That is Van Richten's Guide to Vampires, which has the Bride information there unless you are going to attempt to find the book that is no longer published. I do have the book myself but I have had it for a very long time.
Even though these discussions are wonderful, let's try to work it back into the topic of the suggestion & feedback thread if we can, please! We can always start a discussion thread under story & discussion if you want to talk about it more.
I liked your phrase "locked in a persona by a silly victim" - it describes my feelings during this game very well. The feeling of being " locked in" was there before - during the dialog after the Ascension and especially during Astarion's "mind reading" - "You degrade yourself by staying with him, and you like to degrade yourself". I intentionally put quotation marks on "mind-reading" because during the game it feels like someone else, maybe because of the railgun narrative with no choices, is trying to put their brand on him and on you in this way. If you don't understand the "intent" and choose, "No", (no, you know it's not), then... the game thinks I want to break up with Astarion. Either - " degrade yourself" or replay and do as commanded. Like "good girls" are supposed to do. The "submission" experiment creates a kind of funny inverted reality in which true submission manifests itself in the fact that the player must ah, feel like a loser, change their mind, reboot, read game magazines, where they tell this player, rather unconvincingly, why one ending is "good" and the other ending is "bad" and what is the "vision of the authors" (who did not write the character).
You know, I think I've done the turning scene about four times now, and each time I try to do the insight check, simply because I think it's what Lethe would do. Well, she'd rather ask him, "Why do you want me to kneel? What's going to happen?" but in lieu of being given that option, she'll at least try to read his mind. And you know, I've failed the check every. Single. Time. So canonically, my Tav has no idea that Astarion thinks that of her, but I think if she did, she would interpret it less as him thinking less of her, and more of him thinking less of himself. She would tell him, "I'm with you because I love you. Not because I pity you or want anything from you. I'm yours, and I'm happy to be." And hell, he's got the parasite too. Why doesn't he also read her mind and figure out if she's really committed to this? So it's yet another baffling choice that doesn't make sense and gives the player no option to adequately respond. I don't see the point of it.
Quote
Exactly. I love him for who he is. I would burn the world to the ground for him, so my character is evil too, just was mistaken in thinking otherwise, and is revealed as an evil character towards the world in her love for Astarion. You could probably make a whole collection of books and movies about evil couples, it happens that the male character is a real psychopathic maniac ( more evil than Astarion), yet he loves the only person - his beloved and puts her apart from the rest of the world, he hates the world, but she is apart, she is the only one who has value. Astarion does nothing cruel to the other characters in the game, no one but Tav, all words are just that, words and plans in words. Evil should be shown realistically, not through pointless, plot-unrelated, traumatizing "kissing" content.
The evil thing is a debate we could have for ages. I think "evil" is a subjective term, but as I've mentioned before, I get so annoyed by refrains that he's not evil deep down, and that, he is in fact, fixable. Part of me thinks that some of the folks who romance him and also insist he's not actually evil are just hoping to romance Wyll in Astarion's body. I know that's a pretty harsh conclusion, but it annoys me so much when this imaginary "goodness" he supposedly possesses, despite all evidence to the contrary, is used as an excuse to bash on people who go the AA route, and getting back to the topic of this thread, it feels like that line of thinking has been allowed to drive these updates to the AA path.
