Perhaps wisely, the creators of the new Tomb Raider film omitted this scene from the movie. But gamers still debate whether playing through a triggering scene was worth it for the moment of empowerment. If Lara escapes, she learns to craft fire arrows and returns to kill the kidnappers with righteous fury. The scene communicates the very real threat of rape and gender violence. Make a misstep as a player, and Lara is choked to death. SquareEnix quickly walked back the language, but the actual scene remains an uncomfortable play-through: A kidnapper touches Lara’s cheek inappropriately and then chases her as she tries to escape. And before the reboot’s release in 2013, one of the creators said there would be an attempted rape scene. The 2013 game seemed to take sadistic pleasure in Lara’s injuries and moans of pain. That’s not to say that SquareEnix became the model of woke gaming. On the other hand, it reinforces this notion that only women who are sexually attractive are valuable.” “On the one hand, it gives these men a socially acceptable way to identify with a woman. “Sexiness is often used in gaming as an excuse for men to play and enjoy playing a female character,” says Hammer. Lara is far from the only sexy female avatar in video games: female heroes as well as damsels are first and foremost sexy, often fighting in heels and lingerie instead of flats and armor. In 1997’s Lara Croft 2, Lara climbs into a shower before turning toward the player and saying, “Don’t you think you’ve seen enough?” An ad campaign for the games suggested men were abandoning strip clubs to play the game and fantasize about Lara. (As cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian once pointed out, game makers usually cover male avatars with capes or make it impossible for the camera to zoom in on their behinds.) A rumor spread that a certain line of coding could remove Lara’s clothes. The camera often focused on her rear end. Thus completes Lara's Tomb Raider origin.Not only did Lara’s creators endow her with a Barbie doll figure, but the mechanics of the game encouraged objectification - already a problem in the male-dominated gaming space. After getting the full specs on the gun, Lara decides to buy it - two of them, in fact. Before she leaves the shop, her eye catches something: a beautiful silver pistol. With the Croft family fortune now at her disposal, Lara is able to easily afford buyback. In the bonus scene that plays before the credits, we see Lara return to the local pawn shop to retrieve an emerald pendant heirloom she sold off, to fund her expedition to find her father. It's that discovery which pushes Lara to finally take up her father's legacy, and her true calling: being a tomb raider. However, when Lara visits her father's secret bunker, she makes an ominous discovery: Trinity, the organization that hunted her father, has an agent working in the Croft Holdings company: Lara's longtime family friend and maternal figure, Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas). When she gets back to England, the discoveries of her father's quest and legacy move Lara to finally sign his death certificate and inherit the family fortune. Tomb Raider's ending sees Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) escape the island of Yamati alive.
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