The Gamer's Quarter

[dhex]

http://www.game-ism.com/?p=91

vaguely nsfw sort of.

verdict? hey, we all have hobbies. mine isn't anthropomorphizing the (wo)man in the moon as it were, but to each their own.

on the other hand, i did spend a bit of time trying to figure out if father grigori was eastern orthodox so...yeah.
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[dhex]

unrelated yet perhaps intensely appropriate: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/351
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[Dracko]

Hot.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Mr. Mechanical]

Saw this the other day. Pretty neat, whether it's intentional or not.
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Mr. Mechanical

[kirkjerk]

[Harveyjames]

I'm sure it's intentional! If the developers themselves said it was meant to look like 'Venus hanging upside-down', then what more do you want? Jam on it?

Hey remember when me and Dess were saying the end of Portal was supposed to be moving and GlaDOS and Chell's relationship was more complex than you guys were giving it credit for, and everyone was like 'DAHH SHUT UP, I LIKE THE SONG, CAKE, HURR HURR!!' You remember that, right

WELL HERE'S MUD IN YOUR EYE, FELLAS

[kirkjerk]

[dhex]

[Harveyjames]

The full quote is "[we planned it to look like] Botticelli’s Venus hanging upside down, but we decided to go with something else and use some feminine lines within the structure.”

The operative part of that is '[WOMAN] HANGING UPSIDE DOWN'.



Looking at that image as A WOMAN HANGING UPSIDE DOWN, which is not such a great stretch as the developers have stated that they intended it to look like A WOMAN HANGING UPSIDE DOWN, you can clearly discern a head, a torso, thighs,buttocks, and arms. I'll give you pareidolia. The gag and the bondage theme are a bit more of a leap, but they fit pretty well. Why else would they want to depict her upside down in the first place?

I would be interested in seeing the glados model from different angles.

There's a really interesting interview with Erik here.http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=518.

[dhex]

to be honest, having only played the endgame twice, i was reminded more of that crazy eye lady witch puppet from the dark crystal. looking at the above without the comparison artwork, i didn't really see anything along those lines - and i wonder if it would look like that from another angle. even now it reminds me of the ultraviolet whitening system my dentist has (dental work weighing heavily on my mind these days) but i may reinstall portal to find out this weekend if other stuff goes well.

my take on it was more like "oh, she's completely psychotic" which is why i wasn't surprised she was trying to dump me into a fire.

i mean, if some crazy dude down the street is shooting a crossbow at me while yelling about ducks in a pond, i'm not really going to stop and ponder what kind of relationship he had with his dad so much as run away screaming. i didn't find her sympathetic, really, but i am clearly no one's target audience except perhaps michael bay. (note: i don't like michael bay but i couldn't think of someone less cultured.)

edit: as a comparison to shodan, glados is - to steal a quote from a dresden dolls song - "the kind of girl who tells you she's bipolar just to make you trust her." shodan isn't delusional, just ahem very driven. driven to mass murder and other unethical pursuits, but i's are dotted and t's are crossed.

double edit: my wife's verdict is "that doesn't look like the other picture at all." (she's never played portal, or any game really)
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[dessgeega]

isn't this technically of robot bondage?
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[Redeye]

[Cycle]

glasdos and shodan have nothing on Durandal. Or even Tycho.
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[Harveyjames]

[kirkjerk]

So I went through the ending, grabbed a few images and movies.

I think the idea of it being am inverted figure is absolutely correct, with a clear torso and rear, head, and two arms. Especially with the movement at the neck.

In terms of the posture, the biggest question is the other arm:

It seems to clearly be an arm, but the angles different than in the interpretations above, bent at the elbow.

Two youtube videos (sorry for the quality yadda yadda)
Entering the chamber, doing a circle strafe for a 360 view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ggVTm8LRVw

The very end. Its interesting to note how one arm seems to be freed, almost looking like its ripping off one of the "chains":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRN7TbnBfXI

Keeping up the bondage and/or emo theme, one of the most striking lines (IMO) in GLaDOS' monologging at the end is "The difference between us is that I can feel pain." The first time I played, that really jumped out at me as an explanation for her psychopathic behavior...
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[Harveyjames]

Ok, well that seals it for me. The ass is even ass-shaped, as I believe I posted in your youtube comments.

Can anyone look at the GlaDOS model in the Source model editor? Are the sections of the body labelled appropriately (head, torso, pelvis, arm, etc)? Can you take screenshots?

[minkee]

Oh no. I was perfectly happy before with having defeated the crazy robot that was trying to get me killed, and escaping. Now I feel really bad, and also sad for her. Maybe I could have helped ;x

[Dracko]

[Harveyjames]

[minkee]

[kirkjerk]

That is really funny.
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[dhex]

minkee: nice!

cycle: i heard you like marathon. is this true?

dess: let's ask somerset what he thinks:



apparently the answer is "no."

harvey: somehow combining the image the guy used to make his painting thing - i.e. what he used to show this connection in the first place - with the image he was using as his model is a less than convincing argument.

on a serious note...if we were to poll:

how many people saw this without being told about it first? on your first playthrough?

on that video, from some angles, sure it looks like an inverted s-curve. from others it looks like a series of tubes and loops, or some kinda teeth whitener from the future.

edit:

[Cycle]

i saw it when i first played the game (and only time i'll EVER PLAY IT), i just didn't really think about it. and I still won't!
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[Dracko]

the key is inside the vagina (portal)
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Cycle]

daracko dont steal my ideas ok
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[purplechair]

[helicopterp]

dhex, i spent most of my time thinking about the more obvious piecewise deconstruction of her mechanical psyche when you kill her. the shape of her body was more a focal point for my aiming than my anthropomorphizing.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[sediment]

I didn't think about her general shape when I first played through.

My TV is old and bad, though, and tends to fuzz out at random. Not sure that was going on at the end of Portal, but I do know I completely missed it.
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[kirkjerk]

[Harveyjames]

[helicopterp]

you're just interested the loudest
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

yeah, I know, sorry

I'm asking some Garry's Mod kids if they can take some screenshots for me.

[minkee]

I thought if anyone would have analysed her to death it would be a cosplayer, but I can only find one... I'd link you but you don't want to hear it ;x And if you've already heard it you don't want to hear it again.

Suffice to say, I don't think she went with what we've been looking at.

[Harveyjames]

KILL IT WITH ROCKETS

[dhex]

the cosplay is a lie.

[Harveyjames]

Guys, ya'll had better just call me Matlock Harvey from now on.





Ok, get ready for this. Remember what they said in the developer's commentary?

"[we planned it to look like] Botticelli’s Venus hanging upside down, but we decided to go with something else and use some feminine lines within the structure.”









READY?

[dhex]

nice.

totally fruitless but, still...nice.
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[Harveyjames]

The fruit is that we now know the developers did indeed end up incorporating Bottichelli's Venus into the design of GlaDOS, however subtly.

-the incline of the head is the same, you can see as much on the rear view

-the angle of her right forearm is the same.

-the proportions are the same.

-the angle of her left back-arm is the same, and can be seen to be bent at the elbow.

-the general line of the body flows in the same way.

-I also notice that the TV screens occupy the same space as the seashell does in the painting! It starts at her 'feet' and reaches up/down to her knee.

If that's not interesting to you that's fine, but it's interesting to me and apparently a lot of other people. It's an extra layer of symbolism that might inform any future analysis of that part of the game. What's fruitless about that?

[kirkjerk]

I dig it.

It's interesting, then, the developer's quote, since some of the "bondage" hypothesis depends on them having put the Venus thing aside, as he indicates... but I guess the idea of a hybrid is possible.

Looking carefully at the 2nd video I posted... do people agree it looks like the arm is working to free the body? At some point right after that, it looks like the structure collapses rag-doll fashion, but up 'til then I'd say there's some deliberation to the movement... the tube could be just breaking loose from overpressure or whatever, but I got the strong impression that the arm is responsible for breaking free a bit even as the figure stands from her odd crouched position.

Still, no matter what the details, I don't think there's any way to be in the "just a bunch of abstract tubes and spheres" camp.
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[Harveyjames]

It definitely looks like her arm comes free when she is destroyed/freed.

You know this bondage thing might be a blind alley. I think the most important thing that guy pointed out was that Glados was a humanoid form. You could just as easily say she's in a foetal position. Babies gestate upside down, right?



You know how screenwriters love their rebirth metaphors to close movies / symbolize a character's redemption.

[dhex]

[Harveyjames]

stop trolling, dhex. They said the painting was originally a reference point and from the front the model does very strongly resemble that painting.

[minkee]

Speaking as an illustrator, you can see that inspiration was definately drawn from Botticelli's Venus image, especially as they mention it the commentary.

This doesn't really mean anything for sure, though, other than they wanted her to have classical womanly curves. Or at least hint at them.

[Harveyjames]

Here's what I just posted in the SB forums:

"Well, Venus is the goddess of love. I figured it was probably something as simple as that this is a twisted love story, and they wanted GlaDOS' design to be emblematic of that. She's an inverted Venus."

I also just asked Yahoo Answers the following:

[Harveyjames]

Hey, spitfire who made the original bondage post sez:

[fish]

x-ray specs.
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you cant spell selfish without fish

[Redeye]

Waitaminute...

I haven't played Portal [yet], but I have played Meat Puppet.

Has anybody here played, or tried to play, Meat Puppet?

Could be a total coincidence, but I'm picking up some vague whiffs.

Very vague.

nah

Probably nothing.
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I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian.

[Harveyjames]

Huh, turns out Venus/Aphrodite was born when Cyprus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them behind him into the sea. She grew out of the white foam that arose from it. Who knew!

[Redeye]

[Harveyjames]