[Portal 2] Cave Johnson: Combustible Lemons

This week’s series on Portal 2 will focus on the three main characters- GLaDOS, Wheatley, and Cave Johnson. We’ll look at their unique journeys and what we can learn from them in this test chamber we call life. In this final installment we’ll get to know the founder and visionary leader of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson.

Cave Johnson is a product of the American Dream. He started as a lowly shower curtain ring salesman (which I’m convinced is a reference to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles), and with a dream, some elbow grease, and a lot of grit he created one of the greatest science and engineering companies- Aperture Science. To fully describe Cave Johnson, let’s look at some similar well-known characters.

Howard Hughes

"Yeah, I just bought this plane on an impulse, to match my jacket."

Hughes was a wealthy visionary who had his hand in a little bit of everything throughout his life- aviation, business, Hollywood, medicine. Like Hughes, Cave Johnson has an innate entrepreneurial spirit matched only by a wide range of interests and crazy ideas. Also like Hughes, Cave Johnson eventually became sickly and mentally unstable.

John Hammond

"Well, I made dinosaurs. What should I blow my ridiculous wealth on next?"

Another man with too much money and crazy ideas was John Hammond. He was known for saying “spared no expense,” meaning that things like “costs” and “bills” were of no concern to him. Cave Johnson likewise has no concept of money: “Now, the beancounters told me we literally could not afford to buy $7 worth of moon rocks, much less 70 million. Bought ’em anyway.” That’s an interesting accounting trick, Mr. Johnson.

Andrew Ryan

"Would you kindly create a utopia without regard for ethics or safety?"

The builder of Rapture and creator of a new utopia had some very radical ideas about science, politics, and morality. What sets Andrew Ryan apart is that he fully realized those wild ideas. When his plan wasn’t possible anywhere within normal civilization, he just built and entire city underwater so he could do whatever the heck he wanted anyway. Cave Johnson would agree with Ryan’s blatant disregard for a conventional approach: “Science isn’t about why, it’s about why not! You ask: why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won’t hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired.”

Doc Brown

"This device is designed to contain my craziness....and my hair."

It’s hard not to love Emmett “Doc” Brown, the bumbling hero scientist of the Back to the Future movies. The only thing crazier than his hair is his pure devotion to one thing- science.

Hopefully those legendary figures provide a clear picture of the man that is Cave Johnson. But perhaps the best way to describe Cave Johnson comes through his assistant Caroline. He states that she is “married- to science!” and it has been theorized that Caroline is actually his wife. Thus Cave Johnson is, at his core, all about science.

Before we get to that, there’s another important figure worth mentioning in this conversation. This historical figure had crazy amounts of wealth and power and he pursued one thing in his life- wisdom. This man was the great king Solomon. After years of philandering, accumulating wealth, and even giving generously to others, he found that it was ultimately all in vain and it did not bring him true pleasure. He wrote a few books that made it into the Bible, including Proverbs (which we discussed in the last post). He also wrote Ecclesiastes, which is a much darker book, likely written during his emo years. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon’s theme verse is this: “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'” He’s quite the downer, but Solomon would have quite a bit to say to Cave Johnson.

Cave Johnson was so devoted to science that he spent decades building test chambers and running subjects through them. If you notice from his dialogue as you move chronologically forward through Aperture’s History, Cave had to resort to test subjects of decreasing quality as the company fell into ruin. He started off welcoming astronauts, war heroes and Olympians. Then he had to use just any remotely competent scientist. Then he brought in homeless people for $60 a pop. Finally, he just made his own employees run the tests. Which, of course, made it difficult to keep employees….alive.

To Cave’s single-minded pursuit of science, Solomon might say, “My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” We can see near the end of Cave’s life he had done a lot of tests and has little to show for it but weariness.

What he does have to show for it is a bad case of moon dust poisoning. Cave’s most famous quote by far is his monologue about life handing him lemons. He had poured so much of his effort and wealth into science, only to end up financially ruined and physically wrecked. Solomon had something to say about those who sought only material things: “Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger.” The Lemon Speech is great illustration of living (or dying) in much sickness and anger. At the end, life did indeed hand him lemons (“meaningless, meaningless!”), and he did not accept that fate well at all.

So what can we learn from Cave Johnson and his life? First, the idea of exploding lemons provides a hilarious image. Second, science is a terrible god. In fact, many things in life are terrible gods. Cave thought that he could become great through science, but in the end it became his undoing. Solomon tried many different things in order to find significance in his life. Both realized that their pursuits were in vain.

However, Solomon seemed to have figured things out at the end of his life, unlike our friend Cave Johnson. Solomon’s final thought in Ecclesiastes, after dwelling on all the meaningless in life is this: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

Jesus said it a different way with this story: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock…But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

What foundation is your life on?

Can your house withstand the storm, or will it be burned to the ground….with the lemons?

That’s all for Portal 2…except for whatever YOU have to add in the comments. Come back next time for another topical series on the formation of identity in video games.

[Portal 2] Wheatley: The Dumbest Moron Who Ever Lived

This week’s series on Portal 2 will focus on the three main characters- GLaDOS, Wheatley, and Cave Johnson. We’ll look at their unique journeys and what we can learn from them in this test chamber we call life. Today we’ll talk about Chell’s frenemy Wheatley, who happens to provide a good case study from one particular book of the Bible.

When we meet Wheatley after being rudely awakened back inside Aperture Science, he seems nice enough. He’s friendly, funny, quirky, and helpful. He’s obviously got the market cornered on the descriptor “bumbling,” but he’s useful enough to get Chell to the confrontation with GLaDOS. From this point in the game forward, Wheatley’s role changes, which brings us back to our mythological parallel from the previous post…

If GLaDOS represents Prometheus in this story, then Wheatley is definitely Epimetheus. Who’s that you ask? Well I hadn’t heard of such a character in Greek mythology either. But as it turns out, Epimetheus is Prometheus’ dumb brother. The gods were not happy with Prometheus for his little “let’s give mankind fire” stunt, so they decided to get back at him by crippling humanity. Prometheus was too sharp to fall for their tricks, so they went through the idiot brother, Epimetheus. They created for him a woman named Pandora who was later given a box by the gods. Yes, that box. Prometheus warned Epimetheus not to accept the gift, knowing what was going on. Of course he did accept it and gave it to Pandora who opened it and, as you know, ruined everything.

Pictured: Pandora with Epimetheus and a box. Ends badly.

The confrontation with GLaDOS ends with Wheatley in control of the entire facility, and GLaDOS as a potato. As you can imagine from what we know of Wheatley, this situation is very bad news for everyone. GLaDOS reveals that out of all the intelligence cores designed, Wheatley was intentionally made to be the most idiotic for the sole purpose of dumbing down GLaDOS’s hyper-intelligence. To further elaborate on Wheatley’s character, let’s use a book of the Bible that provides a great deal of insight on the topic of wisdom and the lack thereof- Proverbs.

Proverbs 30:21-22– “Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is filled with food”

Proverbs 10:14– “The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.“

The message here is that when a fool is placed in a position of power or prosperity, it’s a terrible thing for everyone. So terrible, in fact, that the very earth trembles. Epimetheus’ foolishness caused trouble for the whole earth in that Greek myth and I’m sure you can think of other examples, even from your life. Ever had a boss that you’re sure was promoted as a mistake or a cruel joke? Ever had a class where you thought you could teach the class better than the professor? In Wheatley’s case, his neglect and mismanagement of the reactor core threatens to destroy the entire facility within just a few hours of taking over. When the foolish thrive, ruin is brought near and everyone suffers.

Proverbs 15:21– “Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.”

Wheatley takes over the scientific testing process and immediately becomes addicted to the thrill of it. GLaDOS quickly realizes that his lack of intelligence will make this addiction to testing unsustainable. Sure enough, he gets so much joy from it that he allows the rest of the facility to fall apart so he can focus only on making Chell do tests. The choice to disregard his other responsibilities was not just foolish, but he actually enjoyed it. The phrase “folly is a joy” makes one think of an irresponsible man-boy laughing at YouTube videos of dudes getting hit in the crotch all day.

Proverbs 13:16– “In everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly.”

Wheatley not only lacks the know-how to run the facility, but he’s showing off his failed attempts at success to Chell. He seems proud of his useless turret-cubes and makes no attempt to hide the fact that he has to dig up old test chambers rather than making them on his own. Ever known someone to show off their bad ideas? Some people know they’re making bad decisions, but that doesn’t keep them from telling you all about them.

Proverbs 12:16– “The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.”

Even though he was created for the purpose of being dumb, Wheatley does not like being called a moron. Every time GLaDOS taunts him in his idiocy, he quickly flies off the handle and shows his irritation, usually by doing something else stupid. If you want to a expose a fool, just try to make them angry and see how quickly their anger comes out. On the other hand, we have GLaDOS (our beacon of wisdom in this situation) who can take an insult as easily as she can dish one out.

Proverbs 29:9– “If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet.”

Proverbs 26:4– “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.”

This is best illustrated by GLaDOS’s attempt to confuse Wheatley with an emergency rogue AI paradox. She risks her own sanity (“lest you be like him yourself”) on an attempt to confuse him with a paradox. She engages him with a statement that is completely illogical and what happens? He blows it off and provides an equally idiotic response. Think of that person who would argue with you no matter what well-reasoned arguments you presented. Fools will continue to defend their point because it makes perfect sense- but only to them.

Proverbs 18:6– “A fool’s lips walk into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating.”

This one speaks for itself. You can likely name someone who shot off their dumb mouth enough that they eventually received some form of beating. For example, here’s what GLaDOS wished on Wheatley: “Crushing’s too good for him. First he’ll spend a year in the incinerator. Year two: Cryogenic refrigeration wing. Then TEN years in the chamber I built where all the robots scream at you. THEN I’ll kill him.” It’s strange how stupid people can bring out thoughts of such violence. Of course, anyone who’s driven a car on a crowded road can relate to that.

Wheatley eventually meets his fate when he’s abandoned in space with another space core. Only then does he start to think through his actions and what foolish choices he made. The moral of the story: Seek wisdom, don’t be like the fool.

Questions:

What are some of the foolish things you’ve seen people do?

What are some of the foolish things you’ve done? Do any of these verses apply to you?

Where do you go to seek wisdom?

Next time we’ll finish up Portal 2 by getting to know the forward-thinking, enthusiastic, near-maniacal founder of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson.