Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

i think that the following video shows a very different dialogs with your encounter
tav try hard to convince gale, and stop gale's ""ambition" finally.

I just got around to watching the vid on the new kiss animations with different camera angles last night. Commented on it as well.
Well without Tav looking like some witless scared kitten the entire thing is much better, I have no issues with A Astarion being a dominant personality, that's absolutely fine my gal ain't dumb she knew what she was getting into.
My main objection was always that Tav behaving like a scared child felt all wrong and out of character and context.

What I find weird is these animations and, apparently, Tav's fear are occurring before end game, and could even be before the Durge scenes depending on what order you do things in. I'd find it hard to believe that the Emperor or Bhall would just let their chosen instruments be turned into quivering scared children by some upstart vampire (in their eyes rofl). A scared Durge would rip his head off and Empy would likely either take over Tav immediately or rescind elder brain protection and let the tadpole take Astarion.

So she isn't scared, that simply doesn't fit in the game as it stands - the frightened facial animations are just ridiculous.

However at the end of the day my feeling is that Larian changing the dynamic between 2 people so massively, half a year after game release, is overwhelming unfair to a loyal fan base. I don't know what they were hoping to achieve apart from make some AA fans feel awful and allow SA fans to say 'We told you so'.

Nothing makes sense when it comes to these kisses. I agree with everything you wrote. This topic has now been discussed in 5 different threads, where the contradictions in the plot have been mentioned, which goes to show how controversial this change is. I'd like to think they just didn't think it through when making this change, don't know how to properly portray power play dynamics in a relationship, how it might affect people on an emotional level and spark even more debates between AA fans and haters, but I don't know really. It's just upsetting, particularly when they changed it months after launch and for Valentine's Day specifically.

Agreed. Beside the fact that it's just bad rpg writing to take away player agency like this, it does not even make any sense in the context of the story, as you wrote. If Tav/Durge are so afraid and feel so bad as they show in the animations why would they even stay with him? Nothing is preventing them from just leaving him or even kicking him out. He can't use any compulsion because of the tadpoles.

But the player wants to stay because they want to see the end of the story, so they are stuck with either watching their character acting totally ooc or breaking up with AA and be forever alone. Stuck between two bad choices. This is fanservice gone horribly wrong.

Even after removing the tadpoles and without a prior breakup he's fine with Tav going with Karlach to Avernus. Such a monster. They also adjusted his dialogue for that scenario in the new patch.

It's weird he only makes Tav stay in the morning after the battle scene. Or maybe not. Maybe he realised you had so many chances to leave that you didn't take that now you're just messing with him and he doesn't take you seriously anymore. His story has become a confusing mess.

you know, i do hope every character reveal his/her untamable nature in the stroy, and our tav has a difficult time to convince them to their exetreme high DC 99 ! to violate their ultimate obsessions.

this can be great to astarion and gale to see their intractable obsessions.

in this light, tav can not put every in control, however make a game story vivid portrayal, this will be fine wine.
compare with this, every thing is under control that is as dull water.

and i also hope emperor will try to cheat your stones and set up a trap, when you gain the first one.
but this will cause a complex situation since the story setting is that emperor is a medium to gain the protection from netherbrain.

so the original daicy -- your tadpole , is a much better setting. she will always try to domimate you, and might have the essential reverse,when you gain the first stone.

It's not even ridiculous, it's a victim animation from sadistic 3D porn. It horrifies me, to be honest. I wrote about it in another thread, I'll put my posts from there under a spoiler here. There are pictures of victims' faces (but only faces) from sadistic 3D porn, just a heads up just in case. And those are animations of our Tav's faces.

"Let me put forward one theory on the subject of why we have Lord Astarion kissing like this. I would like to point out that this is just a theory, an assumption, I have no actual proof of this, I'm not going to claim that it's definitely true, after all, we're just having a discussion here.

It's been written about in this thread before that it's not healthy SM, and I think I'm not the only one who when playing/viewing these scenes on youtube had a feeling of impropriety of what's going on in them. I was able to talk to a sexologist who deals with sexual deviance, he agreed to watch the kissing video and said that it's not a SM video, it looks like foreplay for "sadistic 3D porn" without a proper sequel. On portals devoted to 3D porn in the category "sadistic 3D porn" there is a certain "section" of videos united by such a theme as " she is controlled" or "her body is controlled". The plot of such videos is that the victim's body is under the control of the rapist, he controls her in the process. For connoisseurs of such videos the victim's facial expressions are important and the quality of the video and the level of the animator, who makes models for the video, is evaluated also by this point. In such a video the dominant may not be directly present, remaining as if behind the scenes of what is happening, the main thing is that the victim's facial expressions convey to the viewer the understanding that the victim does not want to do what they do, that their body is controlled. Like, for example, in Kiss with a Bite - Tav doesn't want to kiss Astarion after the bite, it's pseudo-Astarion playing this way, making his victim's body make different movements, this is also one of the "tricks" of the genre, when the victim seems to "want" the rapist, but a good animator through the victim's facial expressions should let the viewer understand that it's not so, and that she is being controlled. Our Tav's facial expressions and body language in this scene are perfect for this genre. If anyone wants to check this out for themselves (not recommended for sensitive people) I can post the names of these portals in a private message.

It's possible that the Larian didn't intend to "punish" anyone on purpose, that they just wanted more sex content in the game, and that's how they wanted to please the SM audience, because the topic was only touched on in the game, but not explored. That they probably hired some top 3D porn animator to do it. And this person wasn't privy to any dark romance, didn't know anything about Astarion's character or any relationship with Tav, he got a text script of the kisses themselves (bite, kneel, grab his face, make Astarion's face like the poster, etc), a general brief like "Lord Astarion and his spawn that he can control". And he did his job qualitatively in a "she is controlled" kind of way.

Tav's body language, which Zayir analyzed in this thread, also adds up to this version. If someone who specializes in creating sadistic 3D content worked on it, he probably has his usual ways of showing the victim's facial expressions and body language, his usual vision of it, and did it the way he usually does.

If you look at it from the perspective of this version, whatever you have going on there with the deep dark romance, the tenderness and love for Astarion, some meanings and such - kissing Astarion just automatically puts you on a porn site in the role of a victim being controlled.

I don't like videos like this, I experience significant psychological discomfort from watching such content, and I'm writing this solely to defend Astarion. He has a lot of people jumping on him right now, and using these "kisses" as the main argument for "he can't be Ascended". But, what if these scenes were done by an animator who has no idea of Astarion's personality? Then it's just using Astarion's model to create a scene in the "prelude to sadistic 3D porn" genre."

I don't know what Larian is trying to do with Astarion - his story and philosophical line is fragmentary.
And now his romance is fragmentary, where Tav takes the path of evil and is not afraid and accepts the rules - which is the most logical line.
"Abuser romance", "look how bad" and other "proper romance"? First off, the Astarion romance is wrong and bad immediately - why does it even exist. So I win and choose Astarion's "health" - otherwise lost.
Why did I "lose"?
The evil-button ritual that takes away feelings? Is that what I'm supposed to believe? Book of Evil as Wish Disney, fr? Lame. True vampire. No, the first Ascended Vampire with mortal senses. The theory of the bride - good, there is dynamics and space for thought. But what kind of neatness and detailed work - we can even talk about, when "knees" just random, everywhere and with a frightened face.
Psychology, the abuse cycle - please get a real expert to tell you that this is a dark way to heal. Because blood vengeance, vendetta, feud, drinking from your enemy's skull is an ancient cure. Suddenly the man who committed the vendetta became abuse-violently-evil to his love who literally helped him.
Cruel to others and the world - yes, to his ally and love - no (unless asked), though Astarion is himself and just being practical in Faerun.
Equality does not dictate love.
Astarion this pie.... He seems to literally bind his love to himself like an ancient savage. (without stipulating the details - charlatan, but honestly, it's clear enough)
Astarion can be played with by different genders, in which case he builds a hierarchy.
If you reason from a historical point of view, the example is limited to the actual Middle Ages, with the exception of the Amazons: women in the Middle Ages were not equal and could not leave a man. But say that these women were unloved, disrespected and unimportant and I'll laugh.
And, Astarion, even if he is a savage, is quite open about his tastes.
This bond is devilishly consummated.

Lord Astarion is the only one who can't be kiss&hugged in the epilogue. Even Sharr Sd can. Minthara can.
Spawn Astarion can be hugged, but not kissed.

Agreed LiryFire

And this is why I am not logging into the game either. I am not going to choose to be abused nor am I going to defang him either. Neither path is a choice and that is not how I understood the character at all. Sorry not sorry.

Well the only thing left for us to do is to make our point in every conceivable forum and on discord as frequently as feels reasonable and hope that Larian reconsider.
If not well they are purportedly releasing modders tools and I have no doubt that some competent modder will manage to either replace these kiss animations with ones from the SA path, change the camera angles or iron out those dumb Tav facial fear ones.
I've seen good modders manage such things for many years in every game I've played.
I'm surprised they took this romance down this path if I'm honest.
Even his Ascended route was still mainstream friendly to an extent. Much was implied to be a possibility but little was shown and it was left to the player to do the interpretation = good RPG.
These new kisses and Tavs facial animations seem to me to be taking his route into a niche of either Sm or pure sadism - now nothing is left for the player to interpret = Bad RPG.
Seems counter productive to do that in my eyes especially as it's upset a lot of otherwise loyal long term players who are Larians 'word of mouth' advertising.

In another thread - Posted by Mordred 92 a couple of days ago :
For everyone who has a complaints about the new kisses of AAstarion or spawn Astarion, you can compile this survey! The results of the answers will then be sent to Larian Studios
Here the link: http://t.ly/pnYBh

I attempted to message you back several times, yet the lovely Larian 504 gateway error keeps popping up.......UGH! Thank you for your statements! My pic is from my game and it was an amazing catch, I thought at least, so thank you again! ???

Geez. A man who has done wrong, done evil things for his own gain. At the same time found his love, though it is not equal, cannot leave when the choice is made and the bond is unbreakable - but his love is protected, important and loved and cared. Literally the Middle Ages. But this man is bound to become a horrible, disrespectful, cruel to his love, heartless abuser - because— evil and power?
For this, Sven suffered for 4 hours on GOTY in gold medieval armor?

Well, if they would figure out an actual theme to stick with, and explain their thoughts & people would be ok with it, then Sven made his own choice of his attire. If they literally set the entire story ablaze, then he still made his choice for his own attire.

But it was HIS CHOICE! lol

Anyway, I don't think it is too far-fetched to go with something of the bride storyline that I thought it was, which is directly from DnD, for a choice of an ascendent vampire. Otherwise, something with substance instead of a cheap one-trick BS story that invalidates the entire reason he was the face that brought many to the game—only one trick evil or one trick good. Nothing in between, that is just........ugh...........boring. And it's a complete throwaway for the entire character.

Also, just so you know, I did not intend for the post from one forum to multiply & post in all the threads I was reading due to the error 504 gateway...sorry for the inconvience. I hope I got them all deleted except for the one that was meant to be posted.

LiryFire, I'm sure anyone with any connection to literature, cinema or history would agree with you. The same goes for psychology - the only thing that could explain Astarion and Tav's behavior in these new "scenes" is Astarion's psychiatric disorder, sudden and ruthless, never manifested before and just as suddenly disappearing, with short-term amnesia (he doesn't remember anything about what he did, after all, and is acting normal again).

Tav isn't afraid anyway, if Tav was afraid they wouldn't have helped him, or parted ways with him without becoming his spawn. The only time a shallow and inconsistent character doesn't realize what a "bond for good" is and tries to leave Astarion later. His reaction to this is the only plot element where Astarion treats Tav badly (and it's brought up as an argument by everyone trying to prove how bad Astarion is, with Astarion only yelling and not even doing anything "evil"). Are there really people who treat equally those who suddenly betray them and those who will stand by them to the end? A character who treats his partner equally in both cases is either a complete psychopath who hates everyone indiscriminately (and then he won't have a partner), or... He doesn't exist. He is not real, such people, such characters do not exist.

I felt like there should have been two lines in this romance, the "power line" and the "hedonism line" (figuratively). Tav influences Astarion, you can see it in the lines. Tav, who seeks power, complements Astarion and ignites that passion in him, they will plan and execute, win and dominate together, a " evil couple". And it's impossible without respect, impossible to disrespect and smear with mud the ally, the soul mate with whom you do it all together. "Line of Hedonism" - Astarion loves not only to "bleed", but also to have pleasures, to enjoy life. Tav, indifferent to power, who simply loved Astarion and wanted the best for him, wanted only to see the smile on his face and the joyful gleam in his eyes, somewhat distracts Astarion from his "invasive plans". This is seen in the lines in the finale when, to the suggestion of "seeing the world together", Astarion happily agrees and says that he "wants all the pleasures", that they can settle down somewhere for two or three hundred years until they get bored, and at the party he also declares that Tav is more precious to him than power. And... slap in the face for trying to kiss the person who is more precious to him than power. Astarion is gentle. He's only cruel to his enemies and those who don't matter to him. Tav is the only one who matters to Astarion in this world.


I think that if you set a task to find examples in literature/film where a character who takes revenge does NOT become cruel and evil towards his beloved (i.e. behaves like a real person), it would be a list of very impressive size. And here's a variant where it happens the way Larian is currently being shown... I don't know where that's ever happened, unless, of course, you mean the literature that publishers print.


That got me, too. Shadowheart - hug as many times as you want. Okay, nice. Gale - you can hug once, okay, friendly, great. Damn Halsin, who only stayed alive because the metagame is bad and it's much more interesting to tell Orin the truth about her father, and Halsin somehow just gets forgotten in the process, Halsin, who keeps clearly staring at my Tav, is he also, like, huggable? Only from a blade's distance. And with my favorite Astarion, nothing, a couple of lines and that's it. Yes, his responses were lovely, but... what the hell? And in other novels, it turns out other players, can kiss their love. And now it looks like we won't be allowed to kiss the dearest and closest character at all in the third chapter, and someone can't even play without kissing, just knowing that "it" is there.


Honestly, I'm just shocked. And not only because of the mocking content of this (no classic RPGs, in principle, never had anything like this at all, if I was told about it when I bought BG3, I would have fallen off my chair, probably), and also because of the outright stupidity, the contrast between the beautiful plot of the first two chapters, and in general the plot of Astarion as a whole!This could have been written by a random person off the street with weird tendencies, but not by a professional screenwriter, my god...


It feels like the game is made for fans of porn and/or cheap ladies' "toilet" novels. Gross and nasty stuff - please, threesomes with Halsin, brothels, etc. It's great to give the player the opportunity to re-use for their own perverted pleasure someone whose bodily autonomy has been violated for two hundred years, who is traumatized by it, you can just leave him spawn forever in the name of "good" as the kind developers allowed and use him however you want.

A hug/kiss, adequate lines on the night after the Ascension - why? This is how the marketer sees the audience: "Gee, you can have not one guy, but two! Oh, he will be angry and dominant after the ritual, the button "refuse", it's, like, for people with special tastes. Oh, he's so sweet, he thanked me for that. Oh, he's on fire, poor little guy, but it's okay, he won't die, it's kind of dramatic." The thinking audience is a minority. Get punched in the face and be happy. Not happy? Who the hell did we invent the " refuse" button for? We have sex content for a new audience, it's a sex store for all fantasies, pick your department.


Yes, it's a great shot! I collect Astarion photos, "catching" on the net successful shots of other players when they manage to catch the moment

The forum has become really hard to use now, I couldn't get through last night at all, even early in the morning when there are not so many people, still constant errors and it's impossible to post anything.


Bride Theory - would be the best, fit the genre and fit the story. Even with a spawn, fine (except that it doesn't explain why Tav isn't tormented like Astarion is during the spawn transformation), just without breaking all the laws of logic, without turning Astarion into an incomprehensible psycho and Tav into a controlled victim. If Astarion existed, he'd do to someone who offered him such a relationship option what he did to Gandrel in the dagger scene.

By making the romance abusive they're making it a failed romance. Why is allowing him to live his life the way he wants to and loving him with all his darker traits a failure? The abuser thing makes no sense when taking into account every other interaction with him in the game. Romancing him is indeed not the most moral thing to do in the first place.
The ritual is supposed to amplify vampiric strengths and return all benefits of being human, yet Larian just turned him into a typical true vampire. Nice narrative fallacy there.

Why bother going through with all the hints of the vampire bride ritual? Astarion actually finds a scroll with ancient rituals among Cazador's belongings. That one is probably in there too. The only things that don't match up is the single drop of blood and the time it takes him to turn Tav (he does it faster), yet these requirements could be different for the Ascendant. The blood might be more potent and allow for an easier process. We also never see the red aura around Tav that would definitively prove Astarion can compel them. Clarifying this would give us the full understanding of the ascended romance.

By agreeing to become his spawn we're basically signing a deal with the devil, we know the terms. It's fair he expects us to honour the agreement. Even then, it's still possible to back out before the end and he doesn't punish Tav for that. In the epilogue he tells them he misses them. What a scary lord.
I also agree, it's an alternative and darker way to heal. One selfish choice doesn't make him doomed forever. Besides, he does help Tav defeat the main enemy and in this way save thousands if not millions of souls.


It's a real shame we can't kiss him after he says that.

Yes, by the way, a good additional note to this version.


Maybe they are comparing us to Hope and Raphael. Hope really didn't sign anything and rejected Raphael no matter what, and he fixated on her as a result. Then, for realism and a fuller immersion in the "cycle of abuse", if you want to spoil our story, then fix the story of Hope and Raphael, let Hope fall in love with young Raphael, help him become a mighty devil, participate in all his intrigues, and only then end up in chains in the House of Hope, well at least for some semblance of realism, like, "in our world all evil men function only in this way". And Ketheric Thorm to have his wife hang herself because he wouldn't give her a divorce and freedom.


Very scary. When he's playfully shrugging, he's especially scary.


I was sorry too. And now I don't know if it's a pity or not, or if the next patch will add the final kiss, and Tav with their tongue bitten off and eyes spinning frantically.

Don't give 'em ideas. At this point in time it wouldn't even surprise me

@Bethra: This is in the game already. There are shorts of his statement or videos of the statement on YouTube. Just a FYI. But it is the Dark Urge that does this to Cazador if your multiplayer campaign did not kill Cazador before the netherbrain ending. So...