Talk:Samantha Nishimura/@comment-99.53.208.63-20160902215350/@comment-99.53.208.63-20160928034917

Sorry, I'm horrible about responding here sometimes. I read your response weeks ago though and I appreciate your thoughts.

I think my wanting Jonah to kick the bucket mainly stems from the way Sam was treated to make room for him and his constant attachment to Lara's hip. I don't hate the guy at all I'm just a bit sick of him. I actually agree and think it would be nice to keep him around as a big brother figure always willing to lend a hand, crack a joke or pamper the girls on occasion but he's only good in small amounts. But if someone must die than it absolutely should be Jonah but whether it will be him or not is truly up in the air. As a fan of Sam I think she should stick around but from a marketing prospective I can totally see them getting rid of Sam and keeping Jonah because he's more "relatable" aka he is a guy and the "guy + girl" dynamic is always a popular combo.

Though I did see some foreshadowing of Jonah's death. I believe in issue 3 or 4 when they are first setting out into the jungle. Lara mentions something along the lines of how she doesn't know what she would do without him. Plus he's been saving her a lot lately and Lara has suddenly started expressing how much he means to her. It's like "they" are going out of their way to build him up real fast so when he inevitably falls we the audience really feel it in the gut. No idea if this makes any sense, it's more of a feeling more than anything truly objective. But there was also a panel in issue 8 which showed a rope, gun and backpack. That panel struck me a lot for some reason and I immediately started thinking about who represents what. I could totally be over thinking things though but I'm thinking Sam is the rope because of the whole women's oppression spiel in earlier pages of that same issue, plus think about how entangled she is with Himiko, Jonah the gun because that's one of the ways he saves Lara (remember he shoots that creeper trying to ground and pound Lara) and Lara is the backpack. Now what does this all mean? I have no idea. Haha. I'm grasping straws at this point but I couldn't help but make those types of connections.

I like Sam a lot. She's the co-star to the leading lady. She helps in making Lara interesting. Without her, Lara is just a killing machine. Which is cool in its own right, don't get me wrong but sometimes you want more than that. Now Jonah could be doing similar for her character as well, but we just don't know enough about him, and he and Lara don't have the deep history like Lara does with Sam so it's much harder. Jonah is strongest when he's challenging Lara, like at the beginning of Rise when he yells at her and let's her know she's being stubborn. If Jonah survives I'd like to see more of that. As for Sam, I just want her to live and for her to slowly start getting her life back but in the process she can gain strength from her experience and use that to help/support Lara. <3