I know many people nowadays insist that no one is truly good or evil and everyone is just the same shade of grey, but that's all just hogwash to me.
Same shade of gray? Yea, that would be hogwash, and not what I'm trying to argue. But one-dimensionally black or white is just as absurd. Real characters are built less around shallow alignment tropes and more around inner conflict and personal goals, which all 5 companions so far seem to show (from what little we know of them). That's all I am pushing. Don't write them both off based on their past. While it informs their personality, it does not define them, especially given that their situations have both just radically changed, even beyond the standard tadpole issue.
Fair enough, and in theory I agree. I'm not writing them off based on their past or their written background. The word "evil" on their character sheet under alignment is not what I am talking about. It is about what they do, how they behave, from the moment my PC meets them. That's what I'm talking about, because that's what matters to me. It's not about whether they have this or that label attached to them on paper. It's about how they actually are in the game. If they do things that very reasonably fall within the classification of evil things, then that qualifies as defining them. So, again using the Astarion example, if he sucks blood out of someone, and the game then tries to justify his action in some way, for me that is BS and I won't accept it. Sucking someone's blood is evil, period, and I won't accept any spin on it or rationalizations for why it is somehow okay. If, OTOH, he resists his temptation to suck someone's blood, then that is something I will give him credit for.
