History Headscratchers / TombRaider2013

* The whole retrieving Reyes' tools from the Endurance to fix the boat is ridiculously stupid because the supposed "tools" are just generic screwdriver and wrenches. If Lara manages to MacGyver her way into having a silenced assault rifle with frag grenade launcher and bunch of other perks, for sure they could find something useful around Shantytown or the beach.
** ''Lara'' was able to MacGyver her equipment together. Alex went off to ''Endurance'' before Lara arrived on the beach, and at this point of the game Reyes made it clear she had no faith in Lara's abilities, [[spoiler: besides being shaken by Roth's death and holding Lara responsible]], so it's not like she was going to wait around for her to show up when she believed their lives depended on getting off the island as soon as possible (remember that Reyes wasn't going to wait for Lara to return if they got the boat working before she got back from the General's tomb). There's also a question of how much Lara's equipment updates should be considered GameplayAndStorySegregation. ''Especially'' when you consider that it would mean Lara was somehow able to convert a Japanese Type-100 submachine gun into a frelling ''AK-47'' with nothing but a bunch of spare parts (seriously, look at the "Assault Rifle" base model. It's an [[AKA47 AK-47]]).
** Nah, the whole weapon upgrade thing is easy to justify - the small upgrades (silencer, extra rounds) from spare parts are classic MacGyver -ing; however in big upgrades (wooden bow to composite to carbon fiber bow) Lara simply found a new weapon and replaced her old one - this is even shown in the cutscenes - the Maori big guy handed Lara a modern bow just before heading to the Endurance. Back to my complaint, I think your argument still doesn't defeat the fact that the supposed "tools" Alex went off to find are just generic wrenches and screwdrivers. It's been pointed out numerous times that the crew outside of Lara are completely TooDumbToLive but this one takes the cake. Alex is supposed to be the smart nerdy archetype character, but really you're gonna go to a partly sinking ship like 3 miles away alone in an island full of cultist mercenaries ''for generic set of wrenches and screwdriver??'' If he just turned his head around the Shipwreck beach is full of machines (lifts, cages, towers, etc) - obviously there will be something that can be used as a wrench.

* How did the radio tower still have power? The Solarii in the bunker mention fuel for the generators powering it, but Lara went through that room, and she blew that room up. After that, all the generators in the room were smoking, smoking, and silent, so I'm pretty sure they weren't working.

** It's all for dramatic effect, as well as for those who are disturbingly into seeing masochism, intentional or not. Normally yes, she would not have survived past the prologue of the game (it's BS enough that she can climb such a slippery slope out of that cave during a collapse, especially at that speed). Put simply, she's a superhero in this iteration of Tomb Raider. One can argue that she was more ridiculous in past games, so at least she reacts and grows more naturally to her struggles. However, "GCN" does a good job of showing the flaws of the game already.

'''Warning: There may be unmarked spoilers below, so read at your own risk.'''

** No one said they were SMART. They pretty much have one purpose. "Protect Himiko" They probably thought Lara was already dead.

* Pump action shoguns are simple weapons, but could such a weapon and its ammunition (this was before plastic shotgun shells were invented and paper was used instead) still be functional after 68 years in an open cave exposed to wind, dust, and rain with no maintenance?

* There's no bears on the island. So why/how did Lara end up finding a bear trap?

** She was incredibly lucky and nothing vital was hit or torn when she pulled it out. However, it still takes its toll. She eventually aggravates it too much to function after one too many hijinks and needs to treat it with a heated arrow. And even after this, you can notice in cut scenes where she lands from height that she hands immediately go to her wound.

'''Warning: There may be unmarked spoilers below, so read at your own risk'''

