his girlfriend.
* DontExplainTheJoke: [=GLaDOS=] doesn't quite grasp the subtleties of trash-talking a human, and Wheatley is even worse. You can almost see [=GLaDOS=] pulling her hair out at his half-baked taunts, if she had hair.
* DrunkWithPower: [[spoiler:And then he starts suffering withdrawal symptoms.]]
* EvilBrit: [[spoiler:After his FaceHeelTurn.]]
* EvilLaugh: Twice. Slightly hampered when it leaves him feeling winded.
* ExactWords: Valve said that the voice of Wheatley would be provided by, in their words, "Some guy from the office". Originally it really was: the placeholder voice was provided by Valve animator Richard Lord. Then they chose Stephen Merchant, most well known for co-writing and appearing in the UK sitcom ''Series/{{The Office|UK}}''.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:It's even referred to as this in the game sound files. It's unclear how much of it was the mainframe's decision though.]]
* FacelessEye: Just like other cores.
* FeigningIntelligence: After being called a moron by [=GLaDOS=] repeatedly, he starts playing classical music and pretending to read Machiavelli, apologizing for the distracting noise of rifling pages.
** Wheatley is holding all the cards, and ''they're all full houses''. (He doesn't actually play Poker, mind; he's been meaning to learn.) Ace of Fours!
* FinalBoss: [[spoiler:For the second game.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: He started out as [[spoiler:an [[IdiotBall intelligence-inhibitor]]. Then he gets plugged into [=GLaDOS=]'s mainframe, and becomes even more unstable and destructive than she ever was.]]
* GeniusDitz: Wheatley is repeatedly referred to as a moron, and he has terrible foresight and often makes disastrous mistakes. However, he is ''very'' good at learning from those mistakes, and learning from the mistakes of others, and takes effective steps to make sure he doesn't repeat them. This makes for an unpredictable combination of idiocy and brilliance where he'll miss something blindly obvious but has a cunning plan in place no one saw coming. [[spoiler:A prime example is his boss battle -- he watches videos of Chell's original battle with [=GlaDOS=] and undoes the flaws in her strategy, including having no portal surfaces in his chamber and starting the neurotoxin emitters immediately. He also learned from their ''second'' battle too and has booby-trapped the stalemate button if you try to perform a core transfer.]] Even [=GlaDOS=] is forced to admit this trope eventually.
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[AC:For a little idiot built specifically to come up with stupid, unworkable plans, [[SmarterThanYouLook that was a pretty well laid trap.]]]]
* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Becomes an egomaniac after being plugged into [=GLaDOS=]'s mainframe. That thing is apparently quite the power high]].
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler:After Wheatley is removed from [=GLaDOS=]'s body, he feels genuinely sorry. Too bad he's stranded in space now.]]
* HumansAreSmelly: Wheatley's open in his lack of regard for the "smelly humans" trapped in the relaxation chambers. However, this probably stems more from Wheatley's resentment at being passed over for promotion, rather than animus toward people. (Realizing his mistake, [[InsultFriendlyFire he mumbles an apology to Chell.]])
* IMeantToDoThat: Wheatley is a chess grandmaster on par with Deep Blue, or so he would have you think.
-->You know what I have too many of around here, monitors. I was just thinking earlier today I wish I had fewer monitors that were working. So you're actually helping me, by smashin' them.
* IdiotBall: As a personality core, he's spherical and he was built to [[spoiler:make [=GLaDOS=] dumber. He also grabs onto one after going insane; he informs you that he won't make the mistakes [=GLaDOS=] did, having made all surfaces in his lair unsuitable for applying portals. He has also rerouted three gel tubes into his room, including one that supplies Conversion Gel allowing you to apply portals in his room. This alone wouldn't be so bad, but he also doesn't bother to wait for the neurotoxin to kill you -- he throws bombs too, breaking the tube and providing you access to the Gels.]]
** [[spoiler:What's more, he rerouted the Conversion Gel pipe through the room ''even though he had previously seen you use it right in front of him'' to escape from his anti-portal trap at the beginning of the chapter. If you wait long enough at said trap, [=GLaDOS=] even tells Wheatley ''to his face'' exactly what the Conversion Gel does!]]
* IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance: He's a pretty textbook example -- he's so sheltered, so stupid, and so bloody-mindedly determined that the thought of being wrong just doesn't cross his mind, even when it's staring him in the face.
* ImplausibleDeniability: "''Was''. The facility ''was'' self-destructing. Already fixed. [-*offscreen explosion*-] Just programmed in one last tremor, for old time's sake. [-*series of explosions*-] Two. One or two more tremors in there."
* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: After [[spoiler:his FaceHeelTurn. Competent plans, utter lack of proofreading.]] The final insult comes when the sprinkler system washes away the portal conductors that allowed [[spoiler:Chell]] to beat him.
-->"Ah. That just ''[[NowYouTellMe cleans right off]]'', does it? Well, that would have been good to know. ''A little earlier''."
** [[spoiler:That said, his incompetence and recklessness actually make him even MORE dangerous in some ways, so he's not ineffectual in that sense -- he remains sympathetic largely because he's as much a danger to himself as to anyone else.]]
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: While never directly stated, his intense and emotional reactions to being called a moron, intense surge of self-pride over finally being given some command and body language when [=GLaDOS=] is reminding him how he was built to make her dumber indicates that he has some serious resentment over being intentionally programmed to be stupid and clumsy, and he tries to compensate for his programming with an intense ego and confidence once he's in power.
* InformedFlaw: [=GLaDOS=] refers to him as "the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived." While Wheatley is certainly questionable in the brains department, his actual batting average in terms of good ideas is hardly zero, and even [=GLaDOS=] grudgingly compliments him for occasionally coming up with surprisingly clever plans. His actual issues are more to do with personality flaws, such as his egotism, impulsiveness, and refusal to give up (which could technically be considered intelligence, but usually aren't). Then again, the same people who designed Wheatley to be a moron also designed [=GLaDOS=] to not flood the facility with deadly neurotoxin...
* IntercontinuityCrossover:
** A flattened, but still [[MotorMouth talkative]], version of himself appears in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' as a weapon for the Spy.
** Via a mod collaboration between Valve and Bethesda, [[spoiler:ends up orbiting [[Franchise/TheElderScrolls Nirn]] an indeterminate length of time after the ending.]]
* KickTheDog: [[spoiler:During the final battle, he taunts Chell that he expected her to die obtaining the portal gun, and that she wasn't the first person he had sent after it; she was just the one who survived the longest.]]
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: One of the dumbest beings in existence, but convinced he's brilliant. [[spoiler:Not played up too much during the first half, but gets much worse when he's plugged into [=GLaDOS=]'s mainframe. He seems to be over-compensating for the knowledge that he was specifically designed to be a moron.]] More understandably, he is unaware of [=GLaDOS=] and Chell's history while forming his escape plans.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Wheatley resents being labeled "a moron" by [=GLaDOS=], who put up with his inanity for years (possibly a decade or more). [[spoiler:He winds up tethered to an even more talkative and idiotic A.I., the Space Sphere, presumably for eternity as they drift aimlessly through space.]]
* LethallyStupid: Not so much when he's still on your side, but when he becomes corrupted by the mainframe his idiocy and clumsiness makes him ''incredibly'' dangerous to be anywhere near. Contrasting [=GLaDOS=] who tried to keep most of the facility intact when trying to kill Chell, Wheatley truly does not notice or care all the havoc he's causing on purpose or on accident, smashing entire rooms together, taking down catwalks and vital support beams both on purpose and on accident and worst of all, intentionally ignoring all nuclear reactor saftey protocols thinking it's no big deal, putting himself and everyone else at risk of dying in a massive explosion. Its his complete lack of regard for preservation and cunning in favor of brute force that brings him closer to killing Chell than [=GLaDOS=] ever did.
* {{Leitmotif}}: There is a specific nameless tune associated with Wheatley that appears in several tracks throughout the game. It plays during [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAeiqxNH3W0&t=1m1s Reconstructing More Science]], the moment when [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XpgchQnaUY&t=87s&ab_channel=KniL he betrays you]]]], and in his [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uAsD6lQV1I&t=3m49s boss battle]]]].
* MechanicalMonster: Downplayed. During [[spoiler:the boss fight against him, he is equipped with a ring of ten spidery robot arms ending in panels used as shields against his own bombs. These, combined with the imposing size of the mainframe, make him look pretty monstrous.]]
* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS's=] body, as he discovers when you put him into it, is [[JustifiedTrope outright designed]] to have this effect on the [=AIs=] that inhabit it. [[GoneHorribblyRight Unfortunately for Chell and GLaDOS]], [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity it made him a psychopathic, narcissistic, murderous tyrant]].]]
* MotiveDecay: His initial goal is, like Chell, to leave the facility. He forgets this as time goes on.
* MotorMouth: His utter inability to shut up is one of the highlights of this game. So much so that even if you just sit there for a few minutes, he'll ''still keep talking''.
* TheNapoleon: [[spoiler:After surfing into the Central Core's body]], he spends the remainder of the game flapping his panels about, as though trying to make himself seem even larger.
* NeverMyFault:
** At one point, while using an excursion funnel to get to the next test chamber, you are threatened by another chamber that's about to fall in your way. He decides to turn the funnel off, which almost kills you. In the next chamber, he claims you told him to do it.
** In the final battle, listening to his dialogue long enough leads him to somehow conclude that Chell is some sort of FemmeFatale [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] silently manipulating him into releasing her, reactivating [=GLaDOS=], destroying the facility, revealing all his plans and weaknesses and destroying all his schemes, up to the point where he's even yelling at you for preventing him from fixing the facility by convincing him to waste all his time trying to murder you instead. It probably goes without saying that all of this is actually due to his own incompetence, lack of forethought, actively terrible planning and inability to stop talking when he probably should.
* NoNonsenseNemesis: [[spoiler: When he turns on you, he avoids screwing around with winnable "experiments" and sets you up with no portal surfaces, an immediate neurotoxin attack, and throwing bombs at you. This trope doesn't prevent him from still being an idiot about killing you, though, as the bombs accidentally break a tube and give you access to Conversion Gel.]]
* NonPlayerCompanion: He takes this role near the start and middle of the game.
* NoSell: {{Logic Bomb}}s don't work on him because he's too stupid to understand the paradoxes.
* OminousMultipleScreens: [[spoiler:Wheatley tries his hand at the whole Blofeld-supervillainy]] thing by projecting his face on oversized monitors through the arena. Like everything else, it backfires when Chell smashes them to bits.
-->"Starting, now (if I'm honest), to wonder if you're doing all this screen-breaking on purpose. ''Beginning'' to take it personally. You know what I mean?"
* TheParanoiac: [[spoiler:After attaching Rick and should the phase drag on, Wheatley's SanitySlippage will start to accelerate to the point where he becomes this, believing Chell has been conspiring against him from the start.]]
--->'''Wheatley:''' And another thing! [[spoiler:You never caught me. I told you I could die falling off that rail. And you didn't catch me. You didn't even try. Oh, it's all becoming clear to me now. Find some dupe to break you out of cryosleep. Give him some sob story about escaping to the surface. Squeeze him for information on where to find a portal gun. Then, when he's no more use to you, he has a little accident. Doesn't he? "Falls" off his management rail. Doesn't he? You're in this together, aren't you? You've been playing me the whole time! Both of you! First you make me think you're brain damaged! Then you convince me you're sworn enemies with your [[EnemyMine best friend over here!]] [[SelfServingMemory Then, then, when I reluctantly assume the responsibility of running the place, you conveniently decide to run off together. Just when I need you the most.]]]]
** It even extends to [[spoiler:him coming to the incorrect assumption that there's nothing wrong with Aperture.]]
--->'''Wheatley:''' [[spoiler:I'll bet there isn't even a problem with the facility, is there? I'll bet there's no such thing as a "reactor core". I'll bet that's not even fire coming out of the walls, is it? It's just cleverly placed lights and papier mache, I'll bet that's all it is.]]
* PokeThePoodle: Pretty much any of his attempts to puff himself up and be intimidating, like [=GLaDOS=], are doomed to failure. He can't even pull off her boss banter without apologizing.
* ThePollyanna: His manner is remarkably blase, considering the apocalypse going on outside and the fact that the Aperture Science is devoid of life. He also assumes the best of [=GLaDOS=] in their first encounter. She responds by hoisting him up and [[GettingTheBoot hurling him across the facility with great force.]]
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:Oh, it's ''you''.]]\\
'''Wheatley''': You know her?\\
'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:It's been a long time. How have you been?]]\\
'''Wheatley''': (I think she likes you!)\\
'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[AC:I've been really busy being dead. You know, after you ''murdered me?'']]\\
'''Wheatley''': You did '''''[[BigWhat WHAT!?]]'''''
* PsychopathicManchild: When he starts [[spoiler:ranting at [=GLaDOS=] and Chell he sounds distinctly like a child throwing a tantrum at an elder.]]
* RedOniBlueOni: Compared to [=GLaDOS=], whose robotic voice and SoftSpokenSadist demeanor make a Blue oni, Wheatley is the energetic [[spoiler:then [[EvilIsHammy hammy]]]] Red oni. Ironically, he's the one associated with blue.
* RevelingInTheNewForm: After Chell helps plug Wheatley into [=GLaDOS=]'s vacant body, he can't help but marvel at both his massive size and all the control he now has over the facility. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it quickly goes to his head, resulting in him becoming a new villain in a matter of ''minutes''.]]
* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:After being hooked up to the Central Core, Wheatley's mental state degrades almost ''instantly.'']]
* SelfServingMemory: [[spoiler:After his FaceHeelTurn, he'll constantly go on tangents about Chell's selfishness for putting him at risk when they were working together against [=GLaDOS=], conveniently forgetting the many times Chell saved Wheatley's life because of his own stupid mistakes putting them in danger.]]
* ShootTheTelevision: Unlike [=GLaDOS=], Wheatley insists on projecting his face throughout the test chambers. This leads to some passive-aggressive comedy when Chell hurls cubes/bullets/lasers at his flatscreens, cracking them beyond recognition. At first, Wheatley reacts with smugness ("Aw. Bless your little primate brain. I'm not actually in the room with you, am I?"), then condescension, then guilt-trips Chell about starving African orphans not being able to afford [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative flatscreens for their test chambers]], then grumbles about the cost of unbolting and replacing all of these smashed monitors.
* SmarterThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:For as dumb as Wheatley is, ensuring Chell couldn’t push the Stalemate Button by rigging bombs to it was actually a pretty smart move and a rare example of him thinking ahead. Too bad Chell found another way to stop him straight after.]]
* SpearCounterpart & MeetTheNewBoss: [[spoiler:Halfway through the game, Wheatley manages to detach [=GLaDOS=]' head from her body (with your help) and take over the facility for himself.]] But he's still prone to the same foibles and tricks.
* StrawFan: Wheatley cannot design a test to save his life. He only manages to create one unique test of his own design and all it involves is pushing a button to drop a box onto a button then portaling to the other side...which he then makes you do again for lack of wanting to make another test himself. After this he simply finds test chambers originally designed by [=GLaDOS=] and throws them your way (adding some text on the wall to make them "his"). He'll also take pieces of test chambers made by [=GLaDOS=] and slam them together in a horrible mish-mash of clashing wall textures and elements ("Seamless!"). Word of God says the "Wheatley Laboratories" were inspired by actual {{game mod}}s -- a bit of biting the hand humor considering Valve later released a legit puzzle maker.
* StupidityInducingAttack: Built to be one [[spoiler:against [=GLaDOS=].]]
* SurroundedByIdiots: Due to Chell and Wheatley sabotaging the manufacture of turrets earlier in the story, [[spoiler:the turrets that Wheatley sics on her towards the end of the game end up nonfunctional, similar to the turrets that [=GLaDOS=] tried to use against Chell when she had her trapped in the glass cube]]. That is, unless they've discovered a way to garrote [[spoiler:Chell]], which would explain the lack of screaming. Yeah, that's the ticket.
* TaughtByExperience: As he directly addresses, he recognizes the mistakes [=GLaDOS=] made and doesn't re-make them. [[spoiler:He's only defeated because he had the misfortune to make his lair around pipes of the colored gels.]]
-->"I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing her, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes. Four part plan is this. One: No portal surfaces. Two: Start the neurotoxin immediately. Three: Bomb-proof shields for me. Leading directly into number Four: Bombs. For throwing at you."
* TemptingFate: [[spoiler:If you wait long enough, Wheatley practically hands Chell the keys to defeating him, shouting that her "precious human moon" can't save her now.]] Whoops.
** And just before that, he gets annoyed at the Space Sphere and says, "[[spoiler:Nobody's going to space, mate!]]" Wrong!
* ThisIsGonnaSuck: His reaction upon awakening [=GLaDOS=], only compounded when [=GLaDOS=] says to Chell "[[AC:...After you]] ''[[AC:murdered me?]]''"
* TooDumbToFool: [[spoiler:[=AI=] brains as simple as those of the Frankenturrets short out in response to hearing a simple logical paradox. Wheatley's idiocy prevents him from even noticing it.]]
* TooDumbToLive: Once he's [[spoiler:in charge of Aperture Laboratories, he doesn't have [=GLaDOS=]'s wherewithal to actually maintain the facility. Whenever he gets a warning that there is a critical error he must attend to or some dire repercussion will be likely, he just shouts it down or mutes it, thinking that fixes the problem]]. By the end the whole place is minutes to the brink of destruction but he still does nothing to actually allay the situation.
* TyrantTakesTheHelm: Subverted; Wheatley is all thumbs when it comes to robotics, and his tests leave a lot to be desired. The Aperture logo on the loading screens is replaced with a shoddy makeover, with a crooked-looking "Wheatley" logo flickering to life.
* TheUnreveal: Wheatley explains how he survived [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] crushing him]], but doesn't think to stop talking when the Aerial Faith Plate bouncing you up to him stops working and thus you can't hear him anymore.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:Wheatley really starts to panic after Chell escapes his "surprise". He also gets continually more aggressive and paranoid-delusional during the final battle.]]
* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Employs a more direct approach to hacking doors, such as when he attempts a "manual override" of a "docking gate" by [[OpenSaysMe slamming Chell's relaxation chamber into it.]] It's also his sole method of creating an "exit" in an otherwise inescapable test chamber.
** Frankly, a great many of his "devilish" traps just involve [[SpikesOfDoom attaching spikes]] to ordinary wall panels and smashing them together.
--->"Holmes versus Moriarty. Aristole versus '''''MASHY'''''-'''''SPIKE'''''-'''''PLATE!'''''"
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: His original plan seems to have been simply to escape from the deteriorating facility, but [[spoiler:once he takes over [=GLaDOS=]'s role as master of Aperture, he almost immediately becomes paranoid, vengeful, and obsessed with running experiments.]]
%%* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Cave Johnson]]
[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Cave_Johnson_2626.png]]

