WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS!
1. Introduction and Rise of the Tomb Raider
Whilst playing Rise of the Tomb Raider I became aware of Christian symbolism permeating the game. A second look at the game reveals a mystic narrative: a Messiah, a secret society, an initiation ceremony, and the Holy Grail. But which (if any) of these elements are emphasised? What is Rise of the Tomb Raider really about? In this article I will discuss and theorise on the secretive elements named above, unravelling the secrets of the Prophet and the Divine Source.
My interpretation of the game will be through esoteric- and Christian viewpoints. Religious interpretations of digital media should usually be avoided since authors often see the devil behind every bush and add spiritual connections to plot elements that are secular. I will avoid ludicrous interpretations and only make theological commentary where applicable (for example Jacob's sermon). Furthermore, I will only look at gameplay- and narrative elements from Rise of the Tomb Raider without added DLC (DownLoadable Content) elements. DLC (such as Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch) does not fit into the Holy Grail storyline and should be studied separately.
2. Plotline
Entering her London apartment, Lara discovers an intruder, who escapes through the window. The late Richard Croft’s lover, Ana, enters Lara’s apartment as the second visitor. Lara informs Ana that she is leaving London for Syria where she will seek out the Prophet’s tomb that contains some secrets to immortality. Ana tries to discourage Lara from going since public newspapers already hail Lara as “another crazy Croft, a daughter just like her father”. Lara’s supernatural encounters on Yamatai (in the previous Tomb Raider game) motivates her to seek out the Prophet’s tomb in the hopes of finding the Divine Source.
In Syria, Lara finds the Prophet’s tomb to be empty. Murals in the tomb showed that a group called the Order of Trinity was persecuting the Prophet and his followers. A group of armed forces enters the tomb, led by a man named Konstantin who is after the Divine Source himself. Before leaving the area, Lara finds the Prophet’s cross (Greek cross) engraved on the floor (figure 1). Back in London, Lara re-examines her father’s research notes on the Prophet’s cross. Richard Croft’s notes suggest that the Divine Source might be located in the lost city of Kitezh in Siberia. Another intruder breaks into Lara’s apartment, stealing Richard’s research. With the help of her friend, Jonah, Lara leaves for Russia, determined to find the Divine Source.
Figure 1: The Prophet's cross.
The rest of the game is set in North-Eastern Siberia. The game follows Lara on her quest to Kitezh but also features memory flashbacks of Lara’s memory of her father who committed suicide. Lara is taken prisoner by Konstantin and escapes an abandoned Gulag jail with the help of another inmate named Jacob. A resistance group who are descendants of the Prophet’s followers (called the Remnant) guard the secrets of the Divine Source, led by Jacob and his daughter Sophia. Various cutscenes reveal that Ana and Konstantin are siblings working for Trinity; Ana seeks the Source to cure her terminal illness whilst Konstantin seeks the Source for his own gain, not for Trinity. Ana also informs Lara that her father did not commit suicide, but was murdered by Trinity (figure 2). Lara later discovers that Jacob is the Prophet. The game ends with Konstantin dying and Lara destroying the Divine Source (a glowing rock) (figure 3) before Ana can use it. Jacob loses his immortality and disintegrates into dust. A Trinity sniper kills Ana a short while later, sparing Lara’s life on command of a Trinity leader. Jacob's daughter, Sophia, continues to lead the Remnant who survives off the land in Siberia.
Figure 2: Ana first hints at Richard's death: "Another Croft doesn't have to die for this".
Figure 3: Lara destroying the Divine Source.
2. Christian ethos in Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is saturated with religious symbolism associated with Christianity. Depictions of the Prophet resembles Christian portrayals of Jesus (figure 4). The Prophet is also featured on murals and mosaics surrounded by a halo, an illustrative representation of holiness in Christian art (figure 5).
Figure 4: A wooden icon of the Prophet.
Figure 5: A mural illustrating the Prophet (surrounded by a halo) doing a miracle.
The cross is a central symbol in Christianity, representing the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, according to the four gospels in the Bible. Although the Greek cross is depicted all over the game (figure 6), the Orthodox cross (also known as the Byzantine-, Russian-, and Suppedaneum cross) can be seen on Remnant graves (figure 7). The Greek cross is reminiscent of the Cathar cross since all the cross arms in both crosses are of equal length. This connection is with the Cathars (Medival Gnostics) might be coincidental.
Figure 6: The Greek cross.
Figure 7: Orthodox crosses on graves.
Onion-shaped domes typical of Russian-Orthodox churches can be seen on a building known as 'The Cathedral' (figure 8). Stained glass windows often featuring in Christian- churches and cathedrals can also be seen in the game (figure 9). Gold-covered lecterns are also found in tombs (figure 10) and angels make appearances on murals (figure 11). Various Christian ceremonial objects can be found in the game, such as clerical cloths (figure 12). Collectively these elements reference to the Christian religious tradition.
Figure 8: The Cathedral.
Figure 9: A stained glass window.
Figure 10: A lectern found in a tomb.
Figure 11: Angels in Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Figure 12: Clerical cloths in Rise of the Tomb Raider.
4. Jacob, the gnostic Jesus
Jacob is a fictional representative figure of the Christian Jesus: both perform miracles, inspire religious followers, and have empty tombs signifying resurrection. Jacob's portrayal of Jesus as a religious leader is not allegorical but moulded according to the Gnostic tradition.