** Yes, and? I hate going to work but it doesn't mean I won't go there anyway. Hating something doesn't mean you have an irrational, terrifying fear of it. Just means you hate it.
** However Lara gets positively ''[[{{Adorkable}} giddy]]'' when discovering and exploring the various tombs, speculating on their original purposes before the Solarii took them over and IIRC, expresses outright disgust at what they have done with them in the meantime. In fact, the artifacts and tombs are the ''only'' part of her experience on the island Lara shows enjoyment in. This doesn't sound like someone who hates tombs. I'd almost consider it a [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Big-Lipped Alligator Line]]. It makes no sense in context of the character, and comes completely out of nowhere.
** She hates tombs but loves the artifacts inside them - she goes giddy over stuff she finds outside of them as well. You guys seem to be fishing for things to take issue with rather than it being a genuine issue with the writing tone.
** And that's a {{Handwave}} which doesn't really address anything. Lara is only saying this after having already explored at ''least'' 2-3 of the game's optional tombs, neither of which she commented about hating. It's a line of dialog that just doesn't fit the context of either the character or the game itself. At best it's a bit of GameplayAndStorySegregation, at worse it's a one-off joke thrown in about the character that falls flat because ''it doesn't make any sense''.
** No, it makes sense. It comes after her experience with the tombs on the island, giving her reason to hate them - again, the *tombs* and not what's inside of them. That you're unable to take her statement as anything other than a literal, by-the-letter direct comment is a flaw in your logic not the writing.
** ''What'' experience? What happens ''inside the tombs'' prior to that point to explain her reaction later in the game? Aside from [[spoiler: the General's tomb]] none of them have enemies present, (and only one--[[spoiler: Shantytown, with the snare trap]]--has enemies guarding its entrance) none of them have death traps, the player would have to be TooDumbToLive to even take a fatal fall in one, and while they show signs of Solarii presence there's none of the other horrors that Lara sees everywhere else on the island. The tombs are frankly among ''the safest places on the island''.
** The experience of being in an unknown, dark area on an island that's proven itself to be inhospitable. You're ignoring context just to add yet another complaint about the game.

* Okay, guys, seriously: Jonah's last name is "Maiava," as per the prologue comic. He's a ''huge'' dude with a tribal tattoo. He's not Hispanic. He's Samoan. Stop it.
** Pretty sure the game specifically said he was ''Maori''. Maori (as is Jonah) are from New Zealand. The Samoans are from the Samoan Islands. They may both be Pacific Islanders, but that's like calling an Apache an Iroquois, just because both are Native American.
*** Where'd it say that? The surname seems to say he's Samoan. Either way, though, he's not Hispanic.
***** His shirt is for a NZ rugby club, so I would agree that he's a New Zealander, but yeah, I don't get why people say Hispanic.
***** A New Zealand rugby club that doesn't exist. Maiava is indeed a Samoan surname (V doesn't exist in the Maori alphabet), and Ngapuhi is a tribe, not a place. At least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pania_Of_The_Reef Pania of the Reef is a real New Zealand myth]].
*** A case of a few people mentioning (incorrectly) that he's Hispanic, and it just sort of spread? Or a general lack of knowledge. Or both.
** Officially, he's a New Zealander who grew up in Hawaii.

*** All of the survivors aside from Lara and Sam seems to have a clinical case of TooDumbToLive. If they're not making ''pointless'' HeroicSacrifices that could have easily been avoided, they're sitting around complaining and brushing off everything Lara has to say despite the fact she's the only one who seems to be able to take care of herself.
*** To be fair, [[spoiler:it's shown during the escape-from-the-palace scene, as Lara is getting into the helicopter, that the rest of the crew are on the ground fighting it out. Alex specifically can be seen with a shotgun, implying he at least does know how to use a gun. Add in the fact that the group on the beach by this point number only three (and they had no idea when Lara would show up) it's not like they really had much choice.]]
*** [[spoiler:But Jonah would have been the far better choice. Both in-story and from a meta perspective, it made no sense for Alex to go beyond the last-second revelation that he was crushing on Lara, which is a pretty damn flimsy excuse to begin with. Jonah, in the prequel comic -- which Pratchett also wrote -- is shown being able to physically beat up thugs without apparently suffering any damage himself, using a gun while saving Whitman from the mafia, being fully willing to kill people with said gun without flinching, not even hesitating to act while being shot at, and brushing off a bullet graze like it's no big deal while saying that he's had worse. He is obviously pretty used to dangerous and life-threatening situations.\\

*** The CPR is nothing more than CriticalResearchFailure. The rest is RuleOfDrama, dialed UpToEleven. Which ends up as {{Narm}}.

