But here it's a literal double standard, where for the massacre in the grove you're given an evil Mintara woman to fight for the two of you and build your power. That's an evil act, consequences? Beautiful drow, because you chose the dark side and defeated the enemy.
Excellent consequences and a great reward for an evil deed. You can get Minthara more easily now, but I used to read a post somewhere from a man who wanted to attach Minthara and through “can't” carve out an unfortunate grove of druids. It was hard and unpleasant for him, but it had to be done, pass and forget, and then there would be a romance with Minthara. Yes and without any romance it is much more desirable to have her in the party rather than Halsin. Minthara is the motivator and inducement for an evil deed, a excellent consequence. In the Astarion romance, the player is made into a victim for helping him. It has to be said that psychologically helping Astarion perform the Ascension is not difficult, we only see the spawns exploding during the ritual, and the way Astarion carves scars on Cazador's back, and Cazador's screams are a real pleasure, it's not at all like killing tiefling's kids with your own hands.
Larian's authors, I think, have a poor understanding of how empathy works. First of all we empathize with those we love, also we are more influenced by what we see with our eyes and not just receive in the form of some information. The text can also have a significant impact, but it depends on the quality of the text, if the author was able to convey what happened quite imaginatively, vividly and in detail, then we see it with our “inner eye”. If we read a dry summary that a certain number of people have suffered, say, from a hurricane, we certainly understand that it is bad, but a report from the scene, which shows these victims and tells about their misfortune, will have a much greater effect on the viewer than this summary. BG3 is a mocap game, so the emotions and feelings of your favorite character actually directly affect the player, just like in real life. It's officially considered that only an evil character would want to kill 7000 for Astarion Ascension. And what exactly does the player see in the game? Irok sees either Astarion's tears, his depression, his sadness, the way he is forced to adapt to the “good” world, and the way this “good” world deals with him as a result. There is no way to help Astarion in this case, only fantasy and headcanons. As I played with the unascended Astarion, I felt hurt and real anger at both myself and all these “lucky” people. I looked into their faces and couldn't forgive them for their joy, their cheerful sunny city, or their future “victory over evil”. In another case, the player sees a certain number of unfamiliar spawns explode (Astarion's “family” treated him badly, by the way), corpses will still be lying around somewhere, and... Astarion no longer feels the pain of starvation. Astarion has squared his shoulders. It's fun to run around sunny Baldur with Astarion, you don't want to do any “evil” anymore, on the contrary, contrary to the “right” roleplay of evil Tav, who is ready to do anything for the sake of “power”, it's much more fun to help everyone, to explore every corner of the world, the world becomes bright again and you want to treat it the same way. And a happy ending, a real victory, all is well. The adorable bat in the epilogue. Up to patch 6.
Of course, when there isn't some particularly strong love for Astarion, his “good way” is taken perfectly normally. Or when, after choosing one of the kindly offered lines (“The authors want you to tell Astarion that he's like Cazador!”) someone is willing to wet their pants from raising the tone (I wonder how this imaginary player lives in life if any shouting causes such hyper-reaction) and happily believes that Astarion is now a “psychopath” and he's “lost himself,” then yes, the illusory romance with the “tame vampire boy” is also well taken. But the authors themselves seem to have obvious and serious problems with empathy, if they can't even imagine themselves in the place of a player who fell in love with Astarion. But there is a desire to punish for love towards him with such “kisses”.
Originally Posted by LiryFire
One of those myths, fakes that have generated insufficient lore about vampirism in the game and what is “ascended vampirism”. “True vampirism” and dark desires that twist consciousnesses. Dark desires, and twisted minds work on spawns too, because they are consequences of vampirism. Twisted consciousness is a downside of vampirism, undead trait. It doesn't happen that way, either it works and vampirism twists the mind or it doesn't work - and we need to take the personality apart. (except for the bloodthirsty part, I guess) Does it even work for “first living vampirism”? The game doesn't say.
According to the 5th edition dnd rules, vampirism changes consciousness at the moment of conversion to spawn. I really like that Larian didn't do that, but used their own rules for that, and they show vampires as living people with their own personalities, but to make a home rule so that this 5th edition rule only applies in the case of the Ascension ritual, well, sorry, that's a very bad Dungeon Master. I certainly wouldn't play with a DM who is so inconsistent and changes the rules as the game goes on as they please.
Originally Posted by LiryFire
Astarion shows that personality is a complex contradictory thing, not static, capable of different actions.
Yes, that's among the things that appeal so strongly about Astarion. Astarion is a reactive, lively, contradictory, multifaceted character. It's only in the romance that they decided to spoil him, used him as a tool to demonstrate their ideas about “abusive relationships”.
