Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Astarion Alignment (Anyone Agree?)

Astarion is a popular favourite to romance. And i would love it if we werent tied into being mean to get his approval. It would be cool if as you progress through the acts you have the option to show Astarion good aint too bad. And by the end of the game he is true neutral. An option of careful dialogue choices to change his alignment would be really intresting. And allow players that want to be relativley good aligned to have that option. Astarion is awesome and he has a sad story and can be quite stroppy. When u talk to him nicley he is sometimes shocked your being lovley to him. So I can really see you bringing him out of his anger and misery. Just a thought 🤔

I just hope he kills his master, drinks his blood, then turns you into a vampire.🤞 please please please lol

I think that's how most people think a romance would go, to fully utilize the roleplaying medium though, it should be possible to go the other way too, right? Maybe Tav is brought around to Astarion's worldview for not necessarily enlightened reasons. Or maybe you're just made for each other and the only question is who destroys themselves first.

This is basically the videogame version of "I feel I can change him".

I wonder ... do you realize that this would turn you inho his mindless slave?
I mean ... to each their own, obviously, but still. :-/

Ah what the hell, actually i hope for this too ... it would be nice "game over" dialogue trap.
Presuming Larian would have balls to do it. >:]

Why not put wish fulfilment in the game? Just don't make it easy, if you err on too much cruelty, you're a bad influence and it's a bad ending, veer more fun stuff, he's a deathlong companion of delight.

Yep - that.

Astarion is one of the evil companions, don't try to make everyone good or 'misunderstood' .

I don't like Astarion, he's one of the only companions I've had in a game that I genuinely disliked. But I actually will say that to what degree he's truly evil isn't quite simple, and I don't think turning him good would be any sort of coppout really (if you ignore the 'undead are inherently evil' thing that I assume Larian are ignoring). Specifically because of this; when we meet him in game, (assuming we haven't been spamming rest of course) then he's been capable of choice and self determination for... a couple of hours at best. For the first time in two centuries. He's literally been completely under the will of a sadistic monster for two hundred years, physically unable to go against that will. I would argue that at this point he really CAN'T be evil because he's never had the capacity to make evil or good choices himself. Even with the choices he makes now, I do kind of feel (with some hypocrisy since as I said, I really don't like him) that he should on a moral and intellectual level, get a bit of grace for them. If I knew that a person had just gotten out of a years-long abusive relationship yesterday then I wouldn't judge them too harshly for their negative actions. That's the situation Astarion is in but greater by several orders of magnitude.

I doubt Larian is really going to capitalize on this nuance, but on an intellectual and philosophical level, that's why I wouldn't think it outrageous if he got a redemption arc. Because arguably, he hasn't personally done anything for which he needs to be redeemed.

Personaly i dont mind quests where you can show your companions wrong of their way and set them straight ...
Mass Effect did that quite well with some companions.

What pisses me off is that we never get any corruption arcs theese days.
This was quite well done in KotOR II. ... it was just minor detail, and it have zero impact on the story, but i really liked that when you trained your companions to be a jedi, you could instruct them to either focus on tranquility and order ... or destruction and chaos. :3

You want make Astarion good boy? Be my guest ...
But allow me to make Karlach evil aswell ... >:]

Its matter of universal ballance you know?

Seriously. Someone should write this up under the /RelationshipAdvice subreddit.

I'm not sure. As I understand it, being a vampire turns your alignment evil. Hard rule, not rule of thumb.

If cured, maybe chaotic neutral is on the table. A lot of Astarion's fixations stem from trauma as well, so I wouldn't expect a drastic personality change.

Don't forget to quote me. You can fix him?, I can make him worse!

So many Debbie Downers in this thread. Be nice, let OP enjoy the characters. A lot of players play rpgs for the romance, it's normal that they'd want to redeem their love interest.

Yup. +1

So very tired of people wanting every character to be a project for the PC to fix or redeem.

I’m all for companions having the potential to change their opinions and alignment, for good or bad, in the course of the game, depending on what happens in the story and the relationships they build with the PC and possibly even other NPCs.

For me, those changes have got to make narrative sense and be rooted in the established character and motivations of the companion, and should in most cases be independent of whether or not the PC is romancing them. Plus one of my cRPG companion bugbears is when we have to be super-nice to build a relationship while they can be as prickly as they like, and that’s additionally unappealing in the context of a romance arc. For me it’s important that relationships, whether platonic or romantic, between characters who have very different outlooks feel as though both parties are struggling towards mutual understanding and respect, rather than my PC having to carefully pick nice dialogue choices while the NPC gets to be antagonistic.

With respect to Astarion specifically, as others have said, he’s had a terrible couple of centuries and that no doubt is affecting how he behaves now. He’s clearly selfish and motivated by obtaining power, but it feels plausible to me that depending on what happens with the PC and story, he could either go full blown evil, or mellow to a neutral that would regard acts of altruism with amused tolerance rather than outright disapproval.

And given he seems to view sex as both a diversion and a power play, it doesn’t actually make a lot of sense that he’d refuse to sleep with the PC simply because he didn’t approve of them. So I suppose it would make more sense to me if a good aligned character could attempt a romantic relationship with Astarion, but it is hard to imagine he’d have enough love or respect for them to change for their sake. Such a pairing sounds more likely to me to end in a broken heart than eternal, undead bliss .

Why would you think Astarion isn't neutral in the first place? He is selfish, mostly cares about his own survival, doesn't use unnecessary violence and if he kills people he does it clean without letting them suffer. That's clearly neutral in my opinion.
Characters like Nere are evil and even among the companions I'd argue that Lae'zel and Wyll are both more evil than Astarion.

Because he's a vampire and that's the D&D lore. You get bitten, your alignment turns.

Clean kills or lack of being a serial killer is not enough for the neutral alignment.

An example: (neutral on chaos/lawful, yet evil)

"A neutral evil character is typically selfish and has no qualms about turning on allies-of-the-moment, and usually makes allies primarily to further their own goals. A neutral evil character has no compunctions about harming others to get what they want, but neither will they go out of their way to cause carnage or mayhem when they see no direct benefit for themselves.

Another valid interpretation of neutral evil holds up evil as an ideal, doing evil for evil's sake and trying to spread its influence. Examples of the first type are an assassin who has little regard for formal laws but does not needlessly kill, a henchman who plots behind their superior's back, or a mercenary who readily switches sides if made a better offer. An example of the second type would be a masked killer who strikes only for the sake of causing fear and distrust in the community. Examples of this alignment include many drow, some cloud giants, and yugoloths."

Wikipedia refers to the player's handbook here, specifically, so I will end my research.

For sake of argument, neither do the Zhentarim kill for the lols and yet they are lawful evil.

"A lawful evil character sees a well-ordered system as being easier to exploit than to necessarily follow. Examples of this alignment include tyrants, devils, corrupt officials, undiscriminating mercenary types who have a strict code of conduct, blue dragons, and hobgoblins."

The question remains what type of evil Astarion is. But, chance of extreme lore violations non withstanding, he must be. There is no evidence he is not /not/ evil. That is enough to conclude his alignment for me personally.

I must admit I like having Astarion in my group, I like the dialogues and interactions we have with him. I think he is a very interesting character (though clearly not the "good" one who is always willing to help 😉)

I choose the "good" options, but I still have no problem to get his approval or romance him.

And I like the rollercoaster of emotions my poor Tav must be going through, from being angry at him, to feeling sorry for him, with some flirting inbetween to make things even more complicated 😄

Yes, this would of course not be the best idea in real life, this guy needs a therapy, not a relationship. But this is an rpg, and as grown ups, I think we can all distinguish between a game, where we play a role (that does not necessarily mirror our real-life behaviour) and reality. At least I hope you all don't run around being little murder hobos 😉

For the reasons Gray Ghost mentioned, I am also a bit more lenient towards Astarion, after what had happened to him in the past 200 years. After that, I am not really surprised he acts the way he does.

Personally, I will wait till we know more about him before I fully judge his character. But the way he seems to be written (at least in my understanding), I think it would not be completely unrealistic if our character could have a bit of a more positive influence on him, towards a more neutral position. It would not feel completely out of place for me, depending on our characters decisions and behaviour towards him.

I wonder if one way to entirely free him from Cazador's control could be a True Ressurection spell. He mentions that he was turned into a vampire spawn nearly 200 years ago, so the time limit could be met. I know he is undead, not dead, but maybe if we would kill him first? Does anybody know if this is possible?
This way, he wouldn't need the tadpole anymore.


In general, it would be nice if we could have - to a degree - both, a "redemption" and a "corruption" arc for the companions; the way they are written, I think it would not be illogical.

Yes, I'll be very disappointed if do not get both. Redemption is subjective, but some sort of alternative endings at least.

It's been speculated around because of the options in the magic mirror. Perhaps my own fault for also reading too much into it, but I'd feel cheated out of /something/...

Astarion's (if that theory is true) hint towards a return to a normal life.

Major spoiler:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/jppkbd/companions_at_the_magic_mirror/

+1

That is what I would have wanted to say, but you expressed it so much better.

And I agree, a positive or negative influence on our companions should be independent from a romantic relationship.

I was thinking about the magic mirror, too. The options for each character are very interesting, and - at least to me- strongly hint that there could be different paths for each of them.