*** The only three weapon upgrades Lara gets where we're explicitly shown her being given a new item to replace the existing one is the Compound Bow from Jonah, the climbing axe from Roth, and [[spoiler: Lara claims one of Roth's pistols after his death to replace the Model 1911 she picked up as her first gun]]. The Recurve Bow, Competition Bow, Magnum Pistol, and all shotgun and rifle upgrades are done completely via the Bow, Pistol, Shotgun and Rifle parts you collect throughout the game. Now ''maybe'' you can handwave this by saying Lara is actually replacing her other equipment in the same way as the ones she gets via cutscene, but that still doesn't explain some of the ''very'' complex modifications she makes. Suppressors ([[HollywoodSilencer "silencer"]] is really a dirty word) are quite complicated pieces of equipment, not to mention the drum magazine she cobbles together for the shotgun and other modifications that would require complex mill work. I'm not saying ''all'' of her mods are out of the realm of possibility, but there's more than a few that go above and beyond MacGyvering.
**** "Salvage" doesn't mean she's always picking up animal bones and unforged metal, then shaking them in a bag to produce a functioning assault weapon. There are enough people using ramshackle semi-automatics and hunting bows on Yamatai that Lara could readily be finding machined parts and broken rifles, then repurposing those into upgrades or brand new weapons. The "salvage" mechanic simply prevents the ''Rage'' problem where you're always carrying around a full backpack of sixteen assorted Bear Asses without the one thing you need to do something useful with them. Granted, this also implies that Lara has picked up some serious gunsmith chops on 'her time on the ''Endurance'', but that's not impossible.
**** By design it is actually possible to build all the weapon upgrades in the game nearly exclusively out of bits of dead wildlife. It is in fact possible for Lara to build an ACOG scope out of enough deer spleens.

*** And ''still'' there are numerous other wrecks and other sites closer and safer where some toolbox could be found or assembled from single tools. No-one even bothered to check the PT boat, which should carry tools - if it still carry functional [=MGs=], then it means no-one before was trying to salvage the boat or it's equipment. One could wonder how actually Alex was able to get to the Endurance in the first place, if it took Lara half a day with lots of LeParkour. And WW2-era boat engines can be easily fixed with hammer, spanner and screwdriver - the exact tools (minus hammer) Lara got from Alex.
**** Excellent points. And yeah, I really can't figure out how Alex managed to get over there, either.
***** The only possible way Alex could have gotten there was to swim - IIRC there's an overheard dialogue where the Solarii fished him out of the water before he managed to escape into the ''Endurance''. Or maybe he found some kind of debris that allowed him to make a simple one-man raft and paddle it over, given that the currents will smash Lara against the rocks if she tries to swim past a certain point.

*** So does that mean [[spoiler: Himiko's been throwing a ''seventy''-year tantrum since the Axis woke her up? Sure, seventy years isn't much time for an immortal spirit, but you'd think that if she's been raging full-force since the Axis intruded on her territory, that ''someone''--and by "someone," I mean ''major government-funded organizations''--would have started poking around as well, especially since we know from flashbacks set aboard ''Endurance'' that Himiko's storms show up on global weather-tracking satellites. But the weight of the evidence is that it's only been the unlucky merchant or fishing vessel (or rescue craft) that's foundered in those waters since the end of the war.]] It would have worked quite well for Franchise/IndianaJones or any other pulp adventure set in the pre-war period, but it opens up a bit of a plothole for a modern setting.
**** [[spoiler: Nobody said she was whipping up hurricanes for seventy years; what's said is that the weather in that area doesn't make sense given the local climate patterns. In the game, Yamatai is located in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Sea Devil's Sea]], a.k.a. the Dragon's Triangle, which has a big danger sign on it courtesy of the Japanese government. A little strange weather in the area isn't enough reason to risk losing ''another'' boatload of researchers to it, and anyone who disregarded that and went anyway would fall victim to Mathias and the Solari cult and would never be heard from again. End result: generations of climatologists who just don't go there and have a well-advised lack of curiosity about it. In addition, the weather on the island is so frequently stormy, even during the game, that satellite photography would be nearly useless most of the time even if you knew there was something there to photograph.]]

