Excerpt from "Raising the Bar"

[Max35]

One of the short stories from the "Raising the Bar" book called "Now Arriving: City 17" had a sentence that might give us an idea to who/what the gman is. The sentence was something like "a face plagued by erratic tics(involuntary muscle movements) that suggested extreme senility or neural damage...". So, this might mean a) Gman has made himself somehow immortal (he looks the same, but his mind is decaying). b) Maybe during the Black Mesa incident he endured some head trauma, and is now some time-hopping pyscho.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that when the gman talks to you at the end of both HL games, it happens right near a teleporter?. The Citadel had one, and after you destroyed Nihilanth, the screen was going white and it seemed you were going to be teleported somewhere else. Then the gman stepped in and saved you.

 

[Duracell]

One of the short stories from the "Raising the Bar" book called "Now Arriving: City 17" had a sentence that might give us an idea to who/what the gman is. The sentence was something like "a face plagued by erratic tics(involuntary muscle movements) that suggested extreme senility or neural damage...". So, this might mean a) Gman has made himself somehow immortal (he looks the same, but his mind is decaying). b) Maybe during the Black Mesa incident he endured some head trauma, and is now some time-hopping pyscho.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that when the gman talks to you at the end of both HL games, it happens right near a teleporter?. The Citadel had one, and after you destroyed Nihilanth, the screen was going white and it seemed you were going to be teleported somewhere else. Then the gman stepped in and saved you.

While he seems to have a speech problem, he still seems very much with it so I don't agree that he is a pyscho But he is certainly more than he seems at first glance (If that wasn't already apparent with all the jumping about through time)

 

[ríomhaire]

Page please?

 

[Feath]

1) Gman has facial tics
2) ???
3) Therefore, Gman is immortal.

You're missing a link there, matey.

 

[Jandor]

The above post made me smirk.

 

[A True Canadian]

If I remember correctly, these short stories were written very early in Half-Life 2's development as inspiration for the Valve team. Since the G-Man of the other game lacked any definition to his face, my guess is that this is just one of Laidlaw's many concepts for what the G-Man was to look like. My belief is they just decided to make him more like a normal human and not some diseased looking, neurally challenged twitcher, like quoted above. Laidlaw has mentioned repeatedly that he tries to design the story elements to be flexible, in case certain changes need to be made. In fact creating the new look for the G-Man earlier in the developer cycle is probably the reason why his is one of the most detailed models ever made.

 

[gabriel]

facial tics eh? that could only mean one thing... he's an alien!

 

[hungryduck]

hehe......time hopping psyco...

 

[Epsi]

Or the G-Man's model is the most detailed because he's also the one you see closest-up.

 

[Kouler]

Nihilanth exploded when you killed him, it only seemed like teleporting because the G-Man was teleporting you.

 

[crackhead]

1) Gman has facial tics
2) ???
3) Therefore, Gman is immortal.

lol phase one collect underpants, phase two ???, phase three profit!

ohhhh i get it!

 

[Max35]

the whole "extreme senility" thing made me think, IF he's unnaturally old, say a quarter of a mellenia, maybe his brain is slowly going haywire. See, I'm basing my theory on the short story.

"a face plagued by erratic tics that suggested extreme senility or neural damage...".

EXTREME senility, meaning, he's alot older than what is physically possible, and since he doesn't look like father time, he's been able to control his physical aging, but has no control over his mental decay. I already explained the mental decaying part in my first post, maybe its far-fetched, but the whole

1) Gman has facial tics
2) ???
3) Therefore, Gman is immortal.

didn't really make sense.

More like

1) Gman has facial tics
2) Suggesting Extreme senility (comes from the short story)
3) Therefore, Gman is immortal, or atleast unnaturally old.