The Violence against Lara Croft in Tomb Raider 2013

[Evonisia]

So I was skimming through this thread: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.859697-Is-it-time-for-feminists-to-step-off-our-hobby?page=1

And while I don't really want to put my thoughts into that thread, I did stumble upon a post that I quite liked.

-Is seeing Lara Croft die in the wildnerness more difficult for anyone because seeing a female protagonist die unflinchingly is rare in popular media outside of horror films? Is it because she is female or is it because we are attached to her so much as the hero we control?

In Tomb Raider 2013, so much emphasis was put on Lara Croft growing into the character she is in the future games and probably the biggest way they did this was by inflicting huge amounts of physical pain and violent acts on her.

Which brings me back to The Scrivener's question:

Is it because she is female or is it because we are attached to her so much as the hero we control?

I remember somebody (I think it was Yahtzee) bringing up that in the Uncharted games Nathan Drake gets the shit beat out of him. Our male protagonist gets all this violence done to him but it's either ignored, not focused on or sometimes played for laughs as he makes grunts of exertion. The player really isn't supposed to care that Nathan Drake has been beaten and bruised.

When we change the character to a woman, suddenly this violence and her ability to overcome it is her defining characteristic when the gameplay and story are very similar to the aforementioned Uncharted. We're supposed to acknowledge the pain, and the developers went out of their way to have a minute's worth of gameplay of her limping or a cutscene to show her covering and repairing her wounds. Many of the QTE deaths are brutal and have five second cutscenes dedicated to showing her struggle to hold on but dying anyway.

Lara's personality before all the violence isn't all too different from Nathan Drake's (in fact the pre-disaster story has that same Indiana Jones style of adventure seeking about it), yet we're supposed to care when she gets hurt but not take note when Nathan Drake falls off a piece of ruins for the fiftieth time that week?

To answer the first question of The Scrivener's post, I didn't personally find it more difficult to watch or play when Lara Croft died so horribly, but I was unable to think anything other than "why is so much emphasis being put on this?".

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I think Crystal Dynamics went about Lara's character arc wrong (at least gameplay-wise). Just showing Lara get injured/killed doesn't make me any more attached to her. Ellie from TLOU is done much much better, the gameplay sections as Ellie did everything that Tomb Raider was trying to do with Lara. I think the comparisons to Uncharted and Drake aren't very valid. Uncharted's tone is way different, it's a fun action adventure popcorn type tone and seeing the hero (guy or girl) get beat up isn't supposed to really do anything than raise the stakes. Tomb Raider tries to show Lara growing into the Lara we've known all this time but really only spends maybe 10% of the whole game doing that and some of it does work, but the game quickly becomes much like Uncharted in tone that you totally even forget Lara is not a badass killing machine because she is a badass killing machine (so her getting hurt doesn't really do much).

Tomb Raider would've benefited a lot more from being more like TLOU to where you can't use good weapons pretty much all the time, you have to scrap your way through enemy encounters. And, it should've been more like the older Tomb Raiders with more puzzles so Lara could use her brains instead of her brawn. Basically, a combination of TLOU's combat with the older Tomb Raiders' puzzles would've been a great blend.

 

[votemarvel]

It's a simple fact that most people will care more about violence against women.

The question goes to both genders here. You see a man getting attacked by two people and a woman by a single person. On your first instinct, who do you go to help?

I'm willing to bet that 99% of you are going to run toward the woman.

The violence inflicted on Lara is no worse than is given to any male protagonist in games, but it's so ingrained in society that the men are meant to be the more capable that we can't help but feel that violence against women is inherently worse.

 

[senordesol]

I'm trying to think of a scenario where the stuff that happens to Lara would happen to a guy and I wouldn't flinch.

I mean where Isaac gets his limbs ripped off in Dead Space...that wasn't comfortable to watch. Then there was that one time where Lee got his guts ripped out in The Walking Dead and I grimaced a bit at that as well.

I think pretty much any gruesome death (and a lot of TR deaths are pretty gruesome) would at least give me pause.

EDIT: RE: Nathan Drake, I take it that he accepts getting 'beaten up' as an acceptable risk for his lifestyle. With the TR reboot, it's not like Lara really chose to be thrust into the situation he's in, nor is she an experienced rough-and-tumble adventurer.

I haven't played Uncharted, so I don't know how Nathan handles getting beat up, but from what little I know about him; I'd assume he'd have the same sort of attitude as Indy getting beat up; a 'that all you got?' stance.

It's not as harrowing if you're used to it.

 

[Vault101]

I thought it was hilarious

I mean first its a stick, and then the stagnant water and then the swim through the river of blood...oh and getting punched a lot in the face before that

was it maybe a bit excessive? yes..BUT I get what they were going for, this was suppose to be a struggle and a struggle we god, we were meant to feel like an underdog

and I admit I can have a sadistic streak in regards to fictional characters

The violence inflicted on Lara is no worse than is given to any male protagonist in games, but it's so ingrained in society that the men are meant to be the more capable that we can't help but feel that violence against women is inherently worse.

