Originally Posted by Dotsat
Ascension should be the bad ending, Astarion has to kill several thousands of innocents in order to become stronger. Such a sacrifice should and did take its toll on his mental state, further worsening his urge to control both his fate and the fates of others.
However. Not ascending him does leave a bad taste in your mouth for two reasons at least:
1. Him remaining a vampire spawn comes with its downsides, one of which is the inability to stay under the sun. Through the course of the game Astarion has a chance to bask in the sun, has other privileges he'd been missing for many decades, and now that the tadpole is gone, everything is ripped away from him again. He has to come to terms with the consequences of his decision, and instead of focusing on that, the game ending plays it off as a joke. It would be great if that scene was somehow balanced.
2. Him not ascending means we have 7k+ vampire spawns going to the Underdark. These are not self-sufficient, strong-willed creatures, we're talking 7k+ tormented souls without any training or experience whatsoever wandering freely somewhere out there. There are numerous ways to get to the surface in Act 1 alone, imagine how many of those 7k+ will eventually climb up and succumb to their hunger. It's an entire evil army we can't even control... Releasing them is considered a good action, but it's stupid as hell, I can't understand why everyone just agrees with it and never brings it up again. Make it not 7k+ at least, that's way too much xd


You can still kill the 7k spawn and not have him ascend. It's what I did. It's presented as a mercy killing (because they're dying, but their souls aren't being sent to hell like they would have been with the ritual, so they'll finally be at peace). I don't believe that option was presented as the "bad" one because the characters express doubts both if you do kill the spawn and if you release them, either way no one is 100% satisfied with the outcome. But even if it is supposed to be the "bad" choice, I don't care because unleashing 7,000 hungry and feral vampire spawn into the world is frankly idiotic. I wish there was an option to only release the Gur children but mercy kill the rest.

Originally Posted by Dauyxe
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.

I think when he says "care for" in this line what he means is love romantically on a deeper level, he just doesn't want to come right out and say it. Because although it's clear that he felt some amount of care, compassion, and pity for certain victims of his, that's not the same thing as being in love with them. Though I don't know why he's being dodgy and dismissive about it after the graveyard scene where he is so open and honest with you. That line was just weird and out-of-place in general imo. It felt like something he should have said before you complete his personal quest but after the confession you get from him in act 2.