The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side". (2024)

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Mirmi#94342531/05/24 02:52 PM

Oh, I agree. I love how open to interpretation his lines are. When he said, "Just don't stray too far...but you'd never dream of doing that, would you?" I got chills. It's such a layered statement.

And that's a really good point, that within the world of the game, this dynamic might very well be the norm. It's funny to me how there's this double standard of, "AA route is bad because if applied to a real world setting, it would be a problematic relationship" but I've seen those same people make the argument that you can't hold Spawn Astarion to the same standards as you'd hold a modern man. Okay, then.

I was re-reading this thread for...fun, I guess, lol, and about 10 pages back there was a comparison of Unascended Astarion's allergy to sunlight to allergies in today's world, and someone pointed out that people find ways to work around allergies and disabilities all the time. BUT what I think a lot of folks forget is that allergies and disabilities that today can be easily managed quite often used to be deadly. Modern medicine and technologies have changed that, but BG3 lacks many of those. Sure, they have magic, but they still don't seem to have indoor plumbing. My point is, when you judge Astarion by the realities of the world that we live in today, yeah he comes off as pretty bad. But when you regard him in the context of the world of Faerun, suddenly a lot of his actions, at least to me, seem much more logical. I don't see why the same can't be applied to his romance. My Tav has spent her life sleeping in the dirt by herself. Of course she leaps at the opportunity to be taken care of by the man she loves. Equality in her relationship just isn't a priority.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94342631/05/24 03:17 PM

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94343031/05/24 04:16 PM

Yes, that's a very good point.

Is the soul loss thing one of the companion lines? I just want to understand where this headcanon got its legs from. Maybe I just missed it, or more likely didn't pay attention to someone's judgmental yakking and they made a whole slogan out of it.

Totally agree, as with your entire post. I haven't seen any “toxicity”. The relationship with him is beautiful and full of love. What they call “toxicity” is a reaction to stupid/harsh/traitorous remarks. And I wouldn't say that reaction is in any way excessive. Where I see toxicity in the relationship with Astarion is in the many possible lines for Tav, there are plenty of opportunities for toxic Tav to roleplay, that's for sure.

I love that “don't stray too far” line. I interpret it to mean that Astarion loves me so much that he wants me to always be there for him, but also in a literal sense so that I don't get sunburned. So with this line, he shows both love and care so that Tav remembers that and doesn't get sunburned. Incidentally, he himself can't go too far away either, especially during the day, or else he'll expose Tav to the sun. The implication is that Astarion and Tav will always be close to each other, and will not be separated even for a while. Astarion will not hide any actions from Tav, they will do everything together.

Since this is his answer to Tav's question about whether he would apply the control to them, it seems to me that this is just a fancy excuse by Astarion, with the “Lord's view” as it's supposed to be. He just doesn't want to and won't apply that control, but he chose to wrap it in such a wrapper.

I see this as his power overflowing after the ritual, and he also begins to hear for the first time the beings who really want to obey him. And in the chorus of beating hearts of these beings wanting to obey him, Tav's heart beats as well. He's squaring his shoulders for the first time, feeling in command, he can't handle all these new feelings yet. He has a kind of “drug euphoria”.

I think it depends a lot on Tav. If Tav in principle does not feel themselves as a “victim”, does not consider themselves as someone possibly dependent and weak, and at the same time passionately loves Astarion and is also a proprietor like him - this is the norm of relations between two proprietors, and they are quite equal. If Tav just admires him in every way possible, and takes his dominant phrases in the vein of, “My love plays and I'll look at him” - Tav won't feel subordinate. I am sure that in any serious situation, when important decisions will have to be made, Astarion will definitely listen to the logical arguments of his beloved, and they will make a joint decision, just as Tav can make a decision and Astarion will agree. Tav, who doesn't want to leave Astarion's side and starts following him herself, won't feel constrained or in any way unfree after Astarion says, “I'm always watching you”. Neither will Astarion find such attention to himself intrusive or “stuffy”, knowing him, he will never get bored of attention. In general, there are no “perfect relationships” in a vacuum, but sometimes someone is lucky and there are perfect coincidences of characters. And in real conditions, such relationships for someone will be problematic, and for someone happy and those very “ideal”. There are no “molds” or “yardsticks” by which to measure the “quality” of a relationship, except for one - how the two feel inside their relationship.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94343631/05/24 08:09 PM

What I meant was that phrases AA are written in such a way that each player sees them differently from affection and care to control, and it's very great.))) In this way, it gives the impression that you are "writing your story, seeing it as you understand it".

Even in the epilogue AA is so beautiful and like an emotional swing. One minute he's cracking a soft smile and saying "I'm happy to share this with you, you complete me", the next he's smiling ominously and saying "I'm watching, always watching". And some think he's in control, others that you have nothing to worry about and if anything happens, he'll come to the rescue.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94345101/06/24 12:08 PM

I'm late to the party but I still feel like saying a few things about that lecture.

While I agree with the notion that romance should not just culminate at the very end of the game (too formulaic and we don't really get to see the aftermath) and that it should be complex, there are just so many things that are wrong with the following statements I think the whole the panel paints Larian in a very bad way and makes me not want to buy their future games if this is the direction they intend to take.

I'll tackle some of the problems.

-----------------------------------
So, what is romance?

Google says: "Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions. Romance is also the feeling of comfort and pleasure you experience in a relationship with someone you love."

What makes a romance?

Definition: "Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending."
----------------------------------

The question asked there was: How do we make better romance for our players? Then we have more points about issues between two individuals that relate to breakup scenes, being cheated on, gaslighting and abuse.

My question is, how can these negative and even harmful actions be considered "courtship behaviours expressing love and feelings of comfort and pleasure"? Are these kisses fulfilling, giving us positive feelings and making us believe the relationship will continue?

This is not romance, this is THE END of it.

When in a player-driven romance have you ever...?

1. Seen a breakup scene that felt more like an 'escape' function?

I can think of Anders from Dragon Age 2 and his insane and out of nowhere lines in the early stages of the relationship about "drowning the world in blood for you". I ended the romance there because I had a feeling that guy would put me in a bad situation in the future and that him being possessed by Justice/Vengeance would result in something tragic at the end. I was right because I ended up being pressed against the wall and killing him for his stupid stunt.

2. Been "cheated on" by another character?

I didn't romance the guy myself but I've seen the vids. Jacob Taylor from Mass Effect 2 who impregnates another woman.

3. Been told the spark is gone from your relationship?

Again, Jacob. In the second game he confesses his love but then he can't be bothered to wait for Shepard for a few months while she's incarcerated and upon seeing her again, downplays his feelings and starts making pathetic excuses why he moved on.

4. Seen a character's psychological state deteriorate from a relationship?

When you have low heart level with your husband/wife in Stardew Valley (which is actually included in the slides during the speech) their psychological health does deteriorate. They start feeling morose, refuse kisses, doubt their life choices, start spending days in bed being depressed, stop doing house chores, etc.

5. Seen gaslighting?

If we take it as the act of grossly misleading someone especially for one's own advantage then I can think of several examples. Solas and Blackwall hide their identities and use the MC for their personal goals. The previously mentioned Anders also tricks the player to be complicit in his explosive performance.

6. Seen a partner become abusive?

You can be very abusive in Stardew Valley - throw rocks at your spouse, gift them items they hate on purpose, put obstacles in their paths to annoy them, cheat on them (with their best friends too), divorce them (even your pregnant wife), erase their memories and remarry them in a psychotic loop.

The only abuse from the NPC towards the player I can think of now is the ridiculous kiss bubble of AA/Tav, so congrats on the achievement I guess? Are you proud of yourself? This certainly didn't make the romance better for me and the vast majority of AAmancers.

What bugs me about this lecture is also the huge focus on fanfiction, while the game was made for gamers. It's great if there are fanfic writers and readers playing the game but they are not the target audience. If the game's intention is to spark a ton of fanfics, is putting something controversial in it so the players actually want to write or read something that would fix the story for them the best way to achieve that?

