#save vanra

[good-grade-in-cleric]

Can't decide if the little girl i just saved is being rude or funny by running away from me without so much as a goodbye and into a field of active landmines (she died, but she got better)

[a2zillustration]

I kind of stumbled my way through this one and missed a LOT of the exposition, but it's fine because at the end of the day everyone was saved! I think!

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[papastarion]

Listen, listen, listen, as a Dadstarion/dhampir enthusiast, I’m all for all these fics where there’s some sort of attack or scare, whether Durge/Tav and Astarion are aware of the baby yet or not. Love it. That’s the best kind of angst. It’s my bread and butter. It’s absolutely planned out in my own fic.

But you know who I haven’t seen mentioned or used yet?

Auntie Ethel.

[druidgroves]

the idea of auntie ethel being Aware of feron is interesting bc like. ethel knows other hags. maybe she knew margaery since she was only a little further down the chionthar. maybe when feron gets to fight her she says "i had a feeling you were margaery's mutt when we first met. still biting the hand that feeds you, eh?" & feron goes. well. feral.

[thechaoticdruid]

I don't know why whether Astarion does or doesn't want kids is such a hot debate. I feel like he could go either way to be honest. Imma be honest as someone who isn't eager to have kids irl I think some of y'all are projecting yourselves onto Astarion when you say he wouldn't want them.

If you pay attention to him carefully in game it's pretty clear he just pretends to hate kids. (Likely as an unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with the fact that he was forced to kidnap the gur children)

You know like how he pretends to hate Scratch, how he pretends to hate kind people, how he pretends he doesn't care about anyone, need I say more?

You know the man bullshits half the time right?

Man is legit concerned if Yenna is kidnapped by Orin, approves of giving her food or money, and approves of saving Vanra from Ethel before killing the hag.

My own personal headcanon is that if Tav (or whoever he's romanced by) wants kids, then Astarion will probably warm up to the idea and if Tav doesn't then Astarion is perfectly happy being child free.

Whether or not he'd be a good dad is a whole different ball game entirely. I personally think he would be far from perfect, (likely he would have no fucking idea what he was doing most of the time) but he'd care about his kid. I honestly get a little pissed off when people say he would be a deadbeat dad, because unless we're talking about the ascendant version of him that is so not true.

I can however definitely see him raising a spoiled rotten entitled brat who gets away with murder though. But him not being interested in his kid whatsoever does not feel right to me.

Basically I'm just saying let people enjoy their little dhampir baby fantasies godsdamnit.

If you don't want kids it's perfectly valid. You do you honey! Enjoy all that extra child-free cash you're gonna have! Take a vacation, travel, buy all shit you want! Enjoy your freedom!

I really don't like the idea of being responsible for children irl personally but the idea of having a sweet dhamphir daughter with long bouncy white curls just makes me feel all fuzzy inside.

[syn0vial]

thinking this morning about how much astarion changes from act I even without the direct influence of the player. like, even if you play the most apathetic or evil tav, astarion still does seem to become less callous and cruel over time? for example, in act I, when you encounter the adventurer liam being tortured in the goblin camp, you gain quite a bit of approval from astarion for refusing to free him and instead continuing to torture him yourself. but even already by act II, when you find another stranger being tortured—the patient in malus thorm's operating room—astarion is disgusted and angry at his torturer, comparing him to cazador, and will approve of you intervening.

or, how in act I, astarion will approve of you letting arabella die and disapprove of helping her (lbr, in act I he disapproves of you helping pretty much anyone). but by act III, when you meet yenna, another child in distress, he approves of helping her the second you meet her and urges you to save her if she's kidnapped by orin. similarly in act III, he'll approve of taking action to save vanra after she's devoured by the hag and even of comforting her afterwards.

it makes me think of neil newbon's quote about astarion—how, while he's knowingly immoral and manipulative, he's also very willing to being moved by new people and experiences. like, i'm definitely not someone who buys that astarion is a naturally good person under all the trauma—everything we know about is past suggests he was a shit person before the trauma, too—but i also wonder if that susceptibility to being moved and changed by new people and experiences is what we're seeing with the changes in his approval.

