It's possible that the Larian didn't intend to "punish" anyone on purpose, that they just wanted more sex content in the game, and that's how they wanted to please the SM audience, because the topic was only touched on in the game, but not explored. That they probably hired some top 3D porn animator to do it. And this person wasn't privy to any dark romance, didn't know anything about Astarion's character or any relationship with Tav, he got a text script of the kisses themselves (bite, kneel, grab his face, make Astarion's face like the poster, etc), a general brief like "Lord Astarion and his spawn that he can control". And he did his job qualitatively in a "she is controlled" kind of way.
Originally Posted by jinetemoranco
The idea that they just wanted to depict abuse is less outlandish than them being inspired by sadistic 3D porn and thinking it was fap material. Occam's Razor case.
I don't see any sort of idea like that being mentioned. Besides, if they so badly wanted to portray abuse hiring someone who knows how to animate it makes sense. I hope it was just supposed to be bdsm fanservice that got out of hand.
People are justifiably upset and voice their concerns about the patch, even try to find reasons to understand why we got the changes we did. Jinetemoranco, if you want to argue so much whether Astarion is an abuser or not feel free to open a new thread about it in the discussion forums, because I feel like you're derailing this one now right now.
PS. Marielle, can you put the images in a spoiler?
