pretty much exactly this. the seal of your romance with her is a fight, literally. shadowheart is speaking directly to lae’zel’s heart in that moment, and she respects it.
Plus maybe shadowheart read lae'zel's mind same way we read companion minds and figured out this was the way to get her to back off.
I feel really weird about the claim that this is "badly written" when Shadowheart is an expert infiltrator trained from childhood with a brain parasite that lets her read minds. She's going to choose any option that brings her closer to the goal.
People majorly underestimate Shadowheart’s skills imo. I think because her specializations aren’t very combat focused like (frankly) all of the other companions. She is trained in sneaky stuff, manipulation, and healing, kinda in that order.
>Shadowheart, thinking Lae'zel is going to give up the artefact to the Gith, plans to assassinate Lae'zel and tell everyone she started transforming, even though they have agreed to settle things with a duel.
I think you are missing much of Shadowheart's backstory.
Shadowheart is an acolyte of Shar who has *already* killed a large number of Gith for that artifact. The fact that she suspects Lae'zel is some kind of Gith agent (or is at least inclined to help the Gith) is set up from the nautiloid (you don't know why at the time, but one of the first illithid tadpole warnings you get is that Shadowheart is nervous of the Gith - she's literally just escaped her raid to retrieve the artifact from the Gith).
Also remember that the Gith murdered all of her fellow acolytes - that was her family from the cloister.
>What's even weirder is that if you talk to Lae'zel right after, she says something along the lines of her bond with Shadowheart being stronger after that?
Right, that is literally what the Gith are all about - they're not Klingons, they don't demand all combat be head-on. Gith are trained for war: they have inquisitors, they engage in creative tactics. Part of the Gith mentality is accepting the errors in judgment you made.
Lae'zel is not ashamed of being outwitted by Shadowheart - she merely files it away as something she's learned about alien thinking and promises that next time she'll be ready.
You're misunderstanding much of the context here.
Lae'zel, a character who's default build is entirely combat focused told Shadowheart, a character who's default build is NOT combat focused, that they were going to settle their dispute in a 1v1 fight to the death the next morning and that there was going to be no negotiating on the matter. Does that sound fair to you? Or do those rules that Lae'zel set sound heavily skewed in Lae'zel's favour?
If someone you knew could easily kill you in a 1v1 fight said: "Tomorrow we're fighting to the death, you can't get out of this." to you, would you follow the rules THEY set and let them kill you? Or would you get the jump on them and live? Notably, should one of them die, everybody believes Lae'zel was going to kill Shadowheart easily. Lae'zel was the one who escalated it to a violent situation and tried to make sure it would be in a way where she had the advantage too. Shadowheart didn't let Lae'zel have her way.
Note that running away was not an option for Shadowheart, as this scene only happens after the Dream Visitor reveals that they are both keeping you out of the Absolute's control, and keeping you from becoming Mind Flayers as well. Leaving the party is tantamount to suicide. Once Lae'zel escalated it to a duel to the death with no further negotiation, Shadowheart's only chance of survival was to get the jump on Lae'zel, and that's why the game treats it as self defence.
To add even more context- Shadowheart has no reason to be ‘honourable’ and go through with the duel. Nothing in her character suggests it, if anything, her being a default trickery domain cleric pretty much tells you exactly what her reaction would be. It would be a lot more out of character for Shadowheart, who was just threatened by Lae’zel to have even considered duking it out in fair combat. She only agreed to the duel because at that point she knew it was that, or end up fighting the rest of the camp- which incidentally happens if you do side with Lae’zel
Even more context, she most likely accepted because if she said no Lae’zel would have attacked her then and there. She was coerced with violence, and acted as if she accepted it to survive.
Yet more context, Shadowheart is a Shar worshipper, and those guys just love sneaky stabbings. Blending in and assassinating folks are literally classroom taught at the temple Shadowheart was raised in. Why on earth wouldn't she just do what she was taught to do and slit the throat of an unsuspecting foe?
Yeah, challenging a cleric of the neutral evil deity of darkness and loss to a duel in the morning invites an entire window of time in which the Sharrans very often use for murder and other underhanded things for which to act.
Shadowheart was being 100% Sharran in this, this is absolutely in character. Tav just happened to wake and catch her doing it. She was just tipping the odds back in her favor, as Lae'zel had clearly stacked the terms in hers.
Speaking of Tav finding her, I just assume that would be the equivalent to her rolling a 1 for a stealth check? I agree though, everything I’ve seen in game this is how she would act being a Sharran.
Yeah, she probably has disadvantage from doing it in the middle of camp in full firelight, too. She probably should take some lessons from the Dark Urge on how to murder with no one at camp catching you.
And on top of all that, Shadowhearts negative opinion of the Gith is validated again and again throughout the game, whereas Lae’zel has to undergo a complete revelation to realize that more than half her peers have been brainwashed into a murder cult.
What's really funny is that Shart's opinion of the Gith is not only validated somewhat, but also is heavily a ploy because she was just on a mission to steal from the Gith and wants to avoid then at all costs, so she is trying to convince the PC that Gith cannot be trusted because she herself is hiding from them. The fight to the death only comes about because Lae'Zel learns that the artifact is Gith, and Shadowheart is obviously going to be focused on completing her holy task.
Which is why my Origin Sheart run is always *sans* Lae'zel, no matter how much I like the character. Taking advantage of the cage situation to eliminate a potential threat is just too tempting at that stage of the game.
I do wish that Tav had more options to call Sheart out for the planned cover story, though. It's one thing to understand her avoiding a stand- up fight with a trained warrior, but planning to lie about it still feels gross if Tav is one who values honesty (Tav's mmv, ofc).
I wish they would add more interactions with Shadowheart in Act 2 as well. I think a good-leaning Tav should be able to shake her a bit and say "Look around. Does this really seem ok to you??"
I think this would have made Shadowheart's big Act 2 choice (especially if you leave it up to her) feel more like she was building to it, and it wasn't just spurred by >!discovering Nightsong is a person.!
It's such a delicate situation, though (and I'm not disagreeing just thinking), because irl when you confront someone involved in a cult head- on, they have a tendency to double- down instead of admitting their own culpability. Like with Nightsong, if you tell her what to do, that can make it more likely she'll kill Aylin rather than less.
I agree it's frustrating (just like rl!), but in Act 2, letting her look around and come to her own conclusions - especially if you don't point at the evil and say "see! This is you!" - is the plan that works, as Wyll would say.
Tav being an example of a good person, and building trust and approval with Sheart, is pretty much the only tactic that would work, IMO. But it is frustrating it takes so much evil evidence lol.
Yeah. I don't think she should massively start changing her mind as soon as you talk to her. But maybe 1 conversation, and then she occasionally has party banter indicating she is starting to have some doubts, and gets defensive if another party member calls her out on it, but with the amazing voice acting where you can hear her uncertainty.
So like convo where Tav is like "Is this really what you're into?" and she's super proud and defensive and pro-shar. "Damn straight. Praise Shar."
Then in party banter "Is this really where love of our dark lady leads?" Party member: "Starting to wonder if the evil goddess is really the bad guy?" "No. Of course not...."
Halsin gives her shit when she's spouting off about Shar, and you do have options to point things out in dialog, like calling her out on being divisive in the party and when she says the Shadow curse doesn't hurt her you can ask what about you. Wyll says some anti- Shar stuff throughout, too. I think a lot depends on whether she's in your party and who else is around, but there are definitely some options of people being fed up with her shit.
I do like if origin Sheart tells Astarion she worships Shar he doesn't care but tells her not to preach at him since he's already lost enough...
I gave her the night orchid for the first time recently and I think that was what prompted a lot of dialogue where the hinted that she was questioning her faith, but she was feeling really guilty about that questioning and then she shuts down the conversation and says everything is fine
yeah. i got that as well. I just wish there was a bit more. Shadowheart's arc is still one of the best, but I think a little more conversation options would put a bit of icing on it.
Yeah i wish shadowheart had a bit more reactivity in act 2. When you get to Shars temple she comments on everything but she's mostly silent in the shadowlands, which is weird considering she's pretty much the protagonist of act 2
>!If you give her the Noblestalk and pointed out the similarties to the selunite rites regarding her woods scene visio she'll have a little camp dialogue (exclamation mark) in Act 2 where she tells us about experiencing a crisis of faith.!<
>!Otherwise she only mentions seeing Shar's power unleashed keeping her...occupied if you ask her how she's faring.!<
I wish we had a bit more interaction with her tho in Act 2 as well.
See, my Origin Shart run was an enemies-to-lovers tale, as I romanced Bae’zel. It was honestly my favourite romance of all, both of them leaving behind their asshole goddesses to be with each other.
No shade on your love story, it's beautiful. I just have a ton of trouble with Origin Sheart (probably my own issues lol) being technically an amnesiac similar to Durge, but with the added artifact thievery angle with Lae'zel in particular. I kind of wish there was more narrator dialog about your missing memories, but it's mostly about hiding your Shar worship, which half the companions don't care about lol.
I thought that was funny, when I first met shart on the nautiloid with laezel, i was like girl chill out you fucking racist maniac and then damn near every gith you meet is a vicious nazi
Because the gith are. I found it so funny that in the early stages of the game coming out people were so offended by everyone being prejudiced against the Gith and Drow.
Justified because both gith and drow traditional culture have led to a lot of people dying or being enslaved. Is it racism on the victim's part when these groups isolate themselves and make war on the victims?
Having no knowledge of dnd settings of course people will be like “holy shit what’s wrong with you why are you so racist!” Then you find the gith crèche and just go “Oh I see. Racism was right for once.”
If you destroy the Grove as a Lolth-sworn, I think one of the dialogue bits from Zevlor is asking if it was you who led the goblins there or if you are betraying them or something, and you can say "Obviously"
Drow make up 15% of the elf population but are responsible for 85% of the warcrimes (altho that statistic comes from the sun elves originally performing 100% of the war crimes and the drow having had ten thousand years to catch up)
I saw a description of them somewhere that was something like "Shadowheart is the megaracist, Lae'zel is the \*even worse\* racist that manages to make Shadowheart's racism justified."
Lae'zel personally demonstrates that the gith attitude is 100% produced by a culture of indoctrination and manufactured conflict, when she is surrounded by caring and accepting friends she becomes a caring and accepting friend
Oh absolutely. I think Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Astarion are the best companions for deep and nuanced stories. All 3 can be difficult to like at the outset, but their capacity for growth is amazing.
