Tomb Raider Developers Deny Existence of Sexual Assault In Game, Miss The Point Entirely

It would be very interesting to know, if The Mary Sue Overlords are willing to tell us, how many troll responses, to this and the other topical post from two days ago about harassment of women in video games, that they’ve had to delete…

Let me ask you a question… what made you who you are today? What made you think or act they way you do when faced with difficult decisions?  Whatever your answer, that is YOUR story.  I appreciate that ‘sexual assault’ is not a topic to take lightly, and I would never suggest that they did, but maybe that’s just part of the Lara Croft story… you ask why they need it after all she’s been through, I ask why not?  Maybe it’s the straw that breaks the camels back.  Ultimately, we can’t keep hiding things because they might upset or offend because everything has to the potential to do that… and what makes your particular group any more important than any other?  The important thing is that it’s dealt with properly within the context.

Hiding the problems of the world only keeps people uneducated… shine a spotlight on it and USE it to get a positive message/outcome.

“That mountain is fucking huge!”
“Nah bro, that’s a molehill.”

“I ask why not?”
Because rape has been too prevalent in female action hero back stories, yet surprisingly absent in male action hero stories. The way to reduce the amount of sexual violence in our societies is not to glorify it (“if you survive, you’ll gain super powers!”) but to treat it as the horror it is. Not just as level 4 on a video game.

The problem isn’t rape as an element, it’s a problem of how it’s executed.

I do not speak for all survivors, but yes, this does trouble me. It’s once again, an example of unexamined privilege. It seems like these developers, who are men, are trying to write about something they will more then likely never experience. That just confuses me; if you want to write about something and have it be realistic, wouldn’t you research the experience? Wouldn’t you, I don’t know, speak with a survivor of rape, look at the statistics, or try to understand the REAL reason behind rape? (hint: it has nothing to do with sex)

(As a side note, here’s where I get angry) I’m a fuckin’ survivor. My rapes and sexual assaults do NOT define who I am as a person. I survived abuse after abuse at the hands of men whom I thought were my friends. I didn’t deserve it, and I live with PTSD and Depression thanks to what they did to me. I do not parade these things around like a goddamn war hero; they were unfair and unecessary acts in my life. NO ONE deserves assault or abuse of ANY kind. To suggest otherwise, that someone becomes “strong” because abuse was done to them, or that it’s necessary, is extremely ignorant.

delete irrelevant posts.

I’m going to regret this, I already know it.

Let me preface by saying, I have not seen the trailer in question. Nor have I read any article about the goings on of the new Tomb Raider game outside of this one. It’s never been a game I really cared about. Just not my thing.

Having said that. I’m with you on the “why do we have to use rape as a plot device to show a woman in danger” part. Raping a human being, male or female, is not okay.  I think the only people who would disagree with that are rapists, and they’re jerks.  The point that the first quote seemed to be trying to make is that the turning point for her is that it’s the first time she kills another human being.  Ask any soldier/cop/reasonable human being; that’s a BIG deal.  You can participate in all the violence in the world, but unless there’s something wrong with you, taking a person’s life changes you forever.  It sounds like that’s what they’re trying to convey.

Do they take a stupid shortcut in order to elicit an emotional response?  Kinda sounds like it.  Though it does sound like it was effective.  As stated in the article, rape’s a real thing.  A real thing that happens to women a lot more than it does men.  Evil people do evil things.  Rape is an evil thing.  She’s facing an evil person.  It’s not unrealistic that an evil person would try to do an evil thing, and the world being what it is, it’s a lot more likely that an evil person would try to do that evil thing to her than they would Nathan Drake.  Is it as important that they put in an evil thing that happens in the real world as it is that she stopped it?  That the jerk that tried it found that there’s a consequence to being an evil jerk, and sometimes that consequence is bullets to the face?  Instead of focusing on what he’s trying to do, isn’t it better to say “this is what you get for being an evil lecherous bastard”?

Exactly. Take Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or the times Stephen King has written about rape (not every time, but most of the time, he’s on the mark, my opinion). These stories empathized and validated the victims. The way the developers are talking, they do not feel the same way about rape survivors. They seem to want to put rape in their game because it’s “edgy”. That’s disgusting.

Nah bro, that’s privilege :D

I think the point here is that the producers are really, really bad at doing interviews for this game. The comments that were made about wanting to “protect” Lara because people don’t identify with her and the ones above confirming the instances of rape, are bad. The first is just unfounded and the second is giving information about an event that is purposefully left vague in the trailer.

So now that that’s settled – let’s get back to the trailer. I’ve watched it several times and I don’t think the implication of rape is clear at all. Yes, he reaches for her hip. Could that be suggestive? Definitely. Would he be reaching for a body part on a male captive as well if he were trying to take control of his prisoner. Yes! The thing is – there is nothing more than that. The scene is about her defending herself and escaping certain danger. Does her friend get threatened and frighteningly carried away? Yes. Could you assume things will happen to her? Yes. Do they show or imply them? No. Do you start the trailer with Lara finding another friend dead? Yes. Does she look sexually assaulted in any way? No. 

This is really a big case of blowing something hugely out of proportion and making assumptions that are really unfounded based on the trailer that is shown. Yea, the producer made some pretty bad comments and he definitely should not be allowed to interview anymore. However, to return with really terrible implications about things that don’t happen in the game – is really bad as well. “Lara will be punished with rape if you fail” – just.. no… that’s not even close. It really looks like that scene is cut video as well so there isn’t even a chance to fail…

This follow up article just seems like an inability to say “oh wait, I jumped to a lot of conclusions in the last article that weren’t true” by saying “a man makes a movement toward Lara Croft’s hips in a way that simultaneously threatens her life and conveys sexual assault.” That’s a big change of pace from the implications that were made yesterday. 

I also really disagree with this: “The thing is, if we’re to believe the trailer, she has already fought for her life, and won. Why add on the implication of sexual violence?” That’s assuming that the scene is at the end of the game and she doesn’t have 10-50 hours of gameplay where every action is fighting for her life. This cut scene could be 1 hour into the game where she has so many obstacles to still face. 

I do think rape is wrong, and I’m not arguing with you there but it’s just as wrong to make the accusation when it’s not there. 

I think the point of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is actually to point out how horrible and victimizing it is. This is really pointed out in the other two. I don’t think there is anything about those stories that glamorizes it or makes it edgy. The whole point is to show how common and disturbing violence against women is. 

I am so sorry that you experienced what you did. I wish you health, happiness, and safety and hope you have all the help you need to heal. 

I think that’s what Thae86 is saying – these are GOOD examples of writing about rape.

The whole thing is troubling to me from both sides. I’m not sure that rape should be off limits as part of art (and video games as art means that we kind of have to think about its inclusion) but if it is included it really needs to “say” something constructive. The trailer made me uncomfortable because it felt like glamorized violence rather than something gritty that would tell a deep story. I think that’s where my own personal frustration with the developers comes in.
 
Part of it is perhaps the fact that we’re being told that some events are avoidable and so as a player we choose how cruel Lara’s situation becomes. Perhaps the promise of choice is the frightening aspect of the whole issue. It glosses over the reality of true trauma which is that strength to survive is a lengthy process that happens behind the scenes. It will happen out of frame and the player will only get to play through the traumas. Probably that is part of what makes it…icky.
 
In the end it may be a good game (in terms of–the player may enjoy the game’s challenges) but Ron’s statements combined with the trailer are disquieting because he claims to be telling a great story but the presentation is sensational rather than sensitive and it is hard to envision that the story element will do what he seems to think it will do.

However, there are real reasons to include personal topics in video games. There are ways to handle hard issues and invoke real empathy so that the player thinks about what they’ve seen and experienced through the characters they’ve played. But the choice of genre and character is going to impact the choice as much as the writing and functional gameplay.

Ah, my bad. 

L0stMan, no one is suggesting to bury the concept of rape and act like it doesn’t happen. What they did say was that it should be treated the right way. Some throw away plot point of “Yay I’m tougher now!” is an insult and does not help people understand what the reality is. You said “Hiding problems of the world only keeps people uneducated…shine a spotlight on it and USE it to get a positive message/outcome.” That is exactly why this Tomb Raider rape plot point is WRONG. Exactly why people are not happy about it. It is not a “positive message” just because Lara doesn’t die and instead lives on to have whatever adventures they have in store for her. The response is not a case of people censoring or taking things too seriously. It is a video game, yes, but tv, movies, games, books, etc all impact the people who consume them. With how this Tomb Raider game was handled, people might be aware of the rape element but not in a “good way.” It can contribute to people not taking real life rape as seriously as they should and sadly that is a VERY real obstacle. People get desensitized, they don’t understand the full reality of things if it doesn’t happen directly to them, some people are just jerks, etc. There are many things that get in the way of people having compassion or understanding and they do need to have information shared with them so they can learn. This particular game, this particular story element, does not do that.

