Ah, I didn't know that Stephen Rooney was no longer at Larian. What a shame! Though I wish him all the best in his future endeavors. In that case, I agree that it's better Astarion be left alone, because there isn't any executor who can decide what's in character for him, and splitting his approvals/disapprovals requires a fine-toothed understanding of his character that none of us can claim.
Though I would argue that four months is enough to start seeing some drastic shifts, because... that is what the game shows. You would never have been able to convince him to turn away from ultimate power at the start of the journey, and that's not something as simple as getting him to trust the player (the game is pretty clear in that in how the Rite is always a fixation no matter how well he's treated; he can come to feel safe with the player if they're understanding, but he still isolates them as an exception to the rule and craves the power and security to control everything else.) It's only four months, and in one way that's not very realistic... but it's four months of constant upheavals to some pretty fundamental beliefs. His change in attitude is part defusing bitterness (where Ascended ending clings to this, railing at the world that created Cazador, and spawn ending has him move beyond it, 'we deserve happiness, they all do'), but Astarion spent 200 years living in a microcosm that enforced that people didn't care about each other, and any form of altruism was either inherently doomed as something others would prey on, or came with ulterior motives and benefitted the benefactor more than the benefactee. There isn't really any point arguing scrapped EA relics of characterization/plot, but it does seem like the point that no one ever tried to help him was originally going to be further baked into the story - I remember early datamining unveiling a Kelemvorite faction that had a truce with Cazador instead of eliminating him because it was easier to have one powerful undead controlling the other undead in Baldur's Gate and keeping out competitors, even if that meant leaving him his victims as sacrificial lambs.
I digress. I don't especially think it's a problem that he be the only companion who supports certain choices, because in most circumstances where the player would make those choices, he still would support them - and I think there are already cases in which nobody will support the PC's decision. But I agree that having new reactions written isn't an option at this point. I wasn't thinking that certain dialogues would have to be split and not just the +1/-1 attached to them, but you're right, they would, and I'm not interested in trying to polarize his character towards 'good'/'evil' any further than it already seems to be. Which might sound a bit hypocritical, given the nature of the suggestion, but I don't actually want Astarion to be made nicer (as some updates have moved towards.) I love this complicated bastard just the way he is. I just wanted his approvals to match the split that's already presented in his reactions.
(Wyll is an interesting example to bring up re:approvals because there are clearly some relics of EA in his Act 1 approval set - he still has major beef with goblins and approves of cruelty/mercilessness to them even though that seems to have been written out of the story entirely. Though I'm with you on complex motivations - a good example would be how Astarion approves of enslaving the gnomes in Grymforge because they're too weak and cowardly to rebel, and it lets him feel superior, but disapproves of enslaving the gnolls at Moonrise because it's done with mental domination and for the purpose of degrading them, and that hits way too close to home.)
Last edited by Laluzi; 29/03/24 05:12 PM.