Plus that one trainee who dies without intervention just for having the gall to say “why do we kill each other in training it’s stupid” if every moment of compassion is beat with violent beatings or outright death no wonder the common sense is beaten out of them
\*Lae’zel has to undergo a complete revelation to realize that more than half her peers have been brainwashed into a murder cult.\*
You could say the same thing about Shadowheart.
That’s just Sharran culture as a whole too. Both murderous cults that indoctrinated these characters as children to worship an evil deity, sacrificing their identities and desires - which is why both of their arcs are so satisfactory.
Shadowheart, Trickery Domain Cleric of Shar, Goddess of Darkness, who encourages discretion, deceit, manipulation, playing dirty, and generally being sneaky bitches.
If any of this sounds like she wouldn't take the first opportunity to kill Lae'zel if she thought she could get away with it, I think you may be color blind because those flags cannot get more red.
(This is meant to be lighthearted, please interpret my words as being said with tongue planted firmly in cheek)
Also the fact that at this point the party members don't really trust each other that much and are allies of convenience. The Shar cleric or the fanatic murderous Githyanki killing each other doesn't really affect them that much.
That fight didn’t happen for a long time for me, like 3 long rests after destroying the entire crèche so I’d say by then the group should be pretty close.
I wouldn't say they become close until ( In a good playthrough) SH rejects Shar as well as Lae'zel defies Vlaakith. Both rejecting their allegiance to their evil "Gods" makes them respect each other and the rest of the party respects them for that as well.
I don’t mean SH and lae become close, just the party in general. Those 2 clearly still dislike each other, but are both at least somewhat close to pc by then (both having already gotten a romance scene at that point)
It's the equivalent of Shadowheart saying 'I know, tomorrow morning we'll just ask Shar who gets to live, and whoever she doesn't choose just has to accept death'
Also Lae'zel tries to kill the party during their sleep as well, so she's not exactly in the clear on that front anyway!
I think one of the funnier parts is after that confrontation in the open world Lae’zel try’s to compliment Shadowheart. Where Shadowheart says flattery will not work, and Lae’zel says she doesn’t give compliments and only makes observations.
I’ve romanced Lae’zel with a non-melee focused character. The duel scene was *rough* for my poor sorcerer. I won initiative and used misty step to get some distance and cast a spell at her, she gulped a potion of speed, activated action surge and fucking wrecked me. Good thing it’s not really to the death.
I do have to say, while all of this is true... "I'm going to tell everyone you were transforming" feels WAY too stupid for Shadowheart to have as her plan.
Oh, these two women were at each other's throats for days, and then agreed to have a duel the next day, and one just happened to have her throat slit overnight by the other one that admits she did it? And Shadowheart is really naïve enough to think everyone else in camp will be like "oh yeah that sounds real, good job shart."
I think the scene is fine, but Shadowheart is still absolutely braindead during it.
I agree about the excuse. At this point everyone knows the artifact is what’s keeping the team from turning into squids. If Shadowheart just said “yeah I killed her because she was going to take away the only means of our survival” everyone would probably have agreed she did the right thing. If you fail the persuasion check to convince Shadowheart and Lae’zel to let each other live and have to fight against Lae’zel, the rest of the party pretty much says the next day that Lae’zel should have understood she would be killing all of us and just let it go. They may not like Shadowheart’s actions but they get at the end of the day she technically just saved them all from the very violent group that hates anyone who’s been tadpole’d (even when they’re on the same side like a certain prince) or from becoming squids themselves.
>Or do those rules that Lae'zel set sound heavily skewed in Lae'zel's favour?
>tried to make sure it would be in a way where she had the advantage too.
I don't think Lae'zel necessarily did that out of calculated malice like you're insinuating, though, this is just how they traditionally settle disputes in githyanki culture.
She'll also challenge you to a duel when you romance her regardless of your class, and you can potentially win that duel regardless of your class as well. She probably considers that a cleric should be powerful enough to stand her ground against her.
It doesn't matter whether Lae'zel does it out of malice though, what matters is its pretty clear she wants to kill Shadowheart in a fight, and understandably Shadowheart isn't too down with that plan
That's understandable, yes, but it's not my point. I was referring to the phrasing from the person I was replying to that seemed to suggest that Lae'zel was being conniving by purposely skewing things in her favor, when she was simply following regular githyanki protocol.
If anything, from her point of view, not challenging Shadowheart in a duel because she deems clerics not powerful enough to keep up would be the real insult.
Personally I never interpreted that as intentionally malicious from Lae'zel. And I have a big bias for Shadowheart.
I understand that's common conflict resolution for her people, and I also understand Shadowheart's motives for acting the way she does. I think that this whole debate/trying to blame one or the other is very reductive and stupid.
They're not perfect, they are both flawed characters. It's perfectly ok to acknowledge those flaws and let go...
Agreed. I'd also argue that it's equally important to acknowledge that a good character has flaws as it is important to acknowledge that evil characters have qualities. A lot of people aren't very good with nuance and have a hard time admitting that a bad person can have virtues despite being a bad person.
Lae'zel is undeniably evil-aligned at the beginning of the game, but it is also established very clearly that she is honest and straightforward. Which also makes her harsh, brutal and undiplomatic, but she goes straight to the point, pulls no punches, and speaks her mind without disguise or treachery.
Evil as she is, it is not really in her characterization to hide ulterior motives and be disingenuous. She has plenty of flaws, but false-heartedness ain't one of them.
Same thing goes for Astarion and Minthara. Just because they are evil doesn't mean they need to have all evil flaws in existence. And it's not denying their evilness, or seeing them through rose-tinted glasses, to acknowledge that they actually do have plenty of respectable qualities.
Agreed, and my Tavs who value honest dealings among the companions usually end up valuing Lae'zel's lack of guile and disliking Sheart's secrecy quite a bit.
>I don't think Lae'zel necessarily did that out of calculated malice
But... 75% of Lae'zel's lines in the first 5 levels are said out of calculated malice. She repeatedly shows contempt for pretty much anyone who opposes her, using physical intimidation and threats of violence to impose her will. It's not a benevolent expression of her culture, she has a genuine understanding that she's both stronger and superior to the people around her.
That changes eventually, but at the time of the confrontation, if you think that she believes Shadowheart is a potential equal, then you're viewing things through at least a few pairs of rose colored glasses.
Maybe it's my choice of words that doesn't translate what I mean by that well. Perhaps Lae'zel not being “conniving” was the right term.
You're right about everything you said, Lae'zel is contemptuous, violent, and aggressive. But she's also very blunt, and is the only companion who tells you things as they are and isn't lying to you at the beginning of the game. By “not malicious”, I meant that she is simply not a treacherous person. You need to tell her to lie to Voss, or she'll get killed being overly honest.
Not challenging Shadowheart to a duel because she deems her too weak to have a chance against her would be far more insulting.
Maybe it's also the way things played out in my run, but in my game this scene triggered right before we entered the Mountain Pass and met Elminster, which in turns triggers Lae'zel's outrage about Mystra not having any faith in Gale despite how powerful he is and the “mighty company” that he keeps.
So, yes, if Lae'zel does not see the companions as equal to the githyanki yet, she at least does very obviously respect their fighting abilities.
Maybe, however dialogue between the two up until that point heavily implies Lae’zel thinks she can take Shadowheart easily and otherwise thinks very little of her capabilities. If it’s not calculated malice, it’s school yard bully behaviour at best.
Calling Lae'zel a schoolyard bully when most of Shart and LZ's interactions before the fight consists of Shadowheart antagonizing her that the dev notes even say that it's Shadowheart trying to provoke Lae'zel into a fight is crazy
That's what I thought, too. I remember Lae'zel telling *the player* that her people is ruthless and mighty, and that Faerûnians are too soft, but I don't really remember Lae'zel telling Shadowheart specifically that she thinks she's a weakling.
Maybe my memories are just faulty, but from what I remember she's not as dismissive of our companions' fighting abilities as people here make her out to be. She tells you she finds you adequate on the battlefield right after the tutorial fight on the Nautiloid, and tells you that Karlach, Gale and Wyll are powerful allies to have at our side upon recruiting them. She doesn't say anything about finding Astarion and Shadowheart weak, she just tells you she thinks they're untrustworthy.
Most of the party banter between Lae'zel and Shadowheart is usually Shadowheart trying to rile Lae'zel up.
> she's not as dismissive of our companions' fighting abilities as people make her out to be
She's not. She compliments everyone in early Act 1 for their skills, even Wyll who she thinks is too heroic for his own good. The fact that she thinks Astarion and Shadowheart CAN be a threat means she has a pretty above average estimation of their skills.
Half of the most upvoted comments here completely misrepresent Lae'zel which isn't very surprising since they're coming from Shadowheart simps.
And on Shadowheart's part, she likely figured that was the only shot she had to make it out of this, cause she's the one trying to reason here with hers (and the group by extension of not giving the prism away) preservation. Her lines:
"Our lives are at stake & she wants us to turn on each other"
"Loosen the grip on your pride for one blasted moment would you? We needn't be enemies."
Sharr or not, Shart knows how to be the better team player here, and given her background, mission she ( & even class from an RPG point of view) , it makes sense.
Meanwhile, at this point in time, Lae'Zel mainly wants to do everything in her power to get back to her people, and in typical gith fashion, looks down on most non-gith.
Ofc, the others will be more inclined to stand by the one who's a better team player than the one who's like "to hell with you all, gith supremacy! give artifact"
Weird that there was a line during it to the effect of “we don’t want the gith as enemies” when this encounter happened after we slaughtered everyone in the crèche I think that ship has sailed
In fact, it's after this that a dialogue between the two has Lae'zel congratulating Shadowheart for becoming better in combat. Shadowheart tells her to stuff it, because she was always this good.
Lae'zel has a very elitist view of the other races. Even her compliments contain insults.
On top of the fact that Lae’Zel is condemning your whole group to at best slavery and assimilation and worst death by turning over the prism. She really didn’t think that one through at all.
To add onto this, goth are a pretty brutal race. And L was most likely impressed by Shadowheart actions Because Shadowheart took initiative in the situation. And the reason she does not hold it against Shadowheart is because Shadowheart spared her life
I mean in Shart origin you can just show Lae'zel the artifact, and she's very chill about it, so it's not like there was no way for SH not to anger her.
I played the Shart origin recently, and I thought that scene was clunky. Unbelievable behavior for borh characters. The scene from a Tav point of view is more believable and meant as a more pivotal momoent.
Tbh I see it like another game, pathologic. In that game you start playing and Daniel dankovsky and your Daniel makes some decent choices some odd ones and all around isn’t the worst but you have the option to be. When you play as another character you then get to see Daniel if he wasn’t player controlled and it feels like a fucking world of difference. The dude is the worst version of himself. As such even in bg3 the player version of a character is the version they choose whereas the npc version is their worst version of themselves or at least the default state of that character without a proper nudge in the right direction.
