Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Regarding certain changes to Astarion's romance scenes

I've had that same thought about the forums many times, but then I also recall that unlike say the late 90s or the aughts which seemed somehow hopeful on the upswing, the times now are increasingly fraught and full of paranoia and this will have spillover and knockon effects of all sorts. I think if one wants the game to be queer coded and situated in that history the code to look at would be Hays and how the game uses cinematic tropes from that era perhaps as a kind of establishing baseline to then riff from. My own headcanon is that if doing that, perhaps some of the characterizations in the game are somehow meant to be descriptive (rather than prescriptive models) of the general backsliding that has happened in recent times on multiple fronts IRL. So that where we find ourselves now, we look around and the situation in Faerun seems more fraught than ever and more tropic than ever. But then it holds up a mirror in that way as well. It is forgivable I think, when the game does this essentially through humor and levity rather than gravity, if only because the clearest analog I can think of reaches back in time much further than even the 90s or the 80s or the dawn of D&D out of 70s counter culture.

D&D is the single weirdest and most beautiful work of collective art to come out of the postwar strife in the 50 and 60s I bet. Like this oddball alliance between peaceniks who for some curious reason were obsessed with toy soldiers and miniature wargames, but also poetry and theater and pulp fantasy and illustration, and math and probability, and they made games and computers, and then games to play on those computers, and the whole architecture that we now use to communicate and discuss them, pinballing around the globe at the speed of light or almost.

I think it appeals probably in different ways depending on how high information the audience is and what they are bringing to the table, and also where they are, and with reference and allegorical riffs they might nod at, which make me think the intent might be to spotlight how far we haven't come. Like we want the devs to show us how far we've come, so the escapist fantasy can hold, but the lesson is perhaps something completely different than that. Not sure there, just a theory. I have been very fixated on the character of Viconia and Sarevok in this regard, as returning characters who had a certain arc that I recall from the old times. Where I left Sarevok after the throne of Bhaal he had come around completely. Viconia had become true neutral too. On the other end of the spectrum Jaheira had Khalid in the Refrigerator, Edwin was Edwina, and Anomen of course was just Anomen. The rearview mirror on that one is usually alright though. Like where the game sorta matches the general timeline.

At that time Melissa had come out not even 10 years prior in like 93? Interview with a Vampire hit the big screen what 94? Dracula had only happened back in 92. Then there was a troubled time starting around 2000, when things started getting so horrid. Then another time a decades on where things seemed to reset, but not really, then everything fell off a cliff war and war and a pandemic etc. Now we're in a time that most of us haven't even thought might be possible, except maybe in reading histories of the early 20th century, and what it was really like back then (spoiler* it wasn't great at all.)

Straight up nightmare, Haunted One really. But I live in the States, so you can probably imagine. Shit is super hectic right now depending on where you live, and the sorts of peeps you kick it with, and where you stand on the alignment chart. Some wingnut wizards probably would burn every single D&D book ever published if they could, and none of us would get to play a game like this. It might be the single most important game to land in 24, because it is overtly much more accepting, but then the story it tells also has this sort of veiled reminder of the world outside. Like oh shit, are we at the purity Bhaal for real? Fuck. Like not in the game, but when we look out the window? That's when it hits me hard, like oh my goodness, maybe this game really is my favorite thing to come out in years and years - not for what it says per se, but rather in that it gives us a kind of grammar or a cypher that can be used outside the game too. One which allows people to discuss stuff that they might not otherwise ever have had a chance to discuss, or know how to, like to be understood or reach out meaningfully. But basically handled in metaphor, via characters that are figurative and not just abstract symbols or idealized in that way, but something a little easier to recognize.

So yeah I don't know for sure. What I do know is that on it's face the game codes for many things and perhaps not in the most flattering light if we are just fixating on the trope itself as a starting point. If we move more to where it ends up, the story basically delivered across multiple playthroughs, the impression I get becomes rather different and I'm pretty impressed, honestly. The meme-ability and shorthand which the game provides then becomes like some sort of zine or hip hop on skateboards for the new era, but unlike the stuff I remember, the youth are totally online and immersed now in deep water, and there aren't as many ways to connect across the big divides. Except perhaps in arenas like this? I swear gameplay and the spirit of it, is like the only thing that will save humanity from itself. It's like a bulwark and shield, and not at all a waste of time or energy.

Honestly where else are we finding games like this that millions are playing, and still playing, and which produce so much conversation on so many wide ranging topics? When hugs and kisses can just dive immediately into say queer history or race relations or refugees and the dispossessed, identity and representation in popular media and just all this stuff, that barely gets a footnote in some other arenas. Also, if we look to say film or cinema and theater (shows and such) the level of sophistication there is often very high information. We are extraordinarily film literate as a society now, so that is reflected in those works a bit more deftly. But in games this is still relatively new, or it's still new in newer games, I mean, if that makes sense. I give them so much leeway for even attempting it. The scale of it all is still staggering to me. And that's after a couple years in the kitchen. I'm really curious where they may go next with it.

I'm probably overthinking it though, I'm almost certainly overthinking it. Probably. This game activates my goodberry ADHD, then spins me around in the hyperphant blender. My dyslexia on the boards plus some low key anxiety and nostalgia, and cautionary tales, all in the cauldron. It's fascinating though, how no matter where things begin, over time the discourse in any thread seems to elevate eventually I'm amazed and feel like it's a bit of a BG Renaissance. That makes me happy cause a good Baldur's Gate game I think can herald a positive change and some progress, even when that stuff is hard to spot elsewhere. Least where I live.

The best thing they could do for me would be what the youngest cohort has already decided, to implode gender as a complex completely and just ditch it as one of those antiquated things that does more harm than good. For someone who grew up when I did, I would never have thought in those terms, because it was hardcoded, not the people but the discourse. It was invisible in the way that grammar is invisible. I can't understand grammar until I've tried to learn another language and then have something to compare it to. That's the only way to get a view on it, but also so hard as an adult. I only mention that because it's such a useful frame for thinking about other stuff that often gets baked in when we don't even realize it, aren't aware of it because we're awash in it, especially when younger but really at any age. I think the framing up there at the top is problematic, but also like maybe it's more the placement or the place that's problematic. Astarion is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly what they are bringing to the table on it, I'd wager. Still it's interesting to hear what other people think. I don't think the game is particularly sexual at all really, even though I hear that refrain all the time, I think it's that we live in more repressive times than we realize and there is a lot of disempowerment still floating around. That leads to reaching for any power in some cases and rash moves in some quarters probably, but it's like not in the game, so much as outside the game and the conversation surrounding the game. Cause the game too lives in the world. I kinda wish it had come out 10 years ago, but games are so complicated they lag behind a bit. You can tell mostly from the haircuts and such and little fashion things, little echoes in the design. Say the music or how things are visualized, like they're never quite timely timely, but a bit of a time capsule already by the time we get them. The game of right now, is maybe a parable of the era in which is was born. Latter half of the 20-late teens to early 2020s, and it arrives in 2024 in earnest or whenever the curtain is called. Like when it comes out on disc.

I think the next game, they might try to frontline a different sort of dimension to this, one which is top of mind for me and perhaps a few others I bet. This would be not Astarion's treatment of the PCs, but the PCs treatment of the animals and woodland creatures. In other words, make the Vampirism the analog for that, for what happens to the random boars and such, as opposed to the Party. Instead of humanizing and anthropomorphizing and apotheoses romance, perhaps the game is about the woodland animals and how the forest is being burned to the ground. The vampire in that scheme, perhaps makes a different judgement and could tie in with the set up of this game. For example, before we reach the grove, I imagine the average player is pretty high on the hog and not thinking a game would go there. Probably would expect that maybe hunting is component of the play, animals are there for use and nothing more, but then we reach the awakened grove and the animals start speaking to use, as if human. In my headcanon this is Silvanus and Chauntea speaking through the animals. I think that could a pretty interesting setup. 7000 spawn go down and the player sometimes feels it. 7000 chickens or cows or pigs go down, nobody cares. But maybe they might if the game did it up to the nines? I could see that as an angle. Kicking the boar to the curb was a low point, like kicking the squirrel was probably Durge's lowest point. This is what they call fright of fancy, cause it doesn't even fly really. Like if we got up to bat, but it's just an enemy that Cazador throws back at us? Batman at this point perhaps would consult with the bats to get it sorted. Not sure, I wasn't going to thread again, but then I've just been ruminating on it for a while I guess. Sometimes the arc on the finish is way more interesting than the arch at the start, for whatever that's worth.