After an opening couple of hours spent stealthing through the moonlit gloom of the island’s lower forests and caves, Lara finally – after a tense, metaphorical trial by wolf lair and the subsequent infiltration of a cultist-filled underground bunker – emerges into the daylight for the first time in the game. Vast blue vistas explode horizontally in front of her as a kind of battle-harndened rebirth occurs. She’s no longer the same scared, uncertain kid she was a few hours ago. She’s starting to change, and her horizons – both literally and figuratively – are too. But there’s still a long way to go. There’s another, bigger base ahead, and this time around she’s not going to be able to sneak in.
The second mook exclaims with surprise and an unmistakable hint of shock that Lara is still alive.
“Yes! Still alive!”, she aggressively yells in return, in total contrast to her earlier in-fight attempts at negotiation. She’s forgetting the weak and downtrodden girl she previously perceived herself as and is, without realising it, taking the first step towards becoming the woman she was always capable of being. Skin is shedding and the safety is off. With both the player and Lara sharing a hair-trigger adrenaline-high born of mutual panic and relief, there’s every chance she’ll unload this line just as she paints the wall with said mooks via a couple of immediate, now-instinctive reaction shots. All things considered, it couldn’t be a more perfect resolution to the first step of her personal journey.
From there it’s a long, labourious, painfully intimidating climb up the crumbling radio mast in order to signal for help. As Lara ascends, the camera pulls back to engulf her in the brilliant blue sky she earlier witnessed from afar. But there’s no acknowledgement of the view from Ms. Croft. No air-punching victory or obvious, spoken moment of self-realisation. No sense that she’s even noticed what she’s achieved or what she’s becoming. Because real people don’t think like that. They don’t perceive their own development as it’s happening. Instead Lara and the player just keep quietly, stoically pushing on upward - by ladder and analogue stick - until they reach their next goal. Because in Tomb Raider, actions speak far louder than words.
