Discussion YMMV / TombRaider2013

Captain Obvious Reveal is an YMMV trope.

Well, if you think he's a CM you can offer it up in the forum thread that vets all Complete Monster examples.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Also, a fully spoilered example is bad.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

1. Citation needed for what? The death toll? I'm not trying to be a smartass or a jerk; I am genuinely unsure of what you mean by this.

2. The thing is, the characters who survived had no compelling reasons for surviving. They don't work together. They don't have better character development. They aren't shown to be more skilled at surviving. They are just as totally incompetent as the white guys, yet they got the golden pass of survival for no reason I can discern besides the fact that they're minorities. Reyes or Jonah could have easily been swapped with Alex or Grim during the death segments with absolutely zero change to the plot or how events unfolded. They are all flat characters.

Frankly, Jonah would have far and away been the better choice to go retrieve the tools, but Alex is suddenly revealed to have a crush on Lara and therefore he does it. Jonah, in the comics, has been shown to handle a gun and shoot at people before, so he can deal with using lethal force if necessary. As far as we know, Alex has never used a gun in his life, much less used one to kill people. If someone had to run off on their own to die, then what would have been wrong with Jonah being the one to perform the Heroic Sacrifice in that situation? It would have made far more sense for him to go off alone with the reasoning of "I have dealt with dangerous situations before," than Alex's reason of "Hey, Lara's hot, maybe running off into enemy territory will make her fall for me." Additionally, anyone could have ended up in Grim's position.

I'm not complaining that white men died. I just find it suspect that only white men died, especially when it didn't have to be that way. But that's how the script was written. All minorities survive. All women survive. All white men die. If the opposite had been true, for whatever reason, no matter how many Heroic Sacrifices there were, people would be calling it out as racist and sexist. So why is it different when things are reversed? Why couldn't there have been a more equal death toll? Why was the script written so that only white males were evil or cowardly and only white males died? The only non-white non-male evil character is Himiko, and she's both a Posthumous Character and force of nature at this point.

Regarding the saving of Lara, who is white: Yes, they all died saving the main character. The protagonist. As occurs in many, many other games. The fact that Lara is the protagonist is the reason that they die saving her, not because she's white. The protagonist is white because this is a reboot of Tomb Raider, and Lara has been white since 1996. The fact that she's white would be a problem if only minorities had died to save her, but that isn't the case. Again, my problem isn't that white people died. It's that only white people — white men, at that — died. If only black women had died (Heroic Sacrifice or not) or were cowardly or evil, and not a single black woman survived the game, that would be a huge problem. But because it's only white men, it's okay? I don't agree.

"Also, a fully spoilered example is bad." On a trope description page? Yes. On a work's trope page? Sometimes it's necessary for an entire entry to be put in spoiler tags on a work's page. If the work has a Downer Ending, for instance, that and the accompanying text that explains the Downer Ending are big spoilers and would have to be tagged accordingly. I don't see how an entry regarding a game's death toll being mostly hidden is a bad thing on the work's page.

Edited by Redazrael

Citations are needed to UI, so that it's not just a lone person airing their grievance about something they see as UI and no one else does. Check the Unfortunate Implications page for details.

So... if I'm reading this right, your complaint is that the game treats minorities as more deserving to live? Why don't you try to write it up as an example, as (citation or not) the original was just really unclear as to what your actual issue was.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Which TBH, that's REALLY reading a lot into it.

I don't think there's any ground for this beyond the aversion of Black Guy Dies First and a straight example of Men Are the Expendable Gender as mentioned in the OP.

Basically, there's a difference between something being YMMV and just your own opinion that no one else agrees with. When it comes to something like this, that you've clearly thought way too much into and are finding the connections where none exist, it helps to have citations to support your stance, like an interview with the dev where they get confronted with the question or something similar. For example, the Mighty Whitey example for Far Cry 3 was explicated stated by the developers to have been a thing, with all the implied racism and sexism that went with it, even though they claimed it was satire, that example for that game has concrete proof that it's not just the over sensitive ramblings of an over opinionated poster.

There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

Larkmarn: "So... if I'm reading this right, your complaint is that the game treats minorities as more deserving to live? Why don't you try to write it up as an example, as (citation or not) the original was just really unclear as to what your actual issue was."

I don't believe I will do that, as it seems that it will likely be shot down right out of the gate regardless. I do thank you for pointing out the lack of clarity to me, though, and I will attempt to be clearer in any examples I may add in the future.

randomfox: "the over sensitive ramblings of an over opinionated poster."

Wow, I think that's really harsh to say. I don't believe I've been rude or condescending at any point during this, and having an opinion that differs from yours doesn't make me an "over opinionated poster". That is exactly what YMMV is: "We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way."

I also don't believe that I put "too much thought" into it. I didn't ramble in the original entry I posted. It was quite short. However, when my opinion was challenged in the discussion area, I thought that a fair question deserved the most articulate response I could give. And what I articulated was what my actual thoughts were upon completing the game. It wasn't something I sat and stewed about for hours. Am I supposed to put no thought into the game at all? I enjoyed the game. If I didn't care about it, I wouldn't have put any thought into it and I wouldn't have taken the effort to add to the tropes page in any way, shape, or form. If it's not something you agreed with, that's fine. That's perfectly fair. But I don't believe that calling me over-sensitive and over-opinionated was in any way necessary.