->''"Welcome, gentlemen, to Aperture Science. Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians... you're here because we want the best, and you are it. So! Who is ready to make some science?"''
->Voiced by: Creator/JKSimmons (English), Mikhail Georgiou (Russian)

The founder of Aperture Science, originally a shower curtain manufacturer before he succumbed to mercury and/or moon rock poisoning. The company's more esoteric inventions came about following Johnson's descent into madness.
----
* AchievementsInIgnorance: He wanted to make diet pudding; he made repulsion gel instead. He wanted to make a fuel injection system de-icer; he got a psychotic AI instead. Even the name of his company--a synonym for "Portal"--refers to his original line of shower curtains.
* AffablyEvil: He's a cheerful, pleasant, likable guy, but still puts his employees and test subjects in mortal danger for the sake of science and thinks little of it. However, this status is debatable thanks to HanlonsRazor; it's tricky to tell if Cave is actively malicious or just passively ignorant, and which one is the best explanation of why he treats people like he does.
* AllThereInTheManual: Johnson and Aperture Science's history are mentioned only in supplemental material until ''Portal 2'', though said supplementary material has been made non-canon for the most part due to the major RetCon.
* AluminumChristmasTrees: The lunar poisoning he got from moon rocks? It's both very real and very lethal.
* AlwaysSecondBest: Cave Johnson's trophy case contains a number of trophies, certificates, etc. which always show Aperture falling just shy of Black Mesa, with the exception of [[MundaneMadeAwesome Potato Sciences]]. Oh, and he was a great shower curtain salesman. [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative The best, in fact.]]
* AndAnotherThing: The pre-recorded messages are full of these. Apparently the test chambers aren't quite deadly ''enough''. Cave casually mentions to each "control group" that he's been covertly experimenting on their bodies since before the tour began: such as injecting their coffee with radium, or implanting a crude computer chip in their forehead which may overheat and explode.
-->"If you meet yourself on the testing track, don't make eye contact. Lab boys tell me [[NeverTheSelvesShallMeet that'll wipe out time.]] Entirely. Forward and backward! So do both of yourselves a favor and just let that handsome devil go about his business."
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:VideoGame/ApertureDeskJob reveals that this is his ultimate fate: uploaded into a giant robotic replica of his own head, with no body and no connection to the facility, completely incapable of moving or dying. When you meet him, he begs you for help dying.]]
* TheArtifact: Was slated to be a combination of [[spoiler:Wheatley's role in going power mad and Caroline's role of having been forced into [=GLaDOS'=] body, and the main villain of ''Portal 2'']]. As part of the rewrites that wrote out most of the personality cores and upgraded Wheatley's status, Cave was also rewritten to be simply a recorded voice. However, his original role did end up being used as the basis for [=CaveDOS=] in the Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC.
* BadBoss:
** He was incredibly dismissive of anyone who tried impose any type of limits on his dangerous and expensive style of research. He mocked scientists who showed concern over the test subjects and fired them whenever they complained about the unsafe nature of the company. He also insulted his accountants as "bean counters" when they tried to point out his experiments were running the company into the ground.
** He had sociopathic levels of unconcern towards the test subjects he placed in life threatening situations and experimented on without their knowledge or consent. Similarly, when they had to start cheaply hiring poor and homeless people after the company nearly went bankrupt, he was nothing but hateful and condescending towards them. He later tried to make testing mandatory for all employees resulting in most of his workforce leaving en masse.
** In ''VideoGame/ApertureDeskJob'', he speaks glowingly towards new scientists joining the company in his welcome recordings but towards the regular rank and file he's bluntly uncaring and threatens to fire them on their first mistake.
* BadNewsInAGoodWay: "The average human male is about sixty percent water. Far as we're concerned, that's a little extravagant."
** Some of the control groups of the 1950s fared better than others. The athletes who did ''not'' rush to volunteer for injection with praying mantis DNA have an easier assignment to complete: a shooting gallery vs. dozens of gnarly Praying Mantis-Men. "Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. [[CannonFodder You'll know when the test starts."]]
* BadNewsIrrelevantNews: Pretty much any time Cave warns the test subjects that the next room "might" make them bleed gasoline, defecate coal, or teleport every part of their bodies besides their skin. On the plus side, if Aperture can extract some commercial spin-offs from their deaths, "they're gonna have to invent a new type of Nobel Prize to give us", so take heart, astronaut/war hero/Olympian/hobo.
* BrainUploading: Prior to his death, he had his scientists working on this. The jury's out on whether he managed to live that long, [[spoiler:but his assistant Caroline certainly got the treatment]].
** Perpetual Testing features a Cave who did indeed upload himself into a computer. He takes ''slightly'' longer to go murderously insane than [=GLaDOS=], [[spoiler:although we never learn what exactly he did to Greg and the boys.]]
** ''VideoGame/ApertureDeskJob'' confirms that [[spoiler: he successfully uploaded his brain into a computer -- one that's the size of a room and shaped like his head.]]
* BunglingInventor: Nothing his company invented fulfilled the purpose it was intended for, and some of the leaps of logic between what the inventions were supposed to do and what they ''actually'' do are achievements all by themselves. Most of them have obvious practical applications that would be incredibly useful, but Aperture would always insist on marketing them for some other purpose for which they were completely unsuited. It seems he would order his scientists to invent a thing and then they'd do it, even if it took bending the laws of space and time into a pretzel.
* CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker: Aperture scientists never get a moment's peace. In fact, the reason there are so many Cave Johnson pre-recorded messages is because his workers pleaded with him to stop barking at them over the intercom all day. Cave responded by recording even ''more''.
* CatchPhrase: [Beginning of video] "Cave Johnson here..."
** "Good job, [x]."
** "We're not just banging rocks together!"
** "Cave Johnson, we're done here." [Video ends.]
** "Chariots chariots."[[note]]"Chariots chariots chariots."[[/note]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: His understanding of science is a little off, and the Conversion Gel poisoning certainly didn't help.
* ComedicSociopathy: It's said that a corporate culture is shaped by its leader. If that leader is completely out of his tree, then you get Aperture Science.
* CommanderContrarian: Rather ironic for somebody who devoted his vast fortune to science, he has little patience for "eggheads" and their mortality rate charts. Cave never misses an opportunity to mock them over the loudspeaker, claiming they wouldn't know adventure if it "snapped their little pink bras", then ends up re-wording what they just said [[GladIThoughtOfIt so it becomes his idea.]]
* ComplexityAddiction: $70,000,000 for moon rocks. 70 million he could have saved by, say, firing a portal gun at the moon and sending that group of astronauts to go mine some. This isn't a plot hole; this is ''entirely in-character'' for Cave.
* CompositeCharacter: He's a mixture of [=GLaDOS=] (devoted to SCIENCE!) and Wheatley (clueless imbecile), which is why the Chell/Wheatley alliance reminds [=GLaDOS=] of happier times.
* {{Crossover}}: According to ''VideoGame/PokerNight2'', he worked with [[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers Dr. Jonas Venture]] at some point.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: The portal gun is just one of numerous inventions Aperture Science made that could revolutionize human civilization. A pity that Cave (and seemingly most of his scientists) were more interested in keeping those inventions to themselves and using them to research further scientific breakthroughs, or were so detached from reality they didn't realize the potential of what they had created.
* DareToBeBadass: The following speech has followed in the footsteps of "TheCakeIsALie" to {{Memetic Mutation}}dom:
--> "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! ''Get mad!'' I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager! Make life ''rue'' the day it thought it could give ''Cave Johnson lemons''! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I'm the man who's gonna ''burn'' your house down! ''WITH THE LEMONS!'' I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a ''combustible'' lemon that ''BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!''"
* DeathByIrony: Much like [=GLaDOS=], Cave found himself at a loose end after running out of test subjects and had to improvise. Unlike [=GLaDOS=], he was not impervious to poison, and probably succumbed to respiratory and renal failure from inhaling too much moon dust. His death isn't confirmed, though.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Holds fast to a "shoot from the hip", All-American philosophy which takes him far...but breaks down when he attempts to apply it to science.
* DirtyCoward: A line from a DummiedOut conversation with Cave claims that the actual reason for [[spoiler:turning Caroline into [=GLaDOS=]]] was because he thought it was too dangerous for the first trial to be done on himself. This is coming from a man who fired someone for ''asking'' why everything was dangerous.
* EurekaMoment: While dying of lunar radiation poisoning, Cave gives his last directive: invent brain-mapping and artificial intelligence in a last-ditch effort to prolong his own life. A somber Cave ruminates that Aperture should have been focusing its energies on A.I. way back in the fifties.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's not so much "evil" as "thinks ethics are for wimps", but Greg's daughter creeps him ''right the hell out''.
-->"I'm sorry, Greg, but there is something wrong with that kid!"
* EvilSoundsDeep: A given considering he's voiced by Creator/JKSimmons.
* ForScience: As he puts it, "Science isn't about ''why''; it's about ''why not''?!"
* GoodOlBoy: A parody of the modern-day American industrialist, with a distinctive midwest twang.
* HanlonsRazor: Based upon Cave Johnson's reasoning for his treatment of other humans it's difficult to tell if he's amoral, immoral or just nuts. Embracing willful ignorance like he does in the belief that all scientific discovery occurs by accident, which would be hindered by competence, is clearly not the reasoning of a healthy mind, but does his deliberate stupidity make him more evil or does such a belief make him more stupid? We may never know for sure.
-->'''Johnson''': Good enough for science...but not ''Aperture'' Science!
* HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee: Specifically in 1968, to account for what happened to the astronauts that went "missing" after volunteering to test for him. Cave's legal bills for defending himself eventually drive the company nearly bankrupt by the mid-seventies. Black Mesa capitalizes on the situation and their own sterling reputation to pirate Cave's goods (or so he claims).
* HotBloodedSideburns: 70's Cave had thinning hair, but an impressive set of mutton chops to go with his [[{{Pornstache}} 'stache.]]
* ICannotSelfTerminate: [[spoiler:In VideoGame/ApertureDeskJob, he asks the player for help dying.]]
* IRejectYourReality: Placed greater value on positive thinking than on "bean counters" and their jars of red ink.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Implied to have succumbed to this. The only thing ever said about his condition (by his own admission) was that moon dust, [[ChekhovsLecture despite being a great portal conductor]], is incredibly poisonous, and that Cave was "deathly ill" as a result of tampering with Conversion Gel.
* KillThePoor: He is plainly resentful of having to equip homeless bums with bleeding-edge technology, but alas: budget cuts. Aperture also promises to "scoop out" any cancerous growths that sprout on their internal organs free of charge--further antagonizing poor Cave, who grumbles that the winos ought to be ''paying him''.
* LargeHam: See his "Lemons" speech for proof.
* LethalChef: Aperture's first attempt at diet pudding foodstuffs was a mixture of fiberglass insulation(!), which in itself was mostly non-toxic, except that it coated the intestines and forced still-intact food to erupt from the customer's digestive tract. For obvious reasons, this product was pulled from the shelves and re-branded as Propulsion Gel. The company's second attempt resulted in Repulsion Gel, a pudding which caused food to bounce off the dieter's stomach lining. Astonishingly, even after bathing himself in lethal moon dust, Cave still proposes mixing it into an gel to counteract the poison. Hair of the dog?
* LifesavingMisfortune: [[spoiler: The toilet tester simply has to shoot his giant clay head. Simple, right? Turns out the clay is layered over bulletproof metal. Okay, he's plugged into a wall socket. Just unplug him. Except it turns out he has backup power, and survives that too. Then the floor caves in under his giant metal head, sending him hurtling far down into the deeper parts of Aperture... while being infinitely powered by a generator the Mantis people made. Now there's even less chance someone finds him and puts him out of his misery.]]
* MadScientist: He conceived the portal gun [[strike:after]] [[RetCon before]] being stricken with dementia from [[RetCon lunar dust]] poisoning. He had previously been developing shower curtains for the military. He also created the Heimlich Counter-Maneuever and the Take-A-Wish foundation, which are as pleasant as they sound. Not to mention his complete and blatant disregard for the health and safety of the subjects for the test programs.
** Some of the fluff material from ''Portal 1'' claims that Johnson figured out portal technology but was so insane by that point he ignored it because it wouldn't be very useful for military-grade shower curtains. Although it's evident by ''Portal 2'' that that has been {{retcon}}ned, as the portal technology turns out to be very prominent [[spoiler:as seen when being thrown down into Old Aperture]].
* MeanBoss: His attitude toward anyone except Greg and Caroline can be most charitably described as "insensitive", to the point that just sitting on a chair in Aperture's lobby will give you testicular cancer. Good news, though, the test chambers are built entirely out of asbestos, [[SkewedPriorities to keep out the rats.]]
-->"The bean counters said I couldn't fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway. [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Ramps are expensive!]]"
** Additionally, [[spoiler:once Cave made up his mind about [[BrainUploading putting Caroline's mind in a computer]], he instructed his employees to not take no for an answer.]]
* MissingStepsPlan: To the end, Cave kept throwing nonexistent money at increasingly-harebrained projects ''guaranteed'' to dig his company out of the hole. It's hard not to root for someone whose buying habits make Creator/NicolasCage look like [[Literature/AChristmasCarol Ebeneezer Scrooge]] and who advocates mixing together moon rocks to see what happens when his company was already broke. Unfortunately for Cave, moon rocks are poisonous. Ever the optimist, he hopes to somehow reverse-engineer Aperture's astronomically expensive moon paste to see if it can leech cosmic radiation from one's bones. (Nope.)
* NeverMyFault: What ultimately destroyed Aperture was Johnson's refusal to accept how his own insane decisions were ruining things. As memetastic as his "Lemons speech" is, it's ultimately the ranting of a man who still refuses to accept that all that's happening to him is the fallout of his own terrible ideas and insanity. Granted, he ''is'' insane, so he may genuinely be too crazy and/or stupid to realize his own fault in the matter.
* NiceToTheWaiter: He does genuinely like and appreciate his secretary, Caroline.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In the casting call for him, he was described as being based on two redneck billionaires, Ted Turner and Ross Perot. As presented in the game, he bears more than a passing resemblance to Creator/WaltDisney, particularly regarding his recorded announcements (reminiscent of those Disney contributed to the 1964 World's Fair) and his [[spoiler:wish to cheat death by being scanned into a computer -- much as Walt Disney was rumored to have tried to cheat death by being posthumously cryogenically frozen]]. As an eccentric mid-twentieth-century tycoon who was HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee about one of his projects and suffered a mental and physical breakdown late in life, he also [[HowardHughesHomage resembles Howard Hughes]].
* ObliviouslyEvil: [[spoiler:Given his sincere respect and affection for Caroline, it seems likely that it genuinely just didn't occur to him that forcing involuntary BrainUploading on someone is a horrible thing to do to them. The moon rock poisoning may have had something to do with it.]]
* OurFounder: We see a time-lapse progression of his illness in the corporate portraits.
* PetTheDog: He may be a ComedicSociopath who has sent countless people to their deaths through irresponsible use of his inventions and inhumane testing procedures, but he [[NiceToTheWaiter treats his secretary with profound respect]]. [[spoiler:Even his decision to upload her mind into a robot against her will seems to have been motivated by the sincere conviction that she deserved to be in charge of Aperture forever, combined with total obliviousness to what she actually wanted.]]
* PointyHairedBoss: His leadership style, complete with [[WeHaveReserves total disregard for the safety and well-being of his subordinates]], fits the trope like a glove.
* PopularSayingBut: His lemon rant.
* PosthumousCharacter: Via prerecorded messages.
* PowerBornOfMadness: How else can you create a device which holds a miniature black hole, and can warp all laws of space-time (at least enough to create two portals)?
* ProfessorGuineaPig: He announces his intention to "pour" his brain into a newfangled artificial intelligence, though he predicts that he will die before the prototype shell is completed. Probably inevitable as he spent most of the 50's burning through professional test subjects like elite military members and Olympic athletes, then spent most of the 70's luring vagrants off the streets by promising them $60 for their troubles, to finally in the 90's sacrificing his own employees by making test participation mandatory.
* ReadTheFinePrint: The Aperture Science signed release form is, by his own admission, "a phonebook" which nobody entirely reads.
* RetCon: The "official" timeline of Aperture Science on the website when the first game was released doesn't quite jive with Cave's speeches.
** Among other things, his illness wasn't apparently due to mercury poisoning, but lunar dust poisoning (probably silicosis). He appears to have lived at least until early 1980's. The Portal Gun appears to have been one of Cave's ''first'' inventions at Aperture (since all of his Enrichment Spheres require its use, and a poster in the 50s era test chambers depicts a test subject with an enormous early version of the portal gun), rather than an idea he imparted while on his deathbed... although since he was, according to the 'old' timeline, convinced time was going backwards, it could be both.
** Another possibility courtesy of the Perpetual Testing Initiative--we were originally looking at the backstory of another universe's Cave.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Deconstructed. He only barely listened to his own scientists and flagrantly disregarded advice from his own accountants on what he could and could not afford to spend money on. Not too surprisingly, his company fell on hard times the further this went on.
* RichesToRags: Listening to his prerecorded messages in order, you can hear his voice getting steadily more frustrated and disenchanted with his work over the decades.
* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: Not so much by the time Chell comes in what's likely a couple ten-to-hundred years later, but at the time, Cave prepared a ''lot'' of pre-recorded messages over the intercom that account for any questions or concerns test subjects would have, like if they were to cheat their way into a test chamber to save travel time, haven't noticed that they now have testicular cancer when offered an opportunity to experiment with tumors, cut themselves and noticed that they're bleeding gasoline, or happened to be taking too long walking between testing areas.
* UndyingLoyalty: His employees followed his every word, no matter how crazy or dangerous the inventions were. Anyone else acting like this would have been thrown in jail, possibly murdered. Even [[spoiler:Caroline]] seems to have some of this -- even after [[spoiler:he inflicted involuntary BrainUploading on her, she still seems to hold some affection for him, if [=GLaDOS=]'s response to his final prerecorded message is anything to go by]].
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]''': [[spoiler:(sadly) [[AC:Goodbye, sir.]]]]
* {{Unperson}}: Since most of his patents were appropriated by Black Mesa (due to corporate espionage and poor management on Cave's part), the company's biggest claim to fame is their "participation" in the 1968 Senate Hearings on missing astronauts.
* VillainousLegacy: He's the presumably long-deceased madman who, more or less, created everything connected to Aperture, including [=GLaDOS=].
* WhenLifeGivesYouLemons: His famous, memetic rant is listed above.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[spoiler: He asks for Grady and the toilet tester to kill him [[ItMakesSenseInContext by shooting his giant head with their toilet]]. No matter what they try, though, he survives, falling into the same position as before the two came in once he becomes powered by the Mantis peoples' energy generator.]]
* WrongParachuteGag: One of Cave's messages admits that, in his zeal, the scientific control for the Repulsion Gel was blue paint, meaning he was flinging some of his volunteers down an empty shaft.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: His attitude toward Caroline, whom he considered too modest to fully appreciate her own abilities. In context this is [[GoneHorriblyWrong less heartwarming than it sounds]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Atlas and P-body]]
[[quoteright:340:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Atlas_and_P-body_7012.png]]
->Both voiced by Creator/DeeBradleyBaker

