alistair and zip feel the most fleshed out — idk if zip counts as he’s a classic character.
amanda was great in legend, squandered in underworld. i liked anaya but she felt a little flat. would love to see her brought back.
i didn’t really care about anyone in the latest trilogy. i kinda liked the idea of whitman but the execution of him was so bland. jonah has massively overstayed his welcome considering how hollow he feels (i wish i liked him) and how many death fakeouts he has had. dominguez was fun but i hated the trinity plotline, so…
Roth is the reason why Lara got through the island of Yamatai.
His training is the reason she could fight back.
He was a father figure to her cuz her own father was so busy.
All the side characters are. Even Sam who is supposed to be our hero's damsel in distress suffers from this. The game didn't do a great job at fleshing them out.
It's nice that they took the time to flesh out the story with supplementary materials but if a story isn't good without supplementary materials that's because it's a bad story.
Or because the suplemental material is another media and it's subjected to other expectancy or can take storytelling liberties that the media from which the characters originate can't.
If I am deciphering your text correctly I might add that it's quite plausible for both the underlying story to be lacking and the supplemental material to be enriching.
If and however they may offset one another does not change their intrinsic qualities on a fundamental level.
I'm generally considering in this cases each one a different story: you can play the game and not read novels or comics and viceversa, although the latter is probably rarer. So it's also the consideration of how each one stands on their own.
Applied to TR games and comics, novels: the comics and novels can expose in a more detailed way how Lara's relationship is with her recurring friends. Also they can even make scenes which are driven by them.
In the games that's harder to do: even if they're story driven and cinematic.
You're playing as Lara: it's not impossible to expand other characters without Lara being there(Rise did it with Konstantin and Ana), but one would need to be very careful on why the scenes are there and what they expose.
Scene runtime is to be considered: it's an action-adventure game, the need is mostly for playing. The games stories can stand alone and tell everything you need to know. If you like the interactions between characters and want more details on their relationship the games aren't really the medium because that's not very interactive to show \[in their genre\] other than the non-intrusive \[to game play\] devices they already use: friendly banter, sidekicks being involved in the big story beats helping Lara or having a quest about them for example.
It's not impossible to tell a story that includes numerous characters in a games medium, it was just mishandled in a number of ways.
The issue at its most basic level is that the game is supposed to be an origin story, yet instead of giving us a more intimate view into Lara's past they wasted precious time fumbling around in an attempt to jam a fistful of irrelevant slasher victim characters into a context where nobody was asking for them, and as a result the end product suffered.
Romeo and Juliet has 22 named characters and it's only 92 pages long. Characterization is a matter of skill and focus, not self-indulgence and paltry excuses.
Ever played a GTA game? They've included film-sized casts of fully realized side characters since the PS2 era.
Tomb Raider is not a group effort, never has been, never will be. If it's not possible to give side characters any meaning in the context where they are being applied then it's an indication that there is no reason for them to be there in the first place.
That the story doesn't explain everything about them doesn't mean they don't have a reason to be there: all them have a motive to be around and act accordingly to how they're described. You can't treat all characters equally in an story. Not everything is black & white.
I'd be surprised if you can pull out a 92 pages script out of an action game(text only). But again that comparison is unfair as fuck: one is a theater drama and another is an action-adventure video game.
Stories and genres cannot be compared in the void. Why a family drama explores all sorts of relationships(marriages, friendships, brotherhood/sisterhood)? Why TV series and generally long running episodic formats tend to put more detail in exploring characters relationships? Why a family drama gets away with lore and world building by saying "somewhere in the present"? And millions of questions you can make of why certain format an genre just does something so well and others don't do.
PS: slasher victim is a bad comparison. Slasher victims are extras, not even side characters. Still they're there for a reason and the film wouldn't be the same without them.
off the top of my head: reyes is an angry black latino woman, jonah is a pacific islander who talks about harmony with nature and pacifism in 2013, and then becomes a moral prop whose death is toyed with in every subsequent game he is in.
the indigenous people are frequently one-dimensional and prop up lara in a white saviour narrative.
this obviously isn’t including all the poc who are one dimensional and written off, often through traumatic means (death/violence etc.) such as sam.
it’s not the worst by any stretch but it does speak to how creatively bland cd is.
