1.If something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, what if it is a duck? If an animator decided to be inspired by such content for the purpose of insults, then that's his idea of abuse. You can make games for the purpose of insulting the player, but it has to be its own special genre.
2.I went through the game, in game, it's not explained. Only AA haters explain, based on their headcanons. Maybe somewhere in some interview, someone explained it, but not in the game.
3.I understand you and you may have your own tastes, and it's good that you were able to enjoy it. But most players protest against it. Of course, if these scenes are already done, it would be worth keeping them in the game to satisfy the tastes of a different audience of players, just need to make another line as well, give the option to choose. Players who value story, plot and character personality shouldn't be disadvantaged either.
1. "Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck" could easily be applied to the much simpler idea that the story about the cycle of abuse is depicting abuse, rather than Larian studying "3D sadistic porn" for these purposes.I hate saying cycle of abuse because it's so mindlessly repeated like a mantra and people refuse to go beyond that surface analysis, but it is what it is. The game isn't subtle about it. There's Vellioth's skull, there's Spawn Astarion directly saying that we've broken the "cycle of violence and terror". It can't be more spelled out. In fact the scene with Astarion saying that strikes me as really badly written because he basically looks into the camera and says "This was about the cycle of abuse" which is goofishly blunt and not how a real person would talk. But it's very much there. And again, I repeat that we need to stop feeling like the game is personally trying to victimise us for telling its story.
2. This is the mother of all circular arguments, since I assume there's no point to repeating all the several instances where it's made abundantly clear that this is the point of his story and not just headcanons, I'd just recommend you look at the devnotes I posted a few pages earlier on this thread, since they even spell it out (devnotes are the writer's instructions for Neil when he has to record the lines)
3. I think you might have thought I like this route for sexual reasons...? I like it because I value story, plot and character personality. The idea that AAstarion should be changed (not Tav, but AAstarion) undermines all these, and seems more to be in favour of wish fulfilment for players looking for a flustering bad boy romance rather than coherent characterisation.