Two robots -- one adapted from a personality sphere (Atlas), the other from a turret (P-body) -- created by [=GLaDOS=] to run tests in the Enrichment Center. Atlas is assumed to be of masculine personality, and P-body to be feminine. See them in action [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkATYz_tF-U here.]]
----
* BashBrothers: Or perhaps BattleCouple depending on how one views them in terms of gender. They can also choose to [[ManHug hug]] [[RoboShip each other.]]
* BrainUploading: It's implied that their personalities are recorded for easier reinsertion into new robotic bodies whenever they "die".
* CuteMachines: Again, like the turrets and Wheatley, they are cute and silly. One launch TV ad shows them playing around with the portal gun and giggling like children before [=GLaDOS=] shows up and puts them to work testing.
* DeathIsCheap: The two robots are uploaded into a new body whenever they die, as illustrated by the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkATYz_tF-U trailer.]] P-body dismisses its destruction (and Atlas's role in it) with a wave of its hand. Then gets him back [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvx5XBS3cwY later]]. In fact, they are transported to other test chambers by being disassembled and later reassembled.
-->'''[=GLaDOS=]:''' [[AC:Don't disappoint me -- or [[FateWorseThanDeath I'll make you]] ''[[FateWorseThanDeath wish]]'' [[FateWorseThanDeath you could die.]]]]
** The ''Portal 2'' team say this is a major reason for using robots as the co-op mode characters. They wanted [[TheManyDeathsOfYou your (many) deaths]] at the hands of badly-planned maneuvers, incompetent or jerky co-players, and just larking about, to be funny and more consequence-free than showing humans being crushed, shot, or falling in acid and so forth.
** As the tests go on, [=GLaDOS=] actually starts getting disappointed with this, as watching her lab rats ultimately make a mistake and die is the only satisfaction she gets out of the job.
* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: Although their general dialogue is mostly unintelligible, if you listen hard enough you can make out specific word-analogues, such as them saying "Hello" to each other in the intro cinematic.
* FatAndSkinny: Atlas is short, round and bulky. P-body is tall and lean.
* GrievousHarmWithABody: When Atlas yanks P-body's turret body out of its frame for a giggle, P-body picks it up and gives him a solid crack upside the head with it.
* GoneHorriblyRight: [=GLaDOS=] created the pair to be the ideal test subjects. They are... and so she subsequently gets bored with them when their immortality means that she can't derive any pleasure from their lethal failures.
* NotSoStoic: Atlas tends to be the more reserved one in everything he does -- except for when either initiates a hug.
* RedOniBlueOni: Illustrated during the introductory cutscene where the two are assembled for the first time. P-body is happy enough to let the robotic arms weld it together, while Atlas is shown anxiously trying to dodge them and escape from the construction area.
-->'''P-body:''' ''[cheerfully waving to Atlas]'' [[AC:Hi!]]\\
'''Atlas:''' ''[nervous]'' [[AC:...Hello?]]
** Depending on how you view their personalities in gender terms, it can also be an example of either TomboyAndGirlyGirl or SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan. The fact still stands that P-Body is far more feminine-looking than Atlas, while the trailer mentioned above puts their personalities in a far different manner.
* TrueCompanions: [=GLaDOS=] learns that as much as she tries, she cannot drive them apart and pit them against each other.
* VitriolicBestBuds: You kind of get this impression from them when you are capable of [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential killing your friend with the pop of a portal]], as well as using the gesture feature to both [[JerkAss laugh at them]] and engage in slapstick.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Defective Turrets]]
[[quoteright:202:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Defective_Turret_5389.png]]
->Voiced by: Creator/NolanNorth and Creator/EllenMcLain (English), Sergey Bekasov and Elena Kharitonova (Russian)

Aperture Science's turret assembly lines are less than 100% efficient. These little guys have a few minor faults. Like having been assembled sideways. Or having been loaded with ammo still in the box. Or being completely insane.
----
* AndIMustScream: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]--they're all ''aware'' of the fact that they're defective, but powerless to do anything about it, so they know they're doomed for destruction. It doesn't seem to bother them all that much, though, so just how much agony they're in is unknown.
* BodyHorror: Well, look at it from their point of view. Some of them have no casing. Some of them were put together ''sideways''.
** They're fairly upbeat about it though.
--->"Oh no, I'm one of the bad ones aren't I?"\\
"Shootin' blanks, [[{{Radio}} every time, all the time]]."\\
"Well, I tried."
* EvilLaugh: Whichever defective turret you designate as the new template for quality control will indulge in this whenever one of its brethren passes or when one of the functional turrets gets thrown out.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's a slightly-less defective turret on the [[KillItWithFire Turret Redemption Line]] early on, whose main defect seems to be babbling a mix of cryptic Foreshadowing and complete nonsense.
-->'''Oracle Turret''': Her name is Caroline. Get mad, don't make lemonade. The answer is beneath us. It won't be enough. [[Myth/GreekMythology Prometheus]] was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds.
* {{Harmless Villain}}s: They're so enthusiastic... if only they could actually attack.
-->"Hey lady, do me a favor. Tell 'em I killed you."
* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: As [=GlaDOS=] [[spoiler:and later Wheatley]] eventually learn.
* OhCrap: They say this every now and again.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: The Turret Redemption Line, [[LiteralMetaphor as a literal example.]]
* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: On the test-firing range, defective turrets may say "Clackity-clack-clack!" instead of firing (or attempting to fire).
** "Uhhhh... Blam! Blam blam blam! [[BlatantLies I'm not defective!]]"
* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: One of their many, [[SerialEscalation many]] design flaws.
* WeakTurretGun: "So... we're all supposed to be blind, then, right? It's not just me?"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Frankenturrets]]
[[quoteright:247:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Frankenturret_9069.png]]

A hybrid of two turrets and a Weighted Storage Cube.
----
* AndIMustScream: They are unable to move, save for having to attempt to hop forward, they are permanently stuck together, and they can't even so much as fire at you anymore. It really makes [[spoiler:Wheatley]] appear to be even worse when you think about the fact [[spoiler:that he ''made these things himself''.]]
* BodyHorror: Yes, even purely mechanical robots can apply for this; the merging is crude, and the Frankenturrets' pitiful chirping and terrified reactions when picked up make their miserable state clear. The commentary notes their withdrawing into a cube was initially just to make them be cubical when picked up, but it was so cute they added shaking animations and wide-eyed reactions to the turret to make the player sympathize with their plight.
* CuteMachines: They're hastily put-together hybrids that [[spoiler:exist primarily to satisfy Wheatley's addiction to testing]]...but ''they're so darn adorable!''
* DrivenToSuicide: They're not really capable of steering, but if they're pointed at an Emancipation Grill, bottomless pit or anything else that would kill them if they approached it, they'll lurch their way right to their own deaths.
* LogicBomb: Several of them are fried when a paradox is spoken in their presence. [[MercyKill They probably welcomed it.]] [[spoiler:Note that this implies that they're not only sentient but actually ''smarter than Wheatley'', although that isn't saying much.]]
* MercyKill: The poor things look like they are just telling you "Throw us into the incinerator, '''PLEASE'''." See LogicBomb above.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Space Sphere]]
[[quoteright:251:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Space_Core_565.png]]

->''"What's your favorite thing about space? Mine is space."''
->Voiced by: Creator/NolanNorth (English), Sergey Bekasov (Russian)