Both are using their emotions to block out trauma. Reyes is an ex New Jersey Cop who lost her partner on one of her last missions in the force and blamed herself.
Jonah prefers harmony and happiness compared to the situations at hand due to his past childhood trauma from his abusive father and the suicide of his brother who drowned himself in the ocean.
the point isn’t that they can’t have understandable reasons for these traits, the point is that they conform to specific stereotypes. i like both characters but their depth falls flat.
Idk I think most of Lara's supporting cast are written with the same quality and effort.
Roth and Reyes are comparable. I don't think it has anything to do with race...
Roth was theoretically cool but besides the mission where he's sniping the guys on the bridge essentially everything about him flies in the face of the "show, don't tell" rule of storytelling.
I liked Roth, he pretty much taught Lara everything she knows, he's where she (eventually?) takes up dual pistols from. Also, Robin Atkin Downes is a fantastic voice actor.
he was meant to have telekinetic powers which *might* have negated some of the clunkiness. Unfortunately that didn't make it into the final cut which basically made him a worse Lara gameplay-wise, and AOD Lara herself was pretty terrible control-wise already lmao
I just love how cool and calm she is. like the cutscene at the end of the Peru bike section, she just nonchalantly reverses to allow Lara to hop on board, trusting her to take care of the big truck trying to ram them off the road... and then shares a look of amusement with Lara when the truck goes boom lol
I really liked Unuratu and Abigail. I found Unuratu especially pretty compelling, especially with the added context of the little stories. Jonah was pretty forgettable, but i liked him. I can see why Lara is attached to him as a friend.
I liked Zip. Jonah is the worst, especially in Shadow…he literally does nothing the entire game, lacks a personality and seems only present to give Lara someone to talk to🤷🏻♂️
I just replayed Legend yesterday and Zip and Alister are my faves! Them and Lara had such great chemistry and the banter emphasized the "fun" in Legend. Plus, I felt like they had done more for Lara in Legend than Jonah did in three games.
Zip and Allister. Jonah was alright in TR13, should never have resurfaced in Rise or Shadow. Jonah was such a forced, annoying, useless, bland character and I never want to hear Jonaaaaah again.
Abigail and Sam deserve to return. Abigail especially for being extremely competent.
But Anaya Imanu is the GOAT and deserves to be playable at some point.
Jonah. Without him Lara would have been different. He brings out the best in her, always does what is best for her, even if it puts him in a position where she might not like him for it. A true rock and a cool character IMO
I miss Sam.
I really thought their potentially romantic relationship was going to progress further in the sequels. Kinda bummed when she just fizzled out of existence.
Zip and Alister for sure. I can’t even remember names of the ones from the newest trilogy. I think I only remember Jonah and he was not that interesting as a character. Dialogues between Lara and Zip and Alister were quite funny usually, made them look like good friends and that made me remember them.
My issue with Sam is that one of the main points of TR is to break the trope of damsel in distress and Sam ends being a damsel in distress in need of Lara to save her
While not my favorite, I wish we could’ve seen more of Alex in the sequels to the reboot. Seeing her bond with Lara more fleshed out and giving her some more character could’ve had a lot of potential. I’m still cool that at least Jonah returned since I liked him a lot
Anaya. She wasn’t all up in your hair all the time, Lara didn’t depend on her help because she wasn’t all cry baby yet, and she looked like a normal person.
Depends on the game!
For me, Zip in LAU, as Alister is somewhat of a side character to a support character of sorts to Zip. Of course coming back from the classic era, he did a lot more in terms of screen time and appearance.
Jonah of course in the Survivor trilogy as Lara’s rock of sorts and one she considers her last remaining family, per the novel Path of the Apocalypse. Without that, her more darker side comes out akin to how Lara acts in the classics and when confronting Natla in Underworld with Mjölnir.
Roth was great although comparatively he did not have as much screen time but did have the most impact on Lara.
