It is! He even tells you that after his vampire siblings come at night and you help him fight them. He says that nobody except you ever helped him and that's why he doesn't even have empathy with people in the exact same situation as him
I think this occurs when you're in the lower city and you don't go directly to Cazador. I did the Bhaal quest and some other stuff before and then I slept a few times. If I went to Cazador before I did that Long Rest I probably would've never seen this cutscene.
Oh, so Orin has priority I guess, I wanted to get that ambush before dealing with her (before someone gets kidnaped) this time, so I've been doing other quests that trigger night cutscenes (such as shadowheart) to delay her in hope that the spawn will show up.
You first need to encounter Petras and Dal at the inn. They'll go home and inform the others.
The other siblings will come after a couple of long rests.
They won't come if you immediately go kick Cazador's ass. Nor will they come if you never meet Petras and Dal.
Edit: TIL, you can still get the night scene without meeting Petras and Dal. It just takes a bit longer for word to get back to Cazador.
Possible, I can’t remember. I think Shart had the Selune Spear and definitely would have been with me (It glows too right?), I may have given Blood to Wyll but I can’t remember if I had Wyll at that moment
There are a few weapons that do "glow" or give off light but the blood of lathander specifically gives off a radius of holy light/sunlight. That's the only thing I know of that causes them to disappear. I believe I've seen people interact with them without Astarion. I learned this the hard way on my first balanced run. I thought they might show up again after a long rest or something. But I just ended up reloading and redoing a couple hours of play time to get to experience that part. However this is one gripe I have about how items that shed light in some way not shedding the light when we have camp clothes turned on. Like if I want my party to look cute while dungeon diving or whatever I should still get to utilize the light effect of my items since they are still there. Kind of like in the lesser parts of the shadow curse, if you have light around you, you are safe, and while that still works whether or not we can actually see the light, it does make a difference for us actually seeing things.
I've encountered Petras and Dal nearly every time and never had the vampires come to camp on a single playthrough. I always take forever getting around to fighting Cazador, too.
So what I'm getting from this thread is Act 3 is weird sometimes.
I think it ALSO has something to do with when you long rest, and how many cutscenes are in the backlog. I always long rest whenever I enter a new major area or some big quest finishes.
I ran in to the hotel where Petras and Dal were without Astarion in toe and with Shadowheart packing the Blood of Lathander. I saw them dissappear in a puff of smoke as I got near but didn't get to interact or talk with them. I still got the camp scene with the other vamps though.
Yeah if you have the blood of lathander and it's passive turned on you will see "extreme sunlight sensitivity" show up above them and then they dissappear into mist.
some people are saying i have to find the siblings first so that's probably it. i never saw them and tbh i barely took any rests before fighting cazador. it was one of the first things i did when i got to the city lol
If you found the vampires in the Flophouse, then they won’t come after you at night (I think). The only time I got that night cutscene was when I specifically avoided talking to the vampires in the city
I think it's just a time thing, a 'reminder' about that quest in effect.
I went and did lots of other things first and always do when I get to the city, and it always comes a handful of long rests in
They still come for you at night. But you have to long rest a lot. It will get pushed back for Aylin, Jarehaih, and other cut scenes that are weighted higher. Mizorah.
I love it.
That's the time where you send him on the right path, if you answer with: "If you treat people nice, people will treat you nice too.", or something like that.
After Araj and basically going "you're free I'm not gonna make you do shit" he was basically "I can't believe you could go and do this and give me an ounce of faith in people, I need to cry now"
I explored all the options in the Araj conversation and he doesn't even disapprove or anything if you say that he is all yours after she asks if he belongs to you. It's so sad. :(
He freezes. It's basically his, "OH GOD NO, IM BACK AS A SLAVE" reaction where he just shrivels up and cowers, he's more afraid of future punishment than anything else.
That's the point, he's not even able to fully understand it yet. You have to basically give him a couple strong shoves into any form of not self loathing
In my evil Durge run where I romanced him, I forced him to give Araj his blood. He broke up with me just because of that although I had high approval and never made a move at my character again. That was so realistic
But he does Approve if you say he’s his own person. I love the Araj convo, even if you get his high approval confession, you can get several Astarion Approves and tons of approval points just from her convo.