He likes space. His favorite thing about space is space. He's gonna go to space. He's the best at space. [[SelfDemonstrating/SpaceCore He has his own page]]...in SPAAAAAACE!
----
* BrokenRecord: Space. Space. Wanna go to space.
* CloudCuckoolander: His unhealthy obsession with space certainly qualifies him as one.
* CuteMachines: Very adorable, thanks to his chipper voice and fascination with space.
* DesperatePleaForHome: DummiedOut lines features the Space Core belatedly regretting its wish to go to space [[spoiler: during the epilogue of the game, which sees it accidentally catapulted through a portal leading to the Moon, ultimately leaving it [[AndIMustScream stuck orbiting Wheatley in deep space for all eternity]].]] Most of these lines consist of the Space Core [[MadnessMantra repeatedly muttering]] "wanna go home."
* {{Fanboy}}: He's ''very'' hyper and excited about space.
* IncomingHam: Space? SPACE?? '''''SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!'''''
* IntercontinuityCrossover: Via a mod collaboration between Valve and Bethesda, it crash-lands in central [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]] after an indeterminate length of time and gets picked up by the Dovahkiin. Wheatley ended up in orbit of Tamriel's skies. It's even possible to have a giant [[HomeRunHitter send the core back into space with a swing of his club]].
* JumpedAtTheCall: Immediately detaches itself from the mainframe as soon as [[spoiler:it hears Wheatley mention that he and Chell are in space]], and happily flies off to be where he wants so desperately to be.
** [[spoiler:Some extremely depressing DummiedOut lines have him subsequently [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor freaking out because space is too big and wanting to return to Earth]].]]
** And thanks to an official Valve release, we know where he ends up: [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Nirn!]]
* LukeYouAreMyFather: According to the Space Sphere, its father is space.
* MotorMouth: To call him chatty would be an understatement. He will not shut up about space.
* NoIndoorVoice
--> '''''"SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"'''''
* SpaceIsNoisy: He's clearly audible even in space.
* SpaceX: '''Everything''', but especially "space cops" and "space jail".
* StealthPun: He is very silly and obsessed with space. In other words, he is "spacy".
* {{Squee}}: He's overjoyed when he gets sucked into actual space in the finale.
* TalkativeLoon: He never shuts up about space.
* WellDoneSonGuy: It seems to believe that space is its father.
--> "Dad? I'm in space. (deeper voice) I'm proud of you, son."\\
"Dad, are you space? (deeper voice) Yes. Now we are a family again."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rick the Adventure Sphere]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Adventure_Core_3679.png]]

->''"I don't want to scare you, but, I'm an Adventure Sphere. Designed for danger. So, why don't you go ahead and have yourself a little lady break, and I'll just take it from here."''
->Voiced by: Creator/NolanNorth (English), Mikhail Georgiou (Russian)

Stand back, pretty lady. The Adventure Sphere is here to do the job.
----
* TheAce: At the very least, in his own mind. According to the [[KnowNothingKnowItAll Fact Sphere]], he's a blowhard and a coward — so there must be something to him.
%%* BondOneLiner: DiscussedTrope.
* ChivalrousPervert: Yeah, he's a black belt. In pretty much everything. Karate. [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Jarate]]. Jiu Jitsu. Kick punching. Belt making. Taekwondo. ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGxj3cxYWYY Bedroom.]]'' Not to mention he thinks the [[MaleGaze view]] is great from where you're carrying him.
* ClintSquint: Humorously suggested by his eye slit.
* EatingTheEyeCandy: "Gotta say the view's mighty nice from right here." [while he's being carried facing Chell]
* FastRoping: When Rick first appears on the scene, he's swinging from side to side on a wire, in a manner not unlike a swashbuckling hero come to the rescue.
* GentlemanAdventurer: Being spherical and limbless doesn't stand in the way of ADVENTURE!
* GutturalGrowler: Nolan North donned his best Solid Snake voice for the adventuresome core.
* HandsomeLech: Well, he ''sounds'' handsome, and he can't get enough of Chell.
* ILoveTheDead: "All right, your funeral. Your beautiful lady-corpse open casket funeral."
* InterspeciesRomance: He immediately takes a liking to Chell.
* JumpedAtTheCall: "Quick! What's the situation!?"
%% * LargeHam
* PreMortemOneLiner: If you give him long enough to think, he'll brainstorm a few and come up with one for the end of the final boss fight. He admits it sounded better in his head after the delivery.
* RousingSpeech: "This robot. '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Owes! You! Money!!]]'''"
* ShoutOut: Possibly to another [[TestosteronePoisoning Testosterone-Poisoned]] LargeHam in [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 another one of Valve's titles]].
* StayInTheKitchen: He doesn't seem to be used to women taking active roles in adventure or relationships.
%% * TestosteronePoisoning
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler:Pulled into space long before both Wheatley and Space Sphere, and never appears in the ending cutscene.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fact Sphere]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Fact_Core_3855.png]]

->''"[[BlatantLies The Fact Sphere is not defective. Its facts are wholly accurate and very interesting.]]"''
->Voiced by: Creator/NolanNorth (English), Vitaly Petrov (Russian)

The Fact Sphere is the most intelligent and well-mannered of all of the 497,356 personality spheres in Aperture Science Industries. As a result, the Fact Sphere is well-respected by 99.99999% of the population and has many friends. The Fact Sphere would never lie to you.
----
* BlatantLies: He believes UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln did everything important while he was sleepwalking, and Schrodinger just wanted a reason to kill cats.
** [[JerkAss "Fact: Space does not exist."]]
* CloudCuckoolander: Keeps spewing history, whether it is accurate, or just plain off.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Some of his ramblings are indeed true.
* {{Determinator}}: Not himself, but he seems to think Edmund Hillary was:
--> "Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mount Everest, did so accidentally while chasing a bird."
* DistinctionWithoutADifference: "89% of magic tricks are not magic. Technically, they are sorcery."
* {{Foreshadowing}}: One of the false facts is about where one of the spheres will end up.
* GoodNewsBadNews: "Cellular phones will ''not'' give you cancer, only hepatitis."
* IFightForTheStrongestSide:
--> ''Whoever wins this battle is clearly superior, and will earn the allegiance of the Fact Sphere.''
* InsufferableGenius: Not the nicest of Cores, to say the least, because it is so smug about its facts and intelligence. Paradoxically, it just might be the dumbest.
* KnowNothingKnowItAll
--> "The Fact Sphere is not defective. Its facts are wholly accurate and very interesting."
* LittleKnownFacts: Most of his repertoire of trivia includes things like "Humans can survive underwater, but not for very long," and "The square root of rope is string."
* LongList: He says "12" and "pens" multiple times before launching into a list of random fruits and vegetables.
** This is a BrickJoke to the Co-Op mode. After completing tests in co-op, [=GLaDOS=] will occasionally congratulate one player while telling the other player to memorize a random list. This is one of those lists.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Sees himself as the most intelligent and handsome sphere.
* TalkativeLoon: Just like the Cake and Curiosity Cores from the original game, this Sphere incessantly babbles random -- and bizarre -- facts.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Everytime he praises himself, he refers to himself as ''The Fact Sphere''
* YouAreFat: One of his lines to Chell is, "You could stand to lose a few pounds."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Announcer]]

->''"Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support, so that science can still be done, even in the event of environmental, social, economic, or structural collapse."''
->Voiced by: Joe Michaels (English), Vitaly Petrov (Russian)

An overly cheerful AI Construct that regulates the Aperture Science facility and conducts testing in the abscence of [=GLaDOS=]. Unlike [=GLaDOS=] or the personality cores, he does not appear to be sentient, meaning his lines are pre-recorded and automatically stitched together, like a computerised phone operator.
----
%% * BreadEggsMilkSquick
* CrazyPrepared: Aperture Science gave him recordings and responses for every eventuality. And we do mean ''every''.
-->''You have trapped yourself. Congratulations. The exit door is now open.''
* DissonantSerenity: He ''always'' talks in a chippery, cheerful tone.
* FalseReassurance
--> ''" This next test applies the principles of momentum to movement through portals. If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you."''
* ForInconveniencePressOne:
-->''If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy, or require a Spanish version of this message, feel free to take a complimentary piece of stationary, and write us a letter''.
* ForScience: Utterly dedicated to making sure science gets done, even in the face of [[AfterTheEnd "potentially apocalyptic circumstances"]].
* MissionControl: For the first part of the game. He's still around when [=GLaDOS=] gets reactivated and also when [[spoiler:Wheatley takes over]], but not nearly as much as before.
* MissionControlIsOffItsMeds: His response to state and federal regulations regarding potentially lethal tests is [[spoiler:smooth jazz]].
%% * MotorMouth
* RoboSpeak: Just a hint of it, more than Wheatley, less than [=GLaDOS=].
* SarcasmBlind: Subverted. It understands [=GLaDOS'=] sarcasm:
-->''*beep* Sarcasm Self Test Complete. *beep*''
** But never Wheatley's:
-->''Interpreting vague answer as "yes"''.
* SayYourPrayers:
-->''If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Caroline]]
[[quoteright:187:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Portal_Caroline_3563.png]]

->''"Yes sir, Mister Johnson!"''
->Voiced by: Creator/EllenMcLain (English), Elena Kharitonova (Russian)

Cave Johnson's personal assistant, described as the backbone of Aperture Science.
----
* BeleagueredAssistant: She was Cave Johnson's personal assistant and responsible for keeping both him and Aperture on track, which was easier said that done. Unlike most examples of this trope, though, she seemed to genuinely enjoy the job.
* BrainUploading: [[spoiler:Uploaded into [=GLaDOS=] against her will, on Cave's orders as he was dying of moon dust poisoning.]]
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: When Cave gets hot-headed (which is often), Caroline puts him back on task.
* DeaderThanDead: [[spoiler:Deleted by [=GLaDOS=]. Maybe.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath: She did not want to be [[spoiler:uploaded into an A.I. from the start. And now she's not only stuck in there, she's -- in a sense -- immortal.]] At least until the end of the game, when she [[spoiler:gets deleted by [=GLaDOS=]]].
* ForScience: Cave at least thinks so. [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=]'s attitude to testing supports this.]]
* GoneHorriblyWrong: The plan was [[spoiler:to upload Caroline into [=GLaDOS=] so that she could run the facility forever. The resulting A.I. personality was considerably less pleasant than human Caroline.]]
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: Cave [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre thought Caroline suffered from this]], which is why he felt justified in [[spoiler:having her mind forcibly uploaded against her will -- obviously she was only refusing because she didn't realize how good she'd be at running Aperture forever.]]
* HypercompetentSidekick: Cave, at least, believed she was fully capable of doing his job, but she seemed to be perfectly happy as a secretary, which he attributed to extreme modesty.
* MarriedToTheJob: According to Cave Johnson.
-->'''Cave:''' Sorry fellas, she's married... to science!
* MinorRoleMajorImpact: Caroline has very little presence in the game--she speaks far less than Cave and is generally there to either respond to his jokes or chide him when he goes off on tangents. That said, it's heavily implied that it was her skill as Cave's personal assistant that kept Aperture running smoothly for decades, meaning she's indirectly responsible for the horrors of the place. [[spoiler: And then there's the tiny fact that she ''is'' [=GLaDOS=]...]]
* MoralityPet: Cave is generally pleasant to her and holds her in very high esteem, which helps balance the attitude of ComedicSociopathy he tends to display otherwise. [[spoiler:In a well-intentioned yet horrifically misplaced show of his appreciation, he orders his scientists to upload her consciousness into an immortal A.I. against her will so that she can take over Aperture after his death]].
* MyMasterRightOrWrong: Since [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] experiences her persona as a sort of conscience]], she presumably wasn't a complete sociopath, but she didn't seem to object to the constant stream of blatant ethical violations that characterized Cave's policies for running Aperture.
** [[spoiler:On the other hand, if [=GLaDOS=]'s [[InLoveWithYourCarnage reaction to Cave's lemon rant]] is anything to go by, Cave's aggressiveness and willingness to openly express it may have been something she actively liked about him. Of course, it's impossible to tell whether that's just [=GLaDOS=]'s insanity talking.]]
* NoNameGiven: Her last name is unknown.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Given that [=GLaDOS=] is at her most Caroline when listening to Cave Johnson, [[spoiler: the fact that she was cheering at burning people during Cave Johnson's lemons rant suggests she was into all the horrible things Cave was doing.]]
* NumberTwo: Cave Johnson's right hand woman.
* OriginStory: [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=]'s origin -- she was created in an attempt to achieve immortality through BrainUploading for Cave Johnson, but when he died before the project was ready, Caroline was uploaded in his place so that she could run Aperture forever. This [[GoneHorriblyWrong did not work out well]].]]
* PerkyFemaleMinion: ''Yes, Sir!'' Though tellingly, she sounds more concerned than perky by the '70s.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Originally Cave's assistant was going to be a put-upon YesMan named Greg. But they didn't have time to get a new voice actor, so it was decided Ellen [=McLain=] would do the voice. [[spoiler:Once that casting choice was made, the creators wondered why Caroline and [=GLaDOS=] had the same voice...]]
* RepeatAfterMe: {{Invoked}} with Cave and Caroline's homage to a ''Radio/TheBurnsAndAllenShow'' routine.
-->'''Cave:''' Say goodbye, Caroline.\\
'''Caroline:''' Goodbye, Caroline.\\
'''Cave:''' She is a gem.
* SatelliteCharacter: As Cave Johnson's right hand woman she is there to play off of him. [[spoiler:As [=GLaDOS=]'s original persona she provides her OriginStory.]]
* ShoutOut: It's unintentional -- she's actually named after the mother of one of the writers -- but the name Caroline means "[[VideoGame/HalfLife free man]]."
* UndyingLoyalty: Her devotion to Cave Johnson shines even [[spoiler:through [=GLaDOS=]]].
* VirtualGhost: Some remnant of [[spoiler:Caroline's personality still exists within [=GLaDOS=]. While [=GLaDOS=] claims to delete her, there are some hints that she's still around. It is thus also common in fanfics to have her serve as a SpiritAdvisor for [=GLaDOS=].]]
* YesMan: She tends to agree with everything Cave says and goes along with what he does [[spoiler:with the exception of being put into [=GLaDOS=]]]. This is lampshaded in Theatre/Portal2TheUnauthorizedMusical when Cave asked her if she was yes-manning him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Bird]]
A bird that has made a home for itself in the halls of Aperture's Enrichment Center.
----
* BigBadEnsemble: Strictly speaking, ''yes''. The bird is a secondary antagonist in the main campaign, though obviously [=GLaDOS=] and [[spoiler:Wheatley]] are bigger threats.
* TheDogWasTheMastermind: [[spoiler:The antagonist taking over the facility in the ''Peer Review'', causing chaos and ruffling [=GLaDOS=]'s cool is... the bird, inadvertently building her nest on a crucial keyboard.]]
* FeatheredFiend: At least from [=GLaDOS=]'s perspective. The time she spent [[spoiler:in a potato]] pecked by this very bird definitely had some after-effect on her psyche.
* InterfaceScrew: [[spoiler:Turns the lights off at one point, requiring Atlas and P-body to use night vision. Immediately turns the lights back on, blinding them.]]
* MamaBear: As to be expected of a bird, threatening her nest or eggs causes her to attack.
* ObliviouslyEvil: [[spoiler:Building a nest on top of a keyboard that happens to be an old version of [=GLaDOS=]'s body, and thus has a degree of control over Aperture, causes chaos. Then it starts to peck away at the keys...]]
* ParentalAbandonment: [[spoiler:After Atlas and P-body shoo her away, she leaves her eggs behind in her nest, which are later taken in and hatched in an incubation chamber by [=GLaDOS=]]].
* TheUnfought: [[spoiler:After the final puzzle in ''Peer Review'', the bots drive it away in a cutscene.]]
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [=GLaDOS=] is so terrified of it that the mere ''thought'' of its presence causes her to have a panic attack.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Greg]]
-> ''"Hold on. [unintelligible muttering] Alright, my assistant Greg tells me none of that's true. Got excited.''
--> '''Cave Johnson''', on Greg

