Kimmo Markkanen

TOMB RAIDER REBOOT

As Reviewed through
Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth

Bachelor’s Thesis
Degree Programme in Design

April 4-2016
Author (authors) Degree Time
Kimmo Markkanen Bachelor of Business November 2014
Administration
Thesis Title
TOMB RAIDER Reboot as reviewed through 42 pages
Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth
Commissioned by
-

Supervisor
Suvi Pylvänen, lecturer

Abstract
The aim of this thesis was to view video games as a medium of modern storytelling, the
main focus being the textual content of the 2011 game TOMB RAIDER (a “reboot”
version of the well-known game franchise) as to how it relates to author Joseph
Campbell’s monomyth, the 1959 concept of nearly every saga in the world history
having been put together of same basic elements called “The Hero’s Journey”, a
template that transcends cultures and is said have been originated from the collective
subconscious and dreams of humankind by such scholars as Sigmund Freud and Carl
Jung. As such this thesis will rely heavily on two sources; The Hero with Thousand
Faces by Joseph Campbell and its contemporary interpretation The Writer’s Journey -
Mythic Structure For Writers by Christopher Vogler. This thesis will not try to cover
every aspect of the TOMB RAIDER Reboot game, but aims to map out the narrative;
both lying under and explored through gameplay.

The secondary goal of this thesis is to review the reboot sequel of the Tomb Raider
mythology as a bildungsroman, a miniature tale of personal growth of the young
scientist deserted on an inhospitable island and forced to transform from a fledgling
anthropologist into a clever survivalist and a full blown fighter to overcome the
numerous obstacles the protagonist needs to overcome in order to survive.

The thesis also covers the basic concepts of multi-linear and interactive storytelling, a
brief look in the maze of video game genres and terminology, the video game interface
and its affordances used both in gameplay and narrative, and more than once it will
compare video games to the other forms of narrative in popular culture.

Keywords
narrative in video games, monomyth, coming-of-a-age story
Tekijä/Tekijät Tutkinto Aika
Kimmo Markkanen Degree Programme Huhtikuu 2016
in Design
Opinnäytetyön nimi
TOMB RAIDER Reboot As Reviewed through 42 sivua
Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth
Toimeksiantaja
-
Ohjaaja
Suvi Pylvänen, pt tuntiopettaja
Tiivistelmä
Tämä opinnäytetyö tarkastelee videopelejä modernin tarinankerronnan välineenä. Työ
keskittyy pääasiassa vuoden 2011 ”TOMB RAIDER” -pelin (tunnetun pelisarjan
mytologian uudelleenkirjoitus, ”reboot”) kerronnalliseen sisältöön tarkasteltuna Joseph
Campbellin ”monomyytin” kautta. Monomyytti on Campbellin vuonna 1949
lanseeraama konsepti, jonka mukaan lähes jokainen merkittävä maailmanhistorian
saaga on rakennettu samoista elementeistä, joille Campbell antoi nimen ”Hero’s
Journey.” Tutkijat ja psykologit kuten Sigmund Freud ja Carl Jung esittävät
psykoanalyysin keinoin ilmiön syyksi ”ihmiskunnan kollektiivisen psyyken” joka selittää
maailmanhistorian myyttien ja mielikuvien samanlaisuuden ajasta ja kulttuurista
riippumatta. Tämä opinnäytetyö ammentaa suurimmilta osin kahdesta lähteestä:
Joseph Campbellin ”The Hero With Thousand Faces (1949) ja Christopher Voglerin
nykyaikaisempi tulkinta, The Writer’s Journey - Mythic Structure For Writers (2007)”.
Työ ei yritä esitellä TOMB RAIDER-peliä kokonaisuudessaan vaan keskittyy sen
kerronnalliseen sisältöön, sekä pelitapahtumien että niitä taustoittavien elokuvallisten ja
muiden elementtien kautta.

Työn toissijainen tarkoitus on tarkastella TOMB RAIDER-pelin mytologian

uudelleenkirjoitusta kasvukertomuksena, pelimuodossa esitettynä tarinana nuoren
antropologiharjoittelijan haaksirikosta vihamieliseen ympäristöön, jossa selvitäkseen
seikkailunnälkäisen nuoren naisen on opittava sekä selviämään luonnon armoilla että
väkivalloin taistelemaan henkensä edestä.

Työssä käsitellään lyhyesti myös multilineaarisen ja interaktiivisen tarinankerronnan

peruskäsitteitä, videopeligenrejä ja terminologiaa, videopelien käyttöliittymän
rakennetta sekä käyttöliittymää sekä pelaamisen että tarinankerronnan välineenä.
Videopelejä verrataan myös muihin populäärikulttuurin muotoihin.

Asiasanat
narratiivi videopeleissä, monomyytti, kasvukertomus
 4

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 6

2 NARRATIVE AND LUDOLOGY THEORY .................................................................... 7

3 STORYTELLING IN VIDEO GAMES ............................................................................ 8

3.1. Diegesis ........................................................................................................... 8

3.2 Video games as a medium ................................................................................ 8

3.3 Three-act structure .......................................................................................... 10

3.4 Bildungsroman ................................................................................................ 11

3.5 Linear vs. nonlinear storytelling ....................................................................... 12

3.6 Gameplay and immersion................................................................................ 13

3.7 Narrative through gameplay ............................................................................ 14

3.8 Balanced Narrative .......................................................................................... 15

4 The TOMB RAIDER –franchise .................................................................................. 16

4.1 A brief history of the franchise ......................................................................... 16

4.2 The reboot of the franchise.............................................................................. 17

4.3 The coming of age of Lara Croft ...................................................................... 17

5 A brief summary of the game TOMB RAIDER ............................................................ 18

5.1. The plot .......................................................................................................... 18

5.2 The game ........................................................................................................ 19

5.3 Affordances to and Player Verbs in Tomb Raider ........................................... 19

5.4 Wrapping up the story ..................................................................................... 20

6 JOSEPH CAMPBELL AND THE HERO’S JOURNEY ................................................ 21

6.1 Introducing the Journey ................................................................................... 21

6.2 The brief summary of the stages of the Journey ............................................. 21

6.3 The archetypes in storytelling .......................................................................... 22

6.4 The archetypes as functions............................................................................ 23

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7 LARA CROFT’S JOURNEY

(The Storyline of TOMB RAIDER as Hero’s Journey ..................................................... 24

7.1 SEPARATION ................................................................................................. 24

7.1.1 The Call to Adventure .......................................................................... 25

7.1.2 Refusal of Call...................................................................................... 25

7.1.3 Supernatural Aid .................................................................................. 26

7.1.4 Crossing First Threshold ...................................................................... 27

7.2 INITIATION...................................................................................................... 27

7.2.1 Belly of the Whale ................................................................................ 28

7.2.2 Road of Trials....................................................................................... 29

7.2.3 Meeting with the Goddess.................................................................... 30

7.2.4 Temptation ........................................................................................... 31

7.2.5 Atonement with the Father ................................................................... 31

7.2.6 Apotheosis ........................................................................................... 32

7.2.7 The Ultimate Boon ............................................................................... 32

7.2.8 Refusal of return .................................................................................. 33

7.3. RETURN ........................................................................................................ 34

7.3.1 Magic Flight.......................................................................................... 34

7.3.2 Rescue From Without .......................................................................... 35

7.3.3 Crossing the Return Threshold ............................................................ 35

7.3.4 Master of Two Worlds .......................................................................... 35

7.3.5 Freedom to Live ................................................................................... 36

8 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 36

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 37
 6

1 INTRODUCTION

The aim of this thesis was to view video games as a medium of modern storytelling,
the main focus being the textual content of the 2011 game TOMB RAIDER (a
“reboot” version of the well-known game franchise) as to how it relates to author
Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the 1959 concept of nearly every saga in the world
history having been put together of same basic elements called “The Hero’s
Journey”, a template that transcends cultures and is said have been originated from
the collective subconscious and dreams of humankind by such scholars as
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. As such this thesis will rely heavily on two sources;
The Hero with Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and its contemporary
interpretation The Writer’s Journey - Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher
Vogler. This thesis will not try to cover every aspect of the TOMB RAIDER Reboot
game, but aims to map out the narrative; both lying under and explored through
gameplay.

