Intelligent Dissection/Discussion of the Ending and Reasons...

jb2002smg

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Just finished the game and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed both the journey and the destination. A lot of people are complaining about how vaguely and abruptly the game ends. But if you think about it, the lack of a definitive answer to our questions is the most logical route, and Valve took that path.

Let's say they attempted to explain everything in a scripted sequence/monologue, there would probably be even more people complaining, because the ending wouldn't fit in their concept of the Half-life universe, or what they thought should happen. Look at the Matrix. They wanted to give the trilogy some closure by trying to give a monologue about the nature of humanity, and while some understood and enjoyed the ending, many more hated the whole method of closure. The same thing would happen if Valve attempted to explain away everything. I would be willing to bet that they themselves haven't settled on the true identity and purpose of the G-Man. Making him an enigma is the safest bet and it allows you to form your own ideas.

The majority of us have a self-formulated idea of who the G-Man might work for, and what the master plan might be. Our ideas may range from vague assumption to detailed conjecture, but all of us have some thoughts on the G-Man. Never-the-less, there are some people here that are disappointed with the ending. Those disappointed are disappointed because they wanted their assumptions either validated or contested through explanation. This is a valid desire, but like most parents, Valve is pretty good at differentiating the difference between what you want and what you need. You want concrete, definitive closure to the Half-life universe. You need just enough information and exposition to form your own ideas and your own conclusions. I don't want to be forcefed an ending/idea that is going to end up disappointing me, I want just enough closure and sense of completion to feel a certain level of accomplishment and understanding.

This is where Halo 2 got it wrong. In Half-life 2, when you first see the Citadel, you know that's where you're headed, your answers/conclusion lie there. So, the closer you get, the closer to completion you feel. And in the end, you get there and complete your immediate mission: Pushing back the combine and dealing with Dr. Breen. Throughout Halo 2, you have no idea where you're headed, and the "end" is so abrupt it hits you like a frieght train, destination unknown. Half-life 2 gives you a sense of completion (destroying the Citadel), it just doesn't spoon-feed you answers.

What makes Half-life 1 & 2 great is that if you want answers, you have to look further than the game. You have to think and formulate your own unique ideas. Look within.

"I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of...well...I'm not at liberty to say.

In the meantime, This is where I get off."

A parting thought: "Time" is mentioned six times during the ending monolgue, seven if you count the time the G-Man cuts his sentence short, "time" being understood as the missing word. Coincidence?
 
notes on time:

1. on the hl2php thing "youll know when the time is near" or whatever, time was italicised.

2. when you teleport into kleiners lab, you get there but its a week later

3. time slows down at the end of the citadel, you can walk around and jump, but its just very slow!


maybe this whole thing is leading up to time-travel?
 
Valve leaves so much unknown. I don't even know what those critters with the stilts for legs at the end were... or who that race on the viewscreen Breem was talking to is...

All you know is that the G-Man put you here, at this specific time, so you do what you gotta do, and that's all....

Just another day on the job, thanks to your employer.
 
Halo 2's ending was very abrupt, true...but HL2's wasn't much better. We never got any questions answered from our play time in HL1 or 2. They didn't even allow us to completely enjoy our victory.

*Grab the final power core and launch it at the unguarded portal*

"You did it!!! blah blah"

*BO-*

Wait...what? We don't get any satisfaction for our deeds. We see the beginning of an explosion that could (according to Breen) wipe out the entire Citadel...which means Alyx will die and most likely Barnie, Dog and many resistance fighters. Wow...that makes me feel really good. Now the G-man walks from oblivion and confuses us and walks off into oblivion again. Whee.

We don't know who the hell that alien was that Breen was talking to on that monitor

We don't know what happens to City 17 and anything surrounding it

We don't know what happened between HL1 and 2

We don't know anything about the G-Man

We don't know jack shit (bad grammar I know).

We just know that we went to Kleiner's...Eli's labs...got attacked...Eli was captured...you go to rescue him...almost get him out...Mossman seems to be a traitor...you are pissed...she teleports away with Eli and you go back to Kleiner's and fight your way to weaken the combine (at that bank/museum place) and Alyx is captured before you succeed here, you make it into the citadel where you inexplicably lose all your weapons and become super Gordon with your 200 power suit and your mega-manipulator, you then goto Breen's office and mossman jacks Breen, he starts to escape and you chase him and stop him...whee

HL2's plot..right there. All the mysteriousness goes completely ignored and we get to wait like 5 more years before we get the chance for more closure or (god willing) some answers.
 
