Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion game gaslight on Astarion awful behavior

The topic is interesting, but I'm a really bad conversationalist because my English is so terrible.


Astarion himself says in the dialogue (after you persuaded him not to complete the ritual): "But you saw something in me - someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago."

There is no word of "abuse" in this dialoge, or is there somewhere? For me the words "power" and "Terror" are more connected with domination and rulership - when you help him ascend, he is agreeing with you, when you are calling him a tyrant "one tyrant replaces another" – „Precisely. I’m not ashamed, dear. I won, we won.“ The english or american term "circle of abuse" is not mentioned in the game, as far as I know, but by some people due to their view or interpretations of the story.


I myself don't think his arc is about this „cycle of abuse“ in the term of the american meaning (child abuse), but yeah, some people believe this or interpret this this way.
As you said, the majority of people being enslaved or tortured by other people in real life are not having an antisocial personality disorder / sociopathy, ASPD arise through a specific combination of genetic factors in interaction with environmental conditions.
There are slaves who kill their former enslavers, but mostly because they could find no justice in the courts, so southing their own justice through murdering their enslaver were their only way out. Only a few people develop antisocial personality disorder as a result of abuse. But both genetic and environmental factors (e.g., childhood abuse) contribute to the development of antisocial personality disorder, though there is no hint or proof, as far as I know, that this is the case in this story with Astarion. Especially since his past shows a different picture.

I don't think the story/game itself really tries to justify his bad behavior with a trauma (I think players do!) although there have been changes for release. For example, his magistrate history was deleted, in which he was a dubious character even before becoming a vampire. Some people also complain about this. I agree the player character can't react appropriately to Astarion's evil actions and behaviour, or his actions seem not to be punished, which but is done, I think, on purpose. Astarion, for all his evil, should (in the eyes of the creators) remain a character, who can be liked by the players (said by his author, to have humanity so that he is not too one-sided and people like to take him in the party). So his evilness will not be questioned much ingame and swept under the table, so to say. This is the result of that. He's behaving mean and sarcastic to others, but he's most time allowed to be like that, the surrounding is not questioning it too much, a lot of his mean comments are rather meant to be funny, more or less. „Oh..You're not going to eviscerate him? I was hoping for a show.“ is commented by Lae’zel in an encouraging way with „Cool your blood, I’ll indulge you soon enough“.

This whole story is fantasy, it isn't realistic, also Astarion's personality is pure fantasy, it doesn't exist like this in real life. Astarion is, if you want to compare him to a real life person, more like a sociopath - having antisocial personality disorder with some score on psychopathy. He still has some kind of empathy (not much) and other complex feelings / behaviours like feeling guilt (not often), but scores on emotional uninvolvement, ruthlessness, superficial charm, and often has a lack of remorse or guilt. In any case, he tends to be narcissistic, sadistic, machiavellistic.

So: Is the game gaslighting on Astarion's awful behavior? Yes it does, a lot. And also players do it a lot. Everyone has their own opinion. Some people see a trauma as an excuse for his evil behaviour, some people deny, that Astarion is behaving evil (up until ascension), and some people are saying, a trauma could never be an excuse for this evil behaviour.

I think Astarion is not trusting you at all until act 3, he is even turning you into his spawn to have control over you. "I need someone I can trust, and now I know, they'll never betray me". He is not trusting you in act 2, in his confession scene, for me, it seems more like he himself feels awful and he tries to find out, how much of a fool you are, if you will still stand by his side, even after revealing, that he manipulated you. It’s all about him and his feelings. He is just selfpiting, and that’s also a sign of sociopathy (above average self-pity). He doesn’t ask you how you feel. Yep, you don't even have a chance to tell him, what an ass he is, that he manipulated you, I really missed that option. Even if you tell him „I care about you. Deeply.“, he answers „really?“, So he is not really able to trust people, especially up to this point.

But it’s just this. It is written that way, you cannot call him out on his bad character traits. There are even people, pretending, he wasn’t a bad character as a Spawn, it’s fascinating, but that’s how fictional villains work, when they are written for the audience to be liked. They are not written realistic, but charismatic and there need to be the slight hope, that the character/personality would/could change, would have a bit of empathy, would fall in love with someone and behave better.. something like that. Most popular fictional villains are written ambigious on purpose, something between humanity and sociopathy/psychopathy., otherwise people wouldn’t sympathize with them. Even in hannibal the serie, everyone adores the cannibal, he is utterly evil, but still, they managed it, that people are supporting the antagonist. There is this light empathy inside him toward the protagonist, or maybe it’s the hope, that the psychopath develops a conscience for another person, feel for another person, so the result is: Everyone loves him, because even if being a psychopath the serial killer is having a conscience and empathy, even if it’s little or just the hope of it and just toward one person.

I can't say for the other evil companions, have never played with Minthara. But I think Astarion and the story is just written this way to be liked by a lot of people. So like this: