Tomb Raider writer expressed an interest in making Lara gay?

[AWAR]

I think it would have the opposite effect. Instead of making her less vulnerable there would just be female on female eye-candy for the male audience. It would also enforce stereotypes. I mean lesbians are always less vulnerable and emotionally stronger than straight women?
If Nathan Drake was gay, I wouldn't have any problems really. Marcus Phoenix too.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Yep, enforcing stereotypes, playing the sex card, candy for the masses.

 

[Mangod]

"Because as we all know, strong, independent, female protagonists all munch more carpet than a malfunctioning vacuumcleaner."

- Ben "Yathzee" Croshaw.

 

[Auron]

Why the fuck would that be relevant at all?

 

[feauxx]

Though I would love to see more gay men and women in games I doubt miss lara is the right character to do that with. She was created to pander to a male demographic and I fear making her a lesbian will just be more pandering.. in the same way that 99.9% of lesbian porn is also only interesting to men, cause it's made for men, by men. A romantic friendship would be sweet but really I wish she would fall in love with a man, one that is respectful to her and she chooses to be with. It will get rid of the 'she belongs to the player' yuckiness.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Have any actual lesbians (or queer people at all) chimed into this conversation? Cause this seems kind of a tepid circle jerk right now

Okay.

I don't see why anyone gives a fuck. My sexuality is unimportant. It's one particular part of my identity that in no way defines who I am as a person. There are other, much more important aspects of my personality that's more interesting to talk about.

If Lara were gay I'd just say, "that's nice and everything, but what about the years of therapy she's going to need after becoming a mass murderer?"

But this matters to the rest of you because...idk? People treat queers differently and writers want to be progressive and show we're normal people like everyone else or some deep shit like that?

In any case, I'm black too. So lets connect this last part up with something else.

A controversy that was going on when Thor released was that a black actor was playing a Norse(ie white) character from the comics. To me personally, this was just sort of stupid. And stupid in such a way it was jarring.

I guess how I feel about it is, race, sexuality, and gender are inconsequential. But if you feel like you have to be progressive, don't try to do it with established characters.

(That rant went on for way longer than it needed to)

 

[Shadowstar38]

Edit:

Why the fuck would that be relevant at all?

Or this. Why didn't I just say this to begin with?!

 

[m19]

Not in the original series.

She wouldn't be anywhere if it wasn't how they saw her. Even in this new game it's fairly obvious through the character diaries despite not being stamped on somebody's forehead. But yes it can easily be explained away, however it'll be so transparent that they've changed it retroactively.

 

[tzimize]

This does't surprise me at all, Sam does seem to be a little obsessed with Lara and out of all her friends that Lara takes to the island, Sam does seem to be her main concern.

I kinda like it that way, maybe there is something there, maybe they're just really close friends. But if they had just made Lara gay, it wouldn't of bothered me. Though I imagine that some fanboy/girl somewhere would have been upset about it.

This fell into my mind as well and

SPOILERS

At the end when she carried her down from the mountain I was positive they were gonna kiss ^^

Honestly I would find it kinda cool if she was. Hell, the mental image of the collective male geek fandom going NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO would be reason enough to support it tbh ^^

 

[Treblaine]

The thing is straight female protagonists are as much, if not more, of a minority than lesbian ones. I think I would feel really really deprived as a straight female gamer if she was made to be gay.

Frankly I think representation in video games goes Straight guy, lesbian, straight women, gay guy.

There are so many games where the female character can have a relationship or flirt with female npcs just on the basis that they didn't change the dialogue from a male. In those games the men almost always treat you like you fell out the ugly tree. That's not even counting actual lesbian characters.

How many games can you list where a straight female protagonist has an on screen relationship with a male outside Bioware games (where again there is almost always less choice for straight women). I don't think I can think of any...maybe Jennifer out of Primal? Obscure ps1 game :S and even then you just see her bf briefly at the end.

I don't think there is much to support that.

Not that straight characters are represented more, but that the character's represented have completely unknown and unknowable sexual preference.

Lack of depiction of heterosexual relationships does not mean presence of homosexual relationships

It's a massive question-mark and more than that, irrelevant to their character as established in then narrative told.

It's not that they are asexual (very rare) but that simply characters only exist within the narrative they are depicted, and in that their sexuality is irrelevant.

We have never seen Claire Redfield in any romantic entrapment, to spite the many games she's been in we are in no position to make assumptions about the sexual preference of that character. Probably because she's starred in games where there is the near constant threat of monsters and other hazards, it's hardly any opportunity for romance to bloom.

I mean we don't actually know if Leon S Kennedy is heterosexual or homosexual, it's just never covered.

And so is true for so many video games as the narrative has not been driven by interrelationships between different gendered characters. The few times close bonds really are formed it's in an all male military unit. But even then, just like you can't assume Marcus and Dom of Gears of War are gay lovers because they care so much about each other and seem to be "on the same wavelength" you can't do that for other in-game relationships.

