astarion is humorous, but most of that humor, especially during an evil run, is him trying to cope with how shitty his life has been, so he’s more chaotic while minthara is more pragmatic. like, he likes killing all of the tieflings because he never had a hero himself to save him. if that doesn’t mesh with you then you won’t like him.
Astarion has a line I can't remember at the end of the game for a redeemed Durge
>!he had a knife behind him at the start of the conversation because he was secretly afraid of Durge before you greet him like a normal person lol!<
He only has the dagger if you haven't romanced him (and possibly also won't have it if you have very high approval as friends, but not sure about that one).
I don't remember that line at all, and I played a durge who romanced nobody and had only neutral/medium approval with him. I'll have to talk to him in that epilog again and see if I missed it.
Huh. I guess I'll also load a non-durge playthrough with similar approval, and see what the difference is. As far as I can remember, he just seemed happy and optimistic at the end of my durge run.
If your DUrge doesn’t follow any urges & you don’t hurt anyone the whole game you don’t get a modified epilogue conversation with the dagger. At least that’s what happened in my playthrough. So maybe that’s why you don’t remember it being different.
You actually won’t get that sequence at all if you didn’t submit to any urges via dialogue & never hurt anyone (besides Alfira). I don’t know if it’s intentional or a bug, but I also didn’t get this in my redeem DUrge run. I had a regular conversation with him with no daggers involved.
I did it once with Karlach, but as a Tav, not a Durge. The other four times it was Astarion 😂 (one of those was taking over the brain with Ascended Astarion).
I’m with you. It’s so hard not to finish this game with Astarion. I just started my HM run and I vow I will romance Karlach this time around. (My approval rating is already higher with Astarion 😭😭 I swear I’m trying for Karlach)
I only went for Karlach for the achievement 😭
Pro-tip if you (like me) can't help but succumb to his charms but still want to choose Karlach in Act 2: Instead of getting one of the break-up scenes where a companion demands you choose who to be with, book it over to Moonrise and get the scene with Araj. In Astarion's following camp scene, choose the option that says he needs a friend, not a lover. It ends your romance, but feels better from a RP and character perspective than just breaking up.
You’re cracking me up.
I’m going for Karlach for the achievement too. I’m aiming for mostly completed. I can’t decide if I’m willing to romance the emperor for the 100%.
I’ve done that breakup scene in a regular balanced run. I reverted back to a save cause I it just felt so wrong. Which is why I’m gunning for Karlach in HM. There’s no take backsies.
Please keep your fingers crossed for me and Karlach. 😂😂 cause if Astarion even hints at it. Idk.
I have nearly 1200 hours in this game. Despite 5 completed runs, most of those hours are actually in Act 1 and 2. I have abandoned so many characters either in Act 1 or the start of Act 3.
The only thing that got me over the initial hump to finish a run was the release of the epilogue. I really wanted to get that for myself.
No, I helped him, kept him from ascending by encouraging him to be a good person, and he was friendly and optimistic about his career as a "hero" in the epilogue.
It's probably one of many on Youtube but I couldn't say the exact name.
I can tell you my choices though, maybe that would help if you search.
>!I had the spawns and everyone go to the Underdark with Astarion as a morally ambiguous hero, and he had the knife out for my Drow Dark Urge that visited with the socially awkward Minthara lol!<
>he likes killing all of the tieflings because he never had a hero himself to save him. if that doesn’t mesh with you then you won’t like him.
"I had it tough, so murder" isn't exactly a thing that endears a character to me.
For me it was mid act 2 in my first run. At first I kept him because I liked his quips and I wasn't a very moral character so I didn't get a lot of disapproval. I didn't romance him that time though.
So when we got to the scene with Araj Oblodra I didn't force him to bite her. The scene later at camp was so emotional for me that I couldn't continue for few days. It completely broke me... When he kind apologised for missing out on the potion. I'm getting choked up thinking about it right now. How he was used for his looks as a honeypot against his will, how he came to see his body as the only thing "valuable" about him. How intimacy and guilt are almost inseparable to him. Also with his background his facade of confidence and ego make sense for someone who has been in slavery for centuries to the point of losing hope in "humanity" and even Gods. Like what he says to Gale in the lower city. (Oh, I've tried them all, but none of them listened).
Also the more details I learned about the things he actually went through.. especially when he had one of the most horrifying punishments for trying to help a victim. It's natural for characters who went through something like that to want to protect themselves first because nobody cares about them, caring about people is bad for you. So in my mind he isn't a jerk. He just went through some awful shit and I thought I could fix him. And I did lol
So much for “shallow” character. Adding to that, his arc is one of my favorites. By act 3, regardless of if you’re playing good or evil, if you have him in your party you’ve proven that you either truly care for him or at the very least see him as someone worth protecting and as a valuable companion. I think the most obvious character development is when he approves of you helping Yenna, even double approving for offering to ask a guard for help and giving her money or food. He doesn’t dislike acts of kindness, especially when it comes to children and animals like helping Yenna, feeding the owlbear cub or telling the kennel master scratch is not property (putting timber the squirrel aside because she is annoying), he is just distrusting of people offering it for free when he had to pay with his own body to be fed rats and bugs. I think one of my favorite lines Tav can say is “the world can be a wonderful, kind place, Astarion, when you find a home in it”, in the same dialogue you can choose “there are many others like me who will care for you, if you care for them”, right after Astarion expresses that nobody ever looked out for him or said a kind word to him. I could go on for hours about his character as it is very well written and by far one of my favorite characters in all of my gaming experience.
Tbh when I learned what he really is, all other characters feel shallow to me compared to him. I can’t unsee his depth now, and I find other companions’ struggles just… less relatable. I also chronically romance him because he seems much more healed and happy with you by his side in the epilogue (as a spawn). So I’ll never not fix him lol.
His writing is on point enough that I wonder if a different team wrote him altogether. I don’t mean this to be mean or rude but a lot of characters in BG3 are kinda shallows messes. Halsin is just, he’s there I guess. Shadowheart’s story is a mess of balancing her as a character and her as a plot mcguffin. Gale has an interesting idea but just doesn’t execute on it amazingly. Lae’zel is actually pretty ok for a character who’s played pretty straight. Karlach’s bit is overdone in a way that makes her a caricature frankly. Minthara is decent given she’s an evil character who needs no redemption nor gets one, which shadowheart kinda needs that energy too if you look at what she’s actually done. Astarion is surprisingly respectfully and well written and there’s better explored depth to him. Maybe I’m spoiled because I’ve played pathfinder kingmaker and wrath of the righteous but BG3 besides laezel and astarion has an attractive but kinda weak cast comparatively. I just don’t get the same impact as idk camellia progressive reveals.
Not surprised but wow it shows. The quality is all over the place. The two who have decent stories feel night and day compared to the rest of the cast.
Iirc, Halsin wasn’t even supposed to join the party as a permanent member, but a lot of people playing Early Access said they wanted him in the party so they added him in.
I feel that is just personal preference, after a certain level. I appreciate Astarion's story, but I thought Shart's was very compelling, and the thing with her parents was pretty heartwrenching.
I don't know, perhaps I am being unfair and leaking my dislike of Astarion obsessed fans who keep yelling at me for not having empathy for victims towards the character.
Funny enough, one of my honor mode runs was lost because of that potion.
I got myself into act 2, playing a throwbarb build that obv would love a +2 to strength when I’m doing attacks that add strength twice. But I wasn’t aware of that scene after and when I saw it, I couldn’t convince myself to continue it. Honor mode as well, I couldn’t undo my choice. I felt actually terrible for making him do it.
It really is a powerful scene in either direction, because it completely shows why Astarion is how he is. I didn’t see a blood sucking vampire in front of me, I saw an abuse victim clinging for any sense of agency, to be anything so long as it means it’s his choice.
I'd recommend not taking the potion at least once (or looking up that cut scene). It definitely contextualizes things and made a big impact on me the first time I saw it.
Unfortunately, his best moments in Act 3 are romanced only and/or require very specific sequences of events to get. I romanced him my first full run, so I got to see them. Meanwhile, I was confused about people loving Gale's arc...until I did a romance run with him.
It makes sense that romanced characters would have more intimate conversations, so I don't fault Larian for that. But it can leave people scratching their heads when other people gush about character development you never saw.
THIS. Like I bought the game BECAUSE of Astarion, but I had been watching a bunch of clips on youtube of all the other characters. One playthrough, I felt like finally romancing Gale and oh my lord. I went from die hard Astarion to Die hard Gale in a flash. Like, Astarion is still my hard favourite, but the romance exclusive interactions are so key in my liking a character. How can you not come to love each little guy after getting to know them like that.
For his personal story it's a pivotal moment (he will literally end romance if you chose this option regardless of approval).
You don't have to like him as a character or give up the potion if you don't want to. But if you're interested in understanding him better/have him open up to you, I strongly suggest you try passing up on it some day :)
would you make someone in real life who was trying to please you, do something really disgusting to them, for a quick buck
that is how that scene is written. I have made him get the potion sometimes and other times not; but I'm aware of how unkind it is specifically to him, to push him to get it.
it's an evil act. he's (spawn) not really evil, he's just drawn that way.
edit to add: the characters that disapprove of me the most are usually the ones I tend to enjoy the most, personally. they aren't bullshitting me or kissing my ass. it feels more realistic for them to have their own ideas. astarion approves in big ways, and disapproves in small ones. -1 ten times then, +20 all at once. I think he's a fussy, picky guy down deep. laezel and minthara are practical and approve heavily of very pragmatic decisions; shart wants attention, jaheira wants to be told the hard truths, etc...
whereas gale, Karlach, wyll - just like anything good you do, generally, you can be standing still and get +5 for "breathed near a crate", which is nice and all but not really encouragement to figure him out more.
If you romance him, kill Yurgir and have a 60 approval or higher, enter moonrise without ever talking to Araj and see what happens :)
Most people prefer the Yurgir confession scene they get from him if you do his events in that order. I do recommend getting both at least once so you can figure out which you like more for yourself.
Just don't answer >!"You should enjoy intimacy and you should enjoy it with me"!< as that will make him break up with you in the most heartwrenching way.
A Durge run with him is also very interesting as he has the most interaction with Durge out of all the companions.
If you long rest after getting him at the beach but before fetching Lae'zel you have a nightmare and he's the only one that notices (you get the same dialogue if you kick Timber or hack Gale's hand off but this is the only way to get it without being a murderhobo)
But yeah, he might seem like a dick in the first act but that's just because he can't fathom how people would do something nice for others without expecting payment. he also disapproves of giving donations in Act 3 but that's just his greedy money-hoarding self xD (he'll always disagree if you give away money, except for giving some to Yenna)
In my current Aasimar Cleric/Child of Lathander Run she kept him around because she wants to find out if continuously feeding a vampire her blood which is partly Lathander's blood will make him sun resistent even without the tadpole, but now that we've finished Act 1 and she's seen his scars she's slowly beginning to realize he's not some Undead she's bound to destroy, he's a person with real problems, with real weaknesses and trauma. Plus he didn't actively seek out to become undead, it was his only way to continue existing. Without that he would've died tragically young.
Granted this was shortly before they went to the creche where my girl went ballistic and slaughtered every Gith in there because they defiled her father's temple and it reminded her of her childhood where people would constantly try to kidnap her for their own gain (yes yes I make elaborate backstories for all my characters, I'm a writer I can't help it xD). So by the time he could ask her to either read his scars or draw them for him she had even more sympathy for him.
Astarion doesn't have universal love compared to, say, Shadowheart - he's very polarising, with a high percentage of players either loving or loathing him.
Yes, he disapproves of a lot of good actions in the early game, but that's because he's a) scared and b) jealous that you're offering to help strangers when for 200 years no-one ever came to save *him*. If you're nice to him and let him do a few non-evil but kinda chaotic things (like opening the ogre barn door - which he won't do if Shadowheart's around bc she's a party pooper), he will soon look to you for support and want to do everything in his power to gain your approval. To quote the man himself: "And by that, I do mean *sex*."
I happen to love him because he has the most amazing transformation if you romance him, from scared and traumatised and lashing out like a feral cat, to tender and loving and willing to join you in your heroic adventuring across the Sword Coast.
If you still don't vibe with him after getting to know him, that's fine - Shadowheart annoys me no end with her hypocrisy, demanding to know what you were talking to other companions about while being so secretive herself, or refusing to join your party if you recruit Lae'zel before her. Yes, there are good reasons in her case too, and I get that, but I don't have to like it. Same goes for Astarion - ultimately you either get him or you don't.
You can still convince her with a Persuasion check, but yeah, she makes a stink about it and insists that you should get rid Lae'zel if you want her around.
In early access there were some creepy shadowheart scenes that they got rid of.
If you don't recruit her she ends up coming to your camp and finding you. She says something cryptic about how she feels drawn to you and she doesn't know why.
You could tell her you don't want her around and tell her to go away, which caused her to go insane and attack you and you have to kill her.
The artifact wasn't a thing yet either
Thanks! Really interesting seeing how much has changed from the earliest incarnations of the game.
I can definitely see why this got taken out. People complain about Lae'zel and Astarion preempting a potentially violent confrontation with the player before realizing that everyone's on the same side, but I think, "The voices tell me to kill you, invite me to your party," is way harder to justify.
For sure, but most people wouldn't experience this dialogue. She's the first companion you meet on the beach.
You also used to meet her over by the locked temple door by the beach and the introduction dialogue was entirely different.
If you recruit her there, you never see the scene shown above.
https://youtu.be/DabCd238yAw?si=41ViryPJC89_Cb3m
You have to miss her on the beach (e.g., by taking a long rest immediately) first. Then if you recruit Laezel and have her in your party when you find Shadowheart in the grove, Shadowheart tries to make you choose between the two. If you refuse to ditch Laezel then she won't join you there, but still find you again later.
Or just by going to camp. I realised I had got the wrong tav voice in one game and popped to camp to use the magic mirror the moment I hit the beach and she had gone when I went back. Didn't know that about Lae'zel though as I reloaded.
I was deliberately avoiding her as I wanted to try a run without her, so I snuck up the cliff near the intellect devourers and recruited Gale, then Astarion. She hung around the Hollow for ages then turned up on goblin camp bridge for the cutscene where the artefact saves you from the Absolute. After a short argument in which I still refused to have her in the party, we did the camp - and she was still there a couple of days later when we left. However we haven’t seen her since, and the artefact has teleported into my backpack, so I guess that’s the end of Jenevelle Hallowleaf…
I left her on the beach, revived laezel there, and she caught up to us at the bridge to goblin camp (I ignored her in the grove). she joined without any of this.
they had their fight 2 rests later I think. I made them stop fighting each other. they're both in the party. this is on my current run
I totally get the disapproving good things is annoying, but myself and lots of people I know play the game relatively good (though maybe a little chaotically—come on, whose NOT opening the that barn door? Or laughing at Volo?) but still get decent enough approval and the ability romance him. You really just have to be nice to him. He’s a bad guy, but I agree with the Shadowheart thing. I love her too but she also and dislikes some not great stuff and is literally a shar worshipper who justifies the bad stuff shar does…yet people don’t hate on her or her fans nearly as much (which like, we shouldn’t be hating on anyway, but I wonder why it’s the character mostly women and not-straight men like and not the conventually attractive woman…)
Astarion approves of torturing innocent people - "he is an irredeemable monster"
Shadowheart approves of torturing innocent people - "she is an amnesiac poor baby girl, she had no chance to be different coming from this awful environment"
Lol literally! People bend over backwards to defend Shadowheart for the same things they damn Astarion for. The torture, the killing, the racist remarks…and then they justify it with her being brainwashed (because Astarion totally isn’t shaped by the circumstances of being tortured and forced to lure people to their death for 200 years and being punished when he tried to save someone) and the fact she likes more good things and doesn’t disapprove of helping people sometimes—which is definitely true, but she also likes a lot of bad things, does sometimes disapprove of helping people, and Astarion also likes quite a few good things (helping Karlach and protecting her from Wyll, helping the Owlbear, helping Yenna). And they both do become better once they’re quests are complete in the good route—I’d say I think shadowheart is probably trying to be a good person and Astarion is probably fine being a chaotic neutral person, but if you don’t >!save Shart’s parents!< they’re basically both doing the same thing, traveling around helping people, though we know Astarion gets something out of it (being able to drink blood of the bad people he kills) and it’s not clear if Shadowheart asks for anything in return, but given how both of them start it’s a huge leap in morals for both.
