WHY I LOVE
How a Russian witch helps Lara overcome childhood trauma.
The tale of Baba Yaga was once told to children as a sinister lullaby. A creature from Slavic folklore, the crone Baba Yaga lives deep in the forest. She resides in a hut said to have chicken legs, and can sometimes be seen flying across the land in a giant mortar. Her visage brings to mind cruel grandmothers who send you to bed without dinner, or playground whispers of frightening old women who feast on the flesh of naughty children. Baba Yaga’s portrayal as a frightening old woman is evident in her name. In traditional Russian, the word ‘baba’ is thought to inform ‘babushka’, an affectionate name for grandmother, and ‘babka’ for a midwife, but ‘baba’ can also have darker implications, sometimes used to denote low class, slovenliness, and the sexual availability of an older, unattractive woman. The word ‘yaga’ is similarly negative, with theories that it’s rooted in South Slavic words ‘jeza’ to mean ‘shudder’ or ‘shiver’, and ‘jezivo’ to mean ‘chilling’ or ‘horrifying’.
Who could be the opposite of all this but Miss Lara Croft, the beautiful young scion of an eminent British family. Near the start of Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara meets Baba Yaga in its first and most interesting DLC, The Temple of the Witch. This brings the game closer to the formula of a fairytale, where the beautiful young naif must overcome a witch who threatens to engulf their world in darkness, an image that’s been played out in everything from Snow White to Rosemary’s Baby.
But Lara is no damsel, and rather than defeat the witch, she tries to help her. If you’ve played the DLC, you know what happens. One of the women Lara meets in Siberia asks for help. Her grandfather has disappeared in pursuit of the witch who killed her grandmother, Serafima. Lara follows, but discovers that Serafima is Baba Yaga, having transformed herself into the witch to punish the men who captured her.
Embracing the antihero
This Baba Yaga isn’t a simple monster or adversary, but a real woman with a family and past. This story enriches and deshrouds her, removing her protective armor of animal bones to reveal the woman beneath.
Baba Yaga has never been a typical villain. In the Russian fairytale Vasilisa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga manipulates a girl into undertaking domestic chores, but gives her a skull lantern that burns her cruel stepmother and stepsisters to ashes. In The Temple of the Witch, Baba Yaga’s methods terrify a young woman, as she forces Lara to face painful memories by blasting her with hallucinogenic pollen. This kickstarts a sequence where the woods shift into the hallways of Croft Manor. As a tunnel of trees becomes a corridor into Richard Croft’s study on the day of his suicide, Lara runs to stop him, but she’s too late.
It’s a painful sequence, and one that underscores Serafima’s role in Lara’s story. Like Richard Croft, she’s a parent who was snatched from her child, and whose intellect brought her to the attention of dangerous people. Lara empathizes with her plight, and by reuniting Serafima with her family, stems some of her own trauma. Here we see a change of costume. Rather than playing on usual fairytale contrasts, pitting innocent against evil, Baba Yaga becomes Lara’s mirror.
Mirror image
It also illuminates the strength of women whose narratives are controlled by men. Serafima had her life transformed into a nightmare of aggression. In revenge, she turns on her captors and becomes the nightmare from their childhood. Lara too is dominated by men, whether it’s the memory of her father, her oppressive uncle, or the soldiers of Trinity. But she still races to find the Divine Source. Through them, we have a fairytale where two women are united in pain and their need to take back agency. It elevates Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is one I always go back to.
This Baba Yaga isn’t a simple monster from a bedtime story