Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

By the way, this is one of the important motivators for Tav to go "to the dark side". It is impossible to stay "on the side of good" and society when your loved one is an outcast and a target in it. This, of course, does not lead to a desire to "massacre" people around you, but if you define "good" as a certain adherence to the laws of the gods and common morality, and "evil" as individualistic thinking that despises these very laws - then Tav, who loves Astarion, eventually becomes "evil".


Astarion wants to "give" and care, he likes it and it feels like it. In the first two chapters he had to mostly "take" from Tav (blood, some help, support, etc), now he can make up for it. Curiously, when playing MF, after a while of interacting with Ascended Astarion straight-up "you start to feel like a woman", as ridiculous and corny as that sounds.


Thank you! I'll post some more.


Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to find artwork of Ascended, there are not many of them on the internet. This one, one of my favorites, in my opinion, can also be considered a part of this finale - the gentle morning sun illuminates his face, Astarion wakes up and looks at you with a slight smile



Oh, it would be nice if that's the case! No money is spared for Astarion, just so long as all those scenes actually make it into the DE and nothing is lost.


I second that. He gave me a taste of evil and its incredible freedom. His out-of-bounds, abnormal "more than just love" (only the Ascension path makes you feel it fully) plunges you into something that you will never want to "turn back" and run around Faerûn as a "classic goody-goody".


But in the actual game, in order to maintain a state of happiness, Astarion needs to bite someone every day.


Of course it is. I was thinking about your words about how bad it is when someone says: "I will protect you". It is humiliating and puts one in a dependent position, it is not right, care should be more accurate, implicit, "invisible", so that one does not feel weak. Although I myself really like Ascended Astarion's lines on the subject of Tav's defense: "You have nothing to fear anymore." Perhaps it's because Tav isn't particularly afraid of anything anyway, and it's taken as a sign of attention and an opportunity to enjoy the sight of a confident Astarion. The Ascended Astarion probably won't suffer from "overprotection" either, and any attempts to protect him by Tav will be perceived as "so cute" and elicit the appropriate reaction. This is not the case with a unascended Astarion, and obvious attempts to protect him will only cause additional psychological discomfort.


Yes, that would be much better. And it does feel like a very close friendship.... To be honest, after the relationship with the Ascended Astarion, it would seem to me that it would not be enough (even if Astarion could be healed and make everything really good). A relationship with Ascended Astarion is some kind of "maximum love", one can hardly imagine anything more. Both in terms of being able to give (on Tav's part) and in terms of how he takes it and what he gives in return.


Yeah, what I love about the game is the lack of moralizing. I was really afraid at first that there would be some kind of payback for Astarion's Ascension, some kind of classical morality etc. But that's not in the game! "The Dark Path" is immensely satisfying. I can literally feel how Astarion feels good, how he enjoys his new power and new opportunities, and since empathy for my favorite character works to the max, it's impossible not to share that and feel the same confidence, strength and freedom that Astarion does.


Ha-ha, and at first, while I was "playing for Gud", I was sure that it should be like that, and I got very, very angry when I found out the exact opposite. Here's how to look at it - from the point of view of justice for Astarion, this option would make the "good way" at least some adequate replacement for the "evil" (although to get nothing at all for two hundred years of "pure shit" and just roll back to the original is not that fair either). And in terms of originality of the story, of the storyline - yes, you're absolutely right. It would have made the story trite. Instead we have a version of the tragic Astarion with clipped wings, which of course is extremely unpleasant to go through (but no one is forcing you to go through that), but makes the story much more realistic.


When faced with something new, and this story is certainly a brand new word in the RPG genre, it is not always possible to interpret everything correctly at once But the more emotions in the process of playing the game, the greater the pleasure in the end, including the pleasure of opening new horizons for understanding. What Astarion can really do is surprise the player in a way that no other companion can. And this happens repeatedly throughout the game


Congenital psychopathy is about Veliot, in my opinion. Cazador is already more of a manufactured, secondary psychopath wannabe. I guess it's hard to show a truly "evil story" without the participation of some psychopath who will start another chain of "evil, pain and suffering" by his actions, magical worlds are no exception.


The hardest thing to understand is how an immortal being who has lived for more than a hundred years might feel, since there are no real examples of such a thing. What is two hundred years of torture? What is two hundred years of power and authority? There's a lot of room for imagination here...


Ascension completely removes all vampiric restrictions and problems from Astarion, while endowing him with all the perks. And the best thing the author managed to make Astarion is his multifaceted personality, vampirism does not define him, it is one facet of his nature. Astarion's personality is very interesting to explore, he is truly alive.