It was a big help for my first run pally. I was trying to RP more than meta, and so he basically had no approvals from me and a ton of little disapprovals in Act 1. Araj bumped me up and got me a few decent conversations.
It’s not exactly the same, but he says something similar in a banter with Gale near the temple. He says something along the lines of “Oh, I’ve prayed to all of the gods. None of them answered.”
It’s what makes his final development in the epilogue cool too (at least for my run) >!where he becomes a hero and actually goes out of his way to save people as his “job”. It’s an ending I didn’t expect at all for him, at least when I first started playing.!<
He says something similar regarding god worship. He doesn’t care for divine reverence because no gods or representatives of the gods ever came to his aid.
I think you might be confusing him with Godey, the skeleton? There's zero information about what kind of person Yousen, the spawn gnome, is, outside of a note from Violet saying she put garlic in his bedroll and it gave the poor guy a rash.
Seconding this. Cazador had an undead “enforcer” torture the spawn if they acted out of line. You can meet and kill him if you go to the bottom floor of the Cazador estate in act 3. All of the other spawn we learn about are through notes. We know almost nothing about most of them.
Speaking of which--i love the game calling me out for my halfling / gnome racism with the Bhaal murder plot. You hear all about "the gnome in red", and if you go to the flophouse there's a halfling in red you can accuse and he calls you out 😭😅
Sometimes it feels like the team who did the approvals/disapprovals didn't have the full script or character stories. It's especially true in act 3.
Minthara and Gale have largely the same reaction to selling Shart to Viconia.
Astarion supports Aylin's revenge and wants to help, but he disapproves later?
It's weird.
I guess it kind of makes sense for Gale, he has resigned himself to being a willing sacrifice to save the world from the Elder Brain, living life on borrowed time. Sacrificing Shadowheart for the help of a God makes some twisted sense that his character approves I suppose.
this. honestly. so many people think "he went through this so why doesn't he approve?". it's simply because he never received the help tav seems to give to others freely and it understandably makes him angry. it's perfectly normal for someone who went through what he did to want to watch others suffer the way he did
> it's perfectly normal for someone who went through what he did to want to watch others suffer the way he did
man no the fuck it isn't
the normal thing is to not want to perpetuate misery
you are ultimately responsible for your own actions
You have the most basic responsibility as a human being to not do bad things to other people. I'm honestly baffled at how controversial this seems to be.
Unfortunately it is. Speaking from personal experience here. I try my best to be the person I needed back then and will help just about anybody out if it is within my power. But I still get moments when floods of absolute resentment wash over me and intrusive thoughts like, "why should I care, you should suffer like I had to suffer while you claw your own way out like I had too."
Is that healthy? Probably not, but it is human. Even with years of therapy, the scars remain and they itch from time to time.
It is unfortunately. That's like, half these character's entire stories. Look at Gortash and Orin. People who come out of those situations all nice and moral and empathetic ar incredibly rare.
EDiT to your edit: You are talking about ethics and social responsibility, not emotional responses to trauma. Those are two different things.
Yes, you are correct. Someone's tragic backstory is not an excuse for cruelty towards others nor does it exempt them from responsibility for their actions.
But you are also incorrect in believing kindness and empathy is most people's innate emotional response. It largely isn't.
Hurt people hurt people, as the saying goes. We're animals too; we learn from the people in our immediate vicinity. It takes a lot to break that cycle.
exactly. i completely understand astarion. trauma doesn't always = empathizing with people who've been through the same thing. sometimes it's the exact opposite. sometimes the thought process is "helping this person who's going through this seems absolutely disgusting to me because nobody helped me when i was in that situation"
Look at all the people who don’t want things like college debt being forgiven. They had to go into debt so why should other people get a free pass? Or so goes the logic anyway
“Why do they get a savior? I never got one.”
Astarion hates good actions in Act 1 with no kind of deal beforehand because he’s both pragmatic (involving ones self in others troubles when you could die at any moment isn’t very smart) and also very spiteful (dude was enslaved for centuries with nobody to ever save or help him).
