Like a hamster talking ranger?
What's the problem with this, exactly? I mean, sure, hamsters aren't the normal animal companions for rangers, but what DM would rule it out? And Minsc is a bit too much of a simpleton at times, but having fairly regular conversations with your animal companion seems reasonable enough, doesn't it? I don't think it's really childish writing, but of course it isn't peak grimdark either. Then again, Warhammer Fantasy Battles is considered grimdark and it has Gotrek with his pet manling, the angriest tree Durthu, semi-intelligent mushroom people, Mannfred von Carwreck, and non-stop comedic relief from the Skaven. Oh, and Sigvald. And Malekith with his mommy-issues. A ranger that blabbers a fair bit with his companion hamster wouldn't really stick out that much, would it?
But regardless there's a fair bit of difference between whatever we consider MInsc and the current Astarion. Minsc didn't feel unreasonable. Astarion, meanwhile, is so obviously something other than what he's making out to be and is triggering the "danger" switch in so many players. And then he admits to being a vampire but despite having been one for centuries, he's still a whiny child about it, on top of being so damn needy. Throw in a memory cutscene where he goes all Nicolas Cage and really externalizes his emotional state and his transformation into an emo teenager meme will be complete.
I don't know about you, but that whole thing doesn't really tick the vampire boxes for me. He's not scary, he's trying to be manipulative but you'd have to be a fairly blunt object for that manipulation to not be immediately transparent, and there's really not a whole lot of "creature of the dark" vibes over him. Also not a whole lot of commanding charisma. One might argue that he's actually a rather pathetic vampire. And once he gets to drink blood, he starts having delusions of being a badass despite really still being very pathetic. Maybe I'm a bit demanding, but I'd expect more from a vampire than it being a fairly convincing drug addict.
Obviously there's also the whole issue of somehow making it conceivable to group with a chaotic predator that considers you food and which is only resisting the urge to eat you because it is mildly inconvenient, but which has openly admitted to wanting to be its own boss and not having to care about stupid rules. Such as not eating everybody. How much of a tool must one be to do that? And yet the writing is trying to push the angle that this makes perfect sense and isn't totally ridiculous, and the other members of the party just go along with it, showing no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.
