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

I think that's right, I think that was the original idea but words evolve and it's become something of a catch all. And weird dynamic emerge. I always aim for kitchen table polyamory but I dated a relationship anarchist for a number of years. Was it a poly relationship? It was our own weird thing. But "poly" works in lieu of an essay.

But.. how do you come that conclusion? HOW is she up for an open relationship? The word poly or open is never even used in the game. You ask if she's up for ANY KIND of relationship with the other origin companions, and she says no because she wants YOU ALONE. If that somehow wasn't clear enough, then the following dialogue is: "In truth, I don't think I'd want to be your spare lover. I'd always want more of you than you'd have to spare. Better perhaps to bow out with dignity."

That doesn't just refute poly. That refutes open. She does not want to share you, casual or not. Case closed.

I'm just trying to justify her behaviour with all we have right now, I'm not implying this is true, because I too think that she acts out of character and I want pure monogamous relationship with her.
I'm just trying to point out that she is AT BEST monogamous that ok with open relationship. Not poly.

Thank you counselor. The judge has ruled against you.

It's already justified. By fact that it is inconsistent, which is a completely valid - albeit very unfortunate - justification. There is no other justification to be found. She's not okay with open, and definitely not okay with poly, but Halsin isn't even poly, so there's no such thing as a poly relationship in the game anyway.

KillerRabbit, I asked you something earlier and you haven't responded. I'm hoping you will now, as I'm curious to your thoughts on this.

If you solo romance Halsin, neither he nor SH show interest in one another. You can bring Halsin to the drow twins, with SH in your party, and he doesn't ask her to join, nor does she ask to be included. Now Halsin isn't interested in an actual relationship, so he's not a primary partner or a partner at all really. So why wouldn't SH be interested joining in here if it's just casual sex between everyone?

So they don't show interest in one another when you solo romance Halsin. Yet they suddenly show interest in one another when you try to solo romance SH? Even after you've rejected Halsin earlier he asks to join in? None of this makes any sense.

Thank you for proving my suspicions. I already reported you but I wasn't 100% sure until now.

I thought you were going to leave this thread? I didn't know that just meant you were going to ignore any sense of discussion while flooding it with posts about how you are poly. I would've gladly continued discussing things, but accepted you bowing out. You didn't do that, you decided to turn things petty.

Same question applies regarding Astarion, and any other companion that would at that point still be interested in casual sex. Lae'zel comes to mind - she will not go through her romance character development at all, so she should be very interested in a casual fling with Tav and Shadowheart. And both of those establish quite a decent relationship toward the end, yet this is never an option. Or even Karlach, after all, she's touch starved as heck. She'll take whatever she can get, and Shadowheart is definitely into her. Perfect opportunity for a one night stand, a nice threesome. Or fivesome with the drow twins. Doesn't happen.

We both know the answer, though.

Honestly I think we wont get whole rewrite to get fully monogamous SH. I think what I described is the best we can get probably(monogamous that ok with open relationship, if player wants it).

If nothing changes, you don't have to twist truths to justify it. It's a story. Inconsistencies happen. There is no such thing as perfect writing. See it for what it really is: an out of character optional interaction that doesn't define her character otherwise. If you start justifying it the way you are, you'll start seeing her that way, and that'll just ruin her character for you.

That's why it's a problem in the first place. Some people struggle way more staying immersed because they try to justify it and then just see her as someone she wasn't meant to be portrayed as. Which will just make the rest of her interactions more odd again, because she's suddenly back to her old writing. But she's not a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character, it's just a few inconsistent optional interactions in a 150 hour story.

I see this as the worst thing they could do if it's the only thing that's done because I don't see the non-Halsin interactions to be problematic. Some of them aren't ideal and some of them seem intentionally written to allow individual player calls on how to contextually read them but removing them just for the few people (in general, not pointed at anyone here) essentially saying "if it isn't done in a way that I find good enough don't do it at all" would just be destructive to the player experience for people who are okay with it even in a non-ideal state.

In a bigger picture sort of way it's so rare for high-budget games to even approach these dynamics that I think it's far better for the industry at large to allow them to make a couple mistakes (again, not including Halsin in that because his is quite major) learning how to portray it appropriately than it is to just discourage trying in the first place.

A lot of the people in the Halsin thread agree that there's issues/inconsistencies with both Halsin and SH.

They should just add two new characters that are actually written as poly from the start, with nothing open to interpretation. That way people can have a healthy, consistent polyamorous experience, without stepping on anyone else's toes.

I'll take a breather after this one because I've been posting a lot.

