LiryFire, I'm sure anyone with any connection to literature, cinema or history would agree with you. The same goes for psychology - the only thing that could explain Astarion and Tav's behavior in these new "scenes" is Astarion's psychiatric disorder, sudden and ruthless, never manifested before and just as suddenly disappearing, with short-term amnesia (he doesn't remember anything about what he did, after all, and is acting normal again).
Tav isn't afraid anyway, if Tav was afraid they wouldn't have helped him, or parted ways with him without becoming his spawn. The only time a shallow and inconsistent character doesn't realize what a "bond for good" is and tries to leave Astarion later. His reaction to this is the only plot element where Astarion treats Tav badly (and it's brought up as an argument by everyone trying to prove how bad Astarion is, with Astarion only yelling and not even doing anything "evil"). Are there really people who treat equally those who suddenly betray them and those who will stand by them to the end? A character who treats his partner equally in both cases is either a complete psychopath who hates everyone indiscriminately (and then he won't have a partner), or... He doesn't exist. He is not real, such people, such characters do not exist.
I felt like there should have been two lines in this romance, the "power line" and the "hedonism line" (figuratively). Tav influences Astarion, you can see it in the lines. Tav, who seeks power, complements Astarion and ignites that passion in him, they will plan and execute, win and dominate together, a " evil couple". And it's impossible without respect, impossible to disrespect and smear with mud the ally, the soul mate with whom you do it all together. "Line of Hedonism" - Astarion loves not only to "bleed", but also to have pleasures, to enjoy life. Tav, indifferent to power, who simply loved Astarion and wanted the best for him, wanted only to see the smile on his face and the joyful gleam in his eyes, somewhat distracts Astarion from his "invasive plans". This is seen in the lines in the finale when, to the suggestion of "seeing the world together", Astarion happily agrees and says that he "wants all the pleasures", that they can settle down somewhere for two or three hundred years until they get bored, and at the party he also declares that Tav is more precious to him than power. And... slap in the face for trying to kiss the person who is more precious to him than power. Astarion is gentle. He's only cruel to his enemies and those who don't matter to him. Tav is the only one who matters to Astarion in this world.
Psychology, the abuse cycle - please get a real expert to tell you that this is a dark way to heal. Because blood vengeance, vendetta, feud, drinking from your enemy's skull is an ancient cure. Suddenly the man who committed the vendetta became abuse-violently-evil to his love who literally helped him.
I think that if you set a task to find examples in literature/film where a character who takes revenge does NOT become cruel and evil towards his beloved (i.e. behaves like a real person), it would be a list of very impressive size. And here's a variant where it happens the way Larian is currently being shown... I don't know where that's ever happened, unless, of course, you mean the literature that publishers print.
Lord Astarion is the only one who can't be kiss&hugged in the epilogue. Even Sharr Sd can. Minthara can.
Spawn Astarion can be hugged, but not kissed.
That got me, too. Shadowheart - hug as many times as you want. Okay, nice. Gale - you can hug once, okay, friendly, great. Damn Halsin, who only stayed alive because the metagame is bad and it's much more interesting to tell Orin the truth about her father, and Halsin somehow just gets forgotten in the process, Halsin, who keeps clearly staring at my Tav, is he also, like, huggable? Only from a blade's distance. And with my favorite Astarion, nothing, a couple of lines and that's it. Yes, his responses were lovely, but... what the hell? And in other novels, it turns out other players, can kiss their love. And now it looks like we won't be allowed to kiss the dearest and closest character at all in the third chapter, and someone can't even play without kissing, just knowing that "it" is there.
I'm surprised they took this romance down this path if I'm honest.
Honestly, I'm just shocked. And not only because of the mocking content of this (no classic RPGs, in principle, never had anything like this at all, if I was told about it when I bought BG3, I would have fallen off my chair, probably), and also because of the outright stupidity, the contrast between the beautiful plot of the first two chapters, and in general the plot of Astarion as a whole!This could have been written by a random person off the street with weird tendencies, but not by a professional screenwriter, my god...
Even his Ascended route was still mainstream friendly to an extent. Much was implied to be a possibility but little was shown and it was left to the player to do the interpretation = good RPG.
These new kisses and Tavs facial animations seem to me to be taking his route into a niche of either Sm or pure sadism - now nothing is left for the player to interpret = Bad RPG.
Seems counter productive to do that in my eyes especially as it's upset a lot of otherwise loyal long term players who are Larians 'word of mouth' advertising.
It feels like the game is made for fans of porn and/or cheap ladies' "toilet" novels. Gross and nasty stuff - please, threesomes with Halsin, brothels, etc. It's great to give the player the opportunity to re-use for their own perverted pleasure someone whose bodily autonomy has been violated for two hundred years, who is traumatized by it, you can just leave him spawn forever in the name of "good" as the kind developers allowed and use him however you want.
A hug/kiss, adequate lines on the night after the Ascension - why? This is how the marketer sees the audience: "Gee, you can have not one guy, but two! Oh, he will be angry and dominant after the ritual, the button "refuse", it's, like, for people with special tastes. Oh, he's so sweet, he thanked me for that. Oh, he's on fire, poor little guy, but it's okay, he won't die, it's kind of dramatic." The thinking audience is a minority. Get punched in the face and be happy. Not happy? Who the hell did we invent the " refuse" button for? We have sex content for a new audience, it's a sex store for all fantasies, pick your department.
I attempted to message you back several times, yet the lovely Larian 504 gateway error keeps popping up.......UGH! Thank you for your statements! My pic is from my game and it was an amazing catch, I thought at least, so thank you again! ???
Yes, it's a great shot! I collect Astarion photos, "catching" on the net successful shots of other players when they manage to catch the moment
The forum has become really hard to use now, I couldn't get through last night at all, even early in the morning when there are not so many people, still constant errors and it's impossible to post anything.
Anyway, I don't think it is too far-fetched to go with something of the bride storyline that I thought it was, which is directly from DnD, for a choice of an ascendent vampire. Otherwise, something with substance instead of a cheap one-trick BS story that invalidates the entire reason he was the face that brought many to the game—only one trick evil or one trick good. Nothing in between, that is just........ugh...........boring. And it's a complete throwaway for the entire character.
Bride Theory - would be the best, fit the genre and fit the story. Even with a spawn, fine (except that it doesn't explain why Tav isn't tormented like Astarion is during the spawn transformation), just without breaking all the laws of logic, without turning Astarion into an incomprehensible psycho and Tav into a controlled victim. If Astarion existed, he'd do to someone who offered him such a relationship option what he did to Gandrel in the dagger scene.