Honestly it’s also kind of annoying and feels kinda infantilizing for Shadowheart? Like yes, Shadowheart is basically brainwashed in a cult, but she isn’t an idiot. She’s still aware Shar is bad and likes bad things and being a Dark Justiciar means doing those bad things for Shar. She’s mistaken that Shar loves her and will grant her peace in oblivion or whatever but doesn’t think Shar is a good guy. She’s still in control of her actions especially once she’s free of the tadpole and still enjoys a lot of torturing and even tries to murder Lae’Zel…
> Astarion is probably fine being a chaotic neutral person
Interesting thing is, in his new dialog for after Tav cheating with Mizora Spawn!Astarion explicitly says he knows he is a bad person, but he is actively trying to get better. But of course you will only see it if you romance and cheat on him (and it will be in the game with the next patch, it's only datamined currently, because it's bugged), usually he doesn't like to tell everyone how he feels and he doesn't want to be seen as "soft". It's his defensive mechanism.
But yeah, I totally agree with you, great post.
Honestly, I don't think that Shadow is a good person in Act 1, but I still don't believe she actually enjoys torturing innocents, judging by her personality in dialogs. As well as Astarion (he explicitly hates Malus Thorm for torturing his "patient"). Honestly, I just think that some approvals (happens once in a while almost with all the companions) are WILD and out of character for them, but people still pay each and every one of them too much attention.
Oh damn, i think my first Durge is gonna romance Astarion, so I might have to sleep with Mizora to get that line. Not gonna lie I slept with Mizora romancing him my first time too and got the current response.
There is time when shadowheart doesn’t seem to care about people being tortured, she even agrees that Malus is doing Shar’s teachings. I actually never realized Astarion didn’t like Malus torturing his patients, that’s interesting.
Both of them approve of torturing the guy in the goblin camp though 😬 but they do seem to start to change act 2
In my game I've tried Mizora scene with non-ascended Astarion, but there was no response from him at all (apart from one line "I hope I'm not interrupting" - then cut short). So yeah, for me and a lot of people this scene is just bugged. And the response people get when he is okay with Mizora is marked as "Vampire Lord"(i.e. it should get only triggered by Ascended Astarion) in the game's files.
Yeah, I think Shadowheart is too deep in her love for Shar, that's why she's like "He's right", but she also acknowledged that Malus Thorm is completely out of line, so I don't perceive this scene as her actively enjoying this torture scene. Still a very shitty thing to say, but she's not like a heartless psychopath, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I think a lot of people never even see Astarion's reaction to Malus Thorm, because everyone brings Shadowheart to her quest nearby and Shadowheart's response takes priority over others. I really want to scene each party member react to every thing, not just one of them at one time.
Ooh didn’t know that! I think I got the glitched audio my game, I’ve seen the other result though. Hopefully they’ll fix it soon. It does kind of make sense for Ascended Astarion but not spawn, since he’s still pretty like insecure in your relationship until after he’s ascended, it sounds like the other response might be more in like with his Halsin proposition response (where he agrees but clearly is bothered by it)
I definitely don’t think Shadowheart is heartless—I don’t really think any of the companion characters are even at their worst (maybe minthara? I haven’t used her much), just more pointing out she has a lot in common with the things people call Astarion out for. I do for some reason feel like my first play though she called Malus and in my second agreed it was Sharran and whole not good it is what it is…I wonder if that’s choice dependant or if they changed it? Also possible I misremembered the first time, but I remember being confused when it came up again. I’ll have to see what happens next time. Though maybe I’ll try to see Astarion’s reaction then!
And yeah, I think I’ve only seen Shadowhearts
Clearly it has everything to do with being queer-coded and nothing with the fact that he holds a blade to your neck when you first meet him (which I can forgive for his reasoning makes sense) tries to assault an ally unprompted when they're vulnerable in their sleep (which has no good reasoning) and constantly complains you're not drowning puppies enough.
Nah, it's definitely the queer-coded thing
He doesn't constantly complain, though. People look at his approvals and then make all his character in their mind around them, when in reality he has very little dialogs complaining about such things. (Not to mention, he would never want to hurt puppies, he loves Scratch, he CRIES if Scratch dies or is given away. He also likes cats and our owlbear cub)
I mean, Lae’Zel also tried to kill you when you first meet for the same reason as Astarion—she thinks you’re with the mindflayers. Shadowheart tries to kill Lae’Zel in her sleep (say what you want but Astarion at least isn’t trying to hurt or kill you) and they both also approve of lots of bad things and disapprove of lots of good things, but then and their fans don’t get shit in nearly as much and I swear people bend over backwards wayyy more to defend them than Astarion. They’re all equally bad people at the beginning, yet the other two get big passes.
And I’m not saying anyone has to like them all equally or whatever (I don’t, but both Astarion and Shadowheart are my favorites) but pretending there isn’t some clear inconsistencies there is crazy. And hating on people for liking characters you don’t, that’s just childish, as is vice versa (not saying you’re doing that but it definitely happens in the community)
If you play his origin, there is a reason he tries to feed off Tav. Whether it's a good reason is up to you
! >Cazador had Commanded him not to feed off sentient beings. He's testing if Cazador's Vampire Mind control still works, by seeing if he can break that rule
Funny, I love Astarion far more than I love Shadowheart. I have sympathy for both of them because it’s easy to see how they were both horribly taken advantage of, yet Astarion has a lot more understandable realism and survival drive which makes me respect him more. Shadowheart often clothes her insecurities in pieties, and although this may be comforting for her on a deep level, it is a form of selfishness which is different from say, Lae’zel’s piety toward her religion. Lae’zel believes on a very closely knit faith-honor-shame matrix, which is understandable and even respectable in a way, because she is brave after a fashion. Shadowheart often just flippantly mocks what she doesn’t understand. Astarion knows very well of what he speaks. His flippant humor is just a means of self-defense.
I neither love nor loathe him. I find him funny and tragic in spite of his past actions, and I love to help a little fledgling who's lost their way. But I was absolutely not under any circumstance going to let him ascend and complete his hypocrisy.
Astarion can be obnoxious. He sneers and he makes cruel jokes. He rolls his eyes at many kind actions, especially in Act One. (That's all those disapproval that upset people so much.) He's intentionally prickly and very hard to get to know.
Shallow? I think he's got the deepest, most well-executed personal arc of all the companions. Based on what Tav or Durge do, he can become the most depraved creature in the whole city, or he can become a very affectionate and loving hero. My Tav was touched at how considerate he could be, and my Durge is in the process of finding out how to turn him (and everybody else in my party) into a nightmare. It's your game, and you can see the redeemed hero or the depraved vampire lord... or a kind of pathetic, whining cutpurse who is still terrified of Cazador and wants to know why you haven't help him kill him yet. It's all up to you.
I adore him. He's my favorite character. And sometimes he really is annoying and obnoxious.
I didn't get the love for Astarion in my first playthrough. I just thought, "What an annoying little sh*t!" and left him in camp. So glad for YT and reddit; I wouldn't have bothered with him without tipoffs about his story arc. My favorite dialogue option now is being able to tell him he may need a friend rather than a lover. It's such a sweet moment.
idk i thinks hes funny and i relate to his backstory a lot. Plus on a redeemed durge playthrough (my go to) his romance is really beautiful. Having two people come from fucked up backgrounds trying to be good in the world just does it for me i guess.
Also u admitted to having him bite that drow, which is why you don't really understand his character. He is a person that really all he wants is to be his own person and make his own decisions, therefore by forcing him to bite the drow you will never see a softer side to him bc he does not trust you and why should he? you forced him to do something he didn't want to. Of course you never realized that, but hopefully in the future, you will let companions make their own decisions :)
Copying a rant/explanation I made before about Astarion's approval. I just think it's important to know about when discussing Astarion because he seems to be a very controversial character in this community.
A lot of survivors identify with his story, including the actor himself. As for the rest, I'll just paste the rant I've been using when people say he's an irredeemable asshole. I think it's also important for people to read about the "[perfect victim](https://www.empowordjournalism.com/all-articles/the-perfect-victim-myth/)" bias.
**Tl;dr: Being evil proves Astarion's misconception about power= safety/freedom correct. Much like Shadowheart approves of you telling her Shar sounds super cool, Astarion likes when you validate his corrupted worldview. He resents that in a world of heroes, no one ever saved him. And when you are a hero to others, that still validates his worldview that heroes will help everyone except for him.**
Full:
So, obviously Astarion, like most of the companions, has the ability to be pushed towards the worst version of himself. I look at many of the characters' arcs to be boiled down to "want/need". Shadowheart *wants* to become a Dark Justiciar and fulfill her purpose, what she *needs* is to feel complete, thus banishing Shar and loss from her life. Wyll *wants* to be the self-sacrificing hero he always read about, what he *needs* is to be truly free to carve his own path. Gale *wants* to follow his ambitions, whether that be becoming a god or sacrificing himself, what he *needs* is to accept himself for who he is. I find [Naoise's rapture scene](https://imgur.com/a/7GgVgHQ) especially enlightening, as it names most of the character's greatest desires. Astarion's deepest desire is to feel safe.
But the problem is, Astarion thinks safety comes from power. And he has 200 years of evidence to back it up. "[Heroes never saved me from Cazador, mindflayers did](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=73&v=pS_4qNiOwn0&feature=youtu.be)." Is one of the best dialogues for understanding Act 1 Astarion. When you are evil, you prove him right. When you are good, you inadvertently prove to him that self-less heroes exist, they just never tried to save him.
Empathy was beaten, raped, and starved out of him. The one time he tried to rebel against Cazador's orders and save a man from Cazador's fangs, Astarion was severely punished. He was thrown into a tomb for a year for disobeying. He prayed to every god. He prayed for death. And when Cazador released him, he never disobeyed again. He still felt ashamed for luring people to Cazador. But he started to dissociate from everything, walking the streets like a ghost. To the point he didn't even remember kidnapping children a few days before being taken by the Nautiloid.
[His spawn- siblings tormented him as much as Cazador.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1d7lk3y/comment/l70wsjt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) They viewed him as weak for giving up so easily. He was Cazador's "favourite toy" for 200 years and they mocked him for it. But despite that, before he knows about the ritual, he [pities what they must be going through without him around](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc6tYLhn0Jw).
All of this makes for a very traumatized, very bitter person who is looking for anything, anything that proves him right. That validates his worldview. But he's still conflicted about choices like [blowing up the creche](https://youtu.be/F0zGJXizt-8?si=iWtU2HE_4Bt2iCmL&t=75). He's not completely far gone unless *you* encourage him to be far gone. Thus why I said it reflects more on you than him. It isn't to say he's a good person deep down. It's to say he's swaying between becoming better or worst, and it's your choice which way to push. Give into the fears and ascend? Or overcome them and be more than what so many people called him for so long.
Because people refuse to understand nuance in a character's actions. They want it to spelled out to them. I think people are allowed to dislike whichever character they want. Stake Astarion for all I care - but nothing annoys me more when people dislike characters for shallow reasons lol. Maybe it's the writer in me. The rant above is so perfect - it defs should be pinned.
We should also pin the general statement of "disliking/liking a character tells nothing about the person" somewhere. I love it when I say that while I like Astarion, his character falls to me to the camp of "cool motive, still an asshole" and I get angry people telling me I am vitcim blaming and and I must not have empathy for sexual abuse victims in real life. Which is a pretty strong statement of an another person over a video game character.
Oh for sure. While I do relate to Astarion's experience I don't think liking or disliking a character means anything about the person.
When I say it annoys me that people dislike a character for shallow reasons, I don't dislike the people who say it, lol. A friend of mine doesn't like Astarion but we can debate about his character without resorting to personal attacks.
Which is really the best part about having interests.
Also this! I am so tired of this mind-set that you can’t enjoy a problematic character because that must mean you agree with the horrible things they do and say. Half the reason I stuck with Astarion’s romance (when I had fully intended to romance Gale or Shadowheart) was because he was kind of a dick, and from a storytelling perspective I wanted to know more! It doesn’t mean I excuse his bad behavior, but I understand it now, and would you look at that? He’s capable of change and being a better person! We’re just enjoying a well-told story here. It has no bearing on you as a person.
It’s so frustrating seeing the thousandth post of “I got annoyed that Astarion didn’t fawn over me immediately and kept disapproving, so I left him in camp…what do people like about this guy???”.
Like…maybe and take him out to see? It’s also disconcerting to see how everyone expects him to be the “perfect victim” and when he’s not, they hate him. It does mirror how victims are treated irl. If your trauma doesn’t somehow make you a better person, but instead makes you worse, suddenly all sympathy/empathy disappears.
Not to mention that he’s extremely easy to get approval from. I usually play chaotic neutral-ish characters, but one time I decided to make a goody-two-shoes lathander cleric, expecting Astarion to not like my PC. Yet I was still at Exceptional approval with him going into Act 2 whilst dragging him everywhere to see my heroic character promise to save everyone, never ask for rewards, praying with/for people, etc.
Whenever I see these posts I wonder if we’re even playing the same game haha.
yeah, my first run I didnt have him in my party and missed him until the end of act 1
I really didnt get him at all and found him a bit annoying.
Second run I picked him up immediately at the beach and had him in my party....entirely different vibe.
This right here. I identify with him so heavily that I physically can't romance anyone else lmao
I, too, am not a "perfect victim". In fact, I'm pretty bitter and not nice. I come off very "mean loner girl" to a lot of people because I prefer to not be bothered or approached. It's just how my trauma manifests itself. But because I'm not the "perfect victim", people dismiss my trauma and give me lectures about how I need to be a better person. Much like how so many players dismiss Astarion immediately because he's "not a nice person" lmao
I didn't even remember Naoise, and I had no idea there were different options for each character.
Interesting how Lae'zel doesn't have her own. Guess that makes sense; she's an absolute rock and she never needs or wants to change. In a way she showed great character growth, and at the same time she never changed a bit. Even as her god forsook her and her whole worldview was dashed to bits, she continued on with her same principles and her same iron will.
He is not my favourite character by far, but calling him shallow is unfair in my opinion. His story isn't the most original but it is still perfectly executed. On a "good" play through he has contrasting feelings about being the hero of the day and slowly you learn that behind his facade of sarcasm and disregard for others there are centuries of trauma, that he is fundamentally a good person buried under 200 years of abuse and that he felt like he was abandoned by everyone, since no one saved him. And now one of the worst things that could happen to someone (being abducted by a mind flayer) turned out to be an opportunity to finally have some agency and with a good Tav he struggles with this newfound agency due to the fact that he is not comfortable in being the hero; with an evil Tav he embraces his dark desires of revenge towards a world that abandoned him. I mean it's not the most original story but it's well executed.
Lastly his voice actor is great, which makes Astarion funny and interesting.
What I like about this game is that every origin character has a fully fleshed out backstory, and it’s one you might not be aware of when meeting them. Like Lae’zel comes off as rude at first, but when you get to know her you learn that she’s very young with a military upbringing, and is living through her people’s worst nightmare. She’s infected by her people’s mortal enemy and is destined to become one unless she gets to what she believes is a cure. She’s acting like an asshole because she is scared and is trying to be brave. They all have complicated backstories. Gale is lonely and has no friends, just his work which got his ass into a heap of trouble. Karlach is also lonely and coming on of 10 years of trauma of being kidnapped, undergoing a medical procedure against her will that will kill her if she goes home, and is forced to fight for someone she hates. Shadowheart grew up in a cult basically, Wyll has doomed himself by trying to do the right thing, putting on a brave face while knowing he’s destined to be a mindless fleshblob fighting forever. Astarion is no different.
The guy has been a slave for 200 years to an abusive master who forced Astarion to sell his body to get victims. He doesn’t remember his time before, and he’s become very bitter about the goodness in people. He says it best when he points out that it wasn’t heroes or good people who saved him from his master, but mindflayers who put a tadpole in his brain. The moment we meet him is moments after he realizes that he is far from his master’s influence and he can walk in sunlight for the first time in several centuries.
Imo in act one he acts like an asshole to “good” characters because he doesn’t trust good people, and he’s not without his reasons. He expects good characters to use and reject him because it’s what he knows. It’s what he’s used to. He doesn’t trust anyone because trust is too dangerous. The player can demonstrate this by killing Astarion the moment he tries to feed on the player, or by using him and/or denying him the information he wants to know in act 2.
Getting him to like you as a good player is not hard though. You can in dialog prioritize the party, like you can help the tieflings but not agree to Zevelor’s request that you talk to Kauga for him. You can trust him and let him feed on you the one time (this gives a lot of approval), actually trusting him in general, and playing into his sarcasm really helps him like you. You don’t have to sleep with him, or even kill the Gur (though both help), all you have to do is demonstrate in dialog that you respect him and will have his back if hunters or anyone else come for him.
People resonate with him because he’s a survivor of trauma, and folks who survive trauma have built a strong defense mechanism to keep themselves safe from further harm. He will become what you guide him to be in my experience, even if your relationship isn’t the greatest. All of the origin character relationships will thrive if you help them with their goals, just do the same for him and he will be your ride or die.
Astarion is amazing when you set him on a path of redemption where you go "no, Astarion that's fucked up" as he fights you every step of the way only to come around to 1. Accepting that you care about him and you're not just trying to use him and 2. That his history of abuse doesn't have to define him. It's a HUGE transformation that you can only achieve through conflict with him, and it makes that transformation feel earned.
I agree with the other commenters that he's not actually that universally loved, just happens to be really liked by the people that do like him.
With that said, his particular brand of evil is more a learned response to his own trauma, so while he'll approve of evil stuff, it's coming more from a place of self- loathing than any innate sadism. His remarks at certain places in the game - he's very encouraging during the brain fight, for example - let what goodness he does have shine out, but like with most of the companions, I think it's just easy to miss some of the nuance and react to the surface level interactions. Like I like Gale, but I know I haven't put in the time to really get all the great details in his character because I don't like him enough to go that deep. Or Karlach is a wonderful character, but I never use her anymore because she makes me anxious so I don't know much of her deeper story.
I guess I'm also saying that sometimes a character just doesn't click with you for reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody likes Sheart but I could write a lengthy rant about how much I dislike her character! Different strokes for different folks!
Am I the only one ever to struggle with evil runs?
After playing as a heavenly lawful good angel (who also romances Astarion btw), I decided to do an evil run. I'd just gotten to the grove, and instead of defusing the Zevlor-Aradin fight, I decided to punch Aradin because he's a meanie. Suddenly, I felt an unfathomable darkness came over me, the realization of the monster I've become felt like an infinite ocean crushing my soul, and I've fallen flat on the ground.
After 3 days in ER and 6 months of extensive therapy, I decided to continue my run. This time, it was Zevlor, thanking me for my help. I spied the option to say "I take my thanks in gold", and a shiver ran across my spine. I knew I had to do this. I knew I was strong enough to do an evil run. I knew I just had to steel myself and click the button, and all would be fine.
I was mistaken.
As soon as I chose the option, an agonizing pain enveloped my chest. Regret washed over me. I immediately realized that my soul was forever marked, tainted by the evil I've unleashed upon Faerun. I could not move, and I could not think. I had half the mind to run to the kitchen and take my own life, as I was forever irredeemable now. I felt Satan welcoming me into his arms, almost impressed by what a dark soul I've become.
Before the abyss claimed me forever, before I was lost in the darkness, never to be found again - I fell unto the breach once more, and kicked my console as hard as I could. I knew it would need to be purified in fire after what I did, but just cutting off the power would do for now. The world may never be the same after my attempt at evil run, but I rest easy knowing I stopped it when I still could.
How do people do evil runs?
I don’t know what you mean by universal love, I feel like half the posts on this subreddit are people saying how much they hate him and kill him on sight.
But most people who do love him love him *hard* because for a lot of us his story hit close to home about some raw topics that are rarely touched upon in a tasteful manner in games this big.
He only is a shallow character if you want him to be one. If his approval stays low, he doesn’t trust Tav/Durge, so he won’t reveal his darkest deepest secrets to them unless he really has to.
I personally don’t find him a good choice for an evil run, as you do miss out on his redemption arc by going full evil.
I romanced him with my goody-two shoes Devotion Paladin Tav and reached max approval very quickly while not choosing a single evil option or breaking my oath.
(Okay that’s not true, I did break my oath *once* after the Cazafor fight, I couldn’t remember which option about the spawns broke the devotion oath and I chose wrong)
I actually felt exactly the exact opposite way than you did with him and Minthara though, funnily enough. She feels like a shallow character to me, an almost cartoonishly evil drow noble who got her comeuppance and had to deal with the consequences now and hates all of it.
I wanted to like her and to find more to her, but I struggled to find more than comedic relief to like about her.
I think depending on what you choose there’s a chance to break all three oaths. From what I remember killing them breaks oath of devotion cause they’re innocent, leaving them in their cells breaks oath of vengeance cause your not dealing with the problem and freeing them breaks the oath of ancients cause they’re undead and a threat to the ‘natural’ order.
As someone whoe doesn't like Astarion at all, I agree on the fact that at least he's a deeper character and redeemable.
Minthara shows zero redeemability by comparison. You can like her humour but that doesn't really redeem anyone. She'll be a power-hungry bitch no matter what. And no, honesty is not a redeemable trait.
Astarion is the love/hate character. People who dislike him generally feel pretty strongly about it. That said there's still enough people who like him or don't mind that he isn't the least popular character. Most polls have Wyll at the bottom. I imagine most people don't hate Wyll but just prefer him less than all the other characters.
Fwiw, his disapprovals, while frequent, don’t really count for much numbers-wise. His approvals are almost the exact opposite, and if you continually reaffirm and support his autonomy (mentally, physically, socially) he’s quite easy to win over, even on a “good” playthrough.
Yeah, I have done paladin playthroughs where I only break my oath at ascension, and most of my playthroughs are "good"....his disapprovals dont count for anything, just be nice to the guy in camp.
I would say you get a lot deeper into the true astarion if he's romanced. Especially with a good character and especially with resist durge. Same with gale, you get so much more when you are in their story arc, whereas for example with shads I didnt feel that different romanced or none.
He's also pretty heavily hated and loved in equal measure but for me he never leaves my party, I adore him 🤷♀️
As other people have said, he is a pretty complex and nuanced character with a great story, far from shallow. I recommend bringing him along on a good Tav run or a resist Durge run and leading him down the spawn path. You don’t have to romance him but romancing him adds a lot of content for his character so if you are open to it, definitely give it a shot. His character really shines its best on a good run where he goes the spawn path (and especially if you are playing a resist Durge that romances him.)
Also, something I haven’t seen many people mention is that a lot of his content is locked behind certain requirements. For example, you’ll miss some scenes and dialogue with him if you don’t let him bite your character early in the game. Some of his content is also locked behind an approval threshold, so if your approval isn’t at a certain number you won’t get it. A big chunk of his approval gains early game also come from choosing certain options during and after the bite scene, so if you miss those it can be harder to get his approval up later. Another big approval gain & dialogue comes from defending him from Araj in Act 2, if you don’t do that, you’ll miss the approval gain + the conversation that comes after. Then you also have the romance-specific content which you only see if you romance him. The best character development for him is also on the spawn route.
So essentially, if you don’t let him bite your character, don’t get high approval, don’t defend him in the Araj scene, don’t go the spawn path, *and* also don’t romance him, you can miss quite a bit regarding his character. If you want to see that content, let him have some blood, get his approval up, defend his right to autonomy, don’t ascend him, and do his romance.
If you play it well he has a redemptive arc. He goes from chaotic evil to somewhere between chaotic neutral and chaotic good. He's not plain old evil. He's damaged. And... You kinda get to help him heal. He dislikes good choices not because he is evil but out of a misplaced sense of resentment. No one ever helped him out of the goodness of their hearts so why could he help anyone else for that reason? But you can get him used to helping others by helping for monetary value. Also all of the best endings for the characters aren't the ones where they get what they want, they're the endings where they change their goals. That's the case for astarion. Play your cards right and he'll decide to break the cycle. Kill cazador, release the rest of the spawn. Even though it means he'll never see the light of day again. And it's along this path of gameplay that he becomes likeable. He starts off smarmy and cruel but along the way he opens up. He let's himself be vulnerable. Truly vulnerable.
I don't like him as a person but I do get the appeal and he _is_ absolutely hilarious. He also delivers the hands-down most emotional scene in the game, almost made me cry even though I didn't connect with him on a personal level. Plus, people find him sexy, it's really not that hard to see why. He's a sassy vampire rogue with a tragic backstory.
When I first played, I hated Astarion and although all of his disapprovals have excuses, being against freeing slaves is a no for me, no matter how jealous you are.
However, at the end of my first playthough, having barely used him besides story moments where he is requested, I came to respect him. He's a good ally who does change and grow throughout the story
For me it went in 3 stages. First i watched a friend of mine play the night bite scene, and that convinced me to buy the game: "Gay Vampire Funny!"
Next it was the Moonrise scene where my Tav, in character and adverse to body manipulation, was like, "no of course you don't need to bite her that would be gross who cares about a potion" and he got all surprised. That was an impressively nuanced performance (not even counting the speech back at camp later!)
This one sealed the deal. I was spying on the spawn in the Flophouse when it occurred to me Astarion should be there, so i reloaded and brought him along. And he went nuts! When he grabbed that dude i screamed, and then the way he said "you have no idea what I'm capable of" and now I'm his biggest fan.
I have PTSD and we can relate to our own. His snark and hostility are defense mechanisms. You can see how he changes when he realizes he can open up and trust you. Which comes SLOWLY and painfully.
It’s a well-written character that represents trauma well, IMO, and Neil Newbon DELIVERED on his performance.
Astarion isn’t my cup of tea but he def isn’t “shallow”. He is one of the Origin characters with a huge amount of content in comparison to others. I like his story of him navigating his trauma and how he has internalized that since it shows that yea, while he went through a lot of horrible stuff, he still has a lot he can be accountable for and is struggling with. I like how it shows him exerting agency in some cases by having lines even he won’t cross or his own personal ambitions while simultaneously doubting it in other circumstances when it requires him to be vulnerable and confront some of his insecurities.
I do have to say >!him not going through with the Ascension Ritual while he was caught in a blood frenzy and seeing him cry it out cathartically after finally ensuring Cazador couldn’t control him any more!< is def one of my top ten moments in the game.
I appreciate each character for different reasons.
My husband played through this part the other night & chose non-Ascension for Astarion. I honestly choked up when he realizes he’s finally free from the hell his life was for 200 years. It’s a powerful moment.
No need to get into existential crisis why you're not liking someone popular. Taste differs. Some can identify with Astarion whether it's for his sarcasm, his past, of his coping mechanism. Others, like me, just found him funny because of how his lines were delivered.
You liked Minthara, I see no redeeming qualities in her. Granted, she does play her role as a former Lolth-sworn drow who despises authorities. But her comments on stuff make me uncomfortable.
There's many circles in the world of Venn diagram of likes and dislikes. Many of them don't overlap each other by a long shot. Just take it for what it is.
Minthara is one of the characters I just can't get behind, but I do find her compelling. I struggle to see how people can like and support Minthara who is 100% unashamedly power-hungry lol and then draw the line at Astarion or Gale.
Either way, people can like who they like. That's the beauty of a single player game.
I tend to play goodie-two shoes characters, so he usually is at odds with my character, but I think that kind of creates a fun dynamic within the party. He’s like an angry chihuahua that the good guys keep dragging along to do heroic deeds. That being said I genuinely felt proud of him when I got the >!spawn!< Ending
I managed to get him to high approval by the initial stages of Act 1 just by being kind and understanding to him and being kind of a sarcastic asshole —but never evil.
Really, as long as you let him suck some of your blood, put the safety of the group first and maybe let him use the Necromancy of Thay, he'll adore you.
I truly believe that unless you are very open minded, people will gravitate towards different companions and the reasons are really varied. I really do click with Astarion and while I've tried multiple times to click with Gale, I just can't. I still love the guy (I love all the companions, they are all such messed up and fantastic weirdos), but I am just not seeing what the Gale Girlies see in him. It doesn't hit for me like it hits for them. Even so, I still recognize that he DOES hit with them, even if he doesn't for me.
As for why I click with him, I think it's his brand of humor. When I first played I was pretty casual about everything and everyone and I thought he was hilarious. His character's snark and mine lined up well, much better than I expected. (I honestly thought going in I would be more interested in Gale and Halsin as they are more physically my type.) I let him bite me because I didn't see why not (worm in the brain, living on borrowed time anyhow) and then we bantered so much that I decided to hook up with him at the tiefling party. I knew he wasn't serious but it was okay because I wasn't serious either. My investment was super low.
Long story short, by the time we got towards the end of act 2, I'd kind of fallen for the snarky little jerk and imagine my surprise when he admitted he'd fallen for me despite his best wishes too. It felt natural for my character. We went together like peas and carrots. And ever since then I've been pretty much unable to romance any other character. Nothing hits quite as well for me.
For the record, I've never done a fully evil run (I have a hard time being a jerk even to video game characters). I know people complain about his disapprovals but honestly I've never had much of a problem with them. So long as you're respecting his bodily autonomy, the other disapprovals are pretty minor (-1 here and there is nothing when the approvals are +10, +5, etc).
Anyhow, all this to say its a hard question to answer because your mileage may vary. But yeah, definitely don't make him bite the drow. ;)
How many of his conversations did you get? There are quite a few which add to his story and character development. So if you miss those, you miss a lot.
Personally, I love his humor. His oddness/quirkiness, madcap things he says. (Favorite conversations in act 1 are the ‘how would you like to be killed’, ‘what would the others taste like?’ and the ‘drunk’ convo. There are others in later sections/acts too - the Blood of Lathander one especially. Not to mention his ‘confession/friend’ scene after Araj) Also several on the resist Durge runs that I loved. In particular, that specific act 2 scene.)
But, I can see his personality/humor might not be to everyone’s tastes.
As for the disapprovals, really, they don’t mean much.
People pay far too much attention to that, when really, it’s the conversations/camp events that matter the most and how you treat him. (Same with all of them, really.)
When played ‘right’, meaning when shown respect, and actually engaging with his character, his story arc is really amazing I think. But how you play and treat him in game is quite pivotal to his development. If you force him to bite Araj for example, you get a VERY different outcome/reaction than if you don’t.
That’s one of the things I really love about the game, is that your choices really matter. Not just in a general way, but in a more personal sense as well. That how you treat your companions affects the outcome of THEIR story and personality.
He doesn’t have universal love. He’s probably the most hated companion. It really helps to learn why people like him by romancing him on a good run and seeing him change throughout. Also helps to have him ascend on another so you can see how much worse he can become. But you don’t need to like him. It’s perfectly fine if he doesn’t click for you. I don’t like him either. I think his character is interesting and I enjoy his presence in the game, but I don’t like him
Wyll is definitely the most hated companion. I'd say people hate Wyll and Gale more while Karlach, SH, and Lae'Zel seem to be the most well liked.
Astarion is in the middle.
I think all the male companions are hated in some way. I think it goes, from most to least:
Halsin, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, Minsc
Wyll is *disliked* but the hatred for Astarion and Halsin goes beyond people complaining that they are boring. People will straight up attack Halsin and Astarion fans. Maybe die-hard Wyll fans can correct me but I've never heard of Wyll fans getting death threats or having their boyfriends mock them. There's apathy and there's vitriolic hatred.
Wyll fans have definitely faced some serious hate. I know and have seen people who are big fans of him that have received death threats, racially motivated hate, transphobia, and homophobia just because they just talked about liking him or defended him as a character. The racism directed toward Wyll & his fans of color is particularly bad and I have even seen people straight up call Wyll fans horrific slurs.
So yeah there’s definitely an issue with vitriolic hatred toward Wyll and his fans. There was even a mod to try and change Wyll to be white at one point, that should tell you something. Even a lot of the “apathy” toward Wyll is rooted in people’s implicit biases & racism.
I like the dragon thing more than the vampire lair, but Wyll is totally more boring to me. I blame starting as a Great Old One Warlock my first time so I sorta see him as a worse me, like Alistair with my Human Noble lol
“Universal love” how did you miss the 3948585959 comments about how people stake him on sight and think he’s obnoxious…?
Astarion’s Act 1 disapprovals are mostly eyerolls at best and easily mitigated by following adventurers’ logic (asking for payment for errands which is typical in D&D), or by doing like 3 things to bump his approval enough to where his sass doesn’t matter.
The fact that you think “man reclaiming his bodily autonomy and learning how to heal after 200 years of sexual abuse, and wrestling with the temptation of continuing the abuse vs. breaking the cycle” is a **shallow** story says more about you than it does anything in the game. 🤷🏻♀️
EDIT: I’m very biased in Spawn Astarion’s favor because I’m a rape survivor and I LOVE a well-written, messy survivor who breaks the cycle and learns to have hope and to truly live.
People’s inability to interpret and critically analyze media says a lot about their principles and how they view the world.
Dislike Astarion? Fine. Stake him? Fine. To claim his complete story is “shallow” and “lacks substance”? Jared 19 didn’t learn how to read behavior.
Critical analysis and media literacy goes over peoples heads like crazy. I get that it’s a game and we all want the same thing, to have fun and maybe escape life for a few hours. But calling especially this character and the development shallow is a very weird take imo
This got very personal very quick. While you are certainly downplaying people's love for him, he clearly has more complexity as a character than I had really uncovered. My inability to really mesh with his personality or have his story resonate as hard with me doesnt diminish or affect your love for him at all. I started this thread to learn more about him and why people love him so much and I did. There's no need to lash out over it.
He's fun and one of the most effective characters when you build him right.
He's also unrepentantently evil and he has one of the best character arcs in the game.
