Portal theory: Wheatley is the intelligence core 

Thanks everyone for all the comments. But the evidence is clear. THIS THEORY IS FALSE! So you don’t need to comment how I’m wrong 🦧

I feel like a lot of the visual differences can be marked up to the general overhaul that second game had. GLaDOS looks entirely different too :)

cake core is shown to only repeat recipes (from what we see). the "intelligence dampening core" is said to generate ideas, judged as terrible. Everyone around him calls him moronic, so this may be another case of that. Cake core could just be a small joke by the devs, but if we take it seriously, they do not seem capable of learning, only to talk about cake. Wheatley on the other hand, learns, adapts, and usually has good ideas. They overcome glass by simply breaking it, although he is slightly self conscious, and still attempts to make it seem like he can hack things (he was, after all, labelled as a moron his entire life). He rewatches the portal 1 fight and learns, although fails to account for the pipe and glados helping chell. He even knows that in the event that you do get portals, he prepares again by bringing in bomb shields. He even hypes up a suprise happening, and then springs it earlier when you're not prepared for it to catch you off guard. even knows a bit of spanish. Wheatley is not dumb.

Consider what happens to GLaDOS when you destroy the intelligence core; she starts throwing insults at you mindlessly. If it was really an intelligence dampening sphere, woudn't she act smarter when you burn it? Or maybe taunting Chell indirectly was a bad idea the whole time. I really like this theory though!

wheatley is an old version of the "CAKE CORE" or intelligence core. He was not attached to GLaDOS when Chell is tested

"They all look alike" -Robophobe

Every core in portal 2 has three dots

Thank you for covering this topic, great video, and great games!

I can tell you put a lot of thought and effort into this video, and that's very remarkable. Good work. My main gripe with your theory is that you've already arrived at the conclusion and are working backwards to look for evidence to support it. That's fine, but you're also completely ignoring many aspects that go against it. And I don't even need to address any of your points to disprove your theory: If Wheatley is the Intelligence Core, then how come he talked about working in different parts of the facility? And why was he in charge of the humans until you woke up? If he was always attached to GLaDOS until the end, he should have never even left the chamber. How could he fall down the hole, magically attach himself to those to management rails, and then get a different job? Even more importantly, wouldn't he recognize Chell? Wouldn't he at least have the slightest idea that maybe the last human to enter GLaDOS' chamber before she died was the same human that brought her down? Then why is he surprised to learn that? Even if he fell down before that point, you'd think he could put two and two together. But most importantly, I think the issue with the theory is that it adds nothing. What would it change, even if they were the same core? Nothing. It doesn't add depth to either character, it doesn't make you view anything in a new light. At best, you'd go: "Huh, that's neat." Plus, I feel like this theory only hinges on the fact that both cores are blue. If either had been another color, I suspect you wouldn't have made this video. But I can tell you had fun making this video, and like I said, I can see the effort and thought that went into it. You're engaging with one of your (seemingly) favorite games, and that's only admirable. Don't take my harsh words personally, I just wanted to approach your theory with the same scrutiny I'd approach any other theory with. I respect you and your work, and I hope you can come up with other theories in the future!

Wheatley is the Intelligence Dampening Sphere, a “core” that was attached to GLaDOS during early testing of the GLaDOS system and project. The Lab Rat comic explained it (not it great detail but it is there). If it weren’t for the IDS Caroline would’ve been fine and would’ve not been buried in GLaDOS’s neural matrix. The Morality cores, yes those were a must to keep the system from crashing and or corrupting as they had their own responsibilities.

intelligence DAMPENING sphere. i've said this so many times i've lost count.

ok. Wheatley is the intelligence DAMPENING sphere. He was designed to be dumb, he was designed to constantly give GLaDOS stupid ideas, he was designed to be dumb. The intelligence core was designed as essentially an archive for the cake recipe, it's intelligent in that it has intel on the cake recipe, not general intelligence. The intelligence core WAS destroyed, then GLaDOS wouldn't freak out when you incinerate it. She dies because you destroy the cores, intelligence core was destroyed or GLaDOS wouldn't have died. The damage on Wheatley only appears when GLaDOS crushes him, that dirt is not in the start of the game. The intelligence dampening sphere is completely different to the intelligence core. The intelligence sphere has a bland deep voice, Wheatley has a British accent with a less bland voice. How did Wheatley being "incinerated" make him have a British accent, more core features, a completely different job as a core and make him stupid? Because that's what this theory implies.

