Abstracts Category : Other

The Heroic Journey of a Villain: The Lost and Found Humanity of an Artificial Intelligence

by Karen lafsdttir sta

In this essay, we will look at the villain of the Portal franchise, the artificial intelligence GLaDOS, in context with Maureen Murdocks theory of the Heroines Journey, from her book The Heroines Journey: Womans Quest for Wholeness. The essay argues that although GLaDOS is not a heroine in the conventional sense, she is just as important of a figure in the franchise as its protagonist, Chell. GLaDOS acts both as the first games narrator and villain, as she runs the Aperture Science Enrichment Center where the games take place. Unlike Chell, GLaDOS is a speaking character with a complex backstory and goes through real character development as the franchises story progresses. The essay is divided into four chapters, a short history of womens part as characters in video games, an introduction to Murdocks The Heroines Journey, and its context to John Campbells The Heros Journey, a chapter on the Portal franchises, and then we go through The Heroines Journey, in regards to GLaDOS, and each step in its own subchapter. Our main focus will be on the second installment in the series, Portal 2. Since, in that game, GLaDOS goes through most of her heroines journey. In the first game, Portal, GLaDOS separates from her femininity and embraces the masculine, causing her fractured psyche, and as the player goes through Portal 2 along with her, she reclaims her femininity, finds her inner masculinity, and regains wholeness. In Portal 2, we are also introduced to who GLaDOS was before the games took place, a human named Caroline who served as a personal assistant to the CEO of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson. While human, GLaDOS started her journey by rejecting the feminine and completed her identification with the masculine as she became GLaDOS, and ruled Aperture Science with the same lack of morals and obsession with research as Cave Johnson had. Going through Murdocks ten stages of a heroines journey, we traverse through the narrative surrounding the villainess of the two games, Portal and Portal 2, and also take a look at the graphic novel Portal 2: Lab Rat. As this essay will show, the parallels between Murdocks theory and the story arc of GLaDOS are many. The conclusion is that, although being the villain, GLaDOS does go through the Heroines Journey, and also that by using the theory, we gain more knowledge and insight into both GLaDOS and the games themselves.