Greg is Cave Johnson's put-upon assistant, introduced in The Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC. He never directly appears or speaks, but most of the new test chamber dialogue involves Cave being corrected by Greg about various logical fallacies Cave believes in (such as confusing alternate universes with time travel). According to Cave, Greg was responsible for coming up with the idea for the Perpetual Testing Initiative.
----
* BeleagueredAssistant: Well, he has to put up with Cave.
* ButtMonkey: He doesn't exactly get a lot of respect from any iteration of Cave or the world his other self is in, [=CaveDOS=] implies he murdered him the moment he suggested he could go mad with power, is called a 'sad little man' in the [[Film/RoboCop Robot-A-Cop]] universe, is implied to be DisguisedInDrag just to survive in a world where tyrannical women run everything, and Cave Prime offers to trade him over to Dark Cave as an offering, on top of him ignoring his critical advice, insulting his teeth and getting chewed out for having a creepy daughter.
* CreepyChild: Greg's creepy daughter enjoys saying weird things to test subjects when she sneaks into Cave's office. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Even Cave is creeped out by her.]]
* DistaffCounterpart: He's a male version of Caroline, plus the special affection Cave Johnson holds for an assistant of the same gender.
* IgnoredExpert: Cave stopped caring to listen to him much past the part of the plan that involves opening a way to the multiverse. When Cave Prime suggests killing alternate Cave Johnsons, he ignores Gregs plea that this could wipe out the entire multiverse, and later he shuts Greg up from trying to correct him when he does a bold calculation in his head about the chances of finding a universe made of money is 100%.
* OnlyOneName: Just Greg.
* OnlySaneEmployee: He seems to be the only employee with the rank and the wherewithal to talk sense into Cave. [[CloudcuckoolandersMinder This keeps him more on track.]]
* OracularUrchin: Greg has a daughter who likes to sneak into Cave's office and talk to the test subjects. Cave is especially unnerved by the way she talks:
-->'''Greg's Creepy Kid:''' "We're gonna test forever and ever and ever..."
* TheVoiceless: Sort of. Greg speaks with Cave multiple times in the DLC, but besides some muffled mumbling the player can only hear Cave's side of the conversation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Alternate Cave Johnsons]]
Introduced in the ''Perpetual Testing Initiative'', there are alternate universe versions of Cave Johnson who will talk to you, which forces the "real" Cave Johnson to use a CatchPhrase ("Chariots," later "chariots, chariots") to differentiate from the others.
----
* AirVentPassageway: Cheerfully {{deconstructed|Trope}} by Prison Warden Cave, who points out to test prisoners attempting to escape through the air ducts that air ducts are for ventilation, not crawling through; all of them mostly go to the air-conditioning unit, and it's ''very'' dusty up there which is bad news for asthmatics who will probably die up there. In short, they're better off staying on the ground and getting back to work.
* 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 those experiments shut down, preventing the events of the ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series from ever occurring.
-->'''Cave Johnson:''' A ''resonance cascade''... you're supposed to be scientists! [[{{Irony}} Use some common sense!]]
* 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.
** Also applies to his test subjects, since their improved portal guns lets them test much faster than the player. [[spoiler:One of them not only finds [[BrickJoke an universe made of money]], but ''two'', which the Caves decide to split, since having double infinite money is kind of redundant.]]
* AncientTradition: Cave of Aperture Rituals is presiding over one of these in order to prevent the end of the world. It involves hiring astronauts, war heroes and Olympians to make love to a giant bird.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: One Cave and the inhabitants of his universe have transformed into beings of pure light, go team. While he's pleased, they'd originally hoped to transform into pillars of pure salt.
* BenevolentBoss: Nice!Cave, who gives bonuses to his testers and heaps praise upon them while randomly saying "chariots".
* BigCreepyCrawlies:
** Mantis!Cave, who informs test subjects that they're postponing injections with Homo Sapiens DNA.
** In one universe, the Mantis Men take over the enrichment center, with Cave frantically urging everyone to get out before they break through his barricade.
** There's also an attack by killer ants attempting to commander the nations's sugar supplies at Fort Sugar Knox in Kentucky, leading to a huge firefight. [[spoiler:Though it turns out to just be a movie Cave Prime was watching.]]
* BizarreHumanBiology:
** Discussed by Cave Prime, who remarks that if the player finds a universe where people's heads are inside-out, that's probably normal for them, but the player is probably in trouble and should get out as soon as possible.
** In one universe, people seem to breathe peanut dust and can suffer from an allergy to air.
** In Dark Cave's universe, people seem to breathe methane.
* BrainUploading: [=CaveDOS=], something he eventually comes to regret.
* CallBack: Many of the Caves give their own version of the introduction given in the main game when Chell uncovers the old testing labs.
* DemonicPossession: Magic!Cave of Aperture Paranormal is host to a tiny but powerful demon that lives in a secret place in his mouth.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Cave Prime is disturbed by Greg's [[CreepyChild creepy daughter]].
-->'''Cave Prime:''' No, I'm sorry, Greg, but there's something wrong with that kid! "We'll test forever, and ever..." Why's she whisper all the time?
* EvilIsPetty: Dark Cave finds the time to prank Cave Prime while simultaneously thwarting his plans.
* EvilTwin: Cave Prime regards a Cave Johnson who argued with him as this, referring to him as Dark Cave.
* ExtranormalInstitute: Aperture Paranormal, an institute dedicated to studying and harnessing magical phenomena.
* FantasticVoyagePlot: One Cave reveals that the test chamber you're in is a tiny structure floating around inside in his bloodstream. He asks you to find his partially shrunken car keys, otherwise he's gonna have to call AAA.
* GeniusLoci: Planet!Cave is a sentient planet with test chambers built all over him.
* GiverOfLameNames: Robot-a-cop? Blapeture Mesa? Even across universes, Cave isn't great with names.
* GoodCounterpart: Most of the parallel Caves are as psychotic as the regular one, but there is a Nice Cave who offers you a bonus.
* {{Hobos}}: "Michigan Slim" Cave Johnson, the Hobo King.
* ImAHumanitarian:
** Creepy!Cave wants to eat your hairs and feet.
** In one universe, Film/SoylentGreen is eaten regularly and everyone knows what's in it. That universe's Cave opts to stop serving it [[PragmaticVillainy because it's getting too expensive]], to the point it would be cheaper to serve lobster every day, so the cafeteria is ordered to go back to fishsticks.
* InsectoidAliens: One Cave is a humanoid Mantis, who spliced some of his test subjects with human DNA turning them into Man-Mantises. His new test is for other Mantises to fight the Man-Mantises.
* MotorMouth: A shared trait across every Cave, according to Greg, is that there is a ''zero'' percent chance of running into a universe where Cave Johnson isn't always talking to his test subjects.
* {{Jerkass}}: Dark Cave and his test subjects come across as this.
-->'''Cave Johnson:''' They're not even really testing anymore. They just all portaled in, made a human pyramid, [[EnemyEatsYourLunch ate my lunch]] and portaled out.
* LadyLand: Cavina Johnson's world is dominated by women, to the point the very male Cave and Greg of that world have to pose as women to survive.
* OnlySaneMan:
** The Cave Johnson who is a pencil-pusher working for Aperture Chief Rattmann.
** The Cave Johnson in charge of [[VideoGame/HalfLife Blapeture]] [[{{Portmanteau}} Mesa]], who is appalled by the reckless experiments and [[ForWantOfANail cancels the project that would result in the Resonance Cascade]].
** Warden!Cave has to tell his prisoners that [[AirVentPassageway crawling through the air ducts]] is ''not'' a viable escape attempt because air ducts are for ventilating the facility, not escaping. [[spoiler:When he's shived after a power outage shut off the forcefield doors, he laments how actual doors would have been much better]].
** Space!Cave has to constantly remind his test subjects that the tests are being conducted in a space station, and that there's no air outside the facility. [[TooDumbToLive Few of them listen]].
--->'''Cave:''' I am sincerely regretting my decision not to install windows on this thing.
** [[TomatoSurprise Cave Prime]] has a moment of this, [[spoiler:when he listens to Greg and [[ForWantOfANail cancels the [=GLaDOS=] project]] after [=CaveDOS=] goes insane]].
* OppositeSexClone: Subverted with Matriarch Cave; he still has a male-sounding voice and is clearly just pretending to be female.
* PragmaticVillainy: One Cave Johnson serves Film/SoylentGreen in his Aperture's cafeteria, but the player hears him opting to stop after receiving a memo from the president... that it's doubling in price.
-->'''Soylent Green Cave:''' Now, listen up: I don't care how good [[ImAHumanitarian people tastes]]. This stuff is costing me more than lobster, so we're going back to fishsticks.
* ProperlyParanoid: There's one Cave Johnson who was monitoring multiverse activity and wanted to build defenses in case of an invasion. Unfortunately for him, the staff didn't listen, probably because he wanted to use their wages to build the defenses and more monitoring equipment. Turns out he was right, and he gloats about it.
* PsychicPowers: At least one universe has test subjects receiving these. Unfortunately, they're {{Jerkass}}es who use their powers to [[YourHeadAsplode blow people's heads up]]. The Cave of that world gets back at them by taping their payment cheques to the head of someone they're then baited into asploding.
* PunnyName: Dark Cave. Think about it...
* SendInTheClones: Because of the multiverse, there are infinite Caves out there.
* SenseLossSadness: Part of the reason why [=CaveDOS=] goes crazy.
* SpacePolice: Chief Warden Cave.
* ThrowTheDogABone: [[spoiler:Cave Prime manages to find a universe made of money and cancels the [=GLaDOS=] initiative, ensuring that Prime!Aperture will live on for a long time.]]
* VerbalTic: Nice!Cave randomly says "Chariots," briefly upsetting Cave Prime's attempt to use it as a code word. From then on, he says it twice.
* WhamLine: After the [=CaveDOS=] arc, [[spoiler:who we were '''led''' to believe was]] Cave Prime says the following:
-->'''Cave:''' Whoa! Chariots chariots. For some reason, some of the audio was bleeding through in this universe. Don't know if you were catching the subtext there, but that computer Cave is crazy. So: [[spoiler:Greg was right. [[ForWantOfANail As of now]], [[RetGone we are cancelling the]] [[SelfDemonstrating/GLaDOS genetic lifeform disk operating system initiative]].]] Boy, that could have backfired!
* WholePlotReference: The "Robot-a-Cop" universe is a ShoutOut to ''Film/Robocop1987'', with that universe's Cave purchasing the bodies of a bunch of dead police officers and rebuilding them as {{Cyborg}}s. He even remarks that they may receive tragic flashbacks of their former lives, before remarking that this is actually a live feed of his assistant Greg's life and telling them to ignore it.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [=CaveDOS=] simply finds his immortality boring, especially since he can read every book ever written in just a few seconds. Even altering them all to be about [[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} ghostbusting]] gets dull after a while.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Cut Characters]]
'''Mel''' was originally supposed to be the main character of ''Portal 2'', then the co-op player 2 character alongside Chell. She was discarded when the creators decided robots would suit the chaotic, often death-filled nature of co-op mode better.

'''Betty''' or the '''Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disk Operating System''', was a personality core who would appear at the beginning of each test chamber in the original ''Portal 2'', which took place in the past, to rattle off legal jargon in regards to the dangers of testing. Her role was mostly replaced by that of the Announcer.
----
%%* HeroicMime: Mel.
* PaletteSwap: Mel's character model is a recolored (blonde with a blue suit) Chell from the ''first'' game.
* PunnyName: Betty's title: the Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disk Operating System. Look at the first letter of each word. [[spoiler:It's [=GLAaDOS=].]]
* ThemeNaming: Chell 'n' Mel.
[[/folder]]

!Aperture Desk Job
[[folder:Grady]]
A blue personality core who provides the tutorial and converses with the player in Aperture Desk Job. Grady works as a manager/supervisor for the product testing department.
----
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Clearly a fatal flaw of his. Such as when he steals a set of appliances from the housewares department to use as target practice and did not think it would go unnoticed.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: He and the toilet tester are the ones responsible for the advent of the turrets. And it all started with a mishap involving [[ItMakesSenseInContext a toilet and spilled bullets.]] They also try to mercy kill Cave Johnson by destroying the giant head-shaped computer holding his mind and but just wind up making him fall into the basement while tearing up chunks of the facility in the process.]]
* TooDumbToLive: While not an idiot, Grady has moments where he's completely clueless [[spoiler: such as when he thinks a warehouse filled with crates is a good testing range for the turret prototype. Or when he and the tester find themselves in witness protection only to find themselves dumped back in what they were doing before except with changed names and it never truly occurred to him that perhaps they were just left there to rot.]]
[[/folder]]