I want to point out that you can specifically ask Astarion if he's bound to Mephistopheles, and he says no. So he's not Mephistopheles' anything. His exact words are, "Mephistopheles has made a new monster, not bound a creature to his will. The rite was honored. The sacrifice is over."
We can certainly debate about the evilness of the ritual, but the game makes it pretty clear that the deal was, "You give me 7k souls, I give you some cool powers." It's a transaction, not an employment contract. He's not bound to do anything for Mephistopheles, now or in the afterlife, in the game's stated canon. DnD canon doesn't always apply to BG3; if there's a contradiction in the game, as far as I'm concerned, my default is to trust the game.
And I agree with Marielle. This is a world where survival is never guaranteed. The more limitations you have on where you can go, what you can do, the less free you are fundamentally. Whether you're willing to screw people over to get more freedom, that's something only the individual can decide. But I don't hold it against Astarion that he rightly recognizes a tadpole-less life as a spawn has limitations that are challenging to overcome, and that he's not willing to become a better person just to deal with them. I've played the AA route the whole way through, and I see absolutely no hint that Astarion isn't free from Cazador. He seems nothing like him to me. The only "hints" are when Tav can say, "You're just like Cazador now," but I struggle to think of any examples that prove this, and honestly, I hear the refrain, "He's just like Cazador" on Insta and YT comments CONSTANTLY, and have yet to see any concrete examples that, as I've said before, boil down to just "vibes."
Yeah, there is no mention of “Astarion lost his soul” in the game! Just those lines you quoted. During the game I didn't think about anything like that at all, I read it in the comments of Ascension opponents already after the game. Yes, of course, there was a desire to understand the canons of D&D about it. But here another question is interesting - where did they get it from? In the game they didn't, in D&D there is information about deals with devils, in general, everything is according to the principle of Mizora and Will's contract - this contract is completely canonical. And Astarion himself didn't sign any agreement with Mephistopheles, he didn't summon him, he didn't talk to him, he didn't negotiate anything, he just performed the ritual. Or maybe the contract was made with Cazador after all? Maybe Cazador, who had just fallen in with Mephistopheles, would pay for everything? Cazador signed the contract, the ritual was completed, the power was received, and the fact that it was received not by Cazador, but by Astarion, then... Hehehe. Quite in the spirit of “devil's jokes”. A letter from Averno, passed on by a merchant in the Moon Towers to Karlach, tells of such hapless contractors, albeit on a smaller level.
True, Mephistopheles is not a joker, but a “god of lawyers”, a completely law-abiding evil. Let's look at it from the point of view of civil law. A client (Cazador) makes a deal with a supplier (Mephistopheles). Granting power (Ascension) in exchange for 7000 souls. Payment received - power granted. If the one who makes the deal has to pay something else, which is not mentioned in the game, then Cazador made the deal! He prepared the ritual, did everything that needed to be done, and Astarion just “got the delivery”. It's not the firm's fault that the customer couldn't get what he ordered, the “goods” were delivered according to the deal. I think we can look at it that way too.
“He's losing his soul.” “He's just like Cazador.” These lines are constantly occurring in an unchanged form, they have no factual basis. They look like slogans. Somewhere there is a primary source for these slogans. The method of repetition works in such a way that there is a certain “truth” that has no proof, and if it is repeated endlessly by many people, it will be perceived as objective truth by others, and people are rarely inclined to double-check information, especially if it is not very important to them.
Tav might say, “You're just like Cazador now.” Or she might not. My Tav doesn't like to talk nonsense (sometimes the script makes her do it, but in general she doesn't like it and tries her best to avoid it). I can say, “Geese fly north because the bear is red,” and the interlocutor can ask me afterward, “What have you been smoking?” What does that prove to whom? How is the possibility of a certain line supposed to convince anyone of anything? The game is full of rude lines towards companions, not just Astarion. Does that mean that all companions are accurately described by those rude lines? For Astarion, by the way, it's very painful to hear such things. Find someone's pain point, push it with your words, and listen to them yell at you. Especially in the case that this person loves you. Question: which of these two is the abuser?
By the way, “fans of the Cazador 2.0 version” sometimes have something of value in the comments too (I didn't notice it right away):
Sending 7000 beings to hell so that one is healed. is an evil act.
Notice the word “healed”! That is, they know and understand that the Ascension is the healing for Astarion. Simply healing Astarion is an evil act. Ok, but then why are they tricking romantic innocent UAs? How many of them love Astarion and are under the blissful illusion that ritual is bad for HIM? And without the ritual, he's fine. So it makes sense, Astarion is evil, helping him and healing him is an evil act. His “good ending” is good for the world, not for Astarion. And the writers realize that, and that's why such a final scene and all that. But the character became too popular, so the audience needed to be “prescribed a sedative”, convinced that remaining a spawn forever is good for him.
