Dyadic mothers

'Smiling a tight little smile, in a toneless voice, Louise Fletcher forces Jack Nicholson to take his tranquilizing medication. With the same smooth, bland expression, she will later order his lobotomy'

ALJEAN HARMETZ for the NYT 1975

 link : http://www.littlereview.com/goddesslouise/articles/nyt1175.htm

Louise Fletcher's performance of this character is a great example of the dyadic mother.

From a video game percpective I think the two biggest dyadic mothers must be SHODAN and GlaDOS.

Interestingly in System Shock 2 SHODAN is interacting with a character who is male (you the player)

while in Portal GlaDOS is interacting with a female character (schell/you)

SHODAN is megalomaniacal in her interaction saying things like:

'You move like an insect. You think like an insect. You ARE an insect. There is another who can serve my purpose. Take care not to fall too far out of my favor... patience is not characteristic of a goddess.'

Whereas GlaDOS intereacts on a far more grounded level with constant digs at the players weight/family and education:

"You're unlikeable. It says so right here in your personal file, unlikeable, liked by no one. A bitter unlikeable loner who's passing shall NOT be mourned. SHALL NOT BE MOURNED. That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very offical....It also says you were adopted, so that's funny too."

I am going to talk further about my research into both of these mother figure AI's on thursday and try to come up with a sold reason for the different treatments depending on the antagonists sexuality.