In order to study video games as a storytelling medium, it is necessary first not to

view a video game as a sum of its parts but as a collection of elements that, put
together, constitute a game; a closed, formal system that engages players in
structured conflict and the outcome of which is random and uncertain. A video
game is nothing more or less than a digitized version of the former. As a full
analysis of the vast landscape of video game genres is beyond the scope of this
thesis, the examples and elements presented below consist of games that can be
said to have an explicit “story” or at least present a firm basis to build one;
therefore, the genre most colloquially and extensively known as casual games will
be excluded and the examples presented below are handpicked to contain a certain
feature or a set of features that can be used as useful but general examples.

In the multitude of contemporary, story-driven “triple-A” games, many other titles

could have been chosen to and presented as representing the classic mythic
structure with its heroes, villains, trials and tribunals the ancient myths often
incorporate. Titles such as Fallout -series or even Resident Evil (1997—) would
have sufficed. It is perhaps more fitting, though, to view the ancient mythic structure
through a saga such as TOMB RAIDER – derogatory for archaeologist – that deals
with ancient myths almost exclusively.
 7

Furthermore, there are “sandbox” games such as Minecraft (2011) or Journey

(2012) where the player has no guidelines whatsoever other than those that the
gameworld allows, or affords to the player, leaving the player to decide how to play
or what to build. At the same time, there are vast open world games where the
player can choose to perform various tasks or quests but is not by any means
required to do so. Therefore it is convenient to choose a linear title such as TOMB
RAIDER, a compromise between an open world and a linear storyline to view as an
example, the more so as the series deals with myths and legends.

2 Narrative and ludology theory

Structuralist scholars such as Claude Levi-Strauss argue the stories (or more
broadly, “narrative”) have a pattern that surpasses the sequence of events as a
linguistic model for the semiosis, the construction of a meaning. Others take it even
further, suggesting there is an underlying structural grammar to all narrative in the
structure of the content (Selden et al. 2005). This is one of the bases on which a
discipline called narratology examines how we perceive stories and myths and
construct meanings and intertextual references on seemingly arbitrary material
(Felluga 2011). This thesis uses these and other narratological views as the basis
of examining video games as a modern storytelling medium, explicitly the work of
Joseph Campbell and his 1959 concept “The Hero’s Journey.”

Ludology is a cross-disciplinary branch of science(s) that deals with games in and

the culture that surrounds them. There exists a feud within the ludology community
between “ludologists” and “narratologists”; the former arguing that the experience of
playing a game differs significantly from the experience of following a story
(Eskelinen 2004). The intent in this thesis is not to side with either party, but rather
to show that games, too, can include dramatic, classical storytelling arcs, leaving it
to the player to choose what kind of experience is desired. Mateas and Stern (2004)
write in their essay Interaction and Narrative about two different ways to experience
the game, as an observer and as a player:
 8

“[...] the first-time player within the world is experiencing agency. The designer of
the dramatic world could conclude that since they are designing the world for the
player, not for the observer, that as long as the player experiences a true sense of
interactive freedom, that is, agency, transformation as variety is not an important
design consideration.”

3 STORYTELLING IN VIDEO GAMES

3.1 Diegesis

Diegesis is derived from ancient Greek, meaning to explain, narrate or lead through.
As a noun, the word diegesis has come to mean “verbal narration in third person”
from where the modern scholars have taken it further and, in context of video
games, used it to mean and describe the fictional, imagined universe and all of its
characters, objects and happenings, told by the succession of the game itself, the
narrator. (Halliwell 2012.)

Video games contain both diegetic and non- or extra diegetic elements through
which the narrative unfolds. In this thesis the word non-diegetic is used. TOMB
RAIDER is a typical, linear action-adventure game, where most of the action (and
therefore the story) is experienced through the gameplay whereas the main and
critical points of the plot are presented either enhanced gameplay (cinematics) or as
cutscenes the player will watch as if in a movie.

Either way, the main story in TOMB RAIDER is experienced through the
gameworld, through diegesis, only partly augmented by a non-diegetic narrator’s
voice or various documents and clues that can also be found in the game world.

3.2 Video games as a medium

Video games, technologically speaking, are pieces of interactive software most

people use for fun and recreational purposes. Viewed through their content, though,
there are a plethora of different styles, genres, subgenres and even technology-
related games containing various means of gameplay, content and stories,
 9

presenting of which en masse is beyond the scope this thesis. The focus here will
thus be twofold; that which is common to most games, and the element of narrative
within a given game. (Rogers 2014.)

Unlike most utility software, video games are not means to an end but the end per
se. As the utility software is said to have the interface and functions, a video game
is almost wholly built of intertwining interfaces (Russell 2011). There are four
distinct levels of graphical user interface (from now on “GUI”) in any video game
that present the player not just with the functions of the software but the
proceedings of the gameplay (the music and sound are regarded here to be part of
the “graphical” or at least textual part of the GUI, and thus mostly left without
specific notice).

The non-diegetic GUI consists of the familiar menus to access the functions of the
software; these are usually anything from the splash screen to the save functions to
the many choices the player can make, usually1) after stopping the gameplay such
as going through the character’s inventory. A common nominator for non-diegetic
menus is that they do not affect the proceedings in the virtual world of the game in
real time. (Fagerholz & Lorenzon 2009.)

Meta-elements are any GUI elements that address the game story or gameplay in
real time but are not in the space of the game world. Examples of these are
subtitles, minimaps, speedometers, cracked screens or blood or water splatter on
the player’s screen. (idid.)

The spatial GUI elements are graphical elements in the game world that are visible
to the player but not to the player’s virtual avatar such as name tags, arrows,
stamina indicators or compasses. They do not belong to the narrative but are visible
to the player in the game world space. (idid.)

1) In some games, such as a real-time strategy game Company of Heroes, this distinction may be blurred since
the RTS games do not often pause the semi-automatic gameplay while the player makes choices through a
context-sensitive menu.
 10

The diegetic elements are any elements within the game world that belong to the
narrative and afford the player’s character to interact with. An unreachable sword on
the wall is just a prop, but a sword the player’s avatar can pick up and use is a
diegetic GUI element, one of the elements to experience the gameplay and the
game’s narrative with. (ibid.)

As far as stories and narrative are considered, it would be intuitive to suggest that
this last of the aforementioned audio-visual layers of the GUI is the main storytelling
tool of a game but as this thesis will point out, the narrative of the game is actually
blended from and within them all, the end result being the immersive experience of
the player.

3.3 Three-act structure

Narrative works, whether one talks literature, film, plays, video games or TV series,
where the total length of the piece may vary from two hours to two days to two
years or more, there are certain structures, templates and guidelines that authors
throughout the history of fiction have used (Trottier 2014). This thesis gives a
thorough view of the Hero’s Journey, but cannot bypass other widely used methods
of structuring and dividing works of fiction into smaller, more compact and digestible
pieces for dramatic and practical purposes.

One such structure is the aristotelian Three Act Structure, where the story line or
parts of it have been divided into three acts, often named Setup, Confrontation and
Resolution where the drama builds in the first act, the tension rises in the second
(that often is divided in two separate parts) and the dramatic arc reaches its
resolution and climax in the third.

The writers and developers of the storyline of TOMB RAIDER wrote the game using
this structure (Keighley 2013), but the three-act structure is also a blueprint for The
Hero’s Journey as will be shown below.
 11

3.4 Bildungsroman

Though not rare as a plot or a sub-plot in classical or contemporary storytelling, a

bildungsroman (from German;coming-of-age-story) is often incorporated in a myth
or a story, where the protagonist goes through either psychological or physical (or
both) growth, be it metaphorical or literal. Famous examples of these stories include
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The
Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and even the Harry Potter -series.

If a game studio wants to both reboot a storyline of a legendary adventurer and in

process humanize her to a level we can relate to but also believe in, what better
way is there than including a coming-of-age -story into the plot of the game? When
Eidos International decided to use “combat survival” (Keighley 2013) as the theme
of the reboot of the series, it was only natural the archaeologist survivor-by-chance
would have to master both abilities whereas they so far have been taken for granted
in the former title in the cartoon-like Lara Croft embodiments.

The game developers use both images, animations, cut-scenes and narrator’s voice
(in form of LC’s thoughts) to underline the transformation from a timid survivor into a
hardened survivor/fighter. LC’s spoken narrative undergoes changes from cries of
mercy and disbelief into open defiance and even death threats as the game
progresses through various melees, fights, captures and escapes. “What do you
want from me?” turns into “Yes, I’m still alive!” and finally into a threat to “kill you
all.”

Violence, however, is not the only aspect of the coming-of-age of LC. In accordance
to the heritage of the series, with spurring from her mentor Conrad Roth, LC learns
to climb rocks and glaciers, swing across abysses on a rope, survive collapsing
caves and burning buildings and ride wild rapids full of rocks, stakes and other
deadly menaces not forgetting wild animals and supernatural creatures.

Finally LC transcends her role as a survivor to wear the shoes of her deceased
mentor to save the rest of the survivors in the island. In her avatar there is a visible
change of posture when she gains more trust in her abilities. According to Vogler
(2007) “good stories have at least two journeys, outer and inner: an outer journey in
 12

which the hero tries to do something difficult or get something, and an inner journey
in which the hero faces some crisis of the spirit or test of character that leads to
transformation.” (italics by author).

3.5 Linear vs. nonlinear storytelling

Not every game story is a three-act, Hero’s Journey type saga. Indeed, many
games do not have an explicit story. Some games are not meant to have a story. All
games are meant to be played, regardless of whether they contain a storyline or
not. Some games do have a vast open world where the player can create his or her
own storyline within the framework the developers have built. Sometimes the
storyline is optional. Ludologists even have separate schools of thought as to
whether games are a mere set of arranged rules to play with or rich, interactive
vessels of storytelling (Eskelinen 2001).

Some argue against the three-act story arc as an outdated, stiff and unsuitable
template for a platform as versatile as a modern video game. Some endorse player-
made non-linear stories in games such as Elder Scrolls Series or Grand Theft Auto
or multiple players’ user created content in many MMOPRGs – where the storyline
gets built along with the players’ own decisions and the virtual world reacts to these
actions accordingly. (Abernathy & Rouse 2014.)

Perhaps the most common way the game (or more likely, the actions of the player)
alter the pre-set narrative is the death of the protagonist. The words “Game Over”
have become almost synonymous with the character losing his or her life in the
fictional chain of events of the game (Shamoon 2008). Some developers argue that
the death of a main character in a story-driven game is actually bad game design
(Muhkerjee 2015) and it would be more appropriate that the storyline itself would
change if the character loses or underperforms. However, a virtual death or not,
there may be dozens if not hundreds of alternate storylines in any given game. This
includes many ways the narrative can become non-linear, such as alternate routes
to an objective or an arbitrary order of missions in the game. Furthermore, some
games such as Silent Hill and many RPGs like the Mass Effect Series do have
several predefined endings based on the choices the player does during the game
 13

The term “non-linear narrative” may be misleading, though, its original meaning
being a disruptive chronological order of the otherwise set story elements rather
than full freedom of reign for the viewer (or player) (Morgan 2016). Moreover,
flashbacks are often used as cinematic cut-scenes in the middle of the gameplay
where the background story of a game is shown between action sequences in
games such as Black or Battlefield III. Perhaps a more suitable expression in this
context would be interactive narrative or nonlinear gameplay, to stress the fact that
it may indeed be the player and not the game developer who creates the finished
story.

The purpose of this thesis in not to argue in favor or against stories in games, nor is
it set to find a certain genre or gameplay where storytelling may thrive; the purpose
of this thesis is to demonstrate how games can be valid vessels for story-driven
classic sagas, three-act structures with both the gameplay and the story.

3.6 Gameplay and immersion

It is not true that video games are the only “interactive” media; our brains produce
intertextual meanings and contexts (Berger 2002) and interact both emotionally and
intellectually with characters and events presented in any given media. It is,
however, fair to assume that near total control of the protagonist of the drama has
the potentiality to produce deeper immersive experiences and that is all the games
are there to do, to produce experiences (Fagerholt & Lorentzon 2009).

Scholars have named the condition of the human mind where one is highly
occupied by fictional experiences flow. In their paper “The Pleasure Principle”
Douglas Yellowlees and Andrew Hargadon (2012) of the University of Florida
furthermore enlarge this phenomenon into three phases: Immersion, Engagement
and Flow. Whereas a good book can be very immersive, having “hands on” in the
proceedings greatly enhances the level (or depth) of the experience which leads to
a greater engagement with the fictional world and that, at best, furthermore leads to
a state of mind called flow.

A narrative is constructed of things that take place, usually based on a series of

conflicts of some kind, which basically describes the game play too. (Dille et al.
 14

2007). Gameplay can be defined as “player verbs” that are directly linked to what a
player can do (Skolnick 2014). In layman’s terms; you can enjoy a good, gripping
book but through personal participation and even co-writing the story as it unfolds
you can enjoy a storyline of a game even on a deeper basis. Providing, of course,
that the right circumstances exist. (Berger 2002)

3.7 Narrative through gameplay

The constructivist theory of emerging of a meaning calls for a negotiated interplay

with the content and the reader (Chandler 1995). Written text is not necessary for
contents or narrative to be “textual.” In his book, Beginning Theory: An Introduction
to Literary and Cultural Theory Peter Barry (2002, 40) describes “a structuralist
approach to literature, (where) there is a constant movement away from the
interpretation of the individual literary work and a parallel drive towards
understanding the larger, abstract structures which contain them."

According to psychology and cognitive science the human brain recognizes

repetitive patterns and these patterns are adopted as schemas as a basis of
learning and constructing further meanings (Selden et al. 2005). A story can easily
be viewed as such pattern. Most of us have heard stories, read stories, seen them
on TV and in the cinema and furthermore adopted them as one key component of
certain types of video games. A usual story has a dramatic arc, its own schematic
structure which such psychologists as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung even suggest
originates from the collective subconscious of human psyche (Jung 1959) and
authors such as Aristotle and Joseph Campbell have further defined into a three-act
structure of drama or Hero’s Journey. (Campbell 1959.)

Therefore, if playing a video game is about immersion (just like a book) and can
take this immersion even further (engagement, flow), and if we as humankind
experience the world through the same archetypal schema, it is safe to assume that
even in an open world game with no specific necessary goal, the player will start to
draft out some sort of meaning for his or her virtual, immersive being in that fictional
realm. In a game where the rules and goals are more set and the world is more
confined, the player is almost certain to do so. That is, after all, what the gameplay
is for. In the light of all aforementioned, it is not necessary for the story to be written
 15

in text or by a designated author nor is it necessary for it to be narrated by a third

party. The audience, in this case the player, will, or at least is quite capable of
creating and experiencing a story of his or her own, given the right circumstances.

3.8 Balanced Narrative

In his book Video Game Storytelling – What Every Developer Needs to Know about
Narrative Techniques, Evan Skolnick (2014) divides game narrative into Game
Story and Player Story. Most games with any sort of story incorporate two parallel
narrative lines; that which is predefined in the game script and every player will
experience and that which each individual player will craft through the game play.

Most games seek balance between these two extremes, and Skolnick goes on to
further divide games into five sub-categories. There are those that are 99 Percent
Game Story, like Dragon’s Lair (1983), that don’t allow players to participate in
narrative or individual gaming styles. Then there are games that are Game Story
Dominant, that incorporate rich narrative with few player choices such as The Last
of Us (2013) or Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009).

In categories Player Story Dominant and 99% Player Story the above is turned vice
versa, the player having more control to build game strategy, dynamics and
narrative given a predefined context. Examples of this type of titles are World of
Warcraft (2004—) and The Sims –series (2000—), respectively. Most MMOGs
belong to these latter categories as well as “sandbox” style game worlds such as
Elder Scrolls –series (2004—) or Journey (2012).

Balanced Game and Player Story -subcategory seeks a balance between

predetermined story and players’ choice -generated narrative. These games have
the same base story for every player with multiple optional or nonlinear choices for
the player to proceed and “significant opportunities for expression of individual
player style.” This category includes titles such as Grand Theft Auto –series
(1997—), Fallout (1997—), Bioshock series (2007—) and TOMB RAIDER.

“The goal is to provide the main components of a satisfying, resonant, and

classically structured game story, while also offering the player ample opportunities
 16

to — within that framework — express stylistic preferences, personal reactions to

characters and situations, and a greater sense of agency.”
 Evan Skolnick

4 The TOMB RAIDER -franchise

4.1 A brief history of the franchise

In 1993 Core Design, a small game studio in Derby, UK imagined an adventure

game with an Indiana Jones type male character exploring tombs and other
archaeological sites, made in 3D, similar to the then recent success title Quake.
Tombs were originally chosen as a setting because they were easier to program in
1993 than outdoors scenes. (Keighley 2013.)

Soon the gender of the protagonist was changed and the comic book Tank Girl -
inspired, scantily clad, double-pistol wielding acrobat adventurer with a cold stare
and generous bust was created, eventually making her the winner of Guinness
World Records of “most successful human virtual game heroine” twice, in 1996 and
1998. The games’ series has been supplemented with two blockbuster movies, four
official novels and a comic book series. (ibid.)

The first Tomb Raider game sold eight million copies immediately after its release
and got three successful annual sequels, but by 1999 the developers grew tired of
the somewhat narrow concept and tried to kill the franchise along with its now iconic
virtual star. Publisher Eidos intervened, and asked the developers instead to re-
invigorate the series alongside with the Angelina Jolie-starred Tomb Raider movies
then in production. (ibid.)

By the third “new generation” Tomb Raider games (Tomb Raider - Underworld) it
became apparent that the franchise was getting outdated both in terms of overall
quality and gameplay, compared to such newer titles as Uncharted or Gears of
War, the rushed approach to finish Tomb Raider – Underworld by the premiere of
the second movie and the subsequent falling back from the sales benchmark by
half a million copies did not help. (idid.)
 17

4.2 The reboot of the franchise

By 2008’s Tomb Raider – Underworld, it had become apparent that the franchise
was no longer a match to more recent titles and publisher Eidos took over the
complete overhaul of the series, not wanting to waste the potential the character
and the franchise still resonated. (Keighley 2013.)

Not only was the franchise lagging behind in game mechanics. The original Barbie-
girl-like impersonal and emotionless and unnaturally busty character – that once
was its greatest strength – no longer appealed to the gamers who had by then
accustomed to more lifelike and less cartoony characters in other games. (ibid.)

From 2009 on Eidos Interactive set out to renew both the game mechanics and the
game mythology to better answer to the players’ tastes who were by now expecting
more from both the games and the characters in them. Darrell Gallagher, the studio
head of the new publisher Crystal Dynamics is said to have stated, “I would rather
ship nothing than put Crystal Dynamic’s name on another mediocre Tomb Raider.”
(ibid.)

4.3 The coming of age of Lara Croft

In 2009 Tomb Raider was the fourth most recognized franchise in the world, behind
only Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and Resident Evil (1997 –) while Lara Croft was
the second best-known game character, second only to Mario. Eidos Interactive
and Crystal Dynamics set out to make a game that would be “so good it would fit in
the top one percent of all games produced. (Keighley 2013.)

Along with making the game match more contemporary standards set by games
such as Batman – The Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed, with their
rich worlds and lifelike characters, the developers had to reinvent their heroine who,
with the oversized bust and M-shaped lips was “bordering on a parody.” (ibid.)

The studio tested new concepts with a low-profile multiplayer title “Guardian of
Light” (the name Tomb Raider was not used) and set out to re-write the mythology
 18

of Lara and the Croft family story, the main focus being in re-imaging an emotionally
rich heroine who felt like a real girl with real proportions, less pin-up and more like
Kate Austen from the TV series Lost. (ibid.)

It was time the heiress of a known British archaeologist to have a bildungsroman of

her own in the reboot of the legendary franchise.

5 A brief summary of the game TOMB RAIDER

5.1 The Plot

TOMB RAIDER (Working Title: Tomb Raider – Ascension) is a 2013 third person
action-adventure game by publisher Square Enix (Keighley 2013.). It is the 9th
Tomb Raider game as well as a reboot of the franchise and the Tomb Raider
mythology. The game had its own chronological sequel in Rise of the Tomb Raider
in 2015.

TOMB RAIDER takes place on a fictional island of Yamatai south of Japan on

North-east Philippine Sea on an area called “The Dragon’s Triangle” or “Devil’s
Sea”, an area of similar mythology as the Bermuda Triangle off the coast of Florida,
USA.

An expedition in search of Yamatai, with whom the Lara Croft travels as a young
graduate, is shipwrecked on the mysterious island ruled by shamanistic “Sun
Queen” Himiko and populated by a violent cult of other shipwreck survivors and
hordes of the Sun Queen’s immortal stormguard.

Lara Croft is first forced to learn to survive the island and the violent cult members,
to call for help for the shipwrecked expedition and finally destroy the immortal spirit
of Himiko, whose shamanistic powers are stopping anyone from being rescued.
 19

5.2 The Game

TOMB RAIDER is a third-person “survival combat” game where the player guides
the avatar of Lara Croft through the island. Lara Croft hunts prey, fights both animal,
human and supernatural enemies, uses various survival skills, climbs rocks and
mountains, explores the island and solves puzzles.

The game structure is mostly linear (as opposed to open world), although the player
can revisit areas already explored and fast-travel through various campsites that
serve as save and resource management points. The feel of the large island and
considerable heights is created mostly through matte-paintings.

In addition to fighting, platforming and exploring the game has an RPG type
character development system, where the player can earn Experience Points
through various tasks that build Lara’s abilities on two subsequent tiers. The player
can also upgrade LC’s equipment by hoarding various salvage throughout the
island.

Surprisingly, most of the tombs are optional, the player has to visit only a few of
them to beat the game. This thesis takes into consideration only those tombs that
are within the main story arc and ignores the side quests for clarity.

5.3 Affordances to and Player Verbs in Tomb Raider

Playing games is about agency; doing things, interacting with the game and crafting
the gameplay as it proceeds. Skolnick (2014) writes about player verbs, describing
the core game mechanics that correspond to the game world as to what the player
can do.

The relation of an agent and an object is called affordance. In real life, the stairs
afford climbing provided the agent has access to them. If not, there is no
affordance. (Norman 2013.) Similarly, in games, if the object affords interaction, it
can be used by an agent (the player and/or the avatar), otherwise it is just a prop.
 20

TOMB RAIDER uses a number of ways to deliver the storyline, both explicit and
implicit. Most of the action and problem solving of the story consists of hands-on
gameplay that the player can dictate to a certain extent. Interacting with the diegetic
world (the player verbs) include walking, running, jumping, climbing, hiding,
shooting, fighting, dodging, prying, stalking and context-sensitive interacting with
doors, boxes, caches, environment and materials. The objects that afford
interaction are marked by their similar appearance such as a scratched wall (that
affords climbing) or by a spatial effect such as a flicker. The spatial “Survival
Instinct” can be turned on any time, revealing the nearby objects with affordances.

5.4 Wrapping up the story

The player-story is augmented at set points with comments and reactions from LC
and other character avatars as well as the world itself. The actions are confined to
specific spaces the size of which varies from a small cave to a forest or a mountain.
Every now and then, once the player has progressed to a certain point, the game
either starts an in-game cinematic or a cut-scene, the difference being some
measure of control on behalf of the player or a total takeover of a game engine run
video, respectively (Rogers 2014). The climaxes of the action sequences (dubbed
by the “expensive minutes” by the game developers (Keighley 2013) often consist
of a cut-scene-augmented special gameplay with contextual game mechanics, also
known as Quicktime Controls, such as fighting a wolf or flying down the
mountainside on a parachute. The main points of the story are told by cut-scene
videos, during which the player has no control.

The main story has further been augmented and contextualized by various indirect
means, such as hidden documents and ancient artifacts and scriptures the player
can study. As each individual player is given plenty of freedom to choose one’s own
style to proceed within the given parameters such as time, strategy and even
ignoring places or adversaries, it is fair to assume that the player-story will be
different each time. The game-story, however, will be experienced only in a
predefined way, thus leaving every player to experience the same overall plot in
their own manner and time.
 21

6 JOSEPH CAMPBELL AND THE HERO’S JOURNEY

6.1 Introducing the Journey

According to Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung there exist in each human being two
levels of psyche. The obvious ones are the aspects of our own self-awareness, the
very elements that make each one of us an individual person. However, in addition
to the perceivable and conscious levels of our personality we share an underlying
collective psychic system that transcends cultures and through which we view the
life and the world by archetypes. This system Jung calls Collective unconscious.
(Jung 1916.)

In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell presented his
theory of nearly all important myths in human history having a common basis and
fundamental structure; this he decided to call “A Monomyth.” Campbell, a dedicated
scholar of the body of work of James Joyce, furthermore included concepts from
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung into his theory, such as Oedipal Complex and
humankind’s collective unconscious and the archetypes drawn from therein.

Consequently, if there indeed is an underlying, invisible layer of consciousness we

all share, it is no wonder that the stories and sagas people have told each other
through millennia (and the way they have perceived the world) is quite similar
regardless of century or continent. The coming of age story of Lara Croft, the game
TOMB RAIDER is no exception.

6.2 The brief summary of the stages of the Journey

Campbell adopted the three-part structure of Arnold Van Gennep’s The Rites of
Passage (1960), calling them Separation, Initiation and Return, thus reforming his
concept of an archetypical saga along the guidelines of a classic three-act structure.

The three parts he proceeded to include sub-stages as follows: Separation was

further divided into The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Supernatural Aid,
Crossing the Threshold and Belly of the Whale. Initiation was accordingly divided
into The Road of Trials, The Meeting with the Goddess, Woman as a Temptress,
 22

Atonement with the Father, Apotheosis and The Ultimate Boon, whereas the last
part was constructed of Refusal to Return, The Magic Flight, Rescue from Without,
The Crossing of the Return Threshold, Master of Two Worlds and Freedom to Live.

These were the parts Campbell summarized as the Monomyth. They do not add to
or change the classic three-act structure, but merely further divide it into pieces that
necessarily do not have to be chronological or always present. Contemporary
storytellers often bend, change and even reverse the stages, still retaining the basic
form or stages. (Vogler 2007.)

The monomyth has since had more contemporary interpretations, by David

Leeming (1981), Phil Cousineau(1990) and Christopher Vogler (2007), all of which
have blended together various stages of the Monomyth to better serve
contemporary narrative. Leeming and Cousineau settled with eight stages each, but
Hollywood screenplay consultant and writing and cinematography teacher
Christopher Vogler’s 12-stage interpretation will be covered in this thesis alongside
that of Campbell’s.

6.3 The archetypes of storytelling

Not only did Campbell find a common structure to the world mythology, he also
recognized many psychological archetypes within the mythical characters, first
outlined by Carl Jung. According to Jung (1981), there is no such thing as tabula
rasa in the human psychological development, there being a set of unconscious
elements upon which individual people construct their personality. Such archetypes
were included but not limited to a Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Herald,
Shapeshifter, Shadow, Ally and Trickster. As unconsciously recognized and global,
both Campbell and Vogler argue for the power of the archetypes in creating deeply
emotional and immersive stories.

Vogler, in his role as a Hollywood screenplay consultant has commented and

affected many contemporary blockbuster hits from Disney’s The Lion King to Fight
Club. In his book The Writer’s Journey, Vogler (2007) stresses the fact that the
Journey does not have to be mythic per se, but instead movies such as Beverly
 23

Hills Cop and Basic Instinct incorporate the same basic format and structure in a
contemporary and certainly more mundane world than that of Ulysses.

No doubt the most famous of contemporary followers of Campbell is Hollywood

director, screenwriter and producer George Lucas. Much of his epic cinematic work
Star Wars (later Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope) follows Campbell’s structure
almost act by act. The same applies to the final six-part Star Wars saga as a whole.
Interestingly, both Lucas and his equally famous peer and myth builder Steven
Spielberg have a demeaning attitude towards storytelling in games. Perhaps the
comment of filmmaker Spielberg is bit prejudiced:

The big deal is that videogames are going to have more character… But you’re not
going to have a plot that says, you know… it’s not going to be Shakespeare.
(Bishop 2013.)

6.4 Archetypes as functions

Neither Jung nor Campbell suggest there is a fixed, unaltered archetype for each of
us, but the archetypes are worn as masks, or perform a function in certain times
and situations in people’s lives and in stories. No hero probably gets through life or
story wearing only the mask of a hero, performing only heroic functions.

Furthermore, that sort of otherworldliness distances the audience from the two-
dimensional almighty hero, so writers (or the life itself) makes us wear other
archetypal masks from time to time, transforming between a hero and a victim, or a
madonna (Mother) and a femme fatale (Shapeshifter or Shadow). (Jung 1981;
Vogler 2007)

As we will see, in TOMB RAIDER the graduate scientist Lara Croft will wear
numerous masks, sometimes simultaneously as she goes through the Hero’s
Journey and a bildungsroman of her own.
 24

7. LARA CROFT’S JOURNEY (The Storyline of TOMB RAIDER as Hero’s Journey)

Despite the universal quality of the Hero’s Journey, few sagas have literally
incorporated the Monomyth per se, instead, the structure serves as a framework
that writers bend and modify to fit their narrative purposes while still keeping the
integrity of the three-act structure and the recognizable character of the Journey
(Vogler 2007).

Tomb Raider’s writers and the development team have incorporated a layered
approach to Hero’s Journey where some stages are quite literal and timely, while
others keep stretching, overlapping and repeating or have switched places even to
a point where the three acts each form a mini-saga with a theme of their own,
usually so that the Magic Flight marks the ending not only of the saga proper, but
also of the three acts separately. Instead of the rigid template, the stages of the
journey may appear in any part of the story (Vogler 2007).

The rest of this thesis will study the contents of TOMB RAIDER as a three-act
monomyth and, where appropriate, as a coming-to-age story of a fictitious young
archaeologist Lara Croft.

7.1 SEPARATION (ACT 1)

In Separation, or act 1, the normal, mundane world of the Hero is established to

provide the starting point and the frame of reference both to the events that will
unfold and to the Hero and the other characters to stem from (Campbell 1949).
Separation also often includes a prologue, something that both implies the tone of
the story and the setting it will take place in (Vogler 2007).

Vogler has a very similar interpretation of this first part of the Journey, omitting only
Belly of the Whale, or, more appropriately incorporating it into Crossing the First
Threshold.

Of the first stage, The Ordinary World, Vogler (2007) writes: The special world of
the story is only special if we see it in contrast to a mundane world of everyday
affairs from which the hero issues forth.
 25

7.1.1 The Call to Adventure

“Come with me, if you wanna live.”

 John Connor in James Cameron’s Terminator (Cameron 1984).

The Call to Adventure is stretched along the beginning of the game, the prologue
consisting of a cut-scene of the shipwreck of the research ship Endurance off a
mysterious Island in the South Japanese Sea. We meet an adventure-hungry young
graduate archaeologist Lara Croft (from now on LC) nearly drowning and barely
making it to the shore, only to be attacked and captured by an unnamed savage.

First, the player has to escape and make it out from the savage’s scavenger den,
which very much resembles a tomb, to destroy the den and make it out to the
daylight to start the game proper. On the way out, most of the main mechanics of
the game are introduced. The approach to the world is mostly diegetic, the player
can freely move, explore and interact with the world via the LC avatar, contextual
meta and spatial GUI elements such as texts and the special “Survival Instinct”
augment and help with the exploration.

This first sequence that serves as a tutorial for the main game mechanics also lays
out the twofold theme the developers decided for the game: “Combat survival.” LC
has to combat both the island and its macabre inhabitants to survive, get help and
escape (Keighley 2013).

7.1.2 Refusal of Call

“Alderaan? I'm not going to Alderaan, I've gotta get home, it's late, I'm in for it as it is!”
 Luke Skywalker, Star Wars IV: New Hope (Lucas 1977)

Game’s approach to Refusal of Call is twofold: The main storyline focuses on

psychological struggles of LC who tries to locate the other survivors while persisting
in the inhospitable conditions of the island, pushing herself to go on and find the
courage and perseverance necessary for survival. The player makes Lara navigate
 26

obstacles such as deep gorges and dangerous walls and learn to hunt for food and
scavenge for firewood. Climaxes, such as falling down from a tree, have been
augmented with cinematics, but mostly the story is told dietetically, through the
player actions and exploration of the world.

True to the intended character development in a spirit of a bildungsroman, during

the beginning of the game the animated avatar of the protagonist is insecure in her
movements (although it does not affect gameplay), and we hear LC spurring herself
aloud as the player makes her climb to dangerous heights and try to find the nerve
to kill animals for food.

Another approach to the Refusal of Call is found in flashback cut scenes of the
Endurance crew arguing the right approach to finding the mysterious island Yamatai
the archaeologists and the accompanying film crew are after. Here the roles have
been reversed, the young heroine arguing against the grain for the ship to sail south
into the storm that eventually makes them end up shipwrecked.

7.1.3 Supernatural Aid

“But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off,
you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?
 Harry Callahan, in the Film Dirty Harry (Siegel 1971)

In sagas the hero often gets a talisman, a weapon or another supernatural aid from
his or her mentor to help navigate the troubles ahead. In the primitive island
inhabitat a radio telephone left behind by others serves as such, connecting LC to
the rest of the survivors, and particularly to the head of the expedition, Conrad Roth,
who takes the archetype function of LC’s Mentor.

As perhaps is fitting for a Supernatural Aid, the player does not have to use the R/T.
Whether it is an encouraging word by Roth as part of the game-story, a piece of
advice on how to manage, survive or find a way as part of the player-story, or even
a concrete warning to stay still to stay unnoticed, the LC / player organism
(Andrews 2010) receives valuable guidance from her mentor for the best part of the
game.
 27

Much resembling the Supernatural Aid is also the Survival Instinct, a spatial filter
the player can use to dim out the screen to leave objectives and important objects
that afford interaction highlighted. This, of course, applies to the player-story only.

7.1.4 Crossing the First Threshold

“I'm flying, Jack!

 Rose, Titanic (Cameron 1997)

After surviving the initial coastal forest challenges, such as traps, wolves,
dangerous climbs and being trapped in a WW2 -era bunker, LC finds the leader of
the expedition, Dr. James Whitman, a complex character who, as the game
progresses, wears by turns the mask of the Threshold Guardian, Shapeshifter and
even the Shadow. Together they enter an ancient temple, after which point they –
or the player – no longer can venture back to the relative safety of the coastal
forest. This is where the story truly begins. The Call to Adventure has been heeded.

Extensive use of cinematics and cutscenes marks this end of the first act where LC
first meets his main adversary, the first Shadow of the game, Father Mathias and
his brutal thugs. In this first climatic point of the game Father Mathias doubles as a
Threshold Guardian, ending up kidnapping Lara’s friend and Ally Sam while egging
his thugs on to the survivors. LC must resort to her wits and hesitantly to violence,
while the game introduces hiding as a new game mechanic.

Meeting with the Goddess is also foretold at this point, as the original goal of the
story, finding the ancient Kingdom of Yamatai, is re-established as a parallel plot-
line. From now on the ancient “Sun Queen” ceases to be just a myth.

7.2 INITIATION

Despite the three-act structure, Initiation does not have to mean “second act of the
story”, but those parts of the story where the hero is committed to the adventure,
either physically or mentally, sometimes spiritually or even romantically, to live and
function in that other, strange world. Either way, Initiation incorporates the greatest
 28

part of many stories, Departure and Return serving sometimes as an introduction

and afterthought only (Vogler 2007).

