Talk:Pedro Dominguez/@comment-2038153-20180930094809

I'm gonna be honest, I found Dominguez a bit underwhelming. He is nuanced, does have motives you can related to and Carlos Leal does give a good performance but I he's rather flat as a character personality wise which makes him rather uninteresting as a villain.

Take Dominguez in contrast with Nadija from the comic arc set before Shadow of the Tomb Raider came out. While she is simpler then Dominguez she's also much more relatable because she really does feel like Lara if she didn't have her friends to steer her on the right path. But more importantly Nadija is also brimming with personality, she loves adventure and discovering lost history but what's more is that she loves killing and hurting people which sets her up as Lara's true opposite.

Lara doesn't enjoy killing people and in story tries to avoid killing whenever possible and while that has changed a bit in the time between Rise and Shadow Lara still doesn't enjoy hurting or killing people. Nadija, on the other hand, seems to almost look forward to it but not in a cartoonish way but more like someone who truly loves their job which makes it all the more unsettling.

But Nadija doesn't seem to be someone without reason herself as she seems to possess her own twisted sense of ethics as she does treat Lara with respect due to her skills and knowledge of history. This helps give her layers that most of the villains in the series don't really have as she seems to truly respect Lara while others, Mathias, Cruz, Konstantin, Ana and Dominguez all seem to think of Lara as little more then an obstacle to their goals. By contrast Nadija sees Lara as equal and deserving of her respect even if they're on opposing sides.

The only other villain in the series I can think of who treated Lara with that much respect was Cortez from the Queen of Serpents arc and given that Shadow is set in South America I'm really disappointed that she didn't show up in the game. Honestly I also found Unuratu to be rather underwhelming as she was pretty much Sofia if she was in charge of the Remnant from Rise and I felt, much like Dominguez, she had little in the way of personality. She may be a badass but doing awesome things does not a character make.

Cortez, while doing little in the overall arc, was a lot more interesting as a character as she was given more of a personality in the little amount of panel time she had in the comic then Unuratu does in the entirety of Shadow.

In fact, with the exception of Lara who is always great, I feel that most of the characters post A Survivor is Born to be rather flat and underwhelming as while they have interesting backstories they all lack real personalities. This also includes Jonah who hasn't grown as a character in three games and 39 comics which is really annoying as he was the one the developers decided to keep which raises a question. Why did they bring him in if they weren't going to do anything with him.

Honestly, at the time of this comment, (the DLCs for Shadow have yet to be released) the only character who has been as good as Lara, Sam, Cortez and Nadija is Nadia from Rise's DLC's Baba Yaga and Cold Darkness. And the thing of it is Nadia is pretty much just Sam with a few minor changes to her back story but other then that she fits the bill and because she's given a LOT more in the way of personality she ended up being a lot more memorable and fleshed out as a character then anyone not named Lara Croft.

Lara's parents fair a bit better but that's mostly due to the Blood Ties DLC where they were given a lot more time to develop so without that they would have remained rather flat characters in the core games.

I did enjoy Rise and Shadow but I feel that the first game, the tie-in comics and Rise's DLC's are a lot stronger then Rise and Shadow have been due to having stronger companions (with Sam in the comics and Nadia in Rise's DLC's) and better villains (Himiko, Mathias, Mr. Cruz, Cortez, Baba Yaga and Nadija).

Sorry, that got away from me and again I did enjoy Rise and Shadow, both games had a number of great moments both big and small and neither had any thing that I hated. But I REALLY hope that TR4 retires Jonah, (let him settle down with Abby) brings back Sam as Lara's partner and let's the two of them rebuild their relationship and, if she survives the comics, brings in Nadija as I find her to be a more charismatic villain.