A Deep Dive into Lara's Anger and Resentment of Werner in AOD

Jathom95 · 21-08-24, 21:00

While discussing this topic recently in a number of other threads, I felt it was a good time to make a full thread dedicated to this particular point.

THE INTRO

When we begin with AOD, we see a very clearly exasperated Lara speaking with Werner. With this being their first real interaction, that we've been able to see, since the end of The Last Revelation, it comes as a bit of a surprise. Why is Lara so angry? What did Von Croy do that made her so upset during all that time? We start off with their conversation:

Werner: "Help me Lara. I need you to get something for me."
Lara: "Go on."
Werner: "I'm tracking five Obscura Paintings for a client, called Eckhardt. But he is a psychopath."
Lara: "Why should I care?"
Werner: "Because I'm being stalked! People are dying out there!"
Lara: "Handle it Werner!"
Werner: "Lara, please. Look, go and see this woman. Carvier. She can help."
Lara: "I'm going."

Right out the gate, Lara is very abrasive and off-putting compared to where we've seen her prior. However, the biggest point of contention comes with what she says to Von Croy immediately after:

Lara: "Egypt Werner. You walked away and left me."

But, that doesn't sound quite right does it? Didn't we see Werner attempt to help Lara at the end of TR4? Why is she angry after he very clearly offered her his hand to escape?

At first glance, this seems to be a huge plot hole. However, a closer inspection of the events preceding and up to this event presents a situation where it is actually possible to at least come to some sort of conclusion as to why exactly Lara would have been upset at Von Croy at all.

LARA AND WERNER - A COMPLICATED HISTORY

From the start, the whole time that Lara and Werner have known each other - there's no question that it has been a quite complicated history.

Von Croy, being one of Lara's earliest inspirations for what she loves doing in the present - her mentor, undoubtedly was able to see greatness in her and her adventuring spirit, the same as his own. We see this in spades during the initial segments of the Cambodia expedition in the beginning of TR4.

The interesting part, however, comes toward the end of all of this. After racing to the Iris, the "prize" they are both there for, Lara is understandably cautious about potential ancient trappings. She warns Von Croy, who immediately dismisses it as "ancient hocus pocus". After ignoring her warnings, and subsequently directing her to pull the lever to open the path to the Iris, Von Croy heads toward it, completely unfazed. After trying to claim it for himself, he sets off the very sort of trapping Lara had previously warned him about, culminating with his leg becoming trapped in the contraption. He screams out for Lara to help him, as at this point he's unable to free himself from the Iris' containment chamber.

With the ruins quickly coming down around her however, Lara has no choice but to leave - the only other option being that they will both become caved in together. She clearly calls out, telling him she will return to free him - presumably with more help than just herself.

That instance though, leaves a very interesting precedent behind later in Von Croy's case. The idea being - he actually resented Lara for the state he ended up in thereafter, namely his leg being in such a state that it forced him to need a cane to stay mobile from there on. This is even caught upon and backed up by Lara herself, who specifically calls Von Croy out on it later, running into him again after obtaining the Amulet of Horus:

Lara: "Always griping, Werner. If it's the leg causing all this resentment, I seem to remember that being down to your affinity with pulling hazardous levers."

That single statement really lends to the state of their relationship after the Cambodia expedition. What seems like cheeky banter at first glance actually points to a greater narrative - that they had grown distant after the events surrounding Cambodia, which subsequently led to them becoming rivals. Often pitting themselves against each other because they both had the same - in Von Croy's words - "craving to win." The same stubbornness, the same drive, the same fighting spirit.

The events of TR4 as a whole when viewed together makes it quite clear how they'd grown apart in the years since. From the beginning of Lara's time in Egypt, she runs into all measure of opposition. Not least of all though, from Von Croy in the form of armed mercenaries being sent to kill her at every turn. He kidnaps her best friend, Jean-Yves, in an attempt to reclaim the Armor of Horus from her.

Then, further on - we see the worst traits of Von Croy being manifested fully - through the possession of Seth through his own body.

It becomes clear though that throughout all of this, Lara has been unable to trust Von Croy for quite a long time already. But where it all comes to a head is toward the end of their time together in Egypt.

THE GREAT PYRAMID - THE AFTERMATH

After narrowly escaping and re-sealing Seth, Lara finds herself broken and battered attempting to escape the pyramid. As she makes her way back to the entrance, the first face she sees - shining in the sun - is Von Croy's. We see her visibly smile. In that very moment, amid all she'd just went through, she was happy to see him.

Just after, however, we see the pyramid begin to collapse around her. Lara begins remembering what she'd been through during this time with Von Croy, and it seems to make her unable to trust him in that moment. The justification here is in the very first thing she says to him before anything else:

Lara: "You back, Werner? No more Seth?" - Obviously referring to his possession by Seth. Not knowing whether Von Croy was truly free of his grip just yet. Von Croy pleads with her to disregard all of that, and just take his hand.

Lara uses the last of her strength to attempt to make it to Von Croy, but only musters enough to hold onto a ledge for a brief moment. Von Croy asks her to give him her hand one last time before the temple collapses. Their very last interaction together is significant, and paves the way for Lara's eventual resentment later.