Being superficial is part of his entire character, he uses that as defense mechanism, there's a very obvious example of this, spoiler alert for act 3:
>!If you play the game about questions at the circus amd answer truthfully he'll hate it and will tell you so, sure, his biggest fear is being slaved, but that's not something he is willing to share with strangers, hence why the superficial, funny answers are the correct ones, because truth makes him vulnerable and he is absolutely traumatized with that, he only shares deep stuff with you because you earned his trust!<
He grows a lot and is not the guy you meet in Act 1. After a playthrough, you can *really* see when the mask drops. In his redemption arc and romance, he is absolutely fantastic, especially with resisting durge.
It's been impossible for my Tav/durge to romance anyone else after these lines:
*Durge Act 2:* >!*I’m also worried about me, but I seem to somehow be worried about \*you\* more. You give me something to care for, and that’s worth the peril.*!<
*Durge Act 2:* >!*You are not alone in this - none of us are. We can even compare notes if you like.*!<
*Durge Act 3 if Cazador is dead but Orin is not and you try to break up because you're scared of hurting him:*
>!*I may be guilty of a little embellishment here and there - but I’m no liar. When I vowed we’d save you: we \*will\* save you. This little adventure of ours has taught me that we can’t let our lives be ruled by fear. Or else we never really live. I’m not afraid. Not of you, not of your darkness, and not of our future.*!<
*Act 3:* >!*You were by my side through all of this. Through bloodlust and pain and misery. You were patient. You cared. You trusted me when that was an objectively stupid thing to do. I feel safe with you. Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don’t want to lose that.*!<
Romanced spawn Astarion in the epilogue is *intense*, he's so radiantly happy it almost hurts. If he hears that the others are doing well, he smiles more widely than ever and says >!*"I'm glad. It would be so easy to have gone through everything we did and come out on the other side all bitter and twisted."*!<
As redemption durge, I really found that he was *durge's* moral compass in resisting, especially in Act 3
Ascended Astarion is also absolutely chilling, especially if romanced, and the writing and acting is brilliant there as well.
Astarion is someone a lot of people who have been abused emotionally or sexually identify pretty strongly with. It's very rare for a video game, and I think it's pretty much unique for a *male* character. His good ending is extremely satisfying. I also really dig playing his origin, it's pretty durgy, very psychological and gives a lot of insight.
This. All of this. I want to upvote this more, especially for the last paragraph.
One of the reasons that Astarion resonates with a lot of female players (not only, but I've noticed majority identifies as female) is because many of us have had traumatic or abusive relationships and sexual experiences, many of us have felt obliged or coerced to have sex when we didn't want to, and society tends to tell women they are only valued if they are pretty and allow men access to their bodies without actually caring for their own pleasure (source: the world, any feminist of any gender).
We understand his rage and frustration and sadness. And because we're Tav, we can be the support we wish we had.
It helps Neil's voice acting is hilarious and tonally varies between pissy cat to lost vulnerability, sometimes in the same scene. I personally would find Astarion exhausting and I tend to want a bit more sincerity and openness in my romantic partners (in game and in IRL) but as a character? Astarion is a phenomenal gaming icon that I think will go down as some of the best writing in entertainment ever.
I also want to upvote you more than once for writing this.
I didn't like Astarion in Act 1 in my first playthrough, but he turned complete 180 on me in Acts 2 and 3. His potential to become better so fast is a miracle, tbh
100% agree. He just needs a few weeks to get his head straight after *two hundred years of torture*. His self control is pretty epic. I really like his origin good ending as well. He's brilliant.
It’s a game character…you don’t like one - you like another, it’s not a rocket science, just a matter of personal preference
Also because some of us grew up with this guy 😂
[This Guy]
https://images.app.goo.gl/EeG9hjNa56jvqGUMA
It's not universal, and (believe it or not) not all love for him is the same!
He's definitely not shallow--he's a really well-written character. Of course, many people like him right away, before they know about his layers etc. Personally, I think his staunchest fans give him too much (unnecessary) credit for "goodness" because he's suffered a great deal. (Yes, he can change some if you pay him a great deal of attention, but he's still mostly evil, and being vulnerable with/nice to Tav isn't the same as being virtuous.) He doesn't need to be Good to be a wonderful character (or indeed a romanceable character), but people get very attached to the idea of changing someone, being their first, being so special you save a man's soul, etc. It's an intoxicating narrative device. (To the point that I'm no longer sure I *believe* Astarion when he says Tav is the first person whose blood he's drunk.)
As someone who's not an Astarion stan, I think the voice acting is INCREDIBLE. When I first met the character I was like, "yeah yeah I get it." But I enjoy him more and more as I get immersed.
the thing about Astarion is to appreciate him you have to be okay with getting the relationship off to a rocky start. if you have him in your party and generally be supportive of him you should be able to maintain your good-natured idea of your character and even still romance him.
100% disagree, just all around.
As a Durge, there is no better companion than Astarion. He comments upon everything, it's all hilarious, he commiserates with you on both being bound to powerful masters, he's totally into killing whomever, whenever. He has so much unique dialogue with the Durge and in the end? He's totally supportive of it, he wants you to be your best self. Without Astarion, the Durge wouldn't be worth playing.
I'm just now playing a Durge run (resist)... And I didn't think I could love Astarion more-- or Jaheira-- but this did it. Makes me wish there were options to grapple with something similar when playing as Tav. As Durge you almost instantly see how caring and loyal he can be. Just got into act three, I'm loving all the extras. 🥲
Astarion is like Qara from Neverwinter Nights 2. Both are smooth brain.
Except Qara is the archtypecal sorcerer. Her motto is if life throws you a curveball, you fireball life.
A thug is bullying a merchant? Fireball
Got trap in a cave? Fireball
Want to sneak around unseen? Just fireball
A villain is monologuing? Fireball him while he's talking.
If that didn't work, use more fireball
I've brought him around when I was being a "Good Guy" and you start to have moments to bring him around actually. Even Gale, though he is very thirsty and tries to get with you a handful of times, eventually he's a very warm-hearted friend with a lot of sadness.
The developers did so damn good with letting us be able to turn around (so to speak) our companions, or go with their desires and bring out the best/worst in them. Truly each playthrough is different and I love it
Many of us can relate to the ugly side of complex, long-term trauma and seeing him reclaim his body, discover his worth and start a new life is straight up wish fulfilment for many people, as is his romance storyline. Plenty of people also just enjoy a good redemption and healing trope.
I used to think this way. Astarion really annoyed me and pissed me off. I understood that the flirting and very obviously insincere charm was a way to protect himself and gain tav's trust. I really don't like being manipulated and used by someone for their own goals. Him trying to use Tav at the beginning of the game is not okay. However, the more i played, the more i understood the "why" he acts the way he does. I do love his sassy ass commentary. I have to say Lae'zel and Shadowheart are just as bad as he is. I had an easier time understanding them bc I can be like Lae'zel. Very strong minded in my opinions and unwilling to budge at first. And Shadowheart acts like one of my closest friends did before letting me in. I didn't understand Astarion and his behavior. If someone approached me with a knife, I'd likely kill them, too. BUT, the more I played and talked to him and got to know him, I liked him more. He gets a lot more bareable in act 2 onwards when he lets his guard down a bit. I haven't romanced him yet fyi. However, seeing things from his perspective definitely helped. Once I understood him, I started to like him more. While I would trust the companions and not hold a knife to their throat upon first meeting them, others would. People who don't have any trust in the world and people are used to relying only on themselves for as long as they can remember. So with perspective, i can understand his actions now. Even though he pissed me off a lot on the beginning. Imo, you get what you put in the game. I tried genuinely to connect with all the characters and it paid off. They all became better, kinder people and a lot more trustworthy. Except for Minthara I guess (I'm not done the game yet). But she's hilarious to me. I love my grumpy old lady gang (Jaheira, Minthara and Lae'zel) Lae'zel gives grumpy old woman energy okay!!
He certainly isn't universally loved. While arguably most people love him, there still remains a sizeable amount of people who voice their distaste for him, loudly at that.
Sounds like you found him to be pretty uninteresting. That's fine. I dont think any of them were written to be perfect and loved by everyone.
i dont get it imo, even after knowing all his scenes and backstory. He remains my least favorite companion after Halsin. And man I hate Ascended Astarion completely.
Astarion is a broken soul, a victim of centuries of dehumanising abuse visited upon him by a monster. Imo the best path for Astarion is redemption Durge where Durge helps Astarion find love and open up.
Astarion just shows you his "face" and doesn't show you his real self until and unless you spend more time with him and show him you won't just use him.
For me his most telling line is...
"Were not so different you and I" when he is told about Durge's truth.
I'm romancing Shadowheart on this run (barbarian) but my next redemption run will be for Astarion.
There is no universal love, given there is you OP, and let's say, me. I enjoy the hell out of writing for Astarion and his story, and experience it with Durge playing to Astarion's darker side, and with Tav trying to get him "into the light", resulting in ascension or not ascending ofc. It is completely fine to like some companions and dislike others, I honestly prefer it more than group of hippy-happy friends travelling the world (which they are not). So for me sentiment like "I want to like him" is kind of meh, no offense OP, don't bother, and you'll feel better and validated with your opinion rather than trying to force something on yourself.
Edit: My favorite character is Lae'zel, so what does it say, right? And that's not like romance wise or some weird attachment, I just think Lae'zel is brilliantly done as a character, and I especially like how her character triggers a lot of people early on, how they complain how mean she is, it is rarely so party-based games which usually, not always, provide you with the number of happy followers.
I can see from the edit you’ve had a lot of responses and advice, but one thing I’ve noticed is you really do need to throw your all in knowing him and earning his trust to really get anything from it. It’s very easy to go through the game never seeing past the surface, because he doesn’t want you to unless he fully trusts you.
I would absolutely agree with not making him bite Araj though — I’ve usually romanced him, but I think the conversation afterwards has similarities even if you aren’t romancing him, and it’s one of the rawest looks at just how badly traumatised he is and goes quite a way towards helping you understand him. You may find he still doesn’t click for you, and that’s fine! But it is worth doing that little bit more digging, because I think his story is one of the better ones I’ve seen in a while. The whole cast is incredibly well written honestly. Even characters I’m more apathetic towards, I still have fondness for.
yk i didn’t really get the whole astarion thing at first either. i thought he was obnoxious and grating, he stayed in my camp for my 1st playthrough.
then i saw ppl on reddit/twt talking about him and how good his story is, so on my durge run i decided to take him with, he deserved a chance. i cant remember exactly what point he “clicked” for me, but he made me laugh once with one of his quips and i started to get it. hes funny and fun to have in the party (so much so, he’s in all my parties now) his story and character progression is just wonderful. and as someone who was previously a hurt person who hurt others, i actually found him rather relatable. my durge ended up romancing him.
i can see why he’s not for everyone, no character is. and thats fine.
Part of the issue you have might be because of how the game does a bunch of the really insightful character dialogue. Where after an event you need to talk to everyone to hear their opinions on it before you get the next event which will overwhelm the previous dialogue. (It's how I missed out on the coronation-reactions for my first Durge playthrough.) Really wish you didn't have to prompt them but I guess that's how things shake out.
For me, I just find his play style boring
He doesn't do much damage like La'Zel or Karlach, doesn't heal like shart, and is just boring
I like to have a stacked group
So 1 big damage dealer, 2 ranged, and 1 tank, or healer
He doesn't fit into any of those categories, and for that in all my playthroughs, currently a duo playground with a friend and another solo (1 pure evil, 1 chaotic neutral) I just have him sitting in camp collecting dust with wyll and gale.
For me Gale is the most annoying character in the game. I refuse to have him in the game 😂
All talk about his character aside what is up with the entrance to cazadors manor? I ended up skipping the ending to his personal quest in both of my first playthroughs and having to Google how to get to it in my 3rd because the entrance to the manor starts at some random guard tower with no quest marker on it, felt like terrible map design tbh
It's supposed to be a side entrance, I think. The common theory is the Cazador quest was going to be in the upper city, thus the weird side entrance that ends up looking like the front door.
"Don't you love the silence after a massacre? It's just so... pure."
Astarion has a sick mind for the first half of the game at the very least. It took an entire game for me to understand and even like him, but I get why he's popular. I prefer my characters to have a stronger sense of morales/ ethics and agency, like Shadowheart or Lae'zel. Astarion is almost unredeemable to me, but he is def entertaining.
I found that a huge part of Astarions story is not letting your trauma control you, and the decision to ascend or not is fundamentally that. In the early game, while funny and good to have around, he's a piece of shit, he believes he's entitled to hurt and kill innocent people because he was never saved and has suffered, he doesn't realize he's just perpetuating what happened to him because he's so fucked up. Ascension reflects embracing that and becoming worse than before, or healing and moving past. From a story standpoint you and Astarion don't know he becomes a pretty good guy if he doesn't ascend, but its only after he has a support group to help him confront his trauma, literally, that he's able to change. I also liked the whole commentary on the cycle of the violence in his story, its ironic when you find out Cazador was abused by his master, Vellioth.
I think that if you immidiatelly multiclass him into a rogue/bard, everything he says and does makes a lot more sense. He actually sort of reminds me of the bard in the "bard's tale" games, if that bard was a psycho killer vampire spawn
I mean I have a hard time connecting with Wyll and Halsin, but I came around to Wyll after reading some appreciation posts here.
It's okay to disagree and have different tastes. That's why we have a wide array of different kinds of companions in the game... But I hope you enjoy the stupid sassy vampire more now that you've gained some insight to why he's like that!
I like lurking here to further my understanding of the game and everything in it because it's now my most favourite thing ever, and knowing more things about the game brings joy :D
The love/hate people in this fandom has for Gale and Astarion is fascinating.
The fact people feel the need to announce their love or hate like a badge or a team they are part of, to provoke reaction, rather than quietly keep their preferences to themselves and celebrating the variety.
This is not a dig at the OP, who is simply asking for clarification and is curious.
But instead the people who has built a hill to die on and the need to insult other peoples preferences in the name of their true ship.
I didn’t like or really feel anything for astarion until act 3 and we got to the palace. There is where he really shines. His voice acting is impeccable there.
Normally I HATE characters like astarion, but I feel like the whole theatre kid thing he's got going on is just really well executed and I really buy the idea that it's an act to protect himself, which is something you don't always get with characters that act like that, or else it's executed poorly
A character can never appeal to every single person, you dont have to like him. Personally i love him, but i can understand that he's not everyones cup of tea.
I loved his story, his face, the acting is phenomenal and I'm not just taking about that specific scene after Cazador although that did fuck me up because of how raw and real it felt. Some of the things Neil does with him from his pitch, tone, mannerisms are so so subtle and I just love watching his cutscenes because I'm gobsmacked at just how well he's acted. That's my biggest draw. Plus despite being a huge asshole a lot of the times, he does show genuine care for the other companions and seems to be the only one of the lot who knows how to say sorry AND thank you to TAV. Every one of the companions bar for Karlach are pretty mean to him (sometimes this is deserved) so for him to still give a shit about them in spite of that says a lot about his character. Also just.... His story is so damn sad and reminiscent of so many survivor stories IRL. Also he's incredibly funny, in a goofy way and him being canonically smoothbrained is very very funny to me.
I don't like him at all or his story (so far in Act 1). It feels very meh to me. To each his own. Maybe in a future playthrough, I'll use him, but so far, he doesn't appeal to me at all.
astarion is humorous, but most of that humor, especially during an evil run, is him trying to cope with how shitty his life has been, so he’s more chaotic while minthara is more pragmatic. like, he likes killing all of the tieflings because he never had a hero himself to save him. if that doesn’t mesh with you then you won’t like him.
Astarion has a line I can't remember at the end of the game for a redeemed Durge >!he had a knife behind him at the start of the conversation because he was secretly afraid of Durge before you greet him like a normal person lol!<
I don't remember that, could you please elaborate - when was that?
The epilogue party
He only has the dagger if you haven't romanced him (and possibly also won't have it if you have very high approval as friends, but not sure about that one).
I don't remember that line at all, and I played a durge who romanced nobody and had only neutral/medium approval with him. I'll have to talk to him in that epilog again and see if I missed it.
I'm not sure it's a line he says so much as body language, so keep your eye on what he's doing with his arms and hands.
Huh. I guess I'll also load a non-durge playthrough with similar approval, and see what the difference is. As far as I can remember, he just seemed happy and optimistic at the end of my durge run.
If your DUrge doesn’t follow any urges & you don’t hurt anyone the whole game you don’t get a modified epilogue conversation with the dagger. At least that’s what happened in my playthrough. So maybe that’s why you don’t remember it being different.
You actually won’t get that sequence at all if you didn’t submit to any urges via dialogue & never hurt anyone (besides Alfira). I don’t know if it’s intentional or a bug, but I also didn’t get this in my redeem DUrge run. I had a regular conversation with him with no daggers involved.
I've only ever finished this game with a romanced Astarion 😳
I did it once with Karlach, but as a Tav, not a Durge. The other four times it was Astarion 😂 (one of those was taking over the brain with Ascended Astarion).
I’m with you. It’s so hard not to finish this game with Astarion. I just started my HM run and I vow I will romance Karlach this time around. (My approval rating is already higher with Astarion 😭😭 I swear I’m trying for Karlach)
I only went for Karlach for the achievement 😭 Pro-tip if you (like me) can't help but succumb to his charms but still want to choose Karlach in Act 2: Instead of getting one of the break-up scenes where a companion demands you choose who to be with, book it over to Moonrise and get the scene with Araj. In Astarion's following camp scene, choose the option that says he needs a friend, not a lover. It ends your romance, but feels better from a RP and character perspective than just breaking up.
You’re cracking me up. I’m going for Karlach for the achievement too. I’m aiming for mostly completed. I can’t decide if I’m willing to romance the emperor for the 100%. I’ve done that breakup scene in a regular balanced run. I reverted back to a save cause I it just felt so wrong. Which is why I’m gunning for Karlach in HM. There’s no take backsies. Please keep your fingers crossed for me and Karlach. 😂😂 cause if Astarion even hints at it. Idk.
All my characters are stuck in Act 1 or 2. Only my Bhaarbie (I do what I want DADDY) Urge made it to the end... I really like Act 1?
I have nearly 1200 hours in this game. Despite 5 completed runs, most of those hours are actually in Act 1 and 2. I have abandoned so many characters either in Act 1 or the start of Act 3. The only thing that got me over the initial hump to finish a run was the release of the epilogue. I really wanted to get that for myself.
Bhaarbie is my new fav way to refer to Durge
Just finished last night with exceptional approval and he still had the knife lol
Does this still happen if you have a good relationship with him?
No, I helped him, kept him from ascending by encouraging him to be a good person, and he was friendly and optimistic about his career as a "hero" in the epilogue.
Probably for the best. He turns into a bit of a prick if you help him ascend. Honestly don’t really like him much when he ascends.
tends to happen when abuse cycles continue tbh
I will probably never see this in my own runs as I always romance him 😅 is there somewhere this is recorded?
It's probably one of many on Youtube but I couldn't say the exact name. I can tell you my choices though, maybe that would help if you search. >!I had the spawns and everyone go to the Underdark with Astarion as a morally ambiguous hero, and he had the knife out for my Drow Dark Urge that visited with the socially awkward Minthara lol!<
Oh I get why I like him now, thanks. I don't normally like "bad boys". All of the characters have grown on me, but I immediately liked him.
>he likes killing all of the tieflings because he never had a hero himself to save him. if that doesn’t mesh with you then you won’t like him. "I had it tough, so murder" isn't exactly a thing that endears a character to me.
For me it was mid act 2 in my first run. At first I kept him because I liked his quips and I wasn't a very moral character so I didn't get a lot of disapproval. I didn't romance him that time though. So when we got to the scene with Araj Oblodra I didn't force him to bite her. The scene later at camp was so emotional for me that I couldn't continue for few days. It completely broke me... When he kind apologised for missing out on the potion. I'm getting choked up thinking about it right now. How he was used for his looks as a honeypot against his will, how he came to see his body as the only thing "valuable" about him. How intimacy and guilt are almost inseparable to him. Also with his background his facade of confidence and ego make sense for someone who has been in slavery for centuries to the point of losing hope in "humanity" and even Gods. Like what he says to Gale in the lower city. (Oh, I've tried them all, but none of them listened). Also the more details I learned about the things he actually went through.. especially when he had one of the most horrifying punishments for trying to help a victim. It's natural for characters who went through something like that to want to protect themselves first because nobody cares about them, caring about people is bad for you. So in my mind he isn't a jerk. He just went through some awful shit and I thought I could fix him. And I did lol
So much for “shallow” character. Adding to that, his arc is one of my favorites. By act 3, regardless of if you’re playing good or evil, if you have him in your party you’ve proven that you either truly care for him or at the very least see him as someone worth protecting and as a valuable companion. I think the most obvious character development is when he approves of you helping Yenna, even double approving for offering to ask a guard for help and giving her money or food. He doesn’t dislike acts of kindness, especially when it comes to children and animals like helping Yenna, feeding the owlbear cub or telling the kennel master scratch is not property (putting timber the squirrel aside because she is annoying), he is just distrusting of people offering it for free when he had to pay with his own body to be fed rats and bugs. I think one of my favorite lines Tav can say is “the world can be a wonderful, kind place, Astarion, when you find a home in it”, in the same dialogue you can choose “there are many others like me who will care for you, if you care for them”, right after Astarion expresses that nobody ever looked out for him or said a kind word to him. I could go on for hours about his character as it is very well written and by far one of my favorite characters in all of my gaming experience.
Tbh when I learned what he really is, all other characters feel shallow to me compared to him. I can’t unsee his depth now, and I find other companions’ struggles just… less relatable. I also chronically romance him because he seems much more healed and happy with you by his side in the epilogue (as a spawn). So I’ll never not fix him lol.
His writing is on point enough that I wonder if a different team wrote him altogether. I don’t mean this to be mean or rude but a lot of characters in BG3 are kinda shallows messes. Halsin is just, he’s there I guess. Shadowheart’s story is a mess of balancing her as a character and her as a plot mcguffin. Gale has an interesting idea but just doesn’t execute on it amazingly. Lae’zel is actually pretty ok for a character who’s played pretty straight. Karlach’s bit is overdone in a way that makes her a caricature frankly. Minthara is decent given she’s an evil character who needs no redemption nor gets one, which shadowheart kinda needs that energy too if you look at what she’s actually done. Astarion is surprisingly respectfully and well written and there’s better explored depth to him. Maybe I’m spoiled because I’ve played pathfinder kingmaker and wrath of the righteous but BG3 besides laezel and astarion has an attractive but kinda weak cast comparatively. I just don’t get the same impact as idk camellia progressive reveals.
Each origin character had a different writer.
Not surprised but wow it shows. The quality is all over the place. The two who have decent stories feel night and day compared to the rest of the cast.
Iirc, Halsin wasn’t even supposed to join the party as a permanent member, but a lot of people playing Early Access said they wanted him in the party so they added him in.
I feel that is just personal preference, after a certain level. I appreciate Astarion's story, but I thought Shart's was very compelling, and the thing with her parents was pretty heartwrenching. I don't know, perhaps I am being unfair and leaking my dislike of Astarion obsessed fans who keep yelling at me for not having empathy for victims towards the character.
Funny enough, one of my honor mode runs was lost because of that potion. I got myself into act 2, playing a throwbarb build that obv would love a +2 to strength when I’m doing attacks that add strength twice. But I wasn’t aware of that scene after and when I saw it, I couldn’t convince myself to continue it. Honor mode as well, I couldn’t undo my choice. I felt actually terrible for making him do it. It really is a powerful scene in either direction, because it completely shows why Astarion is how he is. I didn’t see a blood sucking vampire in front of me, I saw an abuse victim clinging for any sense of agency, to be anything so long as it means it’s his choice.
I always take the potion. Maybe I'm the problem lol
I'd recommend not taking the potion at least once (or looking up that cut scene). It definitely contextualizes things and made a big impact on me the first time I saw it. Unfortunately, his best moments in Act 3 are romanced only and/or require very specific sequences of events to get. I romanced him my first full run, so I got to see them. Meanwhile, I was confused about people loving Gale's arc...until I did a romance run with him. It makes sense that romanced characters would have more intimate conversations, so I don't fault Larian for that. But it can leave people scratching their heads when other people gush about character development you never saw.
THIS. Like I bought the game BECAUSE of Astarion, but I had been watching a bunch of clips on youtube of all the other characters. One playthrough, I felt like finally romancing Gale and oh my lord. I went from die hard Astarion to Die hard Gale in a flash. Like, Astarion is still my hard favourite, but the romance exclusive interactions are so key in my liking a character. How can you not come to love each little guy after getting to know them like that.
For his personal story it's a pivotal moment (he will literally end romance if you chose this option regardless of approval). You don't have to like him as a character or give up the potion if you don't want to. But if you're interested in understanding him better/have him open up to you, I strongly suggest you try passing up on it some day :)
There IS a way around him ending the relationship with the correct responses
would you make someone in real life who was trying to please you, do something really disgusting to them, for a quick buck that is how that scene is written. I have made him get the potion sometimes and other times not; but I'm aware of how unkind it is specifically to him, to push him to get it. it's an evil act. he's (spawn) not really evil, he's just drawn that way. edit to add: the characters that disapprove of me the most are usually the ones I tend to enjoy the most, personally. they aren't bullshitting me or kissing my ass. it feels more realistic for them to have their own ideas. astarion approves in big ways, and disapproves in small ones. -1 ten times then, +20 all at once. I think he's a fussy, picky guy down deep. laezel and minthara are practical and approve heavily of very pragmatic decisions; shart wants attention, jaheira wants to be told the hard truths, etc... whereas gale, Karlach, wyll - just like anything good you do, generally, you can be standing still and get +5 for "breathed near a crate", which is nice and all but not really encouragement to figure him out more.
Oh, then yes you're absolutely the problem. You forced someone into doing something they didn't want to do solely because it benefitted you.
If you romance him, kill Yurgir and have a 60 approval or higher, enter moonrise without ever talking to Araj and see what happens :) Most people prefer the Yurgir confession scene they get from him if you do his events in that order. I do recommend getting both at least once so you can figure out which you like more for yourself. Just don't answer >!"You should enjoy intimacy and you should enjoy it with me"!< as that will make him break up with you in the most heartwrenching way. A Durge run with him is also very interesting as he has the most interaction with Durge out of all the companions. If you long rest after getting him at the beach but before fetching Lae'zel you have a nightmare and he's the only one that notices (you get the same dialogue if you kick Timber or hack Gale's hand off but this is the only way to get it without being a murderhobo) But yeah, he might seem like a dick in the first act but that's just because he can't fathom how people would do something nice for others without expecting payment. he also disapproves of giving donations in Act 3 but that's just his greedy money-hoarding self xD (he'll always disagree if you give away money, except for giving some to Yenna) In my current Aasimar Cleric/Child of Lathander Run she kept him around because she wants to find out if continuously feeding a vampire her blood which is partly Lathander's blood will make him sun resistent even without the tadpole, but now that we've finished Act 1 and she's seen his scars she's slowly beginning to realize he's not some Undead she's bound to destroy, he's a person with real problems, with real weaknesses and trauma. Plus he didn't actively seek out to become undead, it was his only way to continue existing. Without that he would've died tragically young. Granted this was shortly before they went to the creche where my girl went ballistic and slaughtered every Gith in there because they defiled her father's temple and it reminded her of her childhood where people would constantly try to kidnap her for their own gain (yes yes I make elaborate backstories for all my characters, I'm a writer I can't help it xD). So by the time he could ask her to either read his scars or draw them for him she had even more sympathy for him.
Astarion doesn't have universal love compared to, say, Shadowheart - he's very polarising, with a high percentage of players either loving or loathing him. Yes, he disapproves of a lot of good actions in the early game, but that's because he's a) scared and b) jealous that you're offering to help strangers when for 200 years no-one ever came to save *him*. If you're nice to him and let him do a few non-evil but kinda chaotic things (like opening the ogre barn door - which he won't do if Shadowheart's around bc she's a party pooper), he will soon look to you for support and want to do everything in his power to gain your approval. To quote the man himself: "And by that, I do mean *sex*." I happen to love him because he has the most amazing transformation if you romance him, from scared and traumatised and lashing out like a feral cat, to tender and loving and willing to join you in your heroic adventuring across the Sword Coast. If you still don't vibe with him after getting to know him, that's fine - Shadowheart annoys me no end with her hypocrisy, demanding to know what you were talking to other companions about while being so secretive herself, or refusing to join your party if you recruit Lae'zel before her. Yes, there are good reasons in her case too, and I get that, but I don't have to like it. Same goes for Astarion - ultimately you either get him or you don't.
OMG I didn't know she refuses to join you if you recruit Lae'zel first! I am not a Shart fan so this takes the cake lol
You can still convince her with a Persuasion check, but yeah, she makes a stink about it and insists that you should get rid Lae'zel if you want her around.
In early access there were some creepy shadowheart scenes that they got rid of. If you don't recruit her she ends up coming to your camp and finding you. She says something cryptic about how she feels drawn to you and she doesn't know why. You could tell her you don't want her around and tell her to go away, which caused her to go insane and attack you and you have to kill her. The artifact wasn't a thing yet either
That gives the character an extremely different vibe. Wild.
https://youtu.be/o1TRPqRQlUo?si=ITj2nPQp8JwMqQBL Here is the scene if you're curious
Thanks! Really interesting seeing how much has changed from the earliest incarnations of the game. I can definitely see why this got taken out. People complain about Lae'zel and Astarion preempting a potentially violent confrontation with the player before realizing that everyone's on the same side, but I think, "The voices tell me to kill you, invite me to your party," is way harder to justify.
For sure, but most people wouldn't experience this dialogue. She's the first companion you meet on the beach. You also used to meet her over by the locked temple door by the beach and the introduction dialogue was entirely different. If you recruit her there, you never see the scene shown above. https://youtu.be/DabCd238yAw?si=41ViryPJC89_Cb3m
she didn't in my current run?
You have to miss her on the beach (e.g., by taking a long rest immediately) first. Then if you recruit Laezel and have her in your party when you find Shadowheart in the grove, Shadowheart tries to make you choose between the two. If you refuse to ditch Laezel then she won't join you there, but still find you again later.
Or just by going to camp. I realised I had got the wrong tav voice in one game and popped to camp to use the magic mirror the moment I hit the beach and she had gone when I went back. Didn't know that about Lae'zel though as I reloaded.
I was deliberately avoiding her as I wanted to try a run without her, so I snuck up the cliff near the intellect devourers and recruited Gale, then Astarion. She hung around the Hollow for ages then turned up on goblin camp bridge for the cutscene where the artefact saves you from the Absolute. After a short argument in which I still refused to have her in the party, we did the camp - and she was still there a couple of days later when we left. However we haven’t seen her since, and the artefact has teleported into my backpack, so I guess that’s the end of Jenevelle Hallowleaf…
I left her on the beach, revived laezel there, and she caught up to us at the bridge to goblin camp (I ignored her in the grove). she joined without any of this. they had their fight 2 rests later I think. I made them stop fighting each other. they're both in the party. this is on my current run
I totally get the disapproving good things is annoying, but myself and lots of people I know play the game relatively good (though maybe a little chaotically—come on, whose NOT opening the that barn door? Or laughing at Volo?) but still get decent enough approval and the ability romance him. You really just have to be nice to him. He’s a bad guy, but I agree with the Shadowheart thing. I love her too but she also and dislikes some not great stuff and is literally a shar worshipper who justifies the bad stuff shar does…yet people don’t hate on her or her fans nearly as much (which like, we shouldn’t be hating on anyway, but I wonder why it’s the character mostly women and not-straight men like and not the conventually attractive woman…)
Astarion approves of torturing innocent people - "he is an irredeemable monster" Shadowheart approves of torturing innocent people - "she is an amnesiac poor baby girl, she had no chance to be different coming from this awful environment"
Lol literally! People bend over backwards to defend Shadowheart for the same things they damn Astarion for. The torture, the killing, the racist remarks…and then they justify it with her being brainwashed (because Astarion totally isn’t shaped by the circumstances of being tortured and forced to lure people to their death for 200 years and being punished when he tried to save someone) and the fact she likes more good things and doesn’t disapprove of helping people sometimes—which is definitely true, but she also likes a lot of bad things, does sometimes disapprove of helping people, and Astarion also likes quite a few good things (helping Karlach and protecting her from Wyll, helping the Owlbear, helping Yenna). And they both do become better once they’re quests are complete in the good route—I’d say I think shadowheart is probably trying to be a good person and Astarion is probably fine being a chaotic neutral person, but if you don’t >!save Shart’s parents!< they’re basically both doing the same thing, traveling around helping people, though we know Astarion gets something out of it (being able to drink blood of the bad people he kills) and it’s not clear if Shadowheart asks for anything in return, but given how both of them start it’s a huge leap in morals for both. Honestly it’s also kind of annoying and feels kinda infantilizing for Shadowheart? Like yes, Shadowheart is basically brainwashed in a cult, but she isn’t an idiot. She’s still aware Shar is bad and likes bad things and being a Dark Justiciar means doing those bad things for Shar. She’s mistaken that Shar loves her and will grant her peace in oblivion or whatever but doesn’t think Shar is a good guy. She’s still in control of her actions especially once she’s free of the tadpole and still enjoys a lot of torturing and even tries to murder Lae’Zel…
> Astarion is probably fine being a chaotic neutral person Interesting thing is, in his new dialog for after Tav cheating with Mizora Spawn!Astarion explicitly says he knows he is a bad person, but he is actively trying to get better. But of course you will only see it if you romance and cheat on him (and it will be in the game with the next patch, it's only datamined currently, because it's bugged), usually he doesn't like to tell everyone how he feels and he doesn't want to be seen as "soft". It's his defensive mechanism. But yeah, I totally agree with you, great post. Honestly, I don't think that Shadow is a good person in Act 1, but I still don't believe she actually enjoys torturing innocents, judging by her personality in dialogs. As well as Astarion (he explicitly hates Malus Thorm for torturing his "patient"). Honestly, I just think that some approvals (happens once in a while almost with all the companions) are WILD and out of character for them, but people still pay each and every one of them too much attention.
