Shadowheart is actually way nicer, and I seriously don't get complaints about her being evil. She doesn't do evil things either, she approves of good deeds, and in her romance scene she is incredibly vulnerable.
She's a cleric of Shar. That makes her evil. Period.
The way Astarion is technically evil alignment wise, yes. I think people mean, though: "This is not the real Shadowheart. My proof is that she approves of too many good actions. Her true self is bleeding through the brainwashing and memory implant."
You're arguing for the state of her, some people are arguing for "the real Shadowheart". That's two different things. You're right, but their theory also has support in data mining and what not.
Well, that "real SH" you want to talk about is entirely dependant on what any individual player does in their game. You may make her "good" in your game whereas I may make her "super-evil" in mine. So exactly which of those is the "real SH"?
The only SH we all can talk about and make observations about is the default SH that Larian gives us, the SH as she is when we first meet her. And that SH, as a Sharran cleric, is evil.
I have no stake in this, so there is no "you". Again: you're arguing for the state of her. Some people are talking about the Shadowheart that wasn't brainwashed. See it as mud on a white car. Is the car brown? Yes. Is the car's original state brown, or the one it's likely to revert to? No.
Similarly, did Shadowheart chose to be Sharran? No. Does she know what Shar truly stands for? No. Can she be witnessed committing evil? No. You cannot prove SH is evil, as much as you cannot prove SH is not evil. There is no right of wrong answer on her alignment, but different systems of evaluation. It's not as straightforward as the consequences of being a vampire spawn.
