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morgana-ren · 9 months

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Hi Morgana :)) hope you're having a good day. So I stumbled upon this video and the discourse in the comments https://youtube.com/shorts/cbtSWTjXvZQ?si=8g19VZHJUNI-5niU

And quite frankly got curious as I didn't get to play much of an early access Astarion but I do remember how his attitude at the tiefling/goblin party seems a lil different from early access to launch as well as his noble to charlatan change. So I thought that I could ask the Lore Mommy do you think he was changed that much and or how these changes shifted your perspective on his character. Because personally I do view him as a decadent and somewhat hedonistic as Ascended and those traits do show in his Spawn persona as well.

So just curious about your thoughts on this:))

Okay, I ended up fucking rambling and getting off topic here. This is too long for comfort. I'm sorry I just ended up blabbing, I swear that wasn't the intention lmao. I ended up looking into the comments at aforementioned discourse and it just reminded me of shit, so please forgive me. I tend to r a m b l e with a fuckin capital R. I'm talking in a more general sense and not at anyone in particular, most especially not you, so please don't think that. It's just my observations at large. I love questions like this and I hope this doesn't make you roll your eyes.

So, I got the EA version of the game when it was still fairly early. It was Patch 2, if I recall. It was interesting watching the group develop and grow as the writers and developers decided some things fit more than others because sometimes the patches were so drastically different than the last. Wyll actually got an entire rewrite between the EA and the full release. All of the characters we had went through changes (except Karlach and Halsin because they weren't there but they were likely tweaked behind the scenes.) A lot of Astarion's concept was already written, but his character was absolutely tweaked. The art book and a lot of the released designs are very early. We had them as of patch 2 where he was drastically different. In the beginning, they very much were going more for the stereotypical 'evil' follower. You could play as a good character and he would still like you, but he was very much geared for more debauchery-based playthroughs. It's also important to note that we really didn't get to demo everything. We only got the first act, and some of the more shallow aspects of it.

The thing about Baldur's Gate 3 is it is written so well because no character is good or evil. They are rounded, genuine characters with stories and lives and opinions of their own. You can dislike them, but you have to acknowledge they aren't written to be banal stereotypes. Astarion was a bit more of an evil clusterfuck in EA, but even then, there was a deep pain inside of him, and he was using his callousness and lack of giving a shit as a defense. Even then you knew something was very wrong. He mentioned Cazador because you ran into the Gur hunter, and you knew he was kept as a spawn against his will and was tortureda and had a very dubious past, but a lot of the character development wasn't in the EA-- because they didn't originally intend for it to be there.

But that doesn't fully change his character like some of the comments and other videos and posts I see seem to suggest. It seems like a lot of people have an egregious misunderstanding of his arc-- especially on tiktok and youtube shorts where the audience is younger and more prone to projection and group-thinking, echo-chambery line of thought.

Here's the rundown from what I remember deducing with EA combined with my personal playthroughs now that the game has released:

Astarion was absolutely a shithead before he was taken and turned. We don't know about his childhood, mostly because he doesn't know or remember, but I can say with certainty that he didn't become a dickhead after Cazador. Being taken made him worse, but he absolutely was an asshole before he was taken. He probably wasn't the traumatized, terrified young man he is now, but he was probably a real shit-kicker. He was on the winding path to darkness and they make this clear.

(His childhood was not touched on in the EA at all. All you knew is magistrate, vampire, gur killed him, Cazador, slave, and his dickish, libertine attitude.)

He is a noble though. This much we knew. He is privileged. Elite. He took without caring and doled out where he saw fit. He was your stereotypical rich boy-- or that's the vibe he gives off. He doesn't give off 'I earned my way into power' like Gortash does. He gives off 'I was born into privilege and I'm making it everyone else's problem.' He's educated and very savvy with language in a way that those of higher education access learn to be. He is well spoken and snubs his nose at 'lessers' in a way you see the wealthy do so casually. He was likely living a life of luxury and emerging into his own life in an Elon Musk-esque sort of evil powergrab. He might've always been a pesky little troublemaker, but he very much has 'I'm rich and I don't care about you' vibes, even beneath all of the trauma. This did not develop from Cazador. This was preexisting.

He was young. He was impulsive and dumb. He never had a chance to emotionally mature. It's entirely possible that, had he been left alone, he might've blossomed into a better person. But do not be mistaken, he was a bad person. Honestly, it's more possible to me that he would have just become another corrupt patriar with the city in his coin purse. Either way, fate played him a different hand than the one his birth had decided on.

You are told that he is a magistrate back in the city, which is true. When you play his origin story, you get options relating to it and it's actually been referred to a lot since the EA. He absolutely was some form of up and rising politician seeking power. A man with high ideas of himself, libertine proclivities, a self-centered attitude, and very much not a good person. Probably not horrible or sadistic for fun to the degree he is now, but definitely spiraling that way with the path he was on. The seeds had been planted already before any of his trauma happened.

I assume he wasn't quite important enough that his death would cause an uproar, but probably an impudent little upstart with his eyes on high political power just getting his bearings in the political world with help from mommy and daddy. The kind of petty asshole who abuses any authority he gets and doesn't care who or what gets in his way because he has some shit to prove and a life to live, everyone else be damned. That kind of person. He had ideas and ambitions, and is probably very open to corruption from the get-go. The kind of politician that dies in the street and people go "Hmm. Shame." and move on because they weren't anything special or grand. Just another corrupt asshole getting what they deserved. Another rich daddy's boy brought to the knife by the populace.

He was mourned. Someone missed him. But it wasn't the people of Baldur's Gate. That's for sure. He was forgotten before he became a true problem. Killed and stemmed. Just. Another. Cruel politician. Just another bastard with a big head. Just another.

In short, he definitely made some enemies and had drawn the wrong sort of attention during his time as a magistrate. Being the peacocking, lovely, arrogant young man he is, I bet he'd managed to make more people unbelievably pissed off than any sort of admiration, which normally for the rich isn't a problem, but... when it is, it really is, as you can see.

Even in the EA, he is very open with you tells you that the Gur, likely unhappy with a recent ruling he made, jumped him and murdered him in the street and you can let him kill the hunter. Thing is, Gur are not a violent people. If they attacked him like that, he did something to warrant it. It had to have been pretty nasty for it to have that consequence. The main difference is in the EA (later, of course, but still) you can find out that it was not Cazador that sent the Gur hunter. In fact, it was someone different entirely. I think it was someone named Maiden Fel or something. I do not remember. They likely switched it up. It was not the Gur looking of their own volition originally, but neither was it Cazador. But the EA was also slightly disjointed and broken so it's hard to tell what was canon at the time.

Astarion, in his shitty early days, isn't shy about his slight racism. He seems to dislike everything that isn't human or elven. It's entirely possible he had racial/cultural biases against the Gur and ended up pulling a ruling that was extremely unfair. It would be fair for them to seek retaliation.

This is never officially elaborated on as far as I know, but I do honestly believe that Cazador was almost more coincidence than anything. He saw a young, beautiful boy and went "Hmm... useful." He smelled blood in the water and saw someone that wouldn't be missed and offered them eternal life, knowing this silver-haired young man would be foolish enough to grasp it. He probably reeked of privilege. He would take it with open arms and without asking why or what for because that is what he was used to. Privileged people do not ask. They take. Cazador knew this.

(The point of me running through his past is to point out that not everything can be blamed on his trauma. He was at least kind of a bastard before this ever happened. And both EA and release have the similar trauma background almost identically.)

As we know, Astarion died that night. In the street. In a puddle of his own blood. He was scraped off the cobblestone and thrown into the cemetary, where he emerged the next night to his new life-- to Cazador. He didn't die. Astarion the Magistrate died. But Astarion, the stuck up, pompous, selfish asshole very much did not. In fact, that very same noble was forced to swallow a taste of his own medicine-- and it was a bitter fucking pill.

It made him worse. Trauma doesn't always make you soft and sweet. Sometimes, trauma makes you hard and cruel and angry and spiteful. Sometimes it doesn't make you apologetic; it makes you venomous. It makes you a spitting cobra rather than a loyal, empathetic puppy.

(Notice all I say about projection) Honestly, for me, it's nice to see that representation. Because my trama did not make me kind. It made me hurt. And it made me angry. And it twisted my mind into ways of thinking that I do not like. And you almost never see that. You see a lot of people who are kind and soft and gentle, but you don't often see those of us that were ripped apart and never managed to sew back together right. We do not bend and break our back and twist our tongues for others. Sometimes we are hurtful and mean and things that people paint as evil. Sometimes you grow claws rather than thick skin. Sometimes you grow fangs rather than a bigger heart.

So, more in line with the actual question, they very much did change up his arc. He was meant to be much more manipulative and shitty. It was datamined in the original script, I believe. That much was confirmed way earlier in the early access. But more or less, they went 'Hey, maybe we shouldn't write such a vapid dumbass character because it doesn't fit with the theme of 'complexity' we're working with here. Maybe we should make him more rounded. Maybe we should make him a person.' His story had been mostly mapped, but his character hadn't quite yet. And I'm glad they did.

Having him be a vacuous, shitty stereotype would have been a massive disappointment, especially in a game that is so deep.