like, in act I, he's just spent the past 200 years—the majority-to-vast-majority of his life, depending on if you accept the dates on his tombstone—surrounded by evil and cruelty of every kind, so naturally he approves of what he knows. but as the game goes on and he spends more time with people who aren't part of that environment (not just tav but the other companions as well!) and experiences things that aren't unrelenting abuse and pain, we start to see these shifts in his thinking where he's like, huh, maybe life doesn't have to be a never-ending parade of torture and callousness and exploitation. maybe other options are possible. maybe some of them are even worth it in the end.

i just kind of love that even irrespective of tav's decisions, if you pay attention, you can kind of notice astarion going through a miniature character arc in the background of the game. maybe you still play a major role in deciding the outcome of the most significant moment of that arc (the ritual), but even before that, astarion is already experiencing his own shifts and realizations.

[aelizel]

ways my playthrough has promoted the dadstarion agenda to me so far:

when we reunited with Arabella he was acting like her biggest fan, pointing and giddily going "Look! It's our little idol thief from the grove!"

approved of my tav pursuing Auntie Ethel to save Vanra

before the fight in the hag's lair, he's the one who yelled at everyone to be careful, because if we killed Ethel we'd kill the child too

when the cutscene triggered, he's the one who cut Vanra free

like.. it's happening. he's healing, his heart's growing three sizes

[hijackalx]

so i see a lot of speculation on here about what exactly drives astarion to do some of the evil shit that he does. here are some Thoughts i have without straying too far into headcanon territory (to the best of my ability)

firstly, bg3 is a dnd game. it has the wizards of the coast seal of approval. so i think it’s safe to assume that the alignments of these characters went into consideration when creating them.

it recently came out that astarion is a neutral evil character on the idle champions website. so basically, that gives us some insight to his world views and goals.

What does it mean to be Neutral Evil?

some notes:

basically, a neutral evil character has an ‘eat-or-be-eaten’ view of society. the weak yield to the strong, and weak leaders should always be usurped by someone stronger.

they also have very little compassion and empathy for anyone else, and believe that committing acts of ‘good’ are pointless if it does not benefit themselves in some way.

they crave to be the one in powerful positions, and will do almost anything to fulfill that power fantasy, but they are not ignorant. they know better than to dive headfirst into situations in which they foresee themselves getting killed or severely injured.

if we consider that this is not just how astarion views his own personal life, but how he believes the world works (e.g, when he tells a ‘good’ tav that they are naive to the ways of the world), it gives us some idea why he is so against helping others, which is something i often see controversy around.

he essentially admits to having the idea that most, if not all people, are self-serving (e.g, he says that he does not believe there are ‘good’ people in the world besides tav). he has the mentality that the weak should stay weak, so that they might not take advantage of a helping hand like he would. in his mind, you are helping a potential foe who would turn on you during your own time of need to advance themselves.

that being said, he does not disapprove of helping people 100% of the time. if there is something in it for him, something that will aid his survival or his quest for power, he will take it.

Ascension

(possible headcanon territory, i don’t have any in-game evidence to support this and i am merely going off of the conclusions listed above)

all of these views lead to his desires for ascension. although, once he finally reaches the top of the food chain, it’s likely he feels that he is constantly under scrutiny by those waiting for any sign of weakness to usurp him (who, based on his neutral evil beliefs, inevitably exist. he even somewhat confirms this himself through the act of taking cazador’s place). i think this ties into the comments by the writers of how ascension confirms his fears, meaning he is forever trapped in his egoist views of the world and in a constant battle to protect his status— in lieu of learning to change or embrace what he perceives as ‘weak’ through the unascended ending.

The Source of this Mentality

there are some ideas that he sees the world this way because of cazador. this may be the case— but it is worth noting that he also expressed neutral evil traits before being bitten as well (e.g, using his position of power as a magistrate in a self-serving way and expecting others to obey laws while not holding himself to the same standard), so it is not unlikely that he already had this mindset and then it was heavily enforced by cazador.

