Figuring Out Why The The New Tomb Raider Trailer Was So Controversial

So by now I'm sure most of you have seen or at least heard about the new Tomb Raider game and the fact that a trailer showed someone attempting to rape Lara Croft. During the trailer, her hands get tied behind her back and one of her captors attempts to get to know her in a much less than okay way. He ends up getting shot in the face for it.

After this scene was shown to the gaming world, a firestorm started. People were upset to see Lara Croft nearly getting raped. There were arguments on both sides of why it was alright to have that moment in the game as a story element and arguments as to why they shouldn't have included it.

Personally, I don't care about either side's squabbles. It is a video game. At no point was anybody about to get raped or shot in the face, so why make such a big deal about it? The real problem I saw with the trailer was their choice of including the attempted rape scene in a game trailer showing off what the game was about. You can't possibly get your point across of why it was happening in less than two minutes, so it just ends up looking really bad.

Chad wonders what it would be like to have an extra hole in his head

After reading up some more on the subject, I started to wonder something though. Why were people freaking out so much about this one instance? It isn't like this was the first time rape reared it's ugly head in a video game before. In fact, games released in just the last few years on current gen systems had rape in them and nobody even batted an eye about it.

Spoiler ahead for those of you that haven't played FEAR 2

Let's just put it out there. At the end of FEAR 2, you get raped by Alma and it comes out of nowhere. One second you're trying to turn on some machine, the next second you're tied down to a chair and there's a naked woman standing in front of you. A few quick cuts later and bam, she's pregnant with what can best be assumed is your child.

Don't believe me? Go to Google and type in "FEAR 2 ending". The results you get are hilarious considering the subject matter. They're almost entirely made up of people asking what happened and just how confused they are about the ending. And it is pretty obvious why they're so confused. On top of the implied rape, there is literally no build up to the surprise ending.

(Warning: Picture may be considered NSFW)


Sure, the closer you reach to the ending of the level, the more times you'll see Alma standing naked in a void, but at no point do they give you any real hints to what is happening. Despite all of this, I didn't see this mentioned once in any blogs about how wrong rape is. Probably because it was a ghost doing the raping.

Obviously rape isn't something that should be taken lightly, but the fact is this isn't something that is new to movies or games. And there's still the fact that nobody was actually raped in either of the above situations. Like I said earlier though, the main problem I have with the trailer is that they showed the attack at all.

(Warning: Picture may be considered NSFW)


There's no way they can possibly explain the attack or how it factors in to the game's overall narrative. Showing it in the trailer will at best prove the game will be going to some pretty dark places. But as you can tell from the reaction so far, that isn't enough of a reason to show it. I'm sure the people writing the story will be able to implement it into what is happening to Lara, but there's no way they could get their point across in two minutes of footage.

That's why I believe people were so upset about it. They don't have any idea why its happening, what the situation is or who these people are. There will always be the people screaming rape no matter how it is explained in the story, but I think if people were to see it happen in the game instead of a trailer with no explanation, the backlash wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was.

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How do you feel about this whole subject? Agree, disagree, kind of agree? Well why not explain why you feel how you do in the comments below? As always, thank you for reading.