Here's the bit though:

It is a CONSTANT throughout the game, EA and release; Astarion very much is an asshole. He is throughout the entire game. He can get better, but he's a dick. No two ways around it. His trauma didn't make him terrible, he very much already was a selfish person who ended up getting stunted. He learned to lie and manipulate to survive, but he wasn't a sweet boy when this happened to him. He was a 'bad' person who had something horrible happen to him that opened up his body and made him defensive and cruel, because he believes the world is cruel and indifferent to suffering, which goes in line with his earlier pre-kidnap thinking of 'Who cares?' It made him bitter for sure, but he already had those ways of thinking. He didn't care who he hurt. He didn't care about anyone. That's the entire bit with 'libertines' and the elite. He was already bad; it made him worse.

He was a fucking jackass. But notice I don't say evil.

He is not a character that empathizes or sympathizes well. He doesn't care what others are going through unless you teach him to, and even then, he is still learning. He is capable of trying if you steer him there. But in general? He rejoices in cruelty, being a general nuisance, being selfish, being power hungry, and being self serving. These are not solely trauma traits. These are not all defense mechanisms, though they can be. Astarion is a rounded character that is complex but right now is not the stereotypical 'uwu sad baby' shit that people love to do to him either. They made him relatable. Gave him tragedy. And people love to latch on to that to paint us as these pathetic babies incapable of our own thoughts who need to be coddled and babied and defended.

From EA, they made him more rounded. They made him less cartoonishly gimmicky. He's still a very selfish jerkoff, but he is scared, and vulnerable, and they made a point to emphasize that. He is not just evil hot vampire. He is scared, vulnerable, rude, pompous, arrogant, selfish, terrified, traumatized, angry, subdued--

and the list goes on. He is a person. He is a relatable person. But these traits he respects in the beginning? Selfishness? Greed? Self-serving? These are traits he admired before that were amplified by his trauma. These are traits that we condemn as a human race, but we still hone and harbor. These are things we have and we see and we experience day to day.

And that is why it is so easy to judge him and condemn him and try to paint him in black or white and call him banal morality labels like 'good' or 'evil.' It's part of why we have these arguments over his EA versus now. Because you see these good/bad things and immediately need to justify your love or hatred for him and defend or condemn him because you hear them and go "No! Wrong! I know he's selfish but he's not evil and--" and all of those other posts we love. People struggle with nuance. That is why it is so easy for people to make these videos defending their views. They grab keywords and examples and go "See!" and show little tiny snippets instead of an entire person. Hell, we do it in real life too. We point out one facet of someone's life and judge and condemn them based upon it. With Astarion, we see so much more, but even then, people still struggle.

People have real experiences with these values. People have personal feelings and judgments based on those things. They feel a need to analyze it, but most people do not know how. They cannot say "No, I just don't like him" or "Yeah, I enjoy him" and leave it at that. Similar to how I'm ripping this open right now. And I'm not condemning anyone. Clearly I'm going on a tangent right now over it. It's fun to do. But people feel like it's necessary. Like they have to.

In those comments, someone points out that media literacy is dead, and I'm inclined to agree. Everything is black and white and must be tucked into neat little boxes that are easy for people to digest. A bad character is a bad mean evil irredeemable character. A good character is a good character that behaves good and does things we expect from good people. Humans are no longer humans. They are not complex. They are not nuanced. They are one dimensional creatures to be judged and executed. That is why people struggle so hard with games this well written. Because it is not that simple. It is not in real life and it is not in the game.

Also in the comments here, it seems like everyone is arguing over a nonissue. It seems to stem from the fact that there's a lot of discourse over liking a bad character. People feel like his newer design is 'justified' and even though he is 'a jerk,' he is not 'irredeemable.' The entire thing is asinine.

No one deserves redemption. That is the fucking point of redemption. That is the entire whole ass point. Someone who does not deserve it working to redeem themselves. If you deserve redemption, you don't need it. If you need it, you do not deserve it. People forget that.

I see this a lot. People demonizing others who enjoy complex or more nuanced characters that are not wholly good. People saying characters are irredeemable and terrible and if you like them, you're a bad person. If you like villains, you clearly relate and you're a bad person. If you like this person, you're just like them and must be condoning their actions.

It's so fucking stupid. I see it with books too. People jump on protagonists because they think the term 'protagonist' means hero, and people conflate the two. I could go on a whole (new) tangent about this, but the point is people are incapable of processing that now, because we've really muddied the waters with morality and we use shame rather than critical thinking. We operate off of gut instincts like 'disgust' and 'hatred' and instead of thinking about shit, we just shove it away and condemn, condemn, condemn.

