Tomb Raider Dev: Rape is Not in Our Vocabulary

[CaptainMarvelous]

So... maybe just me, but does anyone remember Silent Hill 2? Just, I distinctly remember that every monster in that game looked feminine and often had less than enjoyable encounters with Pyramid Head, where things went significantly further than they did in this trailer. Hell, he's the only male monster in the entire game and his symbolism is pretty blatant. Oh wait, except for that boss who's after Angela, what's his name? Big Daddy or something? Where it's literally a walking bed with an adult male figure and a smaller figure under the covers giving a pretty clear indication of why Angela has problems?

So, yeah, games can cover these kinds of topics but not when the internet's watching. I actually had to re-watch the trailer because all I could remember was her fighting the guy off, guess I can see it as being rape-y in hindsight, honestly didn't pay it much mind at the time I was still stuck on the "stop being knocked out, Croft!" stage.

 

[BrotherRool]

And rape is an important issue, I never used to understand why but now I've seen more stuff I find it hard to see any scene in a film. There are a crud load of victims and lots of normal people with difficult lives can have really bad reactions or flashbacks from even the merest intention of a film, so unlike most things, discussion of how rape is being presented in fiction isn't really some reactionary thing only affecting moral white knights. Most of the white knighters don't even know enough to know what they're talking about probably.

Only white knights who don't know enough to know what they're talking about however, would argue that nothing around the theme is to be depicted.

What's the one thing all trauma therapy is after? To eliminate triggers. You don't do that by not adressing the issue and hoping it won't disadvantage a victim too much, you do it by confrontation and re-interpretation.

So the very few offended by the scene in the game can't claim to speak for any victims of sexual abuse there may be, because their proposal of banning such content doesn't help anyone, victims included.

I'm only arguing it needs to be intelligently done in a piece of work that is attempting something more meaningful than just entertainment.

You view of rape victims, triggers and facing those fears is not really how it works and the people who go through these things were not share your opinion. Saying 'it will make you stronger' or 'you've got to face your fears' is narratively good and we enjoy a nice film about it, but in reality what doesn't kill you can hurt and make you feel weak and alone

EDIT: Also just to say, I'm not talking completely from a position of internet superiority, I have done some work with rape victims and before I'd done that, I think I'd probably have had similar views to yourself. I'd always figured that rape was a horrible thing, but not any worse than violent assault

 

[hooksashands]

I am so sick of rape discussions.

 

[Darkmantle]

I don't even get the problem.

There is no rape in the game either way.
There IS an npc who might conceivably have the intention to commit rape, or at least feels a bit rape-y.
Said npc then gets fought off (and, in my Mind-Vision-Version at least, he also gets his nuts crashed).
So no rape happens.

So why the fuss ?

Spoken like someone who doesnt quite understand how rape affects people.

But no rape happened. It's barely attempted rape. But people are all up in arms claiming there is a rape scene in the trailer. Maybe I'm watching the wrong trailer, but there doesn't seem to be.

Men. When we're not being thrown into rape statistics, we're being told our opinion doesn't mean shit because herp derp male privilege.

Yea, I forgot what a 'privilege' it is to be blamed for everything wrong in culture and society.

Ha, this too!

 

[Vulpis]

I don't even get the problem.

There is no rape in the game either way.
There IS an npc who might conceivably have the intention to commit rape, or at least feels a bit rape-y.
Said npc then gets fought off (and, in my Mind-Vision-Version at least, he also gets his nuts crashed).
So no rape happens.

So why the fuss ?

She fights the guy off and shoots him in the gut, then watches him die.

So... I agree with you. If the exact same thing happened with a male protagonist (and I mean literally swap character models, same animations) - let's say Nathan Drake - nobody would give a damn. Nobody would assume it was a gay enemy trying to rape him, it would just be a little mortal scuffle and life goes on.

EDIT: Just watched it again. So the only "rapey" thing I see is they slow mo the guy's hand going down towards her waist line. Of course, most people seem to like holding weapons there so he might be checking her for weapons. But he gets kneed in the nuts, and then grabs her from behind. He goes in, maybe to kiss her neck... although it's hard to say because she lunges at him and bites his neck. Then they're on the ground and she puts a bullet in him.

So, yeah, it looks a little rapey and that's probably their intention, but she's not a victim here. She's a fighter, a survivor, and now a killer too.