At the end, the dark reactor thing got destroyed so the citatdel and the evil adminstrator were done for, and before you were to the citadel the resistance people seemed to be winning, should be just cleanup work without the citadel pumping out gunships striders and combine troops.

the G-Man has some kind of special powers, maybe like someone mentioned - time travel, or time manipulation. He works for someone, and apparently, is thinking about contracting out gordan's 'services.' So he was obviously saved somehow through the g-man's powers. He also could have saved Alyx, and if not, then I don't see how she could have survived. Maybe in HL3 there will be a new hot chick with a nice a**. Her father probably escaped.

Actually now that I think about it, Alyx also could have been transported to the combines world/dimension in the explosion, as there seemed to be a merging of worlds there.

How about that gravity gun? that thing kicked butt.
 
G-man can be a future gordan freeman or even gordan and alyx's kid. Kind of like the terminator,, he comes back in time to make sure gordan goes through with the mission of destroying c17 and ridding earth of aliens
 
Why is everyone assuming Dr Breen is evil? We really have no clue what he or the combine are doing, only that it seems to be evil. What if Dr Breen was right all along and the combine are a great oportunity for Earth and Gordon (and hence the G-man) have gone and ruined it all.
 
Lanthanide said:
Why is everyone assuming Dr Breen is evil? We really have no clue what he or the combine are doing, only that it seems to be evil. What if Dr Breen was right all along and the combine are a great oportunity for Earth and Gordon (and hence the G-man) have gone and ruined it all.


He might not be "evil," but his desire for power and control have blinded him, or better, skewed his view of humanity and its values.

I also think it's safe to assume (based on the G-Man's opening monologue) that we have the same sense of continuity as Gordon. By this I mean that no time has passed for him since the Black Mesa Incident. He accepted the G-Man's offer at the end of HL1 and was suspended in time or transported to the beginning of HL2. He is now the definition of a wrong man in a right place, a troubleshooter of humanity, solving problems and disappearing.

Oh, and the vid of the ending is down thanks to a very LAME limit on downloading from student webspace. If anyone would like to host the video, I would appreciate. It is a high quality Divx/Xvid encoding at 848x480 and 1300kbps, its around 22MB.
 
Ok, first things first: The ending doesn't bother me; I liked it and it makes me want to play the next one that much more. I don't have any preconceived notion of who the gman is or what he's doing, but I do have some ideas from the game experience. What does bother me is that no one ever tells you what the **** is going on. It would ahve been nice if when I arrived at Eli's lab he just said "oh yeah, the combine took over and are harvesting the earth of minerals and enslaving humanity" thats all I wanted.
 
cH0WyUNf4T said:
Ok, first things first: The ending doesn't bother me; I liked it and it makes me want to play the next one that much more. I don't have any preconceived notion of who the gman is or what he's doing, but I do have some ideas from the game experience. What does bother me is that no one ever tells you what the **** is going on. It would ahve been nice if when I arrived at Eli's lab he just said "oh yeah, the combine took over and are harvesting the earth of minerals and enslaving humanity" thats all I wanted.
Someone else did a great post on this. The characters in the game actually tell you a LITTLE about whats going on, but the rest is up to you to find out. For instance in the beggining of the game there is a newspaper article clipped on the wall which tells you about the invasion of earth, there are posters everywhere like the evolution poster and so on and so forth. What valve did was instead of telling you a story and spoon feeding it to you, they made a game where you are the story and the more you explore the levels the more you find out about the game. I know the first time I played it I rushed through trying to beat it. Now I have started it for the second time and am taking pictures of everything so that I can paste together a story. I am going through the levels with a fine tooth comb, I will go look for that other post.

Edit=K, I found that article, here is the direct quote, great stuff

There is some info around - but to my knowledge noone tells you directly.