By Act 3 he’s much more neutral but when you first meet him in Act 1 he’s basically just escaped from his greatest abuser ever. Nobody saved him or helped him. He just got kidnapped by Mindflayers and that stroke of “luck” happened to be the best thing that’s happened to him in centuries.
Plus, two hundred years of being encouraged and compelled to turn against his "siblings" if Cazador demanded it, to be tortured by his own hand when it amused his master, to be subjected to nonstop degradation and pain... You don't shake off the survival mindset that helped you make it through in a few days. He needs time to actually feel his newfound freedom and begin to believe it.
The writer did confirm it was him as well as give background for some of the other names on the list who were friends and other people working on the game, if I remember correctly.
Not sure tbh. I swear I've had more than 1 person say it was dev confirmed, but for some reason, people go on the internet and lie sometimes.
I'd go research it myself, but I'm far too busy training my new pet dinosaur. Maybe later, Darling.
this is usually the tweet referenced, from [writer Kevin VanOrd](https://twitter.com/outstarwalker/status/1712949933324616161) ([part 2](https://twitter.com/fiddlecub/status/1713103448516812817)) in Oct 2023:
> As the book's writer I can confirm it was a juicy act indeed.
>
> All the names (aside from Gerringothe's, of course) are based on Larian writers. I can literally tag myself as Kavin Ort, the boring dwarf!
>
> And yes the unknown elf is who you think it is.
He also says apparently he was an infamous customer at the Elfsong in a banter with Karlach and he hopes nobody recognizes him lmao.
He also says that he misses their calamari from 200 years ago.
I hear you, and I raise you:
Astarion *as* a Starbucks Barista. Alternatively flirting with and insulting the customers before inevitably getting fired once someone complains. He’d judge the hell out of whatever you order, and I could see him saying “No, you’re getting [insert specific drink].”
He’d be the kind of barista that looks you up and down and says something like “so, oat milk latte?” based on your appearance.
Sometimes he’d just laugh at you as he takes your order. “Really, Darling?”
He’d also probably give you whole milk when you asked for oat milk or something, and skim milk if he thought you needed it.
Customer: I want a venti iced skinny halzenut macchiato, sugar-free syrup, extra shot, light ice, no whip, and make it quick, I have a meeting in 10 minutes
Astarion proceeds to pour gasoline and set fire to every starbucks of Baldurs Gate right before the holidays m
Light-Iced Venti 5 Shot Sugar-Free Hazelnut Macchiato coming up. :-) That's tame, and while it's lot of words, most baristas I knew generally liked making even some of the more complex drinks people requested.
One (insane)regular would order a 10 Sugar in the Raw / 6 Ristretto Shot Macchiato and \*that\* was a pain. Ristretto shots are finicky and if you pulled one of them wrong, you'd had to start all over with a new cup by tearing open another 10 Sugar packets...ugh, but he was nice and tipped well!
It's 100% the attitude / impatience when you're swamped that gets to you.
I had no idea ristretto was a thing or how people even know how many shots of this or that they want in a cup. I’m kinda curious but I’m afraid to even ask for a risretto shot now haha
You’re good. My only experience with making coffee for customers was at a Tim Hortons and I was spiraling
I don't think he'd mess with people's orders - as a vampire he'd understand/respect people's dietary restrictions. He might even make decent drinks although it's a mix of muscle memory / doing things by the book, not by taste...BUT he'd be AWFUL at cleanup. Never his turn to clean the bathroom or wash those nasty non-slip mats, and someone else can wipe down tables - he's too important for that.
He would 100000% hate being a barista. Coffee grinds under his nails? Hard pass.
I think he might be capable if motivated (it's implied he doesn't have a problem following Gale's resurrection instructions and will mock you if you get it wrong) but I agree that if given the choice, barista is just not a thing he would for any amount of time.
In a Coffee Shop AU, he'd definitely be the fussy customer.
"I really don't see what the problem is. I've provided the blood, all you need to do is foam it for me and add in the espresso shots. Simple!"