If that's how the scene plays out--I honestly am *not* seeing the issue with this at all. Yeah, it may be *attempted*--but it's an attempt that obviously fails completely and totally, and in fact serves as a good lesson in 'Don't do that, or you're going to be fed your own testicles.' In short, the scene demonstrates that action is *wrong*--which is what the lesson is supposed to be in the first place, isn't it? Now if there was a fade to black coming back up on a bruised Lara crying in the corner, *that* would be cause for torches an pitchforks--but that's not what they did, it seems. So why are we complaining about this, again?

 

[Vulpis]

Men. When we're not being thrown into rape statistics, we're being told our opinion doesn't mean shit because herp derp male privilege.

Yea, I forgot what a 'privilege' it is to be blamed for everything wrong in culture and society.

The 'Joy' of being the 'majority'. As a educated white male who lives in the Southern US, I get beaten over the head with that sort of thing multiple times over. :-/

 

[LHZA]

Let's try and comprimise, shall we?

1. The scene in the trailer does NOT depict a rape.
2. It does depict an attempted rape and/or sexual assualt.
3. Video games should be allowed to tackle the subject of rape/sexual assualt, like any other medium.
4. Tackling said subject should be done in away that's respectful towards victims of sexual assualt and should be shown to be more a violent act than a sexual one (from the perspective of the victim).
5. Rape should not be glorified the same way violence is in video games.
6. The PR over this controversy was handled badly, very very badly, in more than one respect.
7. Rosenbergs statements were stupid, sexist, alienating towards many female gamers and disrespectful to the many male gamers who want to play a female protagonist for reasons over than to protect her.
8. Heterosexual white male gamers are not the enemy to non-heterosexual white male gamers.
9. There are other ways to add characterization towards a female character other than victimizing her.
10. Overcoming hardship is something you see often in male protagonist as well, so the real debate is it a tired, overused trope used in characterizing woman in particular?(me personally, I'm not so sure).

Whaddya say people. Can we more or less agree both side have their valid points and stop accusing the side we disagree with of being sexist/feminist reactionary dipshits?

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

First few screens, Lara bloodied up in the wilderness, I figure 'Nice, she's kickin' ass and chewing bubble gum like any other action hero'. But then more info caused me to back out on this game.
"You will want to protect her" rang too true and sketchy at the same time.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I think he's got a point.

The gaming media (and other media), including the Escapist, is doing exactly what happened during the whole 'Mass Effect sex controversy' and numerous other instances of such bad reporting. There isn't a rape scene in the new Tomb Raider trailer. There may be an attempted rape scene, but if you can't understand the difference then you probably shouldn't be writing about it in the first place.

Also, this whole controversy has shown exactly what the problem is with the gaming community right now. In that trailer Lara is beaten, broken, bloodied, pushed to the limits of her endurance and beyond and discovers the strength to do things she never thought she could. It's a harrowing, at times painful to watch experience that reminds us that to become the badass we know and love, Lara has to face real adversity.

Oh yeah, and part of that adversity is that someone attempts to rape her, at which point she ends up killing him.

In a sane world, the murder of a another human being, even in self defence, might raise a few more questions than an attempted rape. The fact Lara has to kill animals to survive. The fact that she witnesses evidence of cannibalism maybe worth a mention.

Has any of that been mentioned in a single article on the Tomb Raider trailer? Nope, didn't think so. The gaming community needs to grow up and get a little perpective. The only reason this is a 'controversy' is because it has been made into one, exactly the same way that Mass Effect's sex controversy was made one by people who hadn't even played the game.

'Mass Effect can be customized to sodomise whatever, whomever, however, the game player wishes... with its ?over the net? capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.'

Remember that? Remember how dumb they all sounded for focusing on one tiny aspect of a game where there was a whole world of genocide and trauma to focus on? Are we aware of the concept of irony?

Here's a wacky notion. If you're going to focus on something from the trailer, focus on the death, cannibalism, and amount of pain Lara suffers. Or if you're feeling really adventurous, don't comment on a game that hasn't even been released yet. All manner of things could change between now and the actual release date.

