"Modern" Lara is too woke

[.snake.]

Originally Posted by jeffrey van oort

You don't have a level named Lud's Gate, if the character wasn't meant to represent Lud, as in King Lud. And that Lud offers you the bargain to open the gate (door) in exchange for the embalming fluid is by design, and it so much resembled the mythological character, that the level is named as such. Lud's Gate. For those who've needed that clue.

Lud's Gate is an actual buried gate beneath the city of London from the Roman days when it was Londinium. It has never truly been discovered or excavated. That's what Lara is actually meant to be swimming through when she's in that underwater maze part with the Roman mosaic textures.

But your idea that Geordie Bob, the Damned king of the sewers of London may actually be the mythical King Lud of ancient Britain is probably one of your most whacked out, insane, but also endearing and lovable theories to date. Well done, I like it.

[jeffrey van oort]

I was pretty clear, and so were the developers. The level is named Lud's Gate. The name "Bob" was never mentioned in the Tomb Raider cutscenes. I'm saying that Tomb Raider made mythology a bit less mythological, as they've explained them so well with symbolism. Or that the developers have tried to explain them with symbolism.

Take the South Pacific Islands for example. A place at the shores, (very descriptive), and it looks like a paradise. Untill Lara Croft discovered that she herself had crashed in this town or village. (Tomb Raider is symbolically both the crashed aeroplane, and the meteorite to this unsuspecting player).

There is no defense against yourself. So Lara Croft gently decided to await her fate in the nest of the T-Rex that has conjured Lara Croft. And Lara Croft is assisted, by the troops, (who have moved for money), that have already been through that area before. Tomb Raider couldn't care less, she is going to rocket through that game and the raptors (brains) are going to be employed in her service. So she could blast through that wall, firing rockets at it, and the money stays with her. (Now her's) crash site).

After which Lara Croft would gently canoe (kayak) down the Madubu Gorge with her player, untill she is flushed through the vortex.

After which Lara Croft entered the Temple of Puna. (Symbolically, her Tomb Raider player in posession of the "ora dagger", which was probably supposed to symbolically represent a Tomb Raider I or Tomb Raider II player, but it is now any Tomb Raider player). There Lara Croft found the source of the headpains in Puna's, shall we call it a, game room? A not applicable unidentified person. (PUNA / ANUP). Yes, Lara Croft knows them.

This is quite symbolical as the Tombraiderforums.com is the ora dagger. (Spawning what appears to be a small amount of creatures with reptile features, fictionally & symbolically). But Lara Croft was there. And these ideas don't make it past her pistols.

The part where Lara Croft lured in raptor (brains) into the water just to be able to cross the water herself. Yeah, that is Lara Croft. And she never got sued, after being so thorough.

[.snake.]

Wow. Such fascinate. Very linguist. Many science.

[Pelagius]

Look... I don't mean to come across as a prick here if Jeffrey genuinely has some kind of neurological condition, but it's been... frustrating to try and parse his comments. Partly because I get this sense that some kind of lateral thinking or creative insight is genuinely present, but by the time I get to the end of his sentences there's been too many leaps of logic of follow, and the meaning gets buried or lost.

Backing up a bit-

Originally Posted by .snake.

When she does sort of smile into the camera at the end of the last Shadow DLC after she is asked "What will you do now Lara?" it's so painfully awkward and astonishingly ugly because we're so used to only seeing her grimace in pain for 3 games. She is the ultimate wet blanket.

Originally Posted by ostercy

Can we have Chaotic Good/Evil with skills, cash, hotness and funnies? Or is that too 3D?

As much as I'd like to see more of... all those things... I'm really sort of struggling to imagine how they could manage to 'evolve' Lara in that direction at this stage in the game. Maybe they're going to outsource that job to the anime?

If we're indulging in off-the-wall metaphysical theories, you could always have her possessed by the spirit of a sumerian sex goddess, but I guess that would create its own problems.

[.snake.]

Well, on that note and to get metaphysical and symbolic: I always thought the archetypal myth of Inanna/Ishtar descending to the underworld to confront her dark sister Ereshkigal resonated strongly with Lara vs her Doppelganger or Lara vs Natla. It’s all very Jungian and confronting ones Shadow.

TR4 Lara collecting the pieces of the armor of Horus so she can invoke him and bring him to Earth to fight Seth is similar to the goddess Isis collecting the dismembered pieces of Osiris’s body in order to resurrect him, conceive Horus, so he can fight Seth. Although with TR4 the team did actually have an Egyptologist on board to help with the story so this may actually be less of a BS interpretation on my part, and in fact was an intended homage to the original myth.