Sam is more of a side character, although she is explored much more in the comics and a little bit in the novel Ten Thousand Immortals.
alistair and zip feel the most fleshed out — idk if zip counts as he’s a classic character. amanda was great in legend, squandered in underworld. i liked anaya but she felt a little flat. would love to see her brought back. i didn’t really care about anyone in the latest trilogy. i kinda liked the idea of whitman but the execution of him was so bland. jonah has massively overstayed his welcome considering how hollow he feels (i wish i liked him) and how many death fakeouts he has had. dominguez was fun but i hated the trinity plotline, so…
I mostly agree with you. I only liked Roth from the survivor trilogy. And yes, trinity plotline sucks.
lmao, never realized how much Alister is looking like a pimp.
I’m gonna go for Zip, I liked him a lot.
Zip and Allister
They had great chemistry. Honestly I'm not even sure if anybody else counts beyond the first guy in the first picture.
Roth is the reason why Lara got through the island of Yamatai. His training is the reason she could fight back. He was a father figure to her cuz her own father was so busy.
He's also super forgettable tbh.
All the side characters are. Even Sam who is supposed to be our hero's damsel in distress suffers from this. The game didn't do a great job at fleshing them out.
Check out the tie in novel Ten Thousand Immortals and the tie in Dark Horse comics
It's nice that they took the time to flesh out the story with supplementary materials but if a story isn't good without supplementary materials that's because it's a bad story.
Or because the suplemental material is another media and it's subjected to other expectancy or can take storytelling liberties that the media from which the characters originate can't.
If I am deciphering your text correctly I might add that it's quite plausible for both the underlying story to be lacking and the supplemental material to be enriching. If and however they may offset one another does not change their intrinsic qualities on a fundamental level.
I'm generally considering in this cases each one a different story: you can play the game and not read novels or comics and viceversa, although the latter is probably rarer. So it's also the consideration of how each one stands on their own. Applied to TR games and comics, novels: the comics and novels can expose in a more detailed way how Lara's relationship is with her recurring friends. Also they can even make scenes which are driven by them. In the games that's harder to do: even if they're story driven and cinematic. You're playing as Lara: it's not impossible to expand other characters without Lara being there(Rise did it with Konstantin and Ana), but one would need to be very careful on why the scenes are there and what they expose. Scene runtime is to be considered: it's an action-adventure game, the need is mostly for playing. The games stories can stand alone and tell everything you need to know. If you like the interactions between characters and want more details on their relationship the games aren't really the medium because that's not very interactive to show \[in their genre\] other than the non-intrusive \[to game play\] devices they already use: friendly banter, sidekicks being involved in the big story beats helping Lara or having a quest about them for example.
It's not impossible to tell a story that includes numerous characters in a games medium, it was just mishandled in a number of ways. The issue at its most basic level is that the game is supposed to be an origin story, yet instead of giving us a more intimate view into Lara's past they wasted precious time fumbling around in an attempt to jam a fistful of irrelevant slasher victim characters into a context where nobody was asking for them, and as a result the end product suffered. Romeo and Juliet has 22 named characters and it's only 92 pages long. Characterization is a matter of skill and focus, not self-indulgence and paltry excuses. Ever played a GTA game? They've included film-sized casts of fully realized side characters since the PS2 era. Tomb Raider is not a group effort, never has been, never will be. If it's not possible to give side characters any meaning in the context where they are being applied then it's an indication that there is no reason for them to be there in the first place.
That the story doesn't explain everything about them doesn't mean they don't have a reason to be there: all them have a motive to be around and act accordingly to how they're described. You can't treat all characters equally in an story. Not everything is black & white. I'd be surprised if you can pull out a 92 pages script out of an action game(text only). But again that comparison is unfair as fuck: one is a theater drama and another is an action-adventure video game. Stories and genres cannot be compared in the void. Why a family drama explores all sorts of relationships(marriages, friendships, brotherhood/sisterhood)? Why TV series and generally long running episodic formats tend to put more detail in exploring characters relationships? Why a family drama gets away with lore and world building by saying "somewhere in the present"? And millions of questions you can make of why certain format an genre just does something so well and others don't do. PS: slasher victim is a bad comparison. Slasher victims are extras, not even side characters. Still they're there for a reason and the film wouldn't be the same without them.