Thank you Nikki for this post. As a man, specifically one who has NOT experienced rape, society often communicates that I’m not allowed to have an opinion on the matter. So thank you for saying everything I was thinking. Since you’re a woman, it’s okay for you to take this stance.

Nikki, unless I read it wrong, I think your point is exactly what Thae said. She was pointing out Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as one of the stories that “empathized” and “validated the victims.”

 I just watched the trailer in question twice, and I think you’re spot-on.

So…they can kill as many people as they want, as long as nobody gets raped?  Because we wouldn’t want anyone becoming desensitized against rape.

“I am not saying that Tomb Raider is knowingly, purposefully encouraging violence against women — I’m simply asking, why is a scene with a “threatening undertone” of sexual assault such a huge step in her development, and why was it the climax of the E3 2012 trailer? Why did the developers choose to showcase that, instead of any other scenes in which Lara Croft is surviving against all odds?”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol_-QGlwRqc&feature=player_embedded#! 

The developers have repeatedly stated that the scene above and the resulting altercation was the first time Lara was forced to kill a person with a gun. The longer E3 trailer/footage shows her killing dudes without abandon using arrows/guns etc. in gameplay which seems to be directly lifted from Uncharted. The section was probably selected to show how the switch was flipped to force to kill human beings in order to survive just like the demo last e3 was about environmental puzzle solving. And I think extended footage also shows her using bow and arrow and learning to hunt to eat for the first time.

But here’s what confuses me, it’s a vague reference to an ATTEMPTED rape. It’s not that she gets raped and that makes her a hero (which I agree would be a completely horrible representation of that scene)….it’s that she fought off her assailant. Something I would have thought women would view as empowering.

 I did actually see it as prelude to rape, mostly because of the fact that the shot slows down as his hand slowly moves to her waist. The implication is there.

Also, the fact that the developers (the actual people working on the game, not the producers trying to sell it) call it the attempted rape scene says a great deal. They just didn’t realize people were going to get angry about it and are now backpedaling.

Yet, it will be a recurring trend for the women who say “you know, the way [heroine] looks like she’s going to be sexual assaulted/is being raped/sexualized and then killed brutally makes me feel uncomfortable, like the last 100 times it did for the last 100 female characters it happened to – could you maybe stop doing that to all the women?” will be told they’re wrong, called names, harassed, belittled, and just plain dismissed.

Yes, you’re so oppressed that you can’t have your rape cake and eat it too.

You’re learning quick.

It’s not that you’re a man, it’s that you have privilege, and more then likely will not have this experience. And no, one woman does not speak for all of us-we’re not a hive mind.

That’s the problem, chum. Attempted rape is not empowering. That idea needs to die.

Privileged to rot in prison. Privileged to commit suicide. Privileged to take my daughter, or niece to the park while being accused of a pedo.
Privilege is a two way street. Something many of us like to forget.

Agreed, the first post seemed to jump to conclusions. What’s wrong with back tracking and realizing your mistakes? And “to make the accusation that’s not there”?

‘RON: “And then what happens is her best friend gets kidnapped, she gets taken prisoner by scavengers on the island. They try to rape her, and-”
KOTAKU: “They try to rape her?”
RON: “She’s literally turned into a cornered animal. And that’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s either forced to fight back or die and that’s what we’re showing today.”’

That sounds pretty spot on to me. And what brought on the idea of “that’s assuming that the scene is at the end of the game”? The fact that the sexual violence is there at all, when it doesn’t have to be, that’s the argument.

Yea, that’s why I thought I would put my comment out there. You were pretty spot on by what you thought the reaction would have been if you wrote it as demonstrated by the other responses to your comment. It’s really sad that people will tell you that you can’t have that opinion just because you’re a man. 

Apologies for how my comment sounded, believe me when I say that’s not how I meant it! I’m actually someone who cares quite a bit about this subject matter. I have close friends who were effected by rape. I’m a man with a wife and a daughter he cares deeply about and would be crushed if anything happened to them. I’m constantly faced with the challenge of finding positive female role models in society to share with my daughter as she grows up into what I hope is a strong, confident woman. So despite my perspective and deep sympathy on issues like rape, I’m constantly bombarded with women who feel the need to tell me I have no right to have an opinion on the matter. That sucks.

My post, if you’ll notice was not trying to sound oppressed, rather it was thanking the poster I replied to for voicing an opinion that I agree with (and holds more weight from her because she is a woman). I am very sensitive to how women and rape is portrayed in society, but I’m not offended by the Lara Croft footage because, as Nikki pointed out, there’s no evidence that she or her dead friend were raped. There is an attempt that she fights off, which I feel could be viewed by women as an empowering scene.

Thank you very much, I appreciate it. :)

It slows down and then focuses also on her kneeing him in the groin to get away. It’s a dramatic scene and I think the emphasis was misinterpreted. 

I’m failing to see how they say “Yay I’m tougher now!” The trailer has a lot of scenes of her looking scared and asking for help. No one is suggesting that it isn’t traumatizing. Not to mention, for the 100th time, there is no rape. The experience is of her having to kill someone for the first time.

Firstly, I take the topic of sexual violence very seriously as I’m tied closer to the topic than I would care to be.

Now, had the devs not made a few VERY stupid comments alluding to sexual violence in the trailer we wouldn’t be having this conversation as it regards to Tomb Raider because no sane person would pull implications of rape or sexual violence from the ‘Crossroads’ Trailer.  This is all happening because of the comments, not because of the actual game or the actual content (I will concede with ‘as far as we know from the trailer’).

I’m not saying the conversation isn’t valid, and I’m not saying that they didn’t bring this on themselves, but at this point I consider it hypothetical.  Nothing in that trailer seems to stray from any other action sequence I’ve seen a million times – it also looks damn good and enjoyable and I’m looking forward to playing it.

No, I took Thae’s comment wrong, that was my mistake. I was getting too used to seeing comments of the other vein that I mis-read it. 

Assuming that simply because I am a man I have privilege is a frustrating misconception.

Wrong. Killing is NOT the same. Here is a quote from the Tentacle Bento debacle that explains it best:

“1) Murder in games is normally justified within the fiction. There’s no
justification for rape.

2) Much of society doesn’t view murder as acceptable. We’re still trying
to get there with rape.

3) Murder victims aren’t continually reminded of their attack through
media.”

-Mat, http://ohnovideogames.com/penny-arcade-tentacle-bento-a-summation 

No.  There’s a disturbing implication that it’s “empowering” to fight off your assailant.  It’s one of the ways in which victims are blamed for their rape.  Did you wear a short skirt? Were you drunk? Were you in a bad part of town? Did you fight back?

There are so many better ways for a woman to empower herself than fighting off an attacker.  There are other ways to meet and overcome challenges as a woman besides being raped!

I am still kind of confused… how is being threatened with rape worse than being threatened with death? Just seems a little lack a perspective.

You do make a good point about bad interviews in gaming. Most developers don’t seem to know how to express themselves beyond “In this level, you’re going all WHOOOOSH, and then the lazers go ZZZZZZZZAAP!” That, or you’ll get the guy who has a list of buzzwords from the marketing company, talking about their game being “The Gears of War of cooking sims” or something. We throw some guy out to the wolves and wonder why wires get crossed when we ask hard questions when they may not have a large amount of experience writing/modeling/programming/whatever. This doesn’t excuse behavior like the above, but we also can’t be surprised.

As for rape, I really wish we’d just leave it to someone who knows what they’re talking about. Comics got a hold of that particular idea 30 years ago and have completely destroyed what it means. I’m not saying it shouldn’t or couldn’t be done, but I know maybe like four writers in gaming who could pull it off.

“I’m constantly bombarded with women who feel the need to tell me I have no right to have an opinion on the matter. That sucks.”

That does suck. I agree. But you know who it sucks more for? Marginalized people whose voices are automatically considered less valuable than those in power. If you want life to suck less for them, it’s going to have to suck a little bit more for those in power. Meaning, allowing them to speak about matters that are very important to them without contest. Sometimes, it’s the only way they can be heard.

