It's a videogame. It's not real. What would you say if I said "A lot of players sacrifice 7000 spawn and condemn them to eternal torture and I can only shake my head at such a lack of empathy. Are you ok with such things?"? We are okay with mass murder and eternal torment but we draw the line at abuse?
There's a concept of realism in video games. Not reality, but realistic. For starters, those 7000 spawns will be killing innocent Baldur citizens, and a "good" hero can also kill those 7000 without ascending Astarion for that very reason. And speaking of empathy, a lack of empathy for someone outsider is in no way correlated with a lack of empathy for the person closest to you, much less the person you've been through all of this with. It is NOT realistic. And in a huge number of movies, books, the relationship of an evil couple is shown realistically. Where is the sadistic porn shown in Joker and Harley Quinn's relationship? Where does Harley have the eyes of a victim? Is the Joker much kinder than Lord Astarion, sympathizing with everyone?
Originally Posted by jinetemoranco
Engaging with dark stories shouldn't be used as an indicator for your own real life morals, I would have thought an Ascended Astarion thread would understand that. Mind you, I understand people being triggered or affected by it, but stories have a right to explore these topics. Some people are triggered by spiders, and I don't think that means we should get rid of spider enemies in games.
There is a huge difference for a person with empathy to perceive between some victims in the story of the game, and specific shots where we are shown a video of the rapist abusing the victim, in detail, with all the facial expressions of the victim of sadistic content. Also, at no point in the game's storyline does Astarion take control of Tav, only and exclusively in these scenes. Irritation at spiders is an individual phobia, and not wanting to see scenes of sexual violence is something that is inherent in far more people.
Originally Posted by jinetemoranco
The idea that it's for fetish purposes is employing a lot of mental gymnastics when there's a much simpler and coherent answer.
No mental gymnastics required, just watch two videos - this one and the "she's controlled" porn content video. That's it. The difference would be that the kissing is foreplay without continuation, the difference would be the quality of the graphics and animation. The victim's facial expressions and the victim's body language is what is important in these kinds of videos perfectly.
Originally Posted by jinetemoranco
As you said, if you don't realise the story they're trying to convey, that is not my problem.
Please provide specific facts from the game, story-wise, from which such content would logically follow. Make it clear.
