What Is Lara Croft Represented In Tomb Raider?

In Tomb Raider, there is a clear distinction between how Lara Croft is represented through the narrative and through the gameplay. Narratively she is shown to be a relatively inexperienced and sometimes helpless adventurer trying to survive on a scary island, while the gameplay shows her performing super human feats and massacring large groups of enemy combatants. There are moments when her portrayal fits with how she is controlled through gameplay, but these aren’t significant enough to outweigh the disconnect that occurs throughout most of the game.
Starting with the beginning of the game, Lara is first seen escaping from a cave. This introduction places an emphasis on how scared and alone Lara is and this is done primarily though cutscenes.
For example she is seen huddled up to a fire while shivering, or desperately speaking into her radio to find others and even how Roth has to reassure her she is not at fault. One of the earlier portions of the game is where Lara is briefly kidnapped and has to escape. This and the following scene was actually what first gave me this feeling of disconnect between the representations. Her escape was actually an example of the gameplay and narrative doing a good job of showing the same side of Lara. The player has no way to fight out of this predicament, Lara has to sneak around groups of enemies and if caught you are immediately killed, giving a true sense of helplessness. The disconnect comes from the scene immediately following this ‘stealth’ gameplay. You are caught by the leader before a brief struggle, where Lara has to commit murder for (presumably) the first time. It was a poignant moment where Lara sees what she has done and has to compose herself before moving on from the dangerous situation. The game cuts back to gameplay where the next fifteen or so minutes is spent killing a lot of enemies and looting their bodies. It’s striking how after showing how difficult it was to take that man’s life, how easily Lara is able to commit such violence and then loot their dead corpses.
Even as you get further in the game and Lara becomes stronger and has better equipment, the game still disempowers Lara by having her captured two more times and injured multiple other times, all primarily done through cutscenes. Both times Lara is captured she barely puts up a fight and the player has no input. Despite these attempts to emasculate Lara through the narrative, rarely does she feel weaker during the gameplay portions. One time she is captured but keeps all her weapons. It makes no sense to have Lara beaten up, captured and hung up with corpses but allowed to keep her guns and continue killing people a few moments later. To the game’s credit, the third time she is captured they do take her weapons and she if forced to fight with only the bow, but these moments are few and far between in a game where Lara is narratively portrayed as a survivor just trying to get by. Another major component of the gameplay is Lara’s climbing and parkour. When not engaged with an enemy Lara is most likely traversing around the island, but even this perpetuates Lara’s image as a superhuman. There are many instances of Lara falling, something nearby exploding or
collapsing. However, there are very few instances of a fail state within these sections where Lara does not die. There are really only two paths within these sections: Lara dies brutally or performs some superhuman act to escape near death like shooting a barricade while falling down a stream, or jumping from a collapsing plane onto a rock. One of the only instances of the game showing Lara’s vulnerability while traversing the island was when she fell through the trees and was so badly wounded it actually affected the gameplay by not allowing certain actions.
And even after all Lara has done to make it through this island, people within her group don’t trust her judgment or listen to her advice. She performs an incredible rescue of her crewmates in a collapsing volcano but the next day they don’t believe Lara. It’s just weird to see people treat Lara like a naïve girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing during a cutscene and then she proceeds to kill hundreds of enemies or escape a sinking boat and save everyone’s ass. The narrative sets up Lara this vulnerable, inexperienced girl that is just trying to survive but the way she is controlled is this superhuman adventurer who is only really made vulnerable when the narrative takes control of her actions