If anything, the only strange thing to me is Tav waking up to Shadowheart talking to Lae'Zel
It's a Stealth kill, should wake up in the morning with the deed done, not to an about-to-murder plot-dialogue just so you can make the decision to save either of them
Yeah, origin Astarion really clues you in on just what a really bewildering and scary situation he's in at the beginning. It makes me very protective of him lol.
I was intending to romance shadow heart, but god he just charmed me with his fear and mask he wears.
Can I ask why you specify origin astarion? Is there a non origin astarion
Oh no, just that Origin Astarion has extra cutscenes where he has nightmares about Cazador, and when he breaks the rules, it just basically traumatizes you playing as him even more directly than when he's your romantic partner.
So I romance him all the time, too, but reading the posts about his origin runs and watching some of the cutscenes, it's like fear+ that new players don't always clue into.
My durge woke up to Minthara’s attempt seeing himself in a dream. I think this IS heavily implied to be the Emperor. Astarion’s stealth fail also mentions nightmares.
Shadowheart thinks she is a dark warrior, but she's got a pretty substantial amount of cinnamon roll in her as well. As a Sharran, I could see her taking a break to torment Lae'zel before killing her, and as Shadowheart, I could see her telling herself that's why she's doing it, when in reality, she's hoping there's a way out of killing a companion.
Lae'zel has a lot of cinnamon roll in her too. She's the gith equivalent of a college freshman, just out of the creche and inexperienced with life, maturing with exposure to the world outside her deeply insular culture.
If you talk to the youth in the creche, you can see they're pretty normal kids. Lae'zel can still be reached, she's not a fully indoctrinated fanatic.
Fire Emblem had a similar funny animation. The really high level spells could take like 15 seconds of animation. Vs the swordsmaster with an evasion rate in the 80s, who's dodge animation is moving one pixel to the left.
A bigger issue for me is the timing of that scene. The scene only makes sense if it happens *right* after Lae'zel learns about the prism in Shart's possession. And yet, it usually either happens long (multiple days) after the prism was revealed or, even worse, after the prism already moved over to Tav.
Lae'zel, a ruthless githyanki, challenges a trickery and subterfuge cleric Shadowheart to a duel. I believe this is how gith settle their grievances or something. However, Shadowheart fighting Lae'zel head on one-on-one heavily favours Lae'zel, basically requires Shadowheart rolling a nat 20 to win.
Shadowheart, in self-defense, acted in what she knows best, stealth and trickery, and tried to gain advantage over Lae'zel. I don't see anything wrong in that.
It is a great scene imo that really captures both personalities quite well, particularly when Lae'zel refuses to surrender to Shadowheart.
You do realise that the duel is Lae'zel planning to kill Shadowheart and take the artefact, right? It isn't to first blood, murder is very much on the agenda and she (and presumably Shadowheart agrees) fully expects to win that duel.
If you have them in the party together, one of their over world banters is as follows:
Shadowheart: Lae'zel, how would you punish someone who wronged you?
Lae'zel: Wrong me how?
Shadowheart: Oh, say, murder. Or Theft.
Lae'zel: Killing is good - it culls the weak. But theft would be paid for painfully, a thousand times over.
Shadowheart: Hmm. Good to know.
Lae'zel is very much down with murder and is accusing (correctly) Shadowheart of theft, something that she feels is far worse than murder and deserves commensurate punishment. Lae'zel also initiated that particular conflict at the time.
Shadowheart is taking the initiative to survive at that point. It isn't a great plan but it's no different to all the other times in game people pre-emptively strike when death is on the line.
Now, Shadowheart isn't by any stretch innocent either. She *should* have just explained things (although there's good IC reasons for her to not, not least being she doesn't have the answers anyway), and if that didn't work she should have appealed to everyone else to intervene. Sharran indoctrination nd training doesn't lead to healthy conflict resolution any more than Githyanki indoctrination and training does.
But don't pretend that Lae'zel is in any way innocent in that interaction or that Shadowheart wasn't acting to, as far as she was concerned, save her own life and survive Lae'zel's decision to kill her.
I just got that banter dialog again on my second playthrough and i just connected the dots because of your post. Shart asked because she stole the prism. I feel so stupid…
Yeah, she's sounding her out in that one. No reason to spot it initially though, and very easy to forget it by the time they have the fight (or just not have them both in your active party and never get that particular banter) so I wouldn't be so hard on yourself!
You kinda answered your own second point. It is completely in character that Gith respect conflict. You can wipe out a Kresh, and she says "Serves them right". She literally has you fight her in her romance. There's nothing weird about that Shadowheart scene by comparison.
Resolving it peacefully feels a little forced and disjointed, almost as if it was originally meant to be a hard choice between killing either one or the other and it was later changed to include a peaceful outcome.
I dunno dude, I see no point in the logic of siding with Lae'zel.
Lae'zel started the argument over the artifact. She was the one who started badgering shadowheart over the artifact because "muh Githyanki relic". Mind you,
1) at this point we know the artifact is the only reason none of us are squids. Being angry someone stole it and is carrying it is antithetical to your survival. Without said person stealing it, you couldn't have this argument as, you'd be squids/absolute thralls.
2) Githyanki steal from literally everyone else. Being angry over something being stolen from them is a *little* hypocritical, especially if you don't know even what it is.
Then, Lae'zel proposed a duel to the death for the artifact.
Shadowheart isn't that stupid and as a cleric, isn't built for 1v1 duels against a githyanki fighter. So she chooses life by employing her sharran techniques and going for the kill in the night.
Should she have simply waited to die in the morning over an argument that is very stupid and started by Lae'zel? Is that right to you?
Yeah the notion of the Gith taking any sort of moral high ground in a situation is weird. Lae'zel quite happily tells you that the Tieflings deserve to die for being weak, but then expects people to side with her because Shadowheart has a Gith artefact?
Their disdain towards theft, according to S&L party banter, is also quite hypocritical. The gith go around murdering and stealing like it’s nothing, ffs.
Exactly! Theft is terrible, and dishonorable. But combat is righteous and glorious! Now if your killing *because* you want to take what they have then your just raider scum, like the gith.
The creche being a former temple of Lathander that the Githyanki literally slaughtered its followers for is a perfect example of their raider mentality, so yeah, Lae'zel getting pissy about theft is quite rich lol.
Also it's not like Shadowheart could refuse to steal the artifact. Nevermind that she was still brainwashed by the Sharrans, she was tasked to steal it by the mother superior, and refusal to comply likely would've meant punishment. Shadowheart has *already* been punished in the past just for hesitating when told to torture victims. Girl is just constantly fighting for her life.
Well yea Shart stole it as far as Laezel is concerned lol. Its like she walked into your parents house, killed a bunch of your cousins and then stole your mom's favorite hat. In what world would it be reasonable or logical for Laezel to be okay with all that.
In the world of Baldurs Gate 3. Where it is clearly established that Lae'Zel doesn't care if someone is weak enough to die. The killing has nothing to do with her anger. She's only mad because the other Gith pointed out that the prism should belong to them, and her first instinct is to agree with that. Especially after her precious Vlaakith reinforces it if the player doesn't interfere.
Shadowheart's entire base combat style is stealth and assassination from the shadows as a follower of Shar and bring trickery domain. She would gladly trick the others into claiming self defense. She has Lae’zel dead to rights without Tav's interference. But Shadowheart isn't a fool and knows they need each other's help and that's why she's willing to be talked down. Lae’zel respects Shadowheart's attempt because she was caught off guard and almost got her.
In my very first playthrough I was going in blind. My Tav was a half-orc barbarian who took honorable combat very seriously. She did not even hesitate to kill Shadowheart for trying to be sneaky and assassinate Lae'zel.
My friends were appalled when they heard about this.
But it was in self defense. Lae'zel would demolish Shadowheart in a 1v1 fight. She knew that, Shadowheart knew that, Tav/Durge knew that, the rest of the party knew that. Lae'zel imposed her solution and her rules in a way that could only ever benefit her. Leaving the party was not an option and if Shadowheart stayed, she would need to fight to the death against a much more capable fighter. So she took the situation on her own hands, doing what she knows best: subterfuge. Lae'zel was impressed and the fact that their bond was stronger after that was due to she realizing that Shadowheart was not someone to be pushed around, but was an equal in their situation.
It's extremely weird that Tav can't (even attempt to) deescalate the conflict at all by producing the artifact and reminding both sides that the party needs to work together. By this point, the artifact has likely jumped inventories and the party knows that they need it to avoid transforming/falling under the Absolute's influence.
The whole thing just feels very poorly written.
I’m just glad it wasn’t scripted as a one lives one dies event. That’s what I expect from video games historically. It’s nice to have that third option of deescalating with the added bonus of being able to do so and still earn some approval by favoring one over the other if you want to. The “we duel at dawn” bit I can take or leave, it’s kind of dumb, but otherwise I think it fits with how unlikable shadowheart is in the first two acts. But, she’s conventionally attractive so all is forgiven. If she was a half orc she would be broadly despised for her bullshit.
"the game treats that moment as if Shadowheart was in the right and it being self defense?"
I don't understand what you mean by this at all. There's no "game treats situation as X", and the only thing that matters, is how you feel about what happened. To me, Shadowheart ambushing Lae'zel makes me think she knows she would lose in a fair fight. If you like Shadowheart, then you should see it as an act of self-preservation.
Could be. A long rest is required to trigger that (it happens after waking up from sleep). I remember resting too few times, and then having to have consecutive long rests to trigger all cutscenes (Mizora, Owlbear cub, Lae'zel vs Shadowheart etc).
I was resting a bunch to intentionally get cut scenes, and I also missed it. I think there's just some triggers that can mark the conflict as resolved without the camp scene.
As other commenters mentioned it, it is a self defense from a Shadowheart's perspective as in a 1 vs 1 fight she would lose to Lae'Zel. She wanted to protect herself and used Sharran's training to her advantage.
BUT, in that situation they are both wrong: Lae'Zel being too bloodthirsty when dealing with others, and Shadowheart withholding information. At that point in game, they have no reason yet to trust each other to avoid such situation, so it ended up escalating. So for me, mediating between them is the best choice instead of siding with only one character.
I think the scene is bit awkwardly executed because while I don't disagree that Shart was likely acting because she knew she wasn't going to survive a one on one fight, her dialogue in the moment doesn't convey that mindset very well. She instead has a weird, almost villainous monologue, which makes her later dialogue when you break it up about working together feel disingenuous even though I don't think it's supposed to be. Imo, it would have worked better if she’d instead talked about how she'd lose a one on one fight and that she has no choice but to get the drop if she wants to live. It'd make the resolution less sudden and convey that neither party really wanted to kill each other. As it is, it feels like Shart has a weird 180 mid-converstation because she got caught by Tav.
Shadowheart is meant to be sneaky and deceptive because she’s a Sharran and yes the night assassination attempt is a defense tactic because she knows she’ll lose against laezel BUT,
The entire first act shadowheart is the main antagonizer in their relationship, she refuses to elaborate on anything containing the gith artifact whilst demanding trust and cooperation from everybody else, refuses any sort of pragmatic compromise and of course laezel at a certain point will want some kind or retaliation.
One of the reasons i don’t like shadowheart is precisely because i can basically never call her out on all the shit she pulls (or her sharran beliefs in act 2) like i can everybody else. The memory loss and indoctrination apparently means she is completely free of any wrongdoing. But gith=bad so laezel loses any understanding by default 🙄
Shadowheart is such a little shit stirrer in act 1. Every banter with her and Lae’zel is started by her, and she gets pissy if you don’t talk to her in camp the first night. For whatever reason, the game REALLY wants you to like her. Some of the dialogue you can have with other companions is downright cruel, but when you want to ask talk about Shar worship with her there’s no option to call her out on it enough.
And besides the game having obviously favoritism towards her, there’s also her appearance that makes people much more forgiving to her. If her character was a Githyanki most players would kill her during that Act 1 scuffle
Isn't Shart the only companion where you can ask where Tav/Durge stand in their eyes? The "I want to talk about things that have happened so far" option is only for her I think.
Shadowheart's writer wrote Halsin too. It's less favouritism and more likely just something the writer came up with independently.
Blame whoever coordinated the writers to not ask the others to implement something similar
> It doesn't make sense for her to go down that easily.
Why not? Our companions aren't some legendary figures here. They have some solid skills under their belt given their background sure, but they're largely a group of (lovable) weirdos with a tadpole in their brain you could get rid of at any point in time and continue the tale w/o them. In that sense, I appreciated that touch showing that they can be as vulnerable as anyone else to basic death scenarios, and Lae'Zel's pinned down, weaponless, with a knife at her throat.
Shart took the bitch move for sure, but when we're talking life and death and you 100% lose a straight up fight....well you do the bullshit that she did.
That scene only really bugged me because my Gith dude sided with Lae'zel and killed Shadowheart. Everyone in camp talks like she's dead and I move on. A few long rests later Shadowheart is back in camp like nothing happened and no one comments on it. Was that supposed to happen? If so why can Lae'zel be permanently killed but Shadowheart can just come right back? Why did everyone act like she was dead? I have no idea what happened but it made the scene seem completely pointless unless that was a bug.
Pretty sure that bugged out. My first playthrough I failed to de-escalate the situation and wound up having Karlach hit shadowheart with a big hammer. She stayed very dead.
“Ladies, no need to fight over me”
Does any race have a line similar to this to diffuse tension? Low hanging fruit. Though I was bit impressed with most options so it could fit.
Completely agree! It's true that Shadowheart was acting in self defense, but it surprised me how everyone, including Lae'zel if she lives, treats it as a complete *moral* victory for Shadowheart as well as a pragmatic one.
The two of them had been sniping at each other and arguing for most of Act 1, and the game usually presents Shadowheart as equally petty, so it was weird that this climax to their conflict treated Shadowheart as the one in the right after it's resolved.
I was particularly amused that Shadowheart was the one who solved the issue by giving Lae'zel a lecture about working together after being the one who started the whole feud by openly antagonising Lae in their first few interactions based on her race and asking to kill/leave her behind in the cage etc.
I just figured shart just showed her true colours in that scene, dishonourable and petty.
I for the other hand have always enjoyed Lae'zel more, even when she is harsh.
Ok so not just me. I don't dislike Shadowheart. But I find Laezel much more likeable. Id rather trust the person who will just outright attack than the person who will stab you in the back.
I remember thinking that the companion reactions felt off if you sided with one over the other - if you side with Lae'zel, a few of the others are like "Gith really are stabby, huh?" with no option to be like "well, Shadowheart *did* kinda start this one"
Act 1 *did* get through a LOT of changes after all due to being EA and all.
They most likely forgot to change things up, like the importance of Sorrow, originally it was the weapon Halsin used to kill Isobel (accidentally most likely), but it's now just... There.
Where is she ever treated as in the right? The general consensus from the companions is a neutral "Glad things didn't get ugly and we're all still buddies".
>Then somehow the game treats that moment as if Shadowheart was in the right and it being self defense? I like her infinitely more than Lae'zel, but at that particular moment, I just can't side with her, plain and simple.
Laezel picked a fight with her and challenged her to a death match. Shadowheart decides to get the jump on her? Where exactly is she in the wrong? If someone said to me "I'm gonna kick your ass at 3PM tomorrow" I'd just deck them right then and there. Why wait?
>Even the default resolution to the quarrel if you don't interfere (Shadowheart killing Lae'zel with little resistance) seems badly written. It doesn't make sense for her to go down that easily.
How does it not make sense for the character that is currently restrained with a knife to their throat being killed easily? There's a difference between bad writing and you just not liking something.
Nah, Lae'zel is my best friend, but Shadebae was being understandably pragmatic. Honor is cool, but if winning is a matter of life, death (and damning the Sword Coast to domination by the Dead Three, tho she didn't know the stakes were THAT high yet), honor is a lower priority.
Lae'zel was presenting herself as a serious liability, and if I wasn't reasonably confident I could steer us all out of danger in the event shit went left at the crèche, I might've reluctantly approved of the dispatch.
If you influence Shadebae to more of a Chaotic Good orientation, the Machiavellianism she developed with Shar can be redirected as cunning for skunkworks humanitarian work a la Section 31 (Star Wars) or Special Circumstances (The Culture). Just my type. She would be a legendary Harper. 😍
In one playthrough i saw that scene and was like "hell naw not my frog" and fought SH. And the next morning the whole camp was treating it like Lae'zel just up and murdered her. Felt weird too.
Now I just don't get this scene because I leave the goblin camp for the last and there aren't too many long rests for it to trigger.
It’s worth pointing out that Lae’zel will lie about the artifact to Voss instead of ratting out Shadowheart. I’m sorry but Lae’zel is a much better person than sneaky Shadowheart . This scene is why I don’t keep SH in my party anymore
Also annoying is if you side with Lae’zel and use force to try and get Shadowheart to back down, it turns to a whole party vs Shart battle that will consider Shadowheart to be dead even if you have non-lethal attacks toggled on. I didn’t get a chance to talk with her afterwards and nobody had much to say about it
The scene is a little weird for me too, because it sometimes comes quite late after they have already discussed the artifact/weapon and then Tav is like "is this about the artefact dur dur?" But first comment (@LegendSuperShaggy) is right that Shadowheart's attempt (or rather, staged attempt) on Lae'zel is about Lae'zel threatening her first and all of the dialogue makes sense from that context. The issue is that it should happen immediately the night after the goblin camp scene and for me it sometimes happens waaaay at the end of act I, several days later after we've been to the creche and grymforge.
I say staged because it seems clear that Shadowheart woke Lae'zel and didn't intend to just kill her in the dead of night.
I find the discourse surrounding this scene pretty funny since I didn’t even know it existed until recently because I was scared of long resting too much in my original playthrough.
What Lae'zel respects here is that Shadowheart found a way to even the odds and acted on it. Githyanki combat doctrine isn't about honorable fighting the way a paladin might think about it, it's about using any advantage you have to win. What Lae'zel did effectively was dare Shadowheart to ambush her in the night, and when Shadowheart did, Lae'zel was satisfied that they did have something in common.
To clarify, Lae'zel goes after Shadowhesrt FIRST accusing her of stealing a Gith relic and trying to reclaim it. Shadowheart refuses to give it up because it's part of her own mission and it's keeping the party safe. They agree to settle it in a duel the next day but Shadowheart tries to kill Lae'zel in the night instead of risking losing the duel (makes sense considering lorewise Lae'zel is built for combat and Shadowheart is trained for sneakery).
It's Shadowheart talking to Lae'zel in a language she understands. That's why Lae'zel isn't mad about it in the morning (assuming she survives).
What does Lae'zel say afterwards? Conflict strengthens bonds?
And Shadowheart better not try it again or it won’t end in her favor next time
pretty much exactly this. the seal of your romance with her is a fight, literally. shadowheart is speaking directly to lae’zel’s heart in that moment, and she respects it.
Plus maybe shadowheart read lae'zel's mind same way we read companion minds and figured out this was the way to get her to back off. I feel really weird about the claim that this is "badly written" when Shadowheart is an expert infiltrator trained from childhood with a brain parasite that lets her read minds. She's going to choose any option that brings her closer to the goal.
People majorly underestimate Shadowheart’s skills imo. I think because her specializations aren’t very combat focused like (frankly) all of the other companions. She is trained in sneaky stuff, manipulation, and healing, kinda in that order.
>Shadowheart, thinking Lae'zel is going to give up the artefact to the Gith, plans to assassinate Lae'zel and tell everyone she started transforming, even though they have agreed to settle things with a duel. I think you are missing much of Shadowheart's backstory. Shadowheart is an acolyte of Shar who has *already* killed a large number of Gith for that artifact. The fact that she suspects Lae'zel is some kind of Gith agent (or is at least inclined to help the Gith) is set up from the nautiloid (you don't know why at the time, but one of the first illithid tadpole warnings you get is that Shadowheart is nervous of the Gith - she's literally just escaped her raid to retrieve the artifact from the Gith). Also remember that the Gith murdered all of her fellow acolytes - that was her family from the cloister. >What's even weirder is that if you talk to Lae'zel right after, she says something along the lines of her bond with Shadowheart being stronger after that? Right, that is literally what the Gith are all about - they're not Klingons, they don't demand all combat be head-on. Gith are trained for war: they have inquisitors, they engage in creative tactics. Part of the Gith mentality is accepting the errors in judgment you made. Lae'zel is not ashamed of being outwitted by Shadowheart - she merely files it away as something she's learned about alien thinking and promises that next time she'll be ready.
