Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 7 Ascended Astarion's kisses goes against his story as written

The game details the process of transformation into a spawn and openly states that if a vampire allows you to drink their blood, you are freed from their control. Astarion gave Tav his blood, this is proven by the fact that Tav doesn't burn in the sun and also sees himself in the mirror. Tav can't just be a spawn, according to the lore of the game. I don't know if this was done intentionally or if Larian just made a mistake, but it's a fact. Tav is not a spawn. Also, the game has never, not once - not once - shown that AA can actually control Tav. They showed how Cazador does it, they showed how Bhaal bends the Dark Urge to his will, but they never showed how AA controls Tav. It takes tremendous mental gymnastics to ignore all these facts in favor of your beliefs.

«You were drained dry, and at the height of your delirium, I granted you one drop of my own blood.»

«Player: How does someone become a vampire, exactly?
Astarion: It's simple. Just find a vampire that will drink your blood and turn you into a vampire spawn: their obedient puppet. In theory, the next step is to drink their blood. Once you've done that, you're free and a true vampire.»

«Astarion: It will only hurt a bit, the pleasure will be far greater than the pain.»

«Astarion: I remember how it hurt when I turned to a vampire. My body writhed and warped while I was utterly helpless, the grip of death owned my heart as it beat its last.»


In the same dialog, he states that he is not going to control Tav the way Cazador did, and that he would never hurt Tav. There are no dev notes in there about this being a lie, although other lines have such dev notes in them. And at no point in the game is AA shown using the true vampire's control over his spawn, as was shown in the game with the example of Astarion's siblings. We've seen what it should look like and we have NOT seen AA do it. AA also never hurt Tav without consent until patch 6. AA also shares Mephistopheles' gifts with Tav, guaranteeing Tav protection from the sun and hunger, something Cazador would never do for his spawn. Cazador has been torturing his spawn with hunger since their transformation. The relationship between Tav and AA is a far cry from the relationship between Cazador and his spawns.


Let's not get into unnecessary philosophy here about good and evil, corruption by power and the mindset of evil characters. Why not get away from simplistic understandings of moral issues in games and works without falling into simplistic schemes and stereotypes? Mintara has that mindset too. Tav and Dark Urge might have that mindset too. Astarion has a neutrally evil worldview by default, since he's a vampire. That's why Spawn and AA have the same approval system in Act 3 and the same evil ending.

The evil endings just prove that AA is trustworthy. He doesn't even have any thoughts of betrayal. He treats Tav like an equal. Tav makes her own destiny, he stands back and looks at Tav with pride.

Honestly, if Tav was just his spawn, it would be extremely disadvantageous for him to agitate Tav to become an Absolute. Because it was only the tadpole that prevented him from having complete control over Tav. The moment Tav becomes Absolute, he himself is in a vulnerable position, knowing that in this way Tav can control him as well. But he doesn't expect a catch, because Tav's agreement to become his spawn has convinced him that their relationship is based on complete trust. «Thank you for trusting me.» Therefore, he cannot believe that Tav would betray him.

«Lae'zel: You have shared your new power with your lover, Astarion. I'm surprised - I expected you to turn your back once you got what you wanted.
Astarion: Quite the opposite - I need someone I can trust. And now I know they'll never betray me.»

«Karlach: You know, Astarion, I'm not sure I can trust you anymore. You're... different. A bit scary, to be honest.
Astarion: I have one person who trusts me completely. That's enough for me.»

As a reminder, AA can be killed immediately after the ritual by siding with Ulma. (I suppose Tav, frightened by the change in Astarion's behavior, could have taken that chance, and she wouldn't have had to fight alone). He can be kicked in the balls in the transformation scene. He's also easy to kill with a dagger to the stomach for some reason. Is it safe to say he's that strong compared to Tav? I've seen anti-AA mocking AA because of this. But for some reason those same people insisted that Tav should react to the kissing with fear. Those people who mock his inflated ego and the way he squirms after hitting balls, finding it hilarious - they claim that the only reaction to his kiss can only be fear. I can see the flaws in that logic.

