#i will honestly never stop being bitter about astarion's story going from something mature and impactful to a wattpad fanfic

[maleficore]

SPOILERS but...

There's two things I keep noticing in my playthroughs that would have so much of a bigger impact if the game gave them a bit more time to marinate. Killing Alfira and Astarion's ascension.

You're pretty much guaranteed to murder Alfira before the tiefling party and she's REALLY easy to miss at the grove if you don't know where to look for her and are not the "I must explore every nook and cranny" type of player so her death is just shocking, the element of "Fuck, I really cared about that character" missing. But what if she really stayed at your camp for a few long rests? What if you could chat with her, get to know her a bit more? And only THEN do you wake up covered in blood with her gutted body at your feet. It would mean a lot more story-wise too, make Sceleritas' threats of "You don't want a repeat of what happened with the bard, right?" more impactful. Because in-game right now she was simply a temporary stowaway and Durge can rationalise "well I would never hurt my friends", lulling themself into a false sense of security and an illusion of being in control. With Alfira being able to become their friend before they kill her, the stakes suddenly become much higher. I honestly would have had my heart in my throat every time I made the party long rest when playing good Durge after something like that, just WAITING for something bad to happen. It would make Alfira's death more of an omen than simply just a reveal that there's something seriously wrong with the character you're playing as.

(I'm overall team "there should've been more Urge saving throws/unavoidable bloodshed, but that's just me. You can't deny it feels a bit too easy to be good, though. Right?)

With Astarion's ascension I really did not like how he IMMEDIATELY switches once the ritual is finished. How there are red flags all over from the second he speaks to you for the first time. Magical means or not, people don't work like that. He's too fucking obvious with it to me. From the start you know EXACTLY what you're getting into if you stay with him and I think a more compelling and narratively sound way of going about it would be to not have it be so instantaneous. Astarion did not know what he was getting into when he accepted Cazador's offer, you not knowing either and being convinced that everything he's doing is really out of love not whatever the hell that whole situationship becomes in canon, would really make the circle of abuse theme shine. Have him seem genuine, don't have him press so hard. If his words did not have "I WANT TO OWN YOU" written all over them and his angle was instead not wanting to lose Tav/Durge to their mortality, it would be so much sane to accept the offer, only to have it later become obvious that it was a mistake. And I know that's not the angle the writer was going for, only the "good" ending deserves to tackle heavy themes, ascended ending is for the loveless vampire fetishists, but I still mourn what could have been if they kept with the themes of Astarion's story better, let it play out more instead of the ritual and long rest cutscene being basically the end of it.