The Red Prince romance was pretty good.

[Anri]

THIS WILL INVOLVE ROMANCE SPOILERS, BUZZ OFF IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR!
Look I KNOW it sucks that you can't romance him the same you can with the others, but I still thought his path was pretty great. It's sorta refreshing, yeah? I mean almost every game you can blink at someone and they're head over heels for you. But with the Prince it was slower; he had to really get to know you and his love was a slow budding affection. Please keep in mind that this man is a grade A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but (even if you don't romance him) after he gets to know you he doesn't talk down to you like he does with NPCs. He'll still be snarky, but it's easy to tell he doesn't honestly mean any harm. And when he wants you to know he loves you, he lets you know. Okay, I'm just gushing now so let me get on to my better points.

-You can't have him.
This SUCKS, but it's incredible at the same time. It's something nice to see in a game, that for once you can't have the character you want. Yes, I know you play the game for your own pleasure, but please appreciate the this. He breaks your heart, but imagine all characters hearts YOU'VE broken. To have that flipped onto the player is a wildcard that I've come to appreciate. (Also while I was romancing the Prince, Lohse ending up falling in love with me and I rejected her so maybe that's why this point sticks with me.)

-Imagine how the other party members feel.
Now, this isn't in the game at all (I wish it were) but the player can be creative a little bit and imagine this. Take a moment the wonder how your other party members would react to seeing you and the Prince fall for each other just for the Prince to back away in the end. Think about how Lohse would throw such evil stink eyes at him as she comforts you, how much ♥♥♥♥ Sebille gives him for playing with your heart, how Fane would be in utter shock that the Prince would turn away from it all. It's not in the game, but it's wonderful to imagine.

-He still loves you.
The Prince openly tells you he plans to marry another and you romancing him doesn't change that, but he still opens his heart for you. He goes with the Princess (please note that I do still hate her) but several times throughout his dialogue he shows that he loves the both of you and that he feels terrible for siding with his destiny. But also, maybe take the end game into your own interpretation. Perhaps after it all he comes back to you and asks for your hand, be it he leaves the Princess, or he invites you to join their relationship. This man is the Red Prince, who the hell is going to stop him from being married to two people? Seriously, he still cares for the player, even if he has trouble conveying it.

This is a game that encourages you to take the story as your own, so if you're not satisfied with the Prince's romance change it to be your own. Or if not, be content with the fresh writing and that despite it all, he really does still love you.

[Chaoslink]

Honestly, this companion/romance interaction left me in awe. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it’s the best I’ve seen, both from a writing standpoint and from the player perspective. Easily the best character in the game.

He is a Prince. And the game reminds you of that. He is royalty. He is destined for another. Nothing you do could change that. However, at the end, you have the option to become his slave. Which to him literally is an invite to be his mistress, a side love hidden in the shadows of his lavish palace. And quite frankly, that is the most realistic thing that you could expect to achieve. If the story around him progressed and ended any differently, I don’t think it would have been even half as great or satisfying as how they wrote it.

Best companion character ever.

[Chaoslink]

What made him even better was his character development over the course of the game. How he went from being so completely self centered, that divinity was his and nothing in the world could ever stop his acquiring it, to having something else that was significant enough to him that he could pass up on godhood.

And those people out there that feel he should give up his destiny of becoming the father of dragons, a destiny that not only would see him as a legendary figure for years, but also one that had the power to change the entire future of his race, those people are simply selfish, to a childish level.

I’d actually love to see an impossible persuasion check if you confront him at the end of act three, that demands he leave the princess for you. Should you choose this, the interaction would end rather heatedly and abruptly. Then later, you’d find out that he was talking to your companions behind your back. Should you have convinced them to support you for divinity, he’d use your selfishness as a convincing argument against you and steer them to support him instead. Then, at the end, you’d be pitted against your entire party for divinity or have to give in and lose divinity to The Prince while also losing his respect and romance. I feel it’d be a fitting end for people so self centered to ask someone to give up such a significant destiny for them. And The Prince would know just how to say it to strike deep just how wrong you were.

[Jack]

Heh, just think that in the end when you obtain godhood(or don't) and after wooing the Prince enough he decides to give you a little something or... [tvtropes.org]

[AutumnRogue]

Alright, so let me first say that if you enjoyed the storyliine, that's cool. I'm happy for you, and I'm not trying to destroy that experience. But I do want to explain why I and many other users HATE this storyline. Even though there are plenty of other rants out there, but whatever.

1. You can't have him.

I can appreciate wanting to be subversive, but the issue I have is that that subversion comes at the cost of my play experience. To reference a better example of that subversion, you need only look at Dream Daddy. Robert is a troubled, self-destructive alcoholic, and at the end of his story line, he tells you he can't be with you, because he needs to better himself first. This works because Robert is doing this FOR YOU. For the player. And it leaves things open for later on down the road. It still achieves the same feeling without the players feeling cheated. If I'm going to have my expectations subverted, I want to walk away from that feeling awed at how well that was written. I do not want to walk away from my game wanting to PUNCH MY PARTY MEMBER IN THE FACE. (Yes, I took that option.)

2. Imagine how the other party members feel...

First of all, what other party members? I've only ever done Lone Wolf runs with myself and one chosen companion. Second of all, even if I did have other companions, that's not nice to imagine. It's not nice to imagine that my character would be heartbroken and angry. It's not nice to imagine that everyone would have to comfort them. It's not nice to imagine anything that would come from that ending. The whole thing sucks, and it doesn't get a free pass just for being subversive.

3. He still loves you.

THIS IS THE WORST OFFENSE, and the biggest reason why this story doesn't work. Because the story never resolves itself. It's not really an ending. You both still have lingering, unresolved feelings. How is anyone supposed to walk away from that situation feeling satisfied? It's just frustrating. If he was always going to put Sadha first, he should have rejected your every advance. And I can imagine whatever ending I want, but that's not the ending I was presented with. That wasn't the question he asked. That wasn't the situation that the Red Prince proposed. What he's asking for is a situation that's going to leave every party involved deeply unhappy. So yes, I punched him in the face.

Now, to respond to Chaoslink.

1. He never wanted to be a God. He just wanted his kingdom back. And Sadha. Mostly Sadha.
2. The Prince is more self-centered at the end of the game than he is at the start. He is asking his closest friend, and possibly, the NEWLY CROWNED DIVINE to be his slave and secret lover because he isn't able to make a choice. It's a difficult choice, but if he ever really cared about you, he would have rejected your advances from the very start. To suggest that you are selfish for asking him to return even a sliver of the love and compassion that you've shown him since the start of the game is just victimizing yourself. The relationship the Red Prince puts you in is borderline emotionally abusive. It's all about him and never about you.

I would love to see an option to smite him to ashes as a response to his proposal if you become the divine, because that's the kind of thing he's inviting if he asks a demigod to be his slave.

HOW IS SADHA NOT EVIL?

Seriously. She is connected to both the Shadow Prince and the God King. How does she not end up stabbing the Red Prince in the back?

The Red Prince has negative character progression.

Over the course of the game, not only does the Red Prince not become a better person (I've already explained why he's more selfish at the end than he starts), he actually gains flaws as the game goes on. He starts with a clear objective, and is confident and assertive. By the end of the game, he's completely confused about what he wants, and he's so disheartened by the mess he made of your relationship that he just lets you hit him and walks away. You're right Ruby. He's the Emperor now. NO ONE is stopping him from having a wife and a husband. But he doesn't even try to make it work. He's completely defeated. If he said at the end of the game, "Well, if I can't have one or the other, I'll just marry you both," I would accept that. That would be a way better ending than what we got. By the end of the game, the Red Prince is in shambles, which sucks because I LIKE HIM. Why else would I be romancing him? But watching him just give up makes me hate him even more. That's not the man he was at the start of the game.

And finally, here's what I think should have happened.

Because it's easy to complain about something, and much harder to come up with an alternative, right? In my eyes, the Red Prince's storyline should have been about realizing the irony in a ruler who answers destiny's call. He claims that he should be above the law at the beginning of the game, but when he receives prophetic visions that tell him who he needs to marry, he doesn't even question it. His story should have been about realizing that if he isn't master of his own destiny, how can he possibly rule a country according to his own whims? So long as he marries Sadha, he will always be nothing more than a puppet to some unseen, unknown force. This realization should be reinforced both by his growing feelings for you and by Sadha's increasingly questionable ties. And in denying fate, and choosing his love for you, someone who has stood by his side and proven that he is worthy of that love, over Sadha, who has power over him by virtue of the prophecy, he becomes a true conqueror. A man so bold he dared defy the plan that fate itself had laid out for him. That's the Red Prince I see when I look at his character. Not the indecisive, self-centered, wreck of a lizard we get at the end of the game.

And like I said at the start, if you're happy with the storyline given, you're free to continue enjoying it. But in my eyes, Larian could have done MUCH better. And I hope and pray that they change the story in the updated version.

[Chaoslink]

@Indecisive.

I can see where players with viewpoints like this are coming from. I do. However, I also have to simply say that I disagree on so many of those points. That either you're looking at it from the wrong standpoint, or you misinterpreted who The Prince truly is. We're all entitled to our opinions here, and just as you said, we're all free to continue liking or hating the way they did this, but I'm still going to come right out and say that I think just about everything you typed out is either wrong, or (and quoting myself here) selfish, to a childish level.

You say... "1. He never wanted to be a God. He just wanted his kingdom back. And Sadha. Mostly Sadha." However this isn't true. He did want to be a God. He wanted to use that power to reobtain that kingdom and to claim his Sadha from anything that stepped in the way of him doing both. However, once he discovered his feeling for you, and things progressed in such a way that he could get those things without becoming a God and instead pass that onto you while still realizing his destiny, he simply stopped needing that power.

Then for the rest of the comment directed at me specifically... "It's all about him and never about you." Yes. That. Did you not once notice this was pretty much a constant regarding his personality throughout the game? His sense of superiority, looking down on everyone given his royalty status? He lived his entire life pampered in a palace being told how great and important he was. A prisoner of his own name really. To expect him to be socially stable I don't feel is realistic to who he is. He wouldn't turn down your advances in an effort to not hurt you. It wouldn't fit his character. And he does offer you the opportunity to stay with him. People might be turned off by the title he offers it through, but chances are you'd not be lifting a finger for him unless you wanted to.

I don't believe the right choice however, would come from having him declare to marry both of you. If for no other reason than the possible repercussions that doing so might have. There is only so much you can ask of him before its simply too much about you and what you want. Which is why I throw out being selfish like I do. He isn't some random person you're falling for. He's a Prince, with an empire, a very well-known destiny (or so it might seem) and an image to uphold. I don't know enough about the lizard culture in the game to know if that would even be a realistic possibility. He was tossed out for his involvement with demons, who's to say they'd keep him if he came back like that? It could very well be that the only way for him to take you, while also keeping his empire and his destiny with Sadha to bring back dragons, is to do it how he did.

I feel like is all really comes down to how you opened. You can't have him. Its just not true. You can. You just can't have him all to yourself. It isn't that fairy tale ending that would satisfy people, but I also do't think that kind of ending would have fit. Nor do I feel it necessary. He has feelings for you, and he offers you a chance to go with him and not end the relationship. However, you have to accept that he's still an important individual who can't simply walk away from everything just for you.

Like we both said though, its really up to us whether we choose to like the story or not. I did. I felt that there was balance, between what was reasonable to ask for and expect from him and what you ultimately get. That his character fit who he was and the situation involving you fit into it how you'd expect. You're free to disagree. Just as I'm free to do the same with how you see it. They're all just opinions on soemthing that I'll admit, has some controversy to it.

[Jardenon]

When I am not playing as him, I make sure he dies. He is the one character in this game who doesn't ever deserve to get what he desires the most above all the others. He's a spoiled brat. An arrogant fop, and a sanctimonious prick. If I do choose to have him in my party, I make sure to take any chance of divinity away from him along with anything he desires, he will never see Sadha so long as I draw breath. very different when i play as him, however cause I make him earn his happy ending.

[R0S3R4BB1T]

It kind of reminds me of one of the romances in Dragon Age: Origins. It is really realistic given his status as a prince, however I do not enjoy being a slave to my supposed lover. As much as I love The Red Prince I don't need that angst and abusive dynamic in my life lol

[Syrris]

If it seems as though he's less confident in his purpose at the end, it's because he is, and you're the reason for it. His purpose was clear: destiny had some very specific things in store, and he was going to see them through no matter what. And then, out of nowhere and in a way that he was never prepared for, he finds himself wanting something else.

He can't deny destiny. It's his reason for being. He does his best to find a way to include you in it, however clumsy/awkward it might be. But in the end, you are not his destiny, and one way or another you simply have to accept that.