Natla (Original Timeline)

"It was you, you were the Queen of Atlantis?" "Once."

Jacqueline Natla is the main antagonist in the Tomb Raider, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Tomb Raider: Underworld games, and arguably Lara Croft's nemesis. She is a wealthy businesswoman and the owner of Natla Technologies.

Biography
Natla was one of the members of the triumvirate ruling the lost continent of Atlantis. However, she was later condemned for her misuse of power and was imprisoned in a capsule by the other two rulers, Qualopec and Tihocan. After escaping from her prison in 1945 during a nuclear test in Los Alamos, New Mexico, she took on the name Jacqueline and founded her own company called Natla Technologies using her scientific expertise and cunning. In 1996 she hired adventurer Lara Croft to search for Qualopec's piece of the Atlantean Scion in his Tomb located in Peru. Shortly after finding the artifact, Lara was attacked by another adventurer Larson under orders by Natla. Knowing Natla had betrayed her, Lara went in search for the remaining two pieces in Greece and then Egypt. After obtaining the final piece, Lara was ambushed by Natla and her men. Stealing the now assembled artifact, Natla ordered Lara to be killed and left Egypt in her boat heading to Atlantis.

It is inside the Great Pyramid of Atlantis that Natla's grand scheme is revealed: to use the Scion's powers to breed a new race of mutant creatures. Realizing this, Lara made her best effort to destroy the Scion. Refusing to let her work be destroyed, Natla charged for Lara sending them both falling into a deep abyss. While Lara managed to grab a ledge, Natla continued to plummet into the lava pit below and was presumed dead. However, later on as Lara made her way through the now collapsing pyramid, she encountered Natla yet again, who was now sporting a bomb launcher and red wings similar to those of the Atlantean monsters she had encountered before. After apparently killing Natla, Lara escaped the pyramid as it was destroyed in a big explosion.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary
Jacqueline Natla returns in Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a remake of the original Tomb Raider game, developed by Tomb Raider: Legend developer Crystal Dynamics. In Anniversary, her role remains the same. However, Natla is visually depicted as having a much skinnier body frame as well as sharp and almost alien-like facial features, and also unusually long hair, pale skin and long fingers with long, sharp nails.Natla has also lost her Texan Accent. She is voiced by Grey DeLisle.

Tomb Raider: Underworld
In Tomb Raider: Underworld Natla is a prisoner of Amanda Evert's, held prisoner on Amanda's boat in a stasis capsule after being dug out of the Lost Island. Early in the game she tells Lara about Helheim and Avalon being one and the same and informs Lara that she needs Thor's relics to gain access. After visiting Jan Mayen Island to retrieve Thor's hammer, she sets off to the Andaman Sea on the coast of Thailand to find Amanda's ship again. Lara confronts and threatens to kill Natla, but is stopped when Natla explains that a ritual is also needed to open the gates of Helheim; a ritual that only Natla knows. Realising she has no choice if she wants to enter Helheim/Avalon, Lara then smashes the capsule open, allowing Natla to escape. After arriving at Avalon, Natla reveals that she was manipulating Lara to reach an ancient device called the Midgard Serpent to bring about the 'Seventh Age.' Lara manages to destroy the device and strike Natla with the thrown Thor's hammer, which causes an explosion that throws Natla into the ether surrounding the mechanism as it collapses.

Tomb Raider: Underworld: Lara's Shadow


In Lara's Shadow, shortly after the events of Underworld, Natla is found to be alive and having escaped from the ether. Although appearing somewhat thrall-like, she retains her mind. The doppelgänger drags Natla to a machine which was used to create it. The doppelgänger is instructed to activate the machine, which it does. It is then given one final order: to kill Lara Croft, and to take it's own life once it is finished. After being released from Natla's control by Lara, the doppelgänger destroys the machine, which causes Natla to be pinned down by the debris. Natla is last seen trapped in a rising pool of eitr, pleading for help as the doppelgänger looks on.

Anniversary Biography
Jacqueline Natla is the owner and CEO of Natla Technologies, one of the world's largest electonics companies. She is the holder of several key computer hardware patents, and her research and devlopment is one of the industry's most secretive and prolific innovators. Little is known about Miss Natla's private life other than she never gives interviews and rarely makes public appearances. Colleagues and business rivals alike say she is intimidatingly intelligent and a demanding perfectionist.

