Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Which companion(s) won't make it?

Astarion is definitely a victim, but I’m sure most people who do evil things are at some point.

I don’t think Astarion is irredeemably evil though. He was acting under duress and coercion for a long time, so he can’t really be expected to unlearn some very bad habits right away.

He and Wyll are my favorites from the new cast, so I’m really interested in seeing how their stories are handled.

I mean, he's someone that will cheer and approve if you:

- rob or intimidate people
- murder people
- give the middle finger to anyone asking for help
- cause someone misery
- make fun of anyone who's suffering

But no moral judgement, please. He's just "a strong personality" or something.

And he complains about being heroic at the tiefling’s party

Shadowheart too but she seems more self conscious about it

I think Astarion is an interesting character too but I’m under no illusion about where he’s starting out in the story. He thinks he’s been given a reprieve and is going to make the most of it, everyone else be damned.

Which scenes are those?

Pretty sure it's just his approval system. He tends to approve of you doing rather sadistic or callous things.

Shadowheart doesn't even complain. She sounds more... surprised to be pleased about it.
Conversely, if you side with the goblins she throws a temper tantrum in an attempt to rationalize how uncomfortable she feels about it.

These are his actual approvals, without resorting to rhetoric like, "give the middle finger to anyone asking for help"

Are these reactions fundamentally evil?


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ETA: there was a comment about him not enjoying being a hero at the party... not enjoying being a hero doesn't equal evil.

Judging from that list he delights at murder, enslaving someone, causing or witnessing torment, violence and mayhem. He also likes when the PC says they consider Astarion to be in their confidence, likely because it means he can con them later if he needs to. He’s a Masochist, in that he believes there’s the party who has the power in any interaction and that gives then leave to do what they will.

Complaining about being heroic isn’t evil per se, but we can infer from his remarks and this list what Astatrions personal actions would be.

Counter point to all of this is he refuses the voices in the Necromancy of Thay book. He's chaotic sure. But a book of necromancy was telling him, and undead, to kill us, and he didn't.

I didn't interpret that list in any way close to what you're saying.

He delights in murder and enslaving people?

You seem to be presuming his motivations pretty openly. This strikes me more as a foregone conclusion than an unbiased consideration.

Here is a list of what I consider evil from that list:

Tell me who you would read this interaction. To me it's a sociopath feeling out how much of a kindred spirit you are for the purpose of helping him stave off his inevitable confrontation with his old master.

Judging from your reactions to the list, when he says "poor murdered girl" you're taking that at face value.

You're really going to bat for someone who is one failed persuasion roll from murdering you, and one act of DM fiat away from doing to you in your sleep.

Edit:It's nice to have the forum working again for a time

Gah! Don’t say it. You’ll jinx us

Don't worry I threw some salt over my left shoulder when I typed that...or is it the right shoulder

I don't think you can prove anything with dialogue. Personally, I feel like an NPC only has the alignment that is shown in my playthrough. Maybe Astarion has an evil path and maybe he has a good (well, not evil) path, but he doesn't have both unless you unlock them. I like that, for the most part, the NPCs sort of shift their alignments depending upon where the story leads, but not so much that they will abandon their core principles. It gives them have slightly more utility if they can shift ever so slightly toward your alignment in the same way making them playersexual gives each NPC more utility by not having to worry about getting an NPC for each gender. It just seems like good utilization of assets to me.

I agree with you, to a point, at the end of the day not only are these characters going to be in your party, they're also potentially going to be the player character. That means they need to believeably be able to react to situations as the player would like. I don't think an Astarion PC will be barred from saving Arabella from execution, but that will be part of a character arc, instead of part of the character. And so will hopefully our actions influence the behavior and, for lack of a better term, alignment of the other characters.

We could also get ourselves into a scenario where we haven't done enough to inculcate better virtues into the others that they abandon us in pursuit of their own agenda. I thought that might be what split the party up after the first act, but it seems that's been dropped by Larian.

If I was the sort to be even remotely interested in playing an origin character, it actually would be Astarion. As the PC, you could play him as introspective (although I imagine it would largely be headcanon), looking back on his past choices and what led him to where he is now. You could make him own up to it and choose to be a better person, to shed his misdeeds and be more than any depraved spawn could be, proving to himself and the world that he has done his penance and is worthy of a better life.

As an NPC companion, though, he's coded as bad and loving it. Simply put, he approves of many evil actions and disapproves of many good actions; beyond good and evil, he is a "fun-loving" agent of chaos. When he interacts with the player, he takes on an accommodating persona to match the vibes you put out, good or bad, etc. I'm hoping Larian has already considered the angle I presented for PC Astarion, where a good-aligned player could have such in-depth conversations with him to encourage some healthy introspection. The player is persistent, but doesn't push and practices what they "preach" as a good role model, but isn't a stick-in-the-mud, and maybe it finally opens his eyes. If they did this, then I absolutely could believe in him bettering himself as a person without it being a shallow arc. But he'd still be mostly neutral, lol.

I guess I just have little faith in people putting that much thought into characters. Very few games in existence allow such nuance. Fingers crossed, I guess.

i think every origin character has a deadlock, or more than one deadock.
gale's deadlock is mystra.
atrarion's deadlock is a vampire's corrupt.
wyll's deadlock is mizora.
lae'zel's deadlock is her queen.
shadow heart's deadlock is shar.
karlach's deadlock is zariel.
the dark urge is deadlock is his/her dark urge.

with the deadlocks, the origin characters' altitude will be limited.

i suspect the true path only can be triggered by the non-origin character -- tav.

so the origin characters are for replaying to see bg3 again via legend characters' view.
the origin characters are legends, but they can not be a possible savior.
the possible savior only the player character tav can be, if tav chooses the ture path.

As much as I know people will go "you can't compare reality to fiction!", I'll say it anyway: people also tend to come up with all sorts of reasons to justify criminals of any degree, so leaping to Astarion's defense isn't that surprising. Whether we think he's evil, morally grey or just a poor unfortunate victim of circumstance though, these viewpoints tend to be very static. I think we can agree that he's not Good?

By "true path" I can only assume you mean good alignment ending or best ending in terms of saving all or as many as possible of the innocent and good people while getting rid of all the bad villains? But that's a false tag I think to call something a "true path" because it implies some canonicity or higher importance for it or implying the other paths aren't equally valid. But this is the end of this trilogy and this story...there will not be a Baldur's Gate 4 and if another BG game is made it will be a completely unrelated story with new villains, story arc, etc. So there will never likely be anything like Larian declaring any one path, ending, or set of events canon for the sake of continuity or anything of the sort.

But to go past that I also believe you are wrong about origin characters not being able to get the best good ending, whatever that might be. Sure origin characters will face different challenges but they will be able to move past them in either good or evil directions. Even the Dark Urge you can play trying to completely resist and that will lead to its own story and narrative though overcoming the dark urge is probably the most difficult because the more you resist you have to start making saving throws so if you fail that can cause issues but if you make them I'm sure that will lead to its own interesting path and story as well.