Character Development

of course, as the game goes on, he seems to gradually loosen up on what he approves of vs doesn’t. he has occasional slip-ups with things he should consider ‘weak’— one of the most prevalent cases of this being his attitude towards children, who are, ironically, the purest example of the weak and needy (e.g, he approves of you playing with oliver [as long as you win], saving vanra from auntie ethel/comforting her after, feeding/giving gold to yenna, and helping mol win the chess game).

(possible headcanon territory) considering that he does not see children as a threat, he may not have the same worries in regards to helping them, if we circle back to the fear of aiding those who will eventually turn against him.

In Conclusion

he’s not a perfect neutral evil character (it would be incredibly restrictive if he was), but his writing does seem to refer to many of these guidelines, and i think it’s a helpful tool in better understanding him.

that’s all for now.

[wufflesvetinari]

man astarion goes so hard in the paint for vanra in act 3. multiple approvals in this one little side quest for saving and/or comforting her! he yells about making sure we don’t hurt her during combat!

he’s for sure projecting his own abduction/siring onto vanra’s potential transformation into a hag, as we see him do elsewhere in the game…but i can’t think of other examples where the victim he approves of saving is a helpless kid. astarion easily identifies with abused monsters. he has not, to my recollection, previously identified with innocent children

this feels like a deliberate act 3 writing choice…like it feels like an Astarion Projection Moment (tm) that would only work in act 3, when he’s had time to work through the idea that he is a person. it’s one thing to see yourself in a mind-mushed gnoll. it’s another thing to see yourself in someone who didn’t deserve any of this

[write-and-wander]

playing BG3 well past my bedtime (as per usual) and I'm freshly in act 3 and I finished off the hag fight

while we were going through the quest line, when I agreed to save Vanra, Astarion approved.

and.

I don't think I've noticed that before?? bc it Got Me.

& then when we started the fight he even warns about killing the hag bc it would kill the child

Like in comparison to Arabella in the grove? What a change. Gah I love him !!!!! I forget how in-depth the character development is in this game and every time I play it I notice something new that has me taking off my headphones and going

I love these pixel people so badly agghhhhh

[blackjackkent]

I guess we should probably go make sure Vanra got safely back to Lora, and check in with Mayrina and Adrielle.

Lora first:

"You brought her back. You brought back my sweet, sweet girl."

"The hag was my problem to deal with."

"It was everything. I'll never forget it. Here - a token from the pirate life I left behind. Thank you, for being braver than half this city put together."

Aw, look at Hec's big SMILE. <3 He loves moments like this where he really feels like he was able to help people.

Lora gave us a neat amulet that gives some wind-related spells and a shiny legendary rapier.

Vanra is basically nonverbal except for the occasional word "MOMMY" and clearly VERY shattered by the whole experience. I don't blame her. But Lora's being very sweet with her, and hopefully she'll be all right in time.

-----

Mayrina's pretty happy about things too.

"She's dead, isn't she? Ethel is dead."

"How did you know?"

"I felt it, I think. It was like a piece of glass had been lodged in my chest and was finally pulled free. And the girl? You saved her, right?"

"Yes, she's traumatized but alive."

"Thank the gods. Ah... they say revenge doesn't fix anything, but damn, does it feel amazing. Thank you."

"It didn't feel so amazing when she was vomiting up a child."

(A/N: This is a bit of a weird line for Hector but the only other available one that didn't involve demanding money was "Killing her felt even better," which was even less Hectorish. XD )

"A living child. That's what matters. Here, call this a small thank you. I look forward to finally being able to sleep with both eyes shut."

She gave us another nice amulet and Hector did another big smile.

We can also overhear her talking to her unborn child as we walk away (which I guess cements the distance between Act 1 and Act 3 as at least less than nine months.)

"You'll be born any day now. I can't wait to meet you. I think I've decided on your name too. It's after the hero who saved us. You're gonna love it."

-----

Karlach nudges Hector gently in the side and smiles. "Hear that, Hec?" she murmurs near his ear. "She's gonna name the kid after you."

