So yes, those are some of the reasons that I enjoy Shadowheart’s romance aside from the very sweet, consistent affirmations that she offers to the player character. Hope this helps answer your question! And to connect this to the original topic, what I’ve listed are also some of the reasons that Shadowheart’s romance ultimately feels satisfying to me, despite its imperfections. Again, not saying I wouldn’t welcome more content, but I love what content there is.
Yes! Thank you so much for the detailed answer. It's interesting to me why other people like the romances they like. For Shart I have often read, that people assume her popularity is due to her being the most appealing to the straight male audience - and while that might be true to some extend, it seems much too simple an answer - and frankly a very unsatisfying one when taken as the only easy solution.
Epilogue spoilers anon:
Especially since her most happy ending is such a perfect rendition of the most idyllic lesbian cottage core fantasy, with pets and baking and cider making. =)
Oh, it’s definitely NOT all a bunch of straight guys driving those numbers. No way. I’m sure there’s a healthy coalition of straight/bi/pan men, gay/bi/pan women, and non-binary folk driving the numbers. You can take that to the BANK. It’s such a deeply queer game (where queerness is normalized, expected, and simply a matter of course) that I’m confident that it attracts queer people of all sorts. How could it not? So I think the supposition that it’s all straight guys going for Shadowheart because she’s the only “normal looking” girl or whatever, is just wrong.
Plus I’m pretty sure her voice actor would be sad if that was actually the case, because she intentionally tried to infuse some queerness into Shadowheart’s character. She wanted those flirtatious lines with Karlach, and she has said that Shadowheart is supposed to be portrayed as having a little bit of a crush on Karlach. And she’s made other queer-affirming comments in regard to Shadowheart, and has her own Twitch channel actually where she runs cute streams with her girlfriend who she met during the making of BG3.
And I think that the fact that Larian chose to showcase Shadowheart and Lae’zel, when giving a teaser of Shadowheart’s new Dark Justiciar kiss, shows just how much Shadowheart is regarded as a queer character and is appealing to queer people.
I mean I'm a straight male and I very much enjoy the cottagecore fantasy of my character and Shadowheart enjoying a simple life in the countryside together. It appeals to everybody.
Yes, I’m not excluding you by saying that Shadowheart and her endings could be appealing to queer people. I’m simply not speaking from the same perspective as you are, and I’m centering my perspective in my post.
