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I haven't played Portal. Now playing Portal 2 and I'm not quite sure if I understand the mechanism properly. I'm stuck in a floor in the chapter 'The Return'. I'm wondering what does blue and orange portal signify? How to use them properly? So far what I know is if I enter via one portal I'll come out of another one.

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  • Go through the Blue Portal and you end up at the Orange portal. Go through the Orange portal and you end up at the Blue Portal.
    – Joe the Person
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 16:34

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There is no functional difference between the two colours. They are just two ends of the same portal and like you said, if you enter one portal, you will come out of the other. As spencer added in a comment, the colours help you know which portal you have fired. That way you can avoid firing the same portal twice and moving it when you might not want to.

You can't have two blue portals or two orange portals up at the same time. If a test chamber has a pre-opened portal for you somewhere, you can open a portal of the other colour to take advantage of it.

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    Wanted to add that colors are there help you know which portal you have fired and wont "overwrite" one you don't want moved.
    – riv_rec
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 5:03
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    In addition, the targeting reticle has two halves, one orange, one blue, which correspond to the respective left and right mouse buttons.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 5:33
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    One of the key concepts of the game, I think, is realizing that you can travel through either portal.
    – wersimmon
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 7:59
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    There is, by the way, a lot of blue/orange colour symbolism in Portal 2, but that would be for another question.
    – user56
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 10:31
  • @Arda And here is that question. :)
    – Adam Lear ♦
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 14:35
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There's no real symbolism to the colors, it's just the colors Aperture Science uses, just like Atlas and P-Body are blue and orange respectively, the reversible Excursion Funnels, the Portals, the broken Faith Plates, the powered/unpowered cubes, literally anything.

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