Who Is Chell? - Analysing Portal's Protagonist

Hey everyone! This video has been in the pipeline for the past 3 months (most of which was on the script alone) and I kinda hope it shows, I genuinely promise my next video projects won't take this long to do, but for someone who has the title of "Portal Lore Master", making a Lore video is ironically genuinely intimidating.

*Regarding the Lore Roundup*: You may hear me mention things there that come out of complete nowhere regarding Chell's past, that's stuff where I've attempted to fill in the gaps with my own pieces that I felt most reasonably fit to fill empty voids. This video isn't definitive in any regard and still uses little bits of headcanon, but in that section only!

See y'all in the next vid! :)

One interesting notion I read was that Dr Rattman was Chell's adoptive father; his descent into mental illness broke his bond with Chell and led her to make a significant choice: If 'Daddy' was still alive, surely he'd still be a Aperture? So, she applied to be a test subject, hoping that, at some point, they'd run into each other. As it turned out, she was right; she was just totally wrong in HOW this would happen.

The 'good people' line could be seen as a reference to Aperture's habit in the 1980s of using convicts or down-and-outs as test subjects. Caroline's memories were affecting GLaDOS's train of thought.

This video made me realize how stupid and inefficient her name is

Not sure how I JUST realized this, but the facility is called the Computer Aided Enrichment Center. Or CAEC, pronounced cake.

Hi Dorsa
and welcome to Chell being called adopted; the live-action

Hi Dorsa!

Cool Blahaj cameo

Hiiiii Dorsaaaa

Hi Dorsa

People are so obsessed with that trash game

you need to work on your enunciation, you sound like you are trying to speak while chewing gum.

Hi Dorsa :)

hi dorsa, actually pretty good vid

Are you sure Chell was meant to have the number on the clipboard, or is it possible that the number belonged to another subject and Chell was just put into someone else's pod?

Nice theory, man! I've noticed one possible flaw on it, though: If Chell visited Aperture Science in the 80s during BYDTWD and the GLaDOS incident only happened many years later, then why the experiments we see in Portal 2 from the children that attended BYDTWD are specifically the ones from Chell's "generation" of daughters from the 1980s, instead of the more recent ones, since GLaDOS took over the facility in the same year (and even the same day) of the latest BYDTWD?

I mean, I think it would make sense if we assume that they decided to show some of the previous works to the girls that would come to the BYDTWD of that year to serve as some form of example of what kind of experiments with potatos they would be expected to make for BYDTWD, but BYDTWD was supposed to be when they would display their already finished works, so it would make much more sense if they showed the girls those example a few days before BYDTWD happened.

Plus it would have to be one hell of a coincidence for them to pick up potato works specifically from the year that Chell attended to show to the new girls, and not, like, the ones from the previous year or something.


I think maybe we should disregard that "Chell potato experiment" thing entirely. At this point, I'm almost positive it was supposed to be just an easter egg.

Hi Dorsa! 🦈

I just kinda assumed Chell was born there or something. I mean, even it was just one of the homeless test subjects that birthed her, it kinda made sense to me

Meow~

hi dorsa!

Crazy theory but maybe she was forced to be a subject considering she’s related to a scientist and glados is messed up? Idk crazy theory maybw

Hi Dorsa!

Hi Dorsa

Hi, Dorsa!

I just assumed that she was a prisoner slated for execution or was institutionalized indefinitely. Then placed into testing for Aperture's odd experiments.

It is fascinating to see more back story on her and the story around her.

Hi dorsa

Hi Dorsa!

The binary on chell's report, when converted to ASCII reads 'The cake is a lie.' I just did that myself, how cool!

Hello Dorsa, your human made a good video.

I don't really get how Chell being the daughter of Cave and Caroline is a product of media illiteracy or even a secret. The game heavily implies that Caroline was Chell's mother and that GLaDos discovers this near the end of the game and lets her go because of it. She literally sings Chell a lullaby at the end which explicitly calls Chell her daughter. It's not even subtext. It's just text.

So he gathered all the clues and evidence to bs the ending.

Hi Dorsa!

Yes they do. Bad things happen to good people.

But why should you trust anything GlaDOS claims your backstory is?

Hi Dorsa!

Thanks flossy owl

Hi Dorsa! Loved this video.

Hi dorsa.

There's a guro porn of here

Hi Dorsa

"chell is a Japanese Brazilian born in the state of Michigan..." sounds like an American to me, bud.

I have a theory that chell’s experiment was used as a trophy, like a way to show new kids what the old kids did. It was just too big to put behind glass….

If Chell was from one of the earlier BYDTWDs why would her project still be sitting out like that? It only really makes sense for it to be there if it was THE BYDTWD. It would never be moved because GLADOS takes over the facility and there is no one to take them anywhere.

There's actually also a really big plot point that often gets overlooked. Chell, albeit an unusual name, is not so unique that it's not possible that the "Chell" who did the project was a different girl entirely. The entire "bring your daughter to work day" theory relies on the fact that we're to believe it's the very same Chell that we've known, but that could very easily also just have been an easter egg or red herring for the writers, something to obfuscate the timeline and make it harder to piece together the real story.

wait, what is Portal:still alive?

Hi Dorsa!

Hi Dorsa!

my theory is that Chell was one of the daughters at Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, as implied by her name being on one of the potato battery exhibits. this naturally gives way to the idea that Chell was the daughter of a scientist or programmer, and they likely died during the neurotoxin attack. For whatever reason, Chell was not present in the room for this or managed to survive it somehow, and it’s very likely that anyone who did survive were indentured as test subjects. If you look closely at the beginning of Portal 2, while Wheatley is attempting to maneuver the relaxation chamber around all the others, the chambers have a sticker on the outside that denotes whether they are elderly, of adult age, or child. They wouldn’t need a child denotation unless there were children being housed and tested there.

Chell doesn’t answer the “what made you apply to be a test subject” question because she never applied in the first place. She was forced into it and grew up in cryostasis.

Dorsa.