Question about Portal's Chell (spoilers!)

[zombiejoe]

maybe she,s a child prodigy?

Perhaps, yet in the comic Rattman states he made her #1 test subject just on a hunch, and she wasn't the most strong or most smart (though not terribly bad at either)

 

[wolf thing]

Ok, so from we can tell about Chell
[spoiler/]She was a child brought into Aperture by her adopted parent(s) and glados sent out the nerotoxin, but Chell was able to survive in a pod for years until Ratman awoke her in Portal 1[/spoiler]

but wait, wouldn't that mean that Chell...

[spoiler/]has the intelligence of a little girl? If Chell was mostly alseep before portal 1 and at the end of portal 1, and she was trapped since she was a little girl, she should only have the mind of a little girl, and the body of a 20 something women. If this is true, how could she be able to solve those deadly traps with ease!?!?!?! Ratman says she wasn't the smartest of the people he could choose, so she isn't a hyper intelligent child.[/spoiler]

Can someone tell me if I'm not getting something?

well in one of the sciences projects it has her name on its, and glados could have just made up her adoption or she could have been adopted but could have lived till she was 20 something it was never specified she was give to arpature as a baby. some people believe that she is cave johnson daughter

 

[fates_puppet13]

depermination and luck maybe?

 

[Rainboq]

From what I can tell, after the massacre, she was raised by the facility and put at the top of the test list due to her unsual tenacity, hence her ability to solve puzzles.

 

[gfmbhsmo]

it is possible apature found a way to increase the intelagence of a person and chell was a test subject for that as well to be fair she was the first person to manage to kill glados

 

[Himmelgeher]

maybe she,s a child prodigy?
also the guy on the steam forums came up with the theory Chell is Caroline,s and Cave,s daughter this is impossible since she doesn't look like Cave and Caroline at all.

You're joking right? That's hardly definitive proof that she isn't their daughter. Especially when it's hinted at in-game. Go look up the turret choir with lyrics translated. I can't believe people are missing so much though. Chell wasn't trapped after Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, because the comic clearly shows an adult Chell applying to be a test subject.

 

[zombiejoe]

maybe she,s a child prodigy?
also the guy on the steam forums came up with the theory Chell is Caroline,s and Cave,s daughter this is impossible since she doesn't look like Cave and Caroline at all.

You're joking right? That's hardly definitive proof that she isn't their daughter. Especially when it's hinted at in-game. Go look up the turret choir with lyrics translated. I can't believe people are missing so much though. Chell wasn't trapped after Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, because the comic clearly shows an adult Chell applying to be a test subject.

Wait wait wait, then how could the "bring your daughter to work day" projects still be around? If Glados didn't go mad then, wouldn't someone take the projects away?

 

[Tharwen]

She doesn't need to be intelligent, and she didn't need to be a little girl, either. From what I can understand, she could have been any age, from five to fifteen, and as the child of an Aperture employee, she could have been very smart for her age. Either way, though, she doesn't need to be smart to handle a Aperture Science Dual Portal Gun. Just point and shoot.

But she needs to understand complicated puzzles, escape near death, and be called fat. Would this not be a bit much for a women with the mind of a child? Plus

[spoiler/] You can find her project in Portal 2, and she seemed pretty young judging by her work[/spoiler]
lol

Wait... does it actually say which one was hers? I thought they were anonymous.

read this

[spoiler/]Players exploring the Aperture facility in Portal 2 can discover a presentation from the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day science fair signed with the name Chell. Several girls seem to have made potato batteries; none of them have rotted over the years, but Chell's potato has actually grown out of control, sprouting through the ceiling. One of the steps described in her experimental procedure is using a "special ingredient from Daddy's work." This strongly implies that Chell was the daughter of a male Aperture employee, was trapped in the facility during GLaDOS' takeover on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, and spent her entire adolescence as one of GLaDOS' prisoners. Assuming Chell was of grade school age during the 1998 science fair (as evidenced by her vernacular on the poster board), this would put Chell in her late teens or early 20's during the events of the first Portal.[/spoiler]

Well that's interesting... maybe it's a metaphor

A metaphor for what?

The way Chell survived and flourished in the testing facility when all the others died.

 

[HandsomeZer0]

Chell is like a blank canvas to me. She's just the vehicle, driving the experience forward through with her actions. Its the NPC's you get involved with, she can easily be you.

 

[Gudrests]

She also doesn't speak so

But she can a least right judging from the science experiment. and GREATTT EVERYONE....GOOD JOB!!! NOW IM GONNA WAIST MORE TIME IN THAT GAME -_-

 

[Wintermoot]

She also doesn't speak so

they explained that: in Portal 1 she didn't want to satisfy GLaDOS with a response in Portal 2 she presumably had brain damage.