Original Biography
Name : 'Jacqueline' Natla

D.O.B : Unknown

Gender : Female

Race : Atlantean

Occupation : Queen of Atlantis / CEO of Natla Technologies

Siblings : Brothers - Qualopec (older) and Tihocan (younger)

Birthplace : Uranus, Atlantis

Many millions of years ago an advanced humanoid civilisation visited the Earth and settled here. They were the Atlans, and they established a cultural base on a great continent stretching from America to Australia, which they called Atlantis.

Atlantis was ruled by a triumvirate that consisted of two God-Kings and one God-Queen:


 * Tihocan
 * Qualopec
 * Natla

The three rulers protected and used the knowledge of the Atlantean Scion - a device of unknown origin. Natla desired this power for herself, and launched an assault upon Tihocan and Qualopec. Her brother Qualopec was left paralyzed from the waist down, and a walking-frame device was constructed that allowed him to move around.

Tihocan, Qualopec and the armies of Atlantis were able to put a stop to Natla's coup, and for her crimes she was imprisoned for all eternity. Doomed to live forever in stasis, unable to move.

However, in the mid 20th Century, an explosion weakened Natla's prison and allowed her to escape. Over the next few decades she posed as a business woman.

She became the owner and CEO of Natla Technologies - one of the world's largest electronics companies. She was the holder of several key computer hardware patents, and her research and development department was one of the industries most secretive and prolific innovators.

Little was known about her private life during these years, other than she never gave interviews and rarely made public appearances. Colleagues and business rivals alike said she was an intimidatingly intelligent and demanding perfectionist.

Race
Part of the Atlantean race, Natla is seemingly able to change her form at will. It would appear that the default Atlantean form is human-like, but it is unknown whether the other two members of the Triumvirate possess Natla's shape-shifting ability.

Natla can assume a Demonic form, which usually happens after she is harmed. Her skin adopts a deep red scale-like quality, and wings unfold from her shoulders. Her skull drastically changes shape, displaying a row of horns that resemble a crown upon her head.

In Tomb Raider Anniversary Natla displays her ability to fly, Shape-shift and create fire balls, it isn't till Tomb Raider: Underworld that Natla show's her ability to teleport, Natla is also immortal.

TR1 versus TRA
In TR1 (Contuinity 1) Natla is interested in genetic experiments. She tells Lara that the human race has become decadent, like the Atlanteans before them. She wants to force a rapid evolutionary change in humanity by unleashing her creations upon the world in order to ensure that only the "strong" survive. She wants to see what sort of twisted perfection will result from such an experiment. She has no regard for the moral consequences and simply explains her plan as it is to Lara, discussing it on a purely intellectual level.

In TRA (Continuity 2) Natla is given a more mystical air with an extremely feminine demeanor, emphasized by her fantasy-style ceremonial robes that she wears later on in the game, and how she was frozen in magical red crystals by Tihocan rather than the cryogenics tube from TR1. She is interested in the Seventh Age and the Wheels of Kathar, whatever the latter may be. (Tomb Raider Underworld only explained the Seventh Age, which turned out to be Ragnarrök.) She makes no reference at all to any of the experiments that had been discussed in TR1. Instead, she tries to overcome Lara's moral objections to killing and she attempts to convince Lara to join her as a ruler of Atlantis because it takes three to rule (she does not mention who the third person is meant to be, but some thinks it is Amanda Evert, though she wasnt mentioned at all in the game).

Overall, TR1 presented the rulers of Atlantis with a more traditional science-fiction style (robotic appearances, cryogenics, genetics, evolution, etc.) while TRA presented them with a more traditional fantasy style (more human appearance, magical crystals, ceremonial robes, the Seventh Age, etc.). Natla's powers, at least in Continuity 2 (Crystal Dynamics, TRA), seem to include superstrength, supernatural firepower, the ability to fly and the ability to teleport. She can also apparently shapeshift and is able to change from human to Atlantean form. In the original game (TR1, Continuity 1) it is suggested that her wings are a mutant that she wears on her shoulders, and that her ability to shoot fireballs is due to a mutant attached or grafted to her forearm. There is no hint in TR1 that she has the ability to shapeshift or teleport, or that she has superstrength or is immortal. It is arguable that the conversion of Natla from human to superhuman in the style of a DC or Marvel Comics or Disney villianness, demonstrates the move from a British (Core Design) to an American (Crystal Dynamics) aesthetic.

