The Ending decyphered *BIG SPOILERS*

C

Crusmang

Guest
My ideas? Well, let's see...

The G-man is clearly working for some higher authority with a vested interest AGAINST the Combine or FOR Earth. He mentions at the end how he's "not at liberty to say" why you are there or doing what you're doing (the questions every player has been asking, coincidentally). But he did say he would call on you again...

Which leads me to ask these questions... (lol)

1) Where does the G-Man "leave" you when he "makes his stop"? City 17 and Earth in general are f***ed. He can't just drop you back off at the explosion point to get leet haxor pwned with Alyx either...
2) The G-man also talks about how you have proved yourself once again. Is he simply testing you... seeing if you're ready for the real deal?

My total theory:

A theme I saw again and again in HL2 is that things aren't what they appear to be. G-man reveals to you in the end that you've never had a choice in any of this. That any perceived choices are just cosmetic (specifically, like the ending of HL 1). Clearly, the G-man is shaping your destiny by hand. But it also seems that the G-man is putting you through a series of tests. That's why you see him here and there throughout the game. He's watching you. I believe it's because he has not revealed your true purpose to you yet. He pretty much tells you so at the end. What that purpose is, I have no idea...

Sound legit? I think so. :E
 
i agree but that brings up an interesting paradox in that if he is shaping your future, why would he need to test you?
 
In the end he lets you know that he is NOT giving you a choice in what you do. However he acknowledges your success in your efforts.

So I would say the answer to your question is: He puts you in the situations your in. That does NOT mean you will be able to complete them. When you do, you prove your worth to him, and he promises to make use of you in the future.
 
Have you noticed he just picks you up and takes you out of wherever he puts you..
eg, you start on the train.. a citizen says "didnt see you get on".. you've just popped in
the gman also plucks you out of both black mesa in hl1 and c17 in hl2, once you've achieved your objectives. its like he's been keeping you on ice and uses you whenever the need comes..
 
Exactly bliink. It's almost as if you're some kind of super soldier that comes out of the cryo chamber whenever he's needed...
 
Another idea... I posted it in the Single Player forums but it should have been posted here.

Posted by Crusmang
But it seems like there is more to this game than meets-the-eye. The end pretty much leaves you with more questions than answers too. But perhaps the game isn't linear, and decisions etc. at one point affect what happens at the end (like ChronoTrigger from way back, and many other games..). For example, and please help me out with this if I'm just being a noob about it, but: WTF are the flying camera scanner things. The npc's keep telling you to watch out for them, but all they do is take your picture and nothing else really happens. For the sake of arguement, what if there is a way to avoid the scanner that takes your picture in the beginning. What if you then avoid every scanner thereafter (near-impossible without frequent saving). Perhaps a little more is revealed at the end?
Click to expand...
 
One thing about the ending that struck me was that the G-Man hit on how you're something of a mercenary; at least, you are now. There are people who have been watching you other than the G-Man, and they've asked for your "services." The G-Man said he will decide, if and when, you accept any of these offers. At face value this is already a big deal, but there are some things being touched on here that aren't being said.

In the first game, the G-Man mentions his employers. It is still unknown whether his employers are alien or human (or both) in origin, but what gets me is that he makes no mention of them this time. Perhaps he is still under the same employers, perhaps not, but if he is then I would imagine they don't like the idea of him renting you out, so to speak, to other parties. He himself stated that he normally would not even entertain such offers, but times have changed. This also raises the question of whether or not this task you performed in City 17 was for his employers or for someone else, but since these third parties must have only just begun watching you it stands to reason that this was a job for his employers.

About that, though...wasn't there a point in Breen's office where Dr. Breen says you were at the highest bidder? Was he talking about bidding something for you to work for him, or did he know something that we do not about the circumstances? Perhaps you were contracted out for this job. Perhaps the G-Man's employers aren't fixed; he's under the employ of whoever's offer is most profitable at the time, just as he leases you out to whoever can offer the highest price, or whose ideals closely match that of the G-Man's.

So now the G-Man is acting as a contractor, preserving you in stasis and reviving you once you're needed again. This is something of a side note to think about, but I wonder if the same thing is happening to Col. Shephard, somewhere. Although, he wasn't authorized for a job and wasn't put in stasis, but the G-Man's speech about keeping him alive because he reminded him of himself might not have been the whole story. It would seem he is keeping able, adaptable people to work for him.

Anyway, all that aside, it's going to be interesting to see where you end up next. Obviously it's somewhere else in time; how long this time, who can say. But the fact that from Black Mesa to City 17 was probably ten years, and then the "slow teleport" sequence during the game touched on the fact that teleporters can be used in such a way, it's obvious where this is headed. The G-Man stresses the word, "time," six times in his ending speech, and yet the one time he should be stressing it the most, he doesn't say it. "I'm sure it will all make sense to you in the course of--well, I'm really not at liberty to say." All other times he says it it's in reference to something else, or a stressed part of another word, like "meanTIME." However, when he's talking about the course of time, he's hushed on the matter. Very interesting. Yet again, more questions posed than answered, and I cannot wait to see all the loose ends tied together.
 
On a side note, what the **** does the G-Man want to do with money anyway? He always wears the same damn suit :D
 
Good post Darkside. I think you mentioned most things that came to my mind as I went through the storyline. There is quite a bit of ambiguity and open-endedness to the storyline. That seems to bother some people but it is something that I enjoy. For me it is better to think of what could be then to be given a definite and final ending. As long as there are no facts to contradict my ideals, I am able to fill in the blanks how ever I see fit.
 
The G-Man comes from Earth's future and he is a time traveller. The truth will be revealed in the next installment, sometime around 2010.
 
Zento said:
On a side note, what the **** does the G-Man want to do with money anyway?
Click to expand...

He invests in rare collector's plates. They are valuable in the future.

amineA, I don't mind ambiguity and intrigue because I know all the ends are going to come together in the last installment, if I am to make an assumption based on Marc Laidlaw's writing style. The 37th Mandala had all these little details, some emphasized and some not, but absolutely ever little instance came together at the end of the book to form something much larger than one would've guessed.

Recondelta said:
The G-Man comes from Earth's future and he is a time traveller.
Click to expand...

For some reason I can't explain, the phrasing of that sentence cracks me up. You win the funny award tonight.
 
Your all wrong of course..


HL3 begins with Gordon waking up after a bit of an accident in the test chamber, Turns out the gman, real name Frank was around just at the right time to give Gordon CPR, and its the flashes between slipping out of conciousness that you keep seeing the gman, the rest of it is simply a dream from an overactive imagination.

HL3 will be a game based on sorting paper work and helping clean up Black Mesa and then explaining yourself to the Administrator.


It's just Wizard of Oz with different characters :p

And you were there, and you were there, and even the dog was there


eh? eh? seeeeee :p
 
I was thinking about that being the ending of HL3, TDE.
And you could be right. It'd suck though. :p
 
I was actually scripting an alternate ending video that involved him waking up like that on the floor of the reactor room. Even using the old models.


It came from discussing a theory that Gordon actually died in the original accident. This could lead to several branching concepts, including that possibility that he is dead and acting as some resurrected warrior by a definite higher power, or that he is merely symbolic in nature, he is the "freeman" and his fight, in the game, represents the struggle of the many to live free or die trying. When they talk about how much everyone respects Gordon, they are talking about their desires for freedom. It's all metaphorical.

No more "Jacob's Ladder" for me.
 
Posted by Darkside

...it's obvious where this is headed. The G-Man stresses the word, "time," six times in his ending speech, and yet the one time he should be stressing it the most, he doesn't say it. "I'm sure it will all make sense to you in the course of--well, I'm really not at liberty to say." All other times he says it it's in reference to something else, or a stressed part of another word, like "meanTIME." However, when he's talking about the course of time, he's hushed on the matter. Very interesting. Yet again, more questions posed than answered, and I cannot wait to see all the loose ends tied together.
Click to expand...

:thumbs: I have a save right before the explosion, so I watched the ending 4-5 times again last night. I noticed the same thing. The one single solitary instance where he should have used the word TIME, he didn't. Makes you wonder if the answers to our questions lie outside of time. Like the sub-dimensional stasis that he's clearly keeping you in. Perhaps an alien race that exists outside of space and time. Laugh if you want, but I'm f'ing serious here. :E


On a side note, what the **** does the G-Man want to do with money anyway? He always wears the same damn suit
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2 things.
One, his suit is cash-m0ney-millionaires peeyomp so back off. :LOL:
Second, have you listened closely when the G-man is talking? Listen to how labored his breathing is. I think it's entirely possible that the G-man has some sort of disease, and is running his mercenary business to get funds in hope of finding a cure for his disease. This disease could be anything. A cancer of some kind... But I think his disease is more closely linked to his origin. Perhaps those who live outside of TIME can become sick by comming into contact with it. OR, maybe his host body (assuming he is an alien) is sick with a human illness, one that his species has never delt with before.

Maybe I'm just mentally masturbating here, but I think that these are really good ideas and I want more feedback. The discussion must continue!
 
In the first game, the G-Man mentions his employers. It is still unknown whether his employers are alien or human (or both) in origin, but what gets me is that he makes no mention of them this time. Perhaps he is still under the same employers, perhaps not, but if he is then I would imagine they don't like the idea of him renting you out, so to speak, to other parties. He himself stated that he normally would not even entertain such offers, but times have changed. This also raises the question of whether or not this task you performed in City 17 was for his employers or for someone else, but since these third parties must have only just begun watching you it stands to reason that this was a job for his employers.

About that, though...wasn't there a point in Breen's office where Dr. Breen says you were at the highest bidder? Was he talking about bidding something for you to work for him, or did he know something that we do not about the circumstances? Perhaps you were contracted out for this job. Perhaps the G-Man's employers aren't fixed; he's under the employ of whoever's offer is most profitable at the time, just as he leases you out to whoever can offer the highest price, or whose ideals closely match that of the G-Man's.
Click to expand...

Dude, I actually believe you have just improved the game considerably from my point of view. I was a bit dissapointed with the lack of story, or what at least at this point in time appears to be a lack of story, in HL2, or maybe to be more accurate, a lack of new information. But what you say is perfectly true, there are alot of new things about the G-Man to be learnt, and and as I see it now it is quite possible that he has gone "renegade"... Though i do not believe anyone has hit on a good reason for him doing this yet...
 
Dsty2001 said:
If he can stop time, I'm sure he could cure a disease :p
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LOL true! BUT, I don't think he can neccessarily (woah, spellcheck) STOP time. I think he has only figured out how to control the "slow time travel" a little bit. Or a lot, but not enough to STOP time. Although the sequence at the end suggests otherwise. I just think that time goes on whether you want it to or not, you can only change YOUR perception of time. Ah, this game gets me so turned around with theories lol!! I love it! Problem is I start with one idea and as I word it....I change it, and again, etc etc ad nauseum. Someone shoot me.
 
dleidlein said:
LOL true! BUT, I don't think he can neccessarily (woah, spellcheck) STOP time. I think he has only figured out how to control the "slow time travel" a little bit. Or a lot, but not enough to STOP time. Although the sequence at the end suggests otherwise. I just think that time goes on whether you want it to or not, you can only change YOUR perception of time. Ah, this game gets me so turned around with theories lol!! I love it! Problem is I start with one idea and as I word it....I change it, and again, etc etc ad nauseum. Someone shoot me.
Click to expand...


*moan*
.357 shot
*pain*
*zombie death*

:E





i love the speculation side of things too. there's so many theories flying around and they're all plausible. i hope valve don't do a 180 in HL3 and start explaining too much stuff, i'd much rather have a few golden nuggets to speculate over :D
 
Somebody in my brain told me this about Gman

Gman-"Good morning Mr Freeman, or should I say good night. After all, these are dark times for the human race. With the remnants of a hated regime destroyed, the survivors of the techno holocaust have to make ends meat to survive. Times of desperate need have called for desperate measures. Weaving alliances with my...employers, your old colleagues have no need for your services, or do they?

Seeing that you have done all their...Dirty Work, I have decided to give you one last test, its more of a choice really. I know what my employers real intentions are, and lets just say they arn't for the good for humanity. Its just a matter of time before you will have to come to their....Aide."
 
Even though I'm not really feeling the "techno-holocaust wasteland" thing, I like how you wrote it. And even though the G-Man wouldn't "test" Gordon for a mission (he's already proved himself), I can see the player having to make the choice of going with the G-Man and his employers, or being out on your own against them. And while it isn't likely (if the G-Man's employers were not working in the best interest of humanity, they probably would've sided with the Combine), I would like to get the chance to fight the G-Man.

I have the feeling that Gordon Freeman would be slaughtered by him, however.
 
Darkside55 said:
I have the feeling that Gordon Freeman would be slaughtered by him, however.
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Yea, the G-man would creep Gordon out... to death
 
If Gman could kill Gordon why would he need to hire him? All G-Man is good at is making a good escape.
 