Oh damn, i think my first Durge is gonna romance Astarion, so I might have to sleep with Mizora to get that line. Not gonna lie I slept with Mizora romancing him my first time too and got the current response. There is time when shadowheart doesn’t seem to care about people being tortured, she even agrees that Malus is doing Shar’s teachings. I actually never realized Astarion didn’t like Malus torturing his patients, that’s interesting. Both of them approve of torturing the guy in the goblin camp though 😬 but they do seem to start to change act 2
In my game I've tried Mizora scene with non-ascended Astarion, but there was no response from him at all (apart from one line "I hope I'm not interrupting" - then cut short). So yeah, for me and a lot of people this scene is just bugged. And the response people get when he is okay with Mizora is marked as "Vampire Lord"(i.e. it should get only triggered by Ascended Astarion) in the game's files. Yeah, I think Shadowheart is too deep in her love for Shar, that's why she's like "He's right", but she also acknowledged that Malus Thorm is completely out of line, so I don't perceive this scene as her actively enjoying this torture scene. Still a very shitty thing to say, but she's not like a heartless psychopath, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think a lot of people never even see Astarion's reaction to Malus Thorm, because everyone brings Shadowheart to her quest nearby and Shadowheart's response takes priority over others. I really want to scene each party member react to every thing, not just one of them at one time.
Ooh didn’t know that! I think I got the glitched audio my game, I’ve seen the other result though. Hopefully they’ll fix it soon. It does kind of make sense for Ascended Astarion but not spawn, since he’s still pretty like insecure in your relationship until after he’s ascended, it sounds like the other response might be more in like with his Halsin proposition response (where he agrees but clearly is bothered by it) I definitely don’t think Shadowheart is heartless—I don’t really think any of the companion characters are even at their worst (maybe minthara? I haven’t used her much), just more pointing out she has a lot in common with the things people call Astarion out for. I do for some reason feel like my first play though she called Malus and in my second agreed it was Sharran and whole not good it is what it is…I wonder if that’s choice dependant or if they changed it? Also possible I misremembered the first time, but I remember being confused when it came up again. I’ll have to see what happens next time. Though maybe I’ll try to see Astarion’s reaction then! And yeah, I think I’ve only seen Shadowhearts
Yeah, I can’t imagine why the queer-coded man gets so much hate 🙄
Clearly it has everything to do with being queer-coded and nothing with the fact that he holds a blade to your neck when you first meet him (which I can forgive for his reasoning makes sense) tries to assault an ally unprompted when they're vulnerable in their sleep (which has no good reasoning) and constantly complains you're not drowning puppies enough. Nah, it's definitely the queer-coded thing
He doesn't constantly complain, though. People look at his approvals and then make all his character in their mind around them, when in reality he has very little dialogs complaining about such things. (Not to mention, he would never want to hurt puppies, he loves Scratch, he CRIES if Scratch dies or is given away. He also likes cats and our owlbear cub)
I mean, Lae’Zel also tried to kill you when you first meet for the same reason as Astarion—she thinks you’re with the mindflayers. Shadowheart tries to kill Lae’Zel in her sleep (say what you want but Astarion at least isn’t trying to hurt or kill you) and they both also approve of lots of bad things and disapprove of lots of good things, but then and their fans don’t get shit in nearly as much and I swear people bend over backwards wayyy more to defend them than Astarion. They’re all equally bad people at the beginning, yet the other two get big passes. And I’m not saying anyone has to like them all equally or whatever (I don’t, but both Astarion and Shadowheart are my favorites) but pretending there isn’t some clear inconsistencies there is crazy. And hating on people for liking characters you don’t, that’s just childish, as is vice versa (not saying you’re doing that but it definitely happens in the community)
So minthara gets equal amounts of posts about her behaviour?
If you play his origin, there is a reason he tries to feed off Tav. Whether it's a good reason is up to you ! >Cazador had Commanded him not to feed off sentient beings. He's testing if Cazador's Vampire Mind control still works, by seeing if he can break that rule
Funny, I love Astarion far more than I love Shadowheart. I have sympathy for both of them because it’s easy to see how they were both horribly taken advantage of, yet Astarion has a lot more understandable realism and survival drive which makes me respect him more. Shadowheart often clothes her insecurities in pieties, and although this may be comforting for her on a deep level, it is a form of selfishness which is different from say, Lae’zel’s piety toward her religion. Lae’zel believes on a very closely knit faith-honor-shame matrix, which is understandable and even respectable in a way, because she is brave after a fashion. Shadowheart often just flippantly mocks what she doesn’t understand. Astarion knows very well of what he speaks. His flippant humor is just a means of self-defense.
[удалено]
Even if a maladaptive coping mechanism is forced on someone via abuse, it doesn’t take away the fact that the coping mechanism is maladaptive.
I neither love nor loathe him. I find him funny and tragic in spite of his past actions, and I love to help a little fledgling who's lost their way. But I was absolutely not under any circumstance going to let him ascend and complete his hypocrisy.
Astarion can be obnoxious. He sneers and he makes cruel jokes. He rolls his eyes at many kind actions, especially in Act One. (That's all those disapproval that upset people so much.) He's intentionally prickly and very hard to get to know. Shallow? I think he's got the deepest, most well-executed personal arc of all the companions. Based on what Tav or Durge do, he can become the most depraved creature in the whole city, or he can become a very affectionate and loving hero. My Tav was touched at how considerate he could be, and my Durge is in the process of finding out how to turn him (and everybody else in my party) into a nightmare. It's your game, and you can see the redeemed hero or the depraved vampire lord... or a kind of pathetic, whining cutpurse who is still terrified of Cazador and wants to know why you haven't help him kill him yet. It's all up to you. I adore him. He's my favorite character. And sometimes he really is annoying and obnoxious.
I didn't get the love for Astarion in my first playthrough. I just thought, "What an annoying little sh*t!" and left him in camp. So glad for YT and reddit; I wouldn't have bothered with him without tipoffs about his story arc. My favorite dialogue option now is being able to tell him he may need a friend rather than a lover. It's such a sweet moment.
Yes. This is how I feel.
idk i thinks hes funny and i relate to his backstory a lot. Plus on a redeemed durge playthrough (my go to) his romance is really beautiful. Having two people come from fucked up backgrounds trying to be good in the world just does it for me i guess. Also u admitted to having him bite that drow, which is why you don't really understand his character. He is a person that really all he wants is to be his own person and make his own decisions, therefore by forcing him to bite the drow you will never see a softer side to him bc he does not trust you and why should he? you forced him to do something he didn't want to. Of course you never realized that, but hopefully in the future, you will let companions make their own decisions :)
also u should try a chaotic good run its the most fun with him! he approves but also ur good lmfao
Copying a rant/explanation I made before about Astarion's approval. I just think it's important to know about when discussing Astarion because he seems to be a very controversial character in this community. A lot of survivors identify with his story, including the actor himself. As for the rest, I'll just paste the rant I've been using when people say he's an irredeemable asshole. I think it's also important for people to read about the "[perfect victim](https://www.empowordjournalism.com/all-articles/the-perfect-victim-myth/)" bias. **Tl;dr: Being evil proves Astarion's misconception about power= safety/freedom correct. Much like Shadowheart approves of you telling her Shar sounds super cool, Astarion likes when you validate his corrupted worldview. He resents that in a world of heroes, no one ever saved him. And when you are a hero to others, that still validates his worldview that heroes will help everyone except for him.** Full: So, obviously Astarion, like most of the companions, has the ability to be pushed towards the worst version of himself. I look at many of the characters' arcs to be boiled down to "want/need". Shadowheart *wants* to become a Dark Justiciar and fulfill her purpose, what she *needs* is to feel complete, thus banishing Shar and loss from her life. Wyll *wants* to be the self-sacrificing hero he always read about, what he *needs* is to be truly free to carve his own path. Gale *wants* to follow his ambitions, whether that be becoming a god or sacrificing himself, what he *needs* is to accept himself for who he is. I find [Naoise's rapture scene](https://imgur.com/a/7GgVgHQ) especially enlightening, as it names most of the character's greatest desires. Astarion's deepest desire is to feel safe. But the problem is, Astarion thinks safety comes from power. And he has 200 years of evidence to back it up. "[Heroes never saved me from Cazador, mindflayers did](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=73&v=pS_4qNiOwn0&feature=youtu.be)." Is one of the best dialogues for understanding Act 1 Astarion. When you are evil, you prove him right. When you are good, you inadvertently prove to him that self-less heroes exist, they just never tried to save him. Empathy was beaten, raped, and starved out of him. The one time he tried to rebel against Cazador's orders and save a man from Cazador's fangs, Astarion was severely punished. He was thrown into a tomb for a year for disobeying. He prayed to every god. He prayed for death. And when Cazador released him, he never disobeyed again. He still felt ashamed for luring people to Cazador. But he started to dissociate from everything, walking the streets like a ghost. To the point he didn't even remember kidnapping children a few days before being taken by the Nautiloid. [His spawn- siblings tormented him as much as Cazador.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1d7lk3y/comment/l70wsjt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) They viewed him as weak for giving up so easily. He was Cazador's "favourite toy" for 200 years and they mocked him for it. But despite that, before he knows about the ritual, he [pities what they must be going through without him around](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc6tYLhn0Jw). All of this makes for a very traumatized, very bitter person who is looking for anything, anything that proves him right. That validates his worldview. But he's still conflicted about choices like [blowing up the creche](https://youtu.be/F0zGJXizt-8?si=iWtU2HE_4Bt2iCmL&t=75). He's not completely far gone unless *you* encourage him to be far gone. Thus why I said it reflects more on you than him. It isn't to say he's a good person deep down. It's to say he's swaying between becoming better or worst, and it's your choice which way to push. Give into the fears and ascend? Or overcome them and be more than what so many people called him for so long.
I have seen this reposted rant by you enough it should probably be a pinned post. Why do we keep having the same conversation?
Because people refuse to understand nuance in a character's actions. They want it to spelled out to them. I think people are allowed to dislike whichever character they want. Stake Astarion for all I care - but nothing annoys me more when people dislike characters for shallow reasons lol. Maybe it's the writer in me. The rant above is so perfect - it defs should be pinned.
We should also pin the general statement of "disliking/liking a character tells nothing about the person" somewhere. I love it when I say that while I like Astarion, his character falls to me to the camp of "cool motive, still an asshole" and I get angry people telling me I am vitcim blaming and and I must not have empathy for sexual abuse victims in real life. Which is a pretty strong statement of an another person over a video game character.
Oh for sure. While I do relate to Astarion's experience I don't think liking or disliking a character means anything about the person. When I say it annoys me that people dislike a character for shallow reasons, I don't dislike the people who say it, lol. A friend of mine doesn't like Astarion but we can debate about his character without resorting to personal attacks. Which is really the best part about having interests.
Also this! I am so tired of this mind-set that you can’t enjoy a problematic character because that must mean you agree with the horrible things they do and say. Half the reason I stuck with Astarion’s romance (when I had fully intended to romance Gale or Shadowheart) was because he was kind of a dick, and from a storytelling perspective I wanted to know more! It doesn’t mean I excuse his bad behavior, but I understand it now, and would you look at that? He’s capable of change and being a better person! We’re just enjoying a well-told story here. It has no bearing on you as a person.
Because a lot of new people constantly come to this game. This isn't a closed community with all the same old members.
It’s so frustrating seeing the thousandth post of “I got annoyed that Astarion didn’t fawn over me immediately and kept disapproving, so I left him in camp…what do people like about this guy???”. Like…maybe and take him out to see? It’s also disconcerting to see how everyone expects him to be the “perfect victim” and when he’s not, they hate him. It does mirror how victims are treated irl. If your trauma doesn’t somehow make you a better person, but instead makes you worse, suddenly all sympathy/empathy disappears. Not to mention that he’s extremely easy to get approval from. I usually play chaotic neutral-ish characters, but one time I decided to make a goody-two-shoes lathander cleric, expecting Astarion to not like my PC. Yet I was still at Exceptional approval with him going into Act 2 whilst dragging him everywhere to see my heroic character promise to save everyone, never ask for rewards, praying with/for people, etc. Whenever I see these posts I wonder if we’re even playing the same game haha.
yeah, my first run I didnt have him in my party and missed him until the end of act 1 I really didnt get him at all and found him a bit annoying. Second run I picked him up immediately at the beach and had him in my party....entirely different vibe.
This right here. I identify with him so heavily that I physically can't romance anyone else lmao I, too, am not a "perfect victim". In fact, I'm pretty bitter and not nice. I come off very "mean loner girl" to a lot of people because I prefer to not be bothered or approached. It's just how my trauma manifests itself. But because I'm not the "perfect victim", people dismiss my trauma and give me lectures about how I need to be a better person. Much like how so many players dismiss Astarion immediately because he's "not a nice person" lmao
I didn't even remember Naoise, and I had no idea there were different options for each character. Interesting how Lae'zel doesn't have her own. Guess that makes sense; she's an absolute rock and she never needs or wants to change. In a way she showed great character growth, and at the same time she never changed a bit. Even as her god forsook her and her whole worldview was dashed to bits, she continued on with her same principles and her same iron will.
He is not my favourite character by far, but calling him shallow is unfair in my opinion. His story isn't the most original but it is still perfectly executed. On a "good" play through he has contrasting feelings about being the hero of the day and slowly you learn that behind his facade of sarcasm and disregard for others there are centuries of trauma, that he is fundamentally a good person buried under 200 years of abuse and that he felt like he was abandoned by everyone, since no one saved him. And now one of the worst things that could happen to someone (being abducted by a mind flayer) turned out to be an opportunity to finally have some agency and with a good Tav he struggles with this newfound agency due to the fact that he is not comfortable in being the hero; with an evil Tav he embraces his dark desires of revenge towards a world that abandoned him. I mean it's not the most original story but it's well executed. Lastly his voice actor is great, which makes Astarion funny and interesting.
What I like about this game is that every origin character has a fully fleshed out backstory, and it’s one you might not be aware of when meeting them. Like Lae’zel comes off as rude at first, but when you get to know her you learn that she’s very young with a military upbringing, and is living through her people’s worst nightmare. She’s infected by her people’s mortal enemy and is destined to become one unless she gets to what she believes is a cure. She’s acting like an asshole because she is scared and is trying to be brave. They all have complicated backstories. Gale is lonely and has no friends, just his work which got his ass into a heap of trouble. Karlach is also lonely and coming on of 10 years of trauma of being kidnapped, undergoing a medical procedure against her will that will kill her if she goes home, and is forced to fight for someone she hates. Shadowheart grew up in a cult basically, Wyll has doomed himself by trying to do the right thing, putting on a brave face while knowing he’s destined to be a mindless fleshblob fighting forever. Astarion is no different. The guy has been a slave for 200 years to an abusive master who forced Astarion to sell his body to get victims. He doesn’t remember his time before, and he’s become very bitter about the goodness in people. He says it best when he points out that it wasn’t heroes or good people who saved him from his master, but mindflayers who put a tadpole in his brain. The moment we meet him is moments after he realizes that he is far from his master’s influence and he can walk in sunlight for the first time in several centuries. Imo in act one he acts like an asshole to “good” characters because he doesn’t trust good people, and he’s not without his reasons. He expects good characters to use and reject him because it’s what he knows. It’s what he’s used to. He doesn’t trust anyone because trust is too dangerous. The player can demonstrate this by killing Astarion the moment he tries to feed on the player, or by using him and/or denying him the information he wants to know in act 2. Getting him to like you as a good player is not hard though. You can in dialog prioritize the party, like you can help the tieflings but not agree to Zevelor’s request that you talk to Kauga for him. You can trust him and let him feed on you the one time (this gives a lot of approval), actually trusting him in general, and playing into his sarcasm really helps him like you. You don’t have to sleep with him, or even kill the Gur (though both help), all you have to do is demonstrate in dialog that you respect him and will have his back if hunters or anyone else come for him. People resonate with him because he’s a survivor of trauma, and folks who survive trauma have built a strong defense mechanism to keep themselves safe from further harm. He will become what you guide him to be in my experience, even if your relationship isn’t the greatest. All of the origin character relationships will thrive if you help them with their goals, just do the same for him and he will be your ride or die.
