More to the point of the topic. Astarion's romance very much pulled me to the dark side only to bring me to the proverbial light - and the factual darkness - in the end. I romanced him with Gale Origin, where he is utilised as the devil on your shoulder. The narration tells you that Mystra wouldn't like you to use tadpoles, Astarion instantly advertises their benefits. Astarion puts on his little scheme to take over the cult, the bedtime narration expands on it and makes you wonder if you could not maybe challenge the power of the gods themselves with what you find at the heart of the Absolute. You have points in the Shadowcurse at which you have to decide between doing the "right thing" (right in the eyes of your goddess) or choosing the more opportunistic approach and make yourself stronger, nobody compliments you so wholeheartedly for doing the latter as Astarion does.
I loved all this little moments and along with his confession, they felt like the characters forged a path to deal with their problems together - without the help of any gods or maybe even in spite of them. I generally would love to have more opportunities to talk about power with him, the control a gnawing hunger has on you, what that hunger even feels like, the feeling of not being in control over your own life. The general notion of "power equals bad" falls flat in the larger context of the story because you need power to defy your enemies and oppressors. It's more a question of why you want that power and how you get it, but you do need some of it to be the master of your own fate.
Coming from that point of view, all the Spawn in Cazador's dungeons also deserve a chance to decide what to do with their lives. Astarion - to me at least - seemed conflicted about their fate and his confrontation with Cazador felt like someone confronting their abusive father and being riled up to lash out by that father. The insight check that Astarion isn't really in his right mind during that battle, along with all those people in the dungeons, made it quite easy for me to convince him to step down from the ritual. Whether or not to kill the other victims isn't even a question for me because allowing them to have a chance to live is one of the main motivations for not going through with the ritual in the first place. Besides, keeping Astarion a Spawn but killing the prisoners is just such a pearl-clutching-Paladin thing to do ...
Astarion's graveyard scene and the morning after conversation then made it very easy for me to stop pursuing the Crown too because the conversation works both way. He thanks the PC for believing in him but that in turn means the PC is fine just the way they are too and if that PC in question is Gale - well, I honestly think it works better as a boost to Gale's confidence in himself as a person than his own quest does.
I am quite happy with my ending. If I pull all the various adventuring type epilogues together they are both condemned to darkness at the moment but they are happily going about killing the right people - like shadow mages - plunder their magical secrets, while Astarion gets all the glory and Gale is just happy to be supportive and help others while pursuing knowledge. Sounds like a fun romp. I am sure they'll find some life-extensions in time and things to help against the sun. I also liked how the Gur stopped seeing vampires only as monsters and are now modifying their techniques to subdue vampires, to help their children deal with their hunger.
