Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Shadowheart Romance and the Hidden Fetish - (Spoilers inside)

Again, she expressed openness to involving others at during the wine dialogue and if anything it seems consistent with a desire to be the primary in a poly relationship. She's happy to be with people who don't threaten her position at the top of the relationship hierarchy.

[quote=Netav]
Tav: "not wanting to share with others?"
Shadowheart: "Not right away"

Tav has to suggest hiring sex workers and then SH response is "well if we are going to involve others let's involve Halsin".

Again, she expressed openness to involving others at during the wine dialogue and if anything it seems consistent with a desire to be the primary in a poly relationship. She's happy to be with people who don't threaten her position at the top of the relationship hierarchy.

And the "she's not threatened anymore" is just 100% pulled out of thin air and is not even an argument. There's nothing that implies this. It is never mentioned. It's a pointless and baseless thing to assume.

I mean the line IS there and while you don't read it that way the line you just talked about it is also there to support it for people who do read it as implication/foreshadowing similar to the bare skin in the brambles line I brought up a few days ago being readable as an implication of familiarity with casual flings. It's not baseless, it's just not how you read it and it's fine to read it either way. Because either way, the result is determined by player choice in the game.

She does say "not tonight" to you asking to share.

And the "she's not threatened anymore" is just 100% pulled out of thin air and is not even an argument. There's nothing that implies this. It is never mentioned. It's a pointless and baseless thing to assume.

Then you can also justify Lae'zel being fine with it. She is the fastest one to have sex with you and it's completely casual. Same with Astarion, he'll have casual sex with you quite early.

You two are just blatantly ignoring character development. Something they do in act 1 is no longer relevant if it is written to be no longer relevant in act 2.

What I called baseless is the idea that she's not threatened by Halsin for some reason. NOTHING says that.

With the caveat that I'm new to the discussion and I've not read every post in this thread I'm inclined to agree with @Auric's post 100%
Right. And there are layers of meaning to this conversation since, one the surface, you are talking about wine but you are really discussing the possibility of a relationship so "not tonight" is really about the bounds of the relationship. And a died in the wool monogamist would say something like "I think this bottle only has enough for two glasses"


But there are two problems with making the assumption that this is foreshadowing to her being open to share.
1. She only drinks wine with you and has a very romantic kiss with you that has her completely infatuated with you afterward. There is no sex sharing implied.

You are right that it's just . But but "no, not tonight" is not "no, not ever" and that's significant in the context of the conversation.

Really? I think it's in the choice of partners - the sex workers are no threat her status as primary. Neither is Halsin who seem like something of a relationship anarchist.

I'm quoting you more as a jumping point, most of this isn't directed at you. While that's generally become true of the topic there are definitely a couple people that have been very frequently vocal about how they they don't accept Shadowheart being read as anything but monogamous (I saw one person repeat that "we determined she's just monogamous and the rest isn't canon" several times even in other threads). The interactivity IS there and should remain there though, and I see a lot more fetishizing of that interactivity from the people calling it pornographic who can simply choose not to make the choices that trigger that content than I do from the game itself (barring Halsin's totally inappropriate interjections and the general state of his content in Act 3 which most people seem to all agree is very bad). The closest the game gets to pornographic is the Minthara goblin camp scene and that has entire other types of gratuitous fantasy fulfillment and moral problems tied into it (which is referring to a lot more than the grove stuff you have to do to get the scene). A scene being very sexual, or a character opening up about their sexual interests is simply not the same thing as being fetishistic or pornographic. This is true of movies too, lots of sexual content can be depicted without it being pornographic.

Being poly and sex involving more than two people in general are only fantasy fulfillment or a fetish for people that fantasize about it or fetishize it. They're otherwise kinda just normal things that can and do happen in real relationships and it's actually truly a nice thing that a game like this somewhat allows people to express that instead of the greater industry constantly shying away from that aspect of human life. It absolutely could have been better developed but the dev cycle ended up being what it is, so that's unfortunate. I've said before I don't read any inconsistency with Shadowheart's character and more specifically I think triggering some of those lines later in the game because you genuinely want your Tav to make those choices can and should change the context of how you understood things she's said prior the same way you'd do in real life when you learn more about a person you become close with, but specifically for that Tav. After all if you don't make those choices you don't learn those things so your read of the characterization won't have a reason to change, and simply knowing the content exists also should not change your read of the character, especially if you're never going to make those choices anyway. Sure, Shadowheart can absolutely be monogamous. But she can also be open to poly pending your choices and how an individual reads the results. There's a more involved discussion about characters being a little too malleable based on player choice and "show don't tell" (the game does show if you pursue it far enough so I don't understand that particular thing as an argument against it) but most of the time this stuff just won't be perfect and we have to be able to deal with that.

