Gaming

Tomb Raider writer tried ‘so hard’ to make Lara Croft explicitly gay – but a steamy same-sex kiss was quietly scrapped

Jul 21 2020
Written by Patrick Kelleher

The creator of a Tomb Raider comic tried “so hard” to make Lara Croft explicitly queer – but a planned kiss somehow became just a hug instead.

Tomb Raider: Inferno co-writer Jackson Lanzing revealed the abandoned plot point on Twitter, but declined to explain why Lara Croft’s queerness ended up on the scrap heap.

Queer fans of the video games have pined for a romance between Lara and her best friend Sam for years, while many believe their relationship is a classic example of queercoding.

But the romance has never become canon – even though comic book writers tried to make it so.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider lesbian queer Sam

Lara Croft and Sam in Tomb Raider (YouTube)

Tomb Raider comic writers tried to make Lara Croft queer – but the culminating kiss became ‘a friendly hug’.

Fellow comic book writer Gail Simone tweeted in February of last year that she had replayed the new Tomb Raider trilogy of video games and said nobody could convince her that Lara and Sam weren’t “10,000 per cent gay for each other”.

“It’s not even subtext,” she added.

Lanzing, co-writer of the Tomb Raider comic books, replied to Simone a full 17 months after she posted the tweet and explained that they had tried to make the romance official.

By the time it went to publishing, their culminating kiss had become a friendly hug.

“Gail, we tried so hard to make it canon,” Lanzing wrote. “We had an entire issue in Tomb Raider: Inferno dedicated to Lara going through a toxic drug trip and finally, fully understanding her feelings for Sam.”

He added: “By the time it went to publishing, their culminating kiss had become a friendly hug.”

https://twitter.com/JacksonLanzing/status/1284606418104881152

Comic book artists Phillip Sevy, who worked on the Tomb Raider comic, added: “I still have the original pencils/inks for that page before I had to redraw it.”

The team behind the comic book have kept tight-lipped on exactly why their storyline was scrapped – but it has been enough to validate queer fans’ long held theories.