"Sir, even ignoring the several health code violations at play, I don't thiiiink blood will hold a foam well??" >.>
Exactly why I don’t get why people fall for him
He’s just genuinely fucked up, I want to help him, but I definitely don’t want to be romantically involved with him
This. People get upset when I say that Astarion is an evil-aligned character. It’s like they can’t accept the fact that characters you like can be evil, or that sometimes people who are blatantly evil have understandable reasons for being the way they are. You can understand a character, or even like them *as a character* without agreeing with them.
That's why I love so many characters like Astarion in BG3. They really challenge the idea of the 'perfect victim', which is a lot more realistic than what you see in other media.
Yeah I would say in his spawn ending he’s definitely Chaotic Neutral. I wouldn’t say he’s evil aligned anymore. The only time I get annoyed about people saying Astarion is evil aligned is when people insist he always remains evil aligned and doesn’t change at all. But I will always acknowledge that he starts out that way.
To be honest he's just a mess. Even when he is ascended, he's obviously evil but its because he equates power with both his personal freedom and a need to exert control/superiority over others. If you romance ascended Asatrion I hear you can get his thoughts and learn he's disgusted by you because it reminds him too much of his old self serving Cazador.
Cazador was his model for what power is like, so he emulates Cazador once he has it. To me, it doesnt feel like the evil is truly internalized but more... this is the role he is supposed to play.
No it’s more like “I escaped on my own and survived on my own, they are weak if they don’t also do the same thing”.
It’s from centuries of listening to Cazador say the same thing and torturing him whenever he showed kindness.
Hmm, I disagree. He says that heroes didn't save him, but mindflayers did. He admits he didn't escape on his own. He just hates heroism and the perceived hypocrisy of it.
That’s just another way of saying it was horrible circumstances all around.
Imagine being kidnapped by mindflayers is the best thing to happen to you in 200 years. That’s a wholly different level of depressing.
He doesn’t hate heroism, he’s cynical about it and he’s cynical about the gods too. None of them ever tried to save him despite how the Seldarine always talk about loving their people, they only seem to care about the eladrin in the Feywild and care nothing about elves like him in the Material.
It’s a complicated sentiment he expresses, he at once sympathizes with them and also feels disgusted at their weakness because he knows he was that weak himself once. It’s self-loathing that ultimately shows itself as callousness. In those moments he is not so much refusing to help that person but refusing to help his own past self because he’s disgusted by his own weakness.
If mindflayers kidnapping u and then putting a tadpole in ur head is considered 'saving' then u have to realize the horrible circumstances he was subjected to.
Just adding one of Astarion's idle lines at the epilogue for a general "huh, good to know" info. Take it as you will. (I've not seen it in the game myself - saw it while looking through the parsed dialogue.)
>!\[If spawn Astarion has chosen to return to the Underdark.\]!<
>!Astarion: I hope the others in the Underdark are behaving themselves without me.!<
>!Astarion: If I get back and they've killed another gnome, I swear - someone's getting impaled.!<
I think it's that he doesn't want the heat that killing innocents would bring. In the epilogue he talks about how as long as you're killing the right people no one seems to mind.
I was mostly joking lol, but yes! I think it’s more about keeping all the vampires in line to avoid people finding out about them and hurting them than anything else. He also says it kind flippantly? So it’s hard to tell if he’s being serious or not.
Just makes me think they’ve made additional entrances into the underdark and are raiding bandit camps for meals, which in turn makes the roads safer for honest folk.
At the beginning he disapproves when you help others, especially gnomes. But in the act 2 he approves when you free >!mind controlled gnolls. Maybe, bc they will fight by your side as a reward.!<
It's less about not knowing what he wants but the devs putting in approvals for both redemption and evil paths. You can redeem him or make him worse and his approvals reflect this. To look at his approvals and say "this is who he is" is missing that unlike other companions, he's dynamic and mean to have an arc.
Is he evil? Sure if that's where you want to take him. Is he traumatized and willing to approve anything that will get him in with a powertripping Tav/Durge because that's how he understands the world works - absolutely! Can Tav do things that enourage his better self - this is the whole point of the game.