I agreed that the producers comments are terrible. All of the comments, however, have come from one person, Ron Rosenberg. To me it seems like he personally has a really twisted view of the game but is speaking on behalf of the whole team which is unfortunate. 

”
The thing is, if we’re to believe the trailer, she has already fought for her life, and won. Why add on the implication of sexual violence?”
To me, that implies that Kellie thinks it’s at the end of the game. If Lara has “already won” and then they add on the sexual violence. I disagree, that scene is probably at the beginning and that’s the first of many obstacles that she needs to overcome. Gallagher says “This is where Lara is forced to kill another human for the first time.” Based on how video games tend to go, I would figure she probably has to kill a few people so they would get this out of the way early. 

I’m glad you phrased this in a way that is more open. Thank you. The sad thing is women (and people with uteri) are threatened with this idea our whole lives. We live in fear of this type of experience, and society has taught us to incorrectly be responsible for “not getting raped”. The fear is already there, and then is realized when, in this example, someone “attempts it”. That itself is traumatic. Most of my experiences were sexual assault, and I managed to stop the most recent one with a “Wait”. Was that empowering? No, because every single time before, when I said “no”, implied it, or tried to push this person away, socially or physically, my choice was denied. My RIGHT to my body was denied again and again. That is not empowering, it’s dehumanizing. Even threatening, or attempting is enough to get your (metaphorical person) message across: “You are nothing to me.”

It’s difficult to grasp at first, but once you understand what it really means (it’s not *personal*) then you’ll truly be able to help those around you.

Exactly. Our patriarchal society hurts us all.

“Privilege is a two way street. Something many of us like to forget.”

Projection much? :)

It’s really great that you’re actually reading the responses :)

This is a prequel. We know who she becomes later. There are direct  quotes about how the whole game AND the specific act in question shape Lara to be who she is later.

(There’s also the whole matter about how it’s sexist to assume that I want to “protect” Lara, not BE her. Or that a strong woman must either be really sexy or really vulnerable, which are both still male fantasies.)It’s okay to like this game, even if what we are indeed seeing is attempted rape. Just *know* that attempted rape for women characters is a tired, harmful trope that needs to stop. You’re free to like the game otherwise.

The quote you keep coming back to is asking, “why does there need to be sexual violence at all?” That’s it, that’s the point. And once again, doesn’t matter WHERE the sexual violence happens; why is it there?

You also keep saying that she’s fighting for her life. Great. Again, WHY does the sexual violence have to be there? And if they really want to write it in, why not be more sensitive to what rape really is and how it affects victims?

You might not mean it personally, but Thae86 said “It’s not that you’re a man, it’s that you have privilege” so I do take that personally, since her remark was directed at me personally. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp when it’s meant the way I’m assuming you meant it. I get that IN GENERAL men have the power. It’s something I’m passionate about seeing change. As I’ve said in my other comments on this post I have a wife and daughter who I deeply respect and always seek to make sure I’m doing my part to make sure the world I leave for my daughter someday is one where she doesn’t feel mistreated or undervalued because of her gender.

Even if it’s just bad PR, this is the consequence of their bad PR.

And I don’t think it’s cool to call someone, such as a rape survivor, who is triggered by what they identified as attempted rape as not a sane person.

I was using the quote to imply the timing but since you keep asking, I really don’t think the trailer implies sexual violence. 

Thanks – I’m glad we can debate but still be respectful. It seems like we agree on some points and disagree on others but we’re still keeping this a mature discussion. I know that quickly falls by the wayside sometimes. 

I understand that it’s hard to see, but it is there.

Yes, I know it’s a prequel. There was a quote I read in another article that actually adresses that really intelligently. They compare it to how Batman Begins is a prequel as well… but not to the the other Batman series. It’s a prequel to a new story where we are going to see a different kind of Batman. This game is a prequel, but it does make sense that they are taking it from an angle of building a new story around Lara. (FYI, that was all just my opinion and not saying any of that is true or official, but I read that opinion and I think it makes a lot of sense)

I do know that. I have posted several other comments agreeing on that fact. Where I disagree is that I don’t think there is sexual violence or attempted rape in the trailer. I watched it several times before I even figured out which scene was the one in question. 

Well said maselphie. That’s an idea I can get behind for sure. It’s something I believe in. I care about equality (and every other week I get a “paycheck” from the non-profit organization I work for to prove it). I’m always happy to hear from people who I may not completely agree with. It’s why I not only read, but have been engaging in the comments on this article. I think I generally want the same things you want here. I value dialogue and have no issue allowing people to speak on issues that are very important to them. I want the same thing and I often enjoy respectful conversation with people I completely disagree with because we listen to each other and learn something in the process. Thanks for listening and for explaining the situation from your point of view, to a man who doesn’t always “get it” immediately.

That’s what I get for multi-tasking while typing.  Very valid point, and it wasn’t even my intended message.  Edited to say “most people” which is what I intended to get across anyway.  Thanks.

@Zach: when you said “in GENERAL men have power” – that’s exactly what the idea of privilege seeks to inform. You’ve already got the hardest part down. There’s more to it, like understanding how privilege works in our day to day lives. (For example, how most protagonists in movies are men, because it’s assumed that women protagonists will be hard to relate to. You have a lower chance of seeing this as a problem since it caters to you as a man, but a woman will more readily see this as a problem, as she is under-represented.)

Wow. Thanks Thae86. You cleared that up for me more than any of the “fuss” over this particular issue. Thank you for addressing my confusion of thinking the act of fighting would be empowering. (I’m being honest here, not trolling. I really appreciate your explanation, instead of the reactive responses I was getting).

I’m actually a little bit confused as to how the trailer could be construed as not a sexual assault. The bad guy traces his hand down her arm, then ribs to her waist, she knees him in the groin, he catches her arms, brings her back to the wall and leans in to her neck, she bites his ear and falls to the ground, grabs the gun, he lands on top of her, there’s a struggle and it implies that she kills him. There’s an argument to be made that it wouldn’t turn into rape, and if it were just the reach for the hip it would be easier to right off. It’s the lean in to her neck that takes it from standard video game violence into sexual assault. If they wanted to make an empowering game I think the Lara Croft mythos already contains all the elements necessary for that, adding this seems ill advised at best.

maselphie, I feel like you misread what I was saying here. I never said attempted rape is empowering (you are right, that idea does need to die – but it’s not an idea I was expressing, you took it there). I was saying that I was confused because I thought the act of fighting it was would be empowering (something Thae86′s response to my comment cleared up for me). The reason I had thought it should be empowering was because in my own life, it has been helpful to relive and confront abuse that I have faced. I’ve never dealt with sexual abuse, but as someone who has survived other forms of physical and emotional abuse, reliving those events from an older, more mature stand point has helped me cope.

Let’s take this by beats:

1) In the article this came from, the game they’re discussing is one where the PROTAGONIST was collecting victims to rape.  The murder they’re justifying with the fiction is the murder committed by said protagonist.  In this context, you’re absolutely correct.  I’ll play a game where I have to kill people to escape, but not where I have to rape people to win.  Because eww.  There is no way to be the “hero” in a game and be off raping people.  If you’re the evil guy, you’ve got to be doing something evil, or else you’re not the evil guy.  I think we all agree rape is pretty evil.  This makes it a “valid” choice for that character to make…but that’s also what justifies his death within the game.

2) I call shenanigans.  The only people who think rape is okay are rapists.  ”Much of society” aren’t rapists.  Yes, not everyone understands the implications of rape.  Because it hasn’t happened to them, they don’t necessarily understand the full horror of it.  There’s also the fact that a surviving victim is still alive, and people can’t SEE mental scarring.  I don’t know of anyone who finds rape acceptable.  Though I do know plenty of people who don’t know how to deal with it.  Being told that they’re evil because they don’t understand isn’t really helpful either.

3) So, if you’re going to rape someone, make sure you kill them so that they don’t have to be continually reminded that they were raped?  That doesn’t make a ton of sense.  They also may not be continually reminded, but they ARE continually dead.  If there’s a “plus side” to being raped, it’s that there’s a chance that in spite of having a horrific thing done to you, you may some day be able to have a life again.  Try doing that when you’re dead.  

Just watched the trailer, I agree that there are clearly sexual undertones/overtones to the scene in question.  The bad guy reaches for Lara’s hips and her response is to knee him in the crotch.  However, I want to point out that people are judging a game off a trailer.  Yes the trailer has content that is grounds for some criticism, and yes the developers are handling that criticism poorly, but this is not their final artistic product.  The final product could be better (though I can see why someone might think that unlikely).

I just want to share an opinion of mine.  It’s not backed by research, just what I’ve witnessed in life.  I think that most violence perpetrated by men against women has a sexual component, even if it doesn’t fit the “Hollywood” stereotype.  When I’ve heard from people how violence can happen between boyfriend/girlfriend, when I hear about atrocities committed in war.  Especially when I see video of police misconduct involving women.

If the developers are trying to portray violence in a way that is serious and central to the development of a character, then I worry they are trying to do something that no other video game has done (that I’m aware of).  Video games just aren’t at that level yet where violence can be anything but cartoony, and in some cases offensive.  On the other hand, if they can achieve their aims, they will be heroes.  Either way, I think we should accept that game developers will increasingly try to portray violence in ways that are serious.

@maselphie:disqus You are right, I do have a lower chance of seeing predominantly male protagonists as a problem, but I’m one of the few who does see it as problematic! :) In fact, I complain about that as an issue quite often to my wife, who doesn’t see it as an issue most of the time.

As a 42 yo male, married a few times, and with a daughter. The suggestion is obvious to me.  Lara and her friends are all portrayed as young, super rich, and desirable.  Putting them under control of male thugs would instantly conjure up the possibility of sexual assault (perhaps unrealistically, but certainly in the minds of easily suggestible teen boys).  Even if you could remove the sexual part you would still be left with male violence aimed at women in a way that probably represents the worst part of what rape is.  The whole theme is tragically cliche.  In addition to the major mistake of including rape at all, they also wrote an incredibly bad story about a character that fans could never relate to. 

Sorry, even with your explanation, I still read it the same. :(

I’m not educated on the coping methods, but I’m sure you’d agree that one’s life would have been better had one NOT been abused? It seems to me that those who go through traumatic, unfortunate experiences are struggling their entire life to cope with it, not benefit from it. A survivor would be strong in spite of being abused, not because. You know?

Exactly!

Agreed!

Because we live in a world where rape isn’t treated with the severity that it should be. It’s used casually in jokes. The word has been normalized as just being beaten in a video game. Whenever a woman talks about rape in video games, she gets swarms of men telling her that she lacks perspective.

Well, for me – as a woman – there’s two specific problems with using sexual assault as an origin story:

1. As others have pointed out, the rape origin story has been played out over and over and over again for female protagonists. Imagine if story execs took a look at Batman and said, “Gosh, everybody loves this guy! You know what, from now on, let’s have all our male characters lose their parents to a mugger in an alley!” You’re playing Hitman – but wait, first you have to sit through a cut scene of Little Hitman’s parents getting shot behind the Vatican. They reboot ‘a grittier Halo’ – which now opens with baby Master Chief watching his parents get smushed by an alien ship. They make Mass Effect 4: Now Even Massier and half-way through you are presented with a decision wheel where you can decide if Shepherd lost his parents to a. friendly fire, b. aliens, or c. a human mugger.
Doesn’t it get tiresome, not just the repetition but the constant implicit message that the only way a man becomes a hero is by watching your parents die in front of you?

2. It is very unlikely that a gamer – male or female – will ever actually be in a zombie uprising, or have to defend his country from dragons, or fight off an alien invasion, or take on a squad of mobsters, and the only way you’ll ever find yourself in a warzone is if you volunteer to join the army. That’s why those games are fun to play – you’re living vicariously through a threat you’ll never actually have to face.
But rape is different. Because for most guys, rape is just another zombie or dragon or mobster that you’ll never actually face in real life, but for women, it’s something that could happen to me any day, from when I was a toddler to the day I’m an old lady. And that is why, as a woman, I don’t see a story about fighting off a rapist as empowering, I see it as “Hey, remember this horrible thing that could happen (or for many people, has happened) to you? Let’s relive it again!”

This is not a slam against guys. It’s not because you’re not smart or sensitive or concerned about women – I’m sure you’re all those things. But the fact remains that the average man’s experience of rape and the average woman’s experience of rape are two very different things. And that’s why it’s disturbing for many woman to see rape pop up in an adventure game. It’s just. Not. Fun.

I’m struggling to see how the scene in question could be interpreted in a way where it doesn’t contain sexual assault.  I’ve just watched it again and it seems pretty clear to me.

The bad guy discovers Lara hiding, calls her out at gunpoint, traces his hand down her arm to her waist, she knees him and tries to run, he grabs her tied arms and slams her back against the wall, and leans in to her neck, she bits his ear (off?) they both fall, she scrambles for the gun, he ends up on top of her and she succeeds in killing him.

I can see how an argument can be made for the end not being a prelude to rape, but the middle section seems very clearly a sexual assault.  I can also see the argument that the turning point is her having to take another’s life for the first time.  It’s hard for me to see justification that the clip doesn’t contain sexual assault. 

Here’s the thing, video games are art, just like novels and movies, the latter of which include and deal with rape quite a bit.  I think the thing that makes it tougher to take in this instance is that they have taken an existing, positive, strong female role model and cheapened her back story.  Yes rape is a real thing that society as a whole needs to deal with, but we also should have strong female characters who aren’t subjected to sexual assault, and while we do, it’s disheartening to lose one from those ranks.

I agree with you completely! I think to a certain extent we’re saying the same thing. A survivor is strong in spite of being abused, not because. But to take that a step further, I believe a survivor is strong in spite of their abuse because they are surrounded with support from loved ones and then choose to overcome the terrible things that happened to them. To use a nerdy example, take Batman. He was a victim of a terrible crime. Arguably his life would have been much better had that terrible thing not happened. But it did happen and nothing can change that. That terrible act did go on to inspire him to do great things. This doesn’t justify the crime, but I’d like to emphasize (bringing it back to rape) that once a victim has faced that, their life is not over. Sure it will never be the same again, but they are still capable of doing great things in spite the horrible thing that happened to them. So, coming back to Tomb Raider… For argument’s sake let’s say Lara does get raped (still not convinced it’s more than a close call). If that’s handled properly from a writing stand point I’m wondering why it can’t be a positive message to rape victims to say, “look, what you went through was absolutely horrible, but here’s an example of someone who felt what you feel and went on to become something great.”

Sorry, I feel like I’m rambling here and maybe not getting my full point across. I guess what I’m trying to ask is, based on what I’m saying, is it wrong to include rape in a story that shows someone overcoming. Isn’t that something that victims would find encouraging? After being abused myself, nothing made me feel better than strong, stable, and admirable people telling me, hey, I went through the same thing and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, in spite of this terrible experience.

I saw it. I still don’t think that was the implication. 

I’ve addressed this on this page in fact: yes, rape can be written in a way that handles it appropriately. It’s not completely off the table for fiction. It can be done really well (see the cited examples, such as Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

There’s a specific reason why this case isn’t “encouraging.” There is a trend to give women action heroes a history of sexual violence. Lara is a well known action hero, so when it was revealed that, surprise, she may have a history of sexual assault in her past, lots of red flags go up. We start asking ourselves, why do women action heroes need to be raped/almost raped? What is that saying about our culture? The answers we are coming up with are sickening.

Here is a blog post that bullet-points the general ickyness of it: http://gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/05/geek-media-whats-with-all-the-rape/

Rape squicks the hell out of me and disturbs me to no end. As soon as I saw that extended trailer, I decided NOT to buy this game.

I thought it was going to be good, a case study of how a woman can survive on her own and thrive on a mysterious island to become this uber badass, but between that sexual assualt in the trailer and how the developers talked about how the players take care of Lora, like she was some weakling, I’ve sworn this game off.

To hell with the developers. Just because it’s a female lead, it does not mean you have to up the danger by including the threat of rape. Dangerous wildlife and natural death traps are good enough for that, just as they were in the past Tomb Raider games which, while problematic in their depiction of Lora, weren’t dark and gritty like this.

Because apparently, dark and gritty for women means rape.

@maselphie:disqus Thanks, that makes sense. And the link was enlightening. Thanks again for the dialogue today!

I think the statements by Crystal Dynamics reps. have been poorly worded, but how do you suggest they could have depicted it differently ?

So I’m a bad dude with no morals whatsoever and my buddies and I just captured two gorgeous girls that we feel have no way of defending themselves. What do I do? 