*** However Lara gets positively ''[[{{Adorkable}} giddy]]'' when discovering and exploring the various tombs, speculating on their original purposes before the Solarii took them over and IIRC, expresses outright disgust at what they have done with them in the meantime. In fact, the artifacts and tombs are the ''only'' part of her experience on the island Lara shows enjoyment in. This doesn't sound like someone who hates tombs. I'd almost consider it a [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Big-Lipped Alligator Line]]. It makes no sense in context of the character, and comes completely out of nowhere.
**** She hates tombs but loves the artifacts inside them - she goes giddy over stuff she finds outside of them as well. You guys seem to be fishing for things to take issue with rather than it being a genuine issue with the writing tone.
**** And that's a {{Handwave}} which doesn't really address anything. Lara is only saying this after having already explored at ''least'' 2-3 of the game's optional tombs, neither of which she commented about hating. It's a line of dialog that just doesn't fit the context of either the character or the game itself. At best it's a bit of GameplayAndStorySegregation, at worse it's a one-off joke thrown in about the character that falls flat because ''it doesn't make any sense''.
**** No, it makes sense. It comes after her experience with the tombs on the island, giving her reason to hate them - again, the *tombs* and not what's inside of them. That you're unable to take her statement as anything other than a literal, by-the-letter direct comment is a flaw in your logic not the writing.
**** ''What'' experience? What happens ''inside the tombs'' prior to that point to explain her reaction later in the game? Aside from [[spoiler: the General's tomb]] none of them have enemies present, (and only one--[[spoiler: Shantytown, with the snare trap]]--has enemies guarding its entrance) none of them have death traps, the player would have to be TooDumbToLive to even take a fatal fall in one, and while they show signs of Solarii presence there's none of the other horrors that Lara sees everywhere else on the island. The tombs are frankly among ''the safest places on the island''.
**** The experience of being in an unknown, dark area on an island that's proven itself to be inhospitable. You're ignoring context just to add yet another complaint about the game.

