Liveblog: debate on Tomb Raider’s “rape” elements

@100 Curious why you linked that.

@102 There is no rape in the game. But there *is* an uncomfortable “leering” quality to the way they’re promoting her so far that makes me for one uncomfortable.

@99: “Protect her”? Yep, that’s bullshit, how can the player “Protect her” if he IS Lara? That doesn’t make sense.

“At no point in any of this do we ever see her in control. We never see her instinct take over or adrenaline think in. We just see a week girl, constantly afraid, constantly struggling, constantly losing. It’s puerile. We actually need to see some strength in her come true in these trailers.”

Yeah, because we’ve seen so much material. God, you’re EXACTLY like the DMC-Crybabies. I’ve seen her grab a bow, from a dead body and use it to hunt an animal. She did that all by herself. No one helped her, definitely no man.

“I bet the main male cast will all be tough, scruffy and show little emotion, while Lara is freaking out constantly and not in control of herself. Because women are the only ones allowed to be weak.”

… I think you should stop making stuff up.

Sorry, just wrote bullshit, disregard this comment

@103 yep, I agree.

@101 The fact that it makes you uncomfortable isn’t really an argument for anything, and I’m not sure you should be speaking for women everywhere. The ones in the comment section don’t agree.

Rape is generally associated with those feelings. I don’t see why any writer should be obligated to make it a happy thing.

“I’m being raped, this is so characterbuilding”.

That’s not good dialogue either.

My wife is afraid of roaches. Should I chastize her for perpetuating such a base female stereotype? Sometimes reality is boring and predictable, or even uncomfortable.

@98:

+1

@98, I think that’s quite a sad way to look at any industry and in my opinion, I think you’re being the naive person here.

Writing off a form of media as anything other than just something for shits and giggles is ridiculously sad. It’s like telling musicians, artists or film makers to stop trying to promote anything outside of something nice for me to dance to, look at or listen to.

@98 – People said EXACTLY the same things with movies. This is an industry that is booming and will continue to grow, so covering such topics will have an impact of the future outcome of the media.

As for claiming my views are “backwards” or “naive”, it’s easier to have a mature debate without someone belittling your views so please don’t patronise me by believing that your experiences outweigh my own when you have no idea my personal situation.

It’s not about making society better, but by simply saying you cannot cover such a topic in games (which are just another form of media) because it’s too difficult or painful only hinders it’s global knowledge and potential empathy.

@104 ““Protect her”? Yep, that’s bullshit, how can the player “Protect her” if he IS Lara? That doesn’t make sense.”

Maybe you should tell the developers that then.

“…I think you should stop making stuff up.”

The crossroads trailers we’ve seen so far has Lara begging a man to come help her, and latter when found by a bunch of people, all but one of them are men, and she’s an emotional mess while they’re all calm and collected.

@105 Can’t tell if joke post. If not, feel free to elaborate.

The thing that amazes me the most, is why the Silent hill 2 rape didnt had the same type of reaction from gamers, and opinion pieces for that matter, and now an “attempt” is really having it, strange how we see things so differently.

Wow, this is pretty much the first time I wholly agree with the old man.

Men do get subjected to rapey advances too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVePu1OSuws

@110, +1.

What I find funny is how one minute gamers will talk about protecting the “artistic rights” of the devs and such when people complain about something in a game – ME3 ending for example – but then if a writer creates a story in a game with something like rape as a subject, people who personally don’t like or want to deal with it, all that stuff about protecting the artists vision goes out the window.

@107 I’m not condemning it because it makes me uncomfortable. I’m condemning it because it’s lazy.

Boys don’t Cry makes me uncomfortable. But it’s still a great movie. That particular scene near the end was so harsh I had the skip past it, but that was integral to the plot and the message of the story.

Lara is not a transexual trying to find acceptance with people who don’t understand who she, ultimately objectifying her as a woman despite her desire not to be seen that way. The movie’s tragic scenes were harsh, brutal and realistic, to try and hit home the point of tolerance and acceptance of people who are different from the norm.

Tomb Raider is not trying to reach such lofty heights. Surely you can see why the approach to characterisation for Lara is lazy at best, and sexist at worst?

@102 Context.

Silent Hill’s horrors are meant to be the mainfestation of the character’s own thoughts and desires.

The apartments were the “climax” of James’ sexual frustrations (alluding to the daily sexless life he had). The apartments leads into his first meeting with Maria, the outward manifestation of James’ sexual frustration, so after that there was no reason for Pyramid Head to display such behaviour.

I said what I wanted to say. I just read endgames posts from the other thread and wow. Scary stuff.

@116 I don’t disagree with any of that, but why is it a women’s issue?

In all likelihood they’re just bad writers, and that isn’t exclusive to videogames.

What you have here is an explosive reaction based on some lousy PR, by a guy who wasn’t eloquent or likely smart enough to handle the presentation.

