30 Day Video Game Challenge 6 - Favourite Videogame Villain

This was probably the first of these categories that was a complete no-brainer.  Fair warning, this post is a) adapted from a previous post I wrote on Facebook, and b) deals with a series that I feel very strongly about, so expect length and enthusiasm!

(Yes, before anyone asks, those last four words WERE also the warning I gave all my girlfriends.  Hey-yo)

Much has been written about why geeks as a culture so immediately fell in love with GLaDOS.  Pages have been written about the cleverness of introducing a character through short voice clips, a la Bioshock or System Shock, and about the shock of the big reveal when you finally come face-to-morality-core with her.  I certainly won't add anything new.  But this is a convenient forum to point out something that I suppose I knew on some level as soon as it became apparent in Portal, but I only really noticed now.

Think about the emotions displayed by characters in the last video game you played.  I'm willing to bet that, with minimal crowbarring (note: Gordon Freeman is excused this test), you can fit all of them into the following list (and, if it wasn't an RPG, the first two)

• Anger/desire for revenge
• Fear/being threatened
• Sadness
• Love/affection
• Happiness/satisfaction

Kinda like these guys...

What's more, I would guess that most of them were very flatly generated and expressed: "This bad guy has burned down my village, so I was sad, but then I got angry and wanted revenge, so we went and killed him and then I was happy" (yes Cloud Strife, I'm looking at you).  Now, those of you unfortunate enough to have played Portal (I say unfortunate because you, like me, can never again have that joy of the first playthrough...), consider GLaDOS' actions throughout the games.

At the start of the first game, though you don't realise it at first, she's lonely.  That right there is an emotion that I don't believe I've ever seen adequately expressed in a video game before or since.  But I digress - I'll just keep talking, and you fill in the adulation as I go along.

[The following just came on my playlist as I was writing: http://bit.ly/fZhYUR win :) ]

So, yes.  She's lonely, and wants someone to play with, but she's also curious, hence the interest in putting you through your paces.  Over the course of testing, however, she begins to actually like you - one might even say "love", although the thin line between love and obsession gets crossed fairly swiftly.  Sadly, you can't change your nature, or argue with uncontrollably strong tropes, and for all her well-intentioned feelings, the fact remains that GLaDOS is an utterly insane homicidal artificial intelligence.

After that unfortunate incident with the furnace is when we really begin to see what's going on in her head and heart.  Obviously enough, she tries to dissuade you from leaving, but what's interesting is how she does so.  She attempts to make you feel guilty for leaving her; she apologises, and tries to bargain by promising a reward (as we all know, it's a lie...); she gets angry, and lashs out at you, both verbally and physically; she attempts reverse-psychology by pretending that she doesn't want you anymore anyway.

Yeah, sure.

Now take those actions and statements, carried out by an AI that just tried to incinerate you, and project them instead onto a person.  GLaDOS now seems more like someone not terribly emotionally who is trying to deal with the break-up of their first serious relationship in not-very-smart ways.  I've seen her described as "the most violent passive-aggressive girlfriend ever", though I thought of her (even before the second game started to drop some serious backstory hints) as more of a possessive-mother type.  These characterisations become even more overt when you consider some of her statements during the final battle, and lines from "Still Alive":

• "Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break so far is my heart."
• "Look, we're both stuck in this place. I'll use lasers to inscribe a line down the center of the facility, and one half will be where you live, and I'll live in the other half. We won't have to try to kill each other or even talk if we don't feel like it."

Though as we get in to "Still Alive", she appears to have come to terms with the situation somewhat and trying to move on with her life:

• "I'm not even angry; I'm being so sincere right now. Even though you broke my heart and killed me. And tore me to pieces; and threw every piece into a fire. As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you!"
• "Go ahead and leave me; I think I prefer to stay inside...And believe me I am still alive. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive. I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive."

Just think for a minute about how incredible this is.  Not just that a character can have this level of genuine human emotion (it's a sad report on the games industry that that is actually a rarity) - not just that this emotion comes in what is, debatably, a puzzle game, but certainly not an RPG - but that this emotion can be expressed via an entirely one-sided relationship, without two-way communication, or indeed almost any interaction whatsoever except short voice clips.

"You KNOW her!?"

As we move into Portal 2 (the more story-driven of the two), your interaction with GLaDOS is more overt, but no less impressive.  Expanding on her previously-mentioned range, she goes so far as to exhibit jealousy, rage, self-sacrifice, compassion, and denial.  DENIAL!  Honestly, if you're not impressed that a game (not a movie or a book) that's not, at the heart of it, even really about characters (it's certainly not an RPG, after all) can compellingly make you hear (without even any visual clues such as expression) that an AI is struggling so much with a revelation about her past that she is unable to accept it, I just don't know what else we can offer to impress you.

So there you have it.  The most emotional depth and complexity of any video game character that I can think of (and that actually includes the great JM - I may feel more attached to him, and his charactersiation may be stronger, more intense, but he doesn't have terribly multi-faceted personality) is an insane, homicidal AI who you never have an actual conversation with.  Go figure.  And then go play these amazing games again.

Because, well, you never know...