Okay, to back this off further, in one part of portal 2, Potato Glados have said the following "Once, they even attached an Intelligence Dampening Sphere on me. It clung to my brain like a tumor, generating an endless stream of terrible ideas." You know what else is a bad idea? A recipe for a cake made out of human!

Alright, time to debunk this. Point 1: resemblance Counterpoint: you noticed something I haven't, but somehow completely disregarded the central display (other than "its blue") if they're the same, then why do they have a different pattern? Do you think some guy went down there and changed the display for no reason? Point 2: stupidity Counterpoint: Maybe the cake core has more knowledge, but because the cake recipe wanted to be highlighted by the devs, because the cake is regularly mentioned throughout the game. Point 3: companion cube also survived the incinerator Counterpoint: none "All Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees kelvin," said GLaDOS in the first game. But on that point, don't you think his display would've been cracked in the beginning of "The Courtesy Call," or at least his shell dented? Point 4: ? You just showed an image of the cake core when PotatOS said "intelegence dampening sphere." Counterpoint: PotatOS said that it was Wheatley's voice. Wheatley is voice by Stephen Merchant. The cake core, as well as the other cores in Portal 1 (and GLaDOS, who is technically a core), are voiced by Ellen McLain. You do not have a theory.

0:49 was that the aperture scientist core from Portal: Revolution? I can't think of a single other core in the entire Portal series that would look like that.

Good theory! I like it! I never really thought that anything could survive the Intelegence incinerator, especially after the effect it had on GLaDOS when the cores were thrown in there, but if the Companion Cube and The portal 1 duel portal gun survived the incinerator then it makes total sense that wheatly could survive I think i heard somewhere else that wheatley was another core that was once attached to GLaDOS to change her personality but was removed, which too makes sense. Still, i like this theory

Wheatley is not the inteligence core, he is the inteligence dampening sphere that failed to calm GLaDOS down.

It’s funny started thinking this recently as well

Weatley is a name for intelligence dampening sphere

i didn't buy it at first, but for a joke i was gonna say wheatley hit puberty then i listen to the IC voice lines and now a full believer, that thing is so stupid and i think personally changes where just the tone shift that portal 2 had from portal 1

The biggest hole in this theory is that Wheatley is surprised when he finds out you killed GLaDOS since I think he would remember something like that

Why'd I think this would be 10 minutes of analyzing both of their shades of blue This makes a lot of sense nice theory

Portal RTX bumps up the cores and glados to look more like their portal 2 counterparts. I’m pretty sure the reason they look different in portal 2 is so that they could match the environment. Like the enemies in half life 2 that are in half life 1. It’s just a graphical upgrade.

i believe that the cores were made to lower that aspect of glados, so the intelligent core would lower her inteligence and in portal 2, glados said that there was something with her giving her terrible ideas and has wheatleys voice, and she also said that he was built to make her an idiot

Ahhh yes, Wheatley and intelligence. Two polar opposites. Let’s parallel them!

Sorry im was wrong the inteligence core isnt wheatley is cake core from lego dimension they both have same eye color both talking about cake recipes 😊😅

something to add to this theory is that the dual portal gun that you get in portal 2 was in the incinerator, not fully destroyed.

I should mention that Wheatley looks dirty because Glados "killed" Wheatley near the beginning of the game at the ending of the wake up sequence. If you look at where you first meet Wheatley he's way cleaner than Wheatley after glados threw him away. It's a small detail that is sorta hard to pick up on but it is there

