Why do we love the companion cube?
- Thread starter Sion_Barzahd
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Can someone spell sexy, because I can.
S E C K S E Y
...and that's why I love the companion cube.
S E C K S E Y
...and that's why I love the companion cube.
I personally hated it after it tried to murder me. Oh sure, GLaDOS said it would never threaten to stab me, but instead it just lunged at me (it was a glitch but whatever).
Irony. We are told to love it in a way that is obviously unreasonable. We want to continue the joke, so we feign attachment. Feign attachment long enough, it becomes a real sort of attachment. Also, the game was very short and sparse. Not many things were characterized. I think that we had you, Glados, Turrents, Cake, and the Companion Cube as identifiable entities in the game. The companion cube is the only thing that you see for a bit, isn't actively trying to kill you. Lock a person in an empty room with a doll for long enough, and they will eventually play with the doll, and come to love the doll. The Companion Cube is that doll, in a sense.
For some reason, I had a sneaking suspicion through that whole level that companion cubes held the unconscious bodies of other experimental subjects and GLaDOS was worried they might wake up and begin trying to work with you to get out of the enrichment center. Then she made you burn it before the person inside woke up. But that's just me...
when you first wake up, you're in a cold sterile testing facility. everything around you is inanimate and are to be used either as mere disposable tools (normal weighted cubes, buttons) or are out to kill you(turret, energy ball). your one intelligent guidance is a robotic voice with nearly no emotion other than sadism and you learn very quickly that she cannot be trusted. so, you enter one test in particular, and you meet this cube. it looks different. it's bright, it has hearts on it, and you're told to keep it with you at all times as it is the only thing you can use to help you through this test. it does so without judgement, without comment. it never tries to taunt you, you never have to leave it behind, at least until you're forced to euthanize it. your one friend, or at least as close to a friend as you felt you have ever had, killed by your own hand.
I love the companion cube because he gives me free advice, and only once tried to stab me, which is better than I can say about some friends I've had.
I think Valve accidently tapped into some deep physcological needs with it's players through the cube.Sion_Barzahd said:
They stuffed you into a world that is lonely, monocrome, and often out to murder you. Gladdos is funny, but threatening, showing only slight amusement as you get shot, burned, melted, or otherwise get killed.
When we suspect somebody is not telling the truth, I think our mind's reaction is to do the opposite as were told. Were told the Companion Cube is lifeless, so we attach life to that little heart. It isn't expended or instantly used, all it does is protect and help the player. The robot woman tells you to murder your friend, so you don't want to do it. The player is not given a choice in the matter. The only way forward is to kill the cube. Simple as that. Their is no choice in the matter, either kill the cube or rot in the test chamber.
They didn't do this intentionally, the designers showed horror that killing the cube was for many players harder to kill then all the little sisters.
Because we're told not to by a parent figure.Sion_Barzahd said:
It's quite a common psychological method called Regression, where if we're told not to do something by an adult figure - especially if we're given reason to believe they are lying to us, we'll automatically rebel against it. GLADos uses a lot of these mental tricks like Passive-Aggression, Disassociation, Ego Assassination in order to create the Stockholm Syndrome in us. Especially as "we killed him in record time", which helps reinforce how BAD we are.
Because it loves us back.
It doesn't ask for anything.
No food required.
Completely obediant.
Follows one set of rules (gravity).
Love the companion cube, you can't stop it from loving you.
It doesn't ask for anything.
No food required.
Completely obediant.
Follows one set of rules (gravity).
Love the companion cube, you can't stop it from loving you.