Initiation also incorporates the Ultimate Boon or Reward, the part of the story that
everything else in the story serves to prepare the hero for (Campbell 1959).

Vogler (2007) has simplified this part of the Journey considerably to fit all types of
narrative such as romance or film noir. Yet his interpretation “Tests, allies and
enemies”, “Approach to the Innermost Cave”, “The Ordeal” and “Reward” echo the
same themes and sentiments common in both ancient and contemporary myths.

7.2.1 Belly of the Whale

“That’s no moon. It’s a battle station.”

 Obi-Van Kenobi, Star Wars IV: New Hope (Lucas, 1977)

In the Belly of the Whale the Hero has accepted the separation from the ordinary
world and the laws and uncertainties of this new, strange one and his own part in it.
In the myths and stories from Siddharta Gautama to Indiana Jones there is usually
a distinct obstacle the Hero has to escape or otherwise deal with (Campbell 1959;
Vogler 2007).

Even though the Scavenger’s Den in the very beginning of the game first touches
the concept, and other places such as the bunkers, tombs and caves return to it, in
a broader sense the inescapable belly of the whale in TOMB RAIDER is the Island
of Yamatai. Eventually LC must literally deal with a goddess, too, to be able to
escape the island.

Vogler (2007) incorporates this part into his own interpretation of the Road of Trials.
Complemented by Meeting with the Goddess and Temptation he calls the
composite stage “Tests, allies and enemies.”
 29

7.2.2 Road of Trials

“I’m too old for this shit!”

 Sergeant Murtaugh, The Lethal Weapon I , II, III and IV (Donner 1987, 1989, 1992 & 1998)

It would be tempting to suggest the Road of Trials is the game itself. Gameplay is
conflict. Without conflict the player becomes bored and uncommitted. Without
conflict there is no game. Here, though, it is more appropriate to seek the Road of
Trials the player / LC organism get to navigate through the gameplay. It has already
been established the games are partly if not mostly told via the player's actions.

According to game’s theme, combat survival, the road of trials indeed starts right
away at the beginning of the game, but rather than focusing on every single enemy
(of which there are hundreds) or obstacle, this thesis focuses on the broader aspect
of LC’s trials, and her growth from the scary survivor-by-chance into a battle-
hardened survivalist and fighter.

LC’s Road of Trials has two main goals, to learn how to survive both the elements
and adversaries, the nature and the supernatural. This she does with her wits and
her – or the player’s skills – both of which grow during the game, through the game-
story and the non-diegetic tier menu system, respectively.

In the second act of TOMB RAIDER the two major quests are the fighting and
climbing to the radio tower on top of the mountain island to call for rescue, followed
by the quest to infiltrate the Solarii cult’s stronghold to rescue the captured co-
survivors and the friend Sam. As such, TOMB RAIDER fits perfectly to Vogler’s
adaptation of the Journey, where he divides Act II into two separate parts he calls
ordeal, between which there is a central crisis. Between the quests to call for help
and rescuing the friends, the central crisis takes the form of furious storm downing
the search and rescue airplane.

The quests are predominantly done by exploring, seeking, climbing, hiding and
fighting, where appropriate. LC performs a variation of Magic Flight repeatedly by
running through collapsing caves or by sliding down the mountains on ropes and
parachute, to name a few.
 30

The third major trial, after the two failed attempts to get rescued, is going after the
Sun Queen herself, to stop the Ascension Ritual to sacrifice the friend Sam, and to
deprive the ancient goddess of her supernatural powers that are keeping everyone
on the island from being rescued.

The basic diegetic, cinematics-augmented nature of the game is very similar from
the beginning to the end with just a few new affordances or mechanics presented
along the way. Among them are new or improved weapons and various gear, such
as fire igniting arrows or climbing ropes.

7.2.3 Meeting with the Goddess

“You’re a bit short for a Stormtrooper.”

 Princess Leia, Star Wars IV: New Hope (Lucas 1977)

This stage stretches along the full length of the game, first by being the mythical
subplot of the television expedition sent to find the ancient kingdom of Yamatai
ruled by the goddess, Sun Queen Himiko.

During the game LC finds ancient scriptures and more contemporary documents
from other parties suggesting that the vicious storms preventing anyone from
leaving the island seem to have a supernatural origin. The soul of the Sun Queen
does not allow anyone to escape until an Ascension Ritual, transferring the Sun
Queen’s ancient soul to a living human being, has been fulfilled.

With the exception of the very end, the story about the Sun Queen and Yamatai are
told in cut scenes and various supplementing documents that can be found on the
island. In the very climax of the endgame LC finally meets the goddess in a
cinematic when stopping and preventing the ascension ritual and killing the Sun
Queen’s spirit inside her mummy.
 31

7.2.4 Temptation

(Catherine Tramell changes her knee on top of another.)

 Basic Instinct (Verhoeven 1992)

This part, sometimes called “Woman as a temptress”, echoes in TOMB RAIDER as

LC’s pertinent mistrust in her own potential, and fear and disbelief in her enemies’
and eventually her own ruthlessness. She even takes a moral stand on describing
the killing of an enemy “unbelievable how easy it was.”

Joseph Campbell writes about the temptation as inbuilt characteristic of a human:

The crux of the curious difficulty lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life
ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is. Generally we refuse to admit
within ourselves the lecherous fever which is the very nature of the organic cell.
Rather, we tend to perfume, whitewash, and reinterpret.

The coming-of-age of LC, that is the game in whole, is marked by her comments,
that grow from timid to challenging to downright aggressive, and the appearance
and movement of her avatar that becomes more self-assured as the game
progresses and more obstacles are cleared.

7.2.5 Atonement with the Father

Sarah Wheeler: Who are you? Who are you... really?

The Preacher: Well, it really doesn't matter, does it?
 The Pale Rider (Eastwood 1985)

In many myths, the center point is the meeting of some kind of Father Figure, an
entity who holds considerable, life-and-death power on the Hero. Lara Croft, an
orphan daughter of a famous but emotionally distant archaeologist father, finds a
twisted father figure in Father Mathias; a survivor himself and the cult leader in his
search for a suitable sacrifice for the Sun Queen. Campbell writes (Campbell, 115):

Whether he knows it or not, [...] the father is the initiating priest through whom the
young being passes on into the larger world. And just as, formerly, the mother
represented the “good” or “evil”, so now does he.
 32

It is the bloodthirsty thugs of Mathias’ Solarii cult that pervert the coming of age of
LC by ruthlessly attacking her and forcing her to become not only a survivor but a
fighter and a killer. Chronologically, LC confronts Father Mathias directly almost
exactly at this stage of the game, only to succumb to his men, having to escape
again and find a way to save her kidnapped fellow survivors.

In sagas, this is the stage that all the other parts of the story lead to, and in TOMB
RAIDER it gets a repeat in the very end (Campbell 1949).

7.2.6 Apotheosis

Do it! (Barnes tells traumatized, apathetic Taylor to shoot him.)

 Platoon (Stone 1986)

“Apotheosis: The highest point in the development of something; a climax.”

 Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Right before the end of act three LC’s Mentor and teacher Conrad Roth gets killed
by Father Mathias, forcing LC to transcend her role as a mere survivor to become
an instrument of survival for the others. From this point on the fate of the rest of the
Endurance survivors is in LC’s hands. She must find the secret of the mystical
storms as well as stop Father Mathias from sacrificing her friend Sam.