Answer: Whatever the hell I want. That’s where the “sexual assault” is appropriate, and frankly, realistic.

“the fact that they felt the need to tack that on to the list of adversities Lara Croft must overcome to become a heroine speaks to bad writing and an utter lack of understanding of sexual violence on the part of Crystal Dynamic.”

That right there is an assumption on your part. The assumption that the creative team behind this one day sat down and said to themselves: “well, she can’t be a believable heroine if she was never raped, we’ve got to put that in the game.”

That would be a stupid decision by the creative team, if that was their motivation.

It’s a classic psychological trick of the mind: you feel offended by something and those who made you feel that way are now enemies. And because they are enemies, you consider them to be stupid and think that they make stupid analysis’s and make stupid decisions. Because they did something to hurt your feelings. Anyone doing so makes them inherently stupid. You feel hurt/offended and you want to fight back, but you can’t walk in to their building and slap them in the face. Both because of distance and social acceptability of such an act. So you badmouth them. It’s the only thing you can do.

Because rape rate in America is not 5 per 100,000, or 0,005% (guess what that number is).

Because you don’t need to adjust your daily life in order to avoid being murdered by your classmate, your coach, your friend, your father. Because the guy who murdered your sister doesn’t send you a friend request on facebook. Because your friends don’t avoid the topic of her killing and claim that they won’t want to take sides because the killer is actually a good guy who just did a mistake that one time. Because nobody tells you that you need to get over it and that your sister was careless and stupid anyway for being there at the time, and for not taking self-defense classes, and for not screaming for help loudly enough.

To you, rape is a theoretical idea to judge morally, just a philosophical game. Which is worse, rape or murder? You might as well play those moral dilemmas you find in text books about whether it’s worse to kill someone or to leave someone to die. Hmmm, food for thought right? It’s all just ideas you’re talking about. What happens is you are detached from the reality of rape. You should get informed and make an effort to actually understand why this issue deserves this kind of consideration.

I’d like to quickly note that there’s a difference between the development team and the creative team.The developers, the coders, have no say in what the content of a game will be. If they protest then they’re on the street. Simple as that.

The story is written by the story-writers. Everyone keeps saying the developers are to blame here. Which shows a lack of knowledge of how a gaming company is structured. The people who decided to make sexual assault part of the game are *not* the developers. It’s the creative team. And to assume they’re all men is, while understandable, still bigoted. Anger is the shortest path to a mistake.

“The thing is, if we’re to believe the trailer, she has already fought for her life, and won. Why add on the implication of sexual violence?”

In case you didn’t notice from the footage, the central theme of this game appears to be “Let’s put Lara in a horrible situation, and then make it worse.”

She doesn’t just get captured. She wakes up hanging upside down in a murder-cave, has to free herself by setting her bindings on fire, and then falls 20 feet on to a piece of sharp metal.

She doesn’t just get swept up in a river, she gets swept up in rushing rapids filled with sharp sticks and lands in a busted plane.

She doesn’t just narrowly escape that plane by grabbing a parachute. On the way down she has to avoid every tree on that island.

She doesn’t just fall down the side of a mountain. She falls down the side of a mountain with an airplane engine and its still rotating propeller chasing after her.

So yeah, she doesn’t just kidnapped by a bunch of murderous assholes. She gets kidnapped by rapist murderous assholes. Frankly, that’s probably the least absurd situation out of everything I just listed.

It looks to me like you’re looking really hard for something to get offended over. The first time you wrote this story, you were upset that “Lara Croft will be punished with rape for failing to complete the game objective of not getting raped,” which would be a valid complaint if that were a thing that actually happened in the game. But it isn’t.

Now you’re upset that apparently a “defining moment” is her successfully fending off a rapist, which also be a valid complaint if that was the point of that scene. But it isn’t. The “defining moment” is that Lara puts a bullet in the guy’s head. It’s about her decision to kill a person.

I understand being sensitive about the subject, but it’s a bit hypocritical to point out that 20% of women are or will be raped and then turn around and act surprised when it shows up on the list of “things threatening to women.”

Are you saying that it’s something we should just pretend doesn’t happen?

“As others have pointed out, the rape origin story has been played out over and over and over again for female protagonists. Imagine if story execs took a look at Batman and said, “Gosh, everybody loves this guy! You know what, from now on, let’s have all our male characters lose their parents to a mugger in an alley!”"

Ignoring the oddly specific mugger in ally component, “murder of a loved one” is probably the single most common motivation for… any fictional character ever.

Yea, and I noticed that all of the offending remarks came from the same person. It’s pretty unfair to crucify a game because one person (who unfortunately has the position to speak on the game) has some disturbing opinions on it. If you read the rest of the letter that the first quote comes from (which is the first thing you see when you go to the Tomb Raider website), they apologize for the misunderstanding and more or said they will be more careful about what is said in the future. From my point of view, that means “We have one idiot here who will never speak on behalf of the game again.”

Admittedly, there seems to be a pretty intense absence of people being fully capable of properly representing their company and/or video games that they had a hand in creating as of late (and is mildly depressing to me seeing as I want to go into video games and hopefully, one day, have a large hand at how these stories are told), but also truth be told, this quote that people are referring to doesn’t bother me that much. What bothers me more was a quote that I read from (I believe) the same interview in which their justification for having the attack occur is to help her become victimized in order to appeal to the player and make them want to ‘protect’ her. Which personally brings up two issues for me - 

1.) Though I write stories myself, I find it rather belittling and offense that they’re using this as a method of manipulation to the player. I was incredibly excited about this game because it gave a very strong (at least initially) re-interpretation of a game character that, for ages, absolutely bothered me and, for the most part, truly wished had never been created as the very existence of her game character helped catapult a good amount of poorly developed female characters. But it completely -depresses- me that rather than turning around and redesigning her to have a far more appealing look that’s both believable and less offensive and also creating a very strong female character that still manages to go around and kick serious ass, they’ve outright belittled her and turned her into a manipulative plot device to basically make the player squirm. It’s one of those things that makes me outright face palm because, seriously? You were so close to creating a potentially good and appealing female character that could have had a great deal of depth but instead, you’ve turned her into yet another terribly cliche’d female lead. 

and 2.) That they’ve decided that this is something that -needs- to happen, a crutch that needs to occur to help people feel like they need to protect her. I feel like it’s more than enough to be tragically stranded on a foreign island, having lost people that you were closed to and not having any real true grasp as to what was going on. 

Admittedly, again, it doesn’t outright bother me that rape is involved in the story because it IS a part of reality and people DO go through this. It just really sucks that this is the route that they had decided to go down. I would have had a far easier time accepting this as apart of the story telling if it didn’t outright seem so cliché.

Want me to tell you about all subtle ways fiction, no matter for how young an audience, manages to throw in threats of rape, sexual assault, and harassment? Of how this is often played for laughs or made to appear flattering? Or how this stuff is played as to have no psychological consequences at all unless we actually get to the stage of rape?

I don’t find Lara fighting off a rapist of empowering. Even aside from the “if you’ve got big boobs, you deserve to be raped” logic that went behind some of interview answers, you have any idea how tired I am of seeing women in fiction, even powerful women, being put through so much more nonsense than male characters? To see the threat of violation hanging over them? To know that real-life men placed them in that situation? Real-life men who clearly have no clue what it’s like to live under threat of violation?

Is there ever a role for violation in fiction? Absolutely. But I’d wish men were more inclined to get women involved when they do so. Because, while there are men who understand what topics they deal with, by far most don’t and just throw it in as a cheap plot device that reeks of “this is the price you pay for leaving the kitchen”. Not to mention that, more often than not, I feel there’s an element of double intention towards the male audience. On one hand they are not supposed to associate with the rapist and be able to pat themselves on the back they are not like that, on the other, and that’s definitely the case here with the camera choices, the rapist allows the male audience to indulge in what potential fantasy they might have about the female character, without ever having to acknowledge it.

I think you’re overestimating the number of people who don’t see sexual violence in the way that guy approached Lara.

And forgive me if I am overstepping boundaries, but since you claim authority on the topic of sexual violence, care to share why that is? Because everything you have written so far screams “I know nothing about this topic at all.”