The logic behind it is also questionable. It is mentioned that games are very personal and different from just watching a movie and being an observer. Reading prose is the same as being in a theatre. The fact that fanfic writers like to explore hurt and people are interested in reading about it, doesn't mean they want to experience it themselves!

We also have this statement in the presentation: Wish-fulfillment is forgettable.

Erm... what the f*ck? So forced drama and tragic events are cool because we can recall them better? Don't studios want their games to be remembered for being good, coherent, rewarding and playable for as long as possible?

Why do people play and mod Morrowind to this day, and have been working on recreating the whole game on Skyrim engine for more than a decade? Because it was great, it gave them an amazing feeling to be in that world so much so that they have a hard time parting with it after more than two decades since the release!
Compare that to Mass Effect 3 endings. Players got hurt, angry, felt betrayed, the game got memed into oblivion and many people stopped wanting to play the previous installments because of the atrocious writing.

DAI has that forced decision between Warden Alistair and Hawke having to sacrifice themselves, which essentially destroys one of the players' older romances. The author of that scene was also gleeful about it. Guess what? People hated it. Many women who romanced Alistair felt the need to cheat and edited their savegames to have a random warden take the plunge instead of one of their beloved characters.

Seeing how many AAmancers have quit playing BG3 and don't even want to buy Larian's future games because of the crappy writing and railroading, myself included, I can only applaud the studio for a brilliant business tactic that will result in the loss of money. Good job!

Also, promoting degeneracy with Halsin and ruining his EA personality for sh*ts and giggles. What's next, an outlet for pedos, like Zayir wondered?

Clearly Larian wants to cater to minorities, even very obscure ones at the cost of alienating the majority who buys games to relax, roleplay, immerse and enjoy themselves in a new setting. Again, fantastic move. Bravo! Encore!

This. It looks like the author is trying to merge two different types of media and acting like some kind of activist and self-proclaimed pioneer and relationship expert, while not understanding the basic concept of romance.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

fylimar#94345501/06/24 03:23 PM

When you meet them at their camp, the Gur explicitly say they were targeting Astarion so they could interrogate him and then kill him. How can the ritual zombify Astarion when it doesn't do that to anyone else? A video for reference where you can see that Astarion is already a zombie when the stage for the ritual had been prepared:

One comment mentions that: "There were some notes in the kennels saying that Cazador got pissed because he couldn’t control Astarion, so he flayed Astarion alive over and over again until Astarion couldn’t be put together in human form anymore." On one hand it makes sense given his sad*stic nature, but on the other it's strange because the game shows Cazador can place Astarion in the ritual circle with ease. Also, he'd want to hear his screams during the ceremony, for sure. Now I wonder if it's the same when Astarion gets given to Gandrel and when he's not been recruited. Maybe Cazador found his corpse and reanimated him after the Gur did what they'd set out to do. Astarion is also a zombie if you staked him during the bite night.

Every time someone says ascension is Astarion's bad ending, they should be redirected to this video. It's beyond horrific. The only thing that makes it worse is Cazador actually ascending in this outcome so Astarion's soul gets sacrificed.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Ametris#94345901/06/24 05:50 PM

All of your points regarding the video is pretty much my feelings as well.

We did briefly mention games that give bad feelings in another thread, but now that you mention it I can not either come up with a game where my PC has been abused by an NPC. Games with partner abuse in them that I can think of is Layers of fear and PT. I personally don't mind a new perspective on things as long as it's a good story, but I have to say playing Layers of Fear once was enough for me. It's extremely depressing. You can also notice that games like that is under the "Horror" genre and not the "Romance" genre.

Edit: Also a game that uses tabu and controversial topics is The Cat Lady, but the story is so well done in that one that for me made it worth going through all the dread and bad feelings. It also has partner abuse, but only in a cutscene and not as a repeatable action triggered by the player. I think that someone wanting to dwelve into such topics in a game or story has to be very good at writing with a deep emotional understanding of the human psychology to hit the perfect balance of good vs bad feelings. It's very easy to make it unplayable. The Cat Lady is also a horror game by the way.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94346001/06/24 06:30 PM

Ametris, thank you! <3

I subscribe to every word you say.

