The interesting thing about Glados/HAL 9000 parallels is that
Hal was conceived at a time when artificial intelligence was more of a fictional construct than a practical possibility. Hal is introduced as humanlike because the audience is familiar with and comfortable with humans, but they aren’t familiar with or comfortable with living computers. It’s when he starts acting robotic and calculated that the audience realizes “oh no, he’s a computer” and he becomes threatening.
By the time Glados was conceived, we had become used to computer automated systems. Synthetic voices offering us information is something we encounter in daily life. Glados is introduced as a computerized preprogrammed voice because that’s what the audience is familiar and comfortable with. It’s when she starts acting human and emotional that the audience realizes “oh no, she’s alive” and she becomes threatening.
Oh hey it’s this post again
I fucking love this observation.
Except…. that ain’t true. At all.
When Glados starts becoming human, she’s literally in her least threatening forms: free of cores meant to contain her actual human core.
Glados becoming more robotic and systematic is was caused the entire events of Portal. Through continuous test application, she finally found a way to kill everybody who stole her human form from her. She then routinely kills people by making test after test, which is something her robotic form literally forces upon her.
She literal mentions this in game: the core body is itself, a personality core that forces the need to test things.
And we also know this cause
Sweet and Innocent dum dum core Wheatley
acts humane and civil and altruist in the game up until….
He becomes the new head of the testing module and immediately behaves like Glados, putting up crappy tests because he’s an idiot, but he’s also having his nature altered by the machine.
Meanwhile, Glados starts becoming Carol again, and becomes more and more friendly to the player.
And at the end what happens?
Glados, the machine, kills Carol, and gets rid of the one imperfection in her testing. that little error: the human she likes, Chell. But in a last act of humanity, or hiding the fact Carol is still alive, she doesn’t kill Chell, just lets her go.
You didn’t Portal if you got the exact opposite thing.
mayor williams saying “they are their daddy’s sons aren’t they?” about the mcelroy boys is simultaneously a huge compliment and the biggest read I’ve ever witnessed
It also means the Mayor knows what kind of person Clint is which is just hilarious to me
clint and the mayor were college roommates, iirc.
this is the best possible addition to this post, thank you
imagine him seeing clint after years and seeing he has kids and realizing “oh god, there four of them now”
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
