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).
Yeah that's why I also included "wrong" in there. But remember he used to work in law (but I guess he could be lying about that too, but I hope you see from that how frustrating it is to always come against the "he's probably lying" argument) and could have read the contract in advance.
Deals with devils are dicey, sure. He expresses disapproval if you sign the deal for the Orphic Hammer, and is suspicious of Raphael well before that. But the continued insistence that there's more to this contract than he lets on, without any in-game evidence to suggest that's not the case, makes me feel a bit like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall.
You have to kill 7k people to do the ritual. That alone to me makes it an objectively bad thing. I still chose to do it, but I'm not shying away from the fact that it's evil. I just don't see why headcanon embellishments are necessary to justify not doing it.
Originally Posted by Anska
Originally Posted by Marielle
It's a pretty quick shot and the pause doesn't do much here, so you can interpret it in different ways, but no interpretation will make it better. On the contrary, I really liked the attack scene in the sewers because of how realistic it was. It clearly shows that Astarion is a vampire, and he wants to eat anyway. The Ascended, by the way, can eat regular food as well and doesn't feel hungry. It is clear, of course, that he will drink blood, but for him it will not be such a harsh and all-consuming necessity, desperately looking for a victim will certainly not have to.
If you consider stumbling over a conveniently tied up guy in the sewer realistic, we have very different perceptions of realism. For me that scene is only edgy and maybe shows that Astarion is a thug. I do like the bit in which he holds his hand into the sunlight though.