Lara: "Good to see you again, Werner."
Werner: "I couldn't leave you!"

The interesting thing about this is how such a small statement from each holds a much bigger meaning in reality. Let's start with Lara.

Lara's statement to Werner is seemingly one of appreciation, of the fact that he was the one to show up after everything that had happened to help her.

However, what Lara is actually referring to here is that with Werner now being free of Seth's possession, he was now truly his old self again - a fact she realizes too late. Her old mentor, the one who was with her all the way back at the start in Cambodia, was now here again. Them being rivals, the numerous attempts to kill her or reclaim things from her, none of that mattered in the moment.

Werner, on the other hand, states very clearly that "he couldn't leave her." Von Croy, like Lara before him in Cambodia, couldn't leave her behind. His mind free from negative influence, he now realized what was truly important - helping Lara. But, with the pyramid now collapsing down around him, it puts him in a predicament, and a very poignant one at that.

Von Croy is now forced to make the exact same call that Lara did in Cambodia, the roles now reversed.

He realizes if he doesn't turn around and leave right now, they'll both perish. He knows Lara is a survivor and if she can only hold out long enough, he can come back later with help to free her.

THE GRIPPING QUESTION - WHY WAS LARA UPSET WHEN WERNER TRIED TO HELP HER?

The crux of this issue with this question is that the answer involves a lot, a lot, of reading between the lines. I believe it was deliberate, but I also believe it could have been stated a bit more plainly. Is the justification for it there, though? Ultimately, I'd say yes.

The thing to conceptualize here is the fact that Lara, come AOD, is doing the exact same sort of rationalizing that Von Croy had post-Cambodia. It's meant to convey how both had the same bull-headedness blinding them to the actual events at hand. In Werner's case, it was the fact of his blame at the condition of his leg being Lara's "fault". In Lara's case, it was unquestionably the fact that she had nearly died in the Great Pyramid, and after freeing herself she became quite bitter over the fact that it nearly cost her her own life.

In both cases, they know deep-down that the other didn't truly abandon them - they just cling to the fact that they were left alone regardless, and seemingly had to pull themselves from the clutches of a very destructive set of circumstances.

What it boils down to for Lara, is that it was also her own fault that she was unable to escape in time. She was unable to bring herself to trust Von Croy, she had multiple attempts to let him help her, but she didn't. A fact she can't bring herself to admit she was at fault of - just as Von Croy did himself in Cambodia after ignoring Lara's repeated warnings, yet carrying through anyway.

But here's the thing - she irrationally, albeit intently, only views the situation from the lens that he ultimately turned around to save himself in an act of preservation, no matter what the circumstance at hand involved. It didn't matter that the pyramid was literally seconds away from collapsing entirely, it didn't matter that Werner would have died alongside her if he'd stayed - it only mattered that he'd showed up to help her in one moment and then, in Lara's eyes, left her behind to save himself. Just like Von Croy did with his leg, that's what Lara clung to for years thereafter with her own life.

ANGEL OF DARKNESS - THE END OF AN ERA OF RESENTMENT

Now, finally - come AOD, we go back to the initial point. If Lara did in fact have reason, in her own mind, to be upset at Von Croy - Why didn't she relay that to him? Why didn't she admit these feelings had been festering for so long, so that he could acknowledge them and they could finally move forward.

Only that seems to be the very issue both were struggling with - that neither of them could ever fully admit they had been wrong at various points, and what it resulted in was a very long and extended period of the two not communicating. Starting with Cambodia of course and for a long while after, but also after the events of Egypt. Lara felt betrayed. It's entirely clear from that perspective that after surviving, she had no desire to speak with or reconcile with Von Croy. And subsequently, that would also mean that she would have never known Von Croy had gone searching for her at all, if we're to believe she'd already made it out by herself.

The idea is that the entire situation is supposed to be tragic. Werner had finally realized that Lara's life was more important to him than any artifact. He spent entire months, possibly years, on end trying to find her beneath the pyramid. He even ends up finding her backpack amid the ruins. But due to the situation he finds himself now in, with his life in danger, he now also needs Lara more than ever.

When Lara meets with him, and the ensuing events happen - she finds herself in a new situation. Werner winds up dead and she can't remember how it happened.

But, here's the thing. From the onset, even when it's not made clear how it was done, how it happened - what do we see Lara very clearly do? She picks up Von Croy in her arms, seemingly filled with remorse. And later on, it's made pretty evident that this was in fact remorse over him dying, period.

Which leads into the largest factor here of why Lara was angry - she was bitter. She didn't want to admit she was in the wrong, and she'd allowed it to consume her all this time. When she finds Werner dead, this is immediately sealed by the fact that she drops, right then, absolutely any pretense she could have ever had of resenting him, or even hating him, over what had happened. She was angry, and it blinded her all that time. But she never wanted Von Croy to die.

And this is, unfortunately, what it took for her to finally realize it.

The secondary point of Angel of Darkness of a whole, beyond the overarching narrative, was about Lara discovering herself again. Her fighting spirit, but also what was truly important to her. That includes Von Croy. Her drive to find his murderer isn't fueled strictly by means of self-preservation. Why? Because from there on, when discussing her relationship to Von Croy himself, what does she refer to him as?

