I look at it as more "everyday women with a variety of emotions who aren't here to serve you or entertain you" vs. "guaranteed to be Rule 34 fetishbait for people who haven't felt the warmth of another human in a long time."
I feel as though being dismissive and confrontational in a situation like this is a far more plausible reaction to the standard "save the princess, woe is me for I am frail" bullshit.
But I don't really have a dog in this race because I'm not interested in women anyway, nor am I particularly invested in video game romances in general.
I will say that post-patch Shadowheart feels "weaker" to me. She's lost her iron will and headstrong determination in how she interacts with me, and I liked how walled-off she was before.
I can only disagree, I think, that being standofish makes sense at all given the "we're all about to die horribly" situation. It makes a lot more sense to just get on with it. Any active pushing away is absurd if your head is about to pop open. The place of "romance" here is equally absurd, imo, which makes it part of a broader problem that you leave a UFO with a timebomb in your head but then start your first day of school. Like a weird fever dream.
So it's not smirky teenager vs. waifu. As I said before, I think both "versions" are equally fetishistic (which makes sense, because all characters in BG3 are designed to be fuckable as an obvious "goal"), and more than a little detached from the supposedly imminent *pop.*
Definitely agree with you and others that the way they reacted is not a serious fix.