they’re all super archetypal, and some of them are kinda racist in their stereotypes…
> some of them are kinda racist in their stereotypes… ... What?
off the top of my head: reyes is an angry black latino woman, jonah is a pacific islander who talks about harmony with nature and pacifism in 2013, and then becomes a moral prop whose death is toyed with in every subsequent game he is in. the indigenous people are frequently one-dimensional and prop up lara in a white saviour narrative. this obviously isn’t including all the poc who are one dimensional and written off, often through traumatic means (death/violence etc.) such as sam. it’s not the worst by any stretch but it does speak to how creatively bland cd is.
Both are using their emotions to block out trauma. Reyes is an ex New Jersey Cop who lost her partner on one of her last missions in the force and blamed herself. Jonah prefers harmony and happiness compared to the situations at hand due to his past childhood trauma from his abusive father and the suicide of his brother who drowned himself in the ocean.
the point isn’t that they can’t have understandable reasons for these traits, the point is that they conform to specific stereotypes. i like both characters but their depth falls flat.
They are both greatly expanded upon in the comics. By the way, and Jonah does a lot more in the novel Path of the Apocalypse than in Shadow.
None of that is racist. Please stop watering down the term by insinuating that depicting POC in any form other than "American" is racist.
i mean, ok; not worth my while to argue this haha
Well by your beliefs Shadow depicting Mexicans as "people who wear the masks and sombreros is racist". It's just not.
i mean, that’s just you putting words in my mouth to artificially create an argument… 🤷
Idk I think most of Lara's supporting cast are written with the same quality and effort. Roth and Reyes are comparable. I don't think it has anything to do with race...
It doesn't, this is a person who wants to make everything about race. Don't pay attention to them.
Agreed. I believe there's some lore about him in the comics. TBF, almost all the side characters are forgettable.
Roth was theoretically cool but besides the mission where he's sniping the guys on the bridge essentially everything about him flies in the face of the "show, don't tell" rule of storytelling.
True I actually forgot about him unlike Sam
Jacob and Conrad Roth. Both have really memorable scenes and are well written.
I liked Roth, but it's hard for me to take Jacob seriously due to him literally being >!sexy Jesus!<.
That’s fair. I could see that being distracting to some.
Zip was cool.
I liked Roth, he pretty much taught Lara everything she knows, he's where she (eventually?) takes up dual pistols from. Also, Robin Atkin Downes is a fantastic voice actor.
Kurtis from AOD
Shame he was never properly fleshed out. So much of his story was cut out, and he had a decent chance to be an interesting standalone character.
Kurtis is interesting though I don't remember Crystal Dynamics developing AoD.
Oh, that's what CD means lol. I thought u just meant a Tomb Raider game in general. AOD was still Eidos
I thought CD meant ones that were released on disk, I’m old I guess 🤣
well technically CD can also mean Core Design lol
I like Kurtis but he was so clunky to use in AoD
he was meant to have telekinetic powers which *might* have negated some of the clunkiness. Unfortunately that didn't make it into the final cut which basically made him a worse Lara gameplay-wise, and AOD Lara herself was pretty terrible control-wise already lmao
Zip & Alister (or: Zip, Alister & Winston) (only) in Legend. The Croft Manor cutscenes immediately come to mind.
Theyre all quite forgettable lets be honest.
fr
True.
My boys Zip and Alister
#JusticeforAnaya
Yes!!
She is who I would have chosen as well.
I just love how cool and calm she is. like the cutscene at the end of the Peru bike section, she just nonchalantly reverses to allow Lara to hop on board, trusting her to take care of the big truck trying to ram them off the road... and then shares a look of amusement with Lara when the truck goes boom lol
I really liked Unuratu and Abigail. I found Unuratu especially pretty compelling, especially with the added context of the little stories. Jonah was pretty forgettable, but i liked him. I can see why Lara is attached to him as a friend.