If what I posted is not agreed upon by a significant enough number of tropers, then that's fine. I retract the entry with no hard feelings and a better understanding of how YMMV works, and I appreciate the time that was taken to explain things.

Whoah, you people all get jumpy about my simple edit which started the whole discussion, so maybe I, as an author, will explain it a bit. And just to you all know. I really, really DON'T want to argue about this or any other subject, but I'm simply sick of reading all those "You-are-wrong-because-I-say-so" posts.

First of all, Redazrael pointed out most of things that made the death toll clear example of Unfortunate Implications in my opinion, which is (again, as he pointed out) the idea behind YMMV. Let's do a short jog:

• White characters are the one who die
• In more or less Heroic Sacrifice, but really - Stupid Sacrifice. All of them.
• Minorities and women are spared without a question
• All of NPCs are Flat Characters, which leads us to the point where their race and gender are their only characteristics.
• Race characteristics (already Unfortunate Implication) are painfully stereotypical - Dumb Muscle for Maori, Sassy Black Woman for black woman, Mighty Whitey for The Obi-Wan...

And let's check the opposite side. Wow, they gave the bad guys Token Minorities in form of black dudes with machetes (never a gun...) and Russian Bash Brothers. They are lead by another Mighty Whitey and then assisted by Whiteman (just read the name a bit slower), who is - you guess it - a white Smug Snake with Ambition Is Evil plastered to his face. This leads to the point where everyone is easily manipulated by white guy and the betrayer is also a white guy.

The game focus extensivly on how white NPCs are either so damn noble or that they are the biggest evil around. Minorities are just there, for the flavour and to escape the accusations of being "white people game".

So we got here at least five Unfortunate Implications:

• Mighty Whitey - this is played very straight with Roth, Mathias and to some extense Grim
• Reverse Mighty Whitey - all white characters are portrayed as Honor Before Reason idiots and in dire need by writers to show how being Mighty Whitey is bad, but this leads to...
• Minorities favourism - if no balance is made and we put all the load on white people, then we end up with situations where minorities survive for the sake of being minorities and/or because how bad it would be if one of them died. This by itself is Unfortunate Implication, because shows how writers think about race of their characters and how they are protective toward minorities, killing white people by trainload in attempt to design them as Acceptable Ethnic Targets.
• Minorities does nothing exept "adding some flavour" to the story.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender. This doesn't even need any explaination. There is not a single reason why all women are spared aside from sexism.

My point is that the game could easily avoid all of this by treating it's characters equally, not taking their race and gender into account. Instead we've got over-reaction toward protecting minorities and "weaker sex", which is all what Unfortunate Implications are about. But what really expect from a game intentionally designed so "players can protect Lara" - probably the worst PR of the year for video game.

And as a final nail - did you notice how double subverted the Mighty Whitey is? So the idea was to show that minorities and women can handle themselves without white men help. Then you realize that any progress made in escaping the island is made by white people and without men's protection everyone else would die about half-way thorough.

The whole situation is for me another bad case of how it's "unequal" to kill anyone else than white people. Exactly the same thing happend with Resident Evil 5. It was ok to kill white zombies in all previous games. But when it was about killing zombies in Africa, whom were black, the uproar was beyond any scale or reason. This went so far that box art was changed. And here we go again into situation where killing white people is ok, but minorities must survive. And this is just wrong on so many levels that you land hard in Unfortunate Implications.

The game is also very firmly placed in recent trend of depowering video game female characters. So really, we take a strong, well-established and define character and turn her into a wimp, because... well, because so. Then let her go thorough hell, so we can break her in all possible manner, made her a Broken Bird and in final scene tell she's badass now. Like Lara wasn't established badass since 1996. This is sexism in truest form and no wonder Internet Backdraft swept the game a year before it was released. And then you realise it was written by women, so it's not even that some male-based writting team went on a bumpy ride with feminism.

The game by itself is very good and one of better in whole franchise. But it's story-telling, psychology behind characters and trends in scenario are one huge Unfortunate Implication.

PS And since when YMMV or Tv Tropes require citation?

Edited by RysioPysio

FYI: WHITman, not WHITEman. Just one letter, but it makes a difference.

Roth is not a Mighty Whitey. Have you actually read the page definition? "Mighty Whitey is usually a displaced white European, of noble descent, who ends up living with native tribespeople and not only learns their ways but also becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative." You could have made him black, Latin, Arab, Indian, Asian, whatever and it wouldn't have changed his core character and purpose in the game a bit: He's the toughest, most experienced and capable member of the crew, but is disabled right from the moment you catch up to him. In fact the only people whose races were directly linked to their characterization was Jonah with his Maori spirituality, and Sam's Japanese ancestry connecting her to Himiko. Reyes, Alex, Mathias or Whitman could all easily have been another race and not changed who they were one bit.

Regarding Stupid Sacrifices:

If you look at the situation where Grim is killed, Lara had several guns trained on her, no cover, and no clean shot on a guy standing behind Grim with a machete at his throat. By the time Grim breaks free he's now mixed up with the mooks, once again giving Lara no shot that didn't have a huge risk of hitting him instead (contrast Roth covering Lara on the bridge: Lara herself is well out of the line of fire underneath the bridge while Roth is picking off the mooks standing on it).

