I understand the point of view of people who say, "Ascended Astarion is only nice to you as long as you agree with everything he says." But I think that assumes that a Tav who agrees with him is ONLY doing it to not incur his wrath, and not because they genuinely do agree with him. If you break up with him before the endgame, he gets furious. Of course he does! Because where the hell is that coming from after everything you did for him? It would be weird if he didn't get mad. Besides, it's hard to make that argument when there were plenty of lines that weren't straight up agreeing with him, or even disagreeing with him. When he suggests we control the brain and I tell him we can't trust it, he just says, "We'll see." Yeah, I guess that's a good point! Neither of us knew at this point if we could actually trust it. He doesn't even get mad if you refuse to bite the drow twins in the brothel. So cruel, right? I just can't get down with condemning a character simply because of the potential for him to turn into a monster offscreen.
All of this is an excellent point. Wanted to jump in and add that I disagree with the "oh he's only nice if you agree with him", because there isn't really fleshed out dialogue where players can agree and disagree with him in the game regardless?
The only instance I've seen used is the breakup dialogue. And of course, comparing him to his abuser. Which, why would he ever be happy and nice about that? The player dialogue choices there are mean and antagonistic.
But I'm neglecting to see what these people are actually referring to, because in game cutscenes don't really give you that option outside of his person quest. Where are these day to day disagreements or agreements? And where does he get mad?
It just seems like inflammatory language to make one path look worse than it actually is. I see a lot of disinformation in general get spread about the ascension path. It's disheartening.