Oh, and the fact that likely that ATTEMPTED rape scene is probably going to be removed because the community kicked up such a fuss about it? That can only be for the bad. If gamers cry out in outrage every time a game includes something controversial that doesn't fit into our very narrow wordlview how exactly do you think the medium is going to evolve to be able to deal with sensitive topics such as drug use, sexuality and sexual violence, and the more widespread topic of violence and its application? Eventually developers will stop including depictions of anything other than bland white male protagonists gunning down non-specific alien invaders, just to make sure no one could possibly be offended, and gaming will stagnate and end.

Thank you for your remarkably sane response to this issue. People are focusing so much on her being a weak character because someone tries to rape her and a producer says "You'll want to protect her". From what I've seen in the gameplay trailer if anything it is portraying her as a very strong character, yet a realistic one. This is supposed to be an origin story, what kind of ordinary person starts as an infallible badass who has no issue with killing someone? She gets beaten, bloodied, has to fend for herself without anyone's assistance and from what I've seen she damn well does it. Why is it seen as such a bad reflection on her character that someone tries to rape her, or touch her, or whatever the developers are calling it?

Speaking of which, I'm kind of disappointed that the developers seem to be backing down on the issue. If the scene gets removed just because a bunch of people don't want to see them trying to include attempted rape in their games I'm going to be very disappointed.

 

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

I don't even get the problem.

There is no rape in the game either way.
There IS an npc who might conceivably have the intention to commit rape, or at least feels a bit rape-y.
Said npc then gets fought off (and, in my Mind-Vision-Version at least, he also gets his nuts crashed).
So no rape happens.

So why the fuss ?

Spoken like someone who doesnt quite understand how rape affects people.

But no rape happened. It's barely attempted rape. But people are all up in arms claiming there is a rape scene in the trailer. Maybe I'm watching the wrong trailer, but there doesn't seem to be.

Men. When we're not being thrown into rape statistics, we're being told our opinion doesn't mean shit because herp derp male privilege.

Yea, I forgot what a 'privilege' it is to be blamed for everything wrong in culture and society.

Ha, this too!

Speaking as a person who has been raped, I can see you just dont get it.

Nobody is going to be offended by attempted murder if they're been murdered, they're dead.
EVERYONE is going to be offended by attempted rape if they've been raped, because we deal with it every day of our god damn lives.

 

[Erttheking]

I don't even get the problem.

There is no rape in the game either way.
There IS an npc who might conceivably have the intention to commit rape, or at least feels a bit rape-y.
Said npc then gets fought off (and, in my Mind-Vision-Version at least, he also gets his nuts crashed).
So no rape happens.

So why the fuss ?

Spoken like someone who doesnt quite understand how rape affects people.

But no rape happened. It's barely attempted rape. But people are all up in arms claiming there is a rape scene in the trailer. Maybe I'm watching the wrong trailer, but there doesn't seem to be.

Men. When we're not being thrown into rape statistics, we're being told our opinion doesn't mean shit because herp derp male privilege.

Yea, I forgot what a 'privilege' it is to be blamed for everything wrong in culture and society.

Ha, this too!

Speaking as a person who has been raped, I can see you just dont get it.

Nobody is going to be offended by attempted murder if they're been murdered, they're dead.
EVERYONE is going to be offended by attempted rape if they've been raped, because we deal with it every day of our god damn lives.

Call me crazy but I think that people with relatives that were murdered and people who were nearly murdered would beg to differ.

 

[Darkmantle]

I don't even get the problem.

There is no rape in the game either way.
There IS an npc who might conceivably have the intention to commit rape, or at least feels a bit rape-y.
Said npc then gets fought off (and, in my Mind-Vision-Version at least, he also gets his nuts crashed).
So no rape happens.

So why the fuss ?

Spoken like someone who doesnt quite understand how rape affects people.

But no rape happened. It's barely attempted rape. But people are all up in arms claiming there is a rape scene in the trailer. Maybe I'm watching the wrong trailer, but there doesn't seem to be.

Men. When we're not being thrown into rape statistics, we're being told our opinion doesn't mean shit because herp derp male privilege.

Yea, I forgot what a 'privilege' it is to be blamed for everything wrong in culture and society.

Ha, this too!

Speaking as a person who has been raped, I can see you just dont get it.

Nobody is going to be offended by attempted murder if they're been murdered, they're dead.
EVERYONE is going to be offended by attempted rape if they've been raped, because we deal with it every day of our god damn lives.

