I'm someone who played the unascended route several times, feeling that it was the 'good' option for him. It never felt all that 'good', more like I was doing something good for the sake of being good rather than doing something for my lover. And the dock scene made me question that reality every time.
Then did Ascended, it just feels so much better and makes a lot more sense if you love someone and make it so they are no longer relying on you all the time but can look after themselves and you can continue on together watching each others backs.
If you go the Unascended route you realise that he will live forever (unless someone stakes him) and Tav will not so he will be alone, that he will always have to deal with the blood hunger, that he will always need to find somewhere to hole up in in daytime and that he will never see the sun again, and travel is more or less ruled out as the entire running water and needing to hide in daylight becomes a real danger, hardly surprising he seems sadder, more pliable and less himself, his world has just got a whole lot smaller and more reliant on others. He has to be sadder (no matter what he says to you to reassure you) he wouldn't be normal if he didn't.
The cost of the 7k souls , well its unfortunate but then it is anyway. Unascended route you either a) leave them imprisoned, pass the buck to whoever finds them probably the Gur. Not a solution in my eyes. b) Release them. you leave them as spawns just like Astarion but with no benefit of having had years to be around others and learn control. Some of them are not going to have been nice people before Cazador imprisoned them so no chance that all of those 7k will happily decided to go to the Underdark and behave themselves, a pretty large number will ignore all that and do their own thing and indeed you find some of them in the sewers afterwards so they ignored the 'going to the underdark' (and there are multiple ways out of the underdark into other cities and countries where they can cause chaos anyway). You are also condemning them to living forever with the blood hunger. Never seeing the sun and only being able to be travel in the underdark or by night and not crossing running water. Their souls are already lost so they have no hope for the future. Pretty poor life all things considered. I'd rather not be responsible for what they might do if I release them and again its passing the buck along to others to deal with later. or c) you kill them anyway. Which I always did for the above two reasons. So yeah I'm evil in some peoples eyes. Its all subjective.
Ascended route, the first thing he says immediately after ascension is that the blood hunger has gone and he is no longer in pain from it. He's ecstatic about it and so am I. Why wouldn't I be? I had no reason to really understand the pain he had been living with for nearly 200 years until that moment. He can see himself in mirrors again. Might be vanity but so what, its something we all take for granted that he hasn't had for nearly 200 years. He can be in the sun once the tadpole has gone. Something he has told you countless times that he loves. He doesn't need to fear anyone again, they might be able to kill him but they can't control him ever again. No one can use him and abuse him.
There's only one dialogue (which a modder has already fixed) which makes it out that the only reason you ascended him was to {paraphrasing) a) I did it all so I could become a vampire, b) Just views him as a sex toy and c) Scolds him like a naughty schoolboy - Its not anything Astarion himself says that is the issue its entirely the Tav dialogue and I can only assume that whoever wrote it had no idea of his backstory. This happens several times with other writers taking over parts of the story not just in this instance and with this companion, those parts are always obvious and never quite feel right. a) why would I have even thought about becoming a vampire myself as a reason to do anything given it is never raised as a possibility until afterwards b) difficult to imagine any scenario in which given you have been celibate for a long time previously because he is getting over trauma means that you view him as a sex object c) and why would I scold him for doing something completely logical from his point of view and that I helped him to do?
Once you get past that out of place dialogue then he's so much more playful in his dialogues and so much happier. He has silly little animations when he's talking to you sometimes that are adorable.
I can't imagine going back to the Unascended route, especially given that awful dock scene and that the game provides no other options for him. I don't care about pet names - I live in a country where all the pet names he uses for Tav are used habitually anyway for loved ones, never understood the furore over them. If he is a bit possessive, well its all new to him things will settle down, a lot of it is protective rather than ownership, really 'you' are his only weakness so he's protective and that's understandable. He got a massive power rush and adjustments will take time but nothing he says or does upsets me even so. He's still very much 'My' Astarion and the character and personality I fell in love with. So he wants to use his new powers a bit and I want travel and parties can't really see anything wrong with that, we'll discuss it, as two people in love should do.
Lovers forever.
If I don't always agree with him then to me that is more real. I don't want someone I always agree with I want someone with their own thoughts and feelings and the power to act on them if they want to, so that we can have a conversation rather than him just going along with whatever I decided. I don't want a puppet.