 

[Thespian]

Yes and if what we learned from inception is true

It's not. That was a movie. A gimmicky one at that.

OT: I'd say the idea that she went under some preconditioning is probably true. Anyway, puzzle-solving could be a different quality to intelligence. Maybe Chell was the only one who could... Think with portals.

 

[fragmaster09]

As much as I love 'em, the Portal games aren't exactly hard.

Kids can beat them.

Therefor if Chell has a child's mind, she could probably still get through.

kids can beat CoD on veteran... just not all(i cant for example, even beat the 1st Favela mission on MW2 on Hardened, but some do so with ease)

 

[Arfreid]

As her purpose is testing, would it not be best to have an average person?

She isn't an average person however. She never gives up and possibly has the brain of a small child.

but i just can´t imagine that aperture would use a woman with the brain of a child for testing...

Aperture might not, but GLaDOS would. Probably think its a perfect test subject to meld and mould, all of the "M's".

Nah, GLaDOS would test anything and anyone she/it could. In one of the multiplayer maps (the one you need to complete with 5 portals to get an achievement/thropy) She complains that the facility is overrrun with plants and that she had tried to test them.

She was dissapointed because they don't move or show any emotions or pain. And because of that, that wasn't science.

Sooo... yeah, GLaDOS is true science driven Psychopath

 

[Himmelgeher]

maybe she,s a child prodigy?
also the guy on the steam forums came up with the theory Chell is Caroline,s and Cave,s daughter this is impossible since she doesn't look like Cave and Caroline at all.

You're joking right? That's hardly definitive proof that she isn't their daughter. Especially when it's hinted at in-game. Go look up the turret choir with lyrics translated. I can't believe people are missing so much though. Chell wasn't trapped after Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, because the comic clearly shows an adult Chell applying to be a test subject.

Wait wait wait, then how could the "bring your daughter to work day" projects still be around? If Glados didn't go mad then, wouldn't someone take the projects away?

When was the last time you saw Aperture do something efficiently and in a timely manner?

 

[BoogieManFL]

There are answers (and of course massive spoilers for both Portal and Portal 2) here:






http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Chell

 

[NinjaSpaceCore]

My theory:
The ridiculous amount of tenacity she had could have been a result of growing up in Aperture. She was trapped as a child after the Bring Your Daughter To Work Day and forced to grow up there and learn about the facility. Then, when she was old enough and smart enough to become a test subject herself, she tested too high for tenacity because she had been trying to escape for years. They just decided to put her in storage so she wouldn't be bothersome anymore since they found they couldn't test her. She couldn't be left free due to having too much knowledge of what was going on in the building. Ratman had seen her as a young girl running around trying to escape, so he knew who to look for when he was attempting to kill GLaDOS.

I really hope there's a Portal 3 with backstory on Chell. Plus, who her parents really were.

 

[odd function]

Regarding Chell's probable youth and lack of education. In our everyday lives we see instances where someone young is better able to adapt than someone older. The most obvious example that you ought to recognize is watching your parents play video games. The Escapist even linked to a series of youtube videos where some kid had filmed his father playing Portal and simply not understanding. I also remember a 60 Minutes interview where somebody mentioned how adults take longer to recognize the arrow in the FedEx logo (formed by the second e and the x) than children, probably because adults are trained to recognize the shapes as letters, while children are more likely to see the shapes without reading the name. Hence Chell's inexperience probably helps here solve the puzzles.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I always figured Chell was in her late 20s to late 30s judging by the fact she already had premature greying going on in Portal 1.

Sadly that seems to have been thoroughly retconned out of existence in Portal 2. Silly Valve.

 

[The Funslinger]

Ok, so from we can tell about Chell
[spoiler/]She was a child brought into Aperture by her adopted parent(s) and glados sent out the nerotoxin, but Chell was able to survive in a pod for years until Ratman awoke her in Portal 1[/spoiler]

but wait, wouldn't that mean that Chell...

[spoiler/]has the intelligence of a little girl? If Chell was mostly alseep before portal 1 and at the end of portal 1, and she was trapped since she was a little girl, she should only have the mind of a little girl, and the body of a 20 something women. If this is true, how could she be able to solve those deadly traps with ease!?!?!?! Ratman says she wasn't the smartest of the people he could choose, so she isn't a hyper intelligent child.[/spoiler]

Can someone tell me if I'm not getting something?

Well no, it's implied (particularly in one of the Cave Johnson in one of the pre-release portal 2 videos) that Chell was a test subject for Aperture Science before the Neurotoxin incident. (Although I admit she probably grew up in the facility, but was educated there) Besides, she doesn't age in stasis, or she would have died during her time in the room at the beginning of Portal 2.