Based on the lore of the dnd, the spawn have a Neutral Evil alignment, while the true vampires have a Lawful Evil alignment, for which hierarchy is of great importance. That's why AA sets up this relationship dynamic. For this reason, he orders Tav to kneel. For this reason he calls Tav his consort. «We are sovereigns. My sole endeavour now is to make this world yours and mine alone.»


My love for Astarion as a villain and my love for his romance with Tav are not mutually exclusive. Evil characters can love too. I, too, love Ascended Astarion - exactly as I love Astarion in general - as a villain. I am told that I romanticize Astarion, but I have never denied that he is a villain. In fact, the very people who accuse me of romanticizing him are the ones who themselves romanticize Astarion a little more than completely, and go into furious denial when reminded that Astarion is a vampire and an evil character by default, not just because of his trauma. The claim that Astarion isn't evil at heart because he's a victim is a classic manifestation of romanticization. Believing in the “I can fix him” plot trope is a classic example of romanticization. I always find it funny to hear something about how I romanticize Ascended Astarion from people like this.

Some girl on youtube made a mocking video about AA fans, donning the white cape of an educator of morally correct choices, calling us delusional. She also made a video claiming Astarion was safe and not a threat. He's non threatening, and he nonthreateningly tries to cut your throat and nonthreateningly tries to bite you and nonthreateningly drink your blood and non threatening promises not to kill you and if you take him at his word, he nonthreateningly kills you. Many Spawn fans look at Astarion through rose-colored glasses and don't even realize it. Ironically, only AA fans fully recognize the fact that Astarion is an evil character from beginning to end.

The difference between Spawn fans and AA fans is that the latter realize they're playing a game and don't take the whole Astarion story as a parable. To me, the spawn route is a completely fairy tale story about Astarion being “fixed” by the power of love\ friendship by throwing a charisma dice. In real life, such fantasies are very dangerous and are romanticization. A short post about it.

So by what logic am I romanticizing something toxic if we've all romanticized the manipulator from the beginning? And make no mistake that you have continued to do so by playing the spawn route. I want to enjoy my dark romance with the villain, and have as much right to do so as you do. And no, if you enjoy AA “as a tragedy”, i.e. as a parable with a moral lesson, then you're a spawn fan all the same. Because to you the AA route is just an appendage to the spawn route.

Frankly, I was surprised when someone called this story “complex story about a cycle of abuse”, when in fact it's just a schematically simplistic view of the story and the character, an attempt to reduce the complex personality of the Ascended Astarion to an archetype that works for a particular narrative fitting into 10 lines of dialog.


So I find it ridiculous that you're wasting your time on this topic instead of asking Larian to add more kissing to the spawn route.


AA sympathizes with Tav because of the situation with Haarlep. He has a deep understanding for Tav as he has been through it himself.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VCnVV3YjRAk


I don't see him doing anything horrible or scary. Games of two vampires, not puritans. Which, according to the script, is what it was originally intended to be. Not a dead dove.

«Astarion's right hand shot up quickly, grabbing the Player's neck. Locking eyes with the Player, he starts to squeeze their neck, slowly choking them. Player squirms a bit, gasping for breath. They're enjoying it.»

«Player kneels before Astarion. Astarion stands proud before the Player. He is powerful. He is free.»

«Astarion takes your hand, kisses the top of it, then turns it over and starts to bite your wrist. Astarion reaches down, takes Player's left hand with his right hand. He brought the hand up to his lips. He kisses it gently, tenderly. Then looking at Player, he turns their hand over to expose the wrist. He takes a bite. Player stares at Astarion while he feasts, enjoying the sensation.»

«Player and Astarion standing facing each other. They gaze lovingly at one another. (Note: They're both naked. Construction anim used for standing.)»

So, according to the original plan, no dead dove was on this route. The dead dove is fandom fiction.


Astarion can be all of these things at once. He does not claim that one excludes the other. According to Rooney, the two most important aspects of Astarion's character are that he enjoys violence, but also has fun about it: «He has a certain appreciation for violence, I guess? A bit of a murdery streak. […] He’s a vampire, he’s all about blood, and he’s all about, kind of, those darker sides of humanity. [...] But at the same time, he is… He is really fun, he’s really fun to write, he’s really fun to have in your party, and it’s very important for me that that is also represented.» «He’s gonna stab you, but will have a smile on his face as he does it? I mean, I dunno. That’s kind of him in a nutshell.» Rooney says Astarion is consistently terrible throughout the game and awful in many ways. He also referred to him as his “horrible little vampire boy”.

For example, it's the spawn dialogs at the end of the game:

Player: Are you sure about this? The Hells are a horrific place.
Astarion: Don't threaten me with a good time, darling.

Astarion: Think about it: in the Hells I never have to fear the sun, I can kill anyone I want, and I'll be with you.

Player: Then you'd better live that new life of yours to the fullest. Live enough for both of us.
Astarion: And I intend to. I can go anywhere, do anything, indulge in whatever hedonism or carnage I like. Once I stay out of the sun. So I was thinking; where can I go that is devoid of sunlight, filled with violence, and has the one person I want to spend all my time with?

He's still him, who finds violence fun.

Here's how Neil reasoned about the two endings:

«But what was it like getting to explore two sides of a character which you don't often get to do in a role?»
«Well, I think the thing is about it is that it wasn't just two sides of the character. It was every conceivable possible combination of every situation that the character can face. So it wasn't just ascended or "good or better" or whatever the Astarion. It was all the different shades of gray in between.»

«I like games a lot for this because in film or theater, there is the story and maybe sometimes you get branching narratives. They're always set branching narratives, like sliding doors - is a start and to finish experience with two different realities. Right? In games the reality is chosen by the player and the story is dictated by the player. In things like this where there are so many different choices and different possibilities and combinations. The fact that Lauren allowed all of that and the different permutations and combinations and the amount of work to do what it takes - is extraordinary.»

Neil literally says he played all sorts of Astarion combinations.


I know about this developers note, and it's purely from friendly dialog, and the funny thing is that it's literally the only thing that in any way supports what Smith said about fear. I'm arguing that there is significantly more fear in the spawn route, much more explicit than the dev note that few people will see. In case you missed my previous post, I'm duplicating it for you:



He made similar statements not just about the AA ending, but about any evil path in the game in general.

«So with Astarion, his evil ending is actually him...much of what he does is out of fear. And as a player, you can say to him, "You're right to be afraid." And that sends him to a really horrible place, and that I think is really powerful. I think one of the things that happens on the evil playthrough is I always see this thing where they're like, "Oh, there's no tieflings anymore because I killed the tieflings." It's intentional. Your world is a little emptier because of that, and you are playing a route which is much more selfish and much more, again, afraid. You end up isolated.
SV: It's very hard to show lots of consequences in the evil playthrough that are actually happening.
AS: Yeah, they become emptiness instead.
SV: The emptiness is the issue...If you play the good playthrough, and then you play an evil playthrough, and then you realize how much the evil playthrough is affected by your choices, then you actually feel really evil. Which is why Dark Urge is such a good choice on the second playthrough.
AS: The impact is often absent, but that's a reality, that's a true choice. If we just said, "Okay, you're just going to get reskin versions of these characters to jump in, it wouldn't be true." It's like there's this Gnome in the beginning, Barcus. And the impact of what you do with that guy runs all the way through the end of the story. It's so large. But if you just go evil, you never see any of that, right?»

Honestly, he might as well have just said:

«Murders are bad, mmkay?»

If we choose the Grove side, we get quests there + Halsin's quest + tiefling quests. If we choose Minthara, we get only her quest, three battles in the Grove, a party and a rescue in the towers (which can still be failed). Is it okay to skew this way because of the evil route choice? Maybe we should add something else for the “evil” side? Instead of making the excuse that “evil is isolating”? At least other RPGs have managed to strike a balance.