*** Lara doesn't get into a direct confrontation with the Stormguard until she has no other choice, and when she does, she's better-equipped than a World War II infantry brigade would've been. Between the grenade launcher, the assault rifle, and the shotgun, she's simply got superior tools for the job. She's also not frightened of them at that point, or if she is, her fear of death is trumped by her concern for Sam.
*** Between early 1943 and mid 1944 a US Marine Corps Battalion had a strength of approximately 1000 men. A more specific breakdown can be seen [[http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/UnitedStates/Marine/MarineInfantry/united_states_marine_battalion%20early%201943%20to%20mid%201944.htm here]], but in 1944 you have one Weapons Company (one mortar platoon and three machine gun platoons, with bazookas held by HQ) and three Rifle Companies (each with their own mortar and machine gun sections, and three platoons of three rifle squads). The machine guns would be Browning M1917 or M1919 light machine guns (with the occasional Browning M2 heavy machine gun, generally attached to battalion HQ). Each rifle squad would have at least two [=BARs=], with the rest of the riflemen armed with M1 Garand rifles. You'd also have the occasional Thompson M1928 submachine gun or Winchester M97 (later the M12) trenchgun. A number of members of each rifle squad would also carry rifle grenades. By 1945 the separate weapons company was eliminated and its machine guns and mortars were attached directly to the rifle companies. Oh, and [[KillItWithFire flamethrowers]] were added to the battalion's arsenal as well. The amount of automatic firepower a Marine battalion could bring to bear in the latter stages of WWII was ''phenomenal''. '''So no'''. When it comes to equipment Lara couldn't even match the firepower of a single ''rifle squad'', much less an entire Marine battalion. If the Stormguard were as vulnerable to the weapons of the Marines as they are to Lara's, any assault against even an only marginally-prepared defensive position would have been a massacre (this is precisely why the Japanese abandoned the [[HumanWaveAttack Banzai Charge]] in the later stages of the war: Sending a massed body of men into a direct assault against ''that'' much firepower was like throwing meat into a grinder).
*** You could make the same complain about a LOT of action movies and videogames where a lone character overcomes challenges that proved impossible to larger, better trained and armed forces. Supesion of disbelief, my friend. Plus, it could be handwaved that the Japanese and American forces took a toll on each other before the Stormguard finished them off.
**** Really, it might not even be *that* complicated. The average Western Allied unit- like the USMC- was an absolute beast in terms of equipment and training, but was it ever divulged how large the USMC forces were? For all we know, the units of them that the Stormguard destroyed weren't that much larger than a rifle squad or two; certainly highly formidable and containingly well equipped, trained, and experienced soldiers, but in a deeply strange environment and facing an enemy like nothing they had experienced before in numbers far in excess of themselves. Lara's greatest advantage and what eventually leads to defeat her enemies is unparalleled adaptivity and the ability to survive long enough against the enemy to learn their weaknesses; she's not *really* dependent on anybody else to survive from hour to hour, and her combat power isn't massively diminished by going it alone (one of the justifiable reasons where a single person can fare better than an entire unit). In contrast, the USMC would have been cutting their teeth against the Japanese and- maybe- the Germans (conventional forces with a very distinctive way of operating) and operating in disciplined units that possessed massive firepower but also depended on proper coordination to use as effectively as possible. The new threat would have caught them offguard, and the strategies they employed would have cut them into small units of disoriented men who had probably been forced to ditch most of their heavy equipment and who were operating separately from anyone not in their immediate viewing range; once they're like that they could be overwhelmed with brute force. In contrast, the Japanese land forces were effectively in a MedievalStasis that lasted from 1904 to the end of the Empire, and on the whole were miserably equipped, poorly trained (again, a common nickname for soldiers was "Bullets" or "Senrin" (a unit of money that is to the Yen what a penny is to a Dollar, and the average price of a conscription notice), thoroughly malnourished on an institutional level, and wedded to strategies that were costly and risky in 1904. On top of this, they lacked the advanced small unit training the USMC received, were stuck in an unfamiliar territory, and were stuck in an insanely hierarchical system where they looked to their officers for almost everything. I find it all too plausible that the Stormguard could have destroyed them in a straight up battle if they had to, especially after whittling away at their strength (like we see in one of the letters) beforehand.
***** Even simpler explanation: One of the logs, I think by the Japanese soldier, said they were attacked by hundreds of Stormguard. Lara fights maybe a few dozen. So maybe there were a lot more Stormguard before they fought the Japanese, Germans, and Americans. Maybe fighting off three modern armies, plus constant skirmishes with the Solarii, thinned their numbers to the point where Lara could finish them off.
***** Really it should be obvious..unlike the American, Nazi and Japanese, Lara knows that Himoko's tomb is the source of the Storm and the Zombie Samurai Stormguards, so she did a DungeonBypass and just go directly to the tomb and killed her, as oppose to the rest of Americans, Japanese, and Nazi's who made the mistake of trying to attack a supernatural army head-on.

*** Um, doesn't she use a zipline to get down from that tower?
*** No, she doesn't. Not immediately, anyway; she just "appears" down a level on the tower after the cutscene, even though she pretty much effectively destroyed her way down while climbing up in the first place.
*** The spike on top of the radio tower isn't that wide, she could have wrapped her legs and arms around it and shimmied her way past the broken section. Certainly not easy, but it is possible.

* After climbing the radio tower, Lara successfully manages to hail a rescue plane. This being relatively early in the game, I suppose we can all guess how it's going to go down. But even if the plane did not crash, ''where exactly was it supposed to land''? There is nothing on the island that even closely resembles an airfield. And even if smaller aircraft can technically land anywhere with enough open space, this particular one is a rather sizable transport plane which is very much going to require a proper runway.
** Presumably there's an airfield dating to World War II on one of the parts of the island Lara doesn't travel to.
** It doesn't have to land. Once it's spotted the survivors, it can note the location of the island and a full rescue party can be send out by ship.

** Lara's using wood and animal pelts to add alternate burst modes, silencers and larger clips. Using a Ruby to magically turn a Type 100 into an AK-47 is child's play.

* A minor thing, but when Laura finally gets back to her cabin, why doesn't she grab a new shirt? Sure, she was a little pressed for time looking for Alex, but still..

** Knowing US Coast Guard doctrine, the C-130 pilot was probably trying to get a better picture of the area for follow-on rescuers and drop rescue supplies. US Air Force/Air National Guard squadrons would go further by dropping pararescue jumpers (parachuting mountain climbing scuba diving paramedics) along with the supplies, in order to treat the wounded. What really bugs me more is the Japanese Coast Guard helo, which is being flown by an American pilot.