The only real stupidity about Alex was the Love Makes You Stupid that got him into the situation in the first place. By the time Lara gets to him there's no way to get him out again. He's trapped, his leg is probably crushed and he can't walk, and they've got Solarii breathing down their necks.

Roth's death was somewhat badly handled, but once again consider the situation: Outnumbered, no real cover, and trying to get Lara (who's hurt from the helicopter crash and not able to fight back herself) out of the line of fire.

Also, and Origin Story by its very nature brings characters down to normal. The plot of the game would have made no sense if Lara began as the gun-toting Action Girl from the original game. The point of the story is to show how she became that character. You'd get the exact same situation if you did an origin story of Allan Quartermain, Rick O'Connell, or Indiana Jones (in fact they did that last one. It was called the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and young Indy was nowhere near the badass he becomes by the time of the movies). People aren't born badasses (usually). They're experiences make them badass. So how is it sexist and Chickification to turn an Action Girl into a normal person in order to tell the story of how they became the Action Girl in the first place? You're only calling it sexist because Lara is a female character, and that's a major sign of Political Correctness Gone Mad.

Your entire argument smacks of this, and that's why it needs more support than "This Troper."

Edited by Ambaryerno

I'm fully aware that this post will most likely end with ban of my account, but now you push me hard enough to don't care about that.

I wonder how does it goes than any amound of argment about how some element of the game is bad simply can't outweight excuses praising or defending it. And this goes outside of this topic, because the same attitude prevail all over this place. If something is not a picked-up kid in glasses on this site, then God forbid saying anything bad about it. What is this? Censorship? Political correctness? Sponsorship? Because sorry, but I don't understand this attitude. At all.

Guess the new tactic will be about reading everything word-by-word, which leads directly into point when NONE of tropes qualify unless work in question is tailored directly into strict definition. If you want to play this in such way, then you do nothing more than pull eristics on me. Which is nothing more than rude method to shoosh your opponent.

Then, again - YMMV. Could someone explain me why first thing are removed from main article, placed in YMMV (where they are said to belong) and THEN removed from YMMV by the same people who removed them from main article? Then what's the real purpose of numerous YMMV tropes if they are removed from YMMV, because someone got other mileage? All YMMV is about are how they may vary. And what's the answer? "Because that's not YMMV" or even better - "Because I say so, so it should be removed". Sorry, but I don't get it. It's hypocrisy taken Up To Eleven.

Back to the subject:

For all I care, Mighty Whitey is trope about superior white people who outmatch any other races in any given field. The part about being noble explorer is a flavour to main content. But the nice thing you pointed out (making your argument invalid that way) is that all those characters could be ANY given race. And they are not. That's the point here. Their race is placed to add any characteristic to those two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs pretending to be humans. It's like in that infamous case of The Craft - black girl, whose main characteristic was the fact she's black and nothing else. We got here the same thing. The fact that we made all white people die and kill all men who weren't minorities are Unfortunate Implications, you like it or not.

It's not what Lara did (or actually - didn't do) but about how Grim commits suicide in some crazy, entirely avoidable stunt. Then we got Alex who is "in love", which we learns from a note after 3/4 of game is over. This is just plain stupidity, without any love excuse, because his affection is non-existend outside that note. And then we got Roth, who can got two treatments:

• You can take him as deconstruction/parody of being badass in story like this
• You take him as another heroic/stupid sacrifice combined with Rule of Drama dialed Up To Eleven, which makes his death pure Narm.

But the point still remains. White guys die in most stupid ways that were entirely avoidable if little thing called thinking was involved.

It's not about Origin Story. It's about the point of this story and how it fails psychology forever. The whole point of another retcon of TR is plain and simple - "we run out of ideas, so let's depower our badass hero, put few buckets of all kinds of abuse on her, plaster badass tag on her in the end and sell this". I'm not talking how it would be strange if she was gun-totting Action Girl from the start. I'm talking why the sole idea of making game hell-bend on making her Action Girl by putting her through hell and making another bland Broken Bird character is bad. If you don't see this, then I won't be even able to explain this, because we are talking about two different subjects here.

I'm calling it sexist, because they took one of most prominent empowered female figures in whole gaming industry and put her into chickification. She was already a badass and there was no real point in making her weak, vulnerable chick who first must go for nightmarish experiences. For all I recall, Lara was realistically and progressivly becoming badass in her original, Core-written story - by years of hiking, mountain climbing and many, many experiences, culminating with fatal plane crash in Himalayas, which wasn't the time when she became badass, but just decide to change her life for good. Retcon later she goes through that plane crash at age of 9, which was a wallbanger. Two retcons later the way she becomes badass is because she kills few hundreds of evil cultist during her first field "dig" and going through all kind of abuse for few days. And you call me out for being sexist? Then what are writers of this story?

Your WHOLE support is "I say so, so that how it is". You are no better, pal, just a hypocrite. But this is interesting how two guys writing about Unfortunate Implications are regarded as Vocal Minority by two guys who are against said trope. In YMMV. This is just mindblowing.

Edited by RysioPysio

Look, calm down.

It's a matter of knowing how TV Tropes works. This being YMMV doesn't make it "post whatever you want!" In fact, what we want to avoid is undue negativeness and complaining. And a lot of your post is, more than anything else, you complaining about the writing of the game. You're not doing a lot to convince us otherwise, you know? Go to Darth Wiki for that.

