is g-man a good guy or bad guy

[gmottl]

i know this is another g-man thread but i gotta ask this. i'm been playing half life for years and i never knew what to think of him. then i got half life 2 and he seems to be helping the rebels. but in the opening movie of episode 1 a group of vortigaunts try to take him on. this is really confusing me. please tell me your thoughts and fact. and no wimpyness about ruining the game for me please, this is something i need to know.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

The G-man's motives, like his nature and origin, is largely unknown. It's unlikely he fully supports either the combine or the rebels, he almost certainly has his own reasons for doing what he does. Whatever he does, he should not be trusted.

Sooo... short answer? Neither. We just don't know enough about him.

 

[gmottl]

it's really gotta make you wonder why he's so interested in freeman then, i mean, he must've known everything before hand to select him for black mesa, knowning he'd cause the accident that opens the portal and that he would be of pivital use for the rebel cause then. maybe he's from an alien future or something, at any rate, he's still creepy.

 

[Combine_Advisor]

In episode two he "regrets" that he cant give any more help to gordon...so i think that he is a good guy

 

[AJ Rimmer]

it's really gotta make you wonder why he's so interested in freeman then, i mean, he must've known everything before hand to select him for black mesa, knowning he'd cause the accident that opens the portal and that he would be of pivital use for the rebel cause then. maybe he's from an alien future or something, at any rate, he's still creepy.

Yeah, but before the portal helped the rebels, it in turn set into motion a chain of events that wiped out most of human kind.

 

[Emporius]

I would consider the g-man neither good nor evil, he's merely a businessman who plays with the cards dealt to him.

 

[ríomhaire]

He set up the resonance cascade. He probably doesn't have humanity's best interests at heart.

 

[Laivasse]

He set up the resonance cascade. He probably doesn't have humanity's best interests at heart.

Beat me to this statement. Like riom says, the accepted wisdom is that Gman had a hand in pushing the RC experiment ahead and quelling any opposition to it. Deciphered snippets of the convo between him and the scientist at the beginning of HL1 support this, iirc.

Take a look around at the crappiness of Earth in HL2. In terms of first causes, much of it can be traced back to the portal storms, and thus back to the resonance cascade, and thence back to the Gman.

If he really wants the Combine beaten, I think we can bet that it's not because he wants the best for humanity, the near extinction of whom can be attributed largely to his dark machinations in HL1. I'm hoping that HL3's story will be about the final showdown between Earth/Freeman and Gman/Gman's backers.

 

[Cap'n Sharkbait]

I personally think Gman is on Gman's side, he just plays situations to get the best out of things for himself.

 

[tschumann]

from HL1 SDK:

// GMan - misunderstood servant of the people
dlls\gman.cpp (line 16)

 

[Laivasse]

from HL1 SDK:

// GMan - misunderstood servant of the people
dlls\gman.cpp (line 16)

That is just a description (and a slightly ironic one) from when his role hadn't been fully fleshed out, and 'Gman' still meant 'Government Man.' It's pretty certain by now that he's not affiliated with any government, and as such is no 'civil servant' in that sense of the phrase.

 

[Drackard]

I would consider the g-man neither good nor evil, he's merely a businessman who plays with the cards dealt to him.

Agreed. The way I've always seen him is that he simply goes with whatever plays to his advantage.

 

[gmottl]

here's an interesting thought, what if g-man IS a future gordon.

 

[ChiliFan]

inb4 flamewar

 

[AJ Rimmer]

here's an interesting thought, what if g-man IS a future gordon.

He's not.

Do not mention this again.

Seriously, don't.

I mean it, I'm not being funny. Ignore this post. Pretend it doesn't exist and that you never proposed such a silly, already-posted-a-billion-times-over theory. Do not. Mention. This. Again.

 

[Trevelyan]

bah, this

Sooo... short answer? Neither. We just don't know enough about him.

imo. Clues = yes, Rock hard solid data facts = not really

 

[Tagaziel]

The G-Man is amoral, much like Kane, orchestrating events so that they unfold in a direction he decided on, and if something goes not as he intended it... he adjusts the planning to compensate for the deviation.

I don't even think he has real emotions.

 

[gmottl]

to which kane are you refuring

 

[Van Kayne]

I think he means the guy from Citizen Kane, going from the spelling.

I agree The Gman's just following the most efficient path for personal gain, in D&D terms "True Neutral". I don't think he set up the resonance cascade. Pretty sure that was Breen ("the Administrator") - but that's not the issue at hand. Nothing definitive points to him either harming or helping humanity, when you take into account he's getting paid for all this.