I think the point she’s trying to make is that they shouldn’t have put the implication of rape in to the plot at all.  The interview combined with the story make it clear that the writing team thinks that triumphing over a sexual assault is an event which makes a heroine stronger and added to Lara’s story.  She’s saying, and I agree, that this is bad writing and a sort of story-line we just shouldn’t pursue casually to prop up a cliche heroine.  The dynamics of Lara Croft are already pretty slanted to be anti-feminine.  This didn’t help.  It would have been far more interesting to have some female villains in the mix to confront Lara.  The male villains could even have been cold and murderous without also being rapists.  This would not make Lara a weaker character.  I certainly didn’t have to “look hard” to spot it.  In fact it is so obvious that I expected it well before it happened in the clip.  ”Young hottie stranded with savage men… queue rape sequence.”  And that’s the problem.

I’ll have to agree here. There are other factors as well such as race, social and economic status, and other things of that nature that come into play. 

Also neither sex is a hive-mind.

It doesn’t really matter if it’s the developers or writers it’s still a staff that is likely mostly white men and even if the head writer is a women they have obviously treated Lara as a victim and a girlfriend character which implies they are men writing with men in mind and even if you ignore all that they have repeatedly shown at the very least a lack of sensitivity to sexual assault in interviews and their trailer. So… making a mistake as to who on the staff is most likely guilty isn’t so much an issue as the fact the someone on the staff and probably many someones are making very VERY poor writing decisions.   

 If you fight off a guy who wants to punches you, you don’t become stronger because you got away of that situation, and you certainly don’t gain any power over anyone. You got away of the situation because you were already powerful enough to do it.

If you don’t get away, even less.

Either you were powerful or you were not. In either case you gain nothing.

Empowering means you gain power that you hadn’t before. The right to vote? That’s empowering for people. Labor rights? Forcing businesses to speak and make deals with unions? That’s empowering for workers. etc.

If you’re asking how they could’ve worded it differently, they could’ve stuck to the “it’s a rapist she’s fighting off” and dealt with the backlash. Maybe they could have learned something about being able to empathize with vicitms, make it a more compelling storyline. If you mean the scene itself, again…WHY does there NEED to be sexual violence? Yes, it happens a lot in real life, but the way it’s depicted a lot of the times supports the rape culture instead of bringing attention to very real abusive situations.

Just a quick example besides Mafia II of a game that had male rape in it. FEAR2.. although unlike Mafia in this game it wasn’t a threat and there was no way to defend against it… it happened in the story and the player sees it happening to them in first person view interspersed with the final scene. In the following game the protagonist whom that happened to was left an empty shell. He wasn’t made stronger because of it or anything in fact quite the opposite.

I’m not sure I want to put this for or against what anyone here is arguing about just putting it out there for your information. Also admittedly there aren’t many other games where something like that happens that I know of.

2) Read up on the rape culture.

3) Completely missed the mark. And seriously, “plus side” to being raped? That is INFURIATING. I don’t care how you meant it, intention isn’t magical. That’s just ignorant, and sick, frankly. Try again.

Nope! They DO have a lack of understanding of sexual violence, because of the reasons that have been listed for the thousandth time. Thank goodness you can help us navigate through our ladybrained-feelings. Man, NO one ever tells us we’re overreacting!-oh wait…happens all the time. Suggesting that someone is overreacting simply highlights your ignorance and inability to empathize with another human being. Also, you sure do assume a lot, and you know what that means…

“I want to point out that people are judging a game off a trailer. ”

That’s sorta the point of trailers.

…is there an attempt to complete that thought process, or are you just pointing out the obvious?

I’m very happy there wasn’t a breakdown in communication too; awesome, thanks :)

Unfortunately it happens to be women a lot of times: http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/

The problem here is that the “rape” backstory is almost exclusively reserved for women. The implications are beyond problematic, as if the only trauma women can have is vagina trauma – or that men don’t get raped.

To point out the team behind this game is most likely men (there’s a better phrase for you), who have unexamined privilege that gets in the way of completely understanding the opposite gender…is “bigoted”? Definition: “intolerant
person: somebody with strong opinions, especially on
politics, religion, or ethnicity, who refuses to accept different
views.” I fail to see the connection…because there isn’t one.

I read a rather fascinating article a while ago by a (male) film critic, who was explaining about how sick he is of seeing rape used in films to titillate the audience. Apparently because, for some horrifying reason, in the US a rape scene can get by on a lower rating that a sex scene.

So what exactly is the issue here then? Is sexual assault too dark a subject to bring up in a game about being trapped on a dangerous island with a bunch of murderous scumbags? Doesn’t seem that out of place.

Is it just too played out? Well yeah, but this is Tomb Raider, not Mass Effect. Nintendo better watch themselves if the gaming community is going to get this outraged every time we see lazy and overused plot points.
From my chair, it looks a lot like people are treating this one scene as the centerpiece of the game instead of just one more horrible situation in a huge chain of horrible situations she has to deal with throughout the story.

The more I hear about Tomb Raider, the more it feels like the writers would have rather been working on Hunger games. The whole angle they seem to be taking on Lara Croft’s character redesign has a real Katniss Everdean feel to it.

If sexual assult ever becomes a part of Katniss’ back story in some misbegotten spinoff-reproduction (movie/comic/videogame) I swear I’ll goddamn crack.

As an aside, the CDC report which produced the male/female rape rates quoted in the OP did not class “forced to penetrate” as rape, and as a result the majority of male rape victims were excluded from the “rape” category. The same report shows that in the past year the same proportion (1.1%) of men were “forced to penetrate” as women were “raped”, (if it matters to you I think it was 78% of the men were victimised by women while 98% of the women were victimised by men) although lifetime occurances were quite different. So while it’s true that men do not worry about being raped anywhere near much as women, that may not be entirely sensible of them.

I never claimed anything pertaining to expertise – just that I am tied through personal experience to the subject matter and that it is therefore very important to me.  As for my experiences, you can certainly ask but it’s more personal than I’m willing to delve into in an internet forum.  I appreciate  you politely approaching the subject though as it’s by no means ‘trolling’ – it’s something that completely overtook four years of my life even though I was the ‘secondary’ victim.

I went back and re-watched the video two more times.  I see the moment being discussed.  It’s when he pulled her out of her hiding spot, ran his hand up her side, and leaned in to her neck.  I think it’s too far to say that counts as attempted rape, but it’s most certainly an act of sexualized violence and one could definitely argue it was headed to the conclusion of rape without intervention.  I’m not sure if I glanced away from the screen on my initial viewing or what, but it sticks out like a sore thumb, so I definitely withdraw any claim of overreaction on others’ parts.

Can we all agree that regardless whether sexual violence is a motif that should or should not be covered in a video game, it does not belong in a Lara Croft origin story? This game seems like a very brutal version of the first fifteen minutes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the entirety of Cast Away…with, hopefully, none of the T&A stacked on the Angelina Jolie flicks they made a decade back. I like the vibe, truly, and I appreciate seeing Lara learn the ropes of survival, seeing the confidence and know-how built up, Oliver Queen style. Deliverance, this ain’t, or it shouldn’t be.

like @Rachel:Disqus said I’m impressed that a mom can get paid $6884 in 4 weeks on the computer. have you read this web link 

*Just Click At My name for The Link*

The game is focusing on realism, and these sorts of things happen in real life. It is in no way objectifying or a parody. It’s a life-like scenario taking place in a video game. That’s all. It isn’t trying to make a statement or anything like that, it’s a fucking video game. The character in the game touched Lara’s hip. While technically she was sexually abused, she wasn’t raped. Not only that, but it’s not like the situation in-game is taken lightly, she murders the guy soon afterwards. It’s meant to be an emotional scene, and I think that it works in that sense. This may sound insensitive, but you (and everyone else who has mentioned it) are blowing this out of proportion big time. I understand that you’re trying to help people, but I really don’t think that a man rubbing a hand down a woman’s side in a video game is disrespectful to rape victims whatsoever, and this is coming from a “survivor”.

”
every time we see lazy and overused plot points.”

You realize that sounds really flippant and dismissive, right? Like, that you are being flippant and dismissive of sexual assault in entertainment? Minimizing the importance of the conversation surrounding this controversy because no one in the industry wants to hear about how we, as humans/a demographic/actual consumers, are tired of being told a woman’s power can only come from overcoming some issue involving sex and the fact that they created a situation where this conversation is even happening is both degrading and exhausting. Possibly this was your intent, but if it wasn’t, I just… thought you might want to know. :|

 To quote the article “To be clear: a member of the Crystal Dynamic team stated that scavengers
“try to rape her” and in response to being asked to clarify that point,
stated that “she’s either forced to fight back or die.” This hardly
seems like a statement that was misunderstood and taken out of context.”
They may be bad at doing interviews, but they are the face of the company and the first line of canon information we have about the game. I don’t think the author of this article is the one doing the backpeddling here… “That’s a big change of pace from the implications that were made yesterday,” as you said, applies just as much to the game-makers in this context.

