#I want to add the little notes about each song too 🥲

[eliteseven]

Gathered a few recs for the Shadowheart playlist, if that’s still a thing. It’s a little lengthy because I’ve put thought into each one, and could simply go on for hours about this character:

Bring me to Life - Evanescence. Just a really perfect summary of Shadowheart’s Selûnite arc. Her journey from Shar’s darkness into the light, and how the player helps her to see the truth of Shar’s manipulations. With lyrics like ‘call my name and save me from the dark’, ‘Save me from the nothing I’ve become’, ‘I’ve been living a lie, There’s nothing inside’.

Like a Prayer - Madonna. For the religious themes and sexual innuendo of a woman who loves God like she might a person, compared to Shadowheart’s relationship with both the player and her love for Shar (Shadowheart a-likens her love for Shar with Gale’s love for Mystra). More appropriate for Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, where the player is effectively Shadowheart’s side piece/ Mistress to her real relationship with Shar. Bonus points for actually being able to pray to Shadowheart during a sex scene in the game.

Numb - Linkin Park. If you consider the song to be from Shadowheart’s perspective, directed towards Viconia/ Shar. ‘I’m tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless, lost under the surface, I don’t know what you’re expecting of me, Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes’, ‘Cause everything that you thought I would be, Has fallen apart right in front of you’, ‘all I want to do, Is be more like me and be less like you’.

Somewhere I belong - Linkin Park. A song about someone trying to escape their pain, and find a place they can belong and be happy. For Shadowheart’s greatest shame; “She doesn’t know who she is, or where she belongs.” She spends the game trying to find a place for herself, whether that be with Shar, with her family, or by Tav’s side. If she ends up travelling alone, then she’s still trying to find it, come the epilogue party.

On the Beach - Chris Rea. Makes me think of the skinny dipping scene. ‘Between the eyes of love I call your name, Behind the guarded walls I used to go’, ‘No-one but you and I, Underneath that moonlit sky, Take me back to the place that I know, On the beach’.

The Housebuilding Song from Red Dead Redemption 2, because Tav and Shadowheart ‘build a little house together’. The song plays during a scene in the game where you build a house and a barn on a country farmstead for your family, which is what Tav and Shadowheart do post-game.

Why can’t this be love - Van Halen. Always makes me think of the mutual pining during Act 1 and Act 2, where Shadowheart refuses to act on her feelings for the player for the sake of Shar and her mission. Carries on into Act 3 on the Shar path, with Shadowheart explicitly saying “I can’t truly love you.”

Sunshine of your love - Cream. Makes me think of the Shar romance ending, with how Shadowheart and Tav have secret trysts whenever Shadowheart slips away from her duties. In particular, it makes me think of the original Shar romance epilogue slide, “By the Night Orchids bloom, her mind doth wander to old friends and an old flame. The one light she is never sad to see, when it doth cast itself upon the steps of the House of Grief.”

Girl - The Beatles. This one’s here exclusively for the line ‘When you say she’s looking good, She acts as if it’s understood’, since Shadowheart responds with “I know” to a player saying “You’re beautiful.”

My Love, My Life - Abba. Shadowheart’s writer did a QnA on one of Jen & Aliona’s streams where he said this would be Shadowheart’s favourite Abba song.

Omg!!! What an incredible addition to the Shadowheart Playlist tag!!!! 😍

I love your picks!! And I love hearing the explanation for why you chose each one! They tie into her story and themes so well! They’re all so fitting (besides being great songs), I can’t wait to listen to them with a fresh perspective! 😄

Thank you so much for sharing your compilation! I’ll be stealing these for my master Shadowheart playlist if you don’t mind! 🥹