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Lara Croft (birthday February 14) is a British video game character, and the Amazonian heroine of the Tomb Raider series of video games, movies and comic books. In the two movies, she is portrayed by Angelina Jolie.

(Note: Lara Croft's biography has been significantly changed (retcon), it is now almost completely different from the original biography which was relevant for the first six Tomb Raider games. This is due to the recent biography and character change made by Crystal Dynamics for the new game, Legend)

Biography

Biography (Tomb Raider Legend, Movies)

The Right Honourable Lara Croft is the 11th Countess of Abbingdon. The Croft family was granted the title and rights to Abbingdon, Surrey by King Edward VI in 1547. The Croft Estates are comprised of three separate manor houses, two of which are maintained by the National Trust, and the third is home to Lady Croft.

Lady Croft herself has suffered several personal tragedies, including the deaths of both parents on separate occasions before she came of age. Reputably an accredited genius and Olympic-standard gymnast, Lady Croft is the focus of wild speculation and intense debate in both the scientific and political communities in addition to the popular press. Idealized and vilified in equal measure, she is perhaps one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures of our time.

Lara Croft was born in Surrey's Parkside hospital to Amelia Croft, Countess of Abbingdon and the notorious archeologist Richard Croft, 10th Earl of Abbingdon. Between the ages of three and six, she attended the Abbingdon Girls School, where it quickly became clear that she was an exceptionally gifted child.

At the age of nine she survived a plane crash in the Himalayas that took the life of her mother. In perhaps the first story of her prodigious indomitability, she somehow survived a solo ten-day trek across the Himalayan mountains, one of the most hostile environments on the planet. The story goes that when she arrived in Katmandu she went to the nearest bar and made a polite telephone call to her father asking if it would be convenient for him to come and pick her up.

For six years following the plane crash, Lara rarely left her father's side, traveling around the world from one archeological dig site to another. During this period she was ostensibly given a standard education from private tutors, but it would probably be more accurate to say she was her father's full time apprentice.

When Lara was fifteen, her father went missing in Cambodia. Extensive searches by the authorities and Lara herself turned up human remains that could not definitively be identified. Since Lord Croft's body was not officially recovered, Lara could not directly inherit the Croft title and Lara was thrust into a bitter family feud over control of the Abbingdon estates with her uncle Lord Errol Croft. Lara eventually won the legal battle, and took possession of her inheritance but at the cost of a deep rift in the Croft family that left her estranged from her living relatives.

Lady Lara Croft has already eclipsed her father's career; as of this writing she is credited with the discovery of some fifteen archeological sites of international significance. These sites are still yielding new and exciting insights to the past on an ongoing basis. No one can deny Lady Croft's incredible contribution to the field of archeology, however she is not without her detractors.

Lara's methods have been frequently called into question by government officials and other practicing archeologists. She has been described variously as anything from cavalier to downright irresponsible. Some scholars have suggested that her notorious lack of documentation and brute force methodology have contaminated countless sites and done more harm than good. There have even been (unsubstantiated) allegations that Lara actually takes items from these sites before informing the international community of their locations, and that she is nothing more than a glorified treasure hunter.

Despite the tabloid press's infatuation with her, Lara Croft guards her privacy with complete determination. She has never granted an interview nor made any personal comment to any of the rumors associated with her, preferring to express herself through brief formal statements given by the family solicitors, Hardgraves and Moore.

Predictably there have been a number of unofficial biographies printed about the young Countess, that attribute wild and fantastic feats to her exploits, ranging from the discovery of living dinosaurs in the Congo to infiltrating the infamous Area 51 in Nevada. The official line from the Croft Estate to these works is simply that "...these books are utter rot: disgraceful, trashy works of total fiction."

Nevertheless if you even make a cursory search on the Internet for the Unexplained, the Mysterious and the Downright Unbelievable, time and again you will find Lara Croft's name appearing. She appears to be a hero to conspiracy theorists and alternate history aficionados alike.

It seems the further you dig into Lady Croft's life, the more bewildering and mysterious she becomes. Perhaps like the archeological sites she discovers, we have only scratched the surface of this incredible woman and the complex and inscrutable secrets buried deep within her.

