Weak Men and Strong Women: Portrayals of Gender-Based Violence in Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Abstract: The harmful representation of women in digital games has been a heated topic of discussion for years. Many scholars have noted that developers overwhelmingly privilege male subjectivities while often using gender-based violence as narrative shorthand, window dressing, spectacle, or backstory without providing a nuanced engagement with the topic. When games centralize male characters who are husbands or fathers, women are often victimized to provide motivation for their redemption. On the other hand, when games feature female protagonists, they have been portrayed as survivors of abuse or sexual assault to “explain” their personalities, strength, and resilience, or to traumatize them to create narrative tension. Focusing on two examples of the portrayal and use of gender-based violence in fantasy video games, this article uses textual analysis methods to unpack how women victim-survivors are decentralized, erased, or presented in problematic ways. Specifically, this article analyzes Lara Croft across the Tomb Raider “Survivor” trilogy and the story of the Bloody Baron in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt . While Lara Croft is a well-known centralized female hero in this long-standing series, her recent reinvention as a survivor of sexual violence reframes her character as one “hardened” by her trauma. Yet the inclusion of sexual violence in Lara’s narrative is not oriented towards her own subjectivity but is rather framed towards the (presumed male) player’s desire to “protect” Lara from endless waves of sexualized male violence. Conversely, the story of the Bloody Baron focuses on the guilt and redemption of the perpetrator of domestic violence. This segment of the game has been widely praised as presenting a more “heartfelt” and nuanced portrayal of domestic violence and alcohol addiction, but it centralizes the experience and perspective of the perpetrator while erasing and re-victimizing the survivor. These examples both showcase how gender-based violence is woven into mainstream video games in ways that might not appear problematic at first, but actually reinforce harmful ideologies, stereotypes, and patterns regarding gender-based violence and how women are positioned as victim-survivors in contemporary culture.