Unfortunate Implications is especially prone to this kind of misuse and abuse. People find a pet peeve and use the YMMV banner and make up/shoehorn UI to vent and complain. That's not what this is for. I'm not saying that is necessarily what you're doing, but it's why there's a higher standard to UI (which is specifically discussed on the UI page, if you want to go read it).

That said, the things you're talking about Lara's chickification? That's still in the article. After the whole "you're going to want to protect her" debacle no one is going disagree with that. All I pulled was the "Mighty Whitey but at the same time reverse Mighty Whitey" UI, which as this discussion has gone on seems to be less about UI than it is you complaining about the writing of the game. And keep in mind Men Are The The Expendable Gender is in the main article already, so doubling up on that is unnecessary.

I really appreciate and respect Redazrael for his posts and discussion. But honestly, you seem to be arguing less about UI, and more about what YMMV should be and complaining about the writing of the game.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

1) It's not putting what I want. It's the fact that no matter how many arguments are pulled out, it's always not enough to convice other side, who ususally don't use argument at all, just scorning the complainer. Which means that in fact it's pointless to pull arguments, as no-one cares about them.

2) The writing is just plain bad. Why admitting it is so hard, where there are tons of articles about books, films, games etc. designed especially to openly bash how work in question is bad? Some kind of double standards? The game could easily pass with two separate notes - one for very good gameplay experience (aside of Square Enix trademark trainload of long, plot-driving cutscenes) and one for poor, heavy-handed writting (which becomes very prominent in those cutscenes).

3) I'm more and more convinced that the problem with Mighty Whitey is all about language barrier (I guess my grammar says for itself that English is not even close to my native language) and how each of us is unable to explain the other side his/her points. This already happend to me before few times. And probably the same goes with whole Unfortunate Implications.

4) The point of calling back chickification and expandable gender was (and we've got already a misunderstanding) to point two directions the game is taking:

• trying to avoid UI with Mighty Whitey, weaker sex and Black Guy Dies First, so they did a reverse, making all white males die, landing in other part of UI, but still UI.
• openly and freely going with UI about abuse (and I mean mostly physical and mental, not the over-blown sexual) of main character as what's making the game special.

My point was to intentionally nail very hard how the whole game is just sinking in UI bog, nothing more. Recently whole gaming industry got the same bad idea. Using False Dichotomy they figured out that the only way to escape accusations for being bad for minorities is to punish white characters and do it a lot as some kind of Acceptable Ethnic Targets. Bonus points if they are white and male. That's why I'm so vocal about it, because it's the other extreme of the same scale of UI about race and gender. To (heavily) paraphrase Ghost Dog - if you want them to be equal - make them equal.

Edited by RysioPysio

(Note: I'm female. Just putting that out there so I can be referred to as my correct gender.)

Hello again. First off, Larkmarn, thank you for being so polite and courteous throughout this whole thing. I've pared down my explanation of my original point to be as succinct and clear as possible, since I admit that I'm not always very good at getting my point across. So here goes:

— If all of the minorities and/or women were killed off, while all white males and only white males survived, that would be considered racist and sexist. Even if the author didn't intend it that way, there would still be some extreme Unfortunate Implications there.

— In this game, all of the white men were killed off, while all minorities and/or women and only minorities and/or women survived, and that's... just coincidence?

Like you said, all of the characters' races could have been switched without issue. True. However, if Reyes, Jonah, and Sam had been the only death toll, that would have been on the YMMV page under the Unfortunate Implications heading so fast that your head would spin. But because it's Roth, Grim, and Alex, it's not a big deal, despite the fact that it's a single demographic that was targeted to die, and not a single member of that demographic survived.

That's the simplest way I can put what my issue is. Equality does not mean "it's okay to discriminate against the people with privilege". It means not discriminating against anyone. "Reverse" racism and "reverse" sexism is still racism and sexism. There were a myriad of different ways that this script could have been written to handle the characters better, but instead, the only deaths were those of white men.

There's a saying that sometimes you find the connections in something because you're looking for them, not because they're there.

Also, small point: you're removing Lara from the "all white characters" die equation because she's the main character. I find that extremely unfair. She's the most important character, and she's white, and she survives. Your argument is nothing but weakened by ignoring that fact. Hell, I can show you why your whole argument is ridiculous with that: "This game is racist and sexist because it portrays men as useless at worst and traitors at best, and minorities as untrusting or stereotypically spiritual. According to the game the only competent people on earth are white women, because Lara is white and a woman, and she is the only character in the game who lives, does anything useful, and is constantly saving the minorities. UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS BECAUSE THE GAME HATES MINORITIES AND MEN!" See, sounds just as silly as what you're saying.

I also find it the height of unfortunate implications itself that you are breaking these characters down and defining them souly by their race and gender. All of these characters lived and died because of who they were, not what race they were, their race had nothing to do with why they died. You asked before if it was a coincidence that only white males died? Yes, I am taking the stand point that it was. Roth died because he's The Obi-Wan, Grim died because he was a crazy bastard who was built up in his documents as being over protective to the point of self destruction, and Alex died because he was an idiot.

