Difference between revisions of "Amanda Evert"

Revision as of 01:11, 10 December 2008

Amanda, gothic-looked female

Amanda and Lara were once exploring a ruined temple together, when they were attacked by a monster. Amanda activated a door-mechanism, which caused the monster to disappear, but also started the collapse of the building. A huge rock buried Amanda's foot and she could not free herself. Lara managed to stop the door from closing for some, but when Amanda couldn't free herself and the water rose over her head, Lara lost her strength and had to let go. Amanda presumably drowned, while Lara got away.

However, as Lara finds out in Kazakhstan, Amanda survived in the tomb in Peru, with the help of the Unknown Entity. Amanda returns into Lara's life as a formidable adversary determined to harness the power of Excalibur for herself. It is later revealed that Amanda indirectly caused the death of Lara's mother.

Unlockable Outfits

By beating the Ghana and Kasakhstan Time Trials two special Outfits, the Amanda Outfit and the Amanda, Winter Outfit, are unlocked. You can replay levels as Amanda this way. This explains, why Amanda can be seen in images, wearing part of Lara's gear. In this case it is just another Outfit for Lara and will speak with her regular voice, not with Amanda's.

From the official site

On the outside, Amanda Evert was a graduate student of social anthropology; on the inside, she was an intense chronicler of the metaphysical. She believed wholeheartedly that the common notion of reality is nothing but a thin, drab layer pulled over the infinite truth of the soul. She studied every religious and mystical system in the world, past and present, and while still at university was already something of an expert on theology and mysticism. She had a pet theory that fragments of a single, long forgotten mystical belief system exist within the rites and rituals of shamanism, witchcraft and many religions. Her dream was to rediscover this supreme knowledge from the past and teach it to people so they could gain spiritual enlightenment. At the time it seemed more like a youthful dalliance than a true obsession; something Lara considered harmless. She was undoubtedly comfortable with exploring beyond the boundaries of scientific inquiry, but she was also a brilliant researcher who was still in touch with the modern world. She was young, a bit bookish, not too self-confident, and a bit of a hippy. Her relationship with Lara is typified by playful philosophical banter; they disagreed, but they crossed intellectual swords without becoming exasperated or angry at the others' firm viewpoint.

Then one day in Peru, while excavating a tomb Lara believed contained the last queen of Tiwanaku, her team of graduate students breeched a new room and all hell broke loose. Lara was the only one to return to the surface, where the team's structural engineer, Anaya Imanu, listened in horror to Lara's story of how a malevolent entity of some kind slaughtered everyone in the tomb, except for Lara and Amanda. But as the two tried to escape, Amanda set off a trap that sealed the room, brought down the roof, and drowned Amanda.^[1]

Tomb Raider Underworld

Amanda in Underworld

Amanda makes a return in Tomb Raider Underworld, working with Jacqueline Natla, pursuing Lara who is trying to unite the pieces of Thor's hammer ^[2]. In the end, Amanda helps Lara save the world by holding back Thralls with her Wraith Stone from Tomb Raider Legend.

While capturing Natla from her mortal prison that Lara has left her in the end of Tomb Raider Anniversary, only to imprison her once again. Natla, in the beginning had Amanda interested enough in Avalon to start searching for the pieces of Excalibur, and take down Lara in the process. Failing to do so in Tomb Raider Legend, she found another way to get in.

Following Lara to the Mediterranean Sea, Amanda sends a team of mercenaries after Lara who steal Thor's Gauntlet right after Lara uncovered it. Setting an explosive in the temple, the mercenary leader tells Lara that Amanda sends her regards before detonating it, this being Amanda's way of revenge against Lara - the same way Amanda was trapped in the Peruvian temple in Tomb Raider Legend.

Lara finds Amanda with Natla and after getting answers from the Atlantean queen, Lara escapes the ship and fires at Amanda, scoring a gash along her cheek from the bullet. Amanda threw the gauntlet into the water as it's no use to her now, but Lara retrieved it in time.

During Lara's adventure in Thailand, Amanda has Natla create her a doppelgänger, and sends it to Lara's manor in England to retrieve her Wraith Stone. Doing so, the doppelgänger reaches the manor just as Lara arrives and does some excavating in the Croft catacombs. Above ground, the deadly facsimile of Lara shoots Zip in the leg before blowing open the vault and stealing the stone, sending Croft Manor to flames. Finding Lara, the doppelgänger shoots Alister before fighting Lara, causing her to waste time so she couldn't save him.

The next time we see Amanda is in the Andaman Sea in Thailand on her second ship, the Trisiphone, the sister to the first. Lara climbs on board having recovered all four artifacts - Thor's two gauntlets, his belt, and his hammer, Mjolnir - and confronts Natla. Learning that only the Atlantean can open the doors to Helheim, Lara is about to smash the glass of the prison when Amanda and the doppelgänger come in. Amanda and Lara are poised to fight, but Lara's evil lookalike intervenes and throws Amanda over the railing into the depths below. On her way down, Amanda hits her head hard and tumbles the rest of the way - we'd presume she was dead.

In the Arctic Circle, Amanda follows Natla into Helheim just as Lara confronted her mother and listened in on their conversation. Hearing what Natla tells Lara, she becomes frustrated that she was so foolish as to let Natla use her for her own gain. As Natla leaves to raise the Midgard Serpent, the doppelgänger is about to kill Lara when Amanda uses the powers of the Wraith Stone to hurl the clone into Jormungandr's poison, killing it. Telling Lara that as much as she wanted to let the clone kill her, the Midgard Serpent will tear the world apart, and only Mjolnir can stop it. Despite Amanda's wanting to get to Avalon/Helheim, destroying the world was not her plan. All she wanted was knowledge.

As Lara disables the Midgard Serpent, Amanda holds off the endless wave of thralls. Falling off a five foot high ledge and landing on her leg, Amanda hurts it bad enough to have to limp. She continues to hold off thralls until Natla throws a fireball at her, the explosion sending Amanda flying forward. Landing hard, Amanda is knocked unconscious. After Lara kills Natla and destroys the machine, she helps Amanda up who tries to unblock the corridor, but the Wraith Stone was out of juice, just like in Bolivia in Tomb Raider Legend.

Making a remark that now the two of them were going to die in Helheim like Amelia, Lara goes to punch Amanda but stops when she's struck with sudden realization. Finding the stone dais and the Excalibur sword stuck inside, Lara thought that her mother must have tried to use it, but didn't know how. Holding a section of the dais in place, Lara trusts Amanda to pull the sword out and grab Lara's hand in time to send them to safety. Amanda has mixed emotions and briefly thinks about leaving Lara there to exact her revenge, but pulls the sword out and grabs Lara's hand.

The two land in Nepal, where Amelia first pulled out the sword. Lara noticed that Amanda's stone was flaming with power, and asked if killing her would make them even. Amanda considered Lara's words before allowing the stone to dissipate and leaving the temple. It's currently unknown if Lara and Amanda will become friends again, or if this is the last we see of Amanda, if she chooses to drop out of Lara's life for good.

References

1. ↑ http://www.tombraider.com/anniversary/ (Official Website)
2. ↑ The Official Xbox magazine, September 08

Fan speculation

• Some fans think that Amanda Evert could be Jacqueline Natla's daughter or sister, but due to recent events in Underworld, the idea is very unlikely, but as we've seen, anything is possible in the Tomb Raider franchise.