I would barely classify that as attempted rape. I've seen more extreme shit in Disney cartoons. The bandit's hand doesn't even make it to her ass, Lara knees him in the balls when his hand is above her hip ffs. If that's all it takes to set you off is someone being rough, you are in for a long life of being upset over nothing.

Also, should we ban all knives from games because someone who got stabbed might get upset? how about guns for the shot people. Or how about all hostage situations removed from games/movies because people who have been in that situations might get upset/"triggered". That line of argument is useless, it is too broad. You can't demand something be removed/never used because it offends you.

 

[cobra_ky]

so they've gone from exploiting rape to...ignoring it entirely. Nope, no obvious sexual overtones here! We never even noticed!

It's amazing how tone-deaf they've been on this subject in the media, which doesn't give me much confidence that they'll be able to handle it at all well in the actual game.

Hey CD, maybe rape SHOULD have been in your vocabulary. If your own employees are misconstruing the scene as rape, chances are a good chunk of your audience is going to as well. Try focus testing for that.

 

[Leethe1Girl]

Meh. I don't see what the big issues is.

This game's trying to be more realistic and we're looking at a situation where a lovely, young woman is stranded in the middle of nowhere and then runs into a bunch of bad guys. People do realize that in this situation it is ENTIRELY likely that pretty much any woman would be at risk of being sexually assaulted, right?

Perhaps it should not have been included in the preview to leave the sheep to speculate. But I'm pretty happy that, since it was included, it looks like Lara will be kicking the shit-hole's ass anyway. Instead of being the victim that everyone feels the need to "protect".

Actually the "protect" aspect is fucking stupid if you ask me. Players don't feel the need to protect the characters they play as. If the game is a GOOD game, usually the player feels as if they ARE that character. Whether they're male or female or other.

I think it's a major flaw for a game developer to not understand that.

 

[jimbob123432]

"Rape" isn't in their vocabulary? I guess "stupid" isn't either...

 

[R9-APLHA]

So are bad things never allowed to happen to women in videogames?

 

[Mikeyfell]

and here I thought I was looking forward to the new Tomb Raider.
I guess not.

I've almost had it up to here though *Hand slightly above eye level*
I'm pretty much done with gaming until the industry gets over either shooters or "taboo subject matter"

If you never even attempt to push the envelope the envelope will never get pushed and in a hundred years we'll still all be playing what ever they're calling the new re-release of CoD 4.

And more of the reason this pisses me off so much is not because this is the only thing that looked playable from E3 it's because who's better to have to deal with rapists (or potential rapists) than Lara Croft? She already has the reputation of being a complete bad ass, to find out she got that way by fighting against people who were trying to rape her just makes too much sense to pass up.

But apparently nobody's immune to bad ideas.

 

[Overquoted]

Sorry for the late reply; had to factory reset my laptop earlier this week.

Well I'm looking at - literally looking at, on my desk - my copy of Tomb Raider on PC CDROM copyright 1996 Core Design Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited. And guess what? There's a big pixelated picture of Lara and her huge tits.

This just occurred to me. Lara has always been a sex object. Always. Now, in the trailer we see her in a desperate struggle against that issue, and she fucking kicks ass. Maybe that's a good thing?

I never said she wasn't a sex object to the gamer; she was. I said her "mortal scuffles" weren't sexualized. They were about fists and bullets, not some dude's erection. (To be fair, I haven't played them all, so I can't be 100% certain there weren't equally creepy cut-scenes in earlier games.) You said no one would assume Nathan Drake was about to be raped in the same circumstances, so I'm not sure what your point is now.

What trailer did you see? She had her hands tied and fought like a tiger! Fear?? Sure, everyone's got to be afraid. But she kicks the guy in the nuts, bites his neck, and shoots him in the face. All this while also being injured. She is not a victim here - she could have been, perhaps, but she is not.

And makes noises that can only possibly be associated with fear, then breaks down after she blows his head off. Like I said, it marks her as vulnerable, as a victim. Doesn't mean she didn't fight back, it just means the scene was intentionally designed to be seen as a rape attempt. I'm merely countering your argument that it was merely a "little rapey" and the scene wasn't meant to show her as a victim.

I get that rape can be a sensitive issue to some people. I read the article about it the other day, written by a rape victim when he was 7. I think that's terrible and should not be taken lightly (like chanting "RAPE! RAPE!" during Game of Thrones). However, I just feel that it's not completely out of place here. Yeah, it's probably one of the worst things someone can go through besides (or maybe equal to) torture. It's really bad.

