TOMB RAIDER
I think I almost lost sight of just how much I love the Tomb Raider videogame series. I was introduced to it as a child by my father, and have been in love with Indiana Jones buxom sister, ever since. She's part of my childhood, so no matter what, Lara Croft will always be my home girl. I am enamored with her character development, and will continually scrutinize and criticize any significant changes to her existing personality and background.
Lara Croft did not start out as a very good person. In fact, she was neither truly good nor evil, but as the good old dungeon and dragons friends of mine might have described her, unlawful neutral. The defining point in her life was when she was but 20, and survived a plane crash in the Himalayas. She had been a pampered, shallow, carefree school caught up in the trappings of a privileged upper class life. However, when the plane crash happened, she was forced to trek for days on end in the blinding snow to safety. She realized, that the only time she felt truly alive was when she was alone, fighting the elements and proving she deserved every living breath she took. Her father was an archeologist, and from then on she became is apprentice. The driving forces (especially after the death of her mother, to natural causes)in her life, were living on the edge, close to nature, ancient civilizations, and the love she had for her father. When her father died too, he died the laughingstock of the archeological community. His last research had been on the fabled lost city of Atlantis.The first game starts with her picking up after her fathers research, and her mature self finally solidifies. She is driven in an obsessive pursuit to prove her fathers research valid, to redeem his name, to find Atlantis. To her, there was no good or bad, there was only her goal, and whatever it took to obtain it. She was indeed coldblooded in her first iteration. She killed other human beings without any remorse to attain the objects of her obsession. The only people that mattered to her, were her father, and her loyal butler, who stood in for him when he died, and Lara was left an orphan.
Her exploits are often unbelievable if not outright crazy, when it comes to the dangers she puts herself into. With her hardened outlook on life, as only living when alone in nature, together with her practically unlimited funds, she had the means, the drive, and the endurance to search the ends of the earth for what she was looking for. Tomb raider would not be a term she would accept for herself I think. Though she stole from other countries by taking their artifacts, to her it was her birthright, the fruition of her fathers work.
As the rest of the series progresses, her obsession continues as well. At the end of the first game, she finds her answers, but the obsession does not end, it merely refocuses. She wants rare artifacts, and not just any, only the rarest, most mysterious ones. Only the hardest to obtain, the ones the will present her with the most struggle and danger to her own life. Along the way she has saved the world a few times. However this is not out of altruistic love for the world, it is because as cold hearted as she could be, she lives on this earth too, and the trying, dangerous places she slips in and out of are part of it.
This character is fairly consistent for the first five games. The sixth game shall not be mentioned. The seventh game was a series reboot after the abominable game which shall not be named practically ruined the Tomb Raider franchise. With the reboot, came a new Lara. She seemed to have very little connection to the original Lara, other than her love of ancient international theft, and a few basic biographical elements, and even those were changed. Indeed she still crashed in the Himalayas, however her mother was with her, and disappeared during the activation of a strange ancient device, never to be seen again. Her character is changed greatly. She is more feminine, has actual friends, and has a sense of humor. She is a regular archeologist due to her fathers influence, however her obsessive tendencies are now directed towards finding her mother, whom she she believes, in some way might still be alive.
With the release of the Tomb Raider 1 remake the original story is shifted to match up better with the seventh, and though unknown at the time, this was in preparation of an eighth game which would unify elements from both games for a sequel. Lara is still obsessed with proving her fathers research true, but now she is no longer coldblooded. In fact, the first human kill in the game is shown in an interactive cut scene, and at the end she shows horror and then remorse for killing someone.
In the latest installment Lara starts to shift much closer towards her original personality. Her obsessive and cold hearted tendencies are brought to the forefront once again, as the truth about her mothers fate is almost within her grasp. To complicate matters, this Lara has friends who are close to her, and one of whom is murdered by an antagonist in the game. She already has the ability to kill others who threaten her life at this point, but now her heart his hardened with pain and sadness, and revenge has taken a seat among her chief motivations. By the end of the game, she is a character who has lost some of her closest family and friends, from early in her life, to the present. Life has taught her a hard lesson of the impermanence of all life, lives of those she loves, of those who oppose her, of those she doesn't even know, and of her own. Life has taught her that nothing will ever be properly explained to you, and you will never truly know the answers to any of your questions, unless you find them yourself. As much as I liked the original Lara, the new one, this one, is so much more human. I embrace the new her, and with an impending new series reboot, all I can do, is wonder where she will go next, on foot, and in her own heart.
