Lara Croft was an anti hero

[LaraFan08]

Originally Posted by jajay119

I don't have an issue with Lara being painted as a hero. The problem is in the reboot trilogy it's so in your face and dull. I'd much rather it be done subtly like previously.

For me it’s still not ideal, especially when the current games are M rated and they can go places with the story that they couldn’t before, however I’m more interested in seeing Lara actually enjoy the things she does, and doing them because she wants to. If she has to be a hero, then like you said, I would want for it to be done with subtlety instead of them hammering us over the head with it.

Originally Posted by _Seth

That is definitely not the case. In the first Jolie film, her primary motivation is to find another life with Daddy, whereby she even works with the villain, Powell, to make this happen. Not at all heroic. Then in Cradle of Life, Lara only shows an interest in helping MI6 when she figures out this is an opportunity to find Pandora's Box, which is her field. Still not heroic.

In the first film Lara is initially motivated by a letter her father sends her telling her to destroy the triangle. She does accept Powell’s proposal to join forces and use it to revive Richard, however, in the end she withhold’s the solution to restoring the triangle from him and only activates it after Powell has given her an additional motivation by murdering her love interest. Then, once she actually has the triangle, despite being tempted, she listens to her father and destroys it, only using it to revive Alex. The ending really isn’t even that different from Shadow’s if we’re being honest.

Then in the end of the second film, Lara kills the man she loves to stop him from taking the box and misusing it, and then allows it to sink into a tar pit so that it can never be found or used by anyone. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the second film, so maybe you’re right, and her motivation in that film wasn’t heroic and was to find the box above all else, however, the ending still shows her in a heroic light.

Never once in either film does Lara ever do anything morally questionable, and even when tempted, she still does the right thing.

[Mani_Man]

Originally Posted by jajay119

I don't have an issue with Lara being painted as a hero. The problem is in the reboot trilogy it's so in your face and dull. I'd much rather it be done subtly like previously.

Tomb Raider may be a lot, but subtly is not one of those things.
I mean in the first 10 minutes of the game they are as subtly as a brick to the face.
Be it they way they introduce lara croft or the fact that you can tell after her first sentence that natla will stab you in the back.

Video games have a hard time being subtly and least of all games from the 90s.
But the 2000s are also not that talented it seems when you look at how they hammer the whole "lara is a survivor" so we need to throw her off that thing, have her get hit with this thing etc.

Subtly is not what tomb raider is...which isnt even a problem.
I dont in general get why this fandom is so hellbent on putting "unique" labels onto tomb raider.

So she is technicly a hero...big deal.
So the games arent really subtly...big deal.
Thing is that you can not be truly "unique" anymore in terms of a foundation.
Pretty much everything has been done, better or worse, more or less subtly etc.
Its not about being this or that, it is being entertaining as hell at this or that.

[jajay119]

I'm so tired of the 'It was the 90s so it OBVIOUSLY wasn't as good as now' argument. It's so tired. You cannot compare then to now. You have to compare impact at the time to impact now. It's the only fair way. This thread is chock full of discussion over different people's interpretation of Lara, her motivations and her perception as a hero, anti hero or villain as no one can definitively decide due to the ambiguity of it. So, yes it was more subtle previously. Yes, it is such a problem that in the reboot trilogy, an era whose main selling point was character progression, character growth and story telling, is so in your face about everything to the point where it actually destroys the story they're telling.

[LaraFan08]

I agree with Jay, the classic games were more subtle than the reboot ones, and that isn’t me trying to make them more unique, subtlety itself isn’t unique, I just think that the classic games more simplistic narrative and lack of a real viewpoint with regards to Lara’s character have made multiple interpretations of Lara possible, something that isn’t possible with the reboot, although I don’t think that’s the cause of the reboot’s failing. In my opinion the reboot games don’t just fail because of the lack of subtlety, they fail because the story is fragmented across different mediums, and several ideas aren’t being used to their fullest potential.

I would argue that everything that can make for an interesting and somewhat faithful interpretation of Lara, is already in the reboot. She uses cheeky one liners on her adversaries, and expresses enjoyment towards adventure and violence, just mostly in the comics. She shows signs of mental trauma and PTSD, but only in the comics and some DLC. She seems obsessed with her goals, and views them through tunnel vision, just mostly in the games.
She even has some of the visual elements that numerous fans are begging for like the shorts, the sun glasses and the backpack, but only occasionally in the comics. There are even aspects of the games that if developed properly, could have made for an unambiguously antiheroic Lara. Take for instance, the backstory of the solari, the way they were tortured and forced to eat each other to survive in many ways makes them just as much victims of Mathias as the endurance crew, what if Lara were to recognize this after exploring the caverns and started to question her own actions? Rise also does something similar, having members of Trinity talk about their families over audio logs, what if this instead happened in the actual story itself and affected Lara?

Likewise, many things that could make for a compelling origin story for Lara are also there, but they’re equally fragmented and harmed by a lack of direction. We get to play through a rebooted version of the Himalayan plane crash incident, except instead it’s a shipwreck on a supernatural island where Lara is exposed to a variety of different hostile environments and weather patterns, perfect for preparing her for the terrain she would be exploring on her adventures. We see her make her first kill, develop confidence and even dual wield pistols for the first time, but not just any pistols, her mentor’s pistols that he used to protect her before dying, and that she used to avenge him, taking the character’s most iconic visual element and giving it context within the story. Unfortunately that confidence is largely relegated to the comics, and the pistols setup has yet to be used, making it out to be an elaborate example of fan service and nothing more. The legal battle between Lara and her uncle over the Croft estate from the Legend backstory, is told, but only in the comics and the Blood Ties DLC. Lara develops her acrobatic and melee combat skills, but only in the comics, not in the games themselves. We see Lara enter the public eye and become a controversial figure through the tabloids in Rise, but it doesn’t really develop beyond that.

All of this together would have made for a great story and an interesting Lara, subtle antihero or not, but it’s like the devs are reluctant to capitalize on any of it, I suspect that upper management meddling is to blame, which is a shame, as there are some really great ideas here.