Alyx Vance

"When I plucked her from Black Mesa, I acted in the face of objections that she was a mere child and of no practical use to anyone. I have learned to ignore such naysayers when quelling them was out of the question."

- G-Man

Alyx Vance is one of the main protagonists of Half-Life 2, Episode One and Episode Two. She is portrayed as a woman in her early to mid twenties, and is a prominent figure in the Resistance against the rule of the Combine.

Background


Alyx, like many of the human leaders of the Resistance based at Black Mesa East, is a former resident of the original Black Mesa Research Facility. She is the daughter of Dr. Eli Vance, a scientist from Black Mesa, who appeared briefly in the original Half-Life.

Alyx's mother, Azian Vance, is never encountered in-game due to her death, but can be seen in a family photograph in Black Mesa East. Azian lived in the facility's dormitories with Alyx, but died during the Black Mesa Incident.

Half-Life 2


Alyx is arguably the most important character in Half-Life 2, as she helps Gordon Freeman more frequently and directly than any other character. Her first appearance is in the first chapter of the game, Point Insertion, in a scene where Gordon has been intercepted by Civil Protection units while he is still an unarmed civilian, due to a miscount detection. Alyx rushes in the room and apparently takes down the CPs by herself (although this is not explicitly shown on-screen). Subsequently, she escorts Gordon to Kleiner's Lab, there they meet up with Barney and Kleiner. After Gordon puts on his HEV suit, they enter the teleporter room to be teleported to Eli Vance's lab in Black Mesa East. However, the two unintentionally part ways after Kleiner's teleportation device malfunctions, forcing Gordon to continue through City 17 on his own.

When Gordon finally arrives in Black Mesa East, he is welcomed by Alyx and her father. Later, she gives Gordon the Gravity Gun and demonstrates its use. Alyx is also shown having a heated argument with Dr. Judith Mossman, a hostility that appears justified as Mossman is revealed a traitor in the chapter Entanglement, where Gordon helps Alyx search Nova Prospekt for her captured father.

In the chapter Anticitizen One, she fights alongside Gordon through a section of City 17 during the armed uprising but they are again separated when Alyx is kidnapped by Overwatch Soldiers while scouting an escape route from a rooftop vantage point. They are reunited later in the chapter Dark Energy, when Gordon reaches Breen's office in the Citadel. There she provides indirect assistance to Gordon during the final confrontation with Dr. Breen in the Citadel's dark fusion reactor. Alyx also seems to have made peace with Dr. Mossman after seeing her turn on Dr. Breen and release Gordon Freeman, Eli and Alyx herself from their imprisonment.

In the ending scene of Half-Life 2, Alyx is with Gordon at the time of the Dark Energy explosion. While the G-Man saves Gordon from the enormous blast, Alyx is apparently left behind, frozen in time with one arm shielding her eyes.

Half-Life 2: Episode One


Alyx manages to survive, being rescued by Vortigaunts, who also free Gordon from the influence of his "employer", the G-Man; after being teleported away at the foot of the Citadel and briefly revisiting it to postpone the destruction of the Citadel Core, Alyx and Gordon stick together for most of Episode One, finally getting to the exit from City 17 and jumping on the last Resistance train wagon heading out of the City just as the Citadel explodes.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two


Alyx appears in Episode Two throughout the game, and is almost always with Gordon. She once again rescues Gordon at the beginning of the game by using the Gravity Gun to free him from the remains of their crashed train, which fell off a bridge that was destroyed because of the Citadel explosion at the end of Episode One.

After making a first communication with White Forest, a large Resistance base, she is severely injured by a Hunter, but Gordon and a Vortigaunt manage to steal Antlion extract and use it to save her. During the process of reviving her, the G-Man reappears and informs Gordon that the reason Alyx remained alive during the events of Half-Life 2 and its expansions is because he "plucked" her from Black Mesa before the Resonance Cascade destroyed the facility, ignoring the orders from his superiors - that she was a mere child and of no practical use. He tells Gordon to escort her to White Forest safely, telling Alyx to relay the words "prepare for unforeseen consequences" to her father. She then accompanies Gordon on their journey to get to White Forest. Throughout the journey, she helps Gordon at many points, by providing sniping support for him using a mounted Combine sniper rifle as he makes his way through a Zombie-infested industrial complex to get to the Muscle Car or by using her gun on enemies while he is driving.

At the end of the game, her father Eli is killed by an Advisor before she and Gordon get into a chopper to go looking for Dr. Mossman. While she and Gordon watch, helpless, pinned down onto the walls by the Advisors' psionic powers, Dog jumps through the roof and attacks the Advisor before it can do the same thing to Alyx and Gordon, severely injuring it causing both Advisors to flee. Alyx cries over Eli's body as Gordon passes out and the credits roll. Being now a complete orphan, her full reaction to that loss and its influence on the subsequent events is yet to be revealed, likely in Episode Three.

Half-Life 2: Episode Three
A video involving Gabe Newell and two interpreters discussing deafness and video games with an small audience of hearing impaired people suggests that Alyx had a crush on a hearing impaired Resistance member and that she taught Dog how to sign so she could practice and easily communicate with him. Then this person went away from Alyx to fight the Combine someplace else, and Alyx and Dog started signing with each other when they wanted to communicate without making noise or without other people knowing. Although it is not specifically stated that this deaf character would appear in Episode Three, this is likely.

Appearance


Alyx has brown, short hair with streaks of red (a reminiscence of her original fully red hair, ) a headband and green eyes. She wears worn-out clothes, as most of the Half-Life 2 characters: a brown leather jacket with the right sleeve attached to the rest with duct tape, jeans and brown work boots, with a grey hooded sweater bearing the Black Mesa logo, with the words "Black Mesa" under it. She has black fingerless rappelling gloves and a tensor bandage around her right hand (it is unknown if it is for the looks or if she was previously hurt). She also wears a green belt where her gun and EMP Tool are attached; purple panties can also be seen from behind. Around her neck is a little box-like jewel, made out of wood or metal, which probably belonged to her mother, according to the Vance's family picture. A nevus can also be seen at the stem of her neck. At the beginning of Episode One, she gains a small scar above her right eyebrow; presumably inflicted at the end of Half-Life 2 and having been dug "out of the rubble". During Episode Two, her jacket is damaged when the Hunter wounds her.

Personality and skills


Alyx is a skilled hacker: she is able to operate and manipulate Combine-based objects such as turrets with the help of her gear, and also wields an EMP Tool used to perform a variety of tasks.

She is also very proficient with a pistol and in unarmed combat, and helps fight alongside Gordon briefly during both the chapters Entanglement and Anticitizen One in Half-Life 2. In Episode One, Alyx accompanies the player for most of the game and demonstrates fighting skills previously unseen, such as using a shotgun and kicking off Zombies when they get too close.

Despite Alyx's friendly nature, she shows some hostility towards Dr. Mossman because of Mossman's somewhat patronizing attitude towards her, as well as Mossman's interest in her father. At the end of Half-Life 2, this hostility has seemingly vanished, when Dr. Mossman helps to free Alyx and her father from the clutches of Dr. Breen.

Alyx also has a good sense of humor, as evidenced by the jokes she makes about various things, including the Combine and Gordon's silence ("Man of few words, huh?"). An example of this can be seen in the chapter Lowlife of Episode One, where she and Gordon navigate a series of Zombie-infested tunnels. During lulls in combat she imitates a Zombie growl to scare the player, then will laugh and say "Gotcha!" when they find out it is her.

She tries to make another joke shortly after when entering a Combine troop train. She spots a dead Overwatch Soldier with a Headcrab over its head. She tries to be funny, naming it a "Zombine", but quickly gets serious when Gordon does not react to her joke.

Alyx is also a very sensitive person, giving some heart and realism to the series. She does not believe her eyes when she sees how is the Citadel inside, is affected by the Stalkers' fate and behavior at the start of the Episode One chapter Lowlife, and cries over the loss of her father at the end of Episode Two.

Relationship with Gordon Freeman
Although Alyx was a child at the time of the Black Mesa Incident (at which point Gordon was 27 years old ), Gordon's almost two decades long stasis after Half-Life has more or less erased any age gap between the two.