However what we see is a woman who is persevering. Her fight or flight instinct is obviously fight. She doesn't give up, she does what she has to do.

Suffice it to say, I think it's a powerful scene and shows Lara's true mettle: she's a survivor; a fighter.

It's not a "sensitive issue." Rape is an issue that hasn't been dealt with adequately by society or government. My own city couldn't even turn in an inventory list of untested rape kits, nevermind actually get important kits tested. Expecting a rape scene in a game to just be okay with women, who compromise the vast majority of rape victims, just isn't logical given the societal circumstances. And rape in games can't be addressed the way it can in movies. While there are a ton of movies out there that would fall under the sexploitation genre, there are an equal amount (and often equally bad) number of movies featuring rape and its aftermath. Games aren't going to do that, and I'm not entirely sure they could and remain profitable. It's about fantasy, and I can't think of anyone who'd want to play a game that replicates real life to that degree. Unless Quantum Dream does it, I suppose.

Rape as a plot device when a regular fight would suffice is aggravating. The Last of Us was capable of taking viewers' breath away without rape; Tomb Raider was equally capable. So no, the scene doesn't show her as a true survivor. It shows her as a survivor of attempted rape, period. Why is that difference defensible?

 

[Overquoted]

Imagine if in Uncharted 2 when Drake gets grievously injured in the train crash, the player has to press a sequence of buttons to escape a gang bang once the guards find in him the wreckage. It'd be jarring and out of place, and certainly wouldn't fit thematically within the context of the game.

Oh man, I laughed so hard. I'm not sure if it was because the idea of such a thing being in a game is ridiculously silly, or if it's because I'm imagining repeatedly failing the quick-time event over and over again.

Oh jeez, what if you had to watch Nathan Drake be gang-raped repeatedly just because you hit the wrong button? O_O *futilely scrubs brain*

 

[Overquoted]

That doesn't constitute sexual assault, let alone rape. It's almost spectacular how safe Crystal Dynamics are playing it. But hey, don't let THAT get in the way of a good obsession for us to fight about over the course of 9001 threads.

EDIT: To avoid the quote flood: No, touching someone's thigh does not constitute sexual assault any more than grabbing someone's arm. Had he of succeeded in kissing or properly groping her, that would be sexual assault... he doesn't.

First off, dig the name. Catchy. Secondly, 'sexual assault' is usually a legal term that can include everything from groping to violent gang-rape. And I don't think you can honestly defend the scene as anything other than an attempt. Attempted rape is about motive, not about what was actually accomplished; attempted murder is the same way. When a guy yanks a fearful and bound woman against him, then begins sliding his hand down to her crotch, and it ends with a fight to the death, there are pretty heavy odds that it was attempted rape. Similar situation in real life, minus the death, would end with jail time and a lifetime membership to the sex offenders' registry.

It's a legitimate debate whether rape is acceptable in a game, and even whether how it was handled was okay. You and many other posters insisting that it was just a little bit of grab-ass is not cool. It's factually wrong and kind of insulting to people affected by sexual crimes.



As for several other posters equating criticism with knee-jerk feminism (with 'feminism' said with special slurring emphasis), I call bull. There's criticism for crappy handling of women in video games, end of story. This isn't new. It's not like we all suddenly woke up and noticed. These criticisms have been around for a long time; the only reason they're getting louder is because more adult women are becoming gamers and gaming itself is becoming a major hobby. It's simply an example of an industry still trying to figure itself out rather than any "feminist agenda." And even when it does, there will still be idiotic games with insulting caricatures of women. But the balance will be enough that the idiotic games won't be held up as industry standards. [Plus, Lara Croft is a fair example of the dichotomy - on the one hand, sexualized in every game; on the other, a still respectable heroine simply because she's tough, clever and has a recognizable personality.]

So yeah, if the gaming industry is still working on getting a fairly decent handle on reflecting actual women into games rather than sexual fantasies of women, then you can bet having a questionable attempted rape scene is going to push a few buttons. Here's the real question: What is more offensive, people complaining about women being misrepresented in games through female characters and rape scenes, or people complaining that those people should just shut up? Cuz last I checked, it's not misogyny that prompts the last, just good old-fashioned patronization.