Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart: Bad Writing

She acts evil, tells you she's evil and then later, tells you she's evil again but acts like it's a secret she's been trying to hide. She gets a little more specific this time, but still...
Why I consider this bad writing is, she treats it as if it's a secret of incredible importance, while acting like an obvious psychopath.

She has "people in the city" and it seems like they're supposed to be very secretive, but her behavior and edgy screen name would have them all found out with very little investigation.

Instead of trying and failing to hide this, several times, she should just lie. I don't remember the exact line, but she says something like, if people knew what I was, they'd hunt me down and kill me.

You'd think she wouldn't want to allude to what she is at all, ever. Is she stupid, the worst liar ever or secretly working against Shar?

Seems like someone just didn't liked here because she is a wifu material.
Her writing definitely one of the best. Very believable, providing who she is...

I never had the impression she was "evil" to begin with, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.
A bit sassy at times, at most.

I don't know, there is that bit where she starts breathing heavy while talking about torture techniques after Raphael drops in for tea

I think she’s conflicted between her own morality and loyalty to Shar. Maybe they could do a little more to show this though, but as you begin to know her better you start to realise that.

After playing EA I changed my mind on Shadowheart. My reaction to her was very negative when the companions were announced. Some things haven't changed, but as it is now, she is definitely the most fleshed out companion. She gets a lot more of dialogue options, and more often appears in random cutscenes. She is the most chatty of the bunch, ironically.

What I do think is that her appeareance is very badly designed. Don't get me wrong, she looks amazing, but are our characters truly that oblivious? It is very clear in the way that she is dressed that she is a sharran. Yet it is supposed to be some sort of big secret...?



Shadowheart: Alright. My secret is I worship Shar. There, I said it, please don't overreact.
Player: OH MAI GAD GIRL RLY? I'M A CLERIC AND I TOTALLY DIDN'T NOTICE. U SO SNEAKY TEE HEE.

P.S: I ended up romancing Shadowheart in my playthrough, completely unplanned. And I've ranted and hated on her nonstop on this forums. How awkward that was.

Far not everyone in Faerun religion-educated. And Shar is not a goddess about whom common folks knows a lot.

It's a complex character with a possibly complicated and long character arc and development. It's not bad writing because you have trouble figuring out her motives - if anything it's good writing.

I wouldn't characterize it as bad writing as much as sort of predictable. That said, there is nothing wrong with somewhat predictable aspects of a character's backstory or behavior. Telegraphing some of the characters motives and such to an extent is necessary, and writers do have to be mindful of finding that middle ground of meeting people who are bad at reading people and folks who do not know much of the faerun lore to begin with. Characters in the old BlackIsle games weren't exactly deep either, and while I don't think we need to hold those as the standard, it is worth keeping in mind perspective wise.

I have not seen the story far enough to know if she does anything really evil in comparison to what good characters would do, other than she worships a very shady deity :P Beyond the pun, Shar is shady in the sense her plots in some novels are sometimes super evil, but also sometimes more cosmic gray as formerly she was a side of Selune.

Anyhow, back to Shadowheart : her positions, from what I have seen, are not really more evil than what some good characters would do. She does not trust easily and politely suggest believing a devil is foolish. She does not believe Laezel's community will save us: no shit, a rather rational and wise conclusion. They logically purify you in fire, and for good reason!

AGAIN, I have not seen the story very far yet ... To be followed.

Nb : That said, if I were in the game, I would not trust her, because following Shar means you are most probably a bit insane to be honest.

Before she told me she worships Shar, she said she wants to murder tons of people in exchange for sex and super powers.

Dude. She seems super well written to me. She is a cleric of shar, and thus she likes it when you exhibit behaviors that fit the portfolio of her deity like deceiving others. She also hates giving up secrets, even tho she won't risk the superb benefit of traveling with a group that does not want to kill her and might help her with a certain parasite problem. She even hates it when you tell her "you can trust me" because that makes you seem like a gullible moron in her eyes. She would find the situation she finds herself in very uncomfortable which is portrayed super well. If you manage to befriend her somewhat she makes more and more sense, and if you role play something close to her she makes perfect sense, even the power hunger.

I think all the EA companions are really well written, and once you figure out WHO THEY ARE they make perfect sense. They could use some tuning OF COURSE, but for EA they seem super proimising.

I think people find issue with the companions due to the fact that they act their personalities, and thus do not always think like the player does. It's like in real life when people shun or belittle others because their ideas don't match their own - they are obviously just "pricks" or "uneducated" or something along those lines. In this case it's "poorly written". Yes they seem immoral to a "good" player, but they do not to an "evil" player.

+1

She doesn't wear the symbol of Shar on her armor when you meet her. There's another symbol on her chest piece.

Is Shadowheart actually evil? I keep reading that she is, so I must be missing something (other than her goddess, obviously). Shadowheart herself . . . really, really doesn't seem it. She likes when you avoid fights and are nice to animals. Maybe she gets a little too excited by that priest of Lovitar, but she's also willing to chime in and use her knowledge of torture to help you rescue someone. Her personality seems very nurture vs nature, especially given that she herself claims not to remember much about her past except what flowers she likes. And her dialogue after saving the tieflings is downright soft (as opposed to Asterion's pouting, which made me cackle).

Overall, she's been a pretty good fit for a my good-yet-practical character. I'm calling future redemption arc where she ends up worshiping Selune or something, should players steer her that way. There will be this huge moment where you learn her true name and she realizes she's been manipulated someway.

Shadowheart seems perhaps a little cliche, not going to lie, in the whole "purehearted damsel twisted by her upbringing" vibe that I personally get from her. Sure, she claims to be evil. But her approval notifications show she really just wants to cuddle puppies.

Still, I don't think there's any issue with her writing, which is great imo. (Except maybe continuity, since Gale and Asterion confused me with their comments that assumed I knew stuff about them that I didn't. That didn't happen with Shadowheart, since I found out about Shar pretty early. But that's a fixable EA thing.)

I think the player only knows that shes hiding stuff at times because of the tadpole. She doesent blurt out random lines of 'but im totally not hiding something!' or something like that...

So ironcally, shes very good at hiding it, But we learn about it because we read parts of her mind.

Just like I didn't like Shadowheart at first, I didn't like Astarion. After having some unique encounters where astarion was present, and him making some remarks to situations that were REALLY fresh in an RPG, I totally love the guy. Astarion is incredibly well written and the animations highten this. In one situation he even seemed to resemble a cat, more predator than "human", and with the playfulness that comes with a cat. Really cool stuff.

All their origin characters are kind of poorly written angsty throw aways I can't wait to remove in some way immediately once I can just make 4 custom characters

Shadowheart's secret is also explained in her character sheet from the moment you get her in your party.

I dont personally think shes evil... on one of my play throughs she actually remarked it felt good having helped the tieflings in the grove and seemed worried what shar might think of that...

Not sure i like the alignment-less approach to d&d to be honest... not to say we need to know what alignment an npc right away but right now there seems to be a completely fluid feel to alignment based on convenience/desired story outcome... not great for immersion imo...

I actually liked her character most out of all of them... could jyst be my heterness showing but probably would say i found her most believable also... dont particularly like the, everyones ready to jump my character, feel to the others... even with the possibility i could mindflayer out halfway through lol! ...back off a bit, wtf... ;D

@wildelight


She literally has a character tag that says "Evil Cleric". WOG is she is evil.

I will have to admit that when I heard SH remark that "It felt good having helped the tieflings in the grove...." I was taken aback knowing that she worshiped Shar and just before she had mentioned Shar.

I'm also of the mindset of not being into everyone ready to ump me. After all I'm taking the approach of just playing the game through and trying out the various pc options with the various NPCs. not really interested in the relationship part. But if it should happen it happens

All that means is that she is a Cleric of an Evil deity.

She doesn't look like evil, rather neutral

I agree, despite worshiping an "evil" god, Shadowheart's Alignment seems closer to neutral. There are some bad things and some good things she supports, and there are some that she dislikes. Worshipping a certain deity isn't exactly the end all be all of alignment, and there seems to be more to her than just her Sharran Worship so we will probably have to wait and see how they deliver on the character hooks they presented before outright declaring she is a bad character.

Something Gale says about her sticks in my mind; he mentions she's got the potential to bloom into a beautiful flower, or shrivel into a black rose (or somesuch). I still wonder if that's not Larian going "You can flip her alightnment" or not, because pair it with other stuff such as how seemingly miserable she is when you side with the goblins...
I'm not sure. I certainly appreciate she's very closed off and secretive, as per shar's portfolio.

That is possible, being neutral she has the potential to go down to evil or rise as a good hero.
And yeah I appreciate how secretive she is, and her current personality is nice, standoffish but not too standoffish, she has good reason to be with this party and good reasons to keep secrets from the party without it feeling cheap or frustrating other than her worship choice being obvious to anyone who knows the Faerun pantheon.

John Gacy, one ofthose serial killers whose efferate homicides incided his name and memnory in the collective USE imaginary, was an active member of his community, he was liked by his neighbours.

And he is one of the examples of the fact that human nature is complex, one of the reasons the alignment system started to get old, in these days we have a more mature (or disilluded, or cynical, pick your preference) society, the old good clear and neat distictions doesn't appeal so much, was John Gacy acting when he involved in the life of his community in a way that made him likeable? Or did he really believed in what he was doing despite being a serial killer?

Maybe Shadowheart is acting, maybe she do believe in Shar and doesn't find so much of a contradiction in that moment of simpathy she felt for the thieflings.

Or, maybe, being pragmatic she understands that to show simpathy is the best course of action.

People need to watch her goblin party vs tiefling and judge for themselves that she's evil. There's nothing in the game indicating that she's evil. She becomes so heartbroken, conflicted when you kill the tiefling, but she is very happy when the tiefling wins and she doesn't even know why.

My guess is that she's actually Selune Cleric who got brainwashed into serving. She has no memories, and she said Shar saved her, but what if Shar brainwashed her into thinking that it's her instead of Selune? Even when looking at approval, she doesn't like wasting time but actions that are more helpful and benign would actually give her approval than most. She's more or less neutral leaning more toward good. When you do cruel actions, she tends to disapprove.

what does evil look like?

You played any EA game?

The first one but that still doesn't answer the question of what does evil look like? I've since many times in real life that a person looks like a sweet caring person and it turned out that they weren't what they seemed.

Feel like this game does the whole evil looking more straight forward, you have an evil looking pale vampire with Astarion, La'zael who looks stern, just based on appearance, those two would be judged more toward evil, but for people like Gale and Shadowheart, they have a softer look and more conventionally attractive. Not saying the former is ugly, but their facial expression and look are less friendly compared to the good alignment characters. Strangely enough, Shadowheart has become a lot more friendly, she smiles more post-patch. Their alignment in the game tends to be leaning more toward good based on the approval and their reaction at the goblin/tiefling camps. Even in other video games, the protagonist and his companies tend to be more on the conventionally attractive scale instead of shady or more different looking.

@Hilarian Astarion evil looking? He never came off that way to me in all honesty. There is an NPC in Skyrim during the assassins quest line that looks like an innocent sweet little girl by looking at her you'd never guess that she was an evil vampire

Its not strangely enough. They only changed SH because of complaints she wasnt 'friendly' enough, cos god forbid a character isn't for male consumption. Given that this and atleast two other threads still continue to be devoted to the issue, she'll probably be Aerie or bubbly no personality flirts with PC constantly by the time EA is over and then well, female gamers won't play the game.
SH writing was good, when the EA started it was brilliant. Her only problem is the vocal minority of players who dominate this forum wearing away everything well written about her to make her more appealing to their fantasies.
Every change made to appeal to this 'fans' creates inconsistencies and 'bad writing'.

If you can't handle Shadowheart at her pre-patch state you don't deserve her post-patch. They really did make her worse for the waifu crowd, a big error.

I actually was fine with her pre patch, but I do prefer her post patch and I don't want her personality to be changed further. Making her too friendly would kinda ruin her character

If an annoying female character was enough to get me to stop playing a game, Shadowheart would have had me uninstalling from hello, and I am a female gamer.

Shadowheart is almost viscerally repellent to me. I don’t think I’ve ever come to despise a character in any game so thoroughly so fast. I didn’t ask Larian to change her, though if she got turned into a bubbly airhead, she couldn’t possibly be more grating than she is now. Lae’zel is much more interesting.