"I'm trying to track down a friend's movements."
"You helped a friend of mine a while back. Werner Von Croy."
"Too many people have died for me to trust you. Including a good friend. Von Croy."

And that in itself points to the most important point of all. That she was finally able to let go. After all that time of holding on to a pointless and irrational grudge toward Von Croy over what happened - she forgives him. She moves on. And views him now as a dear friend, even in death.

While undoubtedly she is fully aware she's now unable to make things up with him personally, it's quite easy to reconcile that he was never truly angry with her either and only wanted her to see to reason. The way he speaks to her at the beginning very much lends itself to this point.

Also to the above point, consider one event in particular later on in AOD. After we discover Eckhardt/Karel was the one who actually killed Von Croy. He speaks to him right before he kills him:

Eckhardt/Karel: "Von Croy. You've located the Painting for me. Why have you not delivered it?"
Werner: "I daren't collect it. It's too dangerous. But she'll be able to."

At first, that may seem a bit like Werner attempting to throw Lara under the bus, so to speak. If it's too dangerous for him, why is he essentially throwing it off on her when the very person he's afraid of is now right in front of him, ready to kill him?

Here's the thing - Von Croy knows he's going to die. But, he's now in a situation where he's able to save Lara's life at the cost of his own, where he couldn't before. By telling whom he believes to be Eckhardt that Lara will be able to retrieve the thing that Eckhardt desires most, he's ensuring she'll survive and knows she'll be able to succeed where he failed.

As for why Lara herself was able to move on so quickly - I've always understood the very complicated history between the two as being just that - complicated. That is - they never, at any point in time, truly hated each other despite what they might have told themselves.

Deep down, Werner was always Lara's mentor and Lara his protege, and both very obviously deeply cared about each other despite appearances.

JEAN-YVES VS VON CROY

This is something in closing I wanted to bring up, since it's very much a point of contention with this particular plot point.

For those not in the know, originally in AOD's early development - Jean-Yves, Lara's best friend in TR4, was planned to be the one who would wind up being killed in the intro of AOD, seemingly pushing the plot forward just the same.

It has been discussed by many that this would have potentially made much more sense at face value, with Jean not being around himself for the epilogue of The Last Revelation, where he never even makes an appearance after the Citadel or thereafter. Lending to the idea that Lara was supposedly abandoned by him.

However, in practice, this doesn't work at all.

For starters, Jean is in even less of a spot to be fueled by embitterment from Lara's perspective. The key point here is that the very last time Lara even speaks with him, is after freeing him from being tied up in the Citadel. And this is specifically what she says to him:

Jean: "Thank God you made it! Von Croy... I saw it myself. I would not have believed such a thing. He is possessed of Seth!"
Lara: "Get out of here, Jean. I have a feeling things may turn nasty."
Jean: "...Be careful Lara. I fear there are things in the vaults man was not meant to see."
Lara: "I am not a man, Jean, and I am always very, very careful."

That's it. Lara's very last conversation with him is very cordial, one that has her in fact telling him to bluntly get the hell out of Dodge. She wants him to get to safety, because he's her friend and is no survivalist like her or Von Croy.

There's also the point of Charles Kane, from Chronicles, as a replacement for Jean's character after the issues surrounding his inclusion in TR4. It was very obvious come Chronicles that this was the entire purpose of his creation, even being referred to as an old friend of Lara. So it begs the question, why wasn't he considered for being the one to kick off AOD's plot, being killed?

The most obvious answer here is one that can be reached fairly easily - his death would have had little to no actual weight for new or returning players, having barely a single game to scantly characterize him at all, and only through narrative-based cutscenes at that.

The point of someone dying at the beginning, other than shock value, was to drive the narrative forward. Why did this happen, how did it happen, and most importantly - who did it?

The last question is significant, and the sole reason I believe that Von Croy ultimately ended up being the correct choice despite appearances suggesting otherwise. Jean would have provided no reasonable guess as to why Lara would have potentially wanted to kill him, from the player's perspective, at the beginning of the game. By all accounts, they were on entirely good terms compared to where she and Von Croy had been during all this time. Making it a pretty huge stretch that she would have been angry enough at him in any capacity to warrant killing her supposed best friend.

From the beginning, AOD was also designed as a murder-mystery narrative. Shaping the thread from the beginning that Lara may have potentially killed Werner rather than someone else is interesting because of their complicated history. When you thread all of the pieces together, it is surely a tangled web - but one that is infinitely more interesting because of how complex it is. And that is why I feel they deliberately went with Von Croy instead. His factoring in as the one who would be killed had been decided as early as AOD's early planning period in 2000, this was not a decision made overnight or a last minute inclusion. And while I do think it could have possibly be spelled out more plainly and not leave so much up to players to interpret through subtext, I do think - in light of everything above - that the right choice was made in the end.

CLOSING

I really hope you've enjoyed this read! I've been wanting to fully write this out for a while now and finally had the spark to do so. Thanks so much for checking it out.

omerocoti · 24-08-24, 12:54

I enjoyed reading it

No story in TR, or even in any other game, will ever surpass the plot of AOD. It's epic and unique.

FreakRaider · 24-08-24, 16:54

This is so ****ing epic and lowkey made me emotional LOL good analysis and well written!

Tommy123 · 10-09-24, 19:01

I just realized how Lara's anger to Werner for leaving her buried is similar to Amanda's character arc in LAU.

This is a great analysis of Lara, Werner, and the plot of AOD. Werner and Lara are two flawed characters and through the writing of AOD and TR4 they are able to turn those flaws into a complicated but overall compelling relationship. They were both very much alike in the end. Maybe Werner's death also symbolized Lara letting go of who she once was, which is fitting considering the themes of AOD and where the series wanted to go.

rewak · 11-09-24, 13:44

On the Jean-Yves thing, you're assuming the opening cutscene would have played exactly the same just with Jean instead of Werner but I don't think that would have been the case. Remember Jean was cut very late into Chronicles development, to the point where he was still in the FMVs with just weeks to go. AoD was in development at the same time and the teaser included with Chronicles gives a different vibe, so does the included concept art, so things were still fresh at that point. If Jean would have been included in Chronicles he would have been in just as many games as Werner, so there wasn't a stronger connection to one or the other for fans.

In the novel Amulet of Power, the one that's meant to fill in the gap between TLR and AoD, the end of that novel is Lara in Paris reading a newspaper article talking about Werner being in town. She's happy about it, she plans to go see him and take him out for dinner even. Now these novels are shaky on the canon, but they were written with the intention of being canon to fill in the gap between games. This bit never made sense though, unless it was meant to be Jean. I'm betting the original take was Lara taking Jean out for dinner, then going back to his apartment for a drink or something, possibly for him to tell her he was in Paris to research the Obscura Paintings, and him being killed in much the same way Werner was. Having just been seen out in public with him that connects Lara to his murder and then we're in the game.

I do think the intro works better with Werner for all the reasons you said, but I don't think it was rewritten in a way that properly conveyed everything you said, possibly because it was a hasty rewrite to drop Jean since they legally weren't allowed to include him anymore during a very tough development where things were being chopped and changed everywhere. I do think that maybe at some point Werner would have been brought up and maybe was even planned to show up later in AoD or in the trilogy for some resolution to that side of the TLR story. Him being in the cutscene we have with Putai showing him trying to save Lara kind of hints to this for me, because how does that scene make sense with him trying to save her when she says he walked away and left her? I dunno, AoD is a big web we may never untangle

Jathom95 · 11-09-24, 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by rewak

On the Jean-Yves thing, you're assuming the opening cutscene would have played exactly the same just with Jean instead of Werner but I don't think that would have been the case. Remember Jean was cut very late into Chronicles development, to the point where he was still in the FMVs with just weeks to go. AoD was in development at the same time and the teaser included with Chronicles gives a different vibe, so does the included concept art, so things were still fresh at that point. If Jean would have been included in Chronicles he would have been in just as many games as Werner, so there wasn't a stronger connection to one or the other for fans.

In the novel Amulet of Power, the one that's meant to fill in the gap between TLR and AoD, the end of that novel is Lara in Paris reading a newspaper article talking about Werner being in town. She's happy about it, she plans to go see him and take him out for dinner even. Now these novels are shaky on the canon, but they were written with the intention of being canon to fill in the gap between games. This bit never made sense though, unless it was meant to be Jean. I'm betting the original take was Lara taking Jean out for dinner, then going back to his apartment for a drink or something, possibly for him to tell her he was in Paris to research the Obscura Paintings, and him being killed in much the same way Werner was. Having just been seen out in public with him that connects Lara to his murder and then we're in the game.

I do think the intro works better with Werner for all the reasons you said, but I don't think it was rewritten in a way that properly conveyed everything you said, possibly because it was a hasty rewrite to drop Jean since they legally weren't allowed to include him anymore during a very tough development where things were being chopped and changed everywhere. I do think that maybe at some point Werner would have been brought up and maybe was even planned to show up later in AoD or in the trilogy for some resolution to that side of the TLR story. Him being in the cutscene we have with Putai showing him trying to save Lara kind of hints to this for me, because how does that scene make sense with him trying to save her when she says he walked away and left her? I dunno, AoD is a big web we may never untangle

Those are very good points, I actually had forgotten about how late Jean had been cut from Chronicles but I definitely remember it now.

I think in the timeframe of when they were required to drop Jean from the storyline altogether, it was still a very controlled choice picking Werner instead since that aspect didn't change continually, compared to almost every other thing about AOD from pre-production to release. But yeah, that's why I wanted to mention if that was the route they were going, it should have absolutely been stated more clearly - because otherwise you're left to assume nothing else but that Lara's mistaken since you have to pull together a large string of events from two other games for it to make sense.

The Putai cutscene has always been a bit of an anomaly to me though. It's obvious they were putting thought into what happened to Lara in between TR4 to AOD. But we've only ever had the one unused cutscene showing us a glimpse of her character and honestly, it kind of runs into the same issue for me personally. I think once she had to be excised from the story, which was fairly late-ish iirc, they likely decided it was best to just leave it unsaid since there wasn't any time to delve into it further at that point.

