Wheatley

"They told me that if I ever turned this flashlight on, I would die! They told me that about everything! I mean, I don't even know why they bothered giving me this stuff if they didn't want me to use it. It's pointless, mad!"

- Wheatley

Wheatley is a loose Personality Core in Portal 2. He was one of the many cores seen awakening at the end of Portal. Of masculine programming and an English West country accent, he is Chell's sidekick and guide during the first half of the game.

Overview


During the centuries that elapsed between both games, Personality Cores have carved out sections of the neglected Enrichment Center as their own, while traveling around the facility via the laboratory ceiling rails they are confined to, as they are appendage-less. One of them, named Wheatley, is concerned about the facility's deteriorating conditions and has grown tired of being forced to travel on these rails, which hinders his mobility. He wants to detach himself, but he is worried his fall might damage him (he was also afraid that he would die shortly after detachment, as he and possibly all the cores have been lied to). He then notices Chell in stasis, and decides to awaken her so that she can detach him safely. To convince her, he promises to share his knowledge of an escape route, then detaches himself from a rail near a ruined Test Chamber 07.

The duo then takes on a journey throughout the defunct and heavily damaged facilities, while Wheatley blabbers incessantly. However he proves to be a very useful asset, as he can be plugged into various ports found throughout the labs, allowing him to access the mainframe and bypass obstacles. At some point on their journey they reach a massive cylindrical room populated with breaker switches, and filled with debris often blocking their path, containing what appears to be an escape pod to the outside. There Wheatley warns Chell that only the switch to power the escape pod should be flipped, so she leaves her Core friend to find the right one. Almost instantly, the neglected equipment malfunctions, and the floor below them reveals itself as an elevator that begins ascending, flipping all the switches on the periphery in the process. Acutely aware of the damage the malfunctioning has done, Wheatley scrambles to find an abort password while turning his face plates on themselves and moving the diaphragm of his unique eye, forgoing a practical algorithm for a sequential brute-force strategy: "AAAAAA? No, that's not it. AAAAAC? Wait, did I do B? Have you got a pen? Start writing these down!".



The climb halts as the platform comes flush with a door leading to an overgrown courtyard now housing the soulless shell of GLaDOS. Having failed to find the abort password, Wheatley fears to be punished by her. As the duo approaches, she awakens, and immediately recognizes Chell. After a short monologue, GLaDOS sends Chell back to the Test Chambers to resume her tests. . GLaDOS crushes Wheatley (although he survives) with a robotic arm while forcing Chell to resume her tests.

Despite being killed, he is reactivated, and is seen removing panels to have a glimpes at Chell. Eventually, he reveals himself to GLaDOS, and helps Chell escape into the back rooms of the facility. Eventually, after some running, he and Chell sabotage the turret production line and neurotoxin filter. Knowing that they have shut down GLaDOS' two main weapons, Wheatley and Chell head to GLaDOS' lair to shut her down and replace her mind with Wheatley. Once Wheatley gets attached to GLaDOS' body, he gains control of the entire facility and calls an elevator to the surface for Chell, and attaches GLaDOS' brain to a potato battery as revenge for insulting him. But right before sending Chell to her freedom, he quickly becomes corrupted and insane with power, and in a fit of rage sends GLaDOS and Chell down into the forgotten bowels of the facility. After ensuring that the two are gone, he rebuilds the entire facility in his own image, renaming it Wheatley Laboratories, combining turrets with cubes, and rebuilding test chambers.

When GLaDOS and Chell return, the resulting lab is in chaos, and in danger of a nuclear meltdown from Wheatley's incompetence. Despite this, Chell manages to access the core room housing Wheatley. After a brief fight, Chell corrupts Wheatley with cores provided by GLaDOS, causing a core transfer. However, Wheatley had booby-trapped the core transfer stalemate button (used when the substitute core and the corrupt core have a conflict over the transfer) and destroyed it. Chell is not without other options though: a hole in the ceiling reveals the night sky outside, and she shoots a portal at the moon. Once the portal opens up on the moon, a powerful vacuum is created, and Chell and Wheatley are sucked out into space through the other portal, with Chell desperately clinging to Wheatley, both of them being held on by a single wire. GLaDOS quickly uses a grabbing arm to snag Chell's hand, pulling her back to safety and sending Wheatley flying into the depths of space.

In a post-credits scene, he is shown floating aimlessly in space (along with the Space Core, who's orbiting around Wheatley), remarking on all the terrible things that he had done, and wishing he could say sorry.

Behind the scenes

 * Wheatley was first introduced during the Portal ARG, in one of the ASCII art images given by the BBS, that later appeared to be a screenshot of him being held by Chell. He was first described in the April 2010 issue of Game Informer, then seen animated for the first time in a gameplay video titled "Meet Wheatley" showcased by Valve during E3 2010.


 * Video game-wise, Wheatley appears to be an upgraded version of GLaDOS's Intelligence Core (the one telling the cake recipe), with a blue "eye" and three dots, though Wheatley has dots only on his right side. From early screenshots and the Portal 2 E3 teaser trailer, the model also appears to have been greatly improved and more detailed, with a wider range of emotions.


 * Wheatley's Cockney accent heard in the "Meet Wheatley" video shown at E3 2010 uses a placeholder voice provided by Valve animator Richard Lord. Due to very positive feedback, Valve considered at some point making the voice official. Later Lord himself emphasized that his voice was temporary, saying that "theres no way you will be dissapointed with the final voice - im over teh moon with who it might be." [sic], until it was announced that Stephen Merchant, who also has a British accent, would provide the final voice.


 * Valve originally intended for Wheatley to have Richard Ayoade voicing him, but found Stephen Merchant more fitting in the voice, and asked if he was interested first.


 * Wheatley's original model was a plain white core with few details.


 * GLaDOS almost constantly taunts Wheatley, by calling him a "moron" after the core transfer. She also states that Wheatley is a "moron" core, as he was an attempt to make her "behave", and that he made her an idiot, likening him to a tumor in her brain pushing her to be stupid. This statement was made after she had been modified to run on a potato battery, though she continued to make statements about him being a moron.


 * According to GLaDOS, Wheatly was specifically designed to be a moron, built by the greatest minds in an attempt specifically to design the dumbest thing to ever live. He was created specifically to keep GLaDOS in check, making her behave through stupidity.

List of appearances

 * Portal
 * Portal ARG
 * Portal 2