Originally Posted by Lorna
I agree that's his 'bad ending'.

Sorry, I'll make it clear that I'm not arguing with you, I've just been meaning to post this thought here for a while now.
Yes, it is, the toxicity of this fandom just drives people to the edge.

It's an Evil Ending, as Astarion Author, Stephen Rooney said himself, even corrected from bad to evil.

It's not "failing, losing". Evil is more complicated.
The only thing that makes this end evil in my opinion: Souls for Power.

The rest is already a more complex controversial issue.

Devnote in dialog with Astarion, talking about cult control.
Astarion. CinematicNodeContext: Can't quite find the words to convey "even evil people can be a little bit good" so just mimes weighing scales with his hands NodeContext: "And even good or evil people can be a little bit complicated."

By making evil flat, only "bad" and only "good", in my opinion literally the entire meaning of the character is distorted.

This "spawn slavery tragedy" doesn't even really work for the plot. Astarion shows his dark side quite openly throughout the game and after the ritual. Main Line: Literally Lilith, who fears nothing and chooses the Devil and his kingdom of darkness.
His evil is shown well in true medieval style line: "The choice is made, there's no turning back, there's no going away". Lawful evil
He can always be triggered by the word "freedom". A kiss for balance. And that's just one of the lines of play that should remain one of, not the main one. But kisses are written along the most logical line, they imply that the player has approached himself and wants a kiss. I think the slavery-spawn line wouldn't even come close to a kiss.
Why is it even possible to be in a relationship with Astarion when he kills my Tav in Act 1, after failing the dice, and does immorality all the time.
In dnd2 (but bg3 doesn't really care about dnd) some spawns avenged the deaths of their Masters. We need to be able to think about complex evil.
If anything they force me to understand, show with fanservice kisses for February 14... Well there's a lot of patches try harder to make B&W. (please don't)