I have a story about this that I almost posted in the other thread, but decided not to at the last minute. I'd be curious to know just how many women felt this way about the character.
I went from thinking Lara was hot when I was like 12 (around when the first game came out), to really despising what the character represented. Despite this, I was still a fan of the series, specifically from Legends onward. I was baffled when Tomb Raider 2013 was announced. I thought it was awesome that they made a more realistic character, but a lot of women were pissed. I think it may have been before some of the more questionable content was revealed too. It turns out Lara Croft was one of the few (western?) female power fantasy characters that women had, and the development team had turned her into a more vulnerable, weaker character. I know people were making a comparison saying Nathan Drake wouldn't be treated the same way in a similar situation. As white male, it goes to show how important it is to listen, even if you support more inclusiveness and better characters. I also learned how much I took the wide range and number of male protagonists for granted.
Like I said, I'm not actually sure if it's how most women felt. I'm also not trying to justify the original character either. I can see the positives though, and it's good to see the team seemed to do better with Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Tomb Raider always had a pretty large female audience. I used to go to Tomb Raider fan sites, and a large portion of the community were female fans. The major in-game problem with Lara (distinguishing it from marketing, including the models they hired to portray her as well as fully naked renders for ads and the Playboy spread too) was her body. Her breasts were impossibly sized compared to her wasp waist – like body fat doesn't distribute like that. Even Toby Gard, her creator, acknowledged that he wished they hadn't made em so large. And while the game did have some teasing bits and questionable camera framing (one game ends with her kicking the camera out of the washroom as she goes to take a bath, iirc, and theres a stats screen on top of an image of her butt holding her guns behind her back), in the gameplay itself she was surprisingly *not* sexualised. She wore heavier clothing in cold places, the game didn't focus on cleavage, and her tits were made of rock – no jiggle.
Additionally, she was portrayed (especially as the series went on) as witty, snarky, defiant, with an independent mind, self-assured, capable, highly educated, and extremely skilled. She knew multiple different languages, she knew how to use different guns, she knew acrobatics... in short, she was a female James Bond, but with less sexism and objectification.
It's because her sexualisation was so easily ignorable (if you pay no attention to marketing) and her characterisation so eminently likeable that I saw her as a sort of cool big sister. I wanna grow up to be like her. She's awesome. I wish I were that confident and quick-witted! You could actually admire her.
Women were drawn to the series because it was one of the few at the time with a female protagonist, and they stayed because of the challenging puzzles, the intricate platforming, the exciting locations, and fantastical plots. (Horror games are also quite popular with a female audience because of the puzzles and the plots.) But a large reason they were fans is because they *liked* Lara.
While the reboot gave Lara a more realistic body and more clothing, it stripped her of her personality. She's boring and serious. She's weak rather than confident and unflappable. She talks to herself like a paranoid street-preacher. Maybe the new Lara is more relatable in that she acts more like I would in the situation, but I don't *want* to relate to her. I wanted to relate to cool big sister Lara. (They also trashed the puzzles and platforming, so that didn't help lol.)
