Point by point
- What do you mean courted by publishers? No one ever questioned that male teenagers were the target audience of the marketing push. That does not imply that the game could have never resonated with a different audience. Actually, the fact that it DID resonate with a diverse audience, DESPITE the ads and tha magazines and everything else should be taken as an indication of just how strong the character was. In regards to pushback from the devs, the guy who created Lara Croft leaving the studio after the first game, explicitly citing his dissatisfaction for the way Lara was portrayed outside of the games is not enough of a pushback for you? (Although I grant you that the re-design he did for Legend was terrible). Should the devs have thrown away their creation (and their jobs), because Lara was being depicted in incongruous ways outside of the games? This is ridiculous
You do know that I wrote that the her OG design was "iconic", right? And yes, this means that her design popularity permeated through demographics beyond what was expected. But as you conceded, it had to overcome the blatantly problematic issues arising from her depiction in pop media under the implied consent of publishers which even the person who designed her felt short changed by. That is what I mean by courting.
And talking of why she became iconic, one has to ask, how many other games featured an action-hero female protagonist at the time? It's not like women had a lot of choice at the time or for sometime after. IIRC, aside from Samus in environmentally isolated armour, Joanna Dark came into existence 4 years after and the game was in first person. So for a time, Lara was the only one in a sea of male action heroes.
Additionally, on the topic of "courting" by publishers (and this pertains to publishers in general, both in and out of business), I don't know if you are legitimately not in the know or these are just bad faith argument but it is pretty evident publishers via marketing campaigns have courted people, some of who essentially became the GamerGate self appointed gatekeepers.
This Thread is a great example of what publishers implicitly/explicitly consented to for quite a notable period of time. There is a price to pay for nurturing and mollycoddling a culture of misogynistic/sexist/phobic thought processes. And only the privileged are truly blind to it.
- You criticise people like me ("lack of critical skills") who appreciate the design, but you haven't criticised the design yourself yet; this is what people call an ad hominem argumment. Why dont't you tell us what you find wrong about the pictures I posted, instead of attacking me?
I put her OG design into perspective pertaining to what the devs thought would appease their target market, how she was marketed in that attire at the time and how that design whilst outdated can still be incorporated in very select circumstances. My assertion about lack of critical thought process pertains to the notion that that aspect was somehow not a factor in her design.
- Allow me to quote myself
The dev team that worked on TR was made of less than 10 people, if memory serves. A far cry from today's dev teams, and certainly a vastly different situation from Riot games. The TR team had no hierarchical structure and everyone pitched their own ideas. Also, I never spoke of "critcising the original games"; as you can read in my post, I took issues with people who claim that "Lara was a product designed to entice the male audience".
I think there is a misunderstanding here somewhere. I am trying draw the line between her attire (i.e. design) and how she was portrayed to during marketing campaigns and magazines from her as a person and what she is capable of. Marketing material evidence suggests her visage was designed to be able to be marketed to the predominant portion of the market of the time- heretosexual white men. In the west, game development in the 90s and even early 00s were essentially by the heterosexual white men for the heterosexual white men.
- So what? I've never taken issues with anyone appreciation of the modern games when discussing the character design, because we can look at these 2 aspects seprately. I don't know why you'd feel the need to reiterate that you don't like the modern games
Because you wrote: " for the sake of elevating the newer ones to heights that would appear much more modest if they were to be compared with the classic TR games. "
I was looking at them separately.
- This is not a criticism, an argument or anything. It's handwaving. Please, explain what you dislike about it.
What I dislike or rather bothers me about the OG design is how besides the whole TnA factor, is that if Lara was Laurentius, he would be designed with a lot more practicality in mind. With all that bare skin in different environments with myriad types of hazards, Lara was functionally an Amazonian, who was on a fair few occasions, marketed to target audience as sexual object of desire.
- We were talking about Lara's clothing in the reboots, correct? Specifically, I was thinking about the supposed controversy around her more defined body in SotTR. The fact that, by the third game with photorealistic graphics, they finally gave her some muscles was a good thing (progressive relatively to the low standards of videogames protagonists)
Okay, I do not recall this. In fact, given what Lara does, she'd have to actually look like extreme cross-fit trainers and/or MMA fighters. Bigger Latissimus Dorsi and Trapezius muscles. In fact, it is a pet peeve of mine that even now, women are seldom designed appropriately for the physical challenges they, like their male counterparts, overcome. Cassandra and Aloy are the two exceptions I have seen thus far. Now, what do remember is some folks taking umbrage with what they considered was borderline cultural appropriation pertaining to attire. I may be mistaken but it might have been quelled after the context of the attire was discussed. Of course, it was kind of the tip of the ice berg for the overall (aforementioned) white savior related angle problem.
- As I explained above, I think the idea of grounding Lara is not a very good one to begin with
Well, it does come down to the developers. And unless the devs are visually going for a more stylized aesthetic, the game will "grounded" (insofar as compared to other "realistic" games in the genre).
Anyway, it's been a long chat. Consider this my final response. Writing long responses tire me out. Cheers.