I also noticed that it was the same guy who this that interview as well as the one saying that people couldn’t connect to Lara and wanted to protect her. 
I don’t like to crucify a whole group based on the opinion of one person and since there isn’t any proof otherwise, I’d like to believe that there is one jerk who unfortunately was in the position to make those statements. From the letter that Crystal Dynamics posted (which you can see on the Tomb Raider website), it is clear that he will not be making any more public statements. 

I miss the tigers, gorillas and dinosaurs. This whole mess could have been avoided if they’d stuck to supernatural and non-sentient enemies.

Sexy lady voice; “This isn’t ordinary out of the frying pan, into the fire. This is CD out of the frying pan, into the fire… where you don’t just get attacked by angry men, you get raped by angry men.”

I suspect only UK readers will understand.

So basically; hey, Lara goes through all this stuff that’s like heinous and crazy, why not rape? Rape’s not heinous and crazy at all, it happens all the time so it’s okay to put it in a game. And all that other mad stuff, yeah that’s not enough peril, let’s through in some rape too, just to make it really peril-y.

I know you don’t mean it like that, but that’s the way it came across; it’s okay to have Lara sexually assaulted because she goes through all this other crap too.

To answer your implied question; ’cause I don’t want my slightly more immersive and personal entertainment to involve my PC going through something horrible I (and a good 70% of the world’s population, give or take) have a very real chance of going through or having been through already at some point in their lives.

Okay, so if I don’t like it then I don’t have to play it. That’s what I’d normally say to people over things they find horrid or offensive. Aside from the obvious “okay, me and the other 70% of gamers won’t play this game” there’s the matter of, once again, this game not existing in a vacuum. It’s just another in a string of examples of entertainment creators portraying rape and people who have been through it in completely the wrong way. It’s not just about the fact the game contains sexual violence but, well, that someone decided to include it and then someone else (several someone elses) decided it should be in the trailer and someone else (or he may have been involved at a previous point) decided it was so integral that not only should it be in the trailer but he’d make a point of mentioning it in an interview, like it’s somehow a major factor in the game.

It’s sad and depressing and, when it gets right down to it, I just don’t want Lara going through that; she’s my hero.

“”the fact that they felt the need to tack that on to the list of adversities Lara Croft must overcome to become a heroine speaks to bad writing and an utter lack of understanding of sexual violence on the part of Crystal Dynamic.”

That right there is an assumption on your part. The assumption that the creative team behind this one day sat down and said to themselves: “well, she can’t be a believable heroine if she was never raped, we’ve got to put that in the game.”"

So let’s get critical on this thing then.

I’ve just watched the trailer a few times (because aside from the sexual violence it’s pretty damn cool, if a bit too Silent Hill with the score). It begins with Lara waking up upside down, hanging in a very grizzly human abattoir. She is, amazingly, fully clothed, which is a pretty big plus, although was to be expected as so much emphasis was made of making Lara less of a… physical presence, shall we say?

She escapes that (on fire), falls onto a nice little spike (clever use of perspective on that). Lara stumbles around a lot, groaning and squealing and eventually finds her dead, strung up friend (also fully clothed). Lara then climbs her way out of the cave complex she was locked away in. There are explosions, cave ins and a pretty evocative score.

She erupts from the caves through a tiny hole with more “OMG what the Hell is going on!” gasping.

SQUARE ENIX

CRYSTAL DYNAMICS

Lara is standing on a cliff, looking out at sea and wreckage with her mayday message playing. She drinks from a water fall, shakes as she lights a fire and sits, forlorn and pathetic looking, hugging her knees, by the fire under an overhanging rock.

There’s more stumbling around, clinging her wounded side but also being able to climb (hey, ass shot) up a crumbling plane through the canopy. There’s more groaning, apologising to her dinner (fair enough).

Finally Roth (sounding an awful lot like Balthier) contacts her and she begs him to come find her. She heads to his location and, on the way, fights off a wolf while yelling at it (finally, some actual Lara kickassery).

Some people show up, another girl gets kidnapped and Lara treads in a freaking bear trap! She gets tied up, slapped around and then an (Irish?) man pulls her out of the tumble down building she was hiding in, licks his lips, strokes her arm, goes to fondle her hips (while her hands aren’t tied, if you pause it correctly… damn bad rendering). The camera here slows down, then speeds up rapidly as Lara knees him in the balls. There’s a scuffle, the man grabs Lara around the hips and goes for a nibble on her neck. There’s more scuffle and, ultimately, Lara blows his brains out.

Up until this point Lara has been kind of pathetic. More badass than most of us, male or female, would be in her position, but still; lots of crying, big eyed panic and barely getting through by the skin of her teeth, mentally and physically.

The gun goes off, killing Lara’s attacker, and suddenly the score changes. It rises in pitch and Lara stands, breathing out as if shaking off all that’s happened and hardening herself for the task of survival ahead. There’s some inspirational talk from another man and the music changes again to a mighty hero march and the action slows as Lara takes up her gun and starts killing people.

The trailer ends with a pithy “I hate tombs!” and some peril, to remind players of the fun we’re going to have helping Lara off the island.There is no assumption that rape is used as one of the adversities Lara overcomes to become a self reliant hero. It’s right there in the trailer. It’s not until she is sexually assaulted that the trappings of a hero (stance, less crying, the cinematics and score, the way she defines her situation rather than reacting to it) appear. Extreme bungee and spelunking, hunting her own food, falling off cliffs, down hills, out of trees, being attacked by wildlife, finding and then losing her friends/hope again; none of this is enough. She’s still weak, frail and reacting to her situation until the threat of rape. It’s not until the assault that Lara is pushed into taking control, making decisions and fighting back.

It’s all there in the trailer. Of course trailers are never anything to really go by, but along with Ron Burgundy’s interview it paints a pretty grim picture. Eh, maybe Ron only saw the trailer too…

I’ve done a little blow by blow description and small critique of the trailer above in response to another comment to show how it does, in fact, show a man attempting to sexually assault Lara.

It’s what I see in the trailer so I welcome a critique of my er… critique.

I think we’re saying it’s something that’s less fun to have thrown up at us in a video game than something where we get to find treasures and shoot dinosaurs. If a game is going to “get real” like that, there needs to be a good f#$king reason for it, and it needs to be written well.

Here’s the difference, though: I’ve never been trapped on an island with murderers, and don’t see it as one of the big worries in my life. I have *many* women in my acquaintance who have been raped or sexually assaulted, and I myself was harassed and assaulted *many times* throughout my teens and twenties. It’s “played out” IN MY REAL LIFE, never mind my video games! Games are, for me – I don’t know about you – partly about going into a fantasy where I do things that *aren’t* one of the worse parts of my real life.

I’m not trying to be flippant or dismissive. Above me, Curtis said that the source of this outrage is because relying on an overused trope is bad writing, as though this is really upsetting because people expected an original quality story out of Tomb Raider.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

“are tired of being told a woman’s power can only come from overcoming some issue involving sex”
See, this is what I’m not getting. Everything on that island, including gravity, seems hellbent on killing Lara. Why does her fending off savage dogs, surviving a trip down some rapids without a boat, and falling out of a plane before she has her parachute on all get negated by a scene where a guy tries to have his way with her?It’s not the only problem Lara has to overcome. It’s just one more thing. I think people are placing far more importance on what the guy tries to do than what the devs intended. The point of that scene is to put Lara in a situation where she has to kill her attacker.

Now this is completely reasonable and I totally understand how you could feel this way.

I would completely agree with the fact that this game would not be comfortable for some women to play. I disagree, however, that the game’s story is somehow “glorifying sexual assault” or “blaming the victim” or some of the other complaints and accusations that have cropped up.

There hasn’t been enough games that go this route in tomb raider, I’m tired of it not being ok to show a little blood or physical pain towards a woman in a game because she’s a woman.Now i saw that scene where the guy was about to force himself on lara but she kicked his ass and ran out of there. Now tell me how that is jutifying or trying to make it seem like its ok to have violence against women,It’s also not like that’s the only thing the game is about and the only thing she has to overcome.That’s one small section of trials she has to face in order to find her friend and get the hell off that island.I feel very ashamed when i read stuff like this, it’s why games developers are afraid to do anything.They could get backlash from gamers,femmes,christians, the government,telling them”Ohh this hurts my feelings can you please take it out”.It’s a complete mockery of freedom to express and experment on art,It’s also,atleast i feel, a mockery of women’s rights. 