Then suddenly that becomes a big issue about how women are viewed, when really it’s a basic human instinct. Protect the females, so they can pass on the genes.

The weaker the female, the stronger the instinct. I don’t see how it becomes more or less reprehensible just because it’s badly written, and I don’t get why this is a big thing because it happens in Tomb Raider.

It’s the same concept as you’d find in the Stieg Larsson books, or Lars Von Trier movies, or Game of Thrones on HBO. Most women I know love Stieg Larsson and Game of Thrones.

@117:

The guy needs locking up.

@111: So you’re going to judge the whole game based on just what one guy said? Maybe he’s thinking about differently then the others? Remember the Guy from Io Interactive who said that Hitman is Grindhouse all of a sudden?

You really choose to see what you wanted to see in the trailer, though. I saw a girl, not a woman, experience complete and utter horror. Waking up in a cannibal cave, the ground covered in bones, dead bodies hanging from the ceiling. Something like that would cripple anybodies mind.

Of course she’s begging, she’s completely alone and she’s no Tier 1 Spec Ops, for fucks sake. What would you do?

“Oh, yeah, i guess you could get me out of here, if you got nothing else to do.” That is exactly the kind of macho-bullshit some lonely comicbook author would describe as ‘strong’. But it really isn’t. It’s inhuman. It’s cartoony and doesn’t belong in a realistic setting.

She’s stranded on an island. Completely isolated from the outside world. Everybody would be begging.

And it’s not a man, she begged, it’s a bunch of people as you could hear from his answer. And if you looked closer, you’d seen that the people who came to help her had no dirt, no blood on them. Maybe they didn’t experience what she experienced. That’s why they seem so to be so calm.

But how should we know, that scene was 2 fucking seconds long.

@118 Then we both essentially agree on the same thing. It’s just bad writing.

That was my point from the beginning, I’m not a fan of censorship, and I’m most definitely not PC. I just think they could have done a far better job. If they don’t want us to see her that way, don’t present her that way.

@120 It’s his job to present the character properly. If that’s the underlying theme they’re going with, its a little disconcerting.

*Obviously* I’m only working with what I’ve seen so far. If the final product turns out to be completely different and does a brilliant job in developing her character, I for one will be ecstatic.

@121 Absolutely.

But like you say we haven’t actually played the game, so I’m not sure how much I mind just yet.

Did you play Mafia II? The protagonist didn’t show weakness, but he did have a naked fat guy rubbing up against him in the shower.

I’m with bad writing here as well. What I don’t get is the objection about
“protect her” part; surely if you know someone who was raped or see someone being raped you would want to help and protect them –be it a woman, a man or a child.

The second thing is, the chat above was more of a discussion than a debate. A debate, as far as I know, involves people of opposing views.

Then comes the part about the male rape. That was funny especially after someone says, what basically means, “The other sex has no idea how bad ours is portrayed,” then fails to give an example like that, LoL moment right there.

Meh, anywho…lets wait for it to come out, then we talk.

What 54 said!

@124 I thought that was pretty weak as well.

Next time you really should get someone with a different view Pat. It was a nice chat and all, but it was completely onesided.

who gives a fuck, it can get raped and have its vagina mutilated by bamboo for all i care because it’s not real. god, what a bunch of nerds. we all know that an attempted rape will occur in the game so why are we having this pointless chat. the game is much more likely to be talked about if it’s featured. fuck me, go to uni already and learn something about life outside of games. studies show those that dont attend university turn out to be wife beaters and rapists while those that do attend university make a fuckload of money. sorry but its true.

@127 This has to be a troll post.

@128 Either that or a retard; in both cases, it’s best to ignore it until it goes away.

@127 Finally someone who understands! I salute you smart person! o7

I’d frankly be disturbed if Nathan Drake was about to be violated by a lady. But lets be real here, how often do we ever hear of a fully grown male being sexually violated by a woman? I don’t think I’ve ever read a newspaper or seen a news report mentioning such things. However, I constantly hear of fully grown males violating both fully grown woman & children too, some times even other men but that’s mainly prison stories. So I’ve just got this to say, is a stereotype really a stereotype if it’s true? My only problem is the way they’ve got Lara reacting, it’d be natural for anyone, regardless of gender, to not react well to a rape attempt, however, she’s a renown badass, she ain’t gonna let no dirty man touch her but she’s clearly afraid & hesitant in the trailer. I reckon everyone would be happy if the man attempted to grab one of her breasts & she simply punched his lights out, but that’s just not the case here.

^ it’s funny you say that, I recently read a agony aunt story where some guy got wasted drunk & the next day was told he’d had sex with some women. Now he couldn’t remember a thing of this and didn’t really like the women.

The result? He felt violated. He knew if sober he wouldn’t have touched her, he felt taken advantage of.

Just goes to show male sexuality is just as complex I guess. Nothing to do with videogames I know