Appearances

 * Tomb Raider: Featuring Lara Croft (First appearance)
 * Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary
 * Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Underworld
 * Lara Croft Tomb Raider Underworld: Lara's Shadow

Tomb Raider

 * Atlantis (cutscenes)
 * The Great Pyramid

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

 * Greece - Tomb of Tihocan (cutscene)
 * Egypt - Sanctuary of the Scion (cutscenes)
 * Lost City - The Great Pyramid (cutscenes)
 * Lost City - Final Conflict

Tomb Raider: Underworld

 * God of Thunder (cutscene)
 * Rituals Old (cutscene)
 * Helheim (cutscene)
 * Yggdrasil (cutscene)
 * Out of Time

Tomb Raider: Lara's Shadow

 * Yggdrasil Remains

Tomb Raider
Intro Egypt, Canyon After Lara wakes up in Yacht Natla's Imprisonment Meeting Lara in Atlantis After recovering from being shot down by Lara
 * "Seal it, Larson."
 * "Feast your eyes on this, Lara. How does that make your wallet rumble?"
 * "Then you'll like a big park: Peru. Vast mountain ranges to cover, sheer walls of ice, rocky crags, savage winds and there's this little trinket: an age-old artefact of mystical powers buried in the unfound tomb of Qualopec. That's my interest. You could leave tomorrow. Are you busy tomorrow?"
 * "Left Larson sucking wind then, eh?"
 * "Well, your little vacation riot's over now. Time to give back what you've hijacked off me."
 * "Well? Kill her!"
 * "You morons!"
 * "Let's go."
 * "You ready yet?"
 * "You can't do this!"
 * "You can't! I..."
 * "Mindless!? Look at you! Neither of you have one squirt of inventive juice in your heads. Wasters!"
 * "Tihocan!"
 * "They're survivalists. A new generation."
 * "You won't rest either! Or your damned continent of Atlantis!"
 * "Back again?"
 * "Evolutions in a rut. Natural selection at an all time low. Shipping out fresh meat will incite territorial rages again, will strengthen and advance us, even create new breeds."
 * "A kick in the pants. Those runts Qualopec and Tihocan had no idea. The cataclysm of Atlantis struck a race of langering wimps; plummeted them to the very basics of survival again. It shouldn't happen like that."
 * "Too late for abortions now."
 * "No!"
 * "You can't bump off me and my brood so easy, Lara!"

Trivia

 * In Tomb Raider: Legend another variant seeing, several crates containing the "Natla Industries" logo can be seen throughout the final level. It is now understood that this implied the connection between Amanda Evert and Natla in Tomb Raider Underworld.
 * The scorched version of Natla appears as a costume for Lara in Tomb Raider Anniversary.


 * The Klaxons song "Atlantis to Interzone" is dedicated to Natla.


 * The Arabic word "natla" (נטלא) means "the vessel used for washing hands". Another possible etymology of "natla" says it derives from "נטל " and should be viewed literally as "that which is lifted" or "that which is taken".


 * Though Natla is surely killed at the end of Tomb Raider Underworld, knocked into the Eitr by Thor's hammer thrown by Lara, her final fate is ambiguous. Some fans say she is really dead, because Thor's hammer is really powerful and can kill even immortal gods, but other fans think she is not dead, and she might appear in the next game. (It is revealed in Lara's Shadow that she is in fact not dead, but badly injured. She does die in that though).
 * Natla Drives a White Mercedes Benz S-Class 300SEL (W126) in Tomb Raider Original 1996. But in Tomb Raider Anniversary she drives a White Mercedes Benz S430 (W220).
 * Natla's cutscene model from Tomb Raider is reused as the model for Lara's mother seen in the church flyby in Tomb Raider Chronicles. The model has been retextured apart from the face and new hair is created for the model.

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