In Gale's defense, he has dialog when Astarion bit you and everyone found out he was a vampire.
You can ask him how he feels about having a vampire living in the camp. And Gale will answer that everyone has their own burdens. No judgment.
Gale and, I think, Halsin are the only ones reacting appropriately to the Ascension. That's it, the rest of us are whining.
He does make an offensive joke over the burning Spavn, though. Minsk too, but whether from stupidity or not, not so offensive. Promises to give him sunflowers. Replicas of the others I don't know, it was painful to watch it every time.
Interesting, I didn't have that dialog. I had Gale wanting to kick Astarion out of the camp, so I was rude to Gale. On Ascension, yeah, he reacted adequately. Also Will reacted normally, like, “Astarion can be proud of himself, and I can't say the same about myself...” He had previously recently broken his contract with Mizora and was tormented by guilt over his father, it felt like someone who was worried and more caught up in his own feelings, and not really inclined to evaluate what other people were doing. Perhaps Will's assessment of events is influenced by the state of Will's own quest at that point.
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.
Ok, I just haven't seen those lines. Just if you make a reference, it's better to explain, not everyone could see it in the game, in BG3 there are many lines that are available only under certain circumstances and not everyone in their walkthroughs get them. Just so it doesn't seem like trolling to someone unfamiliar with references.
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.
Well, the only reason for that is love, when you don't want to lose that person. When you want to bind them to you more tightly. For an independent character who is not that attached to anyone, of course, such a novel is not suitable.
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 didn't have a problem with the D/s undertone either, but rather with the fact that D/s is mandatory. The script doesn't allow me to tell Astarion that I love him and want to be with him forever, while refuting the statement that I enjoy degrading myself. I have to headcanon, skip that check, imagining such a wise and understanding Tav who decided to play along with Astarion and just give him this opportunity to make him feel better. A sort of therapy for him. When one person in a pair has gone through a lot of suffering and has a serious inner trauma, and the other one does not, it is the second one who, if they love and appreciate their partner, should show understanding. But it's a pity that the game “writes the player” setting some limited framework for Tav/DU, although in my opinion, the kind of roleplay I described is nothing exceptional, quite obvious and it's extremely strange not to consider a player who would like to roleplay like that.
The game also has transactions with the devil, without losing your soul.
Kill Orton - Secret of the Scars.
Hammer - Crown of Karsus.
If they are not fulfilled, you don't lose your soul, you just don't get what you asked for.
What's not transaction a 7000 souls - power?
Yes! Like in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. When Jack made a deal with the sea devil Davy Jones - Jones made Jack captain of the “Black Pearl”, in return he would give him his soul after a specified time - Jack had to serve a hundred years on Jones' ship “The Flying Dutchman”. Then Jack, instead of paying, offered him a hundred souls in his place and renegotiated the deal. Very similar to Astarion, differing only in number. And nobody hated Jack Sparrow for it! Everyone smiled and laughed. Sparrow himself made a deal with the sea devil, he was not threatened by any spawn condition, he himself cheated people, recruiting them to his team to pay off the devil. Why is he allowed, but Astarion is Cazador 2.0?
Well he doesn't want to die and thinks that if he fesses up about his bomb before you consider him to be useful, you'll boot him out of the camp. Other than that, most people seem to agree that his alignment is either true neutral or neutral good, and most of his comments are rational but empathetic. His morality is mostly utilitarian, accepting some evil for the sake of a greater good. He dislikes the ritual because of the lost lives but likes the stronger vampire for the final battle. And he is the character who, after having been given a none-lethal solution to his orb, will still offer to detonate it so that nobody in the group has to transform into a mindflayer, in some variations he will downright guilt-trip you into allowing him to detonate. So, saying that he only looks out after his own well being is a very harsh view. He is probably the one who along with Karlach expresses most concern for the player group, he is just much less cuddly (and overbearing) than she is.
I find Karlach much less likable than Gale, especially in Act 3. She's such a disappointing character - liked her at first and then... I find her rather stupid and somewhat hysterical. Gale is at least considerably smarter than Karlach. Yes, there are still some very funny moments with him. Lick a dead spider (somewhere near Yurgir) in front of him - he has the funniest reaction out of the whole group. And make sure you lick the spider twice. I was under the table from Gale's reaction to this, even Astarion couldn't produce anything funnier in this case.
Thanks for the info, I saw the video of Gale exploding in the finale but couldn't figure out why it was even done. It turns out it's his bad ending - self-sacrifice so no one else becomes an illithid. That decision still seems very odd though - Karlach wants to become an illithid herself, and fine. Karlach's fans can make Orpheus an illithid. Unless someone strongly adores both Karlach and Lae'zel at the same time.
