Sophia Leigh
Sophia Leigh was one of the villains Lara encountered in Tomb Raider III and later in The Lost Artifact.
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Background
Current Status : Deceased
It is not made clear how old Sophia is, but from the testimony of her employees she is at least a century old. If indeed she purchased the Eye of Isis in the 1830s, by the time Lara meets her she is getting on for two hundred years. In appearance she seems of an age with Lara, being in her late twenties to early thirties.
Her family background is not made clear, but from her cut-glass vowels and musical laugh she may well originate from English aristocracy like Lara. Working on the theory that she did buy the Eye of Isis when it came up for auction in the 1830s and kept it until she was able to found her own company, she must already have had considerable funds to sustain herself without a husband throughout the Victorian era (or she may well have made her way through several. Her married status is unknown either at the time of her death or previously. Regardless, she maintains the title Miss or Ms).
When women were allowed the vote Sophia came into her own. She may have founded her cosmetics company SL Incorporated soon after and along with various side-line products to keep generating capital may have continued her research into developing a mainstream formula for immortality that she gained from the Eye of Isis.
With firm connections within the criminal underworld (using armed mercenaries for protection, and even infiltrating the London museums with her guards), Leigh also used humans as unwilling guinea pigs for her experiments. She offered jobs to those who were uneducated and in need of money, and then tested her products on them. To be fair to her, she also did a certain amount of testing on herself, but then disposed of the human evidence in the sewers and abandoned Tube tunnels of London.
Appearance in Tomb Raider III
When they finally meet, Sophia evidently has had previous information of Lara Croft, although Lara knows nothing about her. Sophia first attempts to make Lara an accessory to her plans by bribing her with employment and money. When she realises that Lara is not amenable to bribery, she runs out of her office carrying the artefact.
After a tense battle between two London skyscrapers, Lara manages to dispose of Sophia by electrifying her, negating the immortality aspect of the artefact.
Appearance in The Lost Artifact
Sophia returns in the last level of The Lost Artifact Reunion. It appears she survived their first meeting and has now obtained The Hand of Rathmore. She uses this to shoot similar green lasers like The Eye of Isis, although this time, Sophia is not immune to Lara's bullets and can be defeated more easily.
Trivia
- To create the model of Sophia Leigh, the team of Core Design based her on the Lara in-game model.
- Sophia Leigh is often compared by fans to Jacqueline Natla due to the striking similarities of the two women (physical appearance, personality, business as well as the fact that she remains youthful despite the passage of time).
- Although uncredited with the role, Judith Gibbins, the voice actress who plays Lara Croft in the same game, also voices Sophia.