This is kinda cute as an idea I guess, but it really has no legs to stand on. The dialogue of the second game implies that Wheatley was not a permanent addition, probably because they (correctly) realized having something that dumb so close to the system mainframe could've caused her to stop maintaining the power systems and allow the facility's reactor to meltdown. It's likely why he was put in such a low-urgency role as maintenance. I also feel like Wheatley is such a chatterbox that would've mentioned that someone tried to incinerate him at some point while you're dragging him around the facility. He also probably would've noted how much you look like her. Furthermore, he *definitely* wouldn't have been so afraid of GLaDOS's chambers in the first chapter of Portal 2 if he'd spent most of his life in it, stuck to her mainframe. He would've prattled on about how he used to work there, up until some human killed her. He instead talks about it like it was a legend that spread through the facility, and not like he was actually there for the Portal 1 boss fight. He also gets the gender of the human who killed her wrong, thinking she'd been a 'he' while recounting the story of GLaDOS's demise to Chell while they're on the way to the breaker room. And on the flipside, if they were the same character I suspect CakeCore!Wheatley would've rambled on at you about whatever came to his mind while you tried to incinerate him if he were a core in the first game, rather than mindlessly reciting the world's worst cake recipe. The personality of these two personality cores just don't line up at all no matter how you look at them. For that matter, about the Cake Core's obsession with cake has anything to do with outright stupidity; it is *solely* obsessed with cake, while Wheatley was designed to have as wide a range of stupid ideas as possible, to overwhelm GLaDOS with terrible ideas to keep her from acting on more dangerous ones. She clearly isn't dumb in the first one, easily able to psychologically manipulate Chell throughout the experiment and ultimately leading her to the incineration that she stubbornly escaped, showing that if he *was* connected to her during the first game he wasn't doing his job to make her dumb. Also the Cake Core exists alongside Wheatley in the Portal segments of Lego Dimensions, which isn't *canon* but was officially licensed by Valve. They are treated there as separate entities, which really makes sense because the only thing they have in common is eye color. ...Speaking of which, your whole argument for them being the same character really just seems to boil down to 'they're both blue'. This is the same bad "x looks like y, so x=y" logic that a lot of conspiracy theories use to justify themselves, like Flat Earthers saying they can't see the earth's curve, or any conspiracy about the pyramids around the world being built by some advanced civilization because they're all shaped similarly (ignoring that they were built for vastly different purposes from civilization to civilization, and that different civilizations' pyramids look completely different to each other), or even how MatPat insisted that Sans is Ness basically just because they resemble each other, and because there were enough loose threads about the former that he could point at enough circumstantial similarities that it almost made sense if you didn't think about it. This doesn't even really have that, though. This is just "They look similar, also things can survive being incinerated" and NOTHING to account for the lack of throughline with their respective personalities.

i mean, the only real reason people say this is cuz wheatleys eye is blue but ill list all of the things i know that don't add up with this: wheatley is fine in the second game until he gets messed up by glados in the wakeup sequence, wheatley has an entirely different voice, he didn't even know you took glados out even though he was there, all portal 2 cores have 3 dots, and wheatley wasn't stupid in the beginning, (kinda) but he knew and remembered a whole ton of escape routes for you to go through.

Lore of Portal theory: Wheatley is the intelligence core momentum 100

Emilia Conly can be closely seen when they say that they’re the only blue eyed cores in their universe.

I really like this theory, but there a few things I'm questioning: Wheatley is not charred at all despite being thrown into an incinerator. Wheatley somehow does not remember you standing up to GLaDOS, or throwing him into the incinerator. (Did Chell change appearance after going back in cyrosleep?) Wheatley does not mention anything about how he used to tell a cake recipe. If the Intelligence core was Wheatley, it seems his original personality, memories, and voice was deleted and replaced.

Wheatley is the intelligence *dampener* core

Wheatley is intelligence dampening intelligence core is intelligence

2 things wrong with this the intelligence core (along with the 3 other cores) where planed to be in the corrupted cores room very late into the game's development and Portal RTX updates the entire GLaDOS boss fight to Portal 2's standard and the intelligence core has a different model to Wheatley

the dirt thing, wheatly is clen when you meet him but later when you meet glados again, glados throws him and thats why he gets dirty!

wheatley isnt the inteligence core the intelegence core actually fed true facts to glados while wheatley was made to do the exact opposite

wheatley isn't exactly known for intelligence

I never realised how completely different the cores looked between games. I also realise everyone noted Wheatley being an intelligence dampening sphere, but now I have my own theory. What if Wheatley was the result of the prototype intelligence sphere gone wrong? Let me explain... GLaDOS notes the greatest minds in the world had to deliberately put their efforts to making the dumbest machine ever to make Wheatley. What if when they designed the intelligence sphere, someone discovered a bug that made the core stupider which gave the science team the bright idea to dampen GLaDOS' intelligence as a safety mechanism which resulted in them reverse engineering that stupidity bug to amplify and optimise it for maximum stupidity ending up as Wheatley?

i feel like your only somewhat proper proof here it that they both have a blue eye. let me just give more reasons as to why this theory just isn't true (not counting most obvious visual differences): 1) wheatley's eye is brighter in the middle, intelligence's is darker. 2) intelligence core has no personality 3) different voices 4) if wheatley was incinerated, how would he have gotten back up? 5) if wheatley was incinerated, he would be way more charred. before getting crushed by glados, he is only partly scratched and damaged. 6) wheatley's 3 dots are on the bottom of his eye, intelligence's is at the top. 7) the dots are smaller 8) every core has those same 3 dots in portal 2 (obviously because of the texture being re-used, but they're still the same.) 9) the dots clearly didn't get burnt and covered up, there is no visible charring there. 10) glados said that he was on her ONCE, implying that he was taken off eventually 11) different canonical purposes they're clearly not the same, they also would have no purpose of being the same. your theories are major stretches.

Wheatley is actually pretty smart. He always fuckes up everything, but he actually is smart. Glados overthrow plan, final boss fight. He just a little bit silly

2:07 hmm, I think the cores were made to be less resistant to fire than companion cubes. Think about it, if they made a core that wanted to kill all humans (familiar huh?) they wouldn't want that to last thousands of years would they?

This is an interesting theory, but it's likely disproved by the fact that Wheatley talks to Chell in the boss fight chamber about how GLaDOS was beaten by a human... to the exact human that managed to kill her? If Wheatley were the same intelligence core that Chell threw into the incinerator in Portal 1, then I feel like he would probably remember her or at least think that she looks familiar.

one thing I want to say, is when you destroy the intelligence core, GLaDOS does become much dumber, meaning that it must have had some effects making her smarter, because after you destroy it she says, "Two plus two is ten."

Well, he did say to leave a comment if I didn't agree, so... I like this theory a lot, and I do think it's interesting, but I also need to go out and say it: this theory is also completely impossible. You're first point, was the dots, which were orginally included in the game so that the devs could remember which of the cores were supposed to fall off of GLaDOS when (1: Humility, 2: Curiousity, 3: Intelligence, 4: Rage, you get the idea.) The three dots on Wheatley are likely just spots of damage he's retained from his, well, *scientific endeavors,* if you will. The colour difference is also likely just because blue (Wheatley) contrasts orange (GLaDOS,) which is a kind of maneuver on the dev's part to make you think that Wheatley must be the good guy. Secondly, you mentioned how the intelligence core wasn't really 'intelligent,' it just listed off cake ingredients, which is a fair point. However, this is completely unrelated to the service of Wheatley who, as we know, constantly produces a stream of terrible ideas. Cake is usually seen as quite a good idea, I might add. On the other hand, we have Wheatley not understanding the paradox. This would be a fair point, if it hadn't been for the fact that the previous point's invalidation in turn invalidates the second point. Next up was the solid proof, which I can't argue. Wheatley does appear damaged, even before GLaDOS crushes him, and from observing the companion cube, the cores, as well as all of the other interactable objects in game, they do appear to be made from the same or similar metals. A pearly white exterior along with a black, wiry interior. However, then we get to the real kicker of my rebuttal, which is your final point. As much as I want to believe this is true (I love it when games secretly add things from previous installments into sequels, kind of like pushing Freddy's nose in FNaF 2 and onwards,) your final point completely uproots the rest of your argument. It does so in two main ways. Firstly was your point, which was GLaDOS remembering Wheatley as the "tumour." Well, if she remembered him, why would she have him attached to herself after she had killed all the scientists. (I want to put a side note here that, while it may seem like a very rudamentary plan, GLaDOS used a foolproof trick to get her neurotoxin back, which wouldn't have been possible with Wheatley attached to her.) This leads into my final point, the humans. Wheatley himself says that he was put in charge of the wing containing "10,000 bloody test subjects." This couldn't have been before the scientists died, because he would still be attached to GLaDOS, paired with the fact that Wheatley also says that the "foreman chose a direct copy of himself" for a different job that Wheatley applied to. Saying that it was a direct copy, rather than a clone, would point towards it being a sentient android, rather than flesh and blood. If it had been after the scientists had died, then Wheatley would have been detached from GLaDOS, as she was now in charge and wouldn't have had him on her in the first place. This came out as much more of an essay than I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry if it seems pointed in any way (I've been told my writings can get a little mean at some points.) If you would like to refute my statement I would be happy to know your thoughts. Edit: I forgot to talk about how they have different voices, but I see someone else already has, so I'll leave that part to them

