Lara Croft

I'm weighing in on this new Tomb Raider thing. Specifically, what made me want to write was this insulting article (Kotaku), which gives a new context to the images we've seen from the new Tomb Raider game.

Read through to the main article. Here I will just try to anticipate the most common rebuttals:

• I am not against women getting in to combat situations.
• Not against violence in games.
• Not against sex or sexuality in games.
• I am not against the hero's journey...
• or the heroine's journey.
• I am not at any moment suggesting that female characters should not be allowed to go on adventures.
• I am not against the depiction of danger toward female characters.
• I am not against the fictitious portrayal of rape/attempted rape in adult media.

I am against the idea that a female character exists solely to please male viewers. I'm against the implication that Lara needs the "protection" of an (implied male) gamer rather than having character agency in her own right. And I am very irritated by the suggestion that all that really matters about a female character in a game is "would you do her, or not." Even in a game focused on romance and sex, which Tomb Raider decidedly isn't, there can, and has been, more than that.

A Day of Horror Games at Origins

So I'm at Origins this week! Great convention, lots of neat people to meet, learn from, new games to try, etc. I feel bad for writing something that's about to sound like a complaint. It isn't really. I don't know what it counts as, exactly. But here goes.

Sexual violence trigger warning. Sorry if this is uncomfortable to read.