Shadowheart is the main character

[Kn8cK]

I tried a playthrough where I intentionally went out of my way to not pick up any of the party members.
I let Shadowheart lie on the beach, I let gale be stuck in the vortex, Astarion can wait in ambush for all eternity for all I care and Lae'Zel can rot in her cage. - Et Cetera.
I tried to do things solo and see how far I'd get.
When I reached the Goblin camp, the cutscene where the Absolute introduces her 3 champions started and then - Shadowheart appeared - guess she finally woke up on that beach - and she helped and repelled the absolute with her orb thing.
After the cutscene, she was in my party.
She is the only character that gets forced upon you.
But - if you play AS Shadowheart as a origin character, you will not have any other characters forced on you by the game.
In other words, narratively speaking, Shadowheart is technically the main character of the story.

[sam_502]

Dont think so Tim, i play my own story, didnt even bother with her. She is only good for healing unless you got healing potions aplenty

[Tarkus]

Well she has the Astral Prism, which is kinda crucial to everything.

[SmallGespenst]

It's probably just a consequence of her carrying the plot token that the game needs you to have to resist the Absolute, it gets passed on to you if you remove her from your party, but can't if you never take her along.
Having her force herself into your party is at least better than having a cut-scene game-over if you left her on the beach.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by Kn8cK:

I tried a playthrough where I intentionally went out of my way to not pick up any of the party members.
I let Shadowheart lie on the beach, I let gale be stuck in the vortex, Astarion can wait in ambush for all eternity for all I care and Lae'Zel can rot in her cage. - Et Cetera.
I tried to do things solo and see how far I'd get.
When I reached the Goblin camp, the cutscene where the Absolute introduces her 3 champions started and then - Shadowheart appeared - guess she finally woke up on that beach - and she helped and repelled the absolute with her orb thing.
After the cutscene, she was in my party.
She is the only character that gets forced upon you.
But - if you play AS Shadowheart as a origin character, you will not have any other characters forced on you by the game.
In other words, narratively speaking, Shadowheart is technically the main character of the story.

I just killed her and took the artifact for myself

[Noctoculus]

Try killing her next time.

[Rain]

If you remove her from your party at camp the item she carries gets switched to your inventory from hers.

[Winter Light]

Odd choice for them to give the Big Important Plot McGuffin to a companion that is optional. It also feels janky just how casual she is about it magically going to you. Her entire existence revolves around that doohickey, her goddess is counting on her delivering it ad yet she's content for it to pass to you without any kind of anxiety.

[Kn8cK]

Originally posted by Noctoculus:

Try killing her next time.

If you kill her - and then ressurect her, she has special dialogue and then you can say: I had so much fun killing you last time, I thought I'd do it again.
Savage.
Anyways - I am talking about the writing. If this was a non-interactive book, she would certainly be the main character.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by Kn8cK:

Originally posted by Noctoculus:

Try killing her next time.

If you kill her - and then ressurect her, she has special dialogue and then you can say: I had so much fun killing you last time, I thought I'd do it again.
Savage.
Anyways - I am talking about the writing. If this was a non-interactive book, she would certainly be the main character.

If you actually STORY kill her as in when she happens to arrive wth the artifact, you can not revive her, its a good way you can test if you story killed a character

[Vampirate]

It's not Shadow that was important friend, it was the artifact she carries. I won't spoil that for you tho.

[Warfrost]

If any companion is the "unofficial main character" it's Gale. He's the only character capable of ending the game in Act 2. That being said, ANY character can be the main character, which is part of BG3's brilliance.