Get Back Up

[Alpha Maeko]

I'd consider rewording

No.

Every creepy crawly idea that people normally shun gets explored in entertainment every day. This scene in the trailer reveals intent- nothing more. Yet, the very idea makes people grab their torches? Get over it.

 

[DementedSheep]

Yeah I pretty much agree with this though I worry that CD are going to overplay it, especially after that trailer and kind of wish they had done this with a new IP.

Still her reactions seem like...well normal human reactions, especially given that?s she is straight out of university, not a hardened adventurer. This is an origin story so I expect that over the course of the game and if they make a sequel she will get tougher and more like the Lara we know.

As for the rape threat, I admit the amount of rape I keep coming across in media is starting to bother me a bit. I don?t think it?s a no go area but it seems like every time something tries to be dark and gritty they have to have some rape thrown in. Tho taken on its own I don?t have a problem with that scene and to be fair it is what I would expect to happen in that situation and it wasn't drawn out.

Rosenberg?s comments were stupid but fuck it, this game looks interesting anyway I?m not going to not get because of the idioticcomments of one person and I think I get what he meant anyway. The game is third person, Lara is a full character who reacts to what?s going on and from the looks of things is going to be commenting on what?s happening quite a bit. So not really the sort of character you project on to while playing. Your more watching her story than being in it.

 

[Cake-Pie]

Like many people, I think Susan Arendt blows 90% of the commentary on this game right out of the water. What she says is not a reactionary evaluation, or an inflamed knee-jerk reaction. I like that a lot.

Reading what she said helped me iron out my thinking on the Tomb Raider reboot. While we aren?t saying the same things, you won?t be able to understand my points until you understand hers. Further, in the discussions populated everywhere else people seem hyperfocused/stuck on the implication of rape/sexual violence. While it?s an important point to address, the rape issue stands out so much that everyone else has talked it to death, so I think you have to see what else is there or you?re just scratching the surface.
Three things about Tomb Raider so far stand out for me:

1. Lara is being hardened. Like in a kiln. Many fiction authors use a formula to get you to care about their characters and it goes like this: Make a character, then do terrible awful things to them so that your audience will know their virtues and strengths because of how they handle them. Once they see their mettle, the audience will love your character and follow them with a song in their heart, quiver at every pain they endure, and cry for their losses. We have never had anything bad happen to Lara Croft, she's been in control, overachieving, and multi-talented since inception.

2. Gaming is a difficult way to communicate internal narratives, unlike books you can't read her thoughts on the page. The way Crystal Dynamics seem to have chosen to communicate Lara's thoughts/feelings is through her responses. You can tell she's scared, or in pain, because she cries out.

3. It is not clear that her "narrative" is meritorious. I am always skeptical of attempts to show vulnerability in women's stories because we live in a world that tells very limited women's stories and in general people don't think outside of a few stereotypes when it comes to women. So in order to appeal to a mass audience either you have to address those stereotypes and turn them on their head (without the right finesse you either do the story injustice or alienate your audience), or emulate those stereotypes as puppetry for the masses. I sincerely hope it will be the latter that is produced, but this isn't my first rodeo.

Overall, with these thoughts in mind, I'm not really looking forward to this game. I don't think it's necessary to torture a character this much for us to see how hardcore they are, I think showing someone's strength is done better in careful moments rather than blitzing them profusely. Instead, I see the suspension of disbelief challenged here. Based on what I've seen, Lara Croft is not going to be hardened like the developer intends, realistically she'll be crippled by PTSD from all this overstimulation and would require years of hardcore therapy. I mean, therapy IRL can make a person terrifically hardcore, but I can't see that being converted into a game. I'd believe this story a lot more if it weren't being presented in such an over-the-top extreme way.


Note: This got a little longer than I expected, so I took all this text and replicated it on my own blog because for some reason there are people who read me who don't click links. Thanks again to Susan for continuing to write great op-eds even though right now it's kinda dangerous to write game opinions while being female.

Dat blog post here: http://cake-pie.com/tomb-raider-reboot-e3-trailer-raises-eyebrows/756/

 

[Ophiuchus]

In the Tomb Raider trailer, Lara isn't defending herself because she's not afraid, but in spite of her fear. Not only is that the definition of bravery, it's also a life skill that everyone would be wise to learn.

"Learn to use fear as an engine, rather than a brake", as someone once put it. That's still right up there among the best pieces of advice I've ever been given.

 

[Metalrocks]

Yeah I pretty much agree with this though I worry that CD are going to overplay it, especially after that trailer and kind of wish they had done this with a new IP.
Still her reactions seem like...well normal human reactions, especially given that?s she is straight out of university not a hardened adventurer. This is and Origin story, I expect that over the course of the game and if they make a sequel she will get tougher and more like the Lara we know.
As for the rape threat, well I admit the amount of rape I keep coming across in media is starting to bother me a bit. I don?t think it?s a no go area but it seems like every time something tries to be dark and gritty they have to have some rape thrown in. Tho taken on its own I don?t have a problem with that scene and to be fair it is what I would expect to happen in that situation.
Rosenberg?s comments were stupid but fuck it this game look interesting anyway, I?m not going to not get because of the idiot comments of one person and I think I get what he meant anyway. The game is third person, Lara?s a full character who reacts to what?s going on and from the looks of things is going to be commenting on what?s happening quite a bit. So not really the sort of character you project on to while playing.

thats the idea of the game to make lara more human and blievable. so far they really seem to nail it.
rosenberg surely screwed it up for what he said but still doesnt change a thing in the game what the intention was for lara to do at this situation.

 

[Tamrin]

At least this serves a purpose unlike Heavy Rain's part of the game where men broke in and you don't know if they are going to rape and/or kill Madison Paige, which turned out to be a dream leaving the player in a state of "WTF ".

 

[Grahav]

I was having a pretty crappy day. Then I read this.

Thank you Susan and Lara.

 

[lacktheknack]

I have to wonder what the 'failure' condition is for her fighting off the rapist. Maybe they're just going to make it a cutscene. Because... ick, otherwise.

They've already addressed this - the attempt is entirely automated, you take control again at the part where she knees him and it turns into life-or-death.

 

[lacktheknack]

Hello. I had a massive breakdown this evening and my head is thumping and I cried and cried. The reason for this breakdown was a horrible thing in the past. Take a look, Tomb Raider. This is what happens? ?When horrible things happen. Not strong, interesting game characters. Broken and terrified and awful evenings like this. There. I said it. Please Retweet that. All these four tweets. The industry needs to know what really happens as a result of stuff like this. #tombraider

(Source.) [https://twitter.com/notquitereal/status/213028158302199808]

You are wrong, Susan. You are very, very wrong. The desire to write a strong female character does not give one free reins to make a traumatic, horrible thing part of your story. You are essentially saying 'well, rape sucks for those people who got raped, but I want my game with a cool character!' Your priorities are misguided. Do not attempt to defend a horrible thing, even if you think the horrible thing was not meant in earnest, because that's how we get used to horrible things.

I'll add that it's obvious from the internet reaction that the people who created that game never tried to talk to a rape victim and probably think trigger warning is something you shout on the shooting range. I don't think video games can't portray rape. I think the modern games industry can't.

Uh... she doesn't get raped.

...As in, never. Not in the entire game. Crystal Dynamics have made this very clear. She DOES NOT get raped.

WHY DO PEOPLE NOT CATCH THIS?

"Oh, but they try!" Yeah, he touches her thigh and promptly gets his genitals crushed. Compare this to, say, the Japanese Metro, where dirty gropings are a daily occurrence for many women, but they aren't traumatized by it. Is it terrible? Yes. Will it cause breakdowns years later? No. There's a huge, huge difference between a failed attempt at assault and an actual assault. Please don't blur that line.

 

[Callate]

But when I see this kind of thing being pushed by Lara Croft, a character who for many years was everything video game companies longed for for themselves, I worry that two years from now we might see every hero's "success" "rewarded" by more scenes of their inevitable suffering.

I don't need more excuses to abandon the medium all together.

I don't quite understand what you mean by this - could you explain that a bit more?

Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner- I think the new Escapist format still has some bugs, (i.e. not letting me know when I've been quoted back.) And I'm not quite sure what part of my statement you don't understand, so pardons if I over/mis-explain.

So... Tomb Raider was the media darling for an extended period of time. Lara was appearing in non-industry magazines, advertising unrelated products, even modelling real-world fashions, not to mention the two movies.

Of late, the franchise has been under-performing. Things improved, by most accounts, when the property was moved away from Core and put in the hands of Crystal Dynamics. But it's never returned to the kind of headline-making, cross-cultural-saturation it once enjoyed.

So now we have the reboot. And it's definitely garnering some attention, even if whether said attention is positive or negative (or even if that will matter in the "all press is good press" sense) remains to be seen. But it does seem to have that attention, including the attention of the ever-cannibalistic game production line, always hungry for accessible trends that can be utilized in their next game.

If the new Tomb Raider succeeds, my concern is that the feature that is most likely to be recycled into other properties is that which I referred to as "Darker and Edgier 2.0". Wherein failure is greeted with prolonged scenes of painful death, and success is greeted with extended scenes of suffering.

One can argue whether the way the new TR is using these themes is meaningful and sympathy-inducing or merely exploitative and courting controversy for controversy's sake, and I suspect there are cases to be made for both points and the argument is likely to persist until, and possibly even past, the game's release.

What I have little doubt of, however, is that the game's success would see imitators that were ham-handed and cringeworthy. Possibly for an extended life cycle, since unlike cover mechanics or bullet-time, inflicting suffering on the protagonist doesn't require new technology. Treating the hero[ine] to a narrative of inevitable sadism could become next year's brown-and-grey.

It may be that TR will create a compelling new gaming experience. But I can't help but wish that it were a new IP, or an offering from an independent studio; something less likely to spawn imitators. However effective the new Lara may be, I don't want to play through a series of crawl-and-bleed simulators.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

I think that the problems that people have with the attempted rape scene are threefold.

1)http://www.doesnotplaywellwithothers.com/comics/pwc-0050

This is the first reason. I admit that it was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the trailer. "Well, Lara's second reboot in this console generation and, oh look, they're going to work rape into it. How completely original." At what point did rape go from "horrific crime" to "overused motivation in every female character's story"? Rape in fiction has become the lazy writer's way to give a female character motivation.

Do you have a woman who has issues with her father? Well, you could go into complex motivations such as that he was someone who was always emotionally distant and was never there for her when she was growing up which would allow you to explore why he was that way. However, that's a lot of writing. Instead, you could just say "he raped her" and you have instant motivation.

Personally, I'm going to hold out for Metroid: Another M where we find out that Samus' REAL trauma comes from Ridley raping her when she was a child.

2) It is actually demeaning to women to continually resort to rape. Here is a woman who almost drowned, gets trapped on an island where she is hung upside down, has to set herself on fire to escape said hanging, lands on a bone (?) which goes right through her side, wild dogs try to eat her face, and other traumatic things happen to her. But she is a woman in a video game and, as we know, women can't feel any sort of real emotional trauma unless it involves rape. It is demeaning to women to say that they are so one-dimensional that the only way to make their motivations mean anything is to press the rape button.

3) It trivializes rape. When you continually make every origin story involve rape, it goes from being portrayed as this horrific crime that can scar a woman for years to having the same emotional impact as having Bowser kidnap the princess. What this eventually results in is rape being treated no differently than getting a headache and Kickstarter projects attracting misogynist hordes because it becomes so commonplace that people get desensitized to what it is.

In the end, the Lara Croft name has baggage. We all know that she's going to get off the island and become an amoral psychopath who murders everything that stands between her and the shinies. Given what we've seen of this game, she's going to have cutscenes where we think that she's actually a human....followed by gameplay periods of ultra-violence and a complete disregard for any wounds/emotional trauma that she suffered in a previous cutscene.

(Prediction sidenote: Lara's friend who gets dragged off? She's dead by the end of the game. We need a "best friend dying" scene to be checked off on the emotional trauma list.)

I think Crystal Dynamics knows it too which is why they're backpedaling on the scene. I think they're looking at the reaction and asking themselves "Guys, does this story really have the level of writing to avoid a Dickwolves backlash? Because, if it doesn't, we might want to drop that scene. It's not like we don't already have enough "break the cutie" scenes in the game."

Just to clarify, the scene didn't really bug me more than a rolling of the eyes and a "Oh, this again" reaction. However, I can see where a lot of people are coming from when they're protesting the scene in the trailer. I imagine that, especially for a rape survivor, seeing a game with Lara Croft: world's most murderous grave robber , use something traumatic as a throwaway piece to establish motivation is something that seems a little exploitive.

 

[Jeff Dunn]

Instead, people seem to be upset over the fact that Lara has gone from confident badass chick to weakling damsel-in-distress-ish who needs male protection (because men are the target demo). On top of that, in order to further "humanize" her, they're going to throw the ever-present, implied threat of rape out there and surround her with it at every turn.

And you got that from... where, exactly? There is one scene where I guy begins to touch her before getting his nuts crushed. That is all we know about.

As for your point about using rape to humanise her more than bullets and whatever else... well, duh. Physical threat is something far more relatable than gun fights - partly because we're all desensitised to gunfights in games, even when they are made scrappy and messy, and partly because it's a very 'distant' sort of danger. Oh, and then partly because most of us won't have been shot at by 5 people at once.

'people seem to be upset over the fact that Lara has gone from confident badass chick to weakling damsel-in-distress-ish'

It's a reboot origin-story, 'those people' are being ridiculous. As for the 'male protection' side of things: let's look at the (undoubtedly selective) quoting from Kotaku:

'When people play Lara, they don't really project themselves into the character... They're more like 'I want to protect her.' There's this sort of dynamic of 'I'm going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'

Now, I don't know about you, but to me that first bit reads like an acknowledgement of what happens when male players are playing a third-person game with a completely inexperiecened female character. More widely, it acknowledges the fact that people in general are not immersed into a character they're playing in third-person.

Either way, you don't identify with the character in the same way, and so you're looking at your experience with the character from an outside perspective. Saying that it's going to invoke a protectionist-side in people (and even specifically men) is just acknowledging human nature when you see someone struggling in a situation which you can 'help' them out of. It's further kicked in by the fact that we are players, we have control, we can turn events around, and at the start of the game she is in serious fucking trouble.

Here: http://jezebel.com/5918222/the-rapey-lara-croft-reboot-is-a-fucked+up-freudian-field-day

That's probably a good representation of the anti-New Lara design choices crowd. Argue with this, not me.

Again, my intent wasn't to advocate either way; I just saw misguided commenters claiming that the anti-NL people are trying to stop women from being hurt in games, which isn't really the case at all. Nobody gives a shit if a woman gets hit in a videogame, so long as it isn't in a sexualized/weirdly paternalized/whateverized way -- that's really the argument here.

 

[maninahat]

A picture does not hurt anyone. Entertainment is voluntary.

While rape might feel worse at the time than a bullet to the head are you saying that you'd rather die than be raped?

I find it utterly retarded that people can get so up in arms over the DEPICTION of the rape of PIXELS. With all the other crazy shit we do in games, this is so light its nothing. I've sawed people in half in games. SAWED THEM IN HALF. Thats not quick, clean or sanitized.

You find it retarded that people get upset over depictions of rape. I take it you or someone you care about hasn't been raped? Or murdered? Are you that oblivious that you can't imagine a game offending someone who had? I don't think rape or murder in entertainment should be banned by any means, but I think we shouldn't act so cavalier about such a serious issue that effects real people. I don't require you to be offended, all you have to do is accept that this might bother people besides yourself.

 

[maninahat]

Square has trolled the internet magnificently and now all those indignant gamers are dirty accomplices for making that trailer a rape scene.

In the other lara rape thread (#10324031250), some poster said that the trailer is a very lazy way to create drama and he's right, but my god what drama. What free publicity.
+1 million for Square.

So you believe all publicity is good publicity? That this scene and its lousy justification won't cause some potential customers to avoid the title? I know people who are refusing to buy this game on principle, just from seeing the discussions around it.

 

[veloper]

Square has trolled the internet magnificently and now all those indignant gamers are dirty accomplices for making that trailer a rape scene.

In the other lara rape thread (#10324031250), some poster said that the trailer is a very lazy way to create drama and he's right, but my god what drama. What free publicity.
+1 million for Square.

So you believe all publicity is good publicity? That this scene and its lousy justification won't cause some potential customers to avoid the title? I know people who are refusing to buy this game on principle, just from seeing the discussions around it.

In less highbrow locales I hear gamers talk about wanting to fail that QTE deliberately just to see what happens.

We may not be the intended audience. I won't play the game anyway, because QTEs are boring. The girls won't play it either, because they are upset, but what about all those teens and basement dwellers?
Tomb Raider sold on tits and ass. I reckon the company knows what audience they are targetting.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Uh... she doesn't get raped.

...As in, never. Not in the entire game. Crystal Dynamics have made this very clear. She DOES NOT get raped.

WHY DO PEOPLE NOT CATCH THIS?

Because they don't want to. it would ruin their rant. "Oh, I saw something that can be construed as rape, time to get on my Angry Horse!"

The trailer doesn't show anything close to rape, the Devs have said there is no rape. The angry "Upstanding Moral Citizens" want it to be rape. They want it to because not only does it force people to pay attention to them, but also because it gives them ammo to use against a company that they want shut down because their moral compass doesn't point to True North like theirs supposedly does.

 

[Farther than stars]

I'd consider rewording

No.

Every creepy crawly idea that people normally shun gets explored in entertainment every day. This scene in the trailer reveals intent- nothing more. Yet, the very idea makes people grab their torches? Get over it.

That's not what I said. I, too, agree that any subject matter should be discussable, but "rape is unacceptable in the real world, but that doesn't mean we should shun any idea out of principal just because we don't like it" can be misconstrued as "rape is fine as long as it's in video games". The idea of rape should always be shunned, but that doesn't mean it can't be discussed.

 

[tzimize]

A picture does not hurt anyone. Entertainment is voluntary.

While rape might feel worse at the time than a bullet to the head are you saying that you'd rather die than be raped?

I find it utterly retarded that people can get so up in arms over the DEPICTION of the rape of PIXELS. With all the other crazy shit we do in games, this is so light its nothing. I've sawed people in half in games. SAWED THEM IN HALF. Thats not quick, clean or sanitized.

You find it retarded that people get upset over depictions of rape. I take it you or someone you care about hasn't been raped? Or murdered? Are you that oblivious that you can't imagine a game offending someone who had? I don't think rape or murder in entertainment should be banned by any means, but I think we shouldn't act so cavalier about such a serious issue that effects real people. I don't require you to be offended, all you have to do is accept that this might bother people besides yourself.

Oh, I can totally imagine and accept that. Even though I find it pretty annoying that people get offended by anything that isnt real. The problem is that offended people can so often be like religious fanatics. They yell and shout about being offended and demand the destruction of their item of woe.

A couple of years ago my girlfriends brother died in a terrible and quite brutal car crash. It was the worst thing that has happened in my life. But not for a tiny second did I consider to yell and ***** about car games, the speed people drive in games, or that you can mow down people in GTA or Carmageddon.

If people want to be offended by stuff, fine. But that doesnt mean that the game/movie/whatever that offends should be censored and forgotten! It just means that they should either deal with being offended or not touch that particular product!

Instead they usually yell and shout and complain to a company like "How can you depict such a horrible acts?" "Do you support rape?!" Et cetera. This leads to bad PR and the company pulls the content or falls over themselves excusing everything and anything. And mine and others entertainment pool is poorer as a result.

What about people that has been stalked? Or victims of attempted murder? Should we destroy Cape Fear? Thats a terrific movie btw. Even if the content is "offending".

I fail to understand why we should treat rape any different that murder or any other offensive actions that are depicted daily in our entertainment. And I also fail to see why any of these things should not be available for the entertainment of those who want to watch/play it. Entertainment after all is a voluntary exercise. If you find a movie/game offending. It is within your rights to turn it off.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

Sure, it's cool that when the protagonist gets hurt, we feel bad, but isn't that the idea that we're trying to give up here? The whole concept that it's somehow worse to hurt a woman than to hurt a man works hand-in-hand with the idea that women can't defend themselves. I believe that lara is all about looking past the pain, pushing it aside to get to the real matters at hand. She's been told all her life that she's weaker than everyone else, that she wouldn't survive in a man's world, and maybe that's what keeps her going no matter how many times she's imphaled (how's that for rape themes, eh?).
I guess what I'm saying isn't too much different from the article itself, which I guess is good: it seems like this game is getting the point across.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

I'd consider rewording

No.

Every creepy crawly idea that people normally shun gets explored in entertainment every day. This scene in the trailer reveals intent- nothing more. Yet, the very idea makes people grab their torches? Get over it.

That's not what I said. I, too, agree that any subject matter should be discussable, but "rape is unacceptable in the real world, but that doesn't mean we should shun any idea out of principal just because we don't like it" can be misconstrued as "rape is fine as long as it's in video games". The idea of rape should always be shunned, but that doesn't mean it can't be discussed.

On that I can't argue. You're right. I didn't mean for it to come across that way.