"Bad boy that makes exception for you" is clearly not what he is lol. Just look at the friendship epilogue. Or really, the fact that you can make him see the ritual is not truly what he needs even if you're friends or you don't even get along.
Except you don't tell him the ritual is not what he needs but talk about the spawn who will die (sounds like guilt tripping him), you wanting him to have a certain type of life (that's Tav's need not his), or that the power might trap him (which they can't know for certain, besides Cazador is trapped by his undead condition, which he loathes, not by the ritual). If you romance him and then break up at the end he literally tells you he made the sacrifice for you only.
Originally Posted by jinetemorance
Astarion wants power, yes, but the reasons he wants it for clearly are 1. self-hatred (he thinks who he is isn't enough and is too pathetic/weak) 2. fear.
His reasons are more than just self-hatred and fear. He also wants to go through with the ritual because he wants the benefits it provides (extra powers, walking in the sun, a warm body, loss of the smell of undeath, sharper senses, etc.) has ambitions and wants to have the freedom to do what he wants. He was a noble who lived in luxury in the past too and he wants to regain what he lost.
Originally Posted by jinetemorance
I don't think it's a stretch to see that Astarion's good arc starts developing quite early on and is not sudden, as he drops his facade and barriers when he lets you read his scars, opens up to you about his consent issues in act 2, etc...
That's just him opening up to love and intimacy with another person not starting to be a morally sound person.
Originally Posted by jinetemorance
Saying he's petting bunnies is also disingenuous, I don't get the derision for a version of Astarion that's still Chaotic Neutral at best.
I was jokingly referring to his dialogue when you try to convince him he can be better than Cazador and that's how he sees Tav's suggestion.
The epilogue has Ascended Astarion saying he prefers doing power-plays in the palace rather than being in the sun. One of the first things he says is that he wants to cast a fog over the world so that his "children" can roam freely, effectively getting rid of sunlight. In the end the actual benefits of the ritual mean little to him compared to the focus on power.
The noble thing isn't even clear anymore, now that his backstory has been unfortunately softened and his background has been changed to Charlatan. His pseudo-canon Idle Champions description (who Stephen Rooney co-wrote) has him with "forged patents of nobility". Nevertheless I think his noble past is irrelevant, it's clear why he really wants to do the ritual, and it's not because of some past desire.
You can read his scars being just his friend and you can talk about his consent issues while only being his friend as well. And this is development because it's him seeing that not everything is worth the pursuit of power (in this case +2 strength potion) and that it's okay to be vulnerable. I don't think Ascended Astarion would do this, he's had the idea that being vulnerable is bad and that power is everything reinforced. Astarion's good arc is not about him really becoming "good" in that sense, this is also clear in the epilogue, he still enjoys killing people and he's "more me than I've ever been". It's about untangling his issues with power, vulnerability, identity etc.
The break up at the end thing is a flawed argument because it's said in a heated moment and it's directly negated by the fact that he's content with your choices if you're just his friend, unless you think your specific circumstances in the game retroactively change Astarion's reasoning for not ascending, which is valid I guess.
The nitpicking over the wording of the options is just weird to me. I don't think saying 7k people will die is guilt-tripping, it's a fact that's worth some consideration. The option saying that Tav wants Astarion to have a life he's proud of just reads to me as a friend caring for another friend, and again I do think Tav's reading here about what Astarion would be proud of is accurate. And we disagree on Cazador's struggle in the "power will trap you" option so I won't elaborate on that one, I just think it's a valid reading on Tav's part as well.
