Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Act 2 Spoilers! Shadowheart near end stuff - a little bit of rant

Hi
I'm playing my 3rd playthrough where I wanted to do stuff I didn't previously. One of those thing was...and here the spoilers starting...

As for why; it's because evil choices are designed as punishments for the player to roll with for straying from the heroical path, rather than branching the story out in interesting ways and introducing the player to unique paths filled with content one normally would not have access to. That's why majority of evil choices do not have any satisfying outcomes because they're just consequences that lead the player down the exact same paths as heroical choices (naturally with differences reflecting both choices), but drastically less content to engage-in afterwards.

I think it's logical.

For me that explanation is more of trying to add theory post-factum - you already have an outcome and you need to find justification for that because of time constrains or whatever prevented something more elaborate. The game is showing you that there are no black and white situations (or at least trying to ;)) and that approach should work on both sides of the spectrum. Minthara is a great example of that.
There are quite a lot of things that are clearly left unfinished or simplified. For me the outcome and the fact that there is no clear explanation suggest that's the case here as well.
I was looking on the web about this outcome to check if I missed something and found people being surprised as well, which suggest that the whole thing is not properly designed, not to mention - sad.

Hopefully this clears everything up;

Very well put together and thoughtful! You’ve been very patient and more than clear. It makes perfect sense that the last bastion of Selune’s power in the region, Last Light, would fall when the actual daughter of Selune was murdered.

Nope. You only described why and what is the connection to the Nightsong and the ritual. I do remember my first run, when I was discovering everything bit by bit. Reading everything, talking to everyone. So I did know everything except Actually I don't get what was the purpose of your explanation as it was pretty obvious that I do know those things...

You didn't show any prove of this. Because there is none. You just did what I said - created theory as a justification after the outcome already happened. You've only show the progress that leads to discovering who Nightsong is
Well...you said yourself (along with Ido58 saying something similar) that But the question here is: so? That has nothing to do with anything related to the Inn.


Really? Why? I don't see that sense. The game doesn't show any connection that I'm aware of. So why are you so sure of yourself?

But if a story to be properly understood has to be told in a way where every single subtle meaning has to literally be paraded on full display with a gigantic flashy neon sign in bold capital text blatantly pointing out what is truly happening, then am sorry to say that's not good intriguing storytelling at all.

So I'll just agree to disagree at this point and leave it at that.

I too don't get the connection between events in the Shadowfell and the inn. If anything Selune's personal loss could well increase the resolve to aid her cleric.

Shar's triumph in having a new chosen, SH, is tempered by the shadowcurse being unleashed by and still in service to Kethric, her disavowed.

SH even comment that ending the shadowcurse would allow Shar to simply redirect her power somewhere more effective.

The linkage between events is tenuous at best. I get that this explanation suits best:
But here, we the player are making sense of events - unless some narrator line is said during Aylin's death that we're omitting?

Just to add to Crimsonrider's excellent summary, Aylin is also a vessel for Selune's power.

I think crimsomrider has done an amazing job. There's lot of foreshadowing for this event. Nearly every book on you find in the game makes it clear that Sharrans do not get happy endings. Shar's clergy are feared, not loved.

Read the book in Ethel's tea house. Read the note on the raven. Listen to the story of the loyal Sharran shadow vestige in the central square.

Adding to the foreshadowing in print and voice there's lots of visual story telling as well. The first puzzle in the temple is solved when you extinguish all light. This foreshadows the extinguishing of the last light inn.

You're right that the death of one's loved one could inspire new hope and not the despair that Shar feeds on but I think despair is more likely; at least in the short term. As far as the mechanics - Gale answers this at the start and during his pixie circle scene. The shadow stuff is shadow weave magic it's difficult for either Shar or Selune to penetrate the murk.

I only play good shadowheart but as I read her story she is first impressed by the curse and then comes to doubt it. Is this what she wants? To see little girls who were good at climbing trees transformed into shadow monsters?

If she is pushed to be Justiciar she needs to put such thoughts out of mind. The candle in dark needs to but snuffed out. She might regret some of the lives lost but loss is something to embrace.

TL;DR Sharrans live sad lives.

There also seems to be an overarching theme that you have to accept pain to draw hope from it.

If Shart frees herself from the wound and Shar's influence, she looses her parents and her chance to discover more about herself. The guy you meet in front of the House of Grief surrendered all his memories to the mirror in order to rid himself of the pain the loss of his wife (?) caused him, but in doing so, he also forgot about all the good times they shared. By contrast, if you allow Gale to sacrifice himself at the end of Act 3, he will try to cheer you up by telling you that all the happy memories you made together will live on in you. All the good endings, too, are more hopeful endings really in which the characters distance themselves from a firm belief they previously held to gain the chance at a better, more fulfilling life. Even Ketheric is a much easier opponent once he is reminded of his beloved wife.

Selune and Shar both deal with extremes and have little understanding for the things in the middle, it's either light or dark but Shart's realisation that you need a little light to cast a shadow is lost on both of them. Even Dame Aylin is fairly ill equipped for this more complex understanding of the world, as seen by her reaction to defeating Lorroakan.

Be it as it may, it's another proof for bad quest and story design, You should at least get better hints what might happen, for example by Isobel or Jaheira. Because Shadowheart's wish to become a Dark Justiciar is an important aspect and should have been discussed and known. The result is immersive maybe, but in a bad way.

Like the Isobel abduction. I was so furios after we failed in my first playthrough, as we failed not because our group was defeated, but because one low level mob walked near Isobel, so the script "Abduction done" started, case over, even if there were a lot of NPCs and companions around who could still have stopped the escape of the flying mob. It's a lot easier now, maybe they toned it down. They should also work on the Dark Justiciar affair.

Hints are there, plentiful even, and it's fairly easy to draw conclusion that something bad will happen if SH does indeed do the deadly deed. But it's not quite as obvious as say stealing the idol of Silvanus (foreshadowing). Sundering the moon dome is nice and cinematic and fair enough, but it could have easily been something else just as unexpected - like phantom dark justiciar followers. And then we could well be head-canoning reasonable rationale after the fact.

Personally, I think CR's meta explanation in post 2 hits closest to home. And I'm okay with that. One of the themes of being evil is the expedience factor, and killing off side-quests moves you that bit faster to the finale.

I think CRs theory is a very good one and it's interesting and engaging (also I don't for a moment believe it's what Larian was thinking when they wrote it), but as far as symbolism is concerned, I think it's also empty symbolism for a number of reasons, and I fully get why OP doesn't find it a satisfying explanation, because I don't think it's a satisfying explanation either. There are a couple factors to this worth going into. One factor is that while I think thematically and symbolically, the dome shattering when Aylin dies makes sense, it doesn't really make sense in a causal way. We're not led to think that killing Aylin would have any impact on the inn. It's not some inherently obvious connection. I don't know if we know Aylin is Selune's daughter before we get the option to kill her, but even if we did, why would that make Isobel stop being able to support the dome? Why would we the player, ahead of killing Aylin, think that killing Aylin would lead to that result? This goes beyond just getting evidence ahead of the event, but it goes to our understanding of the characters in the story. We as players never really think of Selune as a person, as a character with feelings or wants. She's a goddess, she's a vague set of values and a battery powering clerics. Hell, we're predisposed to NOT sympathise with her because for most of the story up to that point, all we hear about Selune is from Shadowheart, who speaks very negatively about her. We the audience aren't primed to think of her acting in an emotional capacity, so having the breaking of the dome symbolize her grief and despair at the loss of her daughter isn't really earned. We the player don't really get to live in that despair or react to it. We don't really have the opportunity to voie an opinion about the fact that a goddess basically foresakes a couple dozen people because she was sad. We're not meant to engage in this moment emotionally as far as Selune is concerned, if we were then surely Sha


I see what you mean here and I agree with you, but this isn't just a story being told, it's a story that we the player are part of. It's a two-way street, with our actions essentially completing the story. If our actions are going to lead to such a major outcome, then it's my opinion that the outcome should be better broadcast. We as players, as active participants shaping the story rather than just recieving it, should have suitable information to let us understand how our actions will shape the story. Funamentally, the dome cracking here is just a surprise punishment, not a foreshadowed consequence of the story beats leading up to it. I think your explanation is the equivalent of if in act 1, stealing the idol of Silvanus made the rite of thorns go out of control and kill all the tieflings. Yes you can make logical sense out of that, but it wasn't realy foreshadowed. Imagine how random it would feel if that had happened instead of the druids just killing the tieflings. Hell, the rite of thorns example would arguably be more foreshadowed because at least we know that was meant to keep outsiders away.