Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart: Bad Writing

@wildelight


She literally has a character tag that says "Evil Cleric". WOG is she is evil.

I will have to admit that when I heard SH remark that "It felt good having helped the tieflings in the grove...." I was taken aback knowing that she worshiped Shar and just before she had mentioned Shar.

I'm also of the mindset of not being into everyone ready to ump me. After all I'm taking the approach of just playing the game through and trying out the various pc options with the various NPCs. not really interested in the relationship part. But if it should happen it happens

All that means is that she is a Cleric of an Evil deity.

She doesn't look like evil, rather neutral

I agree, despite worshiping an "evil" god, Shadowheart's Alignment seems closer to neutral. There are some bad things and some good things she supports, and there are some that she dislikes. Worshipping a certain deity isn't exactly the end all be all of alignment, and there seems to be more to her than just her Sharran Worship so we will probably have to wait and see how they deliver on the character hooks they presented before outright declaring she is a bad character.

Something Gale says about her sticks in my mind; he mentions she's got the potential to bloom into a beautiful flower, or shrivel into a black rose (or somesuch). I still wonder if that's not Larian going "You can flip her alightnment" or not, because pair it with other stuff such as how seemingly miserable she is when you side with the goblins...
I'm not sure. I certainly appreciate she's very closed off and secretive, as per shar's portfolio.

That is possible, being neutral she has the potential to go down to evil or rise as a good hero.
And yeah I appreciate how secretive she is, and her current personality is nice, standoffish but not too standoffish, she has good reason to be with this party and good reasons to keep secrets from the party without it feeling cheap or frustrating other than her worship choice being obvious to anyone who knows the Faerun pantheon.

John Gacy, one ofthose serial killers whose efferate homicides incided his name and memnory in the collective USE imaginary, was an active member of his community, he was liked by his neighbours.

And he is one of the examples of the fact that human nature is complex, one of the reasons the alignment system started to get old, in these days we have a more mature (or disilluded, or cynical, pick your preference) society, the old good clear and neat distictions doesn't appeal so much, was John Gacy acting when he involved in the life of his community in a way that made him likeable? Or did he really believed in what he was doing despite being a serial killer?

Maybe Shadowheart is acting, maybe she do believe in Shar and doesn't find so much of a contradiction in that moment of simpathy she felt for the thieflings.

Or, maybe, being pragmatic she understands that to show simpathy is the best course of action.

People need to watch her goblin party vs tiefling and judge for themselves that she's evil. There's nothing in the game indicating that she's evil. She becomes so heartbroken, conflicted when you kill the tiefling, but she is very happy when the tiefling wins and she doesn't even know why.

My guess is that she's actually Selune Cleric who got brainwashed into serving. She has no memories, and she said Shar saved her, but what if Shar brainwashed her into thinking that it's her instead of Selune? Even when looking at approval, she doesn't like wasting time but actions that are more helpful and benign would actually give her approval than most. She's more or less neutral leaning more toward good. When you do cruel actions, she tends to disapprove.

what does evil look like?

You played any EA game?

The first one but that still doesn't answer the question of what does evil look like? I've since many times in real life that a person looks like a sweet caring person and it turned out that they weren't what they seemed.

Feel like this game does the whole evil looking more straight forward, you have an evil looking pale vampire with Astarion, La'zael who looks stern, just based on appearance, those two would be judged more toward evil, but for people like Gale and Shadowheart, they have a softer look and more conventionally attractive. Not saying the former is ugly, but their facial expression and look are less friendly compared to the good alignment characters. Strangely enough, Shadowheart has become a lot more friendly, she smiles more post-patch. Their alignment in the game tends to be leaning more toward good based on the approval and their reaction at the goblin/tiefling camps. Even in other video games, the protagonist and his companies tend to be more on the conventionally attractive scale instead of shady or more different looking.

@Hilarian Astarion evil looking? He never came off that way to me in all honesty. There is an NPC in Skyrim during the assassins quest line that looks like an innocent sweet little girl by looking at her you'd never guess that she was an evil vampire

Its not strangely enough. They only changed SH because of complaints she wasnt 'friendly' enough, cos god forbid a character isn't for male consumption. Given that this and atleast two other threads still continue to be devoted to the issue, she'll probably be Aerie or bubbly no personality flirts with PC constantly by the time EA is over and then well, female gamers won't play the game.
SH writing was good, when the EA started it was brilliant. Her only problem is the vocal minority of players who dominate this forum wearing away everything well written about her to make her more appealing to their fantasies.
Every change made to appeal to this 'fans' creates inconsistencies and 'bad writing'.

If you can't handle Shadowheart at her pre-patch state you don't deserve her post-patch. They really did make her worse for the waifu crowd, a big error.

I actually was fine with her pre patch, but I do prefer her post patch and I don't want her personality to be changed further. Making her too friendly would kinda ruin her character

If an annoying female character was enough to get me to stop playing a game, Shadowheart would have had me uninstalling from hello, and I am a female gamer.

Shadowheart is almost viscerally repellent to me. I don’t think I’ve ever come to despise a character in any game so thoroughly so fast. I didn’t ask Larian to change her, though if she got turned into a bubbly airhead, she couldn’t possibly be more grating than she is now. Lae’zel is much more interesting.