But generally, I think this is archetypal mythic stuff that is subconsciously in the human psyche and can come out inadvertently when artists create their work. Jeffrey van Oort seems to think the devs at Core, Crystal, or elsewhere, actually thought about this stuff on such an exceptionally deep level. Or in his case, ubermenschian-autistic-levels-of-genius that make no sense to anyone else.

All you have to do is listen to one of the interviews with Andy Sandham (the guy who built TR3 London) on one of the recent streams with Ash and you’ll see that he laughs at all these deep intricate theories fans have concocted. It’s a classic example of art being interpreted as being more than it is by the observers (or fanbase) than the artist himself ever intended.

[jeffrey van oort]

Originally Posted by .snake.

Well, on that note and to get metaphysical and symbolic: I always thought the archetypal myth of Inanna/Ishtar descending to the underworld to confront her dark sister Ereshkigal resonated strongly with Lara vs her Doppelganger or Lara vs Natla. It’s all very Jungian and confronting ones Shadow.

TR4 Lara collecting the pieces of the armor of Horus so she can invoke him and bring him to Earth to fight Seth is similar to the goddess Isis collecting the dismembered pieces of Osiris’s body in order to resurrect him, conceive Horus, so he can fight Seth. Although with TR4 the team did actually have an Egyptologist on board to help with the story so this may actually be less of a BS interpretation on my part, and in fact was an intended homage to the original myth.

But generally, I think this is archetypal mythic stuff that is subconsciously in the human psyche and can come out inadvertently when artists create their work. Jeffrey van Oort seems to think the devs at Core, Crystal, or elsewhere, actually thought about this stuff on such an exceptionally deep level. Or in his case, ubermenschian-autistic-levels-of-genius that make no sense to anyone else.

All you have to do is listen to one of the interviews with Andy Sandham (the guy who built TR3 London) on one of the recent streams with Ash and you’ll see that he laughs at all these deep intricate theories fans have concocted. It’s a classic example of art being interpreted as being more than it is by the observers (or fanbase) than the artist himself ever intended.

I think the untermensch is a better description. They've named the expansions pre-mier without the "-". They know exactly what they've created. You've seen Antarctica. Which is probably heavily inspired by "The Thing". It is the sort of science that Tomb Raider is involved with, if you would believe the Tomb Raider products.

I'm not writing this, to be read obligatorily. I've just tried to make a nice story told in a symbolical way following an interpretation of the levels, and storylines seen, and played in Tomb Raider products. If you've not been able to follow my writings, and would think of my interpretations to be written as the cause of a neurological affliction. Well, I'm sorry if you were unable to follow these symbolical interpretations of what I have thought, laid bear the greatests secrets for Tomb Raider players to find.

She has got it. Now what?

I hope that pondering, or wondering about such a question, after Lara Croft has been through a small moment of your time, isn't something that has occupied the thinking of the developers, or their engineers. Lara Croft would cause a small crater onto the Earth, because you've got it.

I cannot think of something better to describe the unjustice handled internally. It is just another way to say, please die after you've got it.

[Ringtir]

My new favourite hobby on the forum is to ignore all the jeffrey's posts

[Pelagius]

Originally Posted by .snake.

Well, on that note and to get metaphysical and symbolic: I always thought the archetypal myth of Inanna/Ishtar descending to the underworld to confront her dark sister Ereshkigal resonated strongly with Lara vs her Doppelganger or Lara vs Natla. It’s all very Jungian and confronting ones Shadow.

Yeah, that occurred to me as well. I agree this is more likely to be at the level of 'subconscious archetype' than a conscious design process, but, well... that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I've been browsing some of the chapters from Sexual Personae recently and Paglia talking about the 'cthonian substrate of nature' underlying civilisation maps pretty neatly onto the lower levels of Atlantis. OG Lara herself is kind of an embodiment of all the things that classical civilisation represses- nature, sex, violence, feminine independence. I've perhaps belabored the point that she's not always the most admirable person, but there's a kind of magnetic purity to her concept, like this black-hole singularity of Id and Ego that the rest of her world just has to orbit around. Having her dig through the layers of the ruins of classical civilisation to get at the nightmarish organic hellscape of Natla's laboratories- literally birthing chambers, like a giant womb- I mean... I'm not quite sure what that symbolises, but it definitely symbolises something.

I'll contend that TR 1 itself is more of an Apollonian game with Dionysian marketing, though.

On the general topic of wokeness, reading through some of the reboot series' comics has pretty much sealed it for me: reboot Lara is definitely more woke, and not really in a good way.

[janissary]

Originally Posted by Ringtir

My new favourite hobby on the forum is to ignore all the jeffrey's posts

Dude, you have been registered the forums on August 2020 and have like 33 posts. It seems like ignoring stuff isn't hobby for you– it's life style.

[Ringtir]

just like to read about the current state of the fandom and the new projects that enhace the classics from Core