To me the issue isn't that it's been attempted, it's how it has been attempted. It should've been added from the ground up with an origin companion, not shoehorned in as optional inconsistent scenarios into the stories of companions that were already written a certain - different - way, while not having impact on said stories because that wouldn't feel right. As it stands I simply think it would take too much effort to make right, especially considering people already like the companions for who they canonically are right now, not necessarily who they would become, and it should instead be something they could add to their next game. Make it a learning experience rather than something forced to continue here and now. Of course, I have absolutely no say in any of this as this is just the opinion of a random (very opinionated) person on the internet, and they'll likely - if anything - make very minor changes at best.

But that won't stop me from enjoying discussing the topic, while having a sliver of hope that Larian is just built different than what I'm used to.

I personally agree with you on that only Halsin interactions are problematic, that's pretty much all I meant under "problematic interactions". Option pointed out by Netav (SH that is open for open relationship ONLY if player wants it) should work. There would still be arguments over how consistent it is over Acts 1,2,3. But at least then ultimately everyone gets what they want out of the romance story. If players want it they can open relationship. If they don't, SH won't suddenly try to open relationship (for Halsin or anyone else) on her own initiative and won't pressure players into anything.

P.S. To be clear I consider SH talking about her Halsin fantasies a part of "problematic Halsin interactions".

That's such a cheap, bandaid solution, though I'm sure it's the one they'll go with. God forbid they actually put in the time and work to provide new companions, who could actually be written as polyamorous, from the get go. People keep asking for more companions anyway, so why not do both at the same time?

No matter how you spin it, SH's behavior and dialogue are intended to be monogamous throughout her romance. She is inconsistent with the other stuff. So the only way to actually have consistent, logical writing is to either retcon her whole character and romance or scrap the other stuff with her.

They could create new companions specifically for a poly experience, if they actually cared enough to do so. But they'll take the easy way out I'm sure, if they even bother to do anything at all.

If they did it before release then there wouldn't be any problems. But at this point even if these new characters were added in some addon/dlc/update, completely removing SH being ok with including Halsin (on players initiative) would invalidate playthroughs of some players. And players shouldn't be punished for mistakes of the devs (imo).

There have been games that have had content removed from them after release. They would have to make the new companions interesting enough to make up for it and even offer other goodies. But it can be done; it just won't be.

Now I know Larian can't write worth shit though, so I won't be buying games from them anymore.

https://www.svg.com/146623/games-that-removed-controversial-content-after-release/

Also, Cyberpunk 2077, Destiny 2, Animal crossing, pokemon, call of duty, etc all remove content whenever they want.

My friend, I'm sure the mods will give your report all the attention it due. Bit of life advice: If you can't have discussion without calling for mom to bail out when you fail to persuade you should just avoid internet conversations.

I have shared your interpretation of that dialogue, you have shared yours. Your case is very, very weak.

And frankly this post confirms my theory - you are just offended by poly people. I haven't flooded anything - the fact that you think "oh my I have direct experience with this" is flooding confirms that.

Likewise, I thought you had closed your case? The judge has ruled against you. You are asking people to ignore the content of chapters 1 and 3 because of your misinterpretation of the dialogue at the end of chapter 2. Frankly, your interpretation is risible. You have imagined that you have "established" your point when you have simply repeated it ad nauseam.

Edit: I cant' comment on solo Halsin romance. I haven't tried it. Halsin doesn't interest me very much.

I haven't tried solo Halsin romance either, but many have and have commented on this in the Halsin thread. They have no reason to lie. Just because you haven't done it doesn't mean you can't comment on it. Humor me for a minute. Even if it were hypothetical, just imagine these two scenarios and do they make sense?

It looks like to me that you simply don't have anything to argue your point against when it comes to this. It doesn't fit your narrative so you simply ignore it. How convenient.

Everyone is bringing up that Shadowheart is fine with Tav cheating on her with Mizora and that is one of her ooc moments. I don't know about you guys, but to me that scene looked like she's very much not fine at all about it. I think you pretty much ignored the dialogue she has said: "In truth, I don't think I'd want to be your spare lover. I'd always want more of you than you'd have to spare. Better perhaps to bow out with dignity." The second sentence is the most telling that she wants you to herself, and is not okay with an open relationship or you being poly. But with Halsin for some reason that's all forgotten about.

No, if they wanted to make a poly character and allow you to be in a poly relationship with them, they shouldn't have done it with Shadowheart. In fact, they should have made a companion (besides Halsin) specifically for this kind of thing that's explicit about it so there wouldn't be any confusion or people feeling burned by it.