About the deal with Mephisto: apart from Astarions word , there is no evidence to either, but I would be very afraid at that point to deal with a devil. I used Mephistos bitch as a in-game reference - somewhere ( probably Karlach or Wyll) said that in reference to Cazadors deal with Mephisto in a specific dialogue or ambient dialogue. By game logic I would not trust the ascention coming without ties. The game shows you the whole time, how bad devil deals are and that the other party always looses, so I'm paranoid.
Marielle: I found spawn Astarions thanks pretty sincere. And yes, AA makes me very uncomfortable. If I would ever try that rout, then never romanced. I simply don't cherish the thought of being tied to someone, I just met a few month ago, and who himself warned me how dependent a spawn is to their master, without the means to leave if things get south. I prefer to play independent, adventurous characters and I can't see a reason,why any of them would do that. But that is my approach. As I said, to everyone their own reasoning and headcanons. We will never know, if the ascention dooms Astarion to become a debtor in Cania after death or if there is a happily ever after for spawn pc and AA, despite the obvious power gap. My problem is btw not with the BDSM undertones, but in BDSM you can say No and walk away,which is harder, if you are bound to your Dom. Then you can only hope that they are well meaning. And I guess, that is, where everyone has their personal headcanons about what might happen.
I just don't personally love the idea of assuming a character is lying or incorrect unless there's some evidence for it. If you can tell me Karlach or Wyll's actual comments regarding Mephistopheles, I'd certainly like to read that, but IMO, once you assume a character is lying about one thing, it becomes much easier to justify any headcanon. Furthermore, we hear a lot, "Ascended Astarion is lying about X or Y," but Unascended Astarion is always assumed to be telling the truth. Astarion is a known manipulator. Yes, he does sometimes lie, or hide or stretch the truth, but there's always a reason for it and his lies are generally exposed. Unascended, he tells the player he's glad he didn't do the ritual, but if they break up with him, that will be revealed to be a lie. After Astarion mentions the deal with Mephistopheles, it never comes up again, so to me, it doesn't make sense that he's lying and if that somehow was the writers' intention, I think it was poorly executed.
I guess what I'm saying is, I feel there are plenty of reasons not to help him ascend that are supported by the text and canon in the actual game, so arguments based on, "he's probably lying" feel flimsy to me.
I didn't imply that Astarion lies, just that he, as well as the pc, doesn't have the whole picture yet. None of them are supposed to be well versed in devil lore, so I just meant, that he can think, he will be ok, only to find himself in a less than pleasant afterlife - as a possibility. As a long time pen and paper player with a DM,who loves to gives us nasty surprises sometimes, I tend to get paranoid. Apart from that ,spawn Astarion lies as do most of the other companions,apart from Karlach and Lae'zel, who are pretty open about their stories and intentions from the beginning. If I would accuse anyone of lying or at least holding back information, it would be Raphael, but I guess, he just used the whole Astarion/Cazador ritual thing for his advantage: showing Tav, he can be trusted with deals ( despite meeting Yurgir right after, who got a pretty unfair deal).
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