Alyx is too hot to die. She lives on in our minds.


I mean...ummm........damn.
 
There were a couple things i noticed while re-playing the game through again. In Eli's laboratory there is a substance contained near his teleporter which appears to be of the same material the explosion was made out of, perhaps it is some form of material that allows the process to happen or fuels the process.

When you ride the elevator down to Eli's lab there are 3 areas with vortigaunts doing various things. After using no-clip to gain access to the kitchen i discovered one of them has alot to say. He mentions gordon having killed Nihilanth and that if he has done that then it is only a matter of time before he takes out the real entity behind it all. There are alot of things said but that was one that stood out to me. It was interesting when you meet the first vortigaunt in the underground railroad area he mentions that you both serve the same mystery.
 
He mentions gordon having killed Nihilanth and that if he has done that then it is only a matter of time before he takes out the real entity behind it all.
Click to expand...
Very neat, but maybe a bit inconsistant? If I remember correctly Nihilanth was introduced as the supreme being of Xen by one of the scientists. This means that there would be no "real entity behind it all", at least from Xen, and as the vortigaunt are from that dimension too, they would not have any knowledge of such a beings existance if it came from, say, where the combine come from.
 
Maybe Nihilanth was much like Breen...an overlord and administrator of Xen, but ultimately just a peon of some greater force such as the combine.
Because of the telepathic nature of the Nihilanth, and the ease of teleportation (The combine couldnt teleport around earth once they arrived) on Xen, they wouldnt need a citadel like structure...Or maybe the nihilanths chamber and all around it was like the citadel, and the alien grunts were much like the combine soldiers. The vortigaunt slaves were like the humans on Earth as we see them in halflife 2.
 
Heh, missed the edit mark...

There is another possiblity. Nihilanth although big, looked terribly weak. It was stiched up in many places, and sat on a floating platform. At the end of hl2 you see a big "slug" creature with stich marks, and it also relies on technology to survive, and its Breens contact/advisor. Maybe Nihilanth was something similar (But I don't think so due it its similarities with normal Xen creatures...then again, it did look "fake" with all that stitching)
 
Hmmm... quite interesting comparison between the vortigaunts and the opressed humans in hl2. It might be a bit like that indeed, but there was never any hint of the combine in hl1 which there probably would have been if Xen and Earth both have the same connection to the Combine.
 
Story is King

Heavy ending spoilers

This is my theory. It's standing on a lot of other people's shoulders.

I assume Valve thinks Story is king.


Why spend so long working on facial animation? To aid emotional involvement with the characters.

What begins mysteriously, builds significantly, and leaves hundreds of questions unanswered in a cliffhanger? The first and second parts of a trilogy.


In Breen's office at the end, Alyx and Eli put up the biggest fight when Breen makes his comment about your contract. He suggests (quite strongly, now that I've seen it three times) that Gordon's contract under the G-man is to the resistance. Alyx and Eli seem to know about Gordon's contract. This would explain why they were expecting you at the beginning: they ordered you, or bid for you via the G-man.

However, there's a contradiction here: why would the G-man help the resistance (Gordon's contract is clearly over when the citadel is destroyed) only to kill some of its key members in the explosion? Even given the presumed surge of uprising the resistance would gain when the citadel falls, losing such strong members would be a serious blow.

So, either,
a) The G-man's heavy inferrence of "time" at the end of HL2 suggests he's done, or going to do something to time so you can save Alyx and Eli. He's therefore helping you, and he could be doing it "renegade" to help the Earth against the Combine.

or,
b) The G-man is cold-hearted enough that he doesn't care, which, given your emotional connection now to the resistance, means that you should grow to dislike him, and work towards saving Alyx and Eli without his consent. Or, the HL series will leave its own universe behind, and Gordon will just start doing a load of unrelated missions. I think this is unlikely.

Either way, (even though I really like the epic-story-ness of Alyx and Eli dying and their legacy helping to build the resistance after the citadel falls), I think the fact that HL2 appears to be the second part of a trilogy is the strongest evidence that both will survive: the cliffhanger is clear trilogy material.

I think a) will happen. The G-man knows you've just been shocked by the apparent death of Alyx and Eli, and so he offers you hope by heavily referencing "time," the use of which will help Gordon save them.

