Originally Posted by Killerrabbit
Shadowheart had the same potential but Patch 3 kinda ruined her. She went from being a tough nut to crack, the person who lets very few people past her armor, to someone who gets gushy and cuddly after a night of kissing.

Notice how Shadowheart's meme economy has fallen while Astarian's has risen? Before the SH changes people were making goth-shadowheart / shadowheart disapproves memes. Now that she's gotten so darn agreeable people have turned their attention to the traumatized vampire spawn.

Originally Posted by AvatarOfSHODAN
Is that a fair assessment though? Patch 3's disapproval change was for all the characters, which implied that the even the developers felt that the gateway to getting to know the characters was a tad too narrow. It was something even said in their recent interview. Hell, even Patch 4 added reading Astarion's mind, which made me sympathize for him in a scene I had otherwise read him as wholly manipulative before. The patch didn't ruin her.

I think it's more than just the gating, it's a) the change of facial expressions and b) dialogues on the day after. I see SH as the nod to Viconia. Both clerics of Shar, same dark-seeking-the-light theme, same divide between the persona and the private. If you played the Viconia romance she spends about half of it trying push you away -- every other conversation ends with an insult. The last thing she says before abandoning her hard shell is "in trust lies death" apparently a drow saying and a foreshadowing since your romance does lead her to her death.

Yes, SH was always intended to be Tsundre but after patch 3 she lost the on-again / off-again quality of the Viconia romance and Shadowheart dropped the hard shell waaay to easily and waaay too quickly.

This is a crisis of faith story. Shar isn't about hope and new beginnings -- that's Lathander. Shar is about loss, pain and hidden resentments. What do you do when you worship loss and find hope?

Pretty sure the answer isn't: spend the next day smiling and flirting.