In Black Mesa East , there is a notice board with some newspaper clippings - basically the Combine are Alien Invaders who conquered Earth in 7 hours (it was called the 7 hour War), Dr Breem arranged the surrender of Earth Forces, so was given the job as the Human populations 'Administrator', also how Earth was ravaged by 'Portal Storms' - whatever they are

The earth population is under strict control, with all emotions and even sex being banned - noone everyone looks so POed! (this is from Dr Breems announcments in City 17). City 17 seems to be the 'capitol' of Earth now - as its Dr Breems centre of operations.

There is more than one 'City', in the railway station one of the travellers says he just came in from City 14.

Drugs are used to try & control the population - in the Railway station at the start one of the citizens mumbles 'They put something in the Water to make you forget - I dont even remember how I got here -Dont drink the water'

According to the game guide (although it might be somewhere in game as well) the Combine were attracted to Earth by the Dimensional Rift caused by the Black Mesa incident...

The Vortiguants are basically Alien Slaves from HL - when Freeman destroyed Xen in HL, they were freed and rather than assist the Combine, they fight on the Humans side....the hold Gordon in very high regard, seeing him as there Liberator.

Humans are taken to Nova Prospekt to be turned into Slaves for the Combine - these so called Stalkers (you never fight them, though you do some one on a monitor in Nova Prospekt) are humans who have been Lobotimized and had Higher brain functions disconnected, and various implants installed.

I think also the Combine soliders are also 'Adapted' or 'Assmiliated' humans. On a wall at the Petrol station in Highway 17 (the end wherer you have the big fight with a large ambush of Combine soliders).....if you check the Gas container compound opposite the house, you see three drawings on the wall....one is a spilt view of a monkeys head, second is a humans & third is a combines soldiers (you can see what looks like implants etc) they all look the more or less the same....

There are pointers to what has happened - you just have to look hard for em.....as alot of em arent obvious.
__________________
 
Remember towards the end when you are in Dr Breen's office with Eli and Alyx and Dr Breen mentions something to the effect that "your contract" (as in Gordon), says Gordon could be hired out? Doesnt that show that Dr Breen has had contact with the G-man between Black Mesa and City-17? If so, to what extent?
As far as the ending goes. I think it does leave more questions that answers. Wide open for a follow up. I seem to recall in the latest gamespot interview that Gabe is not going to take as long to come out with something else.
 
I've found that just replaying the game (I'm in the middle now) really helps a lot, especially since you're intentionally looking for hints of the story... For example, there are all kinds of hints in the dialog that probably only make sense the second time through... or at least, with some knoweldge of what's to come.

I'm quite impressed with the entire game... from beginning to end.

Valve has done outstanding work.

GoliathVT
 
You see the G-Man talking with some rebels could it be that one of the rebels hired Gordon Freeman?

I'm not sure how a rebel would get in contact with the G-Man but hey.
 
HL2 was friggin great. The minute the G-Man stepped into the white 'door' and the credits began rolling, I was thinking furiously about what it all meant.

Based on everything I know, it seems that the G-Man hires you out, unbeknowst to you (until now?), as sort of a personal rambo or one-man wrecking crew. Apparently he just drops you in the middle of a situation and you naturally end up doing he wants you to without having to be told.

It seems to me that (based off of the sketch comparing combine skull structures to that of humans and monkeys) that the combine are assimliated/adapted as was stated in a previous post, or, are an evolved form of human, come to enslave humanity for whatever reason. The gaunt Gollum-like figures in the citadel doing grunt work while being watched by combine soldiers seems to support this - workers wouldn't need guards unless they had reason to do something they weren't supposed to, and this motivation would only come out of some sort of hostility, and being enslaved is sure to cause anyone to be hostile.

Dr. Breen appears to have sold out the Earth to the combine in exchange for power and not being turned into a Smeagol-slave. Seeing as how he's spreading propaganda continuously to the not-yet-lobotimized humans, he seems to be the combine's spin doctor on Earth. Also, in Nova Prospekt, he is speaking to the Citizens Protection group, which appears to be a combat unit of the combine composed of humans who agreed to fight for the combine instead of being enslaved (Breen even says "If the trans-human forces wish to fight alongside the Combine, they must earn the right," or something to that effect, as he berates them for not capturing/killing Freeman).

