Beamer you have gone insane with your analogies. First you compare Gordon to a real figure in American history, George Washington, a brilliant man, a great solider, and a legendary
leader –something you ceded, a few posts after that ridiculous comparison, that Gordon is not.
Now you compare Gordon to Achilles, a fictional (although I am sure a man existed to inspire such a myth) hero, but according to that legend Achilles was at best a mercenary, at worst a crazed berserker that like to kill so much he couldn’t stop, neither of which seem to coincide with Gordon’s character
I don't make many decisions at work. As a programmer and not much of a designer, I pretty much do what I am told. However, if I didn't do my job, they'd be pretty fucked, as they would have no software. I don't see how Freeman's lack of decision-making makes him any less of a protagonist or hero. Just about every FPS these days has you following objectives. Objectives that come down from above.
.Although this fiction, especially of Gordon, was falling apart during HL2, it crashed completely when I came to the first coded door in Ep1, although I was already looking for a vent, Alyx saw fit to harken back to the HL1 days, when I enjoyed this franchise, and remind me to look for a vent, me – the larger-then-life-hero – told Alyx to shove it, give me her automatic pistol and I’ll kick this fucking door down.
I bought Gordon in the first game, and I bought a nameless, mindless robotic killing-machine in HL2, but I don’t buy that killing machine as Gordon The Free-Man.