RPGs are a bit different, I don't think you can take scripting errors as "de facto lesbian depictions". Any more than you can take examples such as "Watson ejaculated out of the window to get Holmes' attention" as sexual. That's not sexual, that's from how at the time "Ejaculate" could mean "yell out" but there has been an inadvertent change that left an impression the author had not intended.

Such RPGs have such a mass of dialogue that just seems to be shovelled in it's hard to confer a distinct depiction.

Looking at more structured works you'll find relationships are kept even simpler than that. It's far more likely a fundamental relationship like familial (save my father/sibling/daughter) or patriotic (save King, President) than romantic. Anita Sarkeesian really had to spread her net very wide to find even a single example of "gotta save my girlfriend" as a plot motivation, as far back as the 8-bit era where there was all of 7 seconds of moving 2D pixel-collage without voice to establish the plot.

 

[Seydaman]

Don't think it'd change much, as I recall her sexuality was never mentioned anyway, so she may well be gay. Atleast in our own minds...

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Firstly I'd like to say I'm not homophobic at all (it seems kind of a low blow you would say that). I have just always identified with Lara since the first game came out. I identify with Rainbow Dash too and guess what people say about her. I just always feel like straight women are relegated to being a meek damsel and the minute you show any sort of backbone, well you must like girls.

It's depressing.

RPGs are a bit different, I don't think you can take scripting errors as "de facto lesbian depictions".

That's not the kind of text error I mean, what I mean is games like Kingdoms of Amalur where a lot of female npc's flirt with you just because they couldn't be arsed to change the text. In that game you are even implied to have been in a relationship with the major female npc... The games that I can think of where this also happens in Fallout 2, Vampire the masquerade, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 3, Skyrim (although at least you can marry blokes), Arcanum even in Recettear the girls flirt with each other constantly. I'm not trying to argue this was put in intentionally for lesbian gamers but they can still enjoy it not to mention the fact I'm sure they enjoy all the cheesecake that's there for the blokes... . Meanwhile the men treat you like chopped liver.

The effect is described pretty well in this article. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9024-The-Accidental-Lesbian

(As for Sarkeesian pretty sure that was only the first part of her damsel study :/)

I would still love Lara if she was gay, but I'd identify less with her.

 

[Treblaine]

Not in the original series.

She wouldn't be anywhere if it wasn't how they saw her. Even in this new game it's fairly obvious through the character diaries despite not being stamped on somebody's forehead. But yes it can easily be explained away, however it'll be so transparent that they've changed it retroactively.

Remember I said that in response to "Lara Croft has only ever been straight".

It doesn't matter how people see her, the fact is her romantic preference for one gender or the other has never been an aspect explored. And the only way people could have seen Lara in the first decade and a half of her depiction would be purely as a lone adventurer, the ONLY people she cares about are women. Anaya in Legend, then

Look at this cutscene from time 01:01 on the clock:


He's quite flirtatious and she's pretty damn cold in return, a brutal shutdown to any advances. She doesn't even flirt back with him playfully to the effect of "oh I bet you want me, but you're not good enough", but rather "I'll kill you like I killed that wild animal".

And that's the closest we get to romance in Tomb Raider, Lara Croft reacting threateningly and coldly to flirting from a guy. Then fast forward to how she reacts to Natla at 1:35 on the clock:

"I'm afraid you've been mislead... I only play for sport"

Suddenly less defensive, much more playful. You could get all Freudian with how she leans on her hand with a raised finger...

In a second her attitude completely changes from talking to a flirtatious man to talking to a woman.

Again, you can't really conclude anything from this. This doesn't unequivocally prove Lara's depiction is as lesbian, but if you were going to make extrapolative inferences, which way would that reasonably be going? You can hardly act shocked if it turns out she did have a thing for gals rather than blokes.

I get it that people who are new to Tomb Raider may assume this latest one is representative of its origins but it absolutely is not.

This latest game Tomb Raider-2013 takes such incredible liberties with original material, it forgets (till almost the very last minute) to have any Tombs to Raid and is much more a cover based shooter like Gears of War along with "predatory stealth" game like Hitman Absolution. Lara is a complete polar opposite to her previous depictions, in how she approaches violence and how she reacts to it. Her objective is different, this isn't sport, this is survival. This isn't adventure, this is harrowing trauma. I can't see how her finally escaping the island of psychopaths that she'd ever want to leave the safety of home again.

So if you're worried about blatant retroactive changes, you don't know what you're looking at.

 

[Athinira]

Don't screw with existing characters, make a new one.

Yet, that's what they did with James Bond efter they hired Craig, and it seems to have worked really well, so I'm not convinced that you HAVE to make a new character to try something new with an old character. Most people who know the new James Bond seems to have accepted him as an 'alternate dimension' James Bond compared to the 20 first movies.