“To answer your implied question; ’cause I don’t want my slightly more immersive and personal entertainment to involve my PC going through something horrible I (and a good 70% of the world’s population, give or take) have a very real chance of going through or having been through already at some point in their lives.”

Same as I said above, this is a completely reasonable standpoint and if that was what fueled this and the last story, I’d have no argument.

However, saying that it “also seems pretty eager to reproduce and normalize a culture in which women are blamed for being raped” or that “Lara Croft will be punished with rape for failing to complete the game objective of not getting raped.” is absurd.

Your point is completely valid and I wish it was the point that the instigators of this particular controversy made instead of just making things up based on wild assumptions.

Did you not notice that the guy is licking his lips? The sounds that are happening? That certainly sounds and looks like a prelude to rape to me.

I can tell you why they’re doing it. Because:

- Rape is “edgy”.
- Rape is an excuse to create a troubled character.
- Rape is a crime that “only happens to women and only men perpetrate”.
- Rape is a special kind of evil.
- Rape is “about sex, not about power”.

That is, they’re doing it because they misunderstand what rape is, and because they want to look “adult” and “edgy”.

Glorify? Probably not really. Blaming the victim? I don’t see it. I think my problem, and the problem I pick up from most of the women I’ve talked to about it, is that it’s such a rare and special thing to get a playable heroine who *isn’t* weighed down with this kind of baggage that it’s a big disappointment for such a big opportunity to get thrown to the guys as a girlie to rescue, especially when it really has nothing to do with how anyone understood the character before now.

2. Um no. Sure, if you say “Is rape okay?” to any random guy, he’s going to say no. But then talk to him long enough to find out how he actually defines the word, and how likely he is to agree that rape has occurred in any given case you tell him about. 

As for bad things being part of what makes bad guys, yeah, true as far as it goes, but does that really mean it makes sense for the *same* bad thing – one of the worst bad things that can happen to women, and happens to them much more often than to men – to happen to almost *every* major female character? All the time? I mean, if 90% of games about male PCs involved him being tied up and whipped by women, wouldn’t that start to seem creepy to you?

Aside from your points about the OP’s conclusion jumping you highlighted their question about the reason for the addition of sexual violence and then gave an explanation as to why it was okay for it be added to the list of things Lara must go through:

“”The thing is, if we’re to believe the trailer, she has already fought for her life, and won. Why add on the implication of sexual violence?”In case you didn’t notice from the footage, the central theme of this game appears to be “Let’s put Lara in a horrible situation, and then make it worse.”"

This is the point that I was addressing.

Leaving out the OP’s other complains; why add something to the game that is hugely offensive and upsetting to many of the TR fans (especially after CD seem to have gone to such lengths to appease feminist fans who didn’t like Lara’s figure), and why do people think it is okay to do so (remembering that “rape as an empowerment tool” is an old, overused and pretty false trope that a lot of people are very tired of
)?

Feminists: Bawww! Bawww! Bawww! We need strong, complex female characters in videogames that are more than walking blow-up dolls!

Crystal Dynamics makes an attempt to do something like that the Tomb Raider prequel and Feminists go: Bawww! Bawww! Bawww! You’re not supposed to portray women like that!

Honestly, these crazy people might as well cut the PR BS demand that all female characters in videogames must behave like Janeane Garofalo right away.

 One becomes strong after SURVIVING an encounter like that, NOT BECAUSE it was done to them. Nothing of the sort was said.

I can understand that a
woman might not want to play a game that contains an attempted rape.
But to me your argument seem so to be self defeating. The controversy
that the scene caused shows that to be a victim of an attempted rape
can actually still be a character shaping experience despited just
having nearly been killed by a pack of wild dogs.

WRONG. Read the article again. I’m not even going to bother to defend against gaslighting :D

Here’s an article that I think does a really good job of finding a middle ground between the concerns of the various comments on this post. It addresses many of the problems with how women are portrayed in video games and it very well researched and presented. I think  many of the people here will agree with the stance of the authoer. 

http://www.1up.com/features/op-ed-heroes-heroines-apples-oranges 

The message I get is pretty simple and straight forward.

“The use of this tired old, untrue cliche shows the writers/creators at CD don’t understand women, don’t understand how to write a female character, don’t understand how rape affects real women, don’t understand how/when a rape might be permissible to use in a story, and don’t understand female gamers at all”

Women, am I close?

exactly. What if she’s not capable of fighting? What if the trauma turns a woman who could fight off into someone who can’t?
What if she fights and loses?

Isn’t there something missing in here?  Like the fact that a woman shouldn’t have to deal with this at all, period, ever? 

—[deleted double post]

The data from the CDC’s study isn’t a great reference point to make the comparison between the rate of rape between men and women in the United States. The survey was conducted in 2010, a time when the Justice department only relied on official complaints filed by prisoners.  Toward the end of 2011 the Justice department finally started to calculate what the actual prevalence of rape was in the penitentiary system and it made a huge difference. For 2008 their tally had been 925 confirmed instances of abuse and it went up to 216,000, victims many of whom were assaulted multiple times over the year.  This number is from an article in the NY Review of Books (http://bit.ly/hwT18D)  referencing the estimates in proposed standards which can be found in the National Register (http://1.usa.gov/gc2gMt) The most recent survey by the Bureau of Justice statistics has a lower number, but it uses different standards and was only asking prisoners about their most recent incarceration.Now while women are 3 times as likely to experience inmate-on-inmate sexual assault than men, there’s a big difference between the male and female prison population. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported a male prisoner population of 1.49 million in 2008 while there were ~113,000 female inmates.  But men are slightly more likely to be victims of sexual assault by a prison staff member.   

When you really start to dig into the numbers for rape incidence in prison vs. the free populace and look at all the different standards for rape or sexual assault in different studies or by different institutions and it becomes hard to get a good idea of what the actual rate of sexual assault is for men in the United States.

I’m not trying to diminish or belittle the crimes that were committed against the women who were victims of sexual assault or suggest that more men are raped in the U.S. than women ( a claim made when the NY Review of Books article was originally published based on RAINN’s estimates of rape and sexual assault that uses a very narrow set of criteria ); the only point I’m trying to make is that there are many more male victims of rape and sexual assault than most people realize.

     While I can understand the negative feelings towards this scene for those who are survivors of a sexual assault, I can not understand it stepping into the realm of an “outrage”. You seem to be of the opinion that rape / sexual violence should not be depicted in any form of media because its something male writers may never experience. This is a silly notion, these writers will never experience space combat or fight in a war, or survive a crash landing on a deserted island, should they cease writing about this subject matter as well? The scene is perfectly within the context of the story what do you think would happen if a group of marauders and bandits happened across a small unarmed group that included women, a chess match? 

    Also the idea that because she is almost raped Lara becomes a badass is baseless you have no idea what her history or training is at this point in the story.  What the writers are trying to portray is that when this man attempts to rape her and she is forced to take his life to survive and protect herself she steps over a line. She doesn’t look determined or bad ass when the man is dead she looks shocked and scared and confused the rest of the trailer doesn’t show her running around without a care in the world shes still falling off things running away from pursuers and just generally thrashing her way through a place that is hostile in just about every way imaginable. The fact that some of you have decided to ignore all the things she goes through before this scene is your choice but you cant then make accusations that it was the attempted rape and nothing but the attempted rape that pushes the character into the realm of survival at all costs.

The “1 in 71 men have been raped” stat from the CDC survey doesn’t tell the whole story. It defines “rape” as the attacker penetrating the victim, which excludes women who use their vagina to rape a man (rape by envelopment) which is counted as “made to penetrate”. The very same survey says “1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else,” which is far more than 1 in 71. Also, the study says that 79.2% of male victims of “made to penetrate” reported only female perpetrators, meaning they were raped by a woman.
The above, lifetime stats do show a lower percentage of male victims (up to 1.4% rape by penetration + 4.8% made to penetrate = 6.2%) than female victims (18.3%) although it is far more than the 1 in 71 you stated. However, if you look at the report’s stats for the past 12 months, just as many number of men were “forced to penetrate” as women were raped, meaning that if you properly define “made to penetrate” as rape, men were raped as often as women.