In this, she joins the ages-old cast of mythical figures from Jesus the Nazarean to
Luke Skywalker, who at first refuse to serve the greater good at their own peril only
to find out the destiny has already chosen them as a savior.

This is the metaphorical birth and rebirth stage of TOMB RAIDER, the dramatic
moment of resurrection that audiences enjoy the most (Vogler 2007).

7.2.7 The Ultimate Boon

But you know what the best part of my day is? For about ten seconds, from when I pull up to the curb and when
I get to your door, 'cause I think, maybe I'll get up there and I'll knock on the door and you won't be there.
 Chuckie; Good Will Hunting (Van Sant 1997)
 33

Even though in sagas, the Ultimate Boon can be an elixir or a jewel, it does not
have to be that concrete at all. The ultimate boon, the blessing, can also come in
the form of romance, wisdom, a right decision, even a sacrifice. What is common to
all boons, is the common good it promotes. (Vogler 2007.)

Even though the characters aboard Endurance were originally after the mythical
Yamatai and its ruler Sun Queen Himiko, those serve only as a pretext of the
ultimate goal or boon of the story, which is to get out, to escape and to survive. LC
is promoted in the Act Three to serve that boon she eventually finds out is via the
Sun Queen.

So the original and the new goal of the story are intertwined in the end, as LC
follows the mythical footsteps of her ancient fictional counterparts into the realm of
supernatural, inhibited by gods and goddesses, guarded by monsters.

7.2.8 Refusal of return

Just because there's no war going on does not give you the right to start one every time you get drunk!
 Judge Zane; Heartbreak Ridge (Eastwood, 1986)

The writers of TOMB RAIDER have a very literal view of this stage. After one
catastrophic rescue attempt bogged by the unnatural storms, in the end of Act Two
LC literally refuses to be rescued and forces the rescue helicopter pilot to abort the
mission on gunpoint.

This stage often represents the Hero’s unwillingness to return to the mundane world
that cannot compare with the special one, but in TOMB RAIDER LC has no other
option but to refuse, knowing it is impossible to escape until the storms and the
forces that cause them have been dealt with. So the setup gets reversed, instead of
being unwilling to leave LC has to persuade the others that it is impossible.
 34

7.3 RETURN

7.3.1 Magic Flight

In accordance to Campbell and Vogler writing of the Return as being perhaps as

adventurous as the Journey itself, the last act of TOMB RAIDER serves as a mini-
monomyth of its own, recapping the adventure before blending back into the main
story after LC has acquired the ultimate boon.

In the last third of TOMB RAIDER LC has to find an ancient document that tells of
the Sun Queen and her supernatural powers over the weather, and end the
Ascension Ritual where her soul is transferred to another human’s body.

LC first visits the old military research base built upon an ancient Japanese
general’s tomb that contains the secret of the stopping of the storms.

From there on, mentored this time by the ancient Japanese themselves, LC has to
persuade the rest of the survivors not to flee with the old, repaired gunboat, and
instead head inland via a river like Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

After crossing the threshold of a windy gorge and climbing into the mountain
monastery LC meets another kind of antagonists in form of immortal storm guard,
ancient human-like monsters in antique federal Japan body armor.

After numerous “Allies, Enemies and Tests,” and literally visiting the “Inmost Cave”
LC gets to climb once more to the top of the monastery mountain, where she kills
the rest of Father Mathias’ thugs and Sun Queen’s storm guard, the final ordeal
being the boss fight of the game, where LC fights and defeats the leader of the
Storm guard monsters.

Here, the plot line of the third act joins the main plot and LC finally settles the
Atonement with Father by killing Father Mathias, and saving her friend Sam by
stopping the Ascension Ritual and killing the spirit of the Sun Queen, thus calming
the weather around the Island and allowing the survivors to escape, the Ultimate
Boon.
 35

7.3.2 Rescue From Without

Great shot kid! That was one in a million!

 Han Solo: Star Wars IV: New Hope (Lucas 1977)

In TOMB RAIDER, Rescue from Without is the ultimate boon or goal that the
survivors of the expedition aboard Endurance seek. Added to the obvious, two
distinct rescue attempts in the story, this stage is also presented as reversed,
rescuing coming from within, as LC grows into her character, partly aided by others
and driven by her will to survive.

The coming-of-age of LC reaches its true climax on top of the monastery mountain,
where the once fearful and timid survivor yells in anger at her adversaries and goes
to full offensive instead of merely fighting for her life.

Vogler includes the stages Magic Flight, Crossing the Return Threshold and
Rescue from Without into a composite Stage called “Resurrection.” True to her
ancient mythic counterparts, LC dies to her former self and resurrects through the
hardships of the island as the savior of her people.

7.3.3 Crossing the Return Threshold

Aboard the cargo ship that eventually picks up what is left of the Endurance
Survivors the refusal of return is played literally, as the ship and its crew represent
the return to the ordinary, mundane world, LC is heard muttering “I’m not going
home”, opting instead to follow his late father’s footsteps into further adventures.

7.3.4 Master of Two Worlds

In the last cutscene of the game, LC looks to the horizon and is heard thinking:

I’ve been so blind… So naive. For years, I resented my father, doubted him like the
rest. But he was right about so much. I just wish I could tell him that now. There are
 36

so many mysteries I once dismissed as mere stories but the line between our myths
and stories is fragile and blurry. I need to find answers. I must understand.

The stage Master of Two Worlds is about transcending the differences of the
ordinary and the special world, the hero having reached a balance between them
and having become a liaison between the two.

7.3.5 Freedom to Live

“I don’t really know what happened you on that island [...] and I don’t want to know. Anyway, we’ll be home soon.”
“I‘m not going home.”
 TOMB RAIDER, conversation between a deckhand and Lara Croft (Square Enix 2011)

The rebooted saga of TOMB RAIDER is continued in 2016’s Rise of the Tomb
Raider, where the new, confident explorer and survivalist sets out to complete his
father’s legacy and proving the late Croft senior to have been right in his theories,
the reboot having functioned as a prequel and a coming-of-age story to the once
superhuman-like, characterless cartoony adventurer.

8 CONCLUSION

This thesis set out to prove that a videogame can be a valid format for classic
storytelling. Even though Finnish ludologists may disagree and even world famous
filmmakers may turn up their noses, it would be naive to assume that storytelling
media has reached its final form. Even though Marshall McLuhan famously wrote
“medium is the message”, no medium has so far neither killed the chronological
storytelling or undermined ancient myths in favor for, say, a TV-series. Instead,
there are obvious similarities in Ulysses’ journeys and those of Starship Enterprise,
“to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Same goes for TOMB RAIDER. Even without the obvious references to ancient
mythology, goddesses and monsters, it is very easy to pick out all the classic
elements of Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, the three-act structure and even the
coming-of-age story. A few of the stages of the Journey have changed places,
some take a repetitive form while others stretch to the length of the game. All are
present.
 37

It is true, that a 15-hour game, where the player may get stuck for hours in an action
or riddle sequence, cannot present the drama at timely, preset cues. At the same
time, it is also true that no nineteenth-century stage with cardboard props and
actors could have delivered anything like Star Wars. In the light of all that, and the
theories and findings of Jung and Campbell, it is safe to conclude the sagas may be
changing format, but remaining much the same as far as the content is concerned.
Whether it is a campfire story, a book, a play, a film or, even though not
Shakespeare, a video game.

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