He grins sheepishly. "Normally I've said I'm not much interested in being memorialized. But... I think I'll make an exception in this case."

-----

Adrielle is not as effusive, nor as joyous. But she looks at Hector with steady eyes and a straight back.

"Should you ever have need of a cleric of Helm, I shall be there - you have my word."

She's the best. I hope this means she'll help us fight the brain.

[lunian]

Hello! For the Tav ask game :) ... and uhhh, I know I picked a LOT so you don't have to answer them all if you don't want to. Number 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 16, 17, 40, 52, and 68. :)

Thought for a while about some asks before answering ooopss

1. Why did you pick the race you did for your Tav?

I already considered to make an elf as first character and uhhhh green skin color looked cool with scales of draconic bloodline so wood elf it is

2. Why did you pick the class you did for your Tav?

Scales are cool.. Plus tough skin, its a nice bonus for beginning with low HP, as i assumed with zero dnd experience lol, so Sorcerer of Draconic Bloodline it is. Choosing a spellcasting class in general was too intriguing. No regrets.

10. If your Tav didn’t become an adventurer, what else would they be doing?

They already were a practicing teacher/mentor for litol chaotic sorcerers, living pretty peacefully in Baldur's Gate, as a noble academic. Zen definetely didnt really complain about their life but it definetely lacked... a bit of spice of danger in their days, you know :)

16, 17 are already answered

40. What is the biggest mistake your Tav ever made?

Zen hated they couldnt do anything to save Vanra (in act 3). Children is like their weakest point.

52. What is your Tav’s worst fear?

Zen was sure they didnt have one until they were too close to Sussur flower.. :)

68. How does your Tav get along with each party member?

As someone from noble society (too many lame parties and tea meetings with the most annoying mages of Sword Coast) and big skills in charisma, they weren't struggling much to get along with anyone, understanding people's interests and priorities. They were willing to help companions, after all Zen was interested to have as many allies as possible. Astarion and Lae'zel definitely were more tough crowd to get along with but... sure some nights of passion is a proof their companionship was successful.

[electricaquarius]

so i recently did the Save Vanra quest and honestly from the moment i spoke to Captain Grizzly i was so taken in by her lmaoooo. currently trying to work on a fic which works on that and expands my tav's backstory a bit, i won't bother asking if you guys want to see it since it seems like there's always someone interested in reading my shit. love you guys <3

[killerpancakeburger]

!!! In the Save Vanra+Avenge the hag survivors quests, when you confront Auntie Ethel in her lair, the companion who reminds you at the beginning of the fight, "Careful now - if she dies, she's taking the child with her.", is Astarion.

[corgiteatime]

So... Ok.

It took me until play-through #6 to find out that you don't have to use the hag's bane to save Vanra from Auntie Ethel in Act 3. Apparently, if you use non-lethal attacks on Auntie Ethel, the game just automatically decides "Yeah you're gonna cut out that child out of this evil witch" and then you continue the fight. (You have to kill off the mushrooms or else she comes back, but Vanra's safe at least, etc.)

Which I didn't know until it happened. I just simply forgot to use the hag's bane and I accidentally left on the passive nonlethal attack from dealing with her lackeys outside. I was completely surprised when this happened.

Even more surprising than my character abruptly doing a C-section mid-battle, was that I earned Astarion's approval from doing that?!

Astarion's approval, even in Act 3, can be surprising at times but now I'm in a split mind about what exactly he's approving of!

Does he approve of me saving Vanra from some non-consensual body horror modification? (Likely.) Does he approve of me freeing her in general? Off the top of my head, I can't remember if he approved of the hag's bane method in previous runs.

Or is he just so pro-abortion to the extreme? Does he approve of random C-sections in his usual "oh yay! I get to witness blood and gore!' kind of way? It could mean any of those things in this case! Like man what the hell, this scene is so buckwild and I was blindsided by it

[panigamermauser]

Astarion is so worried about Vanra💔💔💔

No worries, we are saving the girl!

(But I love how kids are his weak spot. Makes me wonder if Cazador ordered him to kidnap Gur children precisely because it would make him suffer some extra?)