Between the second and fourth centuries A.D. a schismatic group of Christians flourished known as the Gnostics. As indicated by their name (Greek: ‘gnosis’, meaning knowledge), the group believed that salvation came through secret knowledge instead of Jesus’ atonement and resurrection. The Gospel of Judas (a Gnostic gospel not associated with the Biblical canon) conveyed this concept of private information, reading: “The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot”. (Strathearn 2006: 27-28.) In various Gnostic gospels, Jesus is regarded as a mortal human being, instead of the Son of God (with a divine conception) according to the Christian tradition.
According to documents discovered throughout the game, Decius was the first apostle of the Prophet. In 970 A.D. he described a sermon presented by the Prophet:
For a month I have gone to the Forum to hear the Prophet speak. I wear robes of common folk, it would not do for a son of a great house to be seen here. There are rumblings that the patricians and men from the Church in the West seek to silence the Prophet. I can only listen, and reproduce the great man's words...
No man has ever told the truth about God, for no man can ever know.
There is more sacred in the heart of a farmer or a soldier, than in the hearts of lords and emperors.
We are all of us deceived by those that claim to speak on behalf fo the creator.
No man speaks for Him, for His voice is the sky, the water, and the flow of the world.
This extract from the Prophet's sermon makes three theological claims:
1. No man can know God or the truth about him.
2. The heart of men (notably the "commoners") contains sacredness (holiness).
3. The voice of God is the sky, water, and the flow of the world.
The theology of Jacob is clearly Gnostic in comparison with Biblical accounts of Jesus. In Matthew 7:8-11 Jesus expounds on the relationship between God and Man through prayer. These verses not only propose a theological truth about God, but also that man can have a relationship with Him:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
(Matthew 7:8-11 - King James translation [KJV])
The second claim is that "common folk" (as opposed to lords and emperors) contains sacredness. This statement is contrary to Biblical theology, which states that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9 - KJV). According to the Bible, the hearts (and by implication, deeds) of all people (nobility and commoners) are equally evil without sacredness: "They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Psalm 143 - KJV).
The third claim that the Prophet makes is that the voice of God is a natural experience in "the sky, the water, and the flow of the world.". Together with the claim that no man can know the truth about God, the Prophet's description of God is quasi-pantheistic [1]. According to the Bible, Jesus is the word of God and the Son of God. By implication of the Gospel of John, Jesus (as man) speaks on behalf of God, being the Word of God:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [...] The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:1, 14 - KJV)
Although Jacob did healing miracles, he was not known for his divine powers but for his oration skills. In the document "Prophet's Arrival" Decius describes the wisdom of the Prophet:
But then we heard him speak, heard the liquid truth of his words roll across the Forum of Constantine. He claimed not to speak for God, claimed that no man could. But his wisdom was plain, and not a one of us in that Forum could deny that he spoke the truth. I must know more about him. I must hear him again.
This description of the Prophet is in line with the Gnostic accounts of Jesus, focusing on knowledge and wisdom instead of practical deeds and miracles. Besides healing miracles, the Bible describes Jesus turning water into wine (John 2), exorcising demons (Matthew 8), multiplying food (Matthew 14), resurrecting the dead (Luke 7), commanding the forces of nature (Mark 4), and others. Although Rise of the Tomb Raider paints Jacob as a religious leader likened to Jesus, Jacob admits that he is not divine. Including lust as a weakness, Jacob accounts his own life in documents throughout the game:
I made a mistake today, one that threatens to lead to more mistakes. I spent time alone with Alya - something I have avoided until now. [...] God help me. I am a fool. [...] It has been so long and I am still human.
Jesus as the Son of God is described in the Bible to be without sin: "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:21-22 - KJV). Speaking about Jesus, the Bible accounts that Jesus knew temptation but did not give in to it: "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15 - KJV).
Since Jacob is a prophet of wisdom instead of a prophet of Salvation (after the Christian tradition), Jacob is a representation of the Gnostic Jesus. The purpose of Jacob as a fictional character is not to represent the historical Jesus but possibly alludes to the legend of the Holy Grail.
3. The Croft quest for the Holy Grail
The Holy Grail has many interpretations including objects like a jewelled dish, a head floating in blood on a salver, a stone, or a ciborium containing bread (Wood 2000: 174). According to the King Arthur legends [2] the Grail is a chalice that Christ used during a ritual called the Last Supper, also used to catch the blood of Jesus during his crucifixion; whosoever drank from the Grail was granted immortality. The first interpretation of the Holy Grail in this article is a literal object, i.e. a chalice.
The second interpretation of the Holy Grail is a bloodline. In the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln suggested that the Grail is a bloodline originating with Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene. The Merovingian dynasty [3] is speculated to come from this bloodline, but historical evidence proves otherwise. The historical Jesus never married, although the Gnostic gospels suggested a union with Mary Magdalene. The third interpretation of the Grail is a quest for wisdom or knowledge. Alfred Nutt interpreted the Holy Grail as a symbolic experience in the late 19th century, whilst Rudolph Steiner suggested a personal initiation experience in the 1960s (Wood 2000: 183).
In Rise of the Tomb Raider all three interpretations of the Holy Grail is presented. In the first instance, the Divine Source is the Grail, granting immortality to Jacob. A goblet similar to a ciborium can also be found in the game (figure 13) [4]. In the second instance, Jacob marries a woman named Alya from which Sophie is born. Sophie as the offspring of the Prophet becomes the new leader of the Remnant after Jacob dies. In the third instance, the Grail is interpreted as Lara's search for wisdom and knowledge, a continuation of her father's research. Only after destroying the Divine Source does Ana reveal to Lara that her father was murdered by Trinity. Lara's quest for the Divine Source is therefore linked with the death of her father; Lara wanted to know if her father's theories about the Divine Source were correct. By justifying his research, Lara can come to peace with his death.
Figure 13: A goblet similar to a ciborium.
