Romancing Shadowheart as a part charming bard, part cleric of Selune, resisting Dark Urge is the most satisfying arc I have ever played in a video game. Sparing the Nightsong, rejecting Bhaal and becoming a wholly new person, saving her parents and retiring to a lovely little cottage in the countryside with a barn full of animals, and house full of cats, and a garden? Like, could it get any more perfect than that? You’ve got two origin characters with similar struggles, torn between darkness and light, not remembering who they are exactly. Playing a Shadowheart Selunite redemption arc along with a Selunite Durge’s redemption arc is just incredible, trust me. It’s epic. Throw bard in there for flavor because who doesn’t love a witty little bard charming her way out of anyone suspecting her of being a serial killer (in her past life). But I digress.
Along with a lovely story arc on her own terms or alongside a resisting Durge, you have a lovable and extremely well written (and played) character! The writers who came up with, and the voice actor who delivered, some of Shadowheart’s wittiest lines (that are always good for a laugh) and her most earnest lines, knocked it right out of the park. In a huge way. I appreciate the depth, as well, that you see at so many points in the game. I’m thinking, for example at the very beginning, when Shadowheart approves of you being kind to a wild boar. In pretty much the first 30 minutes of the game, the “real her” is shining through almost instantly. So yeah, I love that character and she’s even better than Sebille from DOS2, who I also absolutely loved. The epilogue put her over the top in this regard.
With Lae’zel, I just want to repeat what I wrote on a thread titled “Lae’zel is the most unlikable character.” Let me have those comments linked to a much more positive thread. In all of my playthroughs, Lae’zel is an incredible, loyal friend with a spot-on dead-pan sense of humor… Tell me more about how the gith eat miniature space hamsters like Boo, lol. (Thanks to her voice actor, wonderful work.)
Plus she practically kills the netherbrain all by herself with a haste potion, and then just letting her loose to spin. She’s not somebody who lets you down. And I adore her. I’m not able to romance her because I have severe Shadowheart brainrot, as they call it. But Lae’zel is my second favorite character. We all see how she grows over the course of the game.
Then I chose to persuade her to stay in Faerun and figure out what she wants to do with her life, apart from Vlaakith and Orpheus. In the epilogue, she seemed so happy. She had made a lot of new friends with whom she was fighting against Vlaakith’s forces on the Sword Coast, liberating creches. And she was raising the kid from the gith egg as her son. She said that she was raising him to choose his own destiny (a scholar or whatever he wanted to be, not a warrior brutalized like Lae’zel had been). Just like she had been able to determine her own destiny. I was tickled to death. (Another theme of breaking generational trauma anyone? Astarion lovers can get behind that.)
Lae’zel is an absolute boss, one of the best characters I’ve ever seen in a video game (also, love you Shadowheart). Plus, it feels so GOOD when she greets you in the epilogue and calls you “old friend.” She is never not in my party. And I will never not gush about my favorite little green lizard.
Jaheira I also think deserves a lot of love. I wasn’t sure whether I liked her until I helped her rescue Minsc, and then whenever I would talk to her, she would say, “The cub speaks.” I thought that was so sweet and endearing. And to visit her house and see how playfully she interacts with her adoptive kids, and to hear her talk about her husband, was just lovely. Her personality as a tough, but fair and affectionate, “camp mom” of sorts is excellent.
Lakrissa and Alfira, they’re just adorable together and I can’t get enough of it. Their little chats together at the tiefling party, Last Light Inn, and atop the Elfsong Tavern are so cute. Same with Isobel and Aylin. It warms my heart. Two already great characters combine and create a sum even greater than its parts.