A natural consequence of this is people jump like dogs to twist that character they love or hate into a victim or something beyond their actual story. They will jump through hoops. They will do whatever it takes to avoid the stigma of being a 'bad person' in the eyes of some internet tiktok teen with a billion followers or some tumblr mom because they have been raised to believe that makes them a bad person and they will deserve the ostrasizing they get. They will be bullied and driven from the internet and sent anons until they go into fucking hiding. It's not okay to just enjoy something anymore. You have to justify it to some asshole. You have to break it open and twist it and defend it or burn it. You can't just exist.

People project. And holy fuck, have they projected on Astarion. It's another natural consequence of having such an incredible, well written character. People see themselves in him. In fact, people see themselves in him so much that they inadvertently take away his agency again in an ironic twist because people with similar feelings or experiences feel like they 'get' him better and therefore have more say over a fictional character than the character himself, the person who wrote him and the man who brought him to life.

My point with all of this nonsensical and unrelated bullshit rambling is that I loved Astarion in the EA and I love him more now. I would have loved him if they left him 'evil' but kept him rounded. His ascended ending is him falling deeply into his worst instincts for control coupled with his entitlement and need for safety. His spawn ending is him relenting and accepting and trying to be better within reason. He will always be Astarion. But he can make efforts to be better-- or worse. But he is always Astarion, and Astarion is decadent, and a bit of a jerk, and a stuffy noble elite with standards. He will always be like that. He will always be Astarion. He probably does better there with someone to babysit like Tav, but even a single spawn Astarion made great strides and effort.

I think we take that for granted a lot. We get people all up in their feelings and lashing out at people who like one ending or the other. We have people calling other people horrible people for trusting Astarion in the end of his spawn ending instead of coddling him and taking his fuckin' free will away again. We have people throwing food like kids in a cafeteria and it feels like no one slows the fuck down and wonders why they feel that way.

I like Astarion because he's an incredible character. I like him more in the release because he's more developed. He feels real. He feels like me. (See, projection.) I get it. People are not always pure good or pure evil. These are words we made up because we're an idiot little species that needs to categorize, same as why we name shapes and traits. But I liked him evil too. I just liked him. He just interested me. I always liked him.

He feels better in the release. More fleshed out. Less foreboding and more understandable. He's not Viconia from BG2 who is basically just there to be an evil temptress for 'hehe evil' characters. But guess what? It's totally fine if you wanna engage with him that way! If you don't like him, or you don't want to bother with making him better, you don't have to. If that's all you want to do, then hell yeah, baby.

At the end of the day, he is a model we can use to dissect ourselves. He can help us understand how we view complex issues. But it gets frustrating when people highjack it with an absolutely egregious misunderstanding of the story. Like things are so simple, you know?

In the EA, he was cool. He was really cool. But we didn't know much about him other than 'hehe evil.' We didn't know much about anything, and man, did we like to theorize. I can remember doing it years and years ago before the fuckin' game came out. But ultimately, it was always a projection of ourselves. What we wanted. What we saw.

They made him a more fleshed out being. They filled in the blanks. He is an arrogant fucking asshole, and he is rude, and entitled, and pompous, and cruel, and self serving and greedy and all of that 'evil' shit, but he is also human. He is capable of deep and profound love. He is capable of caring. He is capable of so much. He can be selfless and loving and caring and gentle. He can be genuine and honest. These traits do not define him unless he chooses to cling to them-- and he only does if he does not learn. And when he doesn't learn? He loses himself and fills his destiny of being the wretched, terrible perpetuator of abuse both on the populace and you. And that was the point. That happens when you lose yourself and give in to fear. It can happen to all of us. And sometimes it does.

But it really also isn't that deep, in the same breath. If you like the ascended ending which is a bit more in line with his original origins, so what? It's a cool ending. It's neato. It still has a clear and blatant message, but it's a fucking video game. Do what you like. If you think it's hot? So what? If you just enjoy the goddamned doomed narrative? So?

Not everything has to be a trial of who you are as a person. Not everything is that deep. Sometimes the answer is as simple as 'shit is cool' and it ends there. If other people look deeper into it, that sounds like a 'them' problem. That's their need to justify. That's their desire. Both EA and release are fantastic. Some folks have preferences. I liked both.

He's my boy. I love him for who he is and what he has done for me. And I'm grateful I got to see his development. I'm grateful I get a well written story with incredible characters. If people think he's wholly evil or good, that's their sack of beans, my dude.

#morgana and friends #astarion spoilers #holy fuck I really just sat here and wailed forever huh #I do not expect anyone to read all of this #I think it's my way of compounding my thoughts #nothing is ever simple with me eh

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