I don't understand Larian's approach. I would have assumed that any company that created a character as popular as Astarion would be estatic that he has been so well received. The marketing department certainly seem to underestand they've got a winner in him, because he is very prominent on the promotional material. However, the shoddy treatment S. Astarion received in Patch 6 along with Tav's reactions to A.Astarions kisses makes me wonder if the writing team realises just how popular he is. Either that, or that they do understand the appeal but would like Astarion fans to go sit in the corner and reconsider their choices (not a nice way to treat your customers). They've struck gold and surely commercial sense alone should tell them to run with it.
They may not have intended A.Astarion to be a popular choice but they should have realised that a devilishly handsome, charismatic character with evil alignment is absolutely going to fire people's imagination much more than any good aligned character ever can. The amount of Astarion fan art out there is huge, I've had friends send me memes who don't even play BG3. Right now, I'm wary of encouraging them to take the plunge because I know they would romance A.Astarion and probably end up here saying much the same as I am.
The guys got their waifus with Shadowheart and Karlach, the evil aligned Minthara definitely needs her story fleshing out but Larian haven't censored her the way they have Astarion and they aren't trying to get fans to go and choose somebody more wholesome. I do wonder if the issue is that the present writers aren't comfortable writing for characters that don't appeal to straight men, or maybe they don't see giving the player agency to decide how they want to relate to a character as very important. It feels they've decided to make A.Astarion story one of 'the cycle of abuse' continues whether the player likes it or not, and for reasons I cannot fathom, S.Astarion is just neglected. Astarion's voice actor is enthusiastic about his character, the fans are enthusiastic. I can't fathom why the writers don't seem to share that feeling at all.
