Actually, she was originally going to be a south american named Lara Curse. So it wasn't originally just a tan.
TOMB RAIDER
Caleb Scott
Thomas Richardson
Lara Cruz*
Jose Flores
I remember some sources talking about "Lara Cruz", while others talked about "LaUra Cruz". Now I have looked for direct sources, and yes, her first name has always been Lara.
Chase Allen
So the original Lara was going to be even more (((progressive))) than the girl power bait we have today.
Adam Wilson
disgusting…
Aaron Perez
Best Lara
Carson Watson
Someone should make an aryan Lara mod for the entire series. Mongrels love Lara design. Nobody ever questioned it back in the day.
Jack Green
The sneering imperialist that she ended up being is a lot more fun than a slightly generic hispanic action babe. They knew having a good character was more important than "diversity".
If you have more early Lara design documents, they make for good reading especially if you compare them to what the designers for nu-Lara said they were doing.
Jason Butler
Which one was it that got the fan mission community?
Matthew Lewis
You can see a lot of them here: