#but ascended astarion is haggard to me no one can convince me otherwise

[bardandbear]

So I think The Last Unicorn is a veritable buffet of Baldur's Gate comparisons for Astarion (Where were you when I was new? / But I do, I regret) but one I haven't seen considered is the parallels between Ascended Astarion and King Haggard.

“All things die when I pick them up. I do not know why they die, but it always have been so, save for the one dear possession that has not turned cold and dull as I guarded it — the only thing that has ever belonged to me.”

Consider a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, what he will become when the wounds aren't fresh enough to sting. A bitter old man collecting thralls just to look at them, to have them, to own them, slowly becoming more isolated and hiding away in the darkest corners of his palace as he realises nothing makes him happy, not even sunlight. Quietly becoming resigned to it all, waiting for his castle to crumble around him and fall into the sea.