There's more trilogy material: the alien seen talking to Breen at the end looks to me like pre-placement, as is all the stuff you see on your tour of the citadel. These aliens may be the trilogy's ultimate bad guys: they use the chaos caused by HL1 to start their invasion of Earth. Earth is by no means saved by the end of HL2, so stopping them is no doubt the task of HL3.

Unfortunately, this explains nothing about the G-man's employers or motives.

Anyway, thoughts?
 
i think we could understand this better if gordan would take THE MASK OFF A DEAD COMBINE GUY ><!@
 
Darkside55 spoke about Gman not saying "time" in the ending of HL2. But in the ending of HL he does say time twice. Is it because he has... "changed" in a way since HL, or is the time-thing nothing to be concerned of?

And as Zento said, why would Gman possibly want money? Or power? In what world could money or power do any good when you already can alter the fate of a whole planet? What he is doing could only be because of his compassion for humankind, alienkind or whateverkind or his fear of eternal damnation or something close to that.
 
Ok, i've forgotten most of the things i wanted to say, but someone talked about Nihilanth as the "Boss" of the Aliens.
A few hours ago I searched the internet for HL2 theories, and there was a thread where someone took all the soundfiles from the Gman and Nihilanth and it was really interesting. For example Nihilanth says something like "Slaves ... we are all Salves .. we are their Slaves ...". So there definetely IS a higher force, something much bigger than Nihilanth oder the Gman. A few minutes before the endfight Nihlanth also sais "You are man ... he ist not man ... for you he waits ... for you ...".
Im sure that he's talkin about the Gman when he sais that. Gonarch is already dead, so who else could he mean ?
Oh, and didn't anybody wonder why, after you destroyed that reactor and the Gman slows down the time, Alyx is OUTSIDE, on the platform with you ? when you shoot these energyballs at the core she's staying behind you, behind the window in the control room, and one second later she's staying there. Did the Gman bring her there ? and if he did, then why ?
I also think a lot about what Gordon must be thinking all the time. I mean he's being used bei the Gman in every way, shouldn' that really piss him off ?
And what in the hell was that huge .. THING that Dr. Breen was talking to ?
I'm really running out of my mind because i have so much questions and not ONE definite answer. But i LOVE that, and i think everyone who's saying that HL2 has a crappy storyline is an idiot.
 
I'm sure it will all make sense to you in the course of--well, I'm really not at liberty to say.
Click to expand...
I don't think time is actually the right word...
I think he dosn't say time because well..Gordon will NEVER understand.
Makes sense..
 
Do you guys think that Gordon's and Alyx's "SlowTeleport" from that combineyish place back to that scientists lab has anything to do with the story's plot. The dr was talking about how interesting it was and how it opened up a whole new field of research or sumthing liek that! lol remeber the mini teleport machine in that lib u could beam cans and boots to the other side with!
 
ultraflip said:
Ok, i've forgotten most of the things i wanted to say, but someone talked about Nihilanth as the "Boss" of the Aliens.
A few hours ago I searched the internet for HL2 theories, and there was a thread where someone took all the soundfiles from the Gman and Nihilanth and it was really interesting. For example Nihilanth says something like "Slaves ... we are all Salves .. we are their Slaves ...". So there definetely IS a higher force, something much bigger than Nihilanth oder the Gman. A few minutes before the endfight Nihlanth also sais "You are man ... he ist not man ... for you he waits ... for you ...".
Im sure that he's talkin about the Gman when he sais that. Gonarch is already dead, so who else could he mean ?
Oh, and didn't anybody wonder why, after you destroyed that reactor and the Gman slows down the time, Alyx is OUTSIDE, on the platform with you ? when you shoot these energyballs at the core she's staying behind you, behind the window in the control room, and one second later she's staying there. Did the Gman bring her there ? and if he did, then why ?
I also think a lot about what Gordon must be thinking all the time. I mean he's being used bei the Gman in every way, shouldn' that really piss him off ?
And what in the hell was that huge .. THING that Dr. Breen was talking to ?
I'm really running out of my mind because i have so much questions and not ONE definite answer. But i LOVE that, and i think everyone who's saying that HL2 has a crappy storyline is an idiot.
Click to expand...


Dude 1000000% Agreed thats how a trilogy story should end up not awnsering any questions and making the game ALOT more intresting =D I want hL3 or expansion!
 
I don't think there's ever been a game where so much theories and speculations came out of it. BRILLIANT.
 
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