Tell Lara We Love Her (Excerpt)

 

From Sydney Morning Herald (October 23, 1999)

by Stuart Clarke

Douglas Coupland , author of Generation X (yes, blame him for all those pointless "Boomer v Xer" arguments), is just one of the mainstream, non-game players who fell under the spell of Lara. In the recently released Lara's Book, he exposes his feelings on discovering Tomb Raider long after all his friends.

"I felt like I did years after leaving high school when I learned that just about everybody at school was having major sex. And as with any sort of large revelation, once perceived, Lara became evident everywhere - almost total cultural saturation. And, soon enough, she was always on my mind."

Coupland sees Croft as a positive vision of future woman, a direct opposite to the nightmare of the mechanical Stepford Wives, from the 1970s sci-fi movie of the same name, where women were turned into servile androids. To him, Lara is a "resolutely strong, adventurous clear thinker who won't be taken advantage of".

The relationship between Lara and the player is two-way - just as the player controls Lara through joystick movements, Lara controls players by leading them through the challenging adventure.