U.S. parent bemoans adoption jokes in Portal 2

The father of an adopted child wasn’t prepared for certain conversations in Portal 2.

In the first Portal, GLaDOS tells the mute protagonist that she is an orphan who was adopted by the Aperture Science program to be a test subject, but it’s GLaDOS, so you’re never quite sure if she’s telling the truth. The joke continues in Portal 2, where GLaDOS again references Chell’s abandonment in many funny ways that won’t be spoiled here.

Neal Stapel, however, doesn’t think the joke is particularly amusing. The North Carolina man is the father of an adopted 10-year-old, and he says that it was tough to listen to GLaDOS say things like, “Alright, fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty, fatty no parents,” while playing the game with his daughter.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he told a local TV news station. “If you are an adoptive parent, it was literally the worst thing I could possible have heard… It throws the question, the most ultimate question the child is every going to have for you, and it just throws it right in your living room.”

“If you’re not an adoptive parent it’s probably not that big a deal to you,” he continued, before adding that he otherwise had no problems with Portal 2. “It’s a fantastic game. It’s a great game. It’s just that one little blurb in there.”

 

Now I’ll admit that when I first heard the story, it sounded like another situation in which the media created an issue by taking something in a video game out of context, but you do have to feel sort of bad for Stapel. It’s easy to see why he might get upset, although sometimes you need to have a sense of humour.

via 1Up