At several points during Half-Life 2 (as well as in Episode One and Episode Two), it is suggested that there is a growing relationship developing between her and Gordon.

Half-Life 2



 * Alyx's father, Eli Vance's, comment when the three meet up for the first time in Black Mesa East. This is followed by a moment of awkward silence, and is also the first time such a relationship is mentioned in-game.
 * The chapter Entanglement contains several scenes, mainly when the two are forced to part ways for some reason, with Alyx becoming pensive with worry and telling Gordon to be careful.
 * In the chapter Dark Energy, Alyx longfully looks down upon Gordon when he descends down the elevator, to the final confrontation. She puts her hand to the glass, and solemnly says "Do your worst, Gordon, but, be careful."

Half-Life 2: Episode One


Continuing this theme, Episode One contains several situations where this relationship is developed:
 * In the first chapter, Dog finds Gordon under a pile of rubble, and Alyx rushes at him and ardently embraces him, telling him how worried she was about him. However, she soon recovers her wits, acts embarrassed and changes the subject to more pressing concerns.
 * Like the chapter Dark Energy elevator scene in the previous game, the chapter Direct Intervention contains at least one scene with Gordon going down an elevator and Alyx telling him to "hurry back". Additionally, a developer commentary given during this scene verifies that a Gordon/Alyx relationship was indeed intended.
 * In the chapter Lowlife, when forced to go through sewage-like sludge, Alyx comments on Gordon's HEV suit and jokingly asks "Got room for two in there?".
 * In the chapter Urban Flight, having bridged a gap between two ruins (and given Gordon his trademark crowbar), Barney Calhoun additionally states "Go on across, Gordon. She's waiting for you, you lucky dog, you!"

Half-Life 2: Episode Two


Their possible relationship is hinted even more obviously in Episode Two:
 * In order to resurrect Alyx after the near-fatal attack by a Hunter, Gordon participates in a Vortigaunt ritual wherein his life is "weaved" with hers in a pact that might resemble a marriage (or a Vortigaunt variation) somewhat. After being informed as to the intense struggles Gordon went through to retrieve the Antlion larval extract (which was essential to the ritual,) Alyx replies "Yep, that's Gordon."
 * After the previous highlighted scene, the Vortigaunt, Gordon and a weakened Alyx enter an elevator. Alyx asks Gordon to stand "next to her". This implicates that Alyx feels safer when he is near to her, at least when she was in her dizzy state.
 * In the sequence where Gordon must go ahead in order to take down the Autogun, he jumps down a gap, leaving Alyx with the two rebels above. The last thing heard is one of the rebels asking Alyx "So, uh... is that your boyfriend?"'. However, her answer cannot be heard (noclipping shows that she is not even answering, showing that no answer was scripted at all).
 * In his most obvious comment, her father jokes about that everyone should "do their part", playing off of Dr. Kleiner's speech to the public, along with expressing his desire for grandkids.

Weapons
In Half-Life 2 and its expansions, Alyx is seen with her unique weapon, an automatic pistol, known simply as "Alyx's Gun" (from its entity name, ). This gun is not available to Gordon, although the player can obtain it via the cheat console. However, late in Episode One, Alyx grabs a shotgun and wields it throughout the hospital. In both Half-Life 2 episodes, she also uses an Overwatch sniper rifle, although she is not actually seen when sniping (neither are Overwatch Snipers), and twice in the game she uses mounted Combine Pulse Rifles (AR2s) to provide cover fire for Gordon.

Behind the scenes



 * Alyx's face and body were based on Jamil Giovanni Mullen, an American actress and television host. Mullen spent several days in a motion capture studio recording running, jumping, and combat animations, which were used as the starting point for Alyx's animation library.


 * Actress Merle Dandridge voices Alyx. According to Valve's Bill Van Buren, she was chosen among the last five over more than one hundred actors auditioning for the part. The team wanted "someone with a beautiful voice, who could be charming, very feminine, and warmly intimate, but could then go into intense circumstances and be a strong, confident, and believable action character."


