Plenty solid and concisely put.
I haven't been following the controversy (I stopped reading game news sites around the time Sharkey left 1up); the first I heard about it was when Gail Simone reblogged
Greg Rucka's excellent comments on the subject.
In part:
Yes, certainly, there are characters where being a rape survivor is a crucial element of who they are. For some, it is even their core motivation. In the right hands, written with the proper thought and care and - in my opinion, and most crucially - honesty, yes, there is a place.
But as a short-hand for “justifying” why a character - specifically a female character - is who she is, or does what she does? I hate it. I’m inherently very suspicious of it, to the point of active hostility. I am leery of the prurient interest, and in the case of Lara specifically, I cannot escape feeling that is hard at work here. I read a quote where one of the developers, I believe, claimed that putting Lara in this position, under this threat, would make the player “want to protect her.” I found that both condescending and remarkably ignorant. Having not played the game, I can’t speak with any authority on it, but I find it hard to believe that was their motive to begin with.
but his whole post is well worth reading.
(The fortunate corollary to "Women can write bad, exploitative fiction about females just as well as men can": men can write thoughtful, nuanced fiction about females just as well as women can. Greg Rucka's career is testament to that.)
Another point: I've been looking at "It makes the games MORE REALISTIC!" as justification for violence since the days of Mortal Kombat and Doom. It's usually an argument made by mouth-breathers in defense of games that are not remotely realistic. (That's not to criticize Doom, of course -- or Mortal Kombat, though I was always more of a Street Fighter guy. It's just to criticize people who would describe those games as "realistic".)
And not just violence. Try bringing up the gratuitous use of the word "bitch" in the Catwoman campaign in Arkham City and I give you three posts before someone argues that that's just realistic.
Because you know, when you're in a giant insane asylum/prison that contains its own amusement park and natural history museum, and a guy with mismatched clothes and half his face burned off is hanging a woman in a skintight catsuit upside-down (a point which her goggles, breasts, and stray strand of hair do not seem to notice) over a vat of glowing green acid, well, I mean, he HAS to call her a bitch. Otherwise it would be unrealistic.