But regarding Werner, it could have possibly just been a fortunate case of actually working in hindsight rather than being carefully construed from the start. I suppose since his involvement was decided upon after Jean had to be removed and didn't really change much after that, I do like to think that at least some part of it was deliberate, if for no other reason that it does work with what we ultimately ended up with in the final product.

I've actually never read the novels though, so that's some interesting background information on those! With how you describe the events of what happens, yeah it's pretty clear that those at least were written from the perspective of it being intended for Jean, because otherwise it doesn't make sense at all and ultimately ends up feeling a bit canon divergent.

Scure · 14-10-24, 10:56

I always wanted to know the way she escaped from the pyramid. Then turns out there was a story about it with Putai and the amulet. This is what is missing to fully understand this situation.

As Von Croy found her bag, but her body wasn't there. He stopped looking at one point? This doesn't make sense and they never filled this part of the story.

Anyway, their dynamic was interesting. They were not enemies, but rivals. Remember that Lara stole the Iris from him. She warned him, she helped him escape from Cambodia. Maybe she felt that she deserves it, or she just did it for the lolz.

A dialogue from Chronicles.
Von Croy: No need. I know who the intruder is: Lara Croft.

Older man: Ah, your past once more comes back to haunt you, Werner, foolish boy. No matter, she will not escape. Place the building under full alert.

This backs it up. That they were rivals since Cambodia IMO.

pixelsunshine · 07-11-24, 00:40

What a fascinating post. Very well written! Thank you for compiling the Lara-Verner saga so beautifully!
I agree, killing off Jean would have made zero sense.

noonbob · 26-11-24, 12:32

This was very well done.