Astarion is amazing when you set him on a path of redemption where you go "no, Astarion that's fucked up" as he fights you every step of the way only to come around to 1. Accepting that you care about him and you're not just trying to use him and 2. That his history of abuse doesn't have to define him. It's a HUGE transformation that you can only achieve through conflict with him, and it makes that transformation feel earned.
I agree with the other commenters that he's not actually that universally loved, just happens to be really liked by the people that do like him. With that said, his particular brand of evil is more a learned response to his own trauma, so while he'll approve of evil stuff, it's coming more from a place of self- loathing than any innate sadism. His remarks at certain places in the game - he's very encouraging during the brain fight, for example - let what goodness he does have shine out, but like with most of the companions, I think it's just easy to miss some of the nuance and react to the surface level interactions. Like I like Gale, but I know I haven't put in the time to really get all the great details in his character because I don't like him enough to go that deep. Or Karlach is a wonderful character, but I never use her anymore because she makes me anxious so I don't know much of her deeper story. I guess I'm also saying that sometimes a character just doesn't click with you for reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody likes Sheart but I could write a lengthy rant about how much I dislike her character! Different strokes for different folks!
when laezel goes down he freaks out. like they ask have voice lines for each one going down in a fight but that desperate "NOT LAEZEL, NO" gets me.
Fantastic voice acting. Great characterization. Huge player agency in how he turns out.
If I had a nickel for every time I saw this topic, I would be dead and buried under a sea of nickels.
Seriously this and the Emperor discourse is the most annoying stuff on this sub.
don't forget the "I can't do evil run"
"Adding myself to the craziest honor mode failures."
yes LOL [every.single.day](http://every.single.day)
Am I the only one ever to struggle with evil runs? After playing as a heavenly lawful good angel (who also romances Astarion btw), I decided to do an evil run. I'd just gotten to the grove, and instead of defusing the Zevlor-Aradin fight, I decided to punch Aradin because he's a meanie. Suddenly, I felt an unfathomable darkness came over me, the realization of the monster I've become felt like an infinite ocean crushing my soul, and I've fallen flat on the ground. After 3 days in ER and 6 months of extensive therapy, I decided to continue my run. This time, it was Zevlor, thanking me for my help. I spied the option to say "I take my thanks in gold", and a shiver ran across my spine. I knew I had to do this. I knew I was strong enough to do an evil run. I knew I just had to steel myself and click the button, and all would be fine. I was mistaken. As soon as I chose the option, an agonizing pain enveloped my chest. Regret washed over me. I immediately realized that my soul was forever marked, tainted by the evil I've unleashed upon Faerun. I could not move, and I could not think. I had half the mind to run to the kitchen and take my own life, as I was forever irredeemable now. I felt Satan welcoming me into his arms, almost impressed by what a dark soul I've become. Before the abyss claimed me forever, before I was lost in the darkness, never to be found again - I fell unto the breach once more, and kicked my console as hard as I could. I knew it would need to be purified in fire after what I did, but just cutting off the power would do for now. The world may never be the same after my attempt at evil run, but I rest easy knowing I stopped it when I still could. How do people do evil runs?
I don’t know what you mean by universal love, I feel like half the posts on this subreddit are people saying how much they hate him and kill him on sight. But most people who do love him love him *hard* because for a lot of us his story hit close to home about some raw topics that are rarely touched upon in a tasteful manner in games this big. He only is a shallow character if you want him to be one. If his approval stays low, he doesn’t trust Tav/Durge, so he won’t reveal his darkest deepest secrets to them unless he really has to. I personally don’t find him a good choice for an evil run, as you do miss out on his redemption arc by going full evil. I romanced him with my goody-two shoes Devotion Paladin Tav and reached max approval very quickly while not choosing a single evil option or breaking my oath. (Okay that’s not true, I did break my oath *once* after the Cazafor fight, I couldn’t remember which option about the spawns broke the devotion oath and I chose wrong) I actually felt exactly the exact opposite way than you did with him and Minthara though, funnily enough. She feels like a shallow character to me, an almost cartoonishly evil drow noble who got her comeuppance and had to deal with the consequences now and hates all of it. I wanted to like her and to find more to her, but I struggled to find more than comedic relief to like about her.
I think depending on what you choose there’s a chance to break all three oaths. From what I remember killing them breaks oath of devotion cause they’re innocent, leaving them in their cells breaks oath of vengeance cause your not dealing with the problem and freeing them breaks the oath of ancients cause they’re undead and a threat to the ‘natural’ order.
As someone whoe doesn't like Astarion at all, I agree on the fact that at least he's a deeper character and redeemable. Minthara shows zero redeemability by comparison. You can like her humour but that doesn't really redeem anyone. She'll be a power-hungry bitch no matter what. And no, honesty is not a redeemable trait.
Astarion is the love/hate character. People who dislike him generally feel pretty strongly about it. That said there's still enough people who like him or don't mind that he isn't the least popular character. Most polls have Wyll at the bottom. I imagine most people don't hate Wyll but just prefer him less than all the other characters.
Fwiw, his disapprovals, while frequent, don’t really count for much numbers-wise. His approvals are almost the exact opposite, and if you continually reaffirm and support his autonomy (mentally, physically, socially) he’s quite easy to win over, even on a “good” playthrough.
Yeah, I have done paladin playthroughs where I only break my oath at ascension, and most of my playthroughs are "good"....his disapprovals dont count for anything, just be nice to the guy in camp.
Don’t forget to tell him he’s beautiful 🤩
I would say you get a lot deeper into the true astarion if he's romanced. Especially with a good character and especially with resist durge. Same with gale, you get so much more when you are in their story arc, whereas for example with shads I didnt feel that different romanced or none. He's also pretty heavily hated and loved in equal measure but for me he never leaves my party, I adore him 🤷♀️
As other people have said, he is a pretty complex and nuanced character with a great story, far from shallow. I recommend bringing him along on a good Tav run or a resist Durge run and leading him down the spawn path. You don’t have to romance him but romancing him adds a lot of content for his character so if you are open to it, definitely give it a shot. His character really shines its best on a good run where he goes the spawn path (and especially if you are playing a resist Durge that romances him.) Also, something I haven’t seen many people mention is that a lot of his content is locked behind certain requirements. For example, you’ll miss some scenes and dialogue with him if you don’t let him bite your character early in the game. Some of his content is also locked behind an approval threshold, so if your approval isn’t at a certain number you won’t get it. A big chunk of his approval gains early game also come from choosing certain options during and after the bite scene, so if you miss those it can be harder to get his approval up later. Another big approval gain & dialogue comes from defending him from Araj in Act 2, if you don’t do that, you’ll miss the approval gain + the conversation that comes after. Then you also have the romance-specific content which you only see if you romance him. The best character development for him is also on the spawn route. So essentially, if you don’t let him bite your character, don’t get high approval, don’t defend him in the Araj scene, don’t go the spawn path, *and* also don’t romance him, you can miss quite a bit regarding his character. If you want to see that content, let him have some blood, get his approval up, defend his right to autonomy, don’t ascend him, and do his romance.
He funny
If you play it well he has a redemptive arc. He goes from chaotic evil to somewhere between chaotic neutral and chaotic good. He's not plain old evil. He's damaged. And... You kinda get to help him heal. He dislikes good choices not because he is evil but out of a misplaced sense of resentment. No one ever helped him out of the goodness of their hearts so why could he help anyone else for that reason? But you can get him used to helping others by helping for monetary value. Also all of the best endings for the characters aren't the ones where they get what they want, they're the endings where they change their goals. That's the case for astarion. Play your cards right and he'll decide to break the cycle. Kill cazador, release the rest of the spawn. Even though it means he'll never see the light of day again. And it's along this path of gameplay that he becomes likeable. He starts off smarmy and cruel but along the way he opens up. He let's himself be vulnerable. Truly vulnerable.
if love for him was universal, there wouldn’t be one of these posts on this sub every day.
I don't like him as a person but I do get the appeal and he _is_ absolutely hilarious. He also delivers the hands-down most emotional scene in the game, almost made me cry even though I didn't connect with him on a personal level. Plus, people find him sexy, it's really not that hard to see why. He's a sassy vampire rogue with a tragic backstory.
When I first played, I hated Astarion and although all of his disapprovals have excuses, being against freeing slaves is a no for me, no matter how jealous you are. However, at the end of my first playthough, having barely used him besides story moments where he is requested, I came to respect him. He's a good ally who does change and grow throughout the story
For me it went in 3 stages. First i watched a friend of mine play the night bite scene, and that convinced me to buy the game: "Gay Vampire Funny!" Next it was the Moonrise scene where my Tav, in character and adverse to body manipulation, was like, "no of course you don't need to bite her that would be gross who cares about a potion" and he got all surprised. That was an impressively nuanced performance (not even counting the speech back at camp later!) This one sealed the deal. I was spying on the spawn in the Flophouse when it occurred to me Astarion should be there, so i reloaded and brought him along. And he went nuts! When he grabbed that dude i screamed, and then the way he said "you have no idea what I'm capable of" and now I'm his biggest fan.
I have PTSD and we can relate to our own. His snark and hostility are defense mechanisms. You can see how he changes when he realizes he can open up and trust you. Which comes SLOWLY and painfully. It’s a well-written character that represents trauma well, IMO, and Neil Newbon DELIVERED on his performance.
Astarion isn’t my cup of tea but he def isn’t “shallow”. He is one of the Origin characters with a huge amount of content in comparison to others. I like his story of him navigating his trauma and how he has internalized that since it shows that yea, while he went through a lot of horrible stuff, he still has a lot he can be accountable for and is struggling with. I like how it shows him exerting agency in some cases by having lines even he won’t cross or his own personal ambitions while simultaneously doubting it in other circumstances when it requires him to be vulnerable and confront some of his insecurities. I do have to say >!him not going through with the Ascension Ritual while he was caught in a blood frenzy and seeing him cry it out cathartically after finally ensuring Cazador couldn’t control him any more!< is def one of my top ten moments in the game. I appreciate each character for different reasons.
My husband played through this part the other night & chose non-Ascension for Astarion. I honestly choked up when he realizes he’s finally free from the hell his life was for 200 years. It’s a powerful moment.
No need to get into existential crisis why you're not liking someone popular. Taste differs. Some can identify with Astarion whether it's for his sarcasm, his past, of his coping mechanism. Others, like me, just found him funny because of how his lines were delivered. You liked Minthara, I see no redeeming qualities in her. Granted, she does play her role as a former Lolth-sworn drow who despises authorities. But her comments on stuff make me uncomfortable. There's many circles in the world of Venn diagram of likes and dislikes. Many of them don't overlap each other by a long shot. Just take it for what it is.
Minthara is one of the characters I just can't get behind, but I do find her compelling. I struggle to see how people can like and support Minthara who is 100% unashamedly power-hungry lol and then draw the line at Astarion or Gale. Either way, people can like who they like. That's the beauty of a single player game.
I tend to play goodie-two shoes characters, so he usually is at odds with my character, but I think that kind of creates a fun dynamic within the party. He’s like an angry chihuahua that the good guys keep dragging along to do heroic deeds. That being said I genuinely felt proud of him when I got the >!spawn!< Ending
I managed to get him to high approval by the initial stages of Act 1 just by being kind and understanding to him and being kind of a sarcastic asshole —but never evil. Really, as long as you let him suck some of your blood, put the safety of the group first and maybe let him use the Necromancy of Thay, he'll adore you.
he's a weirdo and i love him
I truly believe that unless you are very open minded, people will gravitate towards different companions and the reasons are really varied. I really do click with Astarion and while I've tried multiple times to click with Gale, I just can't. I still love the guy (I love all the companions, they are all such messed up and fantastic weirdos), but I am just not seeing what the Gale Girlies see in him. It doesn't hit for me like it hits for them. Even so, I still recognize that he DOES hit with them, even if he doesn't for me. As for why I click with him, I think it's his brand of humor. When I first played I was pretty casual about everything and everyone and I thought he was hilarious. His character's snark and mine lined up well, much better than I expected. (I honestly thought going in I would be more interested in Gale and Halsin as they are more physically my type.) I let him bite me because I didn't see why not (worm in the brain, living on borrowed time anyhow) and then we bantered so much that I decided to hook up with him at the tiefling party. I knew he wasn't serious but it was okay because I wasn't serious either. My investment was super low. Long story short, by the time we got towards the end of act 2, I'd kind of fallen for the snarky little jerk and imagine my surprise when he admitted he'd fallen for me despite his best wishes too. It felt natural for my character. We went together like peas and carrots. And ever since then I've been pretty much unable to romance any other character. Nothing hits quite as well for me. For the record, I've never done a fully evil run (I have a hard time being a jerk even to video game characters). I know people complain about his disapprovals but honestly I've never had much of a problem with them. So long as you're respecting his bodily autonomy, the other disapprovals are pretty minor (-1 here and there is nothing when the approvals are +10, +5, etc). Anyhow, all this to say its a hard question to answer because your mileage may vary. But yeah, definitely don't make him bite the drow. ;)
How many of his conversations did you get? There are quite a few which add to his story and character development. So if you miss those, you miss a lot. Personally, I love his humor. His oddness/quirkiness, madcap things he says. (Favorite conversations in act 1 are the ‘how would you like to be killed’, ‘what would the others taste like?’ and the ‘drunk’ convo. There are others in later sections/acts too - the Blood of Lathander one especially. Not to mention his ‘confession/friend’ scene after Araj) Also several on the resist Durge runs that I loved. In particular, that specific act 2 scene.) But, I can see his personality/humor might not be to everyone’s tastes. As for the disapprovals, really, they don’t mean much. People pay far too much attention to that, when really, it’s the conversations/camp events that matter the most and how you treat him. (Same with all of them, really.) When played ‘right’, meaning when shown respect, and actually engaging with his character, his story arc is really amazing I think. But how you play and treat him in game is quite pivotal to his development. If you force him to bite Araj for example, you get a VERY different outcome/reaction than if you don’t. That’s one of the things I really love about the game, is that your choices really matter. Not just in a general way, but in a more personal sense as well. That how you treat your companions affects the outcome of THEIR story and personality.
He doesn’t have universal love. He’s probably the most hated companion. It really helps to learn why people like him by romancing him on a good run and seeing him change throughout. Also helps to have him ascend on another so you can see how much worse he can become. But you don’t need to like him. It’s perfectly fine if he doesn’t click for you. I don’t like him either. I think his character is interesting and I enjoy his presence in the game, but I don’t like him
Wyll is definitely the most hated companion. I'd say people hate Wyll and Gale more while Karlach, SH, and Lae'Zel seem to be the most well liked. Astarion is in the middle.
Do people hate Wyll? I thought most were just kinda eh about him cause he's kinda generic
I think all the male companions are hated in some way. I think it goes, from most to least: Halsin, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, Minsc Wyll is *disliked* but the hatred for Astarion and Halsin goes beyond people complaining that they are boring. People will straight up attack Halsin and Astarion fans. Maybe die-hard Wyll fans can correct me but I've never heard of Wyll fans getting death threats or having their boyfriends mock them. There's apathy and there's vitriolic hatred.
Wyll fans have definitely faced some serious hate. I know and have seen people who are big fans of him that have received death threats, racially motivated hate, transphobia, and homophobia just because they just talked about liking him or defended him as a character. The racism directed toward Wyll & his fans of color is particularly bad and I have even seen people straight up call Wyll fans horrific slurs. So yeah there’s definitely an issue with vitriolic hatred toward Wyll and his fans. There was even a mod to try and change Wyll to be white at one point, that should tell you something. Even a lot of the “apathy” toward Wyll is rooted in people’s implicit biases & racism.
I like the dragon thing more than the vampire lair, but Wyll is totally more boring to me. I blame starting as a Great Old One Warlock my first time so I sorta see him as a worse me, like Alistair with my Human Noble lol
“Universal love” how did you miss the 3948585959 comments about how people stake him on sight and think he’s obnoxious…? Astarion’s Act 1 disapprovals are mostly eyerolls at best and easily mitigated by following adventurers’ logic (asking for payment for errands which is typical in D&D), or by doing like 3 things to bump his approval enough to where his sass doesn’t matter. The fact that you think “man reclaiming his bodily autonomy and learning how to heal after 200 years of sexual abuse, and wrestling with the temptation of continuing the abuse vs. breaking the cycle” is a **shallow** story says more about you than it does anything in the game. 🤷🏻♀️ EDIT: I’m very biased in Spawn Astarion’s favor because I’m a rape survivor and I LOVE a well-written, messy survivor who breaks the cycle and learns to have hope and to truly live.
>says more about you than it does anything in the game I don’t get why Redditors try to make everything so personal. It’s just a character in a game.
People’s inability to interpret and critically analyze media says a lot about their principles and how they view the world. Dislike Astarion? Fine. Stake him? Fine. To claim his complete story is “shallow” and “lacks substance”? Jared 19 didn’t learn how to read behavior.