I don't know...the game really seemed to be reveling in it

QTE deaths are brutal and have five second cutscenes dedicated to showing her struggle to hold on but dying anyway.

Lara's personality before all the violence isn't all too different from Nathan Drake's (in fact the pre-disaster story has that same Indiana Jones style of adventure seeking about it), yet we're supposed to care when she gets hurt but not take note when Nathan Drake falls off a piece of ruins for the fiftieth time that week?
?

I think its to do with tone and the graphicness of it.....Lara seemed to suffer more Drake ever did, even if it was only because it was given more focus (again tone)

[sub/]though if Nathan suffered more I might have liked the Uncharted games better....got I hate that smug Jerk[/sub]

It's pretty cringe worthy to watch, but no more cringe worthy than Issac Clarke in Dead Space 2 getting ripped limb from limb. Though I have to roll my eyes a bit at how she manages to get thrown around like a rag doll every five minutes. I mean fucking Christ, she's in danger, she's in pain, I GET IT game.

after she suffers an injury that via cutscenes were led to belive is pretty serious....she wades through stagnat water

I was like [I/]Lara? what u doin? LARA STAHP![/I]

 

[Erttheking]

It's pretty cringe worthy to watch, but no more cringe worthy than Issac Clarke in Dead Space 2 getting ripped limb from limb. Though I have to roll my eyes a bit at how she manages to get thrown around like a rag doll every five minutes. I mean fucking Christ, she's in danger, she's in pain, I GET IT game.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

You have to consider, most if not all of the violence in Tomb Raider was more intense than Uncharted's PG-13 rating would allow. I'm specifically thinking of the rapids death and cauterizing yourself after getting shot in Tomb Raider 2013.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I think the difference betwen Drake and Croft is not what is done to them, but how they react. Drake's kind of just a rough and tumble guy - its terrible whats happening to him, but his response is basically just 'typical' for action guys. He's not a victim, he's a just a 'hero' on the wrong side of the punches for a minute.

Croft freaks the hell out. She cries. She's terrified. During early scenes where she is doing impressive actiony things, she still sobbing and begging for people to leave her the hell alone. She's very clearly a victim, even when she's fighting back. That change's over the course of the game though, but the beginning of the game is where it hits you the most.

Do we care more because she's a woman though? Probably. Is it sexist? Not consciously. There have been multiple studies that found that people (Particularly men) just care more about females, especially in a crisis. I'm not sure how you can change that though.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I was kind of impressed by the gruesomeness of some of the death scenes. They'd make me flinch no matter who it was, but generally women die much prettier than getting impaled through the head. There was no treating her with kid gloves because she was a female character.

Now, we routinely see, and inflict, gruesome deaths in video games, but generally against men. In other media, it's also common that the more gruesome or graphic deaths happen to men, except in horror films of a certain nature(these are generally not major developments like Tomb Raider was). Think of the most graphic deaths in major motion pictures. I can't think of too many women there. The one from Aliens comes to mind, Ms. Kill Me.

How I suspended disbelief might have had to do with how I played the game. First, I was focusing a bit on trying to take out as many enemies as possible without raising the alarm. I was trying to be stealthy, and to a degree, the game encouraged this. I was also playing as a completionist, so I got upgraded weapons relatively quickly. As the game wore on, I saw less opportunities or necessities for stealth and started being a bit more gung ho about how I approached situations.

 

[Malpraxis]

People are trained to have knee jerk reactions towards violence against women. That's a good thing.
They exploited that a bit in the game for marketing purposes, that's a bad thing.

Heck, just look at the times Max Payne has the crap beaten outta him through the series. It also defined his character, and nobody raised an eyebrow.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The violence inflicted on Lara is no worse than is given to any male protagonist in games, but it's so ingrained in society that the men are meant to be the more capable that we can't help but feel that violence against women is inherently worse.

Caring more about women and children is a priori biological imperative. I wouldn't rush to attribute it to "society".

I remember somebody (I think it was Yahtzee) bringing up that in the Uncharted games Nathan Drake gets the shit beat out of him. Our male protagonist gets all this violence done to him but it's either ignored, not focused on or sometimes played for laughs as he makes grunts of exertion. The player really isn't supposed to care that Nathan Drake has been beaten and bruised.

I can't speak to Uncharted, but I know one of the reasons Die Hard was considered a watershed movie for the action genre was it humanized the protagonist. Instead of being a heavily muscled, unstoppable killing machine, he was a regular joe. A flesh and blood guy who bled, got tired, felt fear and pain, and never seemed to be in control of events around him. I think it's generally just good writing to have a vulnerable hero, be they male or female. Without vulnerability there can be no dramatic tension.

