In yet the latest instance of ‘Netflix being Netflix’, the premiere of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft series has revealed that the streaming giant’s new series has sexuality-swapped the title heroine’s long-time companion Zip.
Created and written by The Witcher: Blood Origin staff writer Tasha Huo with animation duties being fulfilled by Netflix’s Castlevania production house Powerhouse Animation Studio, this new ‘anime-inspired’ series serves as a canonical continuation of Crystal Dynamics’ previous Tomb Raider video game trilogy (which fans colloquially refer to as taking place in the ‘Survivor’ timeline due to its more grounded, ‘survivalist’-oriented gameplay) and sees protagonist Lara Croft trekking across the world in the hopes of preventing mercenary Charles Devereaux from obtaining a pair of artifacts which, when brought together, would grant him immeasurable and destructive power.
Notably, though Netflix has taken to calling The Legend of Lara Croft an outright anime, it should be made explicitly clear that the series features absolutely zero contribution from the Japanese animation industry nor any of its related creatives.
And rather than a solo mission, Lara’s latest adventures sees her coming to rely on a number of allies, including the heroine’s main companion in the aforementioned video game trilogy Jonah Maiava, her newly introduced childhood best friend Camilla Roth, and the Survivor timeline incarnation of series mainstay Zip – the last of whom has been significantly changed compared to his previous appearances.
First introduced in 2000’s Tomb Raider Chronicles, this ‘Original Timeline’ version of Zip is a computer expert who, thanks to his genius-level aptitude for any and all things electronic, comes to be hired by Lara in order to help her take down his former employer Von Croy Industries – who fired him after he used company resources to hack into the FBI’s personal servers – and its world-domination-seeking namesake.
A separate-but-nearly-identical version of Zip would later appear in two ‘Legends Timeline’ entries, Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Underworld.
Still black and still a whiz with computers, this version of differs from his original counterpart not just in his choice of hairstyle – short dreads over a buzz cut – but also in the fact that rather than being a simple hired hand, he now serves as Lara’s closest friend and full-time ‘man in the chair’.
And to the point of this article, the Legends Timeline Zip is also confirmed as canonically straight, as upon walking into his Croft Manor-located monitoring room in Tomb Raider: Legend, the player has a random chance of hearing Lara scold her friend, “Stalking our ex-girlfriends are we?”, to which he positively affirms, “I prefer to call myself a guardian angel”.
However, the animated series not only portrays Zip as a gay man, but does so in an embarrassingly stereotypical fashion.
While still a tech genius and close friend of Lara’s, this new version of the character regularly paints his nails, speaks with a ‘sassy and catty’ inflection to his words, and at one point, upon discovering that the heroine was exploring a dangerous ruin alongside Camilla, excitedly insists, “Is that her? Tell her I say I love her hair.”
And though the series’ narrative conversely never draws direct attention to the fact, Zip is confirmed as gay in the season finale, wherein he can be seen dancing hand-in-hand with another man at Jonah and Abigaile’s wedding, teasing Lara that she needs “dance lessons” as they stride by.
Further, while fans may be wondering why this article does not highlight, much less mention, the supposed lesbian relationship between Lara and Camilla, it is because contrary to both currently circulating claims on social media and the heavy (and, let’s be honest, deliberate) implications of Huo’s own writing, the two women are at no point in the series confirmed to have ever shared anything more than a close friendship.
Asked about the pair’s closeness by Polygon‘s Matt Patches, Huo declined to put any definitive romantic labels on their relationship, instead asserting, “I am happy when anyone ships anybody. It’s all fun to see. Everyone’s art is fantastic. It’s great!”
The full, eight-episode long first season of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is now streaming on Netflix.