Google knows better. Good advice for romance authors in games - not sure how to improve romance for players? Ask Google!

That's what the new word in Larian romance is - insulting to the player. Everything else has already been tried. Thank you for describing how it “works”. For regular players, for whom the game is very personal, who get into this game, fall in love, empathize, sympathize, want to give the world to a loved one. Who are not going to “explore” his pain! You weren't going to make a game for living people? Or, is it more important that a dozen or two fanfic authors can poke in their game all possible abuse of the character, write a couple of opuses about it, post a video on their YouTube channel, and jump around the author, applauding their genius? And the rest of the people who bought not a fanfic, not some “author's novel” with a “special vision”, but an expensive, promising amazing adventures, RPG (RPG for why is it written in the title at all, if you are not selling it?), who feel and experience the game, and not explore someone's “author's ideas”, why should they pay for all this? Not even with money, but with injuries, pain, and on top of that, to read illiterate opuses in their social networks, consisting of mockery towards them and their favorite character. Why not just write their favorite fanfics for “pain explorers”, why drag a fanfic into a game played by a lot of people who have never read and don't want to read, much less see it and “study pain” on themselves in their own game? No, I'm not a masoch*st, I'm just not a sad*st, and I'm not going to do that on Astarion. There are plenty of horrible things to do towards him in the story, and... you can't love him, no! Who's Cazador 2.0 here?

-

Yeah, that's how you can play it. For a good hero who hates vampires because they are monsters.

Someone reads these entries in their game and thinks, “Oh, how interesting! What an unexpected twist!” “Oh, come on, come on, I'm just playing ‘good’, how can you pick on a person because of a game, the authors gave that opportunity.” “You killed 7000 innocents, oh poor children, you're evil!”

Larian, who are you giving all the opportunities in your game for?

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94346101/06/24 07:13 PM

The games where abuse is exposed are Japanese novellas with two answers that have little to no impact and three endings where - in two of which someone dies.
It's well written, though. The protagonist gets kidnapped - it's immediately a dark, angsty plot.
But here it's a literal double standard, where for the massacre in the grove you're given an evil Mintara woman to fight for the two of you and build your power.
That's an evil act, consequences? Beautiful drow, because you chose the dark side and defeated the enemy.

And with the only evil man in this game. Something ridiculous is happening.
Consequences... his kisses are rough and the scare of kissing him....

Maybe I think vampirism damns souls and they're going to hell anyway. The game doesn't tell you where the spawns go if you just kill them.
We have a world threat Mind flayer, an ascended vampire are chances to win and it's best to take advantage of every opportunity. The fact that Astarion is euphoric from his triumph - he's not tormented by hunger, he's free to walk in the sun, the vivid senses that had been taken from him hundreds of years ago were now with him again.
There is so much biased information going around about the ritual because Astarion is suddenly now... speaking louder, which he's been saying all three acts and can actually do. M-m, I don't mind.
I never mind taking over a medieval, fantasy city with my secret web of power or just enjoying whatever the world will offer (the former is exhausting)

One of those myths, fakes that have generated insufficient lore about vampirism in the game and what is “ascended vampirism”.
“True vampirism” and dark desires that twist consciousnesses. Dark desires, and twisted minds work on spawns too, because they are consequences of vampirism. Twisted consciousness is a downside of vampirism, undead trait.
It doesn't happen that way, either it works and vampirism twists the mind or it doesn't work - and we need to take the personality apart. (except for the bloodthirsty part, I guess)
Does it even work for “first living vampirism”? The game doesn't say.

Although all he's doing is being Lord in Baldur's Gate and enjoying his reborn senses and his nobility.
Astarion doing what he wants without the yoke of downsides vampirism.
That arrogant Lord, I don't mind, if I was scared of his rudeness and nasty temper traits, I'd choose another companion.
Astarion shows that personality is a complex contradictory thing, not static, capable of different actions.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94347802/06/24 10:40 AM

Okay, folks. We have trodden this same ground multiple times now.