Even the characters who live aren't defined by their race, and don't live simply because they're black. Reyes isn't defined in story by the fact she's black, she's defined by the fact she has a daughter. Jonnah isn't defined by his ethnicity either, though it plays a role in his character, but he feels more like a supportive older brother then the cliche mystical because mystical type character. The fact that Sam's race IS relevant to the story is particularly interesting, but I count it as a plus in the stories favor, since her race is a major aspect of how OTHER characters view her, but that's more a matter of heritage then racism, and it doesn't define her own personal identity.

Your argument that the characters are treated, by the story, in a certain way souly based on their ethnicity: "Their race is placed to add any characteristic to those two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs pretending to be humans. It's like in that infamous case of The Craft - black girl, whose main characteristic was the fact she's black and nothing else. We got here the same thing." simply doesn't hold up. The characters ARE rather two dimensional, but it has nothing to do with their race. The game is actually admirable in the fact that everyones race/gender is rather incidental, since as stated, any character could be ANY race and nothing would change. Those of us who like to use common sense normally attribute that as a good thing.

If you are claiming these characters died because of their gender and race, you need to have evidence to support it. The Solarii weren't a radical off shoot of the extremist feminist blank panthers, so they didn't kill them because of their race. The writers didn't sit down and say "ok, lets kill these characters because they're white guys", unless you have some evidence to prove they did. You're ignoring the reasons why they died in favor of breaking them down to nothing more then their race and gender, and nothing has more unfortunate implications then that.

Edited by randomfox There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

"2) The writing is just plain bad. Why admitting it is so hard, where there are tons of articles about books, films, games etc. designed especially to openly bash how work in question is bad? Some kind of double standards? The game could easily pass with two separate notes - one for very good gameplay experience (aside of Square Enix trademark trainload of long, plot-driving cutscenes) and one for poor, heavy-handed writting (which becomes very prominent in those cutscenes). "

Separate post to break down how pretentious this one is. Just because the writing falls short in certain areas doesn't make it bad. This is just the argument about the Dark Knight Rises all over again: the story is a character piece, it's focusing on Lara's development, and everything else is secondary. And when it comes to video games the writing and narrative comes across through more then just the cutscenes; the story is told IN the gameplay, the environments, the character animations, the collectables documents and Lara's comments on said collectables. Just because the writing isn't what YOU want it to be doesn't make it bad. Hell, the writing in this game is fucking outstanding, and really puts the Uncharted series and it's ridiculously thin vainer of even pretending to have a narrative to shame. The game was pitched, presented, marketed as, and shown to have the lions share of focus on Lara's character growth and development, with everything else in the story serving that purpose. And it was executed beautifully, with Lara starting out the game as one person, and emerging as something else, and hell one of the reasons I really adore the narrative is because it doesn't just pretend that's a positive thing in and of itself. Lara emerges from the island utterly broken, she's had to do horrible stuff to survive and lost people very important to her. Word of God even made the implication that Lara's conviction to keep adventuring at the end wasn't because she's all confident and badass now, but was because she feels the need to keep running because if she slows down long enough to let everything that happened to her sink in then she'll be crushed under the weight of it all. It really destroys the myth that ANY character development automatically makes a character a better person by the end, because you could make just as much of an argument that Lara is much worse off after she leaves the island then she ever was before.

As the one who added the Cliché Storm example in YMMV, I will freely admit this game can be cringe worthy with how bad it is at times (I'm looking at you, Roth's death scene), but the positives overwhelmingly outweigh the negatives, story wise. Do not make the ridiculously arrogant assumption that just because YOU didn't like the story of the game that automatically makes it bad. You having a certain opinion doesn't make it law. That's kinda what this whole discussion is basically breaking down to. So don't just say "oh this story sucks, why can't you peons just admit that," because no, it doesn't. It might to you, but not to everyone else, so if you don't like the story fine enough, but don't expect everyone else to march lock step with your outlook, or at the very least please don't express your opinion like an arrogant genius looking down on us lowly subterrainians who are clearly of inferior taste for liking something when you, oh lord and master of all that is quality, have dubbed it so vile.

Edited by randomfox There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

"For all I care, Mighty Whitey is trope about superior white people who outmatch any other races in any given field."

Uh, no it's not. The trope specifically refers to a white character who does native culture better than the natives. It can be justified or not, but the core of the trope is that: White guy newcomer is better at being a non-white native than the actual non-white natives. The main character of Avatar is an undeniable case of this trope because he's a white guy who learns the native culture, is better at it, proves himself the Chosen One by taming the untamable Giant Flyer, and even sexes up The Chief's Daughter. That's Mighty Whitey. Roth being a white badass gunfighter/treasure-hunter/adventurer is not.

You can't arbitrarily redefine a trope just so it supports your argument.

Far Cry 3 is also an example of Mighty Whitey that was admitted in an interview by the developer to be intentional. He claimed it was supposed to be satire, but how well that comes across is YMMV, but the structure of the trope is undeniably there: white guy drops onto the island as an untrained new comer, is exposed to the culture of the natives, and becomes BETTER at said culture then the people who have been living and enforcing it for generations. A textbook definition.

Some old white guy who dies pointlessly having badass as an Informed Attribute does not Mighty Whitey make.

