Serana stops talking after you cure her and nobody mentions it

[NordOfSolitude]

I'm on my second Dawnguard run and I just realized something that's been bugging me. After you cure Serana of vampirism (if you go that route), her dialogue just... drops off a cliff. She's still your follower, still fights with you, but she barely says anything anymore. No more of those little comments about her past, the Soul Cairn, her mom, any of it.

Compare that to keeping her as a vampire - she's got way more personality, keeps talking about stuff, actually feels like a character you're traveling with. But the moment you "save" her, she becomes this quiet, generic follower. It's like the game is punishing you for picking the "good" ending for her character arc.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I just being weird about it? Makes me wonder if it's intentional - like, removing her vampirism also removes what made her interesting to begin with. Which is honestly kind of dark when you think about it.

 

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

yeah I've noticed this and it's genuinely one of the more frustrating design choices in Dawnguard. the vampire dialogue is way more extensive - you get all those lines about the Soul Cairn, her family drama, observations about being undead. once you cure her, a lot of that just evaporates and you're left with pretty standard follower banter.

I don't think it's intentional as some deep thematic thing though. more likely it's just... the dev time ran out or they didn't record enough dialogue for the cured version. Serana's got a ton of content already and adding a whole second set of personality lines for the "cured" path would've been extra work. easier to just let the vampire dialogue carry the character and assume most people wouldn't cure her anyway (or wouldn't care once they did).

that said, keeping her as a vampire does feel weird from a story angle - like you're just... accepting that she stays undead forever because the dialogue is better? it's a lose-lose. you either get the "good" ending and lose the character depth, or you keep her vampiric for the roleplay value and ignore the actual plot resolution.

honestly on my third playthrough I just kept her cured but didn't use her as a follower much after, which defeats the purpose. would've been nice if they'd put the effort in to make both paths equally interesting.