Please remember that you are having this discussion in a public forum, and while some readers agree with you there are also many who don’t, and who are not enjoying a discussion that too often gets uncomfortably close to personal attacks on specific writers, uses loaded terms like “degenerate” and can feel unfriendly and judgemental about those who have different preferences and views.

We all have a right, within forum rules, to express our personal views even when they make others uncomfortable but there’s a point at which going over the same points turns into spam and lack of due respect for fellow forum members.

Can I ask everyone to consider before posting again whether they are actually saying anything new, and whenever they post to remember to keep it friendly, constructive and open to different perspectives? Thanks!

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94348002/06/24 12:41 PM

Excellent consequences and a great reward for an evil deed. You can get Minthara more easily now, but I used to read a post somewhere from a man who wanted to attach Minthara and through “can't” carve out an unfortunate grove of druids. It was hard and unpleasant for him, but it had to be done, pass and forget, and then there would be a romance with Minthara. Yes and without any romance it is much more desirable to have her in the party rather than Halsin. Minthara is the motivator and inducement for an evil deed, a excellent consequence. In the Astarion romance, the player is made into a victim for helping him. It has to be said that psychologically helping Astarion perform the Ascension is not difficult, we only see the spawns exploding during the ritual, and the way Astarion carves scars on Cazador's back, and Cazador's screams are a real pleasure, it's not at all like killing tiefling's kids with your own hands.

Larian's authors, I think, have a poor understanding of how empathy works. First of all we empathize with those we love, also we are more influenced by what we see with our eyes and not just receive in the form of some information. The text can also have a significant impact, but it depends on the quality of the text, if the author was able to convey what happened quite imaginatively, vividly and in detail, then we see it with our “inner eye”. If we read a dry summary that a certain number of people have suffered, say, from a hurricane, we certainly understand that it is bad, but a report from the scene, which shows these victims and tells about their misfortune, will have a much greater effect on the viewer than this summary. BG3 is a mocap game, so the emotions and feelings of your favorite character actually directly affect the player, just like in real life. It's officially considered that only an evil character would want to kill 7000 for Astarion Ascension. And what exactly does the player see in the game? Irok sees either Astarion's tears, his depression, his sadness, the way he is forced to adapt to the “good” world, and the way this “good” world deals with him as a result. There is no way to help Astarion in this case, only fantasy and headcanons. As I played with the unascended Astarion, I felt hurt and real anger at both myself and all these “lucky” people. I looked into their faces and couldn't forgive them for their joy, their cheerful sunny city, or their future “victory over evil”. In another case, the player sees a certain number of unfamiliar spawns explode (Astarion's “family” treated him badly, by the way), corpses will still be lying around somewhere, and... Astarion no longer feels the pain of starvation. Astarion has squared his shoulders. It's fun to run around sunny Baldur with Astarion, you don't want to do any “evil” anymore, on the contrary, contrary to the “right” roleplay of evil Tav, who is ready to do anything for the sake of “power”, it's much more fun to help everyone, to explore every corner of the world, the world becomes bright again and you want to treat it the same way. And a happy ending, a real victory, all is well. The adorable bat in the epilogue. Up to patch 6.

Of course, when there isn't some particularly strong love for Astarion, his “good way” is taken perfectly normally. Or when, after choosing one of the kindly offered lines (“The authors want you to tell Astarion that he's like Cazador!”) someone is willing to wet their pants from raising the tone (I wonder how this imaginary player lives in life if any shouting causes such hyper-reaction) and happily believes that Astarion is now a “psychopath” and he's “lost himself,” then yes, the illusory romance with the “tame vampire boy” is also well taken. But the authors themselves seem to have obvious and serious problems with empathy, if they can't even imagine themselves in the place of a player who fell in love with Astarion. But there is a desire to punish for love towards him with such “kisses”.

According to the 5th edition dnd rules, vampirism changes consciousness at the moment of conversion to spawn. I really like that Larian didn't do that, but used their own rules for that, and they show vampires as living people with their own personalities, but to make a home rule so that this 5th edition rule only applies in the case of the Ascension ritual, well, sorry, that's a very bad Dungeon Master. I certainly wouldn't play with a DM who is so inconsistent and changes the rules as the game goes on as they please.

