Lara's Damsel in Distress

[Kael Arawn]

Awkwardly, very well stated. Wish i had more to add but saying i liked you post, but I don't and i liked your post so im saying that

(Mods please dont give me a "mark" for not saying enough in this post).

 

[Kahani]

And here in lies the problem. Intimate relationships of any kind, while have intellectual components, are largely emotional and built on shared experience. No amount exposition on the planet can make up for even thirty seconds of experience. We need to be close to her, to feel for her, to motivate us by friendship. This is as true in real life interactions as it is in games.

This is a good point. Sam may well be a failure of the "show, don't tell" rule of story telling. Essentially she's a designated friend (similar to the designatd love interest [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DesignatedLoveInterest]) where the player is told she's your best friend that you want to rescue, but the game itself never actually does anything to actually invoke that.

However, that's not, as far as I can see, the point that Seamus was making. All he did was complain that she wasn't much use. But as I said above, her not being any use is not inherently a problem. If the player really feels that she's someone they want to be rescuing, it doesn't matter at all that she's the sort of useless person who ends up needing to be rescued. It only becomes an issue if the player doesn't actually care about her, at which point you may as well just replace her by saying the cultists have stolen your favourite hat - if you don't care about it, it doesn't matter what the macguffin is as long as it sends you in the right direction. Making her more competent as a character wouldn't do anything to change that. As long as the player doesn't care about her, it doesn't make any difference if she's a hardcore action girl who keeps getting captured anyway, a useless damsel in distress, or a hat. The important part is to get the player to care about her enough in the first place, so that they want to rescue her regardless of how useless or hat-like she may be. And that's not really something Seamus touched on at all.

Edit: He does complain that she's a boring character, but that's not really the same as the point I'm trying to make. It doesn't matter how boring she might be throughout most of the game as long as it's established early on that she's a boring friend that the player has a reason to want to rescue. It's not her quality as a character that's important, but the connection to the player.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Is it wrong that I wish she would die just so I wouldn't have to worry about here useless ass?

Why is she even in the game? Expeditions have to be carefully planned, you have the logistics of food rationing, cargo limits and all that, so why would they let someone so perpetually useless on such a trip?

River Styx was my word puzzle for this post, amusing that a trip across the actual river Styx would be less harrowing.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

Why is she even in the game? Expeditions have to be carefully planned, you have the logistics of food rationing, cargo limits and all that, so why would they let someone so perpetually useless on such a trip?

It doesn't explain in the game, but in the comic Sam asked her uncle to pay for the expedition after the network sponsoring Whitman cut the contract. They lost their camera man too so she came along instead.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It doesn't explain in the game, but in the comic Sam asked her uncle to pay for the expedition after the network sponsoring Whitman cut the contract. They lost their camera man too so she came along instead.

Does she at least know how to use a camera?

 

[Sack of Cheese]

It doesn't explain in the game, but in the comic Sam asked her uncle to pay for the expedition after the network sponsoring Whitman cut the contract. They lost their camera man too so she came along instead.

Does she at least know how to use a camera?

Lara said she's a camera freak, and there's this:

The others had training and can handle themselves in the comic, while Sam didn't intend to go at first.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Lara said she's a camera freak, and there's this:

The others had training and can handle themselves in the comic, while Sam didn't intend to go at first.

Hold on a second there, it says she has been in the Arctic (Polar Bears), Congo (monkeys with Ebola plus half a dozen or so mercenary armies wandering around) and The Red Desert (The Australia Outback, nuff said). Some of the hazardous and treacherous locals on the planet and she can't seem to run away or wander off from her own sacrifice with a single man with a spear guarding her?

She must have taken a severe blow to the head in order to forget all that.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

Hold on a second there, it says she has been in the Arctic (Polar Bears), Congo (monkeys with Ebola plus half a dozen or so mercenary armies wandering around) and The Red Desert (The Australia Outback, nuff said). Some of the hazardous and treacherous locals on the planet and she can't seem to run away or wander off from her own sacrifice with a single man with a spear guarding her?

She must have taken a severe blow to the head in order to forget all that.

Maybe she films it on the helicopter?! (And Australia is not that life-threatening!!)

Oww... leave the poor girl alone. Let's pick on Alex instead!! It's gonna be so much fun, I promise!!

 

[SoMuchSpace]

This is by far one of the most ill informed artciles on the Escapist, which is sad sicne your articles about EA are accurate.

" Her hands are tied, but there's nothing stopping her from just standing up and walking her dumb ass away from this crazy altar where an ancient spirit is about to steal her body. Sure, the bad guy is there with his goofy spear, but if Sam had a brain in her head she ought to have figured out that the bad guy needs her alive for the ceremony, so he's probably not going to run her through. "

Are you crazy? Did you even play the game? While her soul was being transferred, she WAS IMMOBILIZED. The host can't just run away'.She was trying to move even, which is why she was screaming all the time. I can't even comment on how you even think that she could have just walked away from the altar. Please, watch the final act on youtube or something. Or moreover actually play the game. Don't try and insult a character when you selectively pick your tidbits. "Having a soul transferred into your body? Just get up and walk away dumbo!!!!" Really, shamus?

And as for your needs her alive theory, they only get what on earth is happening when they actually try the fire ritual for the first time. That is more than halfway of the game, and she is fucking terrified. They tried to burn her at the stake? If you expect her to try anything smart when She & Lara have seen SO many other people on the ship shot in cold blood (around that supposed rape scena and ALL THROUGHOUT THE FREAKING GAME), you have no idea how real world things work.

Your question isn't "Why is Sam such a useless character". Your question is "Why isn't she even a fraction of bad ass as Lara is?" Don't mix those two. There are people, when under a gun will do anything. They can't even talk, can't even breathe well, can't even think straight. they become puddles, literally. Then there are people who will try to play the hero. Lara is the latter, Sam is the former. natural instincts. Are any of those groups useless? No. In real life, it is a huge risk to even try to run away from a bad situation - when life is in the stake, you'd have to have a death wish to try and make things worse for yourself.

Seriously, such a pointless article, and your title of 'damsel in distress' (which has now been infamous thanks to Women Vs Tropes) will possible make people re consider looking into what is otherwise a FANTASTIC game.