 * "Alyx" is a very rare feminine variant of "Alex", the short form of "Alexander" / "Alexandra", which is from "Alexandros", "defender of men" in Greek. Being intended or not, it fits the character very well. "Vance" is an English surname meaning "dweller by a fen, marsh", derived from the Old English "fenn".


 * A study found in Raising the Bar and named "A.I. Latham", simply referred to as "female protagonist", likely refers to a very early version of Alyx (being "protagonist" and not "antagonist"), where she was to wear leather straps and probably a breathing mask with a single "eye", recycled in the Combine Assassin. The outfit could be some sort of HEV Suit.


 * In the early stages of production, Eli and Alyx Vance had no relation, and she was the daughter of Captain Vance, leader of the Conscripts. Therefore she was not half Asian/half African, but Caucasian.


 * She had also a slightly different appearance: red hair (she still has streaks of red), a green jacket with a white fur collar and a blue-green bodysuit, with consists in her first known, missing model, while the model seen in the Half-Life 2 Beta files is almost identical to the retail one. Late in the development process, the team agreed on the fact that she was not very different from other video game heroines, and they redesigned her whole appearance except the head in a very short time, based on sketches by Dhabih Eng. During several design meetings, the team considered giving her braces or glasses, as long with making her more of a tinkering mechanic. In the end, the team ended up with a young woman attractive without being over the top like many female video game characters.


 * Early concept art depicts her with a socket wrench that she could have probably used as a basic weapon, in the vein of the crowbar for Gordon or the pipe wrench for Shephard. It is however unknown if she is portrayed with it only for aesthetic reasons or if it actually was to be scripted, as no information is given about the picture, although it is the vein of the early concept of her being a tinkering mechanic.


 * Alyx was to own a female pet alien named "Skitch".


 * At one point of the game's development, Alyx and Skitch were to be first met at the start of the Air Exchange chapter, where Gordon was to crash with its train at a nearby depot. They were to be attacked by "tripods" and "Combine Elite".


 * Very early Alyx sound files can be found in the folder "\temp\alyx" in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files (made by other actress than Merle Dandridge):


 * One gives some information about a prototype of Half-Life 2's final Citadel scene. Alyx can be heard saying "Let go of me, bitch!", referring to Judith Mossman (as confirmed in the concept art below), and also lectures the Consul about him being "just another cog in the Combine machinery".


 * Other sound files relate to the Skyscraper chapter, where she is wounded after the plane crash and asks Gordon to find her father, Captain Vance, in his headquarters near the near the city's inner gates.


 * A sound file also mentions she was to bring Gordon to her place at some point during the game.


 * In the WC mappack maps, the Alyx's model appears often. It was used for measurements, lightning tests and placeholders (Odell's model also alternatively fills this role).

Trivia



 * Unlike other games that feature extremely vulnerable mission-critical characters, Half-Life 2 gives Alyx the ability to absorb a large amount of damage before death (due to the fact that her health regenerates extremely rapidly). It is still possible for her to die during combat however, and at several points the player is required to protect her from taking damage. Her death will result in a black screen fade and failure message, then the game will reload. It takes five simultaneous Overwatch Sniper Rifle shots to kill her, indicating that she can absorb an extremely high amount of damage. Alyx can often successfully defeat several enemies at once without the player's assistance, but she is vulnerable to multiple enemies mobbing her at close range, or to individual Combine Soldiers equipped with shotguns.


 * Just before Alyx and Gordon meet with Barney, a rebel asks Alyx if she is Kleiner's daughter and she sarcastically claims that she is the daughter of Odessa Cubbage, mirroring somehow the early stages of Half-Life 2’s production when she was to be the daughter of another military man, Captain Vance.


 * In the complete darkness areas of the Episode One chapter Lowlife, Alyx tends to protect her eyes when Gordon directs his flashlight directly at her face (it is also seen in Episode Two). Furthermore, as she cannot proceed in complete darkness without Gordon and his flashlight, she will call in fear when the player turns it off and suddenly move away from her.


 * Alyx is referred to in Overwatch announcements as the "Vance Subprime."

List of appearances

 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two