By this time the player should be aware that ascension is his “bad” ending and have a reason for going through with it.
Yet his actual author calls it an evil and not a bad ending.
This cycle of abuse card is getting old. In case you haven't noticed the game also shows that each generation the cycle starts waning and is bound to break eventually. Cazador's master was much worse than he was, Astarion is a much a better guy than Cazador was. Plus, AA also isn't a true vampire like the others before him but a whole new being entirely that's not suffering the same vampiric drawbacks that were driving Cazador insane. He had a time away from his master where he could learn more pleasant aspects to life - love, friendship, kindness, camraderie. Equating him to Cazador 2.0 is just doing the character a disservice.
Let's not forget how he completely trashes Cazador's and Vellioth's rule that says "power comes from solitude, to share with others is to be weak, and to be weak is to fail... and die." He shares his blood with Tav and everything he possesses. Yeah, total clone of Cazador, lol.
Besides, there is more to Astarion than just him being traumatised. If you want, the game allows you to roleplay as thinking that he is trapped but doesn't allow you to express genuine feelings for him and to be supportive of his own decisions.
Let's flip this around, shall we? If the people here are enjoying the narrative taking away players' choices so much they must also be super happy
to see spawn Astarion burning in the sun and their chara not giving a flying crap about him, just standing there like a statue, while others mock him and then watching them focus on Karlach while he mopes alone in a dark corner. Are you going to go to his ending thread and complain that people in there are unreasonable for wanting their chara to behave differently, you know, like they actually care? Because that's what we're asking for in here - to be able to roleplay our charas the way we want.
