Shar, Shadowheart, and grief
Bringing to you, for once, a non Astarion post, because I felt like talking about grief (totally normal thing for me, don't worry, nothing to see here), and Shar's the prime subject for that. So I'm talking about Shadowheart and Sharrans a lot here. Enjoy (if that's the right word, lol) 🩶
Spoilers for both of Shadowheart's endings incoming, take care
Shar thrives on people grieving, and specifically, people clinging to denial, refusing to face their pain. Grief is a very painful thing to experience, and in the midst of that pain, it can be very tempting to find a way out of it. And if the only life line you are being offered then is that of a Dark Goddess, why not take it? Right?
The Sharrans will blabber about embracing loss yadi yada, but it's precisely because they cannot face their grief that they turn to Shar. I'm sure there are many in the Sharran cloister who are in it only because they are opportunists who see a way to profit from people who are distraught, but I'm equally certain that many of them turned to Shar in a moment of great suffering, because they sought to avoid the pain. And that is what trapped them there.
Nocturne, when we meet her after defeating Viconia, refuses to leave Shar. Saying that "not everyone is as brave".
Nocturne : You may be free of the Dark Lady, but not everyone is as brave, I'm afraid.
And it's never really clear why Nocturne is even here in the first place (she was there as a child, or at least when she was young, that much we know since she has known Shadowheart as an initiate). But what is very clear, however, is that she genuinely believes she needs Shar. Maybe because Shar offers her an escape to avoid facing pain. Sharran doctrine claims that the only way to not suffer is to embrace loss, and the erasure of memories that is so common among Shar's followers is a way to do that, in their eyes. And Nocturne apparently believes that she isn't strong enough to live without this, that she needs the numbness that Shar provides.
But forgetting about your pain isn't embracing it. It's refusing to process it.
We see that in the two NPC outside of the House of Grief. They have forgotten the person they've lost.
And the thing is, those people are still sad, in a way, but they have forgotten why. And that's even sadder than just living with your pain, I think, because if you forget about the people so that their loss stops being painful, then you forget about the joy, too. The love that there was before. Shar's symbol looks like a black hole to me, and I think that's very much on purpose. By taking away memories from her followers, or the people who come to her like those two unfortunate, Shar doesn't just take the pain away. She takes everything.
Finding peace in grief is really hard, and it takes a lot of time and work, but that's the only way to move forward.
And by the end of Shadowheart's selunite arc, she has to make a choice that I think illustrates just that.
Either she accepts to let go of her parents, and the pain caused by the mysterious wound fades. Or, she refuses to let them go, she doesn't accept the loss and the pain remains.
And of course, there's pain either way, because her grief isn't magically over now that she has let go of her parents, and the way her life was controlled by Shar doesn't let a lot of space for happy memories with them to remain. But if Shadowheart lets her parents go the way they wish to go, she chooses to move on, and so with time the grief will fade. I know the wound is mostly just Shar's punishment to get Shadowheart to behave, and that Shadowheart is also happy if her parents live, but I really like the symbolism behind the pain Shar inflicts on her, and the circumstances under which it disappears, or stays.
I don't know if I am right in my interpretation of this choice, but that's always how I've seen it, as someone who's had to work real hard to move on from the loss of a parent. Letting go of the past (not really forgetting it, but accepting that it's over), is the only way to heal from loss. But that's a really hard thing to do, and the way it's handled in Shadowheart's story is amazing, I think.
In her Sharran path, this moment with her parents is truly heart-breaking. I only did it once (I have no screenshots of that run and it was my honour mode so I cannot reload saves, sorry. Have a cool Gauntlet of Shar screenshot instead), and it was super hard to watch. Because even as a Sharran, Shadowheart is still Shadowheart, and she cares. It's very clear that having to kill her parents is extremely hard on her. And when it's over, Shar makes her forget, because the pain of what she has done would break her.
The thing is, forgetting is normal, when you're grieving, but it comes with time. After 10 or 20 years, sometimes more sometimes less, you start forgetting little things about the people you've lost, and that's part of what makes the pain ease (even if it's very hard to handle, at first, because it feels like you're betraying the people you loved). But you don't forget the people themselves. The people, and the love you've shared, stay with you forever.
But in Shadowheart's case with this path, forgetting naturally and in a healthy way is not an option. Shar makes her forget, not the pain, but her parents, and she cannot even process the grief because of that. So the pain will always be there, even if she doesn't remember what caused it in the first place, and that pain will be what ties her to Shar forever.
Denial disguised as acceptance is how Shar traps people.
Side note. There are many other characters in bg3 that deal with grief, and I have thoughts about them too. Arabella is a prime example, and in the game we see her fast forward through all the stages in the span of a couple of days. And there's also loss sprinkled in Karlach, Halsin, Jaheira, and Wyll's stories (and all the others, honestly, even if it's not the loss of someone; Astarion has to grieve the life that was robbed from him, and Gale has to grieve his relationship with Mystra, Yenna grieves her mother, Minthara mourns Menzoberranzan, etc). But I didn't want this post to go on forever so I tried to keep it tight, and only talked about Shadowheart and Shar. There's also a lot more to be said about Shar herself as a goddess, but it would be straying a bit from the grief topic. Maybe I'll add on to this post later if I feel like it and find more to say, who knows.