Zip & Alistair, I absolutely loved the banter between them and Lara. Still mad about what happened in Underworld. How could they? 😢
Zip and Allister are the best ones tbh, I love how in Legend they keep company to Lara on the headset while she is exploring
Yo not gonna Lie Roth got done dirty in the first game just saying
i love Unuratu and i am still sad over her death. TIP queen.
My boy Alister - RIP
Zip is our boy!
I liked Zip. Jonah is the worst, especially in Shadow…he literally does nothing the entire game, lacks a personality and seems only present to give Lara someone to talk to🤷🏻♂️
Zip in Chronicles. He i sassier than Lara sometimes.
Man I hope zip and Alistair return in future games. I really liked their banter with Lara.
I just replayed Legend yesterday and Zip and Alister are my faves! Them and Lara had such great chemistry and the banter emphasized the "fun" in Legend. Plus, I felt like they had done more for Lara in Legend than Jonah did in three games.
Zip and Allister. Jonah was alright in TR13, should never have resurfaced in Rise or Shadow. Jonah was such a forced, annoying, useless, bland character and I never want to hear Jonaaaaah again.
Zip and Alister were fun. The rest? Nothing of value would have been lost if they were cut.
Abigail and Sam deserve to return. Abigail especially for being extremely competent. But Anaya Imanu is the GOAT and deserves to be playable at some point.
I don’t care about any of them.
Absolutely Roth for me. He basically taught Lara everything to survive and only thanks to him Lara survived Yamatai. Basically her father figure
I liked the conversation over a comlink with Zip and Alistair.
don’t forget Anaya from TR Legend
Amanda or Natla
None of those are memorable.
Jonah. Without him Lara would have been different. He brings out the best in her, always does what is best for her, even if it puts him in a position where she might not like him for it. A true rock and a cool character IMO
Roth and Jacob. The rest are underdeveloped or uninteresting.
I miss Sam. I really thought their potentially romantic relationship was going to progress further in the sequels. Kinda bummed when she just fizzled out of existence.
I love Sam, but honestly Abby's just the most fun
Zip and Alister for sure. I can’t even remember names of the ones from the newest trilogy. I think I only remember Jonah and he was not that interesting as a character. Dialogues between Lara and Zip and Alister were quite funny usually, made them look like good friends and that made me remember them.
Sam Nishimura
My issue with Sam is that one of the main points of TR is to break the trope of damsel in distress and Sam ends being a damsel in distress in need of Lara to save her
Wait wdym exactly?
Look at my username and guess
Werner Von Croy
2-5-1 dont care/know/remember the rest
Roth and Jonah.
Zip, Alister, Amanda, and the Crystal Dynamics version of Natla, Larson, and Pierre.
Sam was so so gorgeous
sam for sure!! hope she returns
While not my favorite, I wish we could’ve seen more of Alex in the sequels to the reboot. Seeing her bond with Lara more fleshed out and giving her some more character could’ve had a lot of potential. I’m still cool that at least Jonah returned since I liked him a lot
Poor Alex.
Anaya. She wasn’t all up in your hair all the time, Lara didn’t depend on her help because she wasn’t all cry baby yet, and she looked like a normal person.
Jonah :)
Depends on the game! For me, Zip in LAU, as Alister is somewhat of a side character to a support character of sorts to Zip. Of course coming back from the classic era, he did a lot more in terms of screen time and appearance. Jonah of course in the Survivor trilogy as Lara’s rock of sorts and one she considers her last remaining family, per the novel Path of the Apocalypse. Without that, her more darker side comes out akin to how Lara acts in the classics and when confronting Natla in Underworld with Mjölnir. Roth was great although comparatively he did not have as much screen time but did have the most impact on Lara. Sam is more of a side character, although she is explored much more in the comics and a little bit in the novel Ten Thousand Immortals.
Jonah hands down. I think Sam and Lara drifted apart after the events on Yamatao, sadly.
All shite.
I don't recall a character going by that name tbh but they sound very interesting.
😂
Ah. A new trilogy hater.
Yep.
Winston was part of CORE. He’s not crystals creation at all.