But nah Halsin in Act 3 absolutely needs a revamp, I just don't talk about it in this thread beyond that basic acknowledgement cuz the greater conversation about that already has its own thread.

Chill with the accusatory tone, man. For real. It's also a bit weird to imply what people have said and done in the past as part of getting to know them just stops mattering in a discussion involving your belief that the two are inconsistent. If it doesn't matter then the supposed inconsistency doesn't matter and the discussion is pointless.

My bad on misreading that it was about Halsin. I thought you were talking more generally about her characterization.

Because it's not the case. I can't make it easier than just saying that things that aren't there.. aren't there.

I wouldn't be opposed to a longer discussion of a poly relationship with her but in video games I assume there are lots of conversations that are happening off screen. You also haven't discussed the possibility of remaining monogamous, right? But you are assuming that that's the sort of relationship she prefers.

I wouldn't be opposed to having the discussion gated behind Tav's decision to hire the sex workers but, again, I'm surprised that people feel so strongly about this issue. I always read SH as poly, Lae'zel as a free agent and Gale as a monogamist.

Lets assume a companion says "oh I'm up for an open relationship" in act 1. As the story goes on, they fall in love with you. In act 2, they'll say "nevermind, I'm actually not up for that, I didn't expect to love you as much as I apparently do". To then have them suddenly be okay with it again in act 3 is inconsistent, even if they were okay with it in act 1. Unless they stops loving you as much. Which needs to be mentioned, implied, written down.

I always read SH as poly

Nobody's assuming she prefers that relationship. She says she prefers that in act 2. Never does she change her stance on that, except according to you, offscreen. And for some reason only for these two interactions. After that she's all back to being mono for the rest of her main story in act 3.

I think the flaw in your argument is the assumptions that loving relationships = monogamous ones. Poly relationships are loving relationships - that's why the latin and greek are smashed together poly-amory / multiple-love

So she loves you and is open to being with other people who will share nicely.

It doesn't stop mattering, but like I said in the post above, it shows that they've changed throughout the story.

Lae'zel will have sex with you casually in act 1 and says it's nothing more than that. She doesn't care if you bang Astarion on the side. Lae'zel in act 2 falls in love with you and wants you for herself. That implies character development. It shows she has changed. To then have her be okay with you having a relationship with Halsin in act 3 all of a sudden and say "well, in act 1 she was okay with it?" is ignoring that character development she went through. That's what I meant.

Similarly, Shadowheart flirts with you in act 1 and while she declines attempts at making it open at the party, she evidently didn't flat out say "no". However, she does flat out say "no" in act 2. Therefore, the act 1 interaction is replaced by her character development, so it can't be used as an argument for her saying yes in act 3.

I think people in this thread are assuming that SH prefers monogamous relationships. Yet no conversation about monogamy takes place on screen and three poly relationship dialogues do happen on screen. So . . .

I literally do not understand this and I see it so many times when this topic is brought up else where. Have you done her romance? It is all about you and her she will never, and I mean NEVER, bring up anything about opening it to somebody else. She talks about wanting to spend her life with YOU, wanting kids with YOU, going and living with her parents in secluded cottage with YOU. If she's poly why doesn't she ask you to open the relationship? Compare it to Halsin the second you "romance" him he is immediately asking you to bring somebody in with him. Or even the Drow twins scene if you try to do it with somebody else and you're not romancing her she doesn't try to get involved. I legitimately see nothing about her that says she's poly until you get to act 3 and the complete 180 is pulled with, conveniently, the character she just happens to have the same writer as.

I think the flaw in your argument is the assumptions that loving relationships = monogamous ones. Poly relationships are loving relationships - that's why the latin and greek are smashed together poly-amory / multiple-love

So she loves you and is open to being with other people who will share nicely.

I think people in this thread are assuming that SH prefers monogamous relationships. Yet no conversation about monogamy takes place on screen and three poly relationship dialogues do happen on screen. So . . .

I think people in this thread are assuming that SH prefers monogamous relationships. Yet no conversation about monogamy takes place on screen and three poly relationship dialogues do happen on screen. So . . .