Tomb Raider writer expressed an interest in making Lara gay?

[Treblaine]

SNIP

Hi there, I don't really want to get sucked into another discussion with you, but I wanted to add something:
You know who is also a great, strong female character and stars in action-adventure games?
Samus Aran.
Which makes Lara Croft A strong female character, not THE strong female character.
That is if we overlook the fucking mess that is Metroid Other M. Fuck that game.

Well I find it hard to overlook the utter mess of Metroid Other M which was entirely why I left her out. Not much was seen of her up to that point (she had somewhat of a Gordon Freeman style presence in the Prime series) and Other M seems to have killed the series for the foreseeable future.

And I chose in counterbalance the male playable-characters of extremely active franchises like Gears of War.

I was of course not being so literal with "THE lead female role", I was emphasising the point that we just have such a complete lack of females as player characters, especially in action or adventure games.

Oh no, I said "complete lack" which literally means "None at all". Just another example of how wrong it is to take what people say literally true when the figurative meaning is clear.

It sure isn't helped by the trend of reboots and endless sequels using the same protagonists. And the leads of new IPs hardly rock the boat, Isaac Clark as stoic armoured guy, and another big buff and burly bearded bloke for leading role in Last of Us.

We don't seem willing to recognise how male stereotypes, and how accepted they are, are driving female roles out of gaming. The tendency (if not dependence on) having big masculine brute as a lead role. In many cases it's incongruous, like in Last of Us gameplay footage we've seen, it establishes how weak Joel is fighting the crazies one-on-one, how he needs to use every dirty trick to pick them off one by one... but the size differences between him and them make it look like he could take on two at a time.

 

[Treblaine]

what are you on about? butch women can't be rich and eloquent? femme women can't be gay? a strong female can be anything, butch or femme, and those are tired old stereotypes in the first place. a girl is not automatically butch if she's strong and gay.

I agree totally, there is no reason a Butch woman can't be rich and eloquent... but that's a real person or well fleshed out character, and I was responding to the issue of Lesbian stereotypes, and how Lara doesn't conform to them to spite their claim that she does.

User "I say old chap" identified the problem he perceived as the Butch stereotype:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.404038.16736054

Of course "femme women" can be gay, but it's the stereotypes he is accusing is there, when it is not.

Also, I didn't say "Rich" I meant the type of house, I assume people have actually seen Lara's mansion but I forget how many people telling ME how Lara Croft is haven't played a single Tomb Raider game. Lara Croft's mansion defies all butch lesbian stereotypes in the choice of art-style. Again, it's their stereotype claim which is borne from ignorance.

And these stereotype were labels that were invented for a reason, they were there to increase varied depiction, but here they are being used as a basis to oppose it.

I love this thread.

Jesus Christ, this is absurd. Look at this thing. The writer considered making a character gay and you're up in arms. I thought the Escapist was supposed to be fairly liberal, and yet here you are basically showing some pretty blatant homophobia. Sure, you dress it up nice under the veil of "It'd just be cheap titillation!" but come on. This is ridiculous. Essentially what you're saying is that any female homosexuality is nothing but pandering to men. Next you'll be saying that real life lesbians are only doing it for attention.

It may be genuine, but I can't possibly see what they are working towards.

It would help if they ACTUALLY READ THE INTERVIEW rather than make absurd speculation of the writer's intent, when she explains herself in the interview.

She is not at all saying "corr! Wouldn't it be hot if Lara was lezzing it up a lot! We could make so much money this way" no, she genuinely considers Lara's sexual orientation as part of considering her as a deep and multi-dimensional character.

What difference would it make unless they changed some missions to have importance placed on that sexuality? press a to 'scissor', press b to 'fist', press x to be 'tender', press y to be 'rough'.

On second thoughts, maybe PrinceOfShapeir is spot on.

No one reacted this badly to Nathan Drake being "outed" as a heterosexual, no one made snide jokes that such a thing would necessitate an explicit sex simulator.

 

[theSteamSupported]

I've got two words for y'all: Fucking Åmål

 

[Treblaine]

Lara has always been fairly asexual.

Nope. Asexual is not having any sexual interest in either gender EVER!

Tomb Raider games only ever looked at a relatively short section of Lara's life where she reasonably won't have any sex, especially considering the circumstance of Tomb Raiding. Yes, people can go a few days without sex especially when 99% of that time is spent alone in death-trapped filled labyrinths.

She's aware of herself as a sexual object...

...and uses it when it'll help her get ahead with whatever mission she's on (she pretty much flirted Larson into not killing her in Anniversary even when he had a clear shot but then killed him soon after because he stood in her way)

And the actual scene in question:


What you claim happened is so transparently not true.

 

[m19]

It's important to note that there wasn't any intent nor does it really exist outside of Rhianna Pratchet's momentary fancy as she explained herself. But now since she uncorked this it's an itch that's going to be rubbing at CD on the interwebs. Meh. Hope it goes away.

BTW. Saying this for purely selfish biased fanboyish reasons and nothing else.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

snip.

Oh what the heck.
Yes I know you weren't being completely literal with "THE ONLY FEMALE LEAD EVA", but I felt that Samus Aran was worth mentioning, especially since I prefer her to Lara Croft, which may be because I truly adore the Metroid Prime games.
On a related note:
Lara Croft / Tomb Raider survived "Angel of Darkness", so I don't see why Samus Aran couldn't make a comeback after "other M"...

 

[Frontastic]

Her intentions. Rihanna Pratchett is a woman. Please actually pay attention.

Apologies that was a slip, it is so rare that we get female writers that my mind just assumed male even though I know she is a woman. Hence why I think she does mean well with this, I just think it's a bad move in terms of how it makes these games look. I wouldn't even give a male writer the benefit of the doubt when choosing to make her gay in a reboot timeline. If they'd done it in the previous timeline I'd be ok with it. This whole reboot just screams "mass appeal at any cost".

Lara has always been fairly asexual.

Nope. Asexual is not having any sexual interest in either gender EVER!

Tomb Raider games only ever looked at a relatively short section of Lara's life where she reasonably won't have any sex, especially considering the circumstance of Tomb Raiding. Yes, people can go a few days without sex especially when 99% of that time is spent alone in death-trapped filled labyrinths.

She's aware of herself as a sexual object...

...and uses it when it'll help her get ahead with whatever mission she's on (she pretty much flirted Larson into not killing her in Anniversary even when he had a clear shot but then killed him soon after because he stood in her way)

And the actual scene in question:


What you claim happened is so transparently not true.

Ok lot of points.

Fair enough, you're right. Oxymoronic phrasing on my part. I said "fairly" because we're dealing with 3 timelines here. In the CORE timeline, she's hetro due to Kurtis and even then the attraction is debatable. In the Legend timeline (or are we calling that the Underworld timeline now? Whatever) I've always read her a asexual. The flirting with Larson is an act and is dropped so quickly. Ditto Rutland.
I will concede your point though. We are seeing a relatively small amount of her life so your point stands. But personally I've always thought she was more interested in adventuring than persuing a regular life so the only place she could meet someone is while tomb raiding. And she's ran into enough men that she would have displayed some interest in someone surely (in much the same way Larson clearly is interested in her despite being just as much on the job as she is). Yet the only two I can think of were both passing interests at best and both in the Core timeline (Von Croy in the teenage section of TR4 and Kurtis) so I still read Legend Lara as asexual.

"Sexual Object" - I'm pretty sure it means what I think it means. She's attractive, she knows it. She knows most men won't take her seriously at first glance (and they never do) and she often gets the upper hand that way. She's aware she is objectified and uses that to get what she wants. She is aware she is an object of sexual desire in the eyes of her enemies and plays up that role when needs be. Hell, I've long pondered if she dresses that way as a distraction technique given how often she deals with well-armed henchmen/male villains and why her greatest enemies tend to be women who she can't use that against.

And finally the clip. That's not actually the clip in question. Both those cases prove he would shoot her (though in the mine one he clearly didn't think he'd ever have to) but both cases are either self defence or a last resort. She shoots him first, of course he'll shoot back. The Peru one, she was beating him and he still had a job to do, it was a last resort. This is the actual clip I meant. (From 2.30 or so)

 

[Treblaine]

snip.

Oh what the heck.
Yes I know you weren't being completely literal with "THE ONLY FEMALE LEAD EVA", but I felt that Samus Aran was worth mentioning, especially since I prefer her to Lara Croft, which may be because I truly adore the Metroid Prime games.
On a related note:
Lara Croft / Tomb Raider survived "Angel of Darkness", so I don't see why Samus Aran couldn't make a comeback after "other M"...

Fair enough. What did you actually want to mention about Samus Aran? Other than that I didn't mention her?

I don't know what to make of either Samus or Lara as they have have changed so much in their most recent games. Most jarring is Tomb Raider-2013's focus on such grim violence yet a character development that makes Lara seem more like a tragic and emotionally wrought child-soldier than an adventurous and ever-confident explorer.

Angel of Darkness was mainly a technical failure, a small team with an overly ambitious project and insufficient capability, in both technical and design terms it was broken.

And in fact "Tomb Raider" as the concept didn't survive though the BRAND was revived, but a completely different team with a completely different approach that rebooted everything.

Imagine if Samus Aran came back and they changed her back story so that she wasn't raised by the Chozo and had two annoying colleagues followign her everywhere explaining every challenge she comes across, the items progression disappears and is replaced by COD style gun mechanics? Would you say that Metroid had "survived"?

It's not enough that the Trademarks are reused, the spirit has to be captured. And for Tomb Raider, Angel of Darkness didn't kill that, the numerous reboots and retcons did that.

 

[anonymity88]

And then they made Cortez and Trainor for ME3 romance options and they made Kaiden bisexual. Which I don't have a problem with as long as it doesn't mess up my game. But why wouldn't all these characters know that Shepard doesn't swing that way? It threw me off when Kaidan declared that he wants to be more than friends. He should know that I romanced Liara in ME1. He should know that I romanced her in ME3 as well. He should know that Shepard is heterosexual. It was a real immersion breaker for me. Which is why I had the idea that players should be able to select their character's sexuality at the beginning of the game in the character creator. It's an RPG after all. Very character driven.

captcha: be mine

Always, captcha. Always <3

He was probably thinking he's about to die a horible death anyway, what's he got to lose?

Haha

OT: Since it was a throwaway remark it's impossible to think how it would have panned out but, in my mind at least I can't see a reason either for Lara to be romantically involved with anyone at least in this game. Surely she's too busy fighting off crazed cultists?

Captcha: hand over fist

I guess they could have made some money hand over fist.

 

[Erttheking]

You know I look back and forth between the video Jim made about how there needs to be more women in games and everyone being on board with that, and this thread with people being against a well known female character being gay, and I can't help but be really confused.

 

[Treblaine]

I'll say it again: we have way more than enough lesbian videogame characters. That wouldn't be even be original or controversial; just another token lesbian fanservice in a videogame.

Really? Let me think of any games with lesbian characters within the past ten years. A few Bioware games, because they're Bioware, Metal Gear, although nobody is straight in Metal Gear, and, um, uh... well I can think of like two from Fire Emblem, and Veronica in Fallout: New Vegas. So yeah, a few PCs in Bioware games, a series in which less people are straight than LGBT (repressed feelings, Kojima?), and less than a handful of others. So much pandering, totally.

I think you are being too generous, I don't think there is a single lesbian character in the whole Metal Gear Saga.

The Boss was in a relationship and had a child with The Sorrow. So, unless it was a union of convenience, that makes her unlikely to be a Lesbian. How she remembers The Sorrow suggests it was more than that. And this was established early on.

RPGs only allow homosexual relationships because they give the player that freedom to partner up with almost anyone. It's not like it's in the designed single narrative.

And in order for there to be a lesbian relationship, the work must pass the The Bechdel Test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

That means two female characters have to actually interact with each other over something other than a man.

And women are just so rare in games, even rarer than in feature films. There are so many games with no women in them at all and a significant proportion of games have either only a single women or so few women that do so little that they have no interaction with other women.

 

[Luciella]

Seriously?
Can we stop making everything gay? or fanboy orientated?
Lara is one of the only female lead charas in game that i looked up to and felt identified, making her gay...will change the way i see her.
Mind you, this is not homophobic. Just damn, why now everything has to be gay-ified?

I can only see this as either a low attempt to follow the fashion of "introducing something gay" or killing the already good image of her in the idea to make male fantasies come true!
Come on! 40% of the gamer community is female!
If you want Lara gay for male pleasure, make then Nathan Drake gay for female pleasure!

 

[Cheesepower5]

I imagine there's a lot of homosexuals out there wondering when they're going to get that option outside of a Bioware title.

To be fair there are quite a few gay female characters just based on the fact the devs can't be bothered to change the dialogue from the male default.

I think straight female protagonists are much rarer. (and as Fappy pointed out they are almost never in an actual relationship)

Lollipop Chainsaw has a straight girl in a working relationship... Sort of.

Yay progress?

 

[Tony2077]

i don't have a problem with her being gay in the slightest just don't make it a crap romance

 

[A Distant Star]

Remember, publishers overwhelmingly don't play games, they are bankers and hedge fund managers and see video game publishing as easy money.

Quote of the day.

"I don't think I've actually seen a playable female protagonist kiss a guy in a game."

Just as rare as a male character kissing.

Untrue. I can think of a few examples of men kissing women in games, though it is also fairly rare it at least happens. Though I would argue that the treatment of male sexuality in video games is just as problematic as the treatment of female sexuality in games. I have said several times in this thread. Sex is humanizing, it creates a place of reliability, and while discussions of a PCs sex life and romance does not fit into every single game, as a medium it's almost completely white washed all together and this is a huge fucking problem. Sex is a grown up thing, and as long as video games want to be a grown up medium, we have to start addressing sex like grown ups.

You know, I agree with a lot of what you have to say,but your asesment of Lara as a sexual icon and sexism with in the industry are flat out wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_symbol#Video_games

Original Lara in many ways embodies a lot of the problems with video game portrayals of women. Not to the extreme of DoA: Beach Volley Ball or any thing like that its true (Though it did precede it) but she is the prime example of the objectified female heroin. She is aloud to be sexy (Large breasts and hips, thin waist, pouty lips, big eyes - all traits associated with hyper sexualisation) but not aloud to really be sexual (I dont know the Tomb Raider franchise that well so correct me if I am wrong, but she has never really been portrayed as having any sort of sexual interests to speak of that I am aware of.) on the other hand, she is also portrayed a whole lot more competent then the vast majority of many female protagonists out there. (The girls in DoA: Beach Volley Ball are just embarrassingly stupid) You're clearly a vary smart guy, but this is also apparently a huge bias blind spot for you.

 

[Sir Pootis]

That's pretty meaningless IF things stay like they are, but what i'm afraid this change will bring is them pushing every 5 to 10 minutes that.
''omg she is gay look at how we push boundaries!!!!1!!''

I know it's a fairly old post, but this sums it all up. Either this or a cheap attempt for some adolescent pandering.

 

[Treblaine]

You know I look back and forth between the video Jim made about how there needs to be more women in games and everyone being on board with that, and this thread with people being against a well known female character being gay, and I can't help but be really confused.

Well an example of the attitude is below:

That's pretty meaningless IF things stay like they are, but what i'm afraid this change will bring is them pushing every 5 to 10 minutes that.
''omg she is gay look at how we push boundaries!!!!1!!''

I know it's a fairly old post, but this sums it all up. Either this or a cheap attempt for some adolescent pandering.

Such cynicism, they assume it's either to appeal to self-righteous jerks who want a politically-correct component or appeal to the lechery of straight males.

But they don't bother to actually read the interview where they'd see that's not the case at all.

Or they could just use some common sense and realise that wouldn't increase a games sales nor it's artistic worth.

As a result of such ignorance (literally, they IGNORE the interview and talk as if they know, that is IGNORance) they find themselves in opposition to women's inclusion in video games, really straight men being attracted to lesbianism is no reason at all to oppose lesbiansm, nor is it even a reason to oppose progressiveness when it is for progressiveness sake.

Especially when it is in fact neither of those reasons but simply the writer giving serious deep consideration of what is best for a well rounded character.