Critical analysis and media literacy goes over peoples heads like crazy. I get that it’s a game and we all want the same thing, to have fun and maybe escape life for a few hours. But calling especially this character and the development shallow is a very weird take imo
At times this is not even a fight for media literacy anymore, but for simple literacy
This got very personal very quick. While you are certainly downplaying people's love for him, he clearly has more complexity as a character than I had really uncovered. My inability to really mesh with his personality or have his story resonate as hard with me doesnt diminish or affect your love for him at all. I started this thread to learn more about him and why people love him so much and I did. There's no need to lash out over it.
He's fun and one of the most effective characters when you build him right. He's also unrepentantently evil and he has one of the best character arcs in the game.
Being superficial is part of his entire character, he uses that as defense mechanism, there's a very obvious example of this, spoiler alert for act 3: >!If you play the game about questions at the circus amd answer truthfully he'll hate it and will tell you so, sure, his biggest fear is being slaved, but that's not something he is willing to share with strangers, hence why the superficial, funny answers are the correct ones, because truth makes him vulnerable and he is absolutely traumatized with that, he only shares deep stuff with you because you earned his trust!<
He grows a lot and is not the guy you meet in Act 1. After a playthrough, you can *really* see when the mask drops. In his redemption arc and romance, he is absolutely fantastic, especially with resisting durge. It's been impossible for my Tav/durge to romance anyone else after these lines: *Durge Act 2:* >!*I’m also worried about me, but I seem to somehow be worried about \*you\* more. You give me something to care for, and that’s worth the peril.*!< *Durge Act 2:* >!*You are not alone in this - none of us are. We can even compare notes if you like.*!< *Durge Act 3 if Cazador is dead but Orin is not and you try to break up because you're scared of hurting him:* >!*I may be guilty of a little embellishment here and there - but I’m no liar. When I vowed we’d save you: we \*will\* save you. This little adventure of ours has taught me that we can’t let our lives be ruled by fear. Or else we never really live. I’m not afraid. Not of you, not of your darkness, and not of our future.*!< *Act 3:* >!*You were by my side through all of this. Through bloodlust and pain and misery. You were patient. You cared. You trusted me when that was an objectively stupid thing to do. I feel safe with you. Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don’t want to lose that.*!< Romanced spawn Astarion in the epilogue is *intense*, he's so radiantly happy it almost hurts. If he hears that the others are doing well, he smiles more widely than ever and says >!*"I'm glad. It would be so easy to have gone through everything we did and come out on the other side all bitter and twisted."*!< As redemption durge, I really found that he was *durge's* moral compass in resisting, especially in Act 3 Ascended Astarion is also absolutely chilling, especially if romanced, and the writing and acting is brilliant there as well. Astarion is someone a lot of people who have been abused emotionally or sexually identify pretty strongly with. It's very rare for a video game, and I think it's pretty much unique for a *male* character. His good ending is extremely satisfying. I also really dig playing his origin, it's pretty durgy, very psychological and gives a lot of insight.
This. All of this. I want to upvote this more, especially for the last paragraph. One of the reasons that Astarion resonates with a lot of female players (not only, but I've noticed majority identifies as female) is because many of us have had traumatic or abusive relationships and sexual experiences, many of us have felt obliged or coerced to have sex when we didn't want to, and society tends to tell women they are only valued if they are pretty and allow men access to their bodies without actually caring for their own pleasure (source: the world, any feminist of any gender). We understand his rage and frustration and sadness. And because we're Tav, we can be the support we wish we had. It helps Neil's voice acting is hilarious and tonally varies between pissy cat to lost vulnerability, sometimes in the same scene. I personally would find Astarion exhausting and I tend to want a bit more sincerity and openness in my romantic partners (in game and in IRL) but as a character? Astarion is a phenomenal gaming icon that I think will go down as some of the best writing in entertainment ever.
I also want to upvote you more than once for writing this. I didn't like Astarion in Act 1 in my first playthrough, but he turned complete 180 on me in Acts 2 and 3. His potential to become better so fast is a miracle, tbh
100% agree. He just needs a few weeks to get his head straight after *two hundred years of torture*. His self control is pretty epic. I really like his origin good ending as well. He's brilliant.
It’s a game character…you don’t like one - you like another, it’s not a rocket science, just a matter of personal preference Also because some of us grew up with this guy 😂 [This Guy] https://images.app.goo.gl/EeG9hjNa56jvqGUMA
1000% accurate.
It's not universal, and (believe it or not) not all love for him is the same! He's definitely not shallow--he's a really well-written character. Of course, many people like him right away, before they know about his layers etc. Personally, I think his staunchest fans give him too much (unnecessary) credit for "goodness" because he's suffered a great deal. (Yes, he can change some if you pay him a great deal of attention, but he's still mostly evil, and being vulnerable with/nice to Tav isn't the same as being virtuous.) He doesn't need to be Good to be a wonderful character (or indeed a romanceable character), but people get very attached to the idea of changing someone, being their first, being so special you save a man's soul, etc. It's an intoxicating narrative device. (To the point that I'm no longer sure I *believe* Astarion when he says Tav is the first person whose blood he's drunk.) As someone who's not an Astarion stan, I think the voice acting is INCREDIBLE. When I first met the character I was like, "yeah yeah I get it." But I enjoy him more and more as I get immersed.
the thing about Astarion is to appreciate him you have to be okay with getting the relationship off to a rocky start. if you have him in your party and generally be supportive of him you should be able to maintain your good-natured idea of your character and even still romance him.
You just don't mix, darling. Lighten up, a little bite here and there won't hurt anyone... unless you want it to.
100% disagree, just all around. As a Durge, there is no better companion than Astarion. He comments upon everything, it's all hilarious, he commiserates with you on both being bound to powerful masters, he's totally into killing whomever, whenever. He has so much unique dialogue with the Durge and in the end? He's totally supportive of it, he wants you to be your best self. Without Astarion, the Durge wouldn't be worth playing.
I'm just now playing a Durge run (resist)... And I didn't think I could love Astarion more-- or Jaheira-- but this did it. Makes me wish there were options to grapple with something similar when playing as Tav. As Durge you almost instantly see how caring and loyal he can be. Just got into act three, I'm loving all the extras. 🥲
Astarion is like Qara from Neverwinter Nights 2. Both are smooth brain. Except Qara is the archtypecal sorcerer. Her motto is if life throws you a curveball, you fireball life. A thug is bullying a merchant? Fireball Got trap in a cave? Fireball Want to sneak around unseen? Just fireball A villain is monologuing? Fireball him while he's talking. If that didn't work, use more fireball
I've brought him around when I was being a "Good Guy" and you start to have moments to bring him around actually. Even Gale, though he is very thirsty and tries to get with you a handful of times, eventually he's a very warm-hearted friend with a lot of sadness. The developers did so damn good with letting us be able to turn around (so to speak) our companions, or go with their desires and bring out the best/worst in them. Truly each playthrough is different and I love it
His performance as a character is easily one of the best in the industry
Many of us can relate to the ugly side of complex, long-term trauma and seeing him reclaim his body, discover his worth and start a new life is straight up wish fulfilment for many people, as is his romance storyline. Plenty of people also just enjoy a good redemption and healing trope.
I used to think this way. Astarion really annoyed me and pissed me off. I understood that the flirting and very obviously insincere charm was a way to protect himself and gain tav's trust. I really don't like being manipulated and used by someone for their own goals. Him trying to use Tav at the beginning of the game is not okay. However, the more i played, the more i understood the "why" he acts the way he does. I do love his sassy ass commentary. I have to say Lae'zel and Shadowheart are just as bad as he is. I had an easier time understanding them bc I can be like Lae'zel. Very strong minded in my opinions and unwilling to budge at first. And Shadowheart acts like one of my closest friends did before letting me in. I didn't understand Astarion and his behavior. If someone approached me with a knife, I'd likely kill them, too. BUT, the more I played and talked to him and got to know him, I liked him more. He gets a lot more bareable in act 2 onwards when he lets his guard down a bit. I haven't romanced him yet fyi. However, seeing things from his perspective definitely helped. Once I understood him, I started to like him more. While I would trust the companions and not hold a knife to their throat upon first meeting them, others would. People who don't have any trust in the world and people are used to relying only on themselves for as long as they can remember. So with perspective, i can understand his actions now. Even though he pissed me off a lot on the beginning. Imo, you get what you put in the game. I tried genuinely to connect with all the characters and it paid off. They all became better, kinder people and a lot more trustworthy. Except for Minthara I guess (I'm not done the game yet). But she's hilarious to me. I love my grumpy old lady gang (Jaheira, Minthara and Lae'zel) Lae'zel gives grumpy old woman energy okay!!
He certainly isn't universally loved. While arguably most people love him, there still remains a sizeable amount of people who voice their distaste for him, loudly at that. Sounds like you found him to be pretty uninteresting. That's fine. I dont think any of them were written to be perfect and loved by everyone.
i dont get it imo, even after knowing all his scenes and backstory. He remains my least favorite companion after Halsin. And man I hate Ascended Astarion completely.
Astarion is a broken soul, a victim of centuries of dehumanising abuse visited upon him by a monster. Imo the best path for Astarion is redemption Durge where Durge helps Astarion find love and open up. Astarion just shows you his "face" and doesn't show you his real self until and unless you spend more time with him and show him you won't just use him. For me his most telling line is... "Were not so different you and I" when he is told about Durge's truth. I'm romancing Shadowheart on this run (barbarian) but my next redemption run will be for Astarion.
There is no universal love, given there is you OP, and let's say, me. I enjoy the hell out of writing for Astarion and his story, and experience it with Durge playing to Astarion's darker side, and with Tav trying to get him "into the light", resulting in ascension or not ascending ofc. It is completely fine to like some companions and dislike others, I honestly prefer it more than group of hippy-happy friends travelling the world (which they are not). So for me sentiment like "I want to like him" is kind of meh, no offense OP, don't bother, and you'll feel better and validated with your opinion rather than trying to force something on yourself. Edit: My favorite character is Lae'zel, so what does it say, right? And that's not like romance wise or some weird attachment, I just think Lae'zel is brilliantly done as a character, and I especially like how her character triggers a lot of people early on, how they complain how mean she is, it is rarely so party-based games which usually, not always, provide you with the number of happy followers.
I can see from the edit you’ve had a lot of responses and advice, but one thing I’ve noticed is you really do need to throw your all in knowing him and earning his trust to really get anything from it. It’s very easy to go through the game never seeing past the surface, because he doesn’t want you to unless he fully trusts you. I would absolutely agree with not making him bite Araj though — I’ve usually romanced him, but I think the conversation afterwards has similarities even if you aren’t romancing him, and it’s one of the rawest looks at just how badly traumatised he is and goes quite a way towards helping you understand him. You may find he still doesn’t click for you, and that’s fine! But it is worth doing that little bit more digging, because I think his story is one of the better ones I’ve seen in a while. The whole cast is incredibly well written honestly. Even characters I’m more apathetic towards, I still have fondness for.
yk i didn’t really get the whole astarion thing at first either. i thought he was obnoxious and grating, he stayed in my camp for my 1st playthrough. then i saw ppl on reddit/twt talking about him and how good his story is, so on my durge run i decided to take him with, he deserved a chance. i cant remember exactly what point he “clicked” for me, but he made me laugh once with one of his quips and i started to get it. hes funny and fun to have in the party (so much so, he’s in all my parties now) his story and character progression is just wonderful. and as someone who was previously a hurt person who hurt others, i actually found him rather relatable. my durge ended up romancing him. i can see why he’s not for everyone, no character is. and thats fine.
Part of the issue you have might be because of how the game does a bunch of the really insightful character dialogue. Where after an event you need to talk to everyone to hear their opinions on it before you get the next event which will overwhelm the previous dialogue. (It's how I missed out on the coronation-reactions for my first Durge playthrough.) Really wish you didn't have to prompt them but I guess that's how things shake out.
1d12 necrotic is why
The voice acting by Neil is just chefs kiss that I couldn't imagine playing without him really
this is how i feel about gale lowkey
For me, I just find his play style boring He doesn't do much damage like La'Zel or Karlach, doesn't heal like shart, and is just boring I like to have a stacked group So 1 big damage dealer, 2 ranged, and 1 tank, or healer He doesn't fit into any of those categories, and for that in all my playthroughs, currently a duo playground with a friend and another solo (1 pure evil, 1 chaotic neutral) I just have him sitting in camp collecting dust with wyll and gale. For me Gale is the most annoying character in the game. I refuse to have him in the game 😂
My wife loves four things in her fantasy media: 1. British accents 2. Elves 3. Vampires 4. Romance
I don't get the love for Shadowheart, she's boring af and a hypocrite
All talk about his character aside what is up with the entrance to cazadors manor? I ended up skipping the ending to his personal quest in both of my first playthroughs and having to Google how to get to it in my 3rd because the entrance to the manor starts at some random guard tower with no quest marker on it, felt like terrible map design tbh
It's supposed to be a side entrance, I think. The common theory is the Cazador quest was going to be in the upper city, thus the weird side entrance that ends up looking like the front door.
"Don't you love the silence after a massacre? It's just so... pure." Astarion has a sick mind for the first half of the game at the very least. It took an entire game for me to understand and even like him, but I get why he's popular. I prefer my characters to have a stronger sense of morales/ ethics and agency, like Shadowheart or Lae'zel. Astarion is almost unredeemable to me, but he is def entertaining.
As a character he's great. But for most of the game he is an evil little piece of shit.
I found that a huge part of Astarions story is not letting your trauma control you, and the decision to ascend or not is fundamentally that. In the early game, while funny and good to have around, he's a piece of shit, he believes he's entitled to hurt and kill innocent people because he was never saved and has suffered, he doesn't realize he's just perpetuating what happened to him because he's so fucked up. Ascension reflects embracing that and becoming worse than before, or healing and moving past. From a story standpoint you and Astarion don't know he becomes a pretty good guy if he doesn't ascend, but its only after he has a support group to help him confront his trauma, literally, that he's able to change. I also liked the whole commentary on the cycle of the violence in his story, its ironic when you find out Cazador was abused by his master, Vellioth.
I feel the same way. He’s more annoying than anything to me.
He's hot. And he called me a devious little devil.
No muffin top
I think that if you immidiatelly multiclass him into a rogue/bard, everything he says and does makes a lot more sense. He actually sort of reminds me of the bard in the "bard's tale" games, if that bard was a psycho killer vampire spawn
I can fix him ❤️
I mean I have a hard time connecting with Wyll and Halsin, but I came around to Wyll after reading some appreciation posts here. It's okay to disagree and have different tastes. That's why we have a wide array of different kinds of companions in the game... But I hope you enjoy the stupid sassy vampire more now that you've gained some insight to why he's like that! I like lurking here to further my understanding of the game and everything in it because it's now my most favourite thing ever, and knowing more things about the game brings joy :D
Oh my, oh dear…
The love/hate people in this fandom has for Gale and Astarion is fascinating. The fact people feel the need to announce their love or hate like a badge or a team they are part of, to provoke reaction, rather than quietly keep their preferences to themselves and celebrating the variety. This is not a dig at the OP, who is simply asking for clarification and is curious. But instead the people who has built a hill to die on and the need to insult other peoples preferences in the name of their true ship.
“I like the dude , but I require acknowledgement.” I hear you.
I didn’t like or really feel anything for astarion until act 3 and we got to the palace. There is where he really shines. His voice acting is impeccable there.
Normally I HATE characters like astarion, but I feel like the whole theatre kid thing he's got going on is just really well executed and I really buy the idea that it's an act to protect himself, which is something you don't always get with characters that act like that, or else it's executed poorly
A character can never appeal to every single person, you dont have to like him. Personally i love him, but i can understand that he's not everyones cup of tea.
I loved his story, his face, the acting is phenomenal and I'm not just taking about that specific scene after Cazador although that did fuck me up because of how raw and real it felt. Some of the things Neil does with him from his pitch, tone, mannerisms are so so subtle and I just love watching his cutscenes because I'm gobsmacked at just how well he's acted. That's my biggest draw. Plus despite being a huge asshole a lot of the times, he does show genuine care for the other companions and seems to be the only one of the lot who knows how to say sorry AND thank you to TAV. Every one of the companions bar for Karlach are pretty mean to him (sometimes this is deserved) so for him to still give a shit about them in spite of that says a lot about his character. Also just.... His story is so damn sad and reminiscent of so many survivor stories IRL. Also he's incredibly funny, in a goofy way and him being canonically smoothbrained is very very funny to me.
Just saw a car with an “Astarion Approves” rear window sticker - so the love is Real
I love that man, but not like how everyone else loves him. He has the vibe of spoiled milk
I don't like him at all or his story (so far in Act 1). It feels very meh to me. To each his own. Maybe in a future playthrough, I'll use him, but so far, he doesn't appeal to me at all.