YMMV / Half-Life but the AI is Self-Aware

• Accidental Innuendo: Lampshaded. "Watch out Gordon! This door says 'Blast Donger'!"
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • How exactly is Tommy's father the G-Man if Tommy is an orphan? Is G-Man a Disappeared Dad who still cares for his son? Is Tommy Happily Adopted? Or has G-Man been Dead All Along?
  • Is Dr. Coomer a sweet old man with some Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, an unstoppable force of chaos, or both? The fandom tends to lean towards the first or the second interpretation, while the series itself leans into the third.
  • A number of fans have suggested that the Dr. Coomer who gives the dramatic speech about the agony he experiences when the game is turned off and tries to take over Gordon's body is not the original Dr. Coomer, but rather one of the clones. During the Act 3 commentary, the cast mentioned that they like this idea a lot and, while it's not explicitly canon, Holly decides not to reveal her own thoughts on the situation in part to allow this interpretation.
• Awesome Moments:
  • Dr. Coomer punching off the top of a tank.
  • When all hope seems lost during the Final Battle and even Gordon has given up, Bubby of all people steps up to the plate.
  Bubby: No. I do not accept this death. I have a plan.
  • Gordon paying Dr. Coomer all of his PlayCoins so Coomer can activate SuperPlayer Mode during the Final Battle.
  Dr. Coomer: WITNESS MY TRUUUUUUEEEE POWER! TRAIN AND FIGHT, GORDON!
  • During AI Crushes All Banks, while Bubby and Gordon absolutely tear through some cops that showed up...
  Gordon: Aren't cops supposed to have plans for this kind of thing? They're just walking into our bullets!
  Dr. Coomer: They didn't plan on US being here!
• Awesome Music:
  • There's Nothing There, which plays when Gordon and Tommy encounter Dr Coomer's army of clones in ACT 3: Part 2.
  • PASSPORT GUARDIAN, which plays during the last phase of Benrey's boss battle in the finale.
  • Hello, Gordon! (Dr. Coomer's Bumpin' Mix), which plays during the Dance Party Ending at Tommy's Chuck E Cheese birthday party in the finale.
• Badass Decay: After getting his arm cut off, Gordon goes from unstoppable One-Man Army to a helpless Load until Darnold’s potion causes an Arm Cannon to grow off his stump.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The Team Fortress 2 dream at the beginning of Act 4.
  • Coomer and Bubby briefly glitching back into the normal Scientist AI before walking off without a word about it, also in Act 4.
  • Elvis Presley's ghost showing up in ACAB. The entire scene is completely bizarre even by the standards of the series.
• Crazy Is Cool: Dr. Coomer, who formed the Black Mesa Underground Boxing Ring, punches aliens to death, punches the top of a tank, and has numerous clones that he kills to grow stronger.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Several fan fictions depict Benrey as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, while in the series itself he's shown to be a total asshole who subverts all of his apparent redeeming qualities.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Some fans have taken to calling Benrey's monstrous Final Boss form "Xenrey."
  • Though he is called this in the series proper, the fandom often refers to the version of Gordon presented in the series as "Gordon Feetman" to differentiate him from the Gordon Freeman from the original Half-Life, especially in Crossover fan works and to avoid bothering the regular Half-Life fandom on platforms with tags.
• Fanon:
  • Many people like to headcanon Tommy as autistic.
  • Benrey is commonly depicted with his eyes in shadow, both to differentiate him from Barney and referencing the fact that he's not really human. This became Ascended Fanon when the thumbnail for the final edited episode showed him this way. Later on when Benrey plushies were made they, too, had dark shadows around the eyes.
  • It's common for people to draw Benrey, Bubby, and Dr. Coomer as being a Big, Thin, Short Trio, with Bubby being tall and skinny, Dr. Coomer being squarer and stout, and Benrey somewhere in the middle but larger in general size.
  • This version of Gordon Freeman is sometimes called 'Gordon Feetman' or 'Gordos Feetman', to distinguish him from the canon Gordon. He's also frequently given long hair, or a ponytail, to match Wayne's.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Gordon and Benrey is a very popular pairing in the fandom, mostly due to their back-and-forth banter about kissing and eating each other's balls. It got even more recognition when, during the Q&A stream, Wayne confirmed that Benrey is lusting after Gordon for the whole series, but is unreciprocated.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Wayne's decision to blur and eventually remove the chat after it was overtaken by transphobic comments midway through ACT 3 becomes more obviously personal after the credits were revealed, showing that Dr. Coomer's voice actress is a transgender woman.
• I Knew It!: Many people managed to predict that Tommy was the G-Man's son.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Hello, Gordon!"
  • "Look Gordon, ropes! We can use these to traverse dangerous pits- HELP ME, GORDON!"
  • "Hotted boobs up ahead! Tits big ones!"
  • "Gordon, titty boob huge fuck."
  • Hell, just about everything that comes out of Dr. Coomer's mouth.
  • "Can I see your passport?"
  • "Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit!"
  • Many people have compared Gordon's fingernail-firing Arm Cannon in ACT 4 to Tusk.
  • Calling Benrey a "Tumblr Sexyman".
  • "CHRIS BORES IRATE GAMER DID NOT RIP OFF ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD!"
  • Gordon Freeman dies at the end of All Dogs Go to Heaven 2.
• Moral Event Horizon: Benrey crosses it when he sells Gordon out to the HECU, simply out of the passport nonsense. Benrey then crosses the line even further due to his complete and utter apathy towards the HECU cutting off Gordon’s arm, even mocking him for it later.
• Obvious Judas: A combination of rapidly antagonizing Gordon and allies too stupid to notice the discrepancies makes Benrey this to everyone but Gordon. Especially considering the team lets him come back AFTER he had some soldiers jump Gordon and slice off his arm.
• Signature Scene: Quite a few of them, actually:
  • Benrey asking for Gordon's passport, needlessly antagonizing him while doing so, and using the Black Mesa Sweet Voice at the start of the edited videos. It all set the tone going forward.
  • Dr. Coomer flying out of the map, and coming back saying that "there's nothing there".
  • Later in that same episode, the Science Team launching a rocket (twice) with Bubby hitching a ride on the first one.
  • The Helicopter Heap.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Can be seen as one to Freeman's Mind, as both are absurdist playthroughs of the original Half-Life campaign, with the previously un-voiced characters taking on a mind of their own, albeit with the treatment given to multiple characters rather than just Gordon this time.
  • Not this series in particular, but Wayne would do a later series of streams with a similar concept, Half-Life: Alyx but the Gnome is Too Aware, a run of Alyx in which Wayne carries around Gnome Chompski to the end of the game, except the gnome is sentient. Fans have very often lampshaded this, although Wayne has stated the Gnome Run is not the sequel to HLVRAI and something more like a spin-off.
• Tear Jerker: Has its own page.
• The Woobie: It's hard to not feel sorry for Gordon for all the mess he has to go through during the Black Mesa incident.
  • Tommy also counts as this, specially at the end of Act 3's first part where he's genuinely horrified when Benrey and Bubby sell Gordon out to the military and are apathetic to the soldiers brutally beating Gordon and chopping off his right arm before dragging him off.