 

[Kula Meenur]

No. Gman is a bad, bad man. A very, very, very, bad, bad, bad, bad man.




Quit asking stupid questions. :|

 

[gmottl]

now don't yell at me for this but i think that in the end he'll be a good guy, why else would he have chosen freeman instead of totally backing breen.

 

[hl_grunt]

Deciphered snippets of the convo between him and the scientist at the beginning of HL1 support this, iirc.

Wait, that mumble was deciphered? Where's that thread?

 

[Laivasse]

I've seen Riomhaire post a transcription of what people have deciphered in a few threads, and others have backed it up, but the last time I saw it was ages ago. Maybe he still has it to hand.

edit: Here you go. Please don't necro that thread btw.

 

[chimpmunk]

I must agree too that I always thought Breen instigated the RC, after contacting combine autorithies trough xen (they had been there for a while) and gave them earth in exchange for power in their new world order.

 

[Qhartb]

Shades of grey.

 

[Laivasse]

I must agree too that I always thought Breen instigated the RC, after contacting combine autorithies trough xen (they had been there for a while) and gave them earth in exchange for power in their new world order.

Laidlaw confirmed that the Combine were never on Xen. Stickies to be read...!

The whole thing of Breen contacting the Combine before the RC was cooked up by the HL Story Saga site, as far as I remember, but it's supported by nothing and contradicted by much.

The fact that the Gman instigated the RC does not mean Breen was not also involved - they are not mutually exclusive points. Breen is more of an opportunist than a mastermind, however. It is likely that all he saw in the experiment was a chance at scientific notoriety, but was unaware of what wider consequences it would have.

Gman, on the other hand, is the man with the plan; in the RC he saw a way of manipulating events at least up to and including the death of the Nihilanth, and possibly even as far as the explosion of the citadel.

 

[V-Man339]

Just to be clear, he's not a bad guy or a good guy, he's a neutral npc or thing.

 

[Que-Ever]

He's a picker, he's a grinner, he's a lover, and he's a sinner...

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

He plays his music in the sun...iving in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight.

 

[Que-Ever]

lol tiny tim

 

[Returned3]

Whether he is good or bad, I'd totally take his side and trust him in almost any situations.

He saved Gordon's life once and thats good enough for me.

Ps. You can also argue that he gave Gordon a job at the end of Half Life, I mean since almost everyone at Black Mesa died, there was really no work left to be done.

 

[gmottl]

it's gotta make you wonder how kleiner and vance made it out. i think eli was the guy who you first use to open a door. not sure where you meet issac.

 

[Druckles]

He set up the resonance cascade. He probably doesn't have humanity's best interests at heart.

Maybe the resonance cascade was in humanities best interests.

And it wasn't actually he who "set it up". He did warn Eli beforehand, if you recall.

 

[Oreolek]

so he knew about the consequences.
and you can hear his mumble in the beginning of HL1 behind the glass - he insisted on boosting the mass spectrometer to 105% (his second appearance)

 

[Druckles]

and you can hear his mumble in the beginning of HL1 behind the glass - he insisted on boosting the mass spectrometer to 105% (his second appearance)

What!? You can't hear anything behind that glass, and anything you do make out of it is pure speculation. Unless you're not actually talking about his second appearance.

 

[LackingSaint]

I think that it was probably best that Eli died, since he was proably filled with guilt by the Black Mesa incident that he would've killed himself sometime in the future.

 

[Laivasse]

What!? You can't hear anything behind that glass, and anything you do make out of it is pure speculation. Unless you're not actually talking about his second appearance.

edit: Here you go. Please don't necro that thread btw.

Riom deciphered a lot of it from the wavs in the GCFs. Most people who have double checked agree generally with the wording.

 

[ríomhaire]

Maybe the resonance cascade was in humanities best interests.

And it wasn't actually he who "set it up". He did warn Eli beforehand, if you recall.

Yeah, about 3 seconds before the experiment exploded I bet.

 

[Laivasse]

Confirmed:

eli_silo_talk01.wav up to eli_silo_talk05.wav -

"'Unforeseen Consequences'... hmph... the last time I heard those words was back at Black Mesa. You had just stepped into the test chamber when he whispered them in my ear."

I don't think that can really be called a warning.

Eli also reveals it was Gman himself who brought in the crystal. It's pretty indisputable at this point that Gman pushed ahead the experiment, and since he's not a guy who seems to goof up frequently it's almost certain that the resonance cascade was an intended consequence. I think that was one of the important story developments to be inferred from Ep 2.

 

[Asknoone]

Maybe the resonance cascade was in humanities best interests.

Entering humanity into a cosmic war is not in its best interests.