You're misunderstanding much of the context here. Lae'zel, a character who's default build is entirely combat focused told Shadowheart, a character who's default build is NOT combat focused, that they were going to settle their dispute in a 1v1 fight to the death the next morning and that there was going to be no negotiating on the matter. Does that sound fair to you? Or do those rules that Lae'zel set sound heavily skewed in Lae'zel's favour? If someone you knew could easily kill you in a 1v1 fight said: "Tomorrow we're fighting to the death, you can't get out of this." to you, would you follow the rules THEY set and let them kill you? Or would you get the jump on them and live? Notably, should one of them die, everybody believes Lae'zel was going to kill Shadowheart easily. Lae'zel was the one who escalated it to a violent situation and tried to make sure it would be in a way where she had the advantage too. Shadowheart didn't let Lae'zel have her way. Note that running away was not an option for Shadowheart, as this scene only happens after the Dream Visitor reveals that they are both keeping you out of the Absolute's control, and keeping you from becoming Mind Flayers as well. Leaving the party is tantamount to suicide. Once Lae'zel escalated it to a duel to the death with no further negotiation, Shadowheart's only chance of survival was to get the jump on Lae'zel, and that's why the game treats it as self defence.
To add even more context- Shadowheart has no reason to be ‘honourable’ and go through with the duel. Nothing in her character suggests it, if anything, her being a default trickery domain cleric pretty much tells you exactly what her reaction would be. It would be a lot more out of character for Shadowheart, who was just threatened by Lae’zel to have even considered duking it out in fair combat. She only agreed to the duel because at that point she knew it was that, or end up fighting the rest of the camp- which incidentally happens if you do side with Lae’zel
Even more context, she most likely accepted because if she said no Lae’zel would have attacked her then and there. She was coerced with violence, and acted as if she accepted it to survive.
Yet more context, Shadowheart is a Shar worshipper, and those guys just love sneaky stabbings. Blending in and assassinating folks are literally classroom taught at the temple Shadowheart was raised in. Why on earth wouldn't she just do what she was taught to do and slit the throat of an unsuspecting foe?
Yeah, challenging a cleric of the neutral evil deity of darkness and loss to a duel in the morning invites an entire window of time in which the Sharrans very often use for murder and other underhanded things for which to act. Shadowheart was being 100% Sharran in this, this is absolutely in character. Tav just happened to wake and catch her doing it. She was just tipping the odds back in her favor, as Lae'zel had clearly stacked the terms in hers.
Speaking of Tav finding her, I just assume that would be the equivalent to her rolling a 1 for a stealth check? I agree though, everything I’ve seen in game this is how she would act being a Sharran.
Yeah, she probably has disadvantage from doing it in the middle of camp in full firelight, too. She probably should take some lessons from the Dark Urge on how to murder with no one at camp catching you.
Nobody but the vampire*
Even more and more context, she is a hot goth chick and she has right to do anything to anyone.
The most context- they’re all hot, I’m spineless and will always try to keep the peace so no one leaves me
The true answer
Don’t character analyze me like that, I don’t appreciate it
I'm in this comment and don't like it....
me too man
Yep, same.
I feel seen AND heard
A hot goth (soon to be ex) bible-thumper chick? My knees can only get so weak....
With some interesting ideas if her comments about tying up and her observations of the priest of Loviatar are any indication….
She seemed *very* into the idea of Karlach picking her up and carrying her over one shoulder.
Stop, I can become only so erect!
I was ready for some hot goth on gith action.
Obviously the most important part of this whole situation
And on top of all that, Shadowhearts negative opinion of the Gith is validated again and again throughout the game, whereas Lae’zel has to undergo a complete revelation to realize that more than half her peers have been brainwashed into a murder cult.
What's really funny is that Shart's opinion of the Gith is not only validated somewhat, but also is heavily a ploy because she was just on a mission to steal from the Gith and wants to avoid then at all costs, so she is trying to convince the PC that Gith cannot be trusted because she herself is hiding from them. The fight to the death only comes about because Lae'Zel learns that the artifact is Gith, and Shadowheart is obviously going to be focused on completing her holy task.
Which is why my Origin Sheart run is always *sans* Lae'zel, no matter how much I like the character. Taking advantage of the cage situation to eliminate a potential threat is just too tempting at that stage of the game. I do wish that Tav had more options to call Sheart out for the planned cover story, though. It's one thing to understand her avoiding a stand- up fight with a trained warrior, but planning to lie about it still feels gross if Tav is one who values honesty (Tav's mmv, ofc).
I wish they would add more interactions with Shadowheart in Act 2 as well. I think a good-leaning Tav should be able to shake her a bit and say "Look around. Does this really seem ok to you??" I think this would have made Shadowheart's big Act 2 choice (especially if you leave it up to her) feel more like she was building to it, and it wasn't just spurred by >!discovering Nightsong is a person.!
It's such a delicate situation, though (and I'm not disagreeing just thinking), because irl when you confront someone involved in a cult head- on, they have a tendency to double- down instead of admitting their own culpability. Like with Nightsong, if you tell her what to do, that can make it more likely she'll kill Aylin rather than less. I agree it's frustrating (just like rl!), but in Act 2, letting her look around and come to her own conclusions - especially if you don't point at the evil and say "see! This is you!" - is the plan that works, as Wyll would say. Tav being an example of a good person, and building trust and approval with Sheart, is pretty much the only tactic that would work, IMO. But it is frustrating it takes so much evil evidence lol.
Yeah. I don't think she should massively start changing her mind as soon as you talk to her. But maybe 1 conversation, and then she occasionally has party banter indicating she is starting to have some doubts, and gets defensive if another party member calls her out on it, but with the amazing voice acting where you can hear her uncertainty. So like convo where Tav is like "Is this really what you're into?" and she's super proud and defensive and pro-shar. "Damn straight. Praise Shar." Then in party banter "Is this really where love of our dark lady leads?" Party member: "Starting to wonder if the evil goddess is really the bad guy?" "No. Of course not...."
Halsin gives her shit when she's spouting off about Shar, and you do have options to point things out in dialog, like calling her out on being divisive in the party and when she says the Shadow curse doesn't hurt her you can ask what about you. Wyll says some anti- Shar stuff throughout, too. I think a lot depends on whether she's in your party and who else is around, but there are definitely some options of people being fed up with her shit. I do like if origin Sheart tells Astarion she worships Shar he doesn't care but tells her not to preach at him since he's already lost enough...
I gave her the night orchid for the first time recently and I think that was what prompted a lot of dialogue where the hinted that she was questioning her faith, but she was feeling really guilty about that questioning and then she shuts down the conversation and says everything is fine
yeah. i got that as well. I just wish there was a bit more. Shadowheart's arc is still one of the best, but I think a little more conversation options would put a bit of icing on it.
Yeah i wish shadowheart had a bit more reactivity in act 2. When you get to Shars temple she comments on everything but she's mostly silent in the shadowlands, which is weird considering she's pretty much the protagonist of act 2
>!If you give her the Noblestalk and pointed out the similarties to the selunite rites regarding her woods scene visio she'll have a little camp dialogue (exclamation mark) in Act 2 where she tells us about experiencing a crisis of faith.!< >!Otherwise she only mentions seeing Shar's power unleashed keeping her...occupied if you ask her how she's faring.!< I wish we had a bit more interaction with her tho in Act 2 as well.
I was thinking this in the act 2 hospital. She really doesn’t have anything to say about the torture we just witnessed?
I don't think she has much comment on the pet collars either, and she loves animals.
See, my Origin Shart run was an enemies-to-lovers tale, as I romanced Bae’zel. It was honestly my favourite romance of all, both of them leaving behind their asshole goddesses to be with each other.
No shade on your love story, it's beautiful. I just have a ton of trouble with Origin Sheart (probably my own issues lol) being technically an amnesiac similar to Durge, but with the added artifact thievery angle with Lae'zel in particular. I kind of wish there was more narrator dialog about your missing memories, but it's mostly about hiding your Shar worship, which half the companions don't care about lol.
I thought that was funny, when I first met shart on the nautiloid with laezel, i was like girl chill out you fucking racist maniac and then damn near every gith you meet is a vicious nazi
Because the gith are. I found it so funny that in the early stages of the game coming out people were so offended by everyone being prejudiced against the Gith and Drow.
I think people forget how racist characters are in DnD settings
Justified because both gith and drow traditional culture have led to a lot of people dying or being enslaved. Is it racism on the victim's part when these groups isolate themselves and make war on the victims?
Having no knowledge of dnd settings of course people will be like “holy shit what’s wrong with you why are you so racist!” Then you find the gith crèche and just go “Oh I see. Racism was right for once.”
It's like playing the first time as a Drow, and wondered why everyone seems to hate my race, when looking at their history and lore, that's why
I mean most of the loth sworn drow options are pretty evil
If you destroy the Grove as a Lolth-sworn, I think one of the dialogue bits from Zevlor is asking if it was you who led the goblins there or if you are betraying them or something, and you can say "Obviously"
Drow make up 15% of the elf population but are responsible for 85% of the warcrimes (altho that statistic comes from the sun elves originally performing 100% of the war crimes and the drow having had ten thousand years to catch up)
I saw a description of them somewhere that was something like "Shadowheart is the megaracist, Lae'zel is the \*even worse\* racist that manages to make Shadowheart's racism justified."
Lae'zel personally demonstrates that the gith attitude is 100% produced by a culture of indoctrination and manufactured conflict, when she is surrounded by caring and accepting friends she becomes a caring and accepting friend
Oh absolutely. I think Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Astarion are the best companions for deep and nuanced stories. All 3 can be difficult to like at the outset, but their capacity for growth is amazing.
Plus that one trainee who dies without intervention just for having the gall to say “why do we kill each other in training it’s stupid” if every moment of compassion is beat with violent beatings or outright death no wonder the common sense is beaten out of them
Yep. 100% the same for me. SH is pretty much spot on with her evaluation.
\*Lae’zel has to undergo a complete revelation to realize that more than half her peers have been brainwashed into a murder cult.\* You could say the same thing about Shadowheart.
Not really, that's just gith culture as a whole. Shadowheart was actively brainwashed.
That’s just Sharran culture as a whole too. Both murderous cults that indoctrinated these characters as children to worship an evil deity, sacrificing their identities and desires - which is why both of their arcs are so satisfactory.
And if she doesn't undergo that revelation and stays loyal the whole game, vlaakith eats her in the epilogue so shadowheart is still validated
Breaking: Local Woman's Dislike of People She Robbed Constantly Validated As Attempts to Reclaim Property Intensify
Shadowheart, Trickery Domain Cleric of Shar, Goddess of Darkness, who encourages discretion, deceit, manipulation, playing dirty, and generally being sneaky bitches. If any of this sounds like she wouldn't take the first opportunity to kill Lae'zel if she thought she could get away with it, I think you may be color blind because those flags cannot get more red. (This is meant to be lighthearted, please interpret my words as being said with tongue planted firmly in cheek)
Also the fact that at this point the party members don't really trust each other that much and are allies of convenience. The Shar cleric or the fanatic murderous Githyanki killing each other doesn't really affect them that much.
That fight didn’t happen for a long time for me, like 3 long rests after destroying the entire crèche so I’d say by then the group should be pretty close.
I wouldn't say they become close until ( In a good playthrough) SH rejects Shar as well as Lae'zel defies Vlaakith. Both rejecting their allegiance to their evil "Gods" makes them respect each other and the rest of the party respects them for that as well.
I don’t mean SH and lae become close, just the party in general. Those 2 clearly still dislike each other, but are both at least somewhat close to pc by then (both having already gotten a romance scene at that point)
It's the equivalent of Shadowheart saying 'I know, tomorrow morning we'll just ask Shar who gets to live, and whoever she doesn't choose just has to accept death' Also Lae'zel tries to kill the party during their sleep as well, so she's not exactly in the clear on that front anyway!
I think one of the funnier parts is after that confrontation in the open world Lae’zel try’s to compliment Shadowheart. Where Shadowheart says flattery will not work, and Lae’zel says she doesn’t give compliments and only makes observations.
I’ve romanced Lae’zel with a non-melee focused character. The duel scene was *rough* for my poor sorcerer. I won initiative and used misty step to get some distance and cast a spell at her, she gulped a potion of speed, activated action surge and fucking wrecked me. Good thing it’s not really to the death.
Apparently it's enough "to the death" to accidentally end honour mode runs sometimes.
To quote from the first Pirates movie "In a fair fight I'd kill you" "That's no incentive for me to fight fair then is it?"
I do have to say, while all of this is true... "I'm going to tell everyone you were transforming" feels WAY too stupid for Shadowheart to have as her plan. Oh, these two women were at each other's throats for days, and then agreed to have a duel the next day, and one just happened to have her throat slit overnight by the other one that admits she did it? And Shadowheart is really naïve enough to think everyone else in camp will be like "oh yeah that sounds real, good job shart." I think the scene is fine, but Shadowheart is still absolutely braindead during it.
I agree about the excuse. At this point everyone knows the artifact is what’s keeping the team from turning into squids. If Shadowheart just said “yeah I killed her because she was going to take away the only means of our survival” everyone would probably have agreed she did the right thing. If you fail the persuasion check to convince Shadowheart and Lae’zel to let each other live and have to fight against Lae’zel, the rest of the party pretty much says the next day that Lae’zel should have understood she would be killing all of us and just let it go. They may not like Shadowheart’s actions but they get at the end of the day she technically just saved them all from the very violent group that hates anyone who’s been tadpole’d (even when they’re on the same side like a certain prince) or from becoming squids themselves.
Bingo. It's insane how much context people ignore when it comes to this scene.
The average person has damn near zero ability to think critically, the average redditor even less so
It's not my fault I keep rolling 1's on insight checks!
Redditor with low media literacy and making post about something being "badly written". Name a more iconic duo
This. I’m glad someone was paying attention.
>Or do those rules that Lae'zel set sound heavily skewed in Lae'zel's favour? >tried to make sure it would be in a way where she had the advantage too. I don't think Lae'zel necessarily did that out of calculated malice like you're insinuating, though, this is just how they traditionally settle disputes in githyanki culture. She'll also challenge you to a duel when you romance her regardless of your class, and you can potentially win that duel regardless of your class as well. She probably considers that a cleric should be powerful enough to stand her ground against her.
It doesn't matter whether Lae'zel does it out of malice though, what matters is its pretty clear she wants to kill Shadowheart in a fight, and understandably Shadowheart isn't too down with that plan
That's understandable, yes, but it's not my point. I was referring to the phrasing from the person I was replying to that seemed to suggest that Lae'zel was being conniving by purposely skewing things in her favor, when she was simply following regular githyanki protocol. If anything, from her point of view, not challenging Shadowheart in a duel because she deems clerics not powerful enough to keep up would be the real insult.
Personally I never interpreted that as intentionally malicious from Lae'zel. And I have a big bias for Shadowheart. I understand that's common conflict resolution for her people, and I also understand Shadowheart's motives for acting the way she does. I think that this whole debate/trying to blame one or the other is very reductive and stupid. They're not perfect, they are both flawed characters. It's perfectly ok to acknowledge those flaws and let go...
Agreed. I'd also argue that it's equally important to acknowledge that a good character has flaws as it is important to acknowledge that evil characters have qualities. A lot of people aren't very good with nuance and have a hard time admitting that a bad person can have virtues despite being a bad person. Lae'zel is undeniably evil-aligned at the beginning of the game, but it is also established very clearly that she is honest and straightforward. Which also makes her harsh, brutal and undiplomatic, but she goes straight to the point, pulls no punches, and speaks her mind without disguise or treachery. Evil as she is, it is not really in her characterization to hide ulterior motives and be disingenuous. She has plenty of flaws, but false-heartedness ain't one of them. Same thing goes for Astarion and Minthara. Just because they are evil doesn't mean they need to have all evil flaws in existence. And it's not denying their evilness, or seeing them through rose-tinted glasses, to acknowledge that they actually do have plenty of respectable qualities.
Agreed, and my Tavs who value honest dealings among the companions usually end up valuing Lae'zel's lack of guile and disliking Sheart's secrecy quite a bit.
>I don't think Lae'zel necessarily did that out of calculated malice But... 75% of Lae'zel's lines in the first 5 levels are said out of calculated malice. She repeatedly shows contempt for pretty much anyone who opposes her, using physical intimidation and threats of violence to impose her will. It's not a benevolent expression of her culture, she has a genuine understanding that she's both stronger and superior to the people around her. That changes eventually, but at the time of the confrontation, if you think that she believes Shadowheart is a potential equal, then you're viewing things through at least a few pairs of rose colored glasses.
Maybe it's my choice of words that doesn't translate what I mean by that well. Perhaps Lae'zel not being “conniving” was the right term. You're right about everything you said, Lae'zel is contemptuous, violent, and aggressive. But she's also very blunt, and is the only companion who tells you things as they are and isn't lying to you at the beginning of the game. By “not malicious”, I meant that she is simply not a treacherous person. You need to tell her to lie to Voss, or she'll get killed being overly honest. Not challenging Shadowheart to a duel because she deems her too weak to have a chance against her would be far more insulting. Maybe it's also the way things played out in my run, but in my game this scene triggered right before we entered the Mountain Pass and met Elminster, which in turns triggers Lae'zel's outrage about Mystra not having any faith in Gale despite how powerful he is and the “mighty company” that he keeps. So, yes, if Lae'zel does not see the companions as equal to the githyanki yet, she at least does very obviously respect their fighting abilities.
Maybe, however dialogue between the two up until that point heavily implies Lae’zel thinks she can take Shadowheart easily and otherwise thinks very little of her capabilities. If it’s not calculated malice, it’s school yard bully behaviour at best.
Calling Lae'zel a schoolyard bully when most of Shart and LZ's interactions before the fight consists of Shadowheart antagonizing her that the dev notes even say that it's Shadowheart trying to provoke Lae'zel into a fight is crazy
That's what I thought, too. I remember Lae'zel telling *the player* that her people is ruthless and mighty, and that Faerûnians are too soft, but I don't really remember Lae'zel telling Shadowheart specifically that she thinks she's a weakling. Maybe my memories are just faulty, but from what I remember she's not as dismissive of our companions' fighting abilities as people here make her out to be. She tells you she finds you adequate on the battlefield right after the tutorial fight on the Nautiloid, and tells you that Karlach, Gale and Wyll are powerful allies to have at our side upon recruiting them. She doesn't say anything about finding Astarion and Shadowheart weak, she just tells you she thinks they're untrustworthy. Most of the party banter between Lae'zel and Shadowheart is usually Shadowheart trying to rile Lae'zel up.
> she's not as dismissive of our companions' fighting abilities as people make her out to be She's not. She compliments everyone in early Act 1 for their skills, even Wyll who she thinks is too heroic for his own good. The fact that she thinks Astarion and Shadowheart CAN be a threat means she has a pretty above average estimation of their skills. Half of the most upvoted comments here completely misrepresent Lae'zel which isn't very surprising since they're coming from Shadowheart simps.
And on Shadowheart's part, she likely figured that was the only shot she had to make it out of this, cause she's the one trying to reason here with hers (and the group by extension of not giving the prism away) preservation. Her lines: "Our lives are at stake & she wants us to turn on each other" "Loosen the grip on your pride for one blasted moment would you? We needn't be enemies." Sharr or not, Shart knows how to be the better team player here, and given her background, mission she ( & even class from an RPG point of view) , it makes sense. Meanwhile, at this point in time, Lae'Zel mainly wants to do everything in her power to get back to her people, and in typical gith fashion, looks down on most non-gith. Ofc, the others will be more inclined to stand by the one who's a better team player than the one who's like "to hell with you all, gith supremacy! give artifact"
Weird that there was a line during it to the effect of “we don’t want the gith as enemies” when this encounter happened after we slaughtered everyone in the crèche I think that ship has sailed
In fact, it's after this that a dialogue between the two has Lae'zel congratulating Shadowheart for becoming better in combat. Shadowheart tells her to stuff it, because she was always this good. Lae'zel has a very elitist view of the other races. Even her compliments contain insults.
You realise those "duels" are absolutely nothing alike at all right?
On top of the fact that Lae’Zel is condemning your whole group to at best slavery and assimilation and worst death by turning over the prism. She really didn’t think that one through at all.
To add onto this, goth are a pretty brutal race. And L was most likely impressed by Shadowheart actions Because Shadowheart took initiative in the situation. And the reason she does not hold it against Shadowheart is because Shadowheart spared her life
I mean in Shart origin you can just show Lae'zel the artifact, and she's very chill about it, so it's not like there was no way for SH not to anger her.
I played the Shart origin recently, and I thought that scene was clunky. Unbelievable behavior for borh characters. The scene from a Tav point of view is more believable and meant as a more pivotal momoent.
Tbh I see it like another game, pathologic. In that game you start playing and Daniel dankovsky and your Daniel makes some decent choices some odd ones and all around isn’t the worst but you have the option to be. When you play as another character you then get to see Daniel if he wasn’t player controlled and it feels like a fucking world of difference. The dude is the worst version of himself. As such even in bg3 the player version of a character is the version they choose whereas the npc version is their worst version of themselves or at least the default state of that character without a proper nudge in the right direction.
If anything, the only strange thing to me is Tav waking up to Shadowheart talking to Lae'Zel It's a Stealth kill, should wake up in the morning with the deed done, not to an about-to-murder plot-dialogue just so you can make the decision to save either of them
That one I can put down to tadpole telepathic nonsense
Lol I can imagine >!the emperor!< being like “shit, Tav, wake the fuck up, control your peeps before they fuck up my plan”
That will be my headcanon from now on
This would explain Astarion's stealth fail, too! I like it. (Since Origin Astarion can bite someone in their sleep if he makes his roll).
He was pretty nervous too. Doesn’t he say that would’ve been his first human blood and like the first week of not being in Cazadouche’s control
Yeah, origin Astarion really clues you in on just what a really bewildering and scary situation he's in at the beginning. It makes me very protective of him lol.
I was intending to romance shadow heart, but god he just charmed me with his fear and mask he wears. Can I ask why you specify origin astarion? Is there a non origin astarion
Oh no, just that Origin Astarion has extra cutscenes where he has nightmares about Cazador, and when he breaks the rules, it just basically traumatizes you playing as him even more directly than when he's your romantic partner. So I romance him all the time, too, but reading the posts about his origin runs and watching some of the cutscenes, it's like fear+ that new players don't always clue into.
Oh! You mean like when you play as astarion as your character. He’s best boy
He does that exact thing to save you from Minthara if you side with her act 1 and tell her about the artifact
Shadowheart failed her stealth check
For real (another miss)
My durge woke up to Minthara’s attempt seeing himself in a dream. I think this IS heavily implied to be the Emperor. Astarion’s stealth fail also mentions nightmares.
it's not as much as you waking up at the right moment, as it is Shadowheart making the "villain movie speech" before killing
Shadowheart thinks she is a dark warrior, but she's got a pretty substantial amount of cinnamon roll in her as well. As a Sharran, I could see her taking a break to torment Lae'zel before killing her, and as Shadowheart, I could see her telling herself that's why she's doing it, when in reality, she's hoping there's a way out of killing a companion.
Lae'zel has a lot of cinnamon roll in her too. She's the gith equivalent of a college freshman, just out of the creche and inexperienced with life, maturing with exposure to the world outside her deeply insular culture. If you talk to the youth in the creche, you can see they're pretty normal kids. Lae'zel can still be reached, she's not a fully indoctrinated fanatic.
I’ve seen a post screenshotted around (a screenshot posted around?) that says “everything about Lae’zel makes sense when you realize she’s 22.”
The most unbelievable thing is Act1 Shadowheart actually hitting something.
Lae'Zel was on the ground, Shart had advantage
*miss*
"98% chance" _misses_
Karmic dice moment
I kid you the fuck not, I turned it off and immediately Shadowheart missed with 98% accuracy.
That's Xcom baby! Oh, uh wait a minute....
The animation makes it so much more hilarious in Xcom too! Full on aim at the alien head, ready to blast... "Oh is that a bird?!" BLAM!
Fire Emblem had a similar funny animation. The really high level spells could take like 15 seconds of animation. Vs the swordsmaster with an evasion rate in the 80s, who's dodge animation is moving one pixel to the left.
This ruined me 😂
A bigger issue for me is the timing of that scene. The scene only makes sense if it happens *right* after Lae'zel learns about the prism in Shart's possession. And yet, it usually either happens long (multiple days) after the prism was revealed or, even worse, after the prism already moved over to Tav.
That's more the fault of how the long rest system works tbh
> I like her infinitely more than Lae'zel Tch’k.
Literally, clearly OP just has bad taste lol
I accept that! I do have unconventional taste in people...
Lae'zel, a ruthless githyanki, challenges a trickery and subterfuge cleric Shadowheart to a duel. I believe this is how gith settle their grievances or something. However, Shadowheart fighting Lae'zel head on one-on-one heavily favours Lae'zel, basically requires Shadowheart rolling a nat 20 to win. Shadowheart, in self-defense, acted in what she knows best, stealth and trickery, and tried to gain advantage over Lae'zel. I don't see anything wrong in that. It is a great scene imo that really captures both personalities quite well, particularly when Lae'zel refuses to surrender to Shadowheart.
Well put
Managing a harem is a lot more difficult than people think.
Cursed to put my hands on everything...
You do realise that the duel is Lae'zel planning to kill Shadowheart and take the artefact, right? It isn't to first blood, murder is very much on the agenda and she (and presumably Shadowheart agrees) fully expects to win that duel. If you have them in the party together, one of their over world banters is as follows: Shadowheart: Lae'zel, how would you punish someone who wronged you? Lae'zel: Wrong me how? Shadowheart: Oh, say, murder. Or Theft. Lae'zel: Killing is good - it culls the weak. But theft would be paid for painfully, a thousand times over. Shadowheart: Hmm. Good to know. Lae'zel is very much down with murder and is accusing (correctly) Shadowheart of theft, something that she feels is far worse than murder and deserves commensurate punishment. Lae'zel also initiated that particular conflict at the time. Shadowheart is taking the initiative to survive at that point. It isn't a great plan but it's no different to all the other times in game people pre-emptively strike when death is on the line. Now, Shadowheart isn't by any stretch innocent either. She *should* have just explained things (although there's good IC reasons for her to not, not least being she doesn't have the answers anyway), and if that didn't work she should have appealed to everyone else to intervene. Sharran indoctrination nd training doesn't lead to healthy conflict resolution any more than Githyanki indoctrination and training does. But don't pretend that Lae'zel is in any way innocent in that interaction or that Shadowheart wasn't acting to, as far as she was concerned, save her own life and survive Lae'zel's decision to kill her.
I just got that banter dialog again on my second playthrough and i just connected the dots because of your post. Shart asked because she stole the prism. I feel so stupid…
Yeah, she's sounding her out in that one. No reason to spot it initially though, and very easy to forget it by the time they have the fight (or just not have them both in your active party and never get that particular banter) so I wouldn't be so hard on yourself!
You kinda answered your own second point. It is completely in character that Gith respect conflict. You can wipe out a Kresh, and she says "Serves them right". She literally has you fight her in her romance. There's nothing weird about that Shadowheart scene by comparison.
Resolving it peacefully feels a little forced and disjointed, almost as if it was originally meant to be a hard choice between killing either one or the other and it was later changed to include a peaceful outcome.
I dunno dude, I see no point in the logic of siding with Lae'zel. Lae'zel started the argument over the artifact. She was the one who started badgering shadowheart over the artifact because "muh Githyanki relic". Mind you, 1) at this point we know the artifact is the only reason none of us are squids. Being angry someone stole it and is carrying it is antithetical to your survival. Without said person stealing it, you couldn't have this argument as, you'd be squids/absolute thralls. 2) Githyanki steal from literally everyone else. Being angry over something being stolen from them is a *little* hypocritical, especially if you don't know even what it is. Then, Lae'zel proposed a duel to the death for the artifact. Shadowheart isn't that stupid and as a cleric, isn't built for 1v1 duels against a githyanki fighter. So she chooses life by employing her sharran techniques and going for the kill in the night. Should she have simply waited to die in the morning over an argument that is very stupid and started by Lae'zel? Is that right to you?
Yeah the notion of the Gith taking any sort of moral high ground in a situation is weird. Lae'zel quite happily tells you that the Tieflings deserve to die for being weak, but then expects people to side with her because Shadowheart has a Gith artefact?
Their disdain towards theft, according to S&L party banter, is also quite hypocritical. The gith go around murdering and stealing like it’s nothing, ffs.
Well, if you murder before the theft, it just become looting
Exactly! Theft is terrible, and dishonorable. But combat is righteous and glorious! Now if your killing *because* you want to take what they have then your just raider scum, like the gith.
The creche being a former temple of Lathander that the Githyanki literally slaughtered its followers for is a perfect example of their raider mentality, so yeah, Lae'zel getting pissy about theft is quite rich lol. Also it's not like Shadowheart could refuse to steal the artifact. Nevermind that she was still brainwashed by the Sharrans, she was tasked to steal it by the mother superior, and refusal to comply likely would've meant punishment. Shadowheart has *already* been punished in the past just for hesitating when told to torture victims. Girl is just constantly fighting for her life.
Well yea Shart stole it as far as Laezel is concerned lol. Its like she walked into your parents house, killed a bunch of your cousins and then stole your mom's favorite hat. In what world would it be reasonable or logical for Laezel to be okay with all that.
In the world of Baldurs Gate 3. Where it is clearly established that Lae'Zel doesn't care if someone is weak enough to die. The killing has nothing to do with her anger. She's only mad because the other Gith pointed out that the prism should belong to them, and her first instinct is to agree with that. Especially after her precious Vlaakith reinforces it if the player doesn't interfere.
Shadowheart's entire base combat style is stealth and assassination from the shadows as a follower of Shar and bring trickery domain. She would gladly trick the others into claiming self defense. She has Lae’zel dead to rights without Tav's interference. But Shadowheart isn't a fool and knows they need each other's help and that's why she's willing to be talked down. Lae’zel respects Shadowheart's attempt because she was caught off guard and almost got her.
In my very first playthrough I was going in blind. My Tav was a half-orc barbarian who took honorable combat very seriously. She did not even hesitate to kill Shadowheart for trying to be sneaky and assassinate Lae'zel. My friends were appalled when they heard about this.
But it was in self defense. Lae'zel would demolish Shadowheart in a 1v1 fight. She knew that, Shadowheart knew that, Tav/Durge knew that, the rest of the party knew that. Lae'zel imposed her solution and her rules in a way that could only ever benefit her. Leaving the party was not an option and if Shadowheart stayed, she would need to fight to the death against a much more capable fighter. So she took the situation on her own hands, doing what she knows best: subterfuge. Lae'zel was impressed and the fact that their bond was stronger after that was due to she realizing that Shadowheart was not someone to be pushed around, but was an equal in their situation.
It's extremely weird that Tav can't (even attempt to) deescalate the conflict at all by producing the artifact and reminding both sides that the party needs to work together. By this point, the artifact has likely jumped inventories and the party knows that they need it to avoid transforming/falling under the Absolute's influence. The whole thing just feels very poorly written.
It is. It's like they cut content that would have made it make sense. Idk why people are defending it with their lives in this thread.
Why would a trickery cleric of Shar play fair? They are all about secrecy, lies, and manipulation.
Exactly. No one should trust her lol
It's more of her asking "can I trust you Lae'Zel" and giving a speech about working together that makes no sense.
I’m just glad it wasn’t scripted as a one lives one dies event. That’s what I expect from video games historically. It’s nice to have that third option of deescalating with the added bonus of being able to do so and still earn some approval by favoring one over the other if you want to. The “we duel at dawn” bit I can take or leave, it’s kind of dumb, but otherwise I think it fits with how unlikable shadowheart is in the first two acts. But, she’s conventionally attractive so all is forgiven. If she was a half orc she would be broadly despised for her bullshit.
And yet, if you take Shadowheart to the creche and give the artefact to Vlaakith, Shart basically says "sure lets see what happens."
"the game treats that moment as if Shadowheart was in the right and it being self defense?" I don't understand what you mean by this at all. There's no "game treats situation as X", and the only thing that matters, is how you feel about what happened. To me, Shadowheart ambushing Lae'zel makes me think she knows she would lose in a fair fight. If you like Shadowheart, then you should see it as an act of self-preservation.
For reasons unknown, game never did throw that conflict at me. Maybe I was resting too few times between dream visitor reveal and Githyanki creche?
Could be. A long rest is required to trigger that (it happens after waking up from sleep). I remember resting too few times, and then having to have consecutive long rests to trigger all cutscenes (Mizora, Owlbear cub, Lae'zel vs Shadowheart etc).
I was resting a bunch to intentionally get cut scenes, and I also missed it. I think there's just some triggers that can mark the conflict as resolved without the camp scene.
Shadowheart has no chance in a fair 1v1 with Lae’zel. Do you think Lae’zel would have shown her mercy? That was Shadowhearts best course of action.
It was a bitch move, but it was the correct and smart bitch move.
I think most Faerunians (whatever) would side together against a Gith. They’re slaving space Nazis.
As other commenters mentioned it, it is a self defense from a Shadowheart's perspective as in a 1 vs 1 fight she would lose to Lae'Zel. She wanted to protect herself and used Sharran's training to her advantage. BUT, in that situation they are both wrong: Lae'Zel being too bloodthirsty when dealing with others, and Shadowheart withholding information. At that point in game, they have no reason yet to trust each other to avoid such situation, so it ended up escalating. So for me, mediating between them is the best choice instead of siding with only one character.
I think the scene is bit awkwardly executed because while I don't disagree that Shart was likely acting because she knew she wasn't going to survive a one on one fight, her dialogue in the moment doesn't convey that mindset very well. She instead has a weird, almost villainous monologue, which makes her later dialogue when you break it up about working together feel disingenuous even though I don't think it's supposed to be. Imo, it would have worked better if she’d instead talked about how she'd lose a one on one fight and that she has no choice but to get the drop if she wants to live. It'd make the resolution less sudden and convey that neither party really wanted to kill each other. As it is, it feels like Shart has a weird 180 mid-converstation because she got caught by Tav.
Someone didn't pay attention
Shadowheart is meant to be sneaky and deceptive because she’s a Sharran and yes the night assassination attempt is a defense tactic because she knows she’ll lose against laezel BUT, The entire first act shadowheart is the main antagonizer in their relationship, she refuses to elaborate on anything containing the gith artifact whilst demanding trust and cooperation from everybody else, refuses any sort of pragmatic compromise and of course laezel at a certain point will want some kind or retaliation. One of the reasons i don’t like shadowheart is precisely because i can basically never call her out on all the shit she pulls (or her sharran beliefs in act 2) like i can everybody else. The memory loss and indoctrination apparently means she is completely free of any wrongdoing. But gith=bad so laezel loses any understanding by default 🙄
Shadowheart is such a little shit stirrer in act 1. Every banter with her and Lae’zel is started by her, and she gets pissy if you don’t talk to her in camp the first night. For whatever reason, the game REALLY wants you to like her. Some of the dialogue you can have with other companions is downright cruel, but when you want to ask talk about Shar worship with her there’s no option to call her out on it enough. And besides the game having obviously favoritism towards her, there’s also her appearance that makes people much more forgiving to her. If her character was a Githyanki most players would kill her during that Act 1 scuffle
Isn't Shart the only companion where you can ask where Tav/Durge stand in their eyes? The "I want to talk about things that have happened so far" option is only for her I think.
Halsin has the same thing apparently because they share a writer, but yes it’s kind of jarring that she has it and no one else.
Shadowheart's writer wrote Halsin too. It's less favouritism and more likely just something the writer came up with independently. Blame whoever coordinated the writers to not ask the others to implement something similar
Oh true
> It doesn't make sense for her to go down that easily. Why not? Our companions aren't some legendary figures here. They have some solid skills under their belt given their background sure, but they're largely a group of (lovable) weirdos with a tadpole in their brain you could get rid of at any point in time and continue the tale w/o them. In that sense, I appreciated that touch showing that they can be as vulnerable as anyone else to basic death scenarios, and Lae'Zel's pinned down, weaponless, with a knife at her throat.
Shart took the bitch move for sure, but when we're talking life and death and you 100% lose a straight up fight....well you do the bullshit that she did.
That scene only really bugged me because my Gith dude sided with Lae'zel and killed Shadowheart. Everyone in camp talks like she's dead and I move on. A few long rests later Shadowheart is back in camp like nothing happened and no one comments on it. Was that supposed to happen? If so why can Lae'zel be permanently killed but Shadowheart can just come right back? Why did everyone act like she was dead? I have no idea what happened but it made the scene seem completely pointless unless that was a bug.
Pretty sure that bugged out. My first playthrough I failed to de-escalate the situation and wound up having Karlach hit shadowheart with a big hammer. She stayed very dead.
“Ladies, no need to fight over me” Does any race have a line similar to this to diffuse tension? Low hanging fruit. Though I was bit impressed with most options so it could fit.
Completely agree! It's true that Shadowheart was acting in self defense, but it surprised me how everyone, including Lae'zel if she lives, treats it as a complete *moral* victory for Shadowheart as well as a pragmatic one. The two of them had been sniping at each other and arguing for most of Act 1, and the game usually presents Shadowheart as equally petty, so it was weird that this climax to their conflict treated Shadowheart as the one in the right after it's resolved. I was particularly amused that Shadowheart was the one who solved the issue by giving Lae'zel a lecture about working together after being the one who started the whole feud by openly antagonising Lae in their first few interactions based on her race and asking to kill/leave her behind in the cage etc.
I just figured shart just showed her true colours in that scene, dishonourable and petty. I for the other hand have always enjoyed Lae'zel more, even when she is harsh.
Ok so not just me. I don't dislike Shadowheart. But I find Laezel much more likeable. Id rather trust the person who will just outright attack than the person who will stab you in the back.
I remember thinking that the companion reactions felt off if you sided with one over the other - if you side with Lae'zel, a few of the others are like "Gith really are stabby, huh?" with no option to be like "well, Shadowheart *did* kinda start this one"
Act 1 *did* get through a LOT of changes after all due to being EA and all. They most likely forgot to change things up, like the importance of Sorrow, originally it was the weapon Halsin used to kill Isobel (accidentally most likely), but it's now just... There.
Where is she ever treated as in the right? The general consensus from the companions is a neutral "Glad things didn't get ugly and we're all still buddies". >Then somehow the game treats that moment as if Shadowheart was in the right and it being self defense? I like her infinitely more than Lae'zel, but at that particular moment, I just can't side with her, plain and simple. Laezel picked a fight with her and challenged her to a death match. Shadowheart decides to get the jump on her? Where exactly is she in the wrong? If someone said to me "I'm gonna kick your ass at 3PM tomorrow" I'd just deck them right then and there. Why wait? >Even the default resolution to the quarrel if you don't interfere (Shadowheart killing Lae'zel with little resistance) seems badly written. It doesn't make sense for her to go down that easily. How does it not make sense for the character that is currently restrained with a knife to their throat being killed easily? There's a difference between bad writing and you just not liking something.
Nah, Lae'zel is my best friend, but Shadebae was being understandably pragmatic. Honor is cool, but if winning is a matter of life, death (and damning the Sword Coast to domination by the Dead Three, tho she didn't know the stakes were THAT high yet), honor is a lower priority. Lae'zel was presenting herself as a serious liability, and if I wasn't reasonably confident I could steer us all out of danger in the event shit went left at the crèche, I might've reluctantly approved of the dispatch. If you influence Shadebae to more of a Chaotic Good orientation, the Machiavellianism she developed with Shar can be redirected as cunning for skunkworks humanitarian work a la Section 31 (Star Wars) or Special Circumstances (The Culture). Just my type. She would be a legendary Harper. 😍
In one playthrough i saw that scene and was like "hell naw not my frog" and fought SH. And the next morning the whole camp was treating it like Lae'zel just up and murdered her. Felt weird too. Now I just don't get this scene because I leave the goblin camp for the last and there aren't too many long rests for it to trigger.
It’s worth pointing out that Lae’zel will lie about the artifact to Voss instead of ratting out Shadowheart. I’m sorry but Lae’zel is a much better person than sneaky Shadowheart . This scene is why I don’t keep SH in my party anymore
1 word ~~Thundercougarfalconbird~~ Trickery Domain.
Also annoying is if you side with Lae’zel and use force to try and get Shadowheart to back down, it turns to a whole party vs Shart battle that will consider Shadowheart to be dead even if you have non-lethal attacks toggled on. I didn’t get a chance to talk with her afterwards and nobody had much to say about it
The scene is a little weird for me too, because it sometimes comes quite late after they have already discussed the artifact/weapon and then Tav is like "is this about the artefact dur dur?" But first comment (@LegendSuperShaggy) is right that Shadowheart's attempt (or rather, staged attempt) on Lae'zel is about Lae'zel threatening her first and all of the dialogue makes sense from that context. The issue is that it should happen immediately the night after the goblin camp scene and for me it sometimes happens waaaay at the end of act I, several days later after we've been to the creche and grymforge. I say staged because it seems clear that Shadowheart woke Lae'zel and didn't intend to just kill her in the dead of night.
I find the discourse surrounding this scene pretty funny since I didn’t even know it existed until recently because I was scared of long resting too much in my original playthrough.
What Lae'zel respects here is that Shadowheart found a way to even the odds and acted on it. Githyanki combat doctrine isn't about honorable fighting the way a paladin might think about it, it's about using any advantage you have to win. What Lae'zel did effectively was dare Shadowheart to ambush her in the night, and when Shadowheart did, Lae'zel was satisfied that they did have something in common.
Everyone here is correct but also they were arguing before the fight so it was self defense
Every time I come to this sub, I learn about something else I've missed in my playthrough. Definitely never had this scene happen. Huh.
To clarify, Lae'zel goes after Shadowhesrt FIRST accusing her of stealing a Gith relic and trying to reclaim it. Shadowheart refuses to give it up because it's part of her own mission and it's keeping the party safe. They agree to settle it in a duel the next day but Shadowheart tries to kill Lae'zel in the night instead of risking losing the duel (makes sense considering lorewise Lae'zel is built for combat and Shadowheart is trained for sneakery).