Originally Posted by oscuro
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Believe it or not, adding gentle kisses would further the narrative of abuse. Which you (general, not you specifically) will take as “see he loves me” not as the emotional abuse narrative it will actually strengthen.
That's your headcanon Not confirmed by Devs. It is actually problematic to say abusive partners do not show gentleness and affection to their partners during kissing They can and do all the time.

Have to agree that paints a problematic view of what ab**e actually is. Depicting it in such a way would be a massive stereotype, and a caricature. I agree fully and have always said the game is not equipt nor prepared to deal with such a heavy topic appropriately. And that would be an inappropriate way to handle it. Also a very shallow picture of villains. And Astarion as a whole.

Being evil doesn't mean doing ever bad thing ever. That's a 1D, uninteresting, way to paint the character. It robs a villain of nuance.

Honestly, I also see it wildly, hm, belittling to the story to say Astarion and Cazador's relationship mirrored domestic violence. Which would be perpetuated onto Tav. Cazador was a slaver. A torturer. There was no cyclical pattern of abuse between them to mirror with Tav. It was enslavement and torture for 200 years of "pure shit", from the get go. That is not a parallel. The game puts purposeful detail into separating what happened with Cazador, even acknowledgment that he was uncharacteristically bad, with what Astarion gives to Tav. That's ignoring a lot of in game content to try and flatten a character and his story to fit a single, very one dimensional narrative. I do not agree with it.