If it had been a worse scenario though would people still be saying what they are here. i suspect that a number of people rather think the subject in question is just harmless anyway considering how it's used so often. Obviously not everyone does this but the word is very much used in a very ignorant way. The truth is most people wont have been raped but it sure would wake them up to what this subject actually is if they had been

More than anything though it's generally a younger generation here we're talking about or those just too stupid to know how ignorant they sound when strangely declaring to raping someone online for example- unless some of the people saying this do in fact actually practice this of course

Anyway the whole subject of the word's often misuse is strangely brushed under the carpet like it doesn't exist

I didn't get past the attempt to equate "violent" and "strong" before I stopped reading. This tired cliche has never been true and never will be true and the fem-nazis (which is something else entirely from feminists) who keep using it as a strawman argument to justify their delusions of persecution seriously need to stop.

I won't claim women don't have unique hardships they must face that men don't... but I will point out that men have unique hardships of their own as well. Which one has it worst? I haven't a clue. That said I'm not childish enough to care. I have no time or patience for "my life is worse than yours" pissing contests.

Rape happens. It shouldn't. When it does some body should suffer swift and terrible retribution. But it *does* happen. Some women never get over the experience enough to go on with their lives. This is tragic in its own right. However, those that do manage to go on with their lives *are* stronger for having overcome something so terrible. I don't claim the strength they gain is worth the price they are forced to pay for it... but that's not the point.

It *would* be the point if we were talking about a real person who actually exists and was actually raped. We aren't. We are talking about a fictional character who's supposed rape is a literary device to give her emotional depth in the eyes of the game's players. And yes... as a literary device rape is a reasonable way to strengthen (in the minds of readers/players/fans) female characters.

No one, man or woman, wants to read/play/watch a character who suffers a breakdown and never again leaves their house cause of what was happened to them. We want stories about characters who triumphed over adversity and ended the story better off than they started despite how easy it would have been to give up, time and time again.

The character Samwise Gamgee perhaps said it best in The Return of the King, "I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."

So yes... characters will have hardships thrown at them by their writers in far greater proportion that most of us mere mortals could never hope to cope with. These characters, man and woman alike, will cope and grow and becomes stronger any way. They will accomplish what we could not and make us feel glad that they did.

But yes... I admit that Lara Croft is on the "violent" end of the spectrum where female characters are concerned... but so are almost all other video games characters, male and female. Video games are, by their nature, focused squarely on "action" and thus, like an action movie, tend to have a fair amount of violence.

Oh I get it. This guy hopes to get a job at fox news

I'm seriously concerned about my mental well-being following all this Lara Croft rape controversy, because I genuinely feel compelled to track down all the authors bleating on about it in their sensationalist manners and break their fingers to prevent them from ever writing again...

Stop. Being. So. Ridiculous.

No rape occurs, no rape was ever going to occur, Crystal Dynamics formally stated rape is not a theme of the Tomb Raider reboot, and apologised for any offense caused - is any of this sinking in yet? Soon, guys won't be able to hold their girlfriends' hands without some raging feminist/idiot misconstruing it as an act of sexual aggression. FFS.

I'm a little frightened at the definitions of rape flying around in these comments. Apparently you're all perfectly fine with feeling women up when they're tied down, as long as you don't penetrate. Is that the general consensus?

Nor was the entire article about the R-word, so much as it was about building a character based on bad motivations. Maybe you all should actually read it before you start on your misogynistic hateatribes.

Vega "almost" raped Chun-Li...
THAT's a rape scene!