There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

The idea of being over-opinionated is kind of hilarious. A person either has an opinion or they don't. I have an opinion. It differs from yours. And that somehow makes me over-opinionated? Calling someone 'over-opinionated' is just another way of calling someone an asshole, and I don't believe I've been acting like one. Additionally, me being 'oversensitive' would be if I were screeching about this and being unreasonable. I have done nothing but calmly explain why I hold the opinion that I do, and I did that because it was challenged.

Please stop the personal attacks. They aren't necessary. This discussion is about our opinions regarding Tomb Raider, not each other. Let's try to stay on-topic.

Before we go any further, I would like to state that I do not think that the writing, as a whole, is terrible. I have never said that it is, and quite frankly, I don't think it's terrible at all. The writing regarding the main plot — with Himiko and the sacrifices and all the backstory and the curse — is, in my opinion, excellent. Hell, I think the way that Lara's evolution from scared, inexperienced college student to a hardened killer is excellent. However, I do believe that the writing could have handled the supporting characters much better. That's where I have a problem with the script.

(Let's not even talk about the scene after the helicopter crash, with the unnecessary CPR and Roth's death. It seems we both agree that the way it played out is totally ridiculous.)

"I also find it the height of unfortunate implications itself that you are breaking these characters down and defining them souly by their race and gender."

I am not. I am not, not at all. I'll explain why below.

"If you are claiming these characters died because of their gender and race, you need to have evidence to support it."

Why? No, I'm serious: Why? Do I need proof that the infamous trailer for Hitman: Absolution was intended to be full of nothing but Unfortunate Implications? As far as I know, people have done nothing but deny that anything harmful was meant by it, but it's on the page for Unfortunate Implications anyway. Vogue certainly hasn't given any proof that they meant their infamous cover to be offensive, but it's the page image for Unfortunate Implications anyway.

In Tomb Raider, an entire demographic was killed off with no survivors. That is the core of this, not what the writers "intended". Do I think that this was done deliberately? No. I genuinely don't. Do I think that the fact that it was done is a problem? Yes. Do I think that the fact that it was done unintentionally because nobody realized that it was a problem is the entire problem? Yes.

Nobody would kill off every black man in a game without somebody saying "Hey, this wasn't done on purpose, but maybe this will be taken the wrong way." Nobody would kill off every woman of a minority in a game without somebody saying "Hey, this wasn't done on purpose, but maybe this will be taken the wrong way." (Or, at least, I hope that would be the case.)

Every white man in this game was killed off without anyone thinking twice about it. That is a problem. I genuinely believe that it was done because, subconsciously, it is believed that white male characters are more expendable. They were certainly treated this way in the game. Men Are the Expendable Gender is a trope about Unfortunate Implications, and Acceptable Ethnic Targets is a trope about Unfortunate Implications with whites listed as one of those targets, so why is it so hard to believe that those tropes together have materialized in this game as White Men Are the Expendable Gender?

Look, I'm not going to continue this discussion. There is no reason to. You have your opinion, which clearly isn't going to change. And I suppose that's fair enough, because I have my opinion and it isn't going to change. I'm not going to keep repeating everything I've already said, because I've already clearly stated what I think and why, and if it was going to make you reconsider, it would have already. You have done the same regarding your opinion. There isn't any reason to debate any further. I think we've run this discussion into the ground. Let's agree to disagree with no hard feelings and call it a day.

Now, about the original YMMV entry and the YMMV page itself. First off, let me state the obvious: YMMV stands for "Your Mileage May Vary". Well, our mileages clearly vary, but that fact is no reason to delete an entry or expect that it not be posted. How about this as an entry?

• It appears that White Men Are the Expendable Gender in this game, as the only casualties are white males.

There. Look. It's simple, clear, and concise. Better yet, it is perfectly acceptable by the standards of this wiki to go on the YMMV page. I think it's a good compromise. If you or anyone else has a better idea of how to word it, I'd be happy to hear it, and I say that in all sincerity.

Edited by Redazrael

Here's how you word it:

(get it?)

Side note: yeah, managing to pick out the one part of my argument that was poorly thought out and doesn't apply totally invalidates every other point I made about how the characters lived/died based on their character traits, not ethnic/gender traits. Good job. Totally agreeing to add the example now. /sarcasm.

Furthermore, you're not the only one with that opinion, so not getting why you assume everything that was said was directed at you. Also failing to see why you're under the impression that you have the final word here, cuz other people might not be done shouting yet. Simply saying "ok, we're done talking, how's this for an example I'm going to add even though people keep saying over and over that just because a page says YMMV doesn't give me an excuse to go all Author on Board with an example" is kinda pointless.

"People find a pet peeve and use the YMMV banner and make up/shoehorn UI to vent and complain. That's not what this is for. I'm not saying that is necessarily what you're doing, but it's why there's a higher standard to UI (which is specifically discussed on the UI page, if you want to go read it)"

Seriously. The example isn't being added. That's why whenever it was attempted to be added, it was instantly deleted, and why this whole discussion has been a systematic breakdown of why the example doesn't make sense anywhere but in your own head. If you wanna preach from the hill tops about how Tomb Raider is totally racist against white dudes, make a blog, but TV Tropes is a community type site (unless Fast Eddie makes a sweeping decree I guess) and if no one else but you thinks the example belongs, then it doesn't.

Edited by randomfox There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

Well, as things stand, I prefer my wording, but I appreciate your input.

