gracefuldemon

Hello people of dA! It's been a long time, huh?
I'm thinking about posting some writing here, for FREE, to see if you fancy it or not. How about that?
Here's the first of, hopefully, many.
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Let me know what you think.

Best,
Jo +_-

I have a hard enough time being an Amanda Evert fan that ignores Lara Croft and Tomb Raider. I have a reason to dislike the games and their main character; all right? If you are not willing to understand and accept this then do not speak to me.

In the beginning, I was like every other Lara Croft fan: "Oh, she is brilliant. Oh, she is smart. Oh, she's perfect." And I understand well enough why I liked her. She was a strong and independent woman. But Legend and Underworld gave me a new understanding of her character. Soon, I understood something was not right with my glorified opinion of her. I analysed Legend first. In a general point of view, things changed drastically. Lara was not only incredibly unfair but unacceptably selfish, heartless, and egocentric. All that is very acceptable in a main character, do not get me wrong, but not on that scale - she was far more cruel than the villain (Amanda Evert). That was my first conclusion. Then I saw the story from Amanda's point of view and it took me no time to judge Lara for all her actions - far more than I ever judged Amanda when I was on Lara's side. So I let my admiration for Lara go, now that I understood who she really was.

It is when I try to find others who understand Amanda's character that I come in contact with an extreme dose of hate. These people refused to believe the facts I had unveiled about Lara and Amanda, saying I was stupid to defend "the villain" and Lara was perfect. I tried to be polite until I gave up on trying to explain. "Analyse the story from a general point of view," I said and repeated; but no one cared. It all became too much. I can ignore it when people call me names and so, especially when they don't know me, because I know all their accusations are lies, but when they started offending Amanda, saying she was useless and had no right to feel hurt for being abandoned by her best friend to drown... I refuse to accept those ignorant assumptions when they are thrown at me.

Amanda Evert has got every right to feel hurt, to complain, and to want revenge. She was forgotten by her best friend to die in a tomb - a best friend who was more than capable of saving her life had she wanted to. Lara killed her special person even after Amanda had tried to keep things from going out of control. She was accused of murder she did not commit. She was tortured right after, enduring a gun to the head and bullets being shot very close to her ears - no doubt her audition got damaged after that. She was then, again, abandoned and left unconcious in an empty place, by the same "friend" who had left her to die years ago. Lara destroyed what was probably one of her homes (the ship) so try to blame Amanda for blowing up her manor. Go ahead. Try to blame her for wanting to stop Lara from finding Thor's hammer and nearly destroy the world. Try to blame her for wanting to stop Lara from releasing Natla from her prison. Try to blame Amanda for saving Lara's life after all the pain and suffering she had to endure.

I love this character. And because I understand her so well I can tell you that she is not perfect. She acts impulsively and doesn't have a sense of self preservation, but what she does she does well and god damn it, she saves the world time and time again from Lara's constant mistakes when she could just turn her back and let Lara blow up the planet in the quest for her dead mother.

Don't give me shit about Amanda when you don't understand a thing about her character. I will not accept it. I will be rude towards you. You won't enjoy it.

I don't care if you dislike her. I just want you to understand her. After that, by all means, ignore her as much as you want.

Love,
gracefuldemon