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So far we've seen progress made from a hungry yellow dot, a bird-like space hunter, and a Chinese martial arts master with a grudge. From forging the first female heroines to showing they can kick ass with the best of them, some amount of forward momentum had begun to roll.
On the other hand, there is a valid point to be made in that these were women defined mostly by their physical strength. Both beautiful and deadly, the women showed they could wipe the villains from the map; but defining strength on purely physical terms is a sure sign of a male-dominated industry. Though these women were described to us as intelligent, independent women, we were told - not shown - these qualities.
So as we continue through Women's History Month, we're turning our look at female protagonists towards the 3D game space with Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and PC. The first in the series to be defined in part by her mind, our next heroine showed took games out of the shooting and fisticuffs and leaned more towards puzzle-solving in dank, isolated caverns. Her wardrobe did, however, inspire plenty of controversy. I'm referring, of course, to Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame.
Lara Croft Clears the Cobwebs
Lara Croft's entrance to the game space was revolutionary, not only as a woman, but also as a new way of playing. In 1996, Eidos presented us with one of the first 3D action-adventure titles; the fact that it starred a busty beauty was incidental to the progress it made in the gaming realm as a whole.
Like Ms. Pac-Man before her, legend has it that Lara Croft didn't begin as a female. Serving as a stand-in for the undetermined male hero, the game designers eventually decided that an exploration-based puzzle-solving game lent itself to the fairer sex, a sure sign that the creators had high regard for the wits of a woman. Those weren't carried through in execution, however, as a fluke led to Lara's famous, and abnormal, bust size. As development continued, Lara became a British intellectual, and the female equivalent of Indiana Jones.
Though the 3D adventure variety has been done since, and arguably better, we can see Tomb Raider's influence touching many other popular and similar titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the Prince of Persia series.
Lara's Spotty Past
Unlike some characters in our series, Lara's story history is confusing and checkered. The plot of the games has differed from that of the movies, and later games have gone back and used the movie canon. Regardless, there are a few common threads.
The first is her aristocracy, being the heir to large estates from her parents. The fate of her parents, however, is another matter. The original canon involves her growing isolated and distant from her parents as she took on her archaeological quests; the new one instead asserts that her mother was tragically killed and her father missing. In both cases, she became independent from them at an early age.
Also, in both cases her tendency to seek out ancient artifacts is not necessary due to her tremendous wealth, but rather something she enjoys doing as an intellectual woman who is interested in long-gone societies.
Why Was She So Important?
If gaming history can be split into two distinct eras, they are clearly 2D and 3D. Both generations pulled in new gamers, and just as Ms. Pac-Man was the first female role model of the arcades and Samus Aran was the first in 2D home console space, Lara was the first of the 3D space. In fact, the Tomb Raider games were some of the first to offer full adventure-based exploration of a 3D space. For this reason, the games were influential to the industry as a whole, and starring a female makes it that much more relevant.
Many young female gamers still claim to identify with Lara as the first character they found something in common with. In a game space that had grown saturated with stereotypes and bulky men, Croft represented a different kind of hero, agile and intelligent.
In fact, her intelligence is one of her strongest traits. Lara Croft is the first character of this series to rely more on her mind than her muscle. While she did pull of acrobatic feats that would put circus members to shame, and she carried around a veritable arsenal for protection, the thrust of the Tomb Raider series was always the same: exploration. It's been established in the game's plot that Lara disapproves of murder, and she avoids it often. Instead of using force, Lara would have to solve complex puzzles put there by ancient civilizations to find hidden treasures, and these puzzles existing in a 3D landscape made them more complex than anything gamers had yet seen.
On the Other Hand...
Of course, one would be remiss to even mention Lara Croft without also pointing out how blatantly she was sexualized, from the marketing of the character to the fan response. It's ironic and perhaps an interesting comment on our culture that the character who is arguably the most intelligent of any in this series is also the one who has been the most pandered to the adolescent crowd.
From the cover of the first Tomb Raider game that accented Lara's chest to the countless "nude patches" that the fan community has cooked up over the years, Lara seems unable to escape being seen as a set of breasts and impossible hips.
Though later games such as the recent Tomb Raider: Legend doesn't accentuate her body quite as much as past titles, Lara Croft has forever been spun in the gaming subconscious as a sexpot with guns, appearing in countless bits of fanart, cosplaying and even professional modeling at gaming shows.
Next Time: The Destined Photographer
Lara Croft brought brains to the women protagonists, but Eidos used her body to sell it to the mass market. Next time, we'll explore the last woman in our series by dipping back into the science-fiction realm with a plucky photographer caught up in a vast, dark conspiracy.