As for what's to come in HL3, I can only guess, but I can surmise that what'll probably happen is Gordon figures out he's being used and decides to put the smackdown on the conspirators, who then curse themselves for thinking that the whirlwind that is Gordon Freeman could ever be controlled, before they are destroyed by him. That's assuming, of course, that Valve doesn't decide to stretch out the remaining story life into a jillion games and does actually end it in the third game.

All in all, just as HL1 was, HL2 is now the greatest game ever, until such time as HL3 comes out.
 
The Black Mesa East lab especially tells you alot about whats happened, but it just isnt obvious.

If you listen carefully to Dr Mossmans explanation of Teleportation...she tells you alot about what has happened.

The Combine are from another Dimension (she refers to how they can only Teleport from 'their' Universe) and have no teleport technology of their own (thats why Drop Ships are used and they dont just teleport in).

The Combine and Xen have no direct relation to each other as Xen is the key to teleportation in 'our' universe. If the Combine had conquered it they would have access to teleportation and Vance/Kliener would not be using Teleportation.

I assume the Portal Storms (probably a Dimensional Rift) are what attracted the Combine to Earth, using this rift they managed to teleport an Invasion force through before it closed (thats why everything is manufactured on Earth - I dont think they can get back or get anything else through).

Dr Bleen basically betrayed Earth and arranged a surrender (even though he probably thought it was the best thing for the Planet).

The reason Combine use Head crabs was probably because they saw how effective they were against the Human Population.....capture a few, breed/mutate them (poison/Fast Crabs) and use em as a Bio weapon. Brillant.

I would think Antlions are just another Xen Alien we never saw.

Its all there - you just have to join the Dots so to speak and look hard for clues.

The Alien Dr Breen is talking to at the end is obviously an Actual Combine alien. I would assume there are very few of these aliens around (due to the fact they cannot get reinforcements from their universe).

All the other Combine Forces are either Assimilated Humans (Soldiers etc) or bio Mechancial machines (Strider).

I love this story....alot of it is guess work but it means you have to look & think for clues while playing . It sure beats Doom 3 where everything is spoonfed to you.
 
Damn, just completed the game, and that ending was killer, the whole game for that matter, i love how it leaves it open to interpretation, no two people will have the exact same understanding of the story and what is going on, everyone gets to fill in their own details, especially about Gordon and the G-Man, my guess is that the G-Man saves Alyx, he certainly seemed to not neglect her, hopefully she shows up in HL3, anyway, definitely the best PC game ever, period, it took everything good about HL1 and made it even better
anyone notice how in HL1 the G-Man gave you a chance, and he doesn't even give you one now since you're working for him, I liked that touch
 
Billieboyboyboy said:
Remember towards the end when you are in Dr Breen's office with Eli and Alyx and Dr Breen mentions something to the effect that "your contract" (as in Gordon), says Gordon could be hired out? Doesnt that show that Dr Breen has had contact with the G-man between Black Mesa and City-17? If so, to what extent?
As far as the ending goes. I think it does leave more questions that answers. Wide open for a follow up. I seem to recall in the latest gamespot interview that Gabe is not going to take as long to come out with something else.

Dr Breen was the Black Mesa research facility administrator
 
In conclusion the best part of the ending is when Dr. Kleiner is trying to find Lamar. That pesky Headcrab!....word
 
a lot of info is in raising the bar

There is a lot of backstory in the "Raising the Bar' book. Let me get it out...

The Poison headcrab is an idea from HL1.

Re:Stalkers (The human slaves with no legs) Combine turned it into slave labor. Rip out all organs and run on a saline solution. Apparently you had to fight them but it was talken out.

The combine advisor (that thing that talks to Breen through the minitor)

"In designing this charecter we wanted to suppose that an organism, not unlike humans, began to depend on the technology that was originally created to improve the quality of life. Over the course of its evolution it became grub-like, with limbs no longer able to support its own weight, eyes too feeble to see without aid, a body now incapable of movement, fully dependent on the technology that it created.

RE: COMBINE

"The Combine as an organism is successful becuase of its lack of specialization It's something that no civilization has ever been able to adapt fast enough because it has so many arms, so many different attacks, and so many different species weaponized and co-opted for thier stregnths As seen in the Metro Cops and Combine Soldiers, humanity is the latest species to be exploited for its negative trairts."