Alternatively, you can still change a character, but allow us to WATCH the change. That's what makes for a good character arc. I wouldn't mind Lara Croft going gay if i can get to watch and understand how the change happens and what drives her there - it would likely also improve the franchise which hasn't really been known for great storytelling anyway.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I thought there was already something going on between Lara and Sam, when I played it. It's more fun this way, since it doesn't need to be spelt out everytime, and this way you can kind of decide for yourself. Personally, by the end I was convinced that there was some serious tension there.


- She keeps obsessing about Sam, even when others just drop dead.
- She goes to great lengths to save her.
- She carries her down a freaking mountain, in her arms. They had just defeated the bad guys, and she didn't seem that hurt, so I'm not sure why that was necessary. XD


It's kind of like the trope where the prince needs to save the princess, except they were both women here.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Alternatively, you can still change a character, but allow us to WATCH the change. That's what makes for a good character arc. I wouldn't mind Lara Croft going gay if i can get to watch and understand how the change happens and what drives her there - it would likely also improve the franchise which hasn't really been known for great storytelling anyway.

Except that's not how being gay works. You're either born that way, or you're not. If anything it'd be a story about her coming to terms with her sexuality rather than her -changing- it, if she was into women it'd have always been there on some level or another, she just either misread the signals or ignored them.

That said, maybe Lara just swings both ways, gay characters are rare, bi ones are even rarer. But it's not something Lara needs to be if you ask me. They're not centric to the game (despite half the fandom now shipping Lara/Sam), but if they do decide to go for it in a future game, I could live with it as long as it's done tastefully and with respect to both Lara (and probably Sam) and any and all real life lesbian or bisexual women.

If it's going to be an excuse for cheap fanservice it'd completely undermine the whole point of the reboot.

 

[jcfrommars9]

Don't screw with existing characters, make a new one.

Yet, that's what they did with James Bond efter they hired Craig, and it seems to have worked really well, so I'm not convinced that you HAVE to make a new character to try something new with an old character. Most people who know the new James Bond seems to have accepted him as an 'alternate dimension' James Bond compared to the 20 first movies.

Alternatively, you can still change a character, but allow us to WATCH the change. That's what makes for a good character arc. I wouldn't mind Lara Croft going gay if i can get to watch and understand how the change happens and what drives her there - it would likely also improve the franchise which hasn't really been known for great storytelling anyway.

Thank you Athinira. I'm glad someone understands that. That's why I liked this Lara Croft so much. I liked the changes they made and I was able to see the change and understand why Lara was doing the things she was doing.

 

[JediMB]

Dragon age 2, a gay character is sexually aggressive, needy, annoying and will turn on you if you don't sleep with him. Not a good token gay character to see in a game.

Haven't played Dragon Age 2, but, since you misrepresented Zevran already, I don't exactly trust your depiction of whoever this person is.

Four out of five love interests in DA2 are available to both male and female Hawkes, with their sexualities basically being open for interpretation on individual playthroughs. (Except for Isabela, who's always bi- or pansexual.) The fifth is straight and sexually abstinent.

So, yes, he's already misrepresenting whoever he's talking about there.

I suppose it's a reference to Anders, who may come off as rather needy to some people. The funny thing, though, is that he can sort of be thought of as a Nice Guy?. He's nice to you, and if you're nice to him he quickly assumes that you're into him and gets disappointed if you tell him that's not the case. And, from what I hear, he can be a bit of an Edward Cullen if you're in a relationship with him as a woman.

Also, he's an abomination, so he sort of has an excuse for being a bit unstable. And he does what he does regardless of if you've slept with him or not.

Anyway, the game still has Fenris as the other potential male-male love interest, and Fenris loves getting drunk on wine. I like Fenris. (And honestly I like Anders too, because I'm fine with flawed characters.)

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

http://www.killscreendaily.com/articles/interviews/tomb-raider-writer-rhianna-pratchett-why-every-kill-cant-be-first-and-why-she-wanted-make-lara-croft-gay/

What do you think? Like it? Dislike it? Would it change the character of Lara too much?

Personally, I don't think we will see any major changes, the franchise is mostly about raiding tombs -more like destroying tombs- anyhow.

Furthermore, although Lara Croft was designed to be an attractive woman in the past games, she seemed to lack an interest in either men or women. Therefore I doubt this will change her character in anyway.

Honestly, I wish they'd gone ahead and done it--not just because lesbians are awesome, but also because it needs to be done. The bog-standard "grizzled/gruff/snarky short-brown-haired white guy with a cool-sounding name" thing has been beaten into the ground, and the farther from that we can get, the better off games will be. Eventually we'll have to have a gay protagonist, and New Lara was like eight-tenths of the way there anyway.

As for changing the character, it's a reboot. Doing things differently is kind of the point; if you're not going to change anything, you might as well just make Tomb Raider XVII: Yet Another One of These Things, or whatever number the original series was up to. People screamed bloody murder when the Battlestar Galactica reboot made Starbuck a woman, too, but she turned out to be one of the best things about that series.