Original Biography (pre-Legend)

The daughter of Lord Henshingly Croft, Lara was brought up in the secure world of aristocracy surrounded by tennis, butlers and corgis. But this all started to change when she went to the renowned school of Gordonstoun and found the mountains of Scotland. Later, at her Swiss finishing school, she took to the art of extreme skiing and spent a holiday in the Himalayas searching for more challenging terrain. On her return trip however, the plane crashed deep within the mountains and Lara was the only survivor.

Two weeks later, when she walked into a mountain village, her experiences had had a profound effect on her. Unable to stand the suffocating atmosphere of upper-class British society any longer, she realised she was only truly alive when she was travelling alone.

Despite this drastic life change, Lara still retains the essence of her upbringing - most notably with her polite, upper-class accent.

Lara's parents though, having sported hopes of her marrying the Earl of Farringdon, were less than convinced about this chosen lifestyle and ceased to associate with their daughter - even terminating her monthly allowance. The Earl is still waiting.

While in England, Lara lives in a mansion in Surrey which she inherited many years ago. At one time she saw little use in it but now realises that, if nothing else, it is at least handy for storing all the artifacts she has acquired on her travels. She has also had a custom-built assault course constructed in the grounds for training purposes.

Lara doesn't consider tomb raiding as a job, merely a way of life - although she has been known to uncover archeological artifacts on commission. To fund her radical lifestyle, Lara writes travel books. Titles so far have included 'A Tyrannosaurus is jawing at my head' and 'Slaying Bigfoot'. Her common complaint though is that she doesn't have enough time to put pen to paper.

As well as uncovering many notorious archeological sites - including the Atlantean pyramid and the last resting place of the dagger of Xian, Lara has found fame in other areas. She has driven the dangerous Alaskan Highway from Tierra del Fuego in South America in record time (although this was later denounced by the Guinness Book of Records due to her "reckless driving") and she hit the headlines again when she hunted out and killed Bigfoot in North America..

HOBBIES: Any challenging sports. Has a particular interest in experimenting with different, often extreme forms of transport. Has also once admitted to stitching a kind of Bayeux tapestry of her own adventures while at home. With her unique physical abilities, Lara is certain of being able to break many world athletic records and so sees no challenge in this herself. Her main ambitions still lie in the undefined world of tombs and the past. She has also however, developed a personal regard for Brian Blessed's attempts to climb Everest. If he never succeeds, she is determined to piggy-back him up there.

HEROES: All the great ancient figures who respected themselves enough to design such intricate tombs to be buried in. "Nobody goes to trouble like that anymore..."

FEARS: Her Aunty's Corgi which has bitten her on several occasions - about which, for once, there is little she can do.

EDUCATION: Private Tutoring (3 - 11) Wimbledon High School for Girls (11 - 16) Gordonstoun Boarding School (16 - 18) Swiss Finishing School (18 - 21)

SPORTS: Not much of a team player. Discovered rock climbing while at Gordonstoun and used to set off into the hills alone during netball practice. Also took up shooting as an extra-curricular activity but was instantly banned for showing "too keen an interest'. However, the strength that climbing gave her fingers was to become useful when she started pulling triggers for real.

Overview

Created by Toby Gard, the heroine of the video game series has spawned over six incarnations of the game, where the heroine must defeat ancient deities, spirits, evil gangsters, and even dinosaurs. Since its debut in 1996, Tomb Raider games have been made for the PC, Mac, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Saturn, Dreamcast, N-Gage, Pocket PC, Game Boy Advance, and Game Boy Color. On April 11 2006, the seventh game in the series, Tomb Raider: Legend, was released for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PC.

It is said the original name for Lara Croft was to be Laura Cruise. It was later changed to Lara Croft due to the fact that an American accent would change the pronunciation of "Laura" to "Lara", and that "Cruise" didn't sound British. Because of the alike pronunciations, she is sometimes referred to as Laura.

Lara was brought to life by actress Angelina Jolie for the movies Tomb Raider (2001) and The Cradle of Life (2003). She has also been portrayed by models for public appearances, most notably model/actress Rhona Mitra, glamour model Nell McAndrew (who was immediately axed from her stint as Lara in 1999 after posing nude in Playboy), and the top model Jill De Jong. Despite some initial reservations, on February 14, 2006, it was announced that a previously unknown 20-year-old sales assistant from London, Karima Adebibe, would star as the new Lara Croft model and would shortly begin a training program to play the role. Some feel she looks very close to the video game Lara Croft in publicity shots.

