Personality: Wheatley is, at first glance, a bit of a bumbling idiot. He comes off as cheerful and a bit carefree, ready to at least be somewhat polite to anyone who might be of use to him. Otherwise, the reception may not be quite so warm, but at least it's not downright malevolent and that should really win him AI points.
Much of Wheatley's personality stems from the main function he was created for, which was, essentially, to be a fast-talking moron. One method of attempting to control a rogue AI was to give her a distraction, a "core" with the task of creating "a constant stream of terrible ideas," hopefully keeping her occupied with those rather than mass murder or any other number of things. As a result, a lot of the things he does and says are not the result of careful and logical planning, as one might expect from a computer, but are instead impulsive things that seem like a good idea at the time. Although he admits as much once himself, he seems to be chronically incapable of thinking things through, meaning that most everything he does fails spectacularly. However, what intelligence he is equipped with comes in handy from time to time, and seemingly impossible plans play out perfectly, sometimes even to his own surprise. There are even times when he accidentally gets things right, but that is likely by virtue of just being fairly lucky, for a literal idiot ball.
Quick-thinking and chatty, Wheatley is rarely quiet. He's the type to do all of his thinking out loud, something completely useless for a robot, but there you go. If no one interrupts him, he's incredibly likely to ramble on until something happens, or he works himself into an awkward silence. Such silences are sometimes due to sudden terror or embarrassment at the realization that he's just done a very good job of insulting someone. This happens more often than he would really like, especially when it comes to humans. Although being programmed and later assigned to deal with them means he great deal about them, he also seems to hold a degree of contempt or at least prejudice against them. A chronic issue with Aperture AI systems is, admittedly, a great lack of respect for the value of human life, and Wheatley fits into this mould in his first scene, referring to the ten thousand humans he was supposed to be monitoring as vegetables and worrying not about the loss of life, since they were almost inevitably mostly dead, but how upset his management will be when they find out about that. However, humans can be useful to him, and so he sometimes has to backtrack and make bizarre compliments in an effort to make up for it.
Although his objectives are mostly self-serving -- his entire existence as a plot device is waking the game's protagonist up to help him escape the Aperture underground facility -- his methods show that he may not be the most confident of little cores. Although he accuses others of being bossy, he seems to try to avoid that in himself, instead setting his instructions up like requests, pleading to get others to do things for him. He talks other people into things, without ever really making them do it. He's manipulative, in a way that's hard to classify as intentional or just accidental, a byproduct of wanting something but not having the attention span for a real plan. However, he is also capable of showing remorse, as he feels bad on multiple occasions for not watching his mouth, so to speak, and at the end of the game, his soliloquy-like speech on feeling sorry for the things that happened to the protagonist because of him comes off as very genuine. There is, of course, the effect of being stranded to heighten that feeling of guilt, but it seems true to his character to be aware, at least after the fact, that his blundering idiocy has caused needless difficulty. But does this mean he's entirely capable of learning from his mistakes? Unlikely, but one can hope.
Wheatley : Portal 2 : Reserved : 2/?
Much of Wheatley's personality stems from the main function he was created for, which was, essentially, to be a fast-talking moron. One method of attempting to control a rogue AI was to give her a distraction, a "core" with the task of creating "a constant stream of terrible ideas," hopefully keeping her occupied with those rather than mass murder or any other number of things. As a result, a lot of the things he does and says are not the result of careful and logical planning, as one might expect from a computer, but are instead impulsive things that seem like a good idea at the time. Although he admits as much once himself, he seems to be chronically incapable of thinking things through, meaning that most everything he does fails spectacularly. However, what intelligence he is equipped with comes in handy from time to time, and seemingly impossible plans play out perfectly, sometimes even to his own surprise. There are even times when he accidentally gets things right, but that is likely by virtue of just being fairly lucky, for a literal idiot ball.
Quick-thinking and chatty, Wheatley is rarely quiet. He's the type to do all of his thinking out loud, something completely useless for a robot, but there you go. If no one interrupts him, he's incredibly likely to ramble on until something happens, or he works himself into an awkward silence. Such silences are sometimes due to sudden terror or embarrassment at the realization that he's just done a very good job of insulting someone. This happens more often than he would really like, especially when it comes to humans. Although being programmed and later assigned to deal with them means he great deal about them, he also seems to hold a degree of contempt or at least prejudice against them. A chronic issue with Aperture AI systems is, admittedly, a great lack of respect for the value of human life, and Wheatley fits into this mould in his first scene, referring to the ten thousand humans he was supposed to be monitoring as vegetables and worrying not about the loss of life, since they were almost inevitably mostly dead, but how upset his management will be when they find out about that. However, humans can be useful to him, and so he sometimes has to backtrack and make bizarre compliments in an effort to make up for it.
Although his objectives are mostly self-serving -- his entire existence as a plot device is waking the game's protagonist up to help him escape the Aperture underground facility -- his methods show that he may not be the most confident of little cores. Although he accuses others of being bossy, he seems to try to avoid that in himself, instead setting his instructions up like requests, pleading to get others to do things for him. He talks other people into things, without ever really making them do it. He's manipulative, in a way that's hard to classify as intentional or just accidental, a byproduct of wanting something but not having the attention span for a real plan. However, he is also capable of showing remorse, as he feels bad on multiple occasions for not watching his mouth, so to speak, and at the end of the game, his soliloquy-like speech on feeling sorry for the things that happened to the protagonist because of him comes off as very genuine. There is, of course, the effect of being stranded to heighten that feeling of guilt, but it seems true to his character to be aware, at least after the fact, that his blundering idiocy has caused needless difficulty. But does this mean he's entirely capable of learning from his mistakes? Unlikely, but one can hope.