OH YEA. It has the script for a really descriptive begining, showing how the combine got there and how the xen got there . . . you should buy it. :-p
 
I haven't read the post but I like the idea of a discussion about the ending and now that I have finished I will add my point of view before reading what others think.

The g-man is cool isn't he? Gordon works for him and HL2 obviously assumes you chose to work for him even though most of us probably ended up dead :p The g-man obviously has the ability to time travel and manipulate time and I think that whoever he works for wants the future to be a certain way. In order to make the future what you want it to be you need to manipulate the past and Gordon is the g-mans slave / worker for achieving this. Gordon is called upon from "sleep" whenever the g-man needs something changed.

Alyx is dead and so are most of the people in that structure.

I liked the whole eugenics propaganda, that in itself is a believable issue for the future. But it was ironic that where as Gordon was freeing the human race from enslaving aliens there is no one to save Gordon from the enslaving g-man heh. It’s also sad because Gordon will never be able to save himself as the g-man is too powerful. But let’s face it - HL2 is only a game and the story is brilliant for creating as many sequels as they can be bothered to make just like James Bond films.
 
Well I don't mean to question your beliefs but I believe "God" is just a being imaginary or real who has powers through natural evolution or technology that surpass even ones wildest dreams of what is possible.

Take the g-man. You find it hard to believe - to the point of that will never be possible for human beings - that he can stop / slow down time. Therefore you interpret that act to mean he is a god. Where as I believe anything which we can imagine may some day be possible so I will never believe that he is anything more than g-man ;p G-man being a dood from the future who has an agenda.
 
Best thread evar!

I like the thinking here - some ideas that never occurred to me before. There's actually some very interesting info that's "hidden in plain view" as they say. Not the kind of thing that a person is likely to find on the first time through the game, and I suspect no one has discovered it yet since it hasn't been mentioned. Unfortunately, I've been sworn to silence, but I'm eager to read more of your ideas over the next few weeks!
 
I believe either HL3 will be gordon going BEFORE black mesa (through g-mans time control) and stopping everything before it happens (and whatever happens to dr breen?). So Dr. Breen will be sent back too..the explosion sends a time warp years back..before any combine/black mesa. Dr. breen is trying to stop gordon from stopping black mesa...with a NEW army, almost a continuous loop (breen makes army..gordon terminates army..g-man resets time). This is just my queer thought..feel free to reply to it.

Edit: also whos to say that hl1 was the BEGINNING of g-man? hmm...maybe we just get to start at hl1..and hl3 will be pre-hl1 . O_O
 
I Love It

I just finished it today. My impression is that Half-Life 2 is one big glorious crescendo with an abrupt ending that, I think, is intentional.

As an employee of the G-Man's...employers, when you've completed your task, you're snatched away, practically immediately, nevermind the fact that you're human with the tendency/capability to befriend and grow attached to those around you. I think, in a sense, that's the genius of it. The game makes YOU, the player, an actor in the drama. Thanks to EXCELLENT characterization, you start growing fond of the characters, really getting into the resistance against the Combine, then suddenly BAM, you're pulled away and everything you've grown to love is ripped away from you. You don't need a cutscene to show you Gordon going all "WTF??", because you YOURSELF are going "WTF??"...in that moment, you ARE Gordon Freeman.

I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I think it's sheer brilliance in storytelling and immersion.

About the ending itself, I think it worked. You finished what you set out to do, you effed up the Combine something fierce (presumably), but at the same time, are left hungry for a Half-Life 3. I sure as heck hope they get HL3 out faster, 'cause the cliffhanger is much more intense/personal than HL1's was, and I REALLY REALLY want to know what happens next. In comparison, with HL1's ending, I was excited about the prospects of being employed by the G-Man, but was in no terrible rush to see what Valve could come up with. Regardless, I don't feel at all "cheated" or "disappointed" with HL2's ending, just like I'm not disappointed with the ending in, say, The Empire Strikes Back or The Two Towers. I understand that Half-Life is going to be a series, and as such, it's starting to look like it's weaving a marvelous and perhaps epic tale.
 
Wraith said:
notes on time:

1. on the hl2php thing "youll know when the time is near" or whatever, time was italicised.

2. when you teleport into kleiners lab, you get there but its a week later

3. time slows down at the end of the citadel, you can walk around and jump, but its just very slow!


maybe this whole thing is leading up to time-travel?

Also another thing is that Dr Kleiner says (when you first re-meet him) that you didnt look a day older since the last time he saw you.
 
So, what, do you all think that /all/ the answers will be revealed in the 3 installment?

Pardon me for thinking that that sounds a bit cheezy.

Great game, loved every minute of it and all that--but i do believe that this whole "Lets give them an ass-load of more questions and few to no answers" is crap. Theres something to be said for dramatics, true, and no closure is part of the idea of creating a 3rd installment, but there needed, i feel, to be at least /some/ bloody closure, at least about the first game. Because, lets face it, if you want to play HL2 w/out playing HL1 first, you can and you'll miss out on very little.

Oh sure, you won't understand why Barny owes you a beer (which i thought was pretty cool) or who the doctors are at first, but you learn pretty quick. What about the rest of the scientists? Gordons family (if he had any)? How'd they escape (or was that answered in Blue Shift)? Any idea as to who Alix's mother is and how she died?

Quite honestly, the only person in the game i really cared about was Barny because he was the only one who receaved more then 30 seconds in the first game, AND because they related the relationship between Barny and Gordon back to the days of Black Mesa ("...that beer i owe you.") Hell, i found myself shooting the citizens that were helping me just because they blocked a door, mainly because they seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork many times. No big loss.

Oh, and as far as "leaving it up to us to think about the outcome" or whatever, being as that we didn't even get any /hints/ as to whom or what the G-man is (obviously because we're still calling him "the G-man" even though he more then likely doesn't work for the government), or anything else that we're all speculating about, i offer you all this problem:
What happens next game when all the answers arrive and none of them meet our expectations? If the major selling point of this game, for us, is all of the questions at the end, what will have to happen in the 3rd game for us to like it when there are no more questions?

It's hard to appreciate the right destination when you don't even know what road to take.

At least, that's the way i see it.
 
dont know if this has been mentioned but i was playing and some dude was like "im ready to join CP (i forget what cp stands for) just to get some decent food" so i think combines are humans, maybe once you joint hey modify you, but they are still humans.
 
Heradin said:
Hell, i found myself shooting the citizens that were helping me just because they blocked a door, mainly because they seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork many times. No big loss.


wtf? they were all invincible to me, i could shoot them, alyx, mossman, anyone except and enemy, and nothing owuld happen to them at all. remember when someone asked gabe what would happen if you shot alyx and he said that D.O.G. would f*** you up? well i shot her and she didnt even blink!
 
CP = civil protection. These guys are humans. Other combine soldiers etc may not be.

As for the citizens, he means in Anticitizen One and Follow Freeman, the resistance squad that follows you - you can kill them, just like you can kill ant lions under your control.
 
Lanthanide said:
CP = civil protection. These guys are humans. Other combine soldiers etc may not be.

As for the citizens, he means in Anticitizen One and Follow Freeman, the resistance squad that follows you - you can kill them, just like you can kill ant lions under your control.

speaking of antlions under your control, you know in sandtraps where you first see antlions? you can't use bugbait on them (get bugbait through sv_cheats)

:(!!!
 
Wraith said:
speaking of antlions under your control, you know in sandtraps where you first see antlions? you can't use bugbait on them (get bugbait through sv_cheats)

:(!!!

Well seeing as you're no meant to have the bait at that point it's not really surprising...
 
Wraith said:
notes on time:

1. on the hl2php thing "youll know when the time is near" or whatever, time was italicised.

Doesn't have anything to do with the story.

3. time slows down at the end of the citadel, you can walk around and jump, but its just very slow!

It doesn't slow, it stops. Alyx and the explosion are completely frozen. The G-man and you are the only one still active. If time was slow for you, the G-man's speech would be impossible to understand.

Why do you have my quote on your signature, anyway?

chrisglick said:
There is a lot of backstory in the "Raising the Bar' book. Let me get it out...

If it's not in the game itself, it's not relevant. If it is relevant, Valve is being an amateur.

--

My impression of the g-man is that he or his employers must be incredibly powerful. He can manipulate time and space as he pleases. It even makes me think that the Combine probably isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things...
 
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