4. Chell - Portal
I pondered including Chell in this list for a while. I imagine that most readers were expecting God of War's Kratos, Max Payne, or other characters whose vengeful nature is their defining quality. But I wanted to examine stories of vengeance that were unorthodox, and once I decided to stay away from predictable "You're angry, now go kill people!" games, Chell seemed like a natural choice. What's interesting about Chell's story is her helplessness. She doesn't have a life, she doesn't have a voice, and her name is never even mentioned in-game. Despite all her rage, she's still just a rat in a cage. Not only that, but her captor, sinister ladybot GLaDOS, starts poking and prodding her from the get-go. The only thing Chell has left to lose is her dignity, which erodes after every block-button puzzle. For the entire duration of the game, Chell is striving to defy GLaDOS by trying to escape while proving that she's not some lab rat that can be tested ad infinium. Chell and GLaDOS' rivalry takes on an interesting dynamic at the end of Portal 2. After you're forced to team up with the newly-potatoed GLaDOS in order to stop the sub-intelligent Wheatley, Chell spares GLaDOS. This is an anomaly in video games that feature a prominent binary protagonist/antagonist structure. GLaDOS is simply exhausted, and basically tells Chell, "Please leave. I can't do this anymore. Go away," before sending her on a lift to the picturesque surface. By besting an omnipotent artificial intelligence using nothing but her brain and a "gun that makes holes," Chell's vengeance upon GLaDOS is complete, and she is free to make up the time stolen from her by the diabolical Aperture Laboratories.