Editing in response to your edit: Yes, I got it, which is why I responded the way I did. And, to be honest, what you "said" about the wording was Actually Pretty Funny.

I don't think that everything was directed toward me, but to be honest, sometimes it was hard to tell what was and what wasn't, since you didn't really specify. So I responded to what I thought might have been directed my way just to be safe. If I got that wrong, I'm sorry.

And I get what you're saying about going away. I do. But according to the YMMV standards, what I've put there is in no way against policy. There is no reason to remove it or demand that it not be posted. There is never going to be 100% agreement about my opinion, but that's what the YMMV page is for in the first place. So is that an acceptably non-confrontational way to word something you don't agree with or not?

Edit #2 in reponse to your Edit #2, can you please just make a new post so I can stop doing this: It's not a pet peeve and I think it's unfortunate that you believe that it is. I'm going to ask you a question and I want you answer it honestly. Let's try a reversal/changing of genders and races:

The Survivors

REYES: White man

SAM: White man

JONAH: White woman

LARA: Black man

Death Toll

WHITMAN: Samoan woman

ROTH: Black woman

ALEX: Asian woman

MATHIAS: Black woman

Would you consider that to be worthy of an Unfortunate Implications entry?

Edited by Redazrael

Sam being a white dude doesn't make any sense. Himiko is her ancestor, so she becomes the damsel in distress by the cult based on that, and she's Lara's girlfriend, so Lara is driven to save her based on that. Change her race and gender (or at the very very least just her race) and her entire role in the story changes. As I said, I found it interesting that Sam's race was relevant to her role in the story, but in a good way. I've heard it said somewhere before that the sign of a good minority character is writing them personally as characters first with no consideration of their gender/race, but write how society views them almost entirely based on their gender/race. Easy recipe for instant conflict too.

Also don't get why Lara's race and gender is changed. Seriously, those are the only two characters where if you changed their race and gender, the ENTIRE story (and game itself) would be WILDLY different. Look up a couple interviews with the Pratchett who wrote this game, she has some interesting insights on how Lara differentiates from usual male protagonists in that she's allowed to have emotions, while usually male protagonists are boring stoic quip machines (looking at you Nathan Drake) and how she'd wanna see more down to earth emotional ness in protagonists regardless of gender.

.... I'd also think it'd be pretty funny if Reyes was a white dude! Single dad, knocked up Roth but kept the child without informing her that she had a kid? Love to see how that little piece of the narrative would justify itself x3 and changing Jonah from a spiritual New Zealand guy who believes in an ocean spirit to, like, I dunno a white Pagan dude or something would also be kinda interesting. Also, I now demand a mod where Mathias is changed to a black woman. And she preaches to the Solarii like a Baptist Pastor or something! That would be fucking awesome.

Ok I guess I take back my argument that the characters gender isn't important at all, but hey the concession that Men Are the Expendable Gender in this game has already been made! But if you changed up the ethnicity, I don't think it would be a big deal. The internet would probably care a lot more, but me personally, naw, I still say the characters are defined by their character and not their race and saying otherwise is reading too much into it.

Edited by randomfox There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

[everything you said up until the last paragraph]

None of that was the point. (Although I do agree that it'd be interesting to see how the narrative would have changed had that been the case.) The point was whether all minority women dying, the only female survivor being a white woman, and all of the men surviving would have qualified for Unfortunate Implications.

"But if you changed up the ethnicity, I don't think it would be a big deal. The internet would probably care a lot more, but me personally, naw, I still say the characters are defined by their character and not their race and saying otherwise is reading too much into it."

Well, I'm extremely happy that you feel that way. But you're saying that you'd probably be in the minority on that, because a lot of the Internet would care if the death toll was only non-white females. But because it's reversed and only white men are dead, it's not a big deal. How is that not Unfortunate Implications?

Edited by Redazrael

Hey, you said answer it honestly how I felt, not how the internet feels. I speak for no one but myself.

If you wanna know why the internet is ok with white people dying instead of minorities, this might be a bit cynical, but I guess I'd point to the fact anyone who isn't white is dubbed a "minority." Whites are the majority. One white person dies, it's a drop in the bucket. BUT MINORITIES! *gasp* there's only a MINOR amount of them! Any single one of them dying for stupid racially insensitive reasons IS a big deal! Plus in Real Life white people are like The Empire, so when a white person dies it's like when a Storm Trooper dies. Hey, Storm Troopers even wear white armor! Coincidence? =D

.... But, like I said, I don't speak for the internet.

And side note: I'd be just as vehement against this example on the YMMV page even if you swapped the ethnicity of the characters to having all the survivors be white and the dead peeps be minorities.

Edited by randomfox There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

I know you don't, and I appreciate your candor. But can you at least see where I'm coming from now, even if you don't agree? You said it yourself: "Whites are the majority. One white person dies, it's a drop in the bucket."

How horrible a thought process is that? It's not a big deal that someone dies just because of their race? Isn't that, you know, racist? I know you said that you don't speak for the Internet, but isn't that what's really being said here when no one cares that the death toll was solely white males and no white males survived? The Internet Backdraft would exist if the death toll happened to be the hypothetical scenario I described where the genders/races were different, but all of the white men and only the white men dying isn't cause for concern because of what they are? The fact that an entire demographic was killed off and not a single member of any other demographic died doesn't matter because of what that demographic happened to be?