Yes, that's among the things that appeal so strongly about Astarion. Astarion is a reactive, lively, contradictory, multifaceted character. It's only in the romance that they decided to spoil him, used him as a tool to demonstrate their ideas about “abusive relationships”.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94348402/06/24 04:04 PM

"Look, this was not in the depths of my subconscious when I was pitching it. A sort of sh*t-eating grin was on my face when I was pitching it. But this is what it culturally means to me. It feels like a watershed moment in gaming history, where the fanfiction community felt like we were not a subculture within a fandom, but the majority audience that the game was catering to. Just in perhaps one scene or, you know, in a series of scenes, but still the majority audience. Players in the fan fiction communities had been joking for years post-Early Access about the different degenerate things they wanted to do with Druid Daddy Halsin, and we gave them an incredibly silly scene which takes an identity moniker from the gay community literally. The gay bear becomes the gay bear. And we gave them something which feels like it's from the tradition of CrackFic and present it as if it's a mainstream game feature. And then you feel like all the time you spent horny queer sh*tposting with your friends in your Discord is validated. It is real. It is a wonderful way of engaging with the game. It's seen. And how many other games on this sort of scale have made you feel that way? "

The word "degenerate" was actually first used by a Larian employee in a public speech, admitting point blank that this kind of behaviour was put in the game so the people who like it feel validated.

I merely used their own terminology.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94348502/06/24 04:13 PM

I looked, the game really doesn’t talk about the loss of the soul, only Karlach says that she thinks that Astarion has changed, he is no longer the same. But I definitely remember the words about the soul, and then I thought, maybe I’m looking in the wrong place, I loaded into UAstarion, and there I discovered it, it’s Karlach again and she says: "He’d hate to hear me say this, but l'm so f*cking proud of Astarion. He could've had it all, but he kept his soul instead".
That's where it came from. The players who abandoned the ritual heard these words from Karlach, and decided, probably, UA saved his soul, which means AA did not. But this is disinformation. And just the opinion of one companion, who generally does not know and understand Astarion as well as Tav knows Astarion. And I also think Karlach is not talking about the soul in the literally.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

illeaillas-san#94348602/06/24 04:21 PM

Sounds like a metaphor, not a literal description. The whole point of carving the scars on Cazador's back is precisely so Astarion doesn't lose his own soul. It's a trade and a loophole in the deal Cazador made with Mephisto.

I take it because they actually figured out that abuse is not a romance.

Yes, they didn't invent anything new. They only put LI abuse towards the player in a mainstream game, which so far could only be seen in horror games.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94348702/06/24 04:24 PM

Yes, I also think so.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

illeaillas-san#94348802/06/24 04:43 PM

Agreed, that's the first thing I thought when I read that line. It's like when someone says you "lose your soul" when you work a corporate job. I'm sure some people will make the argument that since in Faerun, souls are proven to be tangible things, she must have meant this literally, but I just don't buy that.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94349302/06/24 05:19 PM

Thank you! The history of the headcanon has been revealed! Karlach is our main ideologue against the Ascension. She's also hysterical after the Ascension that Astarion isn't the same anymore. Also, I saw some cartoon style animation where Tav is pouring snot on some chain, sees Karlach's ghost, then tries to set the castle on fire or something. And attempts to establish Astarion and Karlach as a romantic couple. And slogans about Karlach in the “She can fix him” series. She can fix the problem with someone who becomes illithid is all she can “fix”. But it's very interesting how they made a whole a priori statement out of one (!) companion's line, that it even caused anxiety and desire to find all possible information about Mephistopheles and pacts with devils... Karlach doesn't understand Astarion at all, she's an infantile and not particularly intelligent character, I don't even know which of the companions would suit Astarion worse as a couple, unless Will...

When I first encountered that line from someone, I too thought it was a metaphor and there was simply nothing more to say, in terms of concrete logical argumentation.

