I wouldn't call that a "nice way out". Both Astarion and Gale have a very similar reaction to the orgy, they just deal with it through their personal brands of distancing themselves from what causes them distress. Gale probably has one of his "I am not enough" meltdowns on the balcony after he leaves.
Probably, but he does avoid direct involvement and physical violation of his boundaries, which is what I think is most important, after all. Even just imagining myself in the shoes of one or the other, it's much scarier and worse in Astarion's shoes. If I were Gale, of course, I'd probably have emotional trauma, intense disappointment in my partner, and most likely a desire to break off the relationship with a partner like Tav, but Astarion - he's letting himself be used again, he's even pretending it's okay, overstepping his bounds, like when Tav encourages him to bite Oblodra. And in the Spawn Astarion video, you can see from the first frames how awful it really is, while in the Ascended Astarion video it's unclear at first, he's too good at holding his own, and only the ending is equally heavy-handed in both cases. Yes, it can easily be avoided without hearing about it from other players or watching the video, I would probably have a better opinion of the game, but it seems wrong to me to allow a game to taunt a loved one in such a way, especially since the game tries to teach "morality lessons" to the player elsewhere.
Originally Posted by Anska
I Astarion is also the only character where I think the Act2 love-triangle situation does provide some meaningful addition to the story. I had the dance scene with Wyll once and during the morning after had a short scene with Astarion which showed that his whole affair with the PC maybe meant more to him than casual sex after all, and makes him commit to a proper relationship (if that's the route you choose). I thought that was a really nicely done, interesting scene - it's just bothersome that you have to first make him jealous to get there.
Yeah, it turns out that a player who doesn't want to cheat on Astarion on principle won't get an interesting scene and won't know what the romance with them means to Astarion, just like in the scene after the dialog with Halsin. Either going over themselves, breaking the roleplay, making Astarion jealous to get to that scene, which is something I absolutely hate to do, or again, video only, and there is no content in the game for such a player. Yes, there are various heavy scenes that I wouldn't want to initiate with my hand in my own game and the fact that other people's videos allow me to watch them and learn more about the character, that's fine for a game with different choices, but still I don't think it should apply to those romantic dialogues that show the importance of the novel to the character, a similar dialog with some changes could happen for example after Tav rejected all other possible companions. This would be fair and create a balance between all the roleplay options.
Originally Posted by Mirmi
Having said all that, the hot scene with Mintara doesn't get fixed (don't cut or abbreviate it), whereas with Ascended Astarion, I lost count of how many times that poor candle was inserted and removed from the stage. We can sleep with anyone, but we can't give gifts to our love interest (with the exception of Shadowheart). A statue? A portrait? Flowers? A hug? That's part of romance, not bed.
Or we can end an old relationship and start a new one before Act 3, but we can't say something nice to our partner after Act 2, when it's obvious you're going to end the game with him. We can drag him to a brothel, though.
100% true. Gifts can be given, but only in your headcanon, within gameplay. You can make a statue of your lover, you can draw a portrait (by putting Astarion in front of Oscar in the dialog and getting some weird picture without a face in your inventory based on the results), but no, not even a small replica of it. Once upon a time long before patch 6 I remember defending romance in BG3 in one dialog, arguing with someone who claimed that all the "deep romance" was only in my head, now having appreciated the whole game I realize how right he was.
Originally Posted by Mirmi
As Harlep said, "Let's play the game, take your pants off."
