Rise of the Tomb Raider - Facing Death Itself

I’ve been playing Rise of the Tomb Raider on the weekends.

It’s a stunning sequel. After the events of the first game, Lara Croft has returned to civilization traumatized by what she saw on the island and what she did to survive. Delving into her late father’s legacy, she realizes that he was on the trail of something supernatural, even though the academic community decried him as a fraud. A villainous organization called Trinity seeks to use his research to find the Divine Source, an artifact which Byzantine legends claim can grant eternal life. So begins a race against time as Lara jets off to far-flung Siberia to reach the Source before Trinity does.

You travel through a world of snow-covered peaks, montane forests and long-lost ruins. The beauty of the wilderness is marred by grim relics of the Soviet Union and the more recent brutality of Trinity’s depredations. Conflict is never far, whether you’re sniping foes with a bow or blowing them away with a shotgun.

In between firefights, you run around scaling cliffs, leaping across chasms, and descending into the darkest depths of human history. Lara never slows down; she can’t. Even as she races towards her goal, she’s also running from herself. Once she was a frightened girl who was forced to grow into a survivor. But what is she now?

A series of recorded therapy sessions after the island illustrates this. At one point the therapist asks if she liked taking control. Lara grows defensive; she had no choice, she says. It was all to save herself and her friends. She had to act, to fight back, to become a killer. The recording ends with the comment that Lara may have to face a hard truth about the person she’s become.

That was when I put the controller down and thought about why I’m playing this game. What does it mean to take control?

***

I’ve always loved video games. I’ve often felt their seductive pull, ignoring the real world for the fantasy they create. And I’ve noticed that I play the most when there’s something on my mind. As Nir Eyal put it in Indistractable, you can’t call something a distraction unless you know what it’s distracting you from.

We live in uncertain times. The year is only half gone, but so much has happened in 2020. We’ve all been confronted by an illness that can strike without warning, a faltering economy, and the turmoil of mass protests against racial injustice that have gripped the world.

And my mom’s cancer is getting worse.

I’m 29 years old now. Looking back, I’ve grown so much in my twenties. I’ve pushed my own limits, done things I only dreamed about when I was younger. Some days I still wish that the years had played out differently. Other times I remind myself that every step has led me to be the man I am today. This is my life, for better or worse.

But nothing prepares you for a parent reaching the end of theirs.

***

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara comes to terms with her father’s death. But her actions hold shades of grey. At one point, she fights off a horde of enemies attempting to break into an ancient sanctum – only to rip the door open herself. Trinity believes theirs is a noble goal and will use any means to reach it. Just how different is Lara, in the end? How ruthless has she become?

I haven’t finished the game. I don’t know how it all ends. But I can relate to wanting to fight the inevitable.

It’s comforting to step into the role of the heroine. Delving into long-forgotten tombs, evading traps and solving puzzles. Ambushing bad guys from the shadows, hurling Molotov cocktails for fiery explosions. Finally gathering enough Byzantine gold to trade for a military-grade assault rifle. Saving the day with her superior skills and acumen and defiance of impossible odds, facing down death itself.

We all want to believe in the illusion of control.

Because in reality, whether it’s a bolt from the blue or a slow decline, someday the family who raised us will fade away. No longer children, we’ll be left with the legacy of who they were and what they left behind on this earth.

And it will be up to us to find the strength to carry on in their stead.

 

 

Barely Breathing

Protests rage across America.

Riots broke out last week following the death of George Floyd, an African American man detained by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. It was only the latest of many, many, many incidents of police brutality towards African Americans. The anger spread like wildfire. People across the country, and the world, stood up to proclaim that Black Lives Matter. 

Delinquents and anarchists took advantage of the protests, looting and burning with abandon. Some police officers responded with the same violence they were condemned for, firing tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds at point blank range. Curfews were announced. The National Guard was called in. Protesters have been killed.

Over 100,000 Americans have died from the COVID-19 pandemic. 40 million more are unemployed. And the country is led by a man who had peaceful protestors cleared away from the White House by force so that he could stand in front of a church, hold up a Bible for the cameras, and pretend he gives a shit about Christian values. 

Welcome to the USA in 2020.

***

My mother loved the United States. She flew across the world to further her education in Massachusetts. She fell in love, got married, and had me. We haven’t lived in the US for over twenty years, but she remembers. To this day, she talks about me going back.

My father once called the United States the most uncivilized civilized country in the world. A true blue Democrat, over the years he’s told me about the unthinking greed and ignorance that causes the worst kind of human behaviour, and how he saw it driving the nation’s increasingly polarized politics.

And then there’s me, the product of these two very different views of the United States. I’ve talked about my ambivalence towards the US before. I wonder whether I should even be saying anything at all. But I’ve decided that I should. As someone born in the United States; as a person of mixed heritage. And as a human being.

Because I wonder: if I’d been raised in the US, would I have grown up with white privilege? Probably. My skin is light enough. Then again, so many people say I look Chinese. It would be truly ironic if I went back to the US and people there started calling me Asian.

One thing’s for sure: I’ve never had to worry about being harassed by police officers just because of how I look. I’ve never had to fear being attacked because people saw me as a threat. I’ve never had to deal with a system of racial and cultural oppression that went from slavery to segregation to ingrained prejudices that still have yet to die. I’ve never had to face the sheer injustice of being born into a country that stifles the person that you are.

No one deserves to live like they're barely breathing.

Racism is not just an American thing. It’s a human thing. One of our darkest tendencies, to mistreat others based on how they look and dress and what faith they follow. To think in terms of us and them. Will we ever change, or are we doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes until the end of time?

I can only add my voice to the chorus. The time to change is now.

To everyone out there marching for a better world and a brighter future: good luck and Godspeed.