21-08-24, 21:00	#1
Jathom95 Member Joined: Jul 2020 Posts: 2,000	A Deep Dive into Lara's Anger and Resentment of Werner in AOD While discussing this topic recently in a number of other threads, I felt it was a good time to make a full thread dedicated to this particular point. THE INTRO When we begin with AOD, we see a very clearly exasperated Lara speaking with Werner. With this being their first real interaction, that we've been able to see, since the end of The Last Revelation, it comes as a bit of a surprise. Why is Lara so angry? What did Von Croy do that made her so upset during all that time? We start off with their conversation: Werner: "Help me Lara. I need you to get something for me." Lara: "Go on." Werner: "I'm tracking five Obscura Paintings for a client, called Eckhardt. But he is a psychopath." Lara: "Why should I care?" Werner: "Because I'm being stalked! People are dying out there!" Lara: "Handle it Werner!" Werner: "Lara, please. Look, go and see this woman. Carvier. She can help." Lara: "I'm going." Right out the gate, Lara is very abrasive and off-putting compared to where we've seen her prior. However, the biggest point of contention comes with what she says to Von Croy immediately after: Lara: "Egypt Werner. You walked away and left me." But, that doesn't sound quite right does it? Didn't we see Werner attempt to help Lara at the end of TR4? Why is she angry after he very clearly offered her his hand to escape? At first glance, this seems to be a huge plot hole. However, a closer inspection of the events preceding and up to this event presents a situation where it is actually possible to at least come to some sort of conclusion as to why exactly Lara would have been upset at Von Croy at all. LARA AND WERNER - A COMPLICATED HISTORY From the start, the whole time that Lara and Werner have known each other - there's no question that it has been a quite complicated history. Von Croy, being one of Lara's earliest inspirations for what she loves doing in the present - her mentor, undoubtedly was able to see greatness in her and her adventuring spirit, the same as his own. We see this in spades during the initial segments of the Cambodia expedition in the beginning of TR4. The interesting part, however, comes toward the end of all of this. After racing to the Iris, the "prize" they are both there for, Lara is understandably cautious about potential ancient trappings. She warns Von Croy, who immediately dismisses it as "ancient hocus pocus". After ignoring her warnings, and subsequently directing her to pull the lever to open the path to the Iris, Von Croy heads toward it, completely unfazed. After trying to claim it for himself, he sets off the very sort of trapping Lara had previously warned him about, culminating with his leg becoming trapped in the contraption. He screams out for Lara to help him, as at this point he's unable to free himself from the Iris' containment chamber. With the ruins quickly coming down around her however, Lara has no choice but to leave - the only other option being that they will both become caved in together. She clearly calls out, telling him she will return to free him - presumably with more help than just herself. That instance though, leaves a very interesting precedent behind later in Von Croy's case. The idea being - he actually resented* Lara for the state he ended up in thereafter, namely his leg being in such a state that it forced him to need a cane to stay mobile from there on. This is even caught upon and backed up by Lara herself, who specifically calls Von Croy out on it later, running into him again after obtaining the Amulet of Horus: Lara: "Always griping, Werner. If it's the leg causing all this resentment, I seem to remember that being down to your affinity with pulling hazardous levers."* That single statement really lends to the state of their relationship after the Cambodia expedition. What seems like cheeky banter at first glance actually points to a greater narrative - that they had grown distant after the events surrounding Cambodia, which subsequently led to them becoming rivals. Often pitting themselves against each other because they both had the same - in Von Croy's words - "craving to win." The same stubbornness, the same drive, the same fighting spirit. The events of TR4 as a whole when viewed together makes it quite clear how they'd grown apart in the years since. From the beginning of Lara's time in Egypt, she runs into all measure of opposition. Not least of all though, from Von Croy in the form of armed mercenaries being sent to kill her at every turn. He kidnaps her best friend, Jean-Yves, in an attempt to reclaim the Armor of Horus from her. Then, further on - we see the worst traits of Von Croy being manifested fully - through the possession of Seth through his own body. It becomes clear though that throughout all of this, Lara has been unable to trust Von Croy for quite a long time already. But where it all comes to a head is toward the end of their time together in Egypt. THE GREAT PYRAMID - THE AFTERMATH After narrowly escaping and re-sealing Seth, Lara finds herself broken and battered attempting to escape the pyramid. As she makes her way back to the entrance, the first face she sees - shining in the sun - is Von Croy's. We see her visibly smile. In that very moment, amid all she'd just went through, she was happy to see him. Just after, however, we see the pyramid begin to collapse around her. Lara begins remembering what she'd been through during this time with Von Croy, and it seems to make her unable to trust him in that moment. The justification here is in the very first thing she says to him before anything else: Lara: "You back, Werner? No more Seth?" - Obviously referring to his possession by Seth. Not knowing whether Von Croy was truly free of his grip just yet. Von Croy pleads with her to disregard all of that, and just take his hand. Lara uses the last of her strength to attempt to make it to Von Croy, but only musters enough to hold onto a ledge for a brief moment. Von Croy asks her to give him her hand one last time before the temple collapses. Their very last interaction together is significant, and paves the way for Lara's eventual resentment later. Lara: "Good to see you again, Werner." Werner: "I couldn't leave you!" The interesting thing about this is how such a small statement from each holds a much bigger meaning in reality. Let's start with Lara. Lara's statement to Werner is seemingly one of appreciation, of the fact that he was the one to show up after everything that had happened to help her. However, what Lara is actually referring to here is that with Werner now being free of Seth's possession, he was now truly his old self again - a fact she realizes too late. Her old mentor, the one who was with her all the way back at the start in Cambodia, was now here again. Them being rivals, the numerous attempts to kill her or reclaim things from her, none of that mattered in the moment. Werner, on the other hand, states very clearly that "he couldn't leave her." Von Croy, like Lara before him in Cambodia, couldn't leave her behind. His mind free from negative influence, he now realized what was truly important - helping Lara. But, with the pyramid now collapsing down around him, it puts him in a predicament, and a very poignant one at that. Von Croy is now forced to make the exact same call that Lara did in Cambodia, the roles now reversed. He realizes if he doesn't turn around and leave right now, they'll both perish. He knows Lara is a survivor and if she can only hold out long enough, he can come back later with help to free her. THE GRIPPING QUESTION - WHY WAS LARA UPSET WHEN WERNER TRIED TO HELP HER? The crux of this issue with this question is that the answer involves a lot, a lot, of reading between the lines. I believe it was deliberate, but I also believe it could have been stated a bit more plainly. Is the justification for it there, though? Ultimately, I'd say yes. The thing to conceptualize here is the fact that Lara, come AOD, is doing the exact same sort of rationalizing that Von Croy had post-Cambodia. It's meant to convey how both had the same bull-headedness blinding them to the actual events at hand. In Werner's case, it was the fact of his blame at the condition of his leg being Lara's "fault". In Lara's case, it was unquestionably the fact that she had nearly died in the Great Pyramid, and after freeing herself she became quite bitter over the fact that it nearly cost her her own life. In both cases, they know deep-down that the other didn't truly abandon them - they just cling to the fact that they were left alone regardless, and seemingly had to pull themselves from the clutches of a very destructive set of circumstances. What it boils down to for Lara, is that it was also her own fault that she was unable to escape in time. She was unable to bring herself to trust Von Croy, she had multiple attempts to let him help her, but she didn't. A fact she can't bring herself to admit she was at fault of - just as Von Croy did himself in Cambodia after ignoring Lara's repeated warnings, yet carrying through anyway. But here's the thing - she irrationally, albeit intently, only views the situation from the lens that he ultimately turned around to save himself in an act of preservation, no matter what the circumstance at hand involved. It didn't matter that the pyramid