Yeah, that's right. As an option - Cazador pays for the deal as a result, and the fact that he didn't get the power is not Mephistopheles' problem, the power was given. Another option is a “power in exchange for souls” contract, without any relation to the soul of the one receiving the power. This is more than logical - Mephistopheles gets 7000, that's quite enough. In that case, Cazador becomes one of the souls that Mephistopheles was paid with.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94349602/06/24 06:03 PM

In Astarion origin playthrough we have it spelled out even better. This is what happens:

Cazador: The runes I carved into your flesh bind you and all seven thousand souls to the ritual. Complete it and those bearing the scars will be sacrificed - you included.
Narrator: You can see from the glee in his face that he's telling the truth and he thinks you have no way forward. But then again, he didn't say whom the scars had to be carved into...

Basicly, if Astarion stands in the circle and starts the ritual he will commit suicide. If he uses someone else with the same scars as his placeholder then that person gets sacrificed in his stead, he gets to live and have all the power and simply keeps the scars as a terrible souvenir and reminder of his pointless in hindsight torture.

It's very clear. Astarion losing his soul in the ritual is just pure misinformation. As I said before, all the headcanons about the loss of soul and him being an abuser came from the spawn path. People just falsely assumed that when Astarion and the other companions told them he was saved and didn't become a walking meatbag then that's what automatically happened in the alternative path. Then someone must have spread the (holy) word, the parroting started and we ended up where we are now.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94350002/06/24 08:19 PM

Mephistopheles is also a lawful evil (also known as the “god of lawyers”). He does not lie and honors the contract to the letter. If the contract says 7000 souls, he will not take 7001 - it will be a breach of contract. The devil always honors the contract.

Besides, some who repeat the “holy” words never went through the path of the Ascension of Astarion. Or they didn't like the behavior and didn't play further. And when you really want to see the situation in a convenient way, your mind clings to any arguments. You don't want to check and analyze - suddenly the argument will turn out to be false, and the comfortable perception will be shaken.

Re: The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Marielle#94350202/06/24 09:44 PM

In the game I am primarily Dark Urge. Sooner or later, depending on how much they tease and annoy each other beforehand, Astarion will become my romance, my love. The Dark Urge is not known for his romantic nature and after 200 years of misery, torment and torture, Astarion no longer has a clear idea of ​​it. The tadpole and a dagger in the head have changed the rules, but they still cannot hide their nature or even have to fear it. They have a long way to go for their Love.

Since his first bite, he has regularly reminded me that we should rule, dominate and conquer the world. I like it when he tries to manipulate me into protecting him and killing Cazador. I have a problem seeing Spawn Astarion as the good Astarion, because in my opinion he isn't. Just because at some point you can still have a relationship with him despite all the good deeds, he suddenly isn't interested in good heroic deeds. Ascended Astarion certainly not. He wants to be seen as a benefactor, but one who should be admired but feared at the same time.

I always let him finish the ritual. As a Dark Urge, I see and support his desire to be powerful, even if Astarion and my Dark Urge don't have a completely clear idea of ​​what the possible consequences could be. Astarion wants to be powerful, then he should be powerful. He should have the life he want. 7000 souls? 200 years? pffffft. I don't think he loses his soul. His dark sides and desires may be heightened. I see him as someone whose transformation is not yet complete, his world has changed and he is flooded with stimuli. Let him get to know his new world. He is still Astarion and I should be patient.

I can understand rejecting his new kisses. My Dark Urge sees it as one of his new "quirks" and smiles at it rather benevolently, without seeing any sexual component to it, but I don't like the fear in my my face.

What bothers me more is that I find the entire romance between Ascended Astarion and the Dark Urge rather illogical. Let's assume the Origin Dragonborn Dark Urge, who just killed Orin and is the old/new chosen of Bhaal, is basically a demigod and Ascended Astarion tells in a fever dream that the Dark Urge will sit naked on his lap while he commands Bhaal's army? Will kneel for a Kiss with fear in the face? I do not think so. Sceleritas maybe.

They should be equals, Ascended Astarion should relax and just have devilish fun as they conquer the world together. The Durge is not a trophy oder a bloodbag or Tav ... he killed Tav. I really hope that they think of something like this for new evil endings.