depiction of mental illness.
Regardless, the imagery is known
across too much media to not
understand the effect: it’s
medicalised, and it’s isolating.
CAKE BOSS
But of course, you aren’t entirely
isolated, because there’s someone
living inside the walls, behind the test
chambers. In contrast to the sterile,
surveilled test chambers, the
maintenance areas as you discover
them are rusting orange and falling
‘her’? Exactly how malevolent is
Aperture, and what are you supposed
to do about it? Every handprint
staining the wall, every scrawled
‘help’, is a disruption from the
controlled environment of the
testing chambers, and a reminder
that indefinite testing isn’t normal
or sustainable.
We remember GlaDOS as funny
and mean, but she exists in Portal as
a spectre of control. Many of her
most absurd quotes (“That thing you
burned up isn’t important to me... It
made shoes for orphans”) are only
when she’s desperately trying to
regain it. Until then, she has the
upper hand in every situation, and
her lines speak of the chilling
distance of someone with complete
power over your life, but also very
little interest in it. “This next test
could take a very, very long time. If
you become light headed from thirst,
feel free to pass out.” They wouldn’t
land the same without the context
that also makes them sinister. It’s
why, out of context, so many of the
well quoted parts of Portal only feel
like part of tiresome hashtag-random
internet culture.
While GlaDOS’ jabs become
gradually meaner from her
telephone-tree persona at the startTRUTH CAKE
A cakerecipe,as
devisedby
GlaDOS’s
intelligence
core31%
TECHNICALLY
EDIBLE
13 ingredients out
of 42
Ingredients include
“Fish shaped
crackers” and “one
tablespoon
rhubarb”.45%
HARMFUL TO
HUMANS
19 ingredients out
of 42
Ingredients include
“Fish shaped ethyl
benzene” and
“needle gun”24%
DESIRABLE IN A
CAKE
Ten ingredients out
of 42
Ingredients include
“one cup semi-sweet
chocolate chips” and
“four large eggs”.apart – not to mention covered in
panicked graffiti. ‘The cake is a lie’,
yes, but also plainly ‘help’, and if you
hadn’t picked it up from all the
cameras – and GlaDOS’s vocal
dislike of having them destroyed –
‘she’s watching you’.
It isn’t to suggest that whoever is
behind the walls is themselves, scary
or threatening – but the implications
of why they have to be there. What’s
going to be at the end of testing? If
there was going to be a way out of
this, why is someone hiding fromOLDGAMES,NEWPERSPECTIVES
REINSTALL
This test chamber has risks
of drowning, head injury,
recursive loops...LEFT: (^) The
maintenance areas of
Aperture look starkly
different.
ABOVE: Arguably,
there was cake.