was literally seconds away from collapsing entirely, it didn't matter that Werner would have died alongside her if he'd stayed - it only mattered that he'd showed up to help her in one moment and then, in Lara's eyes, left her behind to save himself. Just like Von Croy did with his leg, that's what Lara clung to for years thereafter with her own life. ANGEL OF DARKNESS - THE END OF AN ERA OF RESENTMENT Now, finally - come AOD, we go back to the initial point. If Lara did in fact have reason, in her own mind, to be upset at Von Croy - Why didn't she relay that to him? Why didn't she admit these feelings had been festering for so long, so that he could acknowledge them and they could finally move forward. Only that seems to be the very issue both were struggling with - that neither of them could ever fully admit they had been wrong at various points, and what it resulted in was a very long and extended period of the two not communicating. Starting with Cambodia of course and for a long while after, but also after the events of Egypt. Lara felt betrayed. It's entirely clear from that perspective that after surviving, she had no desire to speak with or reconcile with Von Croy. And subsequently, that would also mean that she would have never known Von Croy had gone searching for her at all, if we're to believe she'd already made it out by herself. The idea is that the entire situation is supposed to be tragic. Werner had finally realized that Lara's life was more important to him than any artifact. He spent entire months, possibly years, on end trying to find her beneath the pyramid. He even ends up finding her backpack amid the ruins. But due to the situation he finds himself now in, with his life in danger, he now also needs Lara more than ever. When Lara meets with him, and the ensuing events happen - she finds herself in a new situation. Werner winds up dead and she can't remember how it happened. But, here's the thing. From the onset, even when it's not made clear how it was done, how it happened - what do we see Lara very clearly do? She picks up Von Croy in her arms, seemingly filled with remorse. And later on, it's made pretty evident that this was in fact remorse over him dying, period. Which leads into the largest factor here of why Lara was angry - she was bitter. She didn't want to admit she was in the wrong, and she'd allowed it to consume her all this time. When she finds Werner dead, this is immediately sealed by the fact that she drops, right then, absolutely any pretense she could have ever had of resenting him, or even hating him, over what had happened. She was angry, and it blinded her all that time. But she never wanted Von Croy to die. *And this is, unfortunately, what it took for her to finally realize it.* The secondary point of Angel of Darkness of a whole, beyond the overarching narrative, was about Lara discovering herself again. Her fighting spirit, but also what was truly important to her. That includes Von Croy. Her drive to find his murderer isn't fueled strictly by means of self-preservation. Why? Because from there on, when discussing her relationship to Von Croy himself, what does she refer to him as? "I'm trying to track down a friend's* movements." "You helped a friend of mine a while back. Werner Von Croy." "Too many people have died for me to trust you. Including a good friend. Von Croy." And that in itself points to the most important point of all. That she was finally able to let go. After all that time of holding on to a pointless and irrational grudge toward Von Croy over what happened - she forgives him. She moves on. And views him now as a dear friend, even in death. While undoubtedly she is fully aware she's now unable to make things up with him personally, it's quite easy to reconcile that he was never truly angry with her either and only wanted her to see to reason. The way he speaks to her at the beginning very much lends itself to this point. Also to the above point, consider one event in particular later on in AOD. After we discover Eckhardt/Karel was the one who actually killed Von Croy. He speaks to him right before he kills him: Eckhardt/Karel: "Von Croy. You've located the Painting for me. Why have you not delivered it?" Werner: "I daren't collect it. It's too dangerous. But she'll be able to." At first, that may seem a bit like Werner attempting to throw Lara under the bus, so to speak. If it's too dangerous for him, why is he essentially throwing it off on her when the very person he's afraid of is now right in front of him, ready to kill him? Here's the thing - Von Croy knows he's going to die. But, he's now in a situation where he's able to save Lara's life at the cost of his own, where he couldn't before. By telling whom he believes to be Eckhardt that Lara will be able to retrieve the thing that Eckhardt desires most, he's ensuring she'll survive and knows she'll be able to succeed where he failed.* As for why Lara herself was able to move on so quickly - I've always understood the very complicated history between the two as being just that - complicated. That is - they never, at any point in time, truly hated each other despite what they might have told themselves. Deep down, Werner was always Lara's mentor and Lara his protege, and both very obviously deeply cared about each other despite appearances. JEAN-YVES VS VON CROY This is something in closing I wanted to bring up, since it's very much a point of contention with this particular plot point. For those not in the know, originally in AOD's early development - Jean-Yves, Lara's best friend in TR4, was planned to be the one who would wind up being killed in the intro of AOD, seemingly pushing the plot forward just the same. It has been discussed by many that this would have potentially made much more sense at face value, with Jean not being around himself for the epilogue of The Last Revelation, where he never even makes an appearance after the Citadel or thereafter. Lending to the idea that Lara was supposedly abandoned by him. However, in practice, this doesn't work at all. For starters, Jean is in even less of a spot to be fueled by embitterment from Lara's perspective. The key point here is that the very last time Lara even speaks with him, is after freeing him from being tied up in the Citadel. And this is specifically what she says to him: Jean: "Thank God you made it! Von Croy... I saw it myself. I would not have believed such a thing. He is possessed of Seth!" Lara: "Get out of here, Jean. I have a feeling things may turn nasty." Jean: "...Be careful Lara. I fear there are things in the vaults man was not meant to see." Lara: "I am not a man, Jean, and I am always very, very careful." That's it. Lara's very last conversation with him is very cordial, one that has her in fact telling him to bluntly get the hell out of Dodge. She wants him to get to safety, because he's her friend and is no survivalist like her or Von Croy. There's also the point of Charles Kane, from Chronicles, as a replacement for Jean's character after the issues surrounding his inclusion in TR4. It was very obvious come Chronicles that this was the entire purpose of his creation, even being referred to as an old friend of Lara. So it begs the question, why wasn't he considered for being the one to kick off AOD's plot, being killed? The most obvious answer here is one that can be reached fairly easily - his death would have had little to no actual weight for new or returning players, having barely a single game to scantly characterize him at all, and only through narrative-based cutscenes at that. The point of someone dying at the beginning, other than shock value, was to drive the narrative forward. Why did this happen, how did it happen, and most importantly - who did it? The last question is significant, and the sole reason I believe that Von Croy ultimately ended up being the correct choice despite appearances suggesting otherwise. Jean would have provided no reasonable guess as to why Lara would have potentially wanted to kill him, from the player's perspective, at the beginning of the game. By all accounts, they were on entirely good terms compared to where she and Von Croy had been during all this time. Making it a pretty huge stretch that she would have been angry enough at him in any capacity to warrant killing her supposed best friend. From the beginning, AOD was also designed as a murder-mystery narrative. Shaping the thread from the beginning that Lara may have potentially killed Werner rather than someone else is interesting because of their complicated history. When you thread all of the pieces together, it is surely a tangled web - but one that is infinitely more interesting because of how complex it is. And that is why I feel they deliberately went with Von Croy instead. His factoring in as the one who would be killed had been decided as early as AOD's early planning period in 2000, this was not a decision made overnight or a last minute inclusion. And while I do think it could have possibly be spelled out more plainly and not leave so much up to players to interpret through subtext, I do think - in light of everything above - that the right choice was made in the end. CLOSING I really hope you've enjoyed this read! I've been wanting to fully write this out for a while now and finally had the spark to do so. Thanks so much for checking it out. Last edited by Jathom95; 25-08-24 at 20:55.

24-08-24, 12:54	#2
omerocoti Member Joined: Nov 2014 Posts: 1,732	I enjoyed reading it No story in TR, or even in any other game, will ever surpass the plot of AOD. It's epic and unique.

24-08-24, 16:54	#3
FreakRaider Member Joined: May 2011 Posts: 3,882	This is so ****ing epic and lowkey made me emotional LOL good analysis and well written!

10-09-24, 19:01	#4
Tommy123 Member Joined: Jan 2009 Posts: 15,064	I just realized how Lara's anger to Werner for leaving her buried is similar to Amanda's character arc in LAU. This is a great analysis of Lara, Werner, and the plot of AOD. Werner and Lara are two flawed characters and through the writing of AOD and TR4 they are able to turn those flaws into a complicated but overall compelling relationship. They were both very much alike in the end. Maybe Werner's death also symbolized Lara letting go of who she once was, which is fitting considering the themes of AOD and where the series wanted to go.

11-09-24, 13:44	#5
rewak Member Joined: Jul 2003 Posts: 4,898	On the Jean-Yves thing, you're assuming the opening cutscene would have played exactly the same just with Jean instead of Werner but I don't think that would have been the case. Remember Jean was cut very late into Chronicles development, to the point where he was still in the FMVs with just weeks to go. AoD was in development at the same time and the teaser included with Chronicles gives a different vibe, so does the included concept art, so things were still fresh at that point. If Jean would have been included in Chronicles he would have been in just as many games as Werner, so there wasn't a stronger connection to one or the other for fans. In the novel Amulet of Power, the one that's meant to fill in the gap between TLR and AoD, the end of that novel is Lara in Paris reading a newspaper article talking about Werner being in town. She's happy about it, she plans to go see him and take him out for dinner even. Now these novels are shaky on the canon, but they were written with the intention of being canon to fill in the gap between games. This bit never made sense though, unless it was meant to be Jean. I'm betting the original take was Lara taking Jean out for dinner, then going back to his apartment for a drink or something, possibly for him to tell her he was in Paris to research the Obscura Paintings, and him being killed in much the same way Werner was. Having just been seen out in public with him that connects Lara to his murder and then we're in the game. I do think the intro works better with Werner for all the reasons you said, but I don't think it was rewritten in a way that properly conveyed everything you said, possibly because it was a hasty rewrite to drop Jean since they legally weren't allowed to include him anymore during a very tough development where things were being chopped and changed everywhere. I do think that maybe at some point Werner would have been brought up and maybe was even planned to show up later in AoD or in the trilogy for some resolution to that side of the TLR story. Him being in the cutscene we have with Putai showing him trying to save Lara kind of hints to this for me, because how does that scene make sense with him trying to save her when she says he walked away and left her? I dunno, AoD is a big web we may never untangle

14-10-24, 10:56	#7
Scure Member Joined: Feb 2024 Posts: 17	I always wanted to know the way she escaped from the pyramid. Then turns out there was a story about it with Putai and the amulet. This is what is missing to fully understand this situation. As Von Croy found her bag, but her body wasn't there. He stopped looking at one point? This doesn't make sense and they never filled this part of the story. Anyway, their dynamic was interesting. They were not enemies, but rivals. Remember that Lara stole the Iris from him. She warned him, she helped him escape from Cambodia. Maybe she felt that she deserves it, or she just did it for the lolz. A dialogue from Chronicles. Von Croy: No need. I know who the intruder is: Lara Croft. Older man: Ah, your past once more comes back to haunt you, Werner, foolish boy. No matter, she will not escape. Place the building under full alert. This backs it up. That they were rivals since Cambodia IMO.

07-11-24, 00:40	#8
pixelsunshine Member Joined: May 2017 Posts: 221	What a fascinating post. Very well written! Thank you for compiling the Lara-Verner saga so beautifully! I agree, killing off Jean would have made zero sense.

26-11-24, 12:32	#9
noonbob Member Joined: Apr 2008 Posts: 3,703	This was very well done.