Again, how is that not Unfortunate Implications? And again, can you at least see where I'm coming from now, even if you don't agree?

A side note to your side note: I do genuinely appreciate the fact that you'd be just as vehemently against it. But others would change their tune. And that's important.

Edited by Redazrael

I'd like to make the point again that Lara is white, and based on that I could just as easily say the game is saying the only competent people in the game are white. Seriously, Mathias is white, and he leads a whole army. Roth is white and he is a hugely influential person to Lara, the hero, and was the Captain of the ship and thus leader. Grim was a fucking badass. Alex was an under developed nerd, but hey, very important job on the ship with the technology know how and weather info. What, you saying Jonah is too stupid to work a computer because he isn't white and thus he's the ships cook? Reyes couldn't fix a problem with the ship and needed the nerdy white kid to do it for her? Black woman, mechanic on the ship, needs a white guy to do her job of fixing the ship for her. And again, Lara, main character, constantly saving all the minorities. You could just as easily say the game is practically white supremacist in nature!

Seriously, name ONE THING anyone in this game who isn't white actually physically DOES. What does Reyes DO? (fixing the boat that they escape on grudgingly admitted, BUT she only manages to do so thanks to equipment and tools Lara, white person, got for her) What does Jonah DO? Sam doesn't do jack shit, so I'll save you the trouble right there, because being kidnapped and completely helpless to the point of needing a WHITE person to save her doesn't count. Roth is white, is competent, dies heroically. Grim is white, competent (only one of the captives who manages to escape, all the others, two of whom are minorities, Lara, a white person, has to save) dies heroically. Alex is a fucking ineffectual nerd who was thinking with his penis, and he STILL dies heroically. They all died, yes, but they died because they were doing shit, all the minority characters only lived cuz they sat on their ass and were useless, letting Lara (again, who is white) do all the work.

Hell, they even trust Whitman, a white person, even though it's obvious he's evil, with the only person who knows he's bullshit being Lara, who is white. So, in the words of an NPC from Red Dead Redemption "you'll believe anything I say because I'm white." At least that's what I'm forced to take away from Jonah and Reyes and Sam not instantly siding with Lara on the topic of trusting Whitman.

Explain to me how my completely made up off the top of my head argument about the game saying only white people are competent and all the minorities in the game are losers is less valid then your argument.

Edited by randomfox There comes a time when one must decide: should I set that on fire, or not?

I'm out. This discussion is pointless now. Just like I said few days before - no amound of arguments will make post about UI pass, because one person thinks it's not, period.

Edited by RysioPysio

Is this something that is honestly going to affect your job or personal life? Could we please calm down just a little bit? It's just something that had been pointed out in a video game, not holocaust denial.

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours

@ randomfox:

None of that is the issue here. The entire point of this discussion was to determine whether or not it's a problem that all white males died and only white males died. Eventually, it turned into a discussion about whether it's considered not a problem just because they're white males, and you've essentially conceded that yes, that is true. If the genders and races were reversed/changed, then chances are that people would care.

In the end, though, you're right as well: this can't be a YMMV entry because it's far too meta. An entire demographic and only that demographic is killed off, and people are fully willing to argue against that being a problem solely because of what the demographic happens to be.

So that's it. Point made. Thank you for this debate! It has genuinely been enjoyable, and several points you made did make me think.

If anyone wants to debate the points you just made, they may feel free to, but my part in this discussion is over.

@ tsstevens:

Eh, I don't think anyone here has been freaking out. I think that debates on the Internet are sometimes mixed up with flamewars, but that hasn't been the case here. No one's been hurling insults or slurs or posting entire responses in all caps with lots of swearing. It's been some people going back and forth about what they think. Yes, it's lasted a while, but at no point did this discussion become anything mean-spirited or nasty.

Personally, I've enjoyed it. It's good to have your opinions challenged, as mine was here. It's what keeps people from being locked up in little personal boxes where they never even think about their own opinions or why they hold them.

Note, I haven't played the game/am not familiar with the series.

First, one thing that does strike me in general, is that since this is a prequel, there would be some expectation that everyone except Laura would die, since otherwise, you wonder why they aren't around in games set in the present. So, as I see it, it was a given anyway that few if any of the characters who are Laura's allies would make it out of the game alive.

Now in terms of the people who did survive, first off, since the protagonist is white, I am inclined to think this may be (if anything) more of a Men Are the Expendable Gender issue than a racial one.

I do admit that an entry where only white characters survived would get more support (including from myself) than one like this game, where (except for the main character), the converse is true. However, my sense is that in a lot of works where white characters survive and minority ones don't, there is an overall issue of the minority characters receiving less characterization/being relegated to a lesser position, which doesn't seem to be true of the white male characters in this game compared to the non-white male character and female characters.

Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki

Haven't played the game, but I think the answer lies in three things:

• How many non-whites were there in the game to begin with? If there weren't a lot, it doesn't count.

• How many women were in the game to begin with? If it's just Lara, we know she survives: doesn't count.

• How many white men were there that died?

There might be greater circumstances that should make a difference, but I think these questions theoretically should solve some things.

@ Redazrael

Fair enough. When it was brought up in ATT it was suggested there was an issue. If you're happy to hash it out then I don't see the harm.

Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours