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.
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.
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. ^^