That has also been my theory I shared it with my cousin

i think wheatley was one of the cores that woke up in the cake room at the end of portal 1

I personally don't think that Wheatley is the intelligence core. They're way too different in their behavior and features, the blue color of the eye and three dots on the right side is pretty much the only thing that they have in common. They have totally different voices and speak differently. I don't think that it can be explained why the intelligence core just tells the recipe of a cake, but I had seen a good speculation that it was because GLaDOS was thinking about cakes and, therefore, the intelligence core was searching for information about cakes. There's another thing - while cores are incinerated in Portal, a loud explosion could be heard, which doesn't happen with the companion cube, so I guess that all of the personality cores from Portal are dead by the time of Portal 2, unlike the companion cube which seems to be resistant to extreme heat and grinders placed in the incinerator. I don't think that 4 cores that GLaDOS has in the finale of Portal are the only cores that were ever attached to her - the Lab Rat comic heavily implies that scientists have experimented with countless cores and their combinations, so Wheatley might just be one of those experiments By the way, one unrelated fact: apparently the intelligence core was named "crazy core" earlier in the development of Portal and this name remains in subtitle files and as a property of their prop. And Wheatley had similar treatment - some of the game files that are related to him reference a name "Pendelton" which could be either the earlier indev name of Wheatley or name of a scrapped character whose traits got transferred to Wheatley

GLaDOS actually confirms this in portal 2!! "you're the moron they built to make me an idiot!!" it's canon he was attached to her at some point :3

The fact that she says in portal 2 "I heard a voice generating an endless stream of terrible ideas, it was your voice" and the close resemblance to Wheatley's design makes this theory stand out and it will make sense that the scientists would brand the dumbest core a "intelligence core" would be because she did use deadly neuron toxin on them before.

i used to think this back then since wheatley and the intelligence core were both blue, but now watching this i never really thought about it

The intelligence core also tells you how to preserve a dead body 😳

I heard a guy on the Big Bang Theory and I thought it was Wheatley, and I was right.

This Was Really Good I'm Subscribing

He's a unintelligence core

This is a very solid theory and a great video, but [SPOILERS] wouldn't Wheatley recognize Chell when he meets her? The cores appear to be able to look at subjects. This is further supported by the adventure core constantly flirting with Chell in the Wheatley fight.

First of all, in portal 2 Wheatley is British and seems to have no recollection of the death of glados but if we chalk that up memory loss then how to glados die after the cores went in the incinerator but not the intel core?

“You’re a moron they built to make me an idiot” -Glados (from the same scene you showed in the video, but later)

I thought too

I can debunk this by saying one word Portal rtx. In portal rtx the cores are designed to look like portal 2 cores and the intelligence core looks completly diffrent from wheatley meaning they aren't the same.

Wheatley is the intelligence dampening core

Plus in portal 2 beta they were using the intelligence core to show how wheatley has to look.

There's more than one companion cube in the Portal-Half-Life universe. And you're dead at the end of Portal 2 (at the wheat scene), sooooo...

Well it could be possible that wheatley and the intelligence core are the same but considering that there was a lot of cores reawakened after the cake scene after portal 1 wheatley could be one of those cores that woke up

interesting theory ngl

he's the unintelligence core

1:45 not only does the companion cube come back, but during portal 2, you can see the three other cores that were on GLaDOS that you threw into the incinerator, in a glass container, with a bunch of other cores. (Edit): Wheatley, nor the intelligence core is in the box. I think.

Good and interesting theory, even tought i still dont think cake dude is Wheatley, i think he burned/get dirty when he went to save Chell in beggining of the game or something, or mayby GLaDOS did him something xd. Bc i dont see why Whearley would change his personality that hard from between and second game.

Glados herself said that all apreture sience equipment staid functional over 40.000 degrees calvin

This is literally confirmed though.

Wheatley doesn’t mention any cake not to mention the intelligence core only says ingredients about cake

Its matpats child! OMG!?🤯

Me at the beginning of the video: Haha what a stupid theory Me in 3 minutes and 55 seconds: 🤔🤔🤔

New matpat here

I feel like wheatley isnt the intelligence core but a corrupted intelligence core, and thats why glados calls wheatley an "Intelligence Dampening Sphere"

i might be stating the obvious here but it has been stated in the actual game that wheatley is the intelligence dampening core

Bro You have potential I hope you are very famous

Well, where are the burn marks, and how did he get out if the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incenerator?

i agree

It should be the first core because it is morality or well that's what I think

this could be as glados wasent as fleshed out as the cores where anyway so he could be

wait what if wheatley is smarter than normal robots because he isnt fried by the paradox

Here’s how ur wrong when GLaDOS tells Wheatley that she heard his voice relating him to the intelligence dampening core she says it was his voice and there is a clear change from the portal 1 intelligence core and portal 2s Wheatley voices

Wheatley is also the blue testing bot

No NOT LISTENING NOT LISTENING!

"Once, they even attached and intelligence dampening sphere on me. It clung to my brain like a tumour. Generating an endless stream of terrible ideas. *it was YOUR voice"* -GlAdOs

here's why i believe this is false first of all if you didn't notice on the start of portal 2 Wheatley is completely clean and after GLaDOS tosses him off he becomes dirty and broken second of all we never saw the true intelligence of the *intelligence core* since it was just a quick battle against GLaDOS and it was meant to be a joke, unless you put needle's in your cake Third of all Wheatley was made to be stupid to make GLaDOS not be able to think about murdering all people in aperture with deadly neurotoxin but after a while he was discontinued and then he was shut off until GLaDOS died and all the cores woke up in the end of portal (fun fact All Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin.) oh right GLaDOS meant when the scientists were still alive they tried to do everything to make GLaDOS behave but she never said that she had it after she killed everyone in there cuz that would have been stupid to keep it after that and she has claws that hang from the ceiling couln't she just take him out if it really was Wheatley and they do not have the same voice. But hey that's just a theory a Portal Theory

OK MAN SOLID THEORY HOLY SHIT i think it's so true and next time try and make your voice a little louder

in portal with RTX the blue inteligence damping spere in the glados fight has the exactly the same model as wheatly im serious look at a portal with rtx playthorugh

Maybe it's not THAT intelligence core, but another. Anyway, great theory.

But Wheatley and the Inteligence Core don't sound the same. GLaDOS tells wheatley "It was your voice." so if the two cores were the same, then they would have to have the same voice.

Wheatley was designed to be a core that generates terrible ideas. It doesn’t mention that he’s a total idiot. It just means that he was designed to produce a multitude of ideas that would have seemed terrible to GLaDOS, since she is basically a sentient supercomputer when she’s attached to her control apparatus. Also, Wheatley has the unique ability to do incredibly intelligent, cunning and creative things when he has incredibly stupid goals, and vice versa. For example, while he does learn how to almost counter Chell using old footage of GLaDOS’ boss fight in Portal 1, his goals in the end are what lead to his undoing, as his attempts to try and stop Chell and POTaTDOS from taking him from control are what leads to the facility almost exploding and to him getting defeated by Chell using the moon trick.

Hes the opposite of the intelligence core.

You need to think its an intelligents core and wheatly was made to be a morna and gladOs said that he was made to make her behave becuase she was not well good so it was an intelligent core becuase it could be the 1st one

Also the handle bars could be chared due to the incinirator

Best portal youtuber

how do you explain their accents and voice being completely different between games

If Wheatley doesn't know a simple paradox then how the hell do you think he would know a entire cake recipe

Amazing