Talk:Samantha Nishimura/@comment-2038153-20180318205130/@comment-1500935-20180429131007

It's a bit sad when you have to thank someone for sharing a constructed opinion, but thanks, I appreciate it. :)

Your first points compare the characters' progression in the comics to theirs in RoTR. I don't want to dismiss them, I think the comics portrayed the original main cast relatively right. However, in my view, while the comics make a potential good sequel to the first game, they make a rather poor, if not dissonant, prequel to RoTR. Not just about Sam, but also Jonah, Trinity, even Richard Croft. I don't think the novel did it right either. The writers are not to blame though, stuff changes quite often during a game's development, and I do have several examples in game franchises and their tie-ins. I'll come back to this issue later though on the topic of Jonah.

Anyway, I get what you're saying about the original writing of Sam in TR. This was probably the result of not wanting her to be the typical damsel in distress, but also with no plans to make her a recurring character. It's no wonder either the writers of the comics wanted to bring her up to Lara's level though, because Lara Croft in the whole series was rarely paired. If she was, it was in opposition to a villain (the typical "we're no so different from each other" type).

I still believe her "parking off" from RoTR could have been done better than bringing the supernatural in. People with PTSD are not always affected the moment a traumatic event kicks in. And as I said, Trinity is hinted to have started a smear campaign to refute any of the survivors' tale of the supernatural events taking place on the island. If Lara kept coming back to Sam, reminding her of Yamatai and what they witnessed, but everyone around Sam thought she was crazy, I can imagine she would be pretty pissed too. Not just at the others for not believing her, but also towards Lara for reminding her of the truth no one believes. In short, parking her off is not necessarily a bad thing, it was just poorly executed instead of being meaningful.

As for Jonah, if not taking into account the comics, his shift at the beginning of RoTR is plausible. The way I saw it while playing, Lara seems rather erratic in RoTR compared to TR. Instead of returning to a normal life, she wanted to pursue her father's research, the ones that led to his "suicide". Jonah is caring, but he couldn't just support a friend on a seemingly self-destructive path. I know I wouldn't, it's a rather tough choice.

Jonah changed his mind when he realized Trinity wasn't a figment of her imagination, and that she could be right in her statements. This is something the comics couldn't portray because the writers made Lara face Trinity head on in Secrets and Lies, even before she knew their link to her father. She even had at least Kaz as witness, so there's no way Jonah would doubt their existence. The novel doesn't fit well either in that regards since Lara also ends in a shoot-out with Trinity before the lead to her father is revealed to her.

After RoTR, I can surely imagine Lara lying to protect Jonah, but not necessarily going directly after Trinity until Shadow. After all, she's facing a para-military organization with access to resources even her own inheritance doesn't permit, and she's not yet prepared for it. If she did face them anyway, Jonah is completely likely to break bonds again rather than following her on a self-destructive path, just like Luddington said she was. From that point I too can't imagine how Jonah could possibily return in Shadow unless it's the first time she head butts with Trinity since RoTR.

The developers and Luddington not mentioning Sam is not something new tbh. I've seen that a lot in game interviews where various developers (Irrational Games, Arkane Studios, etc...) are quite literally recounting the same thing from one journalist to another. It's depressing but it's just marketing, they aim to direct the audience's attention to their games' selling points, and so would not answer to other details if they're not pertinent. It could also be a way to hide Sam's appearance or role in Shadow, but I wouldn't advise you to think so. It's just torture for the mind and nothing to be gained from, really. /:

Frankly I'd prefer not to think of superhero comics, Marvel or DC, because they're just a mess to follow. If I would, I'd say the characters are just that, characters. Writers can manipulate them however they want for the sake of story-telling, with regards or not to past iterations, just like filmmakers would with actors. As an extreme, compare the dark loner Batman we have today to its original version, which had no mention to his parents' fate. Alfred was even first introduced as an uninvited comic relief who never worked for the Waynes before. His father did though, which was the only reason for his uninvited presence).

I have a better fitting example to clarify this last point. Manga artist and writer Osamu Tezuka often reused characters (appearance and usually personality) he created through his stories, calling them actors to be placed wherever he saw fit. Some of these "actors" could even appear in several stories of Astro Boy (Tezuka's most known work), but with different name and roles, even if they died at the end. Characters from superhero comics are no less different. With each iteration of a series, characters are renewed. These new versions don't necessarily ask to know their previous incarnations, or else the readers would be confused. You can even have other characters endorsing the identity of Batman, the Joker, etc... Marvel and DC now resort to "universe reset" to avoid the readers being confused by any dissonance between past and present incarnation of said characters.

All in all, I don't aim to change your views according to mine. Your have your opinion regarding the series character and I do understand what you're pointing at. However, and perhaps for you to understand better how I envision Jonah and Sam according to RoTR, try replaying or viewing TR and RoTR, but make abstraction of the comics, the novel, even the previous games in the franchise. It's not an easy mental exercise if you already know the characters. I did that recently and only after read again the comics up to the last release, and that's when I saw what was off in Jonah's portrayal in RoTR.

It doesn't mean you're wrong. It's just that I believe the tie-ins create a dissonance with the games which can only grow more with Shadow. Unfortunately the developers remaining vague about this canon situation doesn't help it, but probably because that's not their main concern.