Pretty much immediately, I fell as in love with him as I expected to. I've seen a lot of comments that amount to, "If you must romance Ascended Astarion, it's only okay if you're doing a durge or an otherwise evil run." But I didn't want to do either; it's my first time playing and I wanted to play the normal Tav route, and even though it's just a video game, I knew I'd have trouble playing like a straight up jerk. I saw someone else in this thread mentioning doing a "fall from grace" type of run, which pretty much describes exactly what I did;
I don't agree that AA is for evil passing either. I started my acquaintance with Larian Studios with Divinity: Original Sin 2. I always liked to play as "evil" - undead, demons. That's why my first hero for passing was Fane (undead skeleton). According to the plot it turned out that he assured the brewed story, but now fixes for himself what he has done. In BG3, I picked up Dark Urge right away. Without researching what his plot was. Intrigue, interest, appearance only changed from lizard to tiefling girl. And gods, I never once regretted picking it up. History again, like with Fane, fixing what I'd done. And not once was I an evil character, I helped everyone, took quests from everyone, resisted the urge. In the entire game, I only had Alfira and the hunter get hurt. And Astarion. Because I left him as Spavnom. And after I saw the ending and how they make fun of him, I decided, what the hell is there on ascension? That's it. There's no going back. "Yes, my treasure," and I forgot that he wanted to subjugate the whole world until the sun burned out. All right, you're allowed. You can go over your knees, as it turns out.
Originally Posted by Marielle
After the ritual, Astarion catches the "arrival" of the sudden power, his senses are heightened, new feelings appear, you can imagine what he feels at that, his behavior changes. But after a while he calms down, gets used to it and becomes himself, really becomes himself, he no longer needs to wear masks, play roles, adjust, he is completely free.
I think if you could talk to him later after the ritual, he'd say something along the lines of, "I was drunk! Literally drunk! You saw how much blood there was! And if I told you I was the reincarnation of Baal, would you believe me too? I'm not even sure if I can summon wolves or crawl on walls yet, I won't figure that out until the end of the game. But come on, give me a lecture.