Some fans consider Croft's growing status as a sex symbol in the video game fandom through each progressive game sequel—with increasingly gratuitous artwork and advertisements—detrimental to the character, who gained more attention from her appearance than her tough-as-nails spirit and determination. In response to this, she has recently undergone a slight "redesign" for the sake of becoming more appealing to female gamers. Her chest size was reduced and her clothes were altered; some have still derided her form as being unrealistic (especially in regard to her BMI), although the constant and extreme level of physical activity Lara is depicted as partaking in, and the lack of a similar real-life individual of similar activity of such manner to utilize as reference, leaves the debate open.

Continuity

Note that several Lara biographical facts of the established canon that were contradicted in the movie, were altered in order to follow the movie. One example is the name of Lara's father, in the game manuals he is mentioned as Henshingly, but since the movies, he has been altered to Richard.

Other facts

  • Discoveries (Games):
    • Ark of the Covenant (1993), (Before the Events of Tomb Raider 1)
    • Bigfoot (19??-1995), (Before the Events of Tomb Raider 1)
    • Philosopher's Stone (1996), (Tomb Raider Chronicles; in Rome - Italy)
    • Atlantean Scion (1996), (Tomb Raider; in Peru, Europe and Egypt)
    • Dagger of Xian, (Tomb Raider II; in The Great Wall - China)
    • The Golden Mask of Tornarsuk (1997), (Tomb Raider II: The Golden Mask; in Alaska)
    • The Iris (1997), (Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation/Tomb Raider Chronicles; first discovered in Cambodia in 1984, recovered from Von Croy's V.C.I. Headquarters around 1997)
    • The Meteorite Idols (Infada Stone, Ora Dagger, The Eye Of Isis, Element 115 and The Hand Of Rathmore (1998), (Tomb Raider III; in India, South Pacific Islands, London, Area 51 and France respectively)
    • The Spear of Destiny (1998), (Tomb Raider: Chronicles; in Russia)
    • The Amulet of Horus (1999), (Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation; in The Valley of the Kings - Egypt)
    • The Obscura Paintings (2003), (Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness; in Paris and Prague)
    • Excalibur (2006), (Tomb Raider: Legend; in Peru, Tokyo - Japan, Ghana and Khazakhstan)
  • Discoveries (Films):
    • The All-Seeing Eye, (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider; in her home)
    • Triangle of Light, (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider; in Cambodia and Iceland)
    • Alexander the Great's Orb (Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life; in Santorini, Greece)
    • Pandora's Box, (Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life; in Africa)
  • "Real life" appearance:
    • Diverse non-pc game advertisements, for instance SEAT, Lucozade (changed temporarily to Larazade), Visa, etc.
    • In a music video of the German band "Die Ärzte" (#1 Hit "Männer sind Schweine" ("Men are Pigs")),
    • On tour with the Irish band U2

Controversy

Fans have been critical of the video games for portraying her in an increasingly bloodthirsty manner, and occasionally not giving players the option to avoid lethal force against human characters. Tomb Raider III was heavily criticized by some for showing Lara committing acts of murder against security guards and police*. An original novel based upon the character, The Man of Bronze (published January 2005) describes her once killing a man while kissing him and the book itself has an extremely high body count; at one point she uses deadly force against a man for simply painting a nude portrait of her.

Also controversial (in early games of the series) is Lara's killing of wildlife such as tigers and other animals. in response to this, the makers of the 2006 "relaunch" game, Legend have toned down her bloodthirstiness.* While Lara still confronts wildlife (limited to big cats in the game), it is made clear that she only kills in self defense and feels remorse whenever she has to do so.

Actors and models

A listing of actors/models who officially have been playing the role of Lara Croft, Angelina Jolie not included.

Voice actresses

Lara has been voiced by four actresses;

See also

External links

British computer and video game characters | Computer and video game protagonists | Femmes fatales | Fictional archaeologists | Fictional English people | Fictional feminists | Fictional heroines | Fictional orphans | Film characters | Tomb Raider characters

Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | לארה קרופט | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft | Lara Croft

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Lara Croft".

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