Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart is maddening!

Sorry if this has been already addressed elsewhere, there are a *lot* of posts to look through!

Shadowheart's pingponging through values/expectations is driving me up the wall more and more with each playthrough. She starts self-interested and focused on finding a cure - reasonable!

Then in the druids' grove,


Even if it's not explicit through approval notification or dialog, if it earns an inspiration with her face on, that counts as her being down with it. (Side note: I think inspirations earned by companions should count toward companion approval.)

Then Shadow's all business again, until


Neat! Maybe there's some character development going on here? After all, you've likely rested a handful of times at this point, and with the exception of La'zel, everyone else seems pretty comfortable with not bee-lining for a cure. But the next time you suggest doing anything selfless, like helping look for the next missing kid, dun DUN DUUUN! ShAdOwHeArT DiSaPpRoVeS

She seems very uneven, which is frustrating because she's one of my favorite companions. It always feels weird to me in these games when you've got something super pressing to deal with, but you want to do the sidequests. I really like that not focusing on the main quest here is justified in the party's situation, with the brain worms' effects manifesting in a manner markedly different from other infected; it helps alleviate that "why am I doing these things?" feeling. And if La'zel or Astarion aren't down with that, fine, that's totally in character, but at least for me, I feel like after doing a number of helpful things for others, and her responding positively, I'd expect Shadowheart to join team Tav-Gale-Wyll.

I feel like the disapprovals and approvals of Shadowheart fit the fact that she is on one side a good character, and likes when something good, or avoiding unnecessary bloodshed is made. But on the other hand, she sees herself as Shar's disciple,

She's tsundere. Once you accept that, everything she does makes sense. "i'm a evil goth girl (please love me). I hate you (really, please just accept me) etc, etc." Don't overthink her.

All I'm hearing you describe is a wömen

Hmmmm.... is it why BG3 feels off to me? Because they use anime stereotypes? I am unable to argue either way, as I know too little of anime, but now when you mention Astarion would fit IMO anime setting far better then a western RPG in a Tolkienish setting.

Tsundere is an anime word for a universal trope

I think she just likes subtle actions rather than overt ones. Its all about the approach, not the actual outcome. That’s how it seemed to me.

Of course, I am not trying to romance her, so I didn’t pay a great deal of attention. I am much more interested in her githyanki object than her…but that is because I an not a huge fan of super emo chars.

Of course…she and Asterion may grow on me. It has happened before in other RPGs.

(DA2’s Fenris tho…uggg…never)

Shadowheart is actually really consistent. She likes choices that will save the party time (a lot), and she doesn't like decisions that will slow the party down. She also cares if Tav is a trustworthy person and cares about who Tav is willing to trust.

this is the correct response lol. shadowheart felt like the most realistic person in the party, acted how a girl IRL would. is it maddening? yes. but it's how they are my friend

Can someone please explain what that word means? I see it being used to describe Shadowheart, but I have been out of the anime fan scene for many years and the word wasn't around/popular when I was an anime fan.

Tsundere, like most things can mean different things. The gist of it is cold and warm. Cold on the outside, warm when you get to know them. It's not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of people love tsundere characters. The stereotype "it's not like i like you or anything, stupid" is a common quote attributed to tsundere characters.

Shadowheart's gimmick is that things are more than they seem. Reading what's under the surface and deception and all that. I read her as neutral, and neutral evil in particular due to her Shar worship.

Shadowheart seems to have superficial approval and then underlying approval, and depending on how you play this can amount to one of a few things:
- play evil and she will seem fairly consistent in approving you not going out of your way to save people, though you will discover along the way shes not as onboard about letting people die in front of her as you thought
- play good and she will seem wildly inconsistent in disapproving your heroics one moment and then approving them in the next
- play pragmatic good/crafty good and you'll get Shadowheart approving of your good deeds without the initial disapproval

I think this makes her interesting and it goes well with speculation on who she really is before she got her memory wiped.

It's a girl who puts up a tough front because they're afraid of intimacy or have never experienced it before. They go from abrasive to affectionate.

that handsome devil Boblawblah has it but I'll add
It's become pretty hackneyed in modern media, so a lot of the connotation when using it now is coupled with tons of trashy anime.

TVTropes page

Personally I like the conflicted character motivations I just wish she was consistent in how she portrays herself. Initial meeting she's currently pretty friendly and pretty much all interactions outside of just directly speaking to her.

Then you speak to her and a lot of the options she's the opposite, rude, quick to get defensive. For example the asking about her one, she immediately gets defensive (which is fair, fits her character down the line) but in a very rude and confrontational way, then no matter what response you give she'll judge the shit out of you and tell you to do one.

though currently earning her approval doesn't change this though I'm sure it will in the future.


I feel like if you want her to be the bitchy snarky character have her introduction and dialogue response to plot be that way no? Like I know shes bitchy towards Lazel but honestly who wouldn't be, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her either.

It's a trope coming from anime for a girl that likes you but tries her hardest to hide it. Typically being atrociously ineffective at it.
The joke usually go with mockery-quotes like "S-stupid, I'm not doing this because I like you or anything", etc.

Honestly it has fuck nothing to do with Shadowheart, which if anything may fall a bit on the sassy/smug side of thing. I have no idea why people seem so fond of throwing around this line "Shadowheart is a tsundere" as if it was particularly insightful. It isn't.

Outside of approval, there is a jarring element to SH where her newer, softer dialogue sometimes clashes with the tone and old context of her older, more snarky dialogue. Whether it's just because I was ok without the softer dialogue being upfront before or just can't shake the changed context, but it does feel a little jarring when you get the new and then old dialogue back to back.

Also, a lot of Shadowheart's one-to-one dialogue is approval sensitive - especially in the beginning before reaching the Grove.
If you don't save her from the pod, but avoid any disapproval with her in the beginning, she's pretty trusting of you despite that.
If you do save her from the pod, but get a bit of disapproval from recruiting Lae'zel, she will be suspicious of you. It can feel very topsy turvy in the beginning if you don't know that approval is what's changing her tone and not whether or not you saved her. It's still a bit odd though because the only way to get disapproval from SH that early on is to recruit Lae specifically while SH is in the party.

She is a selfish, annoying, despicable girl . Not every evil character has to be a murderhobo chaotic evil.Not to mention, this might be tied to her lore. Stop playing the first act over and over and wait for the final game, her ''good willed side'' may make more sense then. Maybe she is fond of childen, maybe she can be redeemed, maybe she was forced into shar, maybe she was a disciple of Selune or Lathander before, maybe she has two personnalities, we don't know. Its too early to judge.

It's a portamanue of japanese: 'tsun-tsun' (cranky) and dere-dere (affectionate). A tsundere character (usually female) that's initially cold/standoffish or even outright hostile to (usually) one specific person, but is actually an affectionate person inside and eventually warms to them. It's a very popular trope in japanese media, hence it's japaense term has wound up in western culture. It has since mutated into someone who really likes someone else, and does their absolute best to hide/deny it.


Shadowheart's a textbook example of the original incarnation, with the pod-freeing bit essentially setting where the slider is between the tsun and the dere-if you don't free her from the pod and then romance her, she's the definition of a tsundere towards Tav. She even has a selection line where she voices worry at how she's developing feelings which I believe is tied to her approval with Tav.
Ignoring tav and focusing on tieflings, she tries to keep herself emotionally detatched but her empathy of being a street urchin struggling to survive makes her resonate with the children. Regardless of the fate the tiefling refugees ultimately have, Shadowhearts reaction shows that undernearth the cool exterior is someone who cared about them.

As an aside, assuming she becomes outwardly, obviously affectionate and caring towards a romanced Tav in the full game (HA!), Lae'zel is the more modern depiction of a tsundere, where it's become outright abusive. Tsunderes arent bad, of course. No trope is, I mean look at Astarion, who is (to me anyway) a textbook 'byronic hero'; a walking prettyboy that's 'mad, bad, dangerous to know,' and someone I wouldn't want to leave alone with woman (or man) in a room. He's *adored* by twilight fans females and gentlemen with a more masculine taste in partners. Wyll is rocking the "Hero with a dark secret", ect.


That's very interesting, I hadn't noticed that.

Don't see her as particularly maddening, more like tragic/sad, but in not a very interesting due to the fact that she's maybe the most openly clueless of the lot about her identity and that the player seems to be saddled with responsibility/power to influence her path greatly. Either damning her to darkness or saving her to light etc. But this also means it makes sort of sense, that her approvals are inconsistent.

She's somewhat annoyingly familiar, though, as she seems like a more hopeless/enslaved version of Sebille from DA2. The main difference between the characters being the fact that, while the (also amnesiac) Sebille was from the beginning on a revenge trip against her former Master, SH is subservient to her Master(Shar) and treats her subjugation, and usage as a disposable cannon fodder in suicide missions, as an expression of love.

Despite her empowering smug sassiness, the plotline seems to be geared to recreate the most annoying parts of the DOS2 Sebille plotline(which you could sidestep if you played as her), where PCs guidance/powerplay basically decides whether or not she(and possible friendship or romance with her) is devoured by her Mommy/Daddy issues. Meaning, if you don't deprogram her from the Sharrite cult, any rapport you'll be building with her is likely just tantamount to accumulating enough worldly affectations to qualify as a sacrifice for Shar, the mistress of loss and forgetting, who to my understanding, also basically objects to the notion of life on Faerun.