 

[votemarvel]

I don't know...the game really seemed to be reveling in it

it is any worse than say what Marcus Fenix gets in any of the Gears of War games though?

Caring more about women and children is a priori biological imperative. I wouldn't rush to attribute it to "society".

Woman attacks her male partner with a knife, he punches her to defend himself. There is shock and the thought that he should have been able to stop her without hitting her.

Man attacks his female partner with a knife, she punches him to defend herself. There are cries of "you go girl."

The same situation but with roles reversed. Can you honestly say you've never thought something like that when reading about similar situations in the paper or seeing it on TV?

Biology certainly plays a part but it isn't the sole driving force any longer.

 

[Vault101]

.

I'm going to say yes...not in terms of what "actually" happens but in terms of how its presented and how we the audience see it

its kind of like how someone can getting "beaten up" can feel VERY different when it happnes in a G-rated movie as opposed to an R rated movie, even though they are essentially the same thing

like I said before [i/]tone[/i]

 

[votemarvel]

But the tone completely fits what happens to Lara, just as the tone of Gears fits what happens to Marcus.

She's fighting for her life on an island filled with mad-men and death traps, junk and the debris of decades scattered everywhere, all ruled over by the spirit of a queen who should have moved on centuries ago.

And people find it shocking that she has the potential to die in a variety of horrible ways?

So despite the tone being spot on, why are people shocked? Would they really be if it were Nathan Drake dying in the exact same ways?

 

[Thanatos5150]

It's a simple fact that most people will care more about violence against women.

The question goes to both genders here. You see a man getting attacked by two people and a woman by a single person. On your first instinct, who do you go to help?

I'm willing to bet that 99% of you are going to run toward the woman.

You are severly misinterpretting the reason I'd run to the woman first, though.
Its one guy. One. There is no numerical advantage, and my simple presence might cause the attacker to beat feet. It's the fight I have the better chance of winning, full stop.
After that dust-up is handled, I can then move on to the riskier proposition. Cold Calculus, not sexism.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The differene being that Nathan never gets gruesomely impaled, or crushed. Staying within the Indiana Jones mindset, the violence he receives is much "cleaner" and more slapstick.

Even if Lara was a dude, the amount of violence inflicted would still be ridiculous. Just as the amount of times Lara would touch anything and it would create a landslide or a building to collapse. Seriously, she doesn't traverse anywhere by her own skill; She merely inexplicably breaks something which causes her to fall down a pitt, wash down some rapids, land in a plane wreckage, crash through the cockpit, and parachute miles through a forrest. Good thing that whole snowballing fuck-up still got you where you needed to be, ey?

Uncharted plays the over-the-top setpiece moments for laughs as much as for thrills, while Tomb Raider plays all of it dead serious.

 

[mecegirl]

I think its hard to compare the new Lara game to the Drake games in this respect. The tone was really different and the level of violence between game to game was different as well. So no, this wasn't an instance where people felt bad just because Lara was female. They really tore her up, and on top of that, in certain parts her a "proper" walk cycle of a person who was beaten up.

It didn't help that in the beginning logic bells were going off after she started wading through stagnate water with those open wounds...good lord she really should have gotten a nasty infection after that.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

It's a simple fact that most people will care more about violence against women.

The question goes to both genders here. You see a man getting attacked by two people and a woman by a single person. On your first instinct, who do you go to help?

I'm willing to bet that 99% of you are going to run toward the woman.

You are severly misinterpretting the reason I'd run to the woman first, though.
Its one guy. One. There is no numerical advantage, and my simple presence might cause the attacker to beat feet. It's the fight I have the better chance of winning, full stop.
After that dust-up is handled, I can then move on to the riskier proposition. Cold Calculus, not sexism.

Haha, that was my first thought as well. Well, after the thoughts of friends and known people first, if I saw them getting attacked, I would see is who is more likely to survive. If the attackers are real danger, and for some reason I don't run away I go to the woman first. If they were just bullies or such, it'd be to the man first to help even the odds, hoping the woman doesn't get too roughed up in the time it takes to deal with the first situation and go downtown on the last attacker.

It's all about the odds, not the fact that it is woman protect the baby maker zug zug.

 

[Lieju]

I thought it was hilarious

Yeah, me too.
At first I went 'eww' at some of the more gruesome deaths (which would have been my reaction even if she was a man), but it happened enough it just became silly and divorced from gameplay.

She gets stabbed through the abdomen and just walks it off.

She feels cold but makes no attempt to steal a jacket from any of the hundred murderers she's killed.

It just became silly.


As for violence against women in video-games, the problem I tend to have with it is that since those female characters tend to also be sexualised, it becomes sexualised violence.
And I get the creepy feeling the game wants me to get off on brutalizing women.

That infamous nun-trailer from Hitman is a prime example.
The women are first sexualized, both in their outfits and camera-angles, and then beaten up.