Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Astarion's Backstory (May Contain Spoilers)

[Edit: Deleted].

Hello! I'll try to answer with my knowledge and opinions as an EA player, although IDK if this thread will get moderated because there are so many active Astarion threads going on currently.

So, to start, that backstory you're mentioning isn't *exactly* his EA backstory. That tidbit is grabbed from, if memory serves me right, a Feb 2020 article from a guy that was at that event where Larian showcased some footage of IIRC their alpha build, so a full 8 months before EA release. A couple years later (which is admittedly a lot later) his writer gave an interview where he said "his backstory then isn't necessarily his backstory now"

His backstory in EA is pretty much what you see in full release's act 1. Nothing changed, really. I think they changed a couple lines surrounding Gandrel? The thing is that it's always been implied there was some shady business going on with the ruling he handed down for the Gur (mostly, that he did something extremely bigoted) and that Cazador being there was sketchy, also almost implying they knew each other. But because of the game not really tackling either of these things despite leaving them in, it almost feels like it's a dropped storyline. They also left in comments about Cazador's extensive family and Astarion having to obey them, despite that not being very present in full release. His family was more or less datamined, unlike any mention of Astarion's previous storyline.

Regarding his canon biological age, I honestly think it's a big goof. A 39yo elf in DND is physically in their early 20s but considered an elf minor by their society. However, Astarion does not remotely look like a 20yo. But, he does very much look like a human 39 year old (I've also seen people say it's a nod to the age Neil Newbon was when he started playing the character). This makes me believe they assigned him a human age while forgetting he's an elf, as they often do with Astarion, honestly. His elven heritage is barely mentioned.
Astarion's mirror scene and his concerns there if you point out certain traits feel like heavily points to him being at a middle-age-crisis age, rather than his 20s. His writer also said in an interview the concept for him was "aging rockstar" and that he already thought he looked too smooth in the concept art.

I also have to add the dates surrounding both that tombstone and the Cazador palace are a complete and utter mess. No date in his tombstone fully makes sense, even when people try to construct a way to make them work, and even then it actively contradicts dates given in the palace for when Cazador became a lord. At this point I feel like we have to accept it's kind of nonsensical and build our own HCs about what's right and what's not. Personally I don't think Astarion being an elf minor suits him, so I don't really stick to that.

Ah, also, for your interest, the artbook also seems to have been made at an earlier stage in development and they also talk a bit about Astarion's background there, that he was part of the corrupt elite and "looking for immortality". Despite being part of the full release artbook, this seems to be old and scrapped judging by the game.

Thank you, this is really insightful! The tombstone thing is especially interesting. I think you're right - given the conflicting information, it's more of a headcanon situation than a canon one. It's a bit of a shame, though. I hope Larian will shed some more light on the chain of events at some point.

No prob! I love talking about the more intricate and less known parts of the canon, or the canon that never was, rather :P

As much as it pains me because I find kind of nonsensical, I wouldn't call Astarion being 39 (or, well, 239) a headcanon, as it's what's in the game. I'm not sure if him being that young for an elf is headcanon or not though, since I can't be sure what the intent truly was even if I have my opinions about it. I suppose it's accidentally or not canon since it's set in the dnd universe, so all we can conclude is that he was for some reason that young, as much as we can think it was a mistake. I know some people have tried to explain it by saying that "he lived in a mostly human society, and thus considered an adult in Baldur's Gate" but I still find that flawed both because of the clues from his personality and his looks. Others have said that the trauma or undeath has significantly aged him, which I find clashes with how we conceive most vampires to be, frozen at the time of their death if only looking a bit deader. But people have grown attached to those ideas, and that's okay.
What I prefer thinking is that he's whatever the elf equivalent of human 39 is. (Given that Minthara is ~250? and Halsin is 350, Astarion looks somewhere inbetween that range)

Another interesting thing however is that there is this pseudo-canon mobile game called "Idle Champions" where they established they had worked with his main writer for his bio sheet in that game and there his age at death was established to be 150, IIRC. It was still not old enough in my opinion, but a lot more apt. It was changed to 39 ingame a couple of months later in a silent patch, and I'm not sure if it was because of the writer notifying that mistake, or because of fans noting it, and in the latter case, if the writer was asked for permission to change it. To this day, however, their blog's bio that was in collaboration with his writer has his age as 350, so I haven't got a clue.

Sadly I don't think they'll address it. Perhaps years down the line, in some supplementary book or comic? It'd probably not be from his original authors. Who knows. I also think it'd come with the disadvantage of invalidating some people's ideas (probably invalidate mine, since now they're probably going to have to work around having established what I think is a goof). The advantage of the dates not adding up is that the people who like the tragedy of him dying that young can believe that, while I can think it was a mistake because he looks human 39, not elf 39.

Idk if you've heard of this as well, but Astarion was originally a tiefling, and I find him being an elf much more apt. His tiefling veeery early origins have led some people to believe it influenced his storyline and tombstone, which I disagree with since those aspects of the script would've come much later down the line, when he's already been long established as an elf and not a tiefling.
Unfortunately I have to give credence to the fact that Astarion's personality hardly feels like that of someone who has the lived experience of centuries, unlike someone like Halsin or Minthara. That can be due to the regressing experience of going through all that trauma, I suppose, but when I see him it's hard to think "Oh, this guy was 300 before he died." It's much easier to picture him being literally 39. Which is a problem, given that he's an elf, as little as that's acknowledged.
I also suppose writing centuries-old elves in DND is hard since they're bound to be somewhat human-like because of the universe they're set in, where anyone can play as anything and be whichever way they like, plus conveying the almost alien experience of someone having lived that long is probably difficult, and I think brushed off for most DND elves if possible.

I'm genuinely curious – how do we know that this backstory (written in the artbook) has been scrapped? Or rather, what parts of the game imply/indicate that this was scrapped? I am just curious because I also don't really know. I assumed he was actually a corrupt magistrate, since he does tell you he's a magistrate when you first meet him, and at another point he says that he made a ruling that upset the Gur. I think it's a shame that his background (before he became a vampire spawn) is mainly left unexplored in the game.
That's a good point about Cazador's extended family. It implies that there are more Szarrs out there who had power over Astarion, but you never see or hear about them after you deal with Cazador.

It seems that his age in Idle Champions is now 263? I wonder why they keep messing with his age and can't stick to one. I agree with your own thoughts on it, that he looks about 39 in human years imo. And it seems most likely to me that this was probably a mistake (them not taking into account that he's an elf).

@Celesti4 I guess we don't know if it's truly scrapped- But rather that there's just no mention of the "looking for immortality part" (shame, because it'd add a layer of depth to that one dialogue where he insults Cazador's servants for seeking vampirism) and that the artbook tends to have some outdated info that makes it seem it was made earlier in development. I agree that the game still does heavily, heavily, HEAVILY imply he was a very corrupt magistrate, and find it strange there's no follow-up on the tidbits he drops about how his death happened in act 1 that were clearly written with a follow-up in mind. IIRC, one of the datamines I saw in Early Access had him allying by default with this monster hunter guy called "Spencer" against his spawn siblings (you met them in act 2 here). That might have tied into it? I can't recall if he was a Gur, might not have been specified. If so, it could've been part of his arc.

And about Idle Champions: my bad. His age there was never 239, I'm just tired and didn't get it right. They changed it to 263 indeed, and that age is a band-aid to try to fix the tombstone inconsistencies, except it doesn't deal with all of them. IIRC (might be wrong, I'm so sleepy!) what they did to get that age was add a 1 in front of both the year he was born and the year he died, and changed the current year to 1492, which is the correct date but not the one he writes down on his tombstone ingame, he puts a date that's like 25 years before the events of the game but acts like it's the current year. Thus the fix 263 is born.

Astarion's only mention of his elven heritage ingame are him talking about his pointy ears, the vague sense of high-elf superiority syndrome trope, and that one Durge conversation where he mentions Evereska, if that's even considered addressing his elvishness. They really do treat him as a human, in a way they don't do for the other elf companions. It's a bit jarring when the story treats him as extraordinarily ancient at times, because there are 2 characters older than him that you can recruit. I guess immortal vampires and how they clash with mortals' lifespans doesn't gel well with worlds where people can naturally live 750 years. (Don't take my nitpickiness as me hating on the game, these are all extremely minor and trivial complaints and I do love BG3)

EDIT: Re: Spencer the monster hunter, I wanted to say I looked for my source because it was an interesting thing but the tumblr who datamined all that recently deactivated. That's such a shame because they datamined a lot of stuff that most people don't know about. The only other mention I've found online of that guy's existence is this VK post, although there's some issues with what seems to be the automatic translation? https://m.vk.com/wall-178381386_183365?lang=en.
I'm skimming over, but it's missing other parts of that datamine about how a bunch of Astarion's siblings were (at Moonrise Towers?) playing cards or something and then saw him and cheerfully asked him to join them at the table or something, to which he got mad and started bragging about how he's now free and doesn't have to do a damn thing, something like that. And Spencer comes in, and he prefers to side with him. In this version of the story, act 3 datamines had the spawn seemingly be happy about Cazador's treatment of them, saying he was a strict boss but that he still fed them well. Could've been them being compelled to say so, I guess, but also could imply that Astarion was extremely punished in comparison, which was something heavily implied in EA (that he was "Cazador's personal slave, never to leave his side unless instructed to") and taken out when they changed how Daisy/The Emperor works. Honestly, back in EA everyone seemed to conceive Astarion and Cazador's relationship not like that of an abusive father and his son, but of like, an extremely abusive """romantic""" relationship.

@jinetemoranco - Thank you so much for taking the time to write down all of this info! I didn't know about most of the datamined things you mentioned. I definitely never heard about Spencer the monster hunter and the scene with the siblings playing cards, or that he may have been a Tiefling in early stages. Very interesting.

No problem That makes sense for them to change it to 263, if the current date on the tombstone wasn't correct. I've seen some other sources that have him at different ages like 350, and I would believe that a lot more. 63 would still be very young for an elf, but slightly better than 39. And looking at his pics in the artbook, I think he may look even older there on that artwork than he does in the game.

Off the top of my head, the only other times I remember him specifically indicating something about his elven heritage is when he looks at the portraits in Ketheric's tomb. "A big painting of a sad elf, heartbreaking" / "Now that's what I like to see: An Elf at the head of an army."
During one of the conversations with Dark Urge, he says, "Although I don't look a day over 100 (years old)"... why would he say that if he was only 39 when he died / got turned into a spawn? I think there was definitely something that went wrong here behind the scenes when they put his age on the tombstone. If they had him say it out loud, like literally saying "I was 39 when this happened," rather than just having it on a texture on the tombstone, then maybe it wouldn't seem so much like it was a mistake to me.

That's also interesting, that Astarion in EA was never allowed to leave Cazador's side and was implied to be more like his personal slave. In the current game it seems that what they've left in is that he would get treated badly (or worse than the others) because his screams sounded sweetest to him or something along those lines, and maybe because of his overall strong personality, but I think it's not really explained why Cazador gives him special attention.

You're right about the Ketheric comments and the Durge conversation- I remember I've used that line as a counter-argument to Astarion being that young before, but I also wasn't sure if he was doing elf humor or vampire humor. It at least sounds like elf humor though, and it is implying he was 100+ after death. I can't say for certain though. The disparity might come from different writers, since I'm very confident the durge scene we're talking about was written by Welch. But Rooney has also been seemingly inconsistent about Astarion's age. Perhaps it was truly meant as an easter egg for Newbon's age when he started? A mystery for the ages.

The thing about the date on the tombstone is that it was written quite plainly on the devnotes, so it wasn't the tombstone artists' mistake or something- but IDK if they just very quickly wrote it. The tombstone reflects everything written on the devnote except a small difference in the surname- The devnotes say Ancunín, while the tombstone reads Ancunin. This is because the alphabet they used doesn't account for accents like that.

I want to clarify that I'm not 100% sure the spawn siblings were playing cards- it's a silly detail but I dislike the idea of spreading misinfo or something :P I just remember they were like, hanging out at some table. If the tumblr blog hadn't deactivated I could confirm, but I suppose it's pretty trivial.

The current game does seem to point at him having the same role as the other spawn except he was the most hated, but EA seemed much more extreme. I also got the idea Astarion was out of all the spawn the only or one of the only ones that hunted people, but he didn't talk about his siblings much so idk, I just found it weird he specified his role as a spawn back then.
There are things I prefer about full release and things I prefer about how I imagined the EA version would play out (which I of course can't know because I haven't seen what they were planning, I'm just trying to solve the puzzle here). I think the father/son abuse angle is better and more narratively cohesive, and that the siblings also being tortured is better, because it's silly to think they'd be content in those circumstances. However, I was very interested by the possibility of Cazador thinking he was doing a twisted version of justice by punishing Astarion- a whole "abuser becomes victim" kind of plot for Astarion. It would have made a lot of people heavily dislike Astarion, though. I also think Astarion's arc could've been more complete if his past evils had been addressed, like the OG version seemed to plan on doing. I have more complex thoughts on what I liked about the whole thing and how I imagined it'd play out, but I don't feel super coherent or articulate right now.

It sounded more like elf humor to me too. That makes more sense to me here that he's implying he's over the age of 100 when he became a spawn.

Yes, that sounds very possible -- maybe it was originally meant to be a little easter egg that they thought most people wouldn't even pay much attention to (I probably wouldn't have noticed the age on the tombstone myself or known how to translate it honestly). I really like the idea that they could have done this as a nod to Neil Newbon.:)
Ah, if was in the devnotes too, it probably wouldn't just be a random mistake. But then again, I guess they also got the current date (the year when the events of the game took place) wrong on there. So if the devnote was a mistake then the artist would have easily just copied it onto there, too.

Hmm, I'm wondering too if that's why they kind of leaned away from pushing the backstory that he was a corrupt member of the elite in the past who had a hunger for eternal life and so on, in favor of him being a more sympathetic character to most players, perhaps. But like you said, it could have been interesting story-wise if Astarion himself had done evil things before, and then having it all be turned around on him when he becomes a slave to Cazador. Things like that could have added more layers to his story and yes it could have been interesting for him to look back and address his past in regards to that. I was personally interested in knowing if he had family before he became a spawn and what kind of relationship he had with them. As far as I know, throughout the game we don't meet any relatives of his or anyone who knew him before he got bitten. Although if he can't remember things like his old eye color, maybe previous family ties or his old life are fuzzy to him.
Thank you again for sharing those interesting facts!

You are talking about the three puzzle paintings in Ketheric's tomb, aren't you? I got different dialogue for those "Ketheric Thorm, mourning his daughter. Who knew he had it in him?" and "The mighty general - Ketheric at the head of an army of Shar worshippers." Maybe those are specific to his origin.


I think I might have preferred this angle too. In the current version I feel the narration focuses too heavily on Astarion's suffering while ignoring how the abuse he experienced makes him cause the pain in return (unless you ascend him) - which would have been more fitting for the whole "cycle of power and terror" theme. Especially the romantic version of his post-Araj confession rubs me the wrong way, where he, after thanking you for not using him, makes fun of a PC who realises they have been nothing but a tool for Astarion up to this point. Instead of break-up drama, which the scene is primarily concerned with, it would have been more interesting for me to explore how you can even break out of such a cycle if you don't even notice how awful your own behaviour is. But ... probably not the point of this thread. ^^

I've never played his origin story, so that's new to me. : )

Yes, he was a companion in my playthrough when he said this. More accurately he says:
- "A big painting of a sad elf. Heartbreaking, truly."
- "Now that's what I like to see - an elf at the head of an army. Even a Sharran one."

Here it kind of sounds like he doesn't realize this is Ketheric (and his daughter) he's looking at in the paintings, vs. how he talks about it as origin Astarion.

Oh that might be the reason, Celesti, they do have different things to say about Isobel's sarcophagus depending on if they have already met Isobel and snooped around Moonrise or if the went straight to the mausoleum without any prior knowledge. It might be just his comment when he knows neither Ketheric nor Isobel.

This is a very interesting topic! Jinetemoranco, thank you for taking the time to provide so much interesting information!


In Act 1 Astarion talks about the “Szarr family”, pronouncing it “they”, I had full confidence on first playthrough that we were going to encounter a vampire clan. Subsequently, in Act 2, Astarion says that Cazador referred to his enslaved spawns as “family”, which brings up associations with a psychopathic maniac who keeps his victims in his basement while referring to them as “family”. But in Act 1, Astarion said that he would no longer be subject to “them,” and this is confusing. We only find the diaries of Cazador's niece (Lady Incognita), a vampire who didn't want to accept being a vampire, and apparently died, though I couldn't find information in the game about what exactly happened to her.


I agree. A 39 year old elf would look like a very young boy, it doesn't fit with DnD lore in any way.


Astarion remembers almost nothing about his past, he tells us that he remembers almost nothing, perhaps his previous experience has been largely erased by the horrors of 200 years of slavery and torture. It seemed to me that in the course of the game he kind of starts to live again, gradually reveals himself, so for me, in general, it is normal to accept that he was 150 or even 350 years old before the moment of his conversion. Especially since it's still, indeed, as you correctly point out, impossible to accurately convey the character of a character with centuries of experience. The only example from the games in which I think the authors have best managed to convey this is the image of the blind Storyteller from Pathfinder. Something like that really feels right there, but that kind of character is completely unsuitable for any kind of romantic line, not even for any kind of deep friendship. Not even as a mentor, but only as a kind of really almost alien being that you can talk to, you can listen to his stories, reflect on them, but you and he will always be, if I may say so, on different levels.


There are so many interesting things in the VK post. It's such a pity it wasn't implemented. And it's unclear why Astarion's dream after release is only available for Astarion Origins, even though in EA there was a scene about it and we could talk to him about his dream. I also thought it was interesting that the night hag, Ethel's sister, was supposed to be hiding under the guise of the leader of Gur. And Ulma does indeed look like a hag. Literally the same face as Ethel. And a letter from “M” stating that she's looking for someone, but that information is not realized in any way in the game. Perhaps she was looking for Astarion? This story would be great to spruce up the Gur plot.

Found this other video from EA, with some very vivid reactions and lines from Astarion where he's scared and angry.



In this case, on the contrary, I'm very glad it wasn't implemented. It would have been too awful. I never really saw the relationship between Astarion and Cazador as a father-son relationship, but rather as that of a psychopathic maniac and his prisoner, whom he tried to break but never could. But this story allows for different readings, because such a “father” is, in general, in any case at the same time a psychopathic maniac. Just as one can think of examples from history where slave owners called themselves “fathers” of their slaves, and considered themselves to be “mentoring” their slaves. “Father” in this case can be understood as a kind of overwhelming oppressive image, whom the hero must destroy in order to free himself from his power.


It seems to me that this story was removed for the sake of a mass audience. This image is impressive to connoisseurs, but not really suitable for mass perception. On the one hand, maybe that's not a bad thing, otherwise there would have been a lot more toxic “morality”. On the other hand, of course, Astarion's plot would have been more interesting and complete. I honestly feel more sorry for the softening and because of that somewhat simplification of his character, compared to what was in EA, than the removal of the corrupt judge's story directly. I still wouldn't have gotten him to some of those shiver-inducing lines in my game, of course, because that would require pissing him off, and I would have watched it on video as well, but surely the romantic interaction might have been a little different. His trust would have been harder to earn, and as it is, in the first playthrough at the beginning of the game there's an illusion that he's a difficult problematic character, and in fact Astarion is very easy for the player. He was a seducer in EA as well, so the early onset of the romance could have been there as well, but the transition to the next level of the relationship when Astarion opens up and starts to trust should have been worth more effort given Astarion's backstory and how he perceives the world around him as hostile.Especially the confession scene after Oblodra cheapens this (I went through the scene after Yurgir and felt the difference). If in the case of Yurgir everything is more logical, especially when you attack Yurgir without talking, immediately engaging him in battle, you can understand Astarion's desire to open up and trust - his lover took a risk for him, organized a combat operation without questions and without talking, attacked from a disadvantageous position, complying with Raphael's demand not to talk to Yurgir, because finding out about Astarion's scars is much more important than the details of the devils' history or the possibility to facilitate the confrontation with the enemy. Astarion might be willing to open up to someone like that, who has proven by deed that she is always on his side. And in the case of Oblodra, I did... Nothing. Just confirmed Astarion's refusal to bite her. Oblodra can't even be punished for humiliating Astarion. I mean, nothing at all. Didn't take advantage of Astarion's vulnerability and his PTSD for some miserable potion - well yeah, showed I'm not the last ***, but nothing more. As one of the situations that combine to earn Astarion's trust - that would be fine, but not as the main reason to get recognition. I wonder why there are two options for getting recognition in the game, and they are not connected to each other (if they were connected and you had to pass both scenes and get recognition after passing the last of them, as if for both deeds, it would be understandable)? Is the Yurgir variant an earlier version?

I have an answer for this one- the Yurgir version (which used to not be related to Yurgir at all, but just high approval, triggering once you slept after reaching Moonrise Towers) was made as a failsafe. Basically, they made that scene just in case you missed Araj, so you wouldn't be locked out of the Astarion romance. The Araj version is the one that was intended as the main one. It does surprise me, because I similarly think the Yurgir version is better, but I'm biased because it's also the one I found first. There are things about the Araj version I prefer, though. And I know people who say the Araj version is better, so it's a matter of taste.

That reminds me that a while ago I reported to Larian that it's weird that if you had had the Yurgir confession already, you can make Astarion bite Araj with no consequences, and they told me they were aware of this problem and working on it. Could it be in Patch 7?

Oh, that is a surprise. I had assumed that the Araj version was the failsafe, because it's easy to reach while you have to match several prerequisites to achieve the Yurgir version. The reasoning is also peculiar to me, because the Araj version - while very interesting - makes me think that the writing's hope and intention here was that you break up with him.

To be fair, that didn't use to be the case. At least in my case, when I still knew nothing about full release, it happened fairly naturally: I had high approval, I rested at Moonrise Towers, boom: confession scene. I think Yurgir being a trigger is worse, IMO, and IDK why it was changed.

The reasoning for why this one is the failsafe is, from what I could gather, that Araj was put there on purpose to explore Astarion's issues with consent and autonomy and using himself, which I guess isn't as evident for the Yurgir version? He still talks about it, I suppose. What I don't like about Araj's version is that you can miss that he says that that was an issue with you, or that he used you. Still, I'd rather move on from that as to not cross into topics about Astarion's romance which are already explored on other threads.

I forgot to say earlier that yes, the impression I got from Madame Fel back when the EA datamines were coming out was that she was some sort of supernatural entity allied with the Gur. I've datamined the current game and Madame Fel effectively became Ulma, and the Madame Fel flags are still there.
My theory back then was that Madame Fel was long-lived because of... whatever she was, and had been alive to see Astarion's ruling that got him killed, hence that part of his past would've been addressed because she knew of it and disliked it. It was nice to imagine how things could've turned out in EA.

Just briefly then: Of course I can only guess, but using Yurgir as a trigger synchronises it with the Araj encounter. When meeting Araj, you defend his autonomy; when fulfilling Raph's deal, you also support his autonomy because he learns what Cazador's plan for him is and can plot against it. As Marielle wrote above, fulfilling a devil's contract and slaying a mighty beast just so that Astarion can learn something about himself - a very classical romantic gesture if you will XD - seems like a good trigger for a guilty conscience too, while high approval alone maybe doesn't have the same effect.


This would explain why Ulma is so focused on Astarion's redemption in some of her dialogue and seems to think that it might be something he desires.

It seems to me they adapted whatever the original outline was for his interactions with the Gur into a softer, more palatable version for full release.
Basically, I imagine originally he had to confront something bad he did to the Gur in the past of his own volition: Now it's changed so the (seemingly one and only) issue he has with the Gur right now is something he did under Cazador's control, so he isn't even truly responsible for it, but he can still make an effort to try to fix it.

I find it peculiar that, when he remains a Spawn but you kill the 7k victims, he tells Ulma "I've inflicted enough pain on your people". Was this acknowledgement of his past deeds, perhaps? It's the closest thing we have. I guess I'll have to fill in the gaps, there.

I feel they overall polished off possible edges from the backstories so that the characters end up as mostly blameless, perfect victims - apart from Gale and maybe Lae'zel, who might end up with a grudge against Vlaakith but never against the githyanki culture in which she was raised.

trigger warning for sexual abuse

The writing, to me, heavily implies that it's not all that healthy for Astarion to pursue a romantic and/or sexual relationship right now. In fact, it seemed incredibly obvious to me to the point I was surprised more people don't talk about it. I think it's because it's something most people won't notice without experience.

When he told me he didn't feel comfortable having sex and I broke up with him, he was relieved. In a run where we stopped having sex but kept dating, spawn Astarion was relieved when I said we didn't have to have sex after we killed cazador. He seems to have trouble saying no to sex he doesn't want to have even to a partner he trusts, considering he dissociates during the brothel scene.

He doesn't even know if he can consent or wants it at all because it's been at long since he's been given a choice. He also obviously believes that if he doesn't have sex with a partner they'll leave him. I know he seems alright with polyam as long as it's not because he won't have sex with you, but I have no idea what he does if you say it is because of that. Either way it shows it's a worry.

As a person who has been there, someone saying "I can wait" implies that eventually they expect sex at some point. Which means they're going to end it if they think that point will never arrive. When you're desperate not to lose someone and are used to having sex you don't want to in order to keep people happy, it's easy to convince yourself you're ready before you really are. It's easy to think that once you don't have an "excuse" anymore that your partner will expect you to be over it. Especially since, unfortunately, a lot of people do believe those things.

To be clear, I am not saying that Astarion can't consent or that it's wrong to romance him or ascend him or anything. I did a spawn romance, a durge and ascended astarion queerplatonic thing, and am doing an origin run that will end with ascended astarion dating minthara. It's roleplay in a video game.