None of what you say explains what Raphael describes the vampire ascendant is. He clearly states that Casador will have all the arousals of men return to him meaning that he will be a LIVING vampire with the appetites and feeling(?) of men. Basically a "superman" with vampire powers. The lore you state is a description of a true vampire, not an ascendant. There has NEVER been a vampire ascendant (at least that what the game states) before according to Raphael, because the ritual (besides being diabolical) is almost impossible to perform. Casador have been at it for nearly 200 years, collecting the souls, getting all the pieces in place.
So it really is all speculations on our part, for we have no concrete description as to what the ascendance does to a vampire.
I don't think he becomes stupid all of the sudden - although maybe the writer could prepare this situation a bit better. At first Astarion is in a uncertain place - it's not clear how he will change (and let's remember he is not a good person from the start). He wants power and when he gets it (again, commiting mass murder as a result of devilish pact with an archdevil)- he corrupts it. This is the consequence of evil choice.
Well, becoming evil wouldn't make you stupid all of a sudden or become irrational and loose all logical thought. It can corrupt your intentions and feelings I suppose, but not make you an idiot. The 6 spawn are not his real family as I understand it, Casador insisted that they called themselves a family, Astarion states it himself in a conversation.
When I was playing I understood it as "he will be a regular vampire lord with vampire lord powers, but he will feel nice physical aspects of mortal existence and will be able to live under the sun".
Again - if you fulfill the pact with archdevil, it's impossible the consequences will be good.
EDIT: As for the family, at first I also thought Astarion doesn't really treat the other spawns as a family. That's why I was surprised when he said with trembling voice he feels sorry for them. I guess that's what happens if you share 200 years of torment with other people.
He certainly is not going to be a regular true vampire. He will have no blood hunger, the sun cannot damage him in addition to all the physical aspects of being a human.
What I'm saying is its all speculation on our end, there's never been a vampire ascendant, there is no precedent as to what is going to happen to him and what he is going to be after ascension. You assume a lot based on a true vampire lore, I go by what the game tells us. In the end its all open to enterpretations.
Raphael can't know what a vampire ascendant will be like simply because that has never happened before. He's the one speculating at that point.
Killing 7k+ people is a decision that will make it impossible to remain a good person. He may have his 'life' again, his feelings. That won't stop his deed from only warping those feelings further. Altogether with his general personality.
If you play as Astarion - sure, you can start acting like a saint, but that will hardly be anything but self-deception. What truly happened to him is shown in the game and is no longer speculation but strict game canon. All there is left to do is hope that the devs will change something about the way things happened.
You assume a lot based on a true vampire lore, I go by what the game tells us. In the end its all open to enterpretations.
I just draw conclusions from his character arc, promo videos with the Larian writers ("If you won't challenge your love interest, they may become worse and as an example of negative consequence may be: they will change you into a vampire") and Astarion's main theme - power and freedom at all cost. It can go right, it can go wrong. The writing itself could be done better - that's true - but the branching of his arc's structure is pretty logical. Vampire lore is only an addition to it.
In the EA Astarion even had a scene in which he said a power, bending people to his will and a little corruption is fun. It was inside him from the very beginning.
I'm not saying that vampire ascendant can or should be good, Astarion was never "good" to begin with. What I'm arguing is that after ascension it seems impossible for them to stay together unless Tav is a spawn. So, what happened to all those "feelings" that he had for her before. Even if, assuming he lost all of it, which seems to counter what Raphael says, wouldn't a cunning person want to keep a strong ally nearby?
I would say he decided power is more important for him than love and if he will have a power over the person he wants, he will be in control. In the dungeon there was no Tav who said to him "Astarion, don't do this, this in not you, this is wrong" and he reassured himself that power gives him everything he wants. Which is not true, but at this point he won't change his mind.
Originally Posted by andromeda087
Well, where does it say that that is what happened? Please, direct me to the source, no speculation or assumptions, please.
Do you mean the writers video? (I'm not sure the question is for me or for Dotsat, so just in case) It's this one:
Not convincing, again it depends on your interpretation. No facts just assumptions of his intentions or motivations. This is going nowhere, we can waste time arguing our point of view on the matter, but it's nothing but a speculation. There has bever been a vampire ascendant, there is no precedent. Unless the developers/writers clarify the issue.
I think they should add a choice to a conversation for two of you to stay together as you are (Tav/DU). Especially being a DU Bhaal spawn doesn't make much sense to become a vampire spawn at all.
Could you tell me the time on that video where they talk about it? It's like 7 hours long, I've got kids to take care of, can't sit through that lengthy of a video.
I love the way Astarion's story is written. He is an unreliable narrator who keeps saying half truths and downplaying a lot of how he actually feels. A lot is not said and is left for the player to interpret.
Here's an easy example:
If you romance him and he doesn't ascend, you can ask him how he sees your relationship. He answers: "Uh, nothing special, of course. You're only the first person who I truly care for. Ummh..." I believe that a) this relationship is very special to him, b) it's at least the first time in a very long time when he is in a healthy relationship where the partners are equals, and could be the first time ever and c) he doesn't actually mean that he never cared for anyone else, because we've seen how emotionally he reacts eg. when he finds out what happened to all the people he lured to Cazador. None of this is explicit in that answer, but I think it's still obvious enough.
Since Astarion's storyline is full of ambiguous comments and different players get to hear a very different set of them, I'm not surprised that players have a very varied interpretations of him. I tried different versions of his dialogues, so I got to hear quite a lot of his lines. Personally I think that however you choose to play his storyline in Act 3, it's still coherent. The next reasoning is full of spoilers about his storyline.
I believe that his main motivator throughout the game is fear. It keeps coming up in his comments: He seduced Tav because he needed protection, he tells that he is terrified by Cazador to the point where he would choose to be a slave to anyone but him, he tells that he needs to kill Cazador because otherwise he'd live forever in fear, he tells that if he ascends he wouldn't need to be afraid of anyone anymore, he keeps telling how scared he was during those 200 years and how he begged for anyone or any god to save him, and when you enter Cazador's mantion and ask if he is sure about this, he tells that he has never been so unsure of anything, but that he has to face him or he will never be free of the fear. If you read his mind or get insight, also the narrator tells about how deeply afraid he is. Plus, if you think about how his story begins in the game, you know that he didn't have a redemption story before that. He was trapped and tormented untill suddenly, without his agency, he was somewhere else. So when the story begins, it's reasonable to assume that he truly is afraid of Cazador and what if he has to go back to all that and what's the next bad thing happening to him in this world that has so far been violent to him.
So from this perspective power is a solution for the fear. If he is all-powerful, no one can hurt him anymore. If I don't remember wrong, he actually says so later on if he doesn't ascend and reflects that power probably wouldn't have actually helped him overcome his difficult emotions.
If he does ascend, he does so with tremendous cost. We have seen how he reacted when he saw the other spawns, and now he has slaughtered all of them just to get rid of his own fears and to be powerful. Personally I don't believe that power erased the fear, however. From that point onward his lines have two distinctive features that doesn't happen if he doesn't ascend: He refuses to reflect on what happened and starts to act protective over his position in power. So from this point of view I think it makes perfect sense that he wants to make his lover his spawn and refuses to make him a true vampire. This way he can control this aspect of life which has become so important to him. This way Tav can never leave him and never challenge him. He has told us before that vampires normally don't want to make other vampires, because they could challenge their power and thus a vampire's biggest threat is another vampire. If you think about his actions through fear motivator it's quite understandable that he demands a full control over this relationship. You see it in real life: People who are trying to forcefully control everything often do it because they try to control fear.
While it's logical, I also think that the writers could have given the player the opportunity to affect his decision on this matter. I mean why not. We are able to try in so many other stories and it would be logical that Tav would mean enough for him that he could be persuaded - especially since the ascending has just happened. Besides, it's still a game and game writing normally tries to find reasons to give the player a say in important matters.
So getting back to the OP's wish for a happier ending. Personally I'd liked if there was a way to affect Astarion and help him find a healthier way to deal with his past even if he ascended. I understand that it can't be a truly happy ending after what he did to others, but at least some chance of growth would have been interesting.
The road where he doesn't ascend feels more like the good ending, at least to me.
Then he starts to reflect and becomes more at peace with himself. It's bittersweet since he has to return to the darkness, but he seems to be all in all happier about himself.
Also, if Astarion faces Cazador alone and makes the decisions himself, he doesn't ascend and frees the spawns. Sure, logisticly it'd be a bit more tedious to have some random npc to look at his scars for him, but not... you know... much in the 200-year-scope. So while I believe that this storyline is written this way simply because otherwise the scene would lose momentum, I kind of feel that it also reflects how he feels. He'll only ascend if you are there.
Oh, and one little thing about the ascending storyline made me feel like this was the deathblow to the romance and couldn't give the happy ending:
If you decide to let him make you his spawn and you pass the insight (or maybe it was mind reading) during the sex scene, you learn that while he demands you to get on your knees, he'll also resent you if you do. I think it's a great example of writing where the character doesn't actually want what he wants. It's great and it's horrible.
Thank you for providing the link and narrowing it down to a specific time.
I have watch it, spent 30 minutes of my time that I'm never gonna get back . There is NOTHING relevant to our conversation in that stream. They have said nothing except that your actions/attitudes/feeling towards your companions will influence their development. Well, that was obvious to begin with. There isn't a word about Astarion's personality/story besides them telling us that you can become a vampire depending on your choices. Nothing on the lore of being ascendant, nothing really relevant to our discussion here besides general info that your actions count.
This is a reply to Rhea, to a post with a link to a game stream
IMHO there is no good ending for Astarion/Tav. The epilogue is done very poorly, it was either rushed and left unfinished or if it was designed that way then its just outright bad writing. It needs a lot of things clarified, more clear direction as to where they as a couple go from that point. It's really hard to say as the game has so many bugs as of right now that we all maybe missing some content, like with Minthara that just doesn't trigger for some reason.
I have no idea why you watched it for 30 minutes, if I referred only to one sentence. That's why I gave you specific time. I'm sorry I gave you the link when you asked for the conrete sources, my bad, clearly.
The writer literally said that if you allow your partner to do everything he wants (in Astarion's case it's performing the ritual, thats what he wants), it may end bad for you, for example you can become a vampire. If you choose to hear only the words you want to hear, it's your choice.
I really don't understand why you became so passive agressive when I was just discussing the topic. But if it makes you feel better, then have fun.
i specially love the ''bad'' Astarion-Ending, the character (we) are the onlyone and even if we are his 'spawn' we are the only 'spawn' he truly loves.
and i think there is no bad ending if you fall in love with him.
. There is NOTHING relevant to our conversation in that stream. They have said nothing except that your actions/attitudes/feeling towards your companions will influence their development. Well, that was obvious to begin with. There isn't a word about Astarion's personality/story besides them telling us that you can become a vampire depending on your choices. Nothing on the lore of being ascendant, nothing really relevant to our discussion here besides general info that your actions count.