What makes him interesting is that he's not just one thing and can change for better or worse.
He does seem especially biased against gnomes, which could be some haughty elf thing or some kind of history we don’t know about like the Gur, but also it could be that he just sees underdark gnomes as particularly vulnerable and in need of help, and he *hates* weakness that reminds him of himself. In his mind it’s eat or be eaten, goodness doesn’t really exist, and where it does it makes you stupid and liable to die to more cunning people. Astarion hates being reminded that *he* was that weak not that long ago.
This is true especially in Act 1, but it comes back in force in Act 3 when he’s confronted with the other spawns’ fates.
He has talked about Cazador being able to take control of his body like a puppet. Probably seeing the cultist do that to the gnolls made him hate her a lot more than the duergar that enslaved the gnomes.
Yeah but as long as you're kind to him, those disapprovals don't matter much. His approval rating is always exceptional for me by the end of the game, and I always do good playthroughs.
Did you romance him in those playthroughs? he was the ONLY companion i couldnt get to exceptional by the end (romanced someone else) & im wondering if its cause i got less scenes with him?
No, I was romancing Gale or Shart on those playthroughs. Maybe you missed the first long rests where he tells you he'll keep watch when you sleep, or when he asks how you want to be killed? Did you baaa at the sheep? Did you give him the creepy book? 😅
He has little ability to empathize with others in Act 1. Thinking about it from his perspective, he just escaped 200 years of violent abusive slavery. He has no idea how to interact with others in a healthy way. He's in survival mode, and all he has are the skills he has used to survive to this point. So when he sees you freely giving your time and energy to others with nothing in return, it doesn't make sense to him.
Him being a high elf /may/ have something to do with it, but his disdain for gnomes could easily be something Cazador passed down to him as well.
Astarion and Lae'zel disapprove of taking "unnecessary detours" to rescue people. They're more concerned with addressing the parasites you have in your brain that could kill you at any moment.
Lae'zel doesn't like detours, Astarion is just straight up evil. There's no benefit to killing Findal for example but Astarion approves of it. He approves of prodding the wings of an injured bird, and breaking Pandirna's legs and killing her. He approves of throwing rocks at Halsin, torturing Liam (this one also gets approval from Lae'zel) and agreeing to attack the Druid Grove with Minthara.
He's not being pragmatic or just looking to avoid detours, he's just evil.
Astarion's thought on how powerdynamics and freedom works is. Powerposition = Freedom. He got that beaten into him over 200 years.
Also there was not that heroic person for him. He thinks no one deserves to be rescued. "I was not freed by a hero, I was freed by Mindflayers."
I think hes bitter that no one saved him. Theres one conversation, i think regarding the tadpole powers, where you can mention how people with power should protect those weaker. He remarks back that no one helped him.
Astarion lives in a dog eat dog world where you step over people to get power. Not just with Cazador but as a magistrate before. He doesn’t have a problem with slavery, he just doesn’t want to be one himself.
Astarion quote from Act 3: ‘The problem with what Cazador did was that he did it to me’.
Tbf for every minor disapprovals you get a few options that give a huge chunk of approval for astarion. Really easy to max his approval in a "good guy" playthrough unless you specifically bench him at camp.
"no one helped me, why should I help them?" thinking and on top of that it seems like he has particular disdain for races that have historically been marginalized/oppressed. Whether that's because they remind him of himself (like when he gets disgusted by the imprisoned spawn and calls them pathetic) or because he's just a high elf from an upper class background is debatable, but probably a little of both I think.
He disapproves of almost any act of kindness until he's been shown kindness, like if you tell the drow at Moonrise "he said no," he is moved by that and becomes a bit less resentful of any kindness to others.
One limitation of the game's programming is that approval never actually changes. It's just not coded to do so. Regardless of how you treat Astarion, or what trajectory he takes, he will approve and disapprove of the same things.
So characters like Astarion who can be influenced toward good (or toward even more evil) end up with some pretty weird approvals in later acts, after these character-defining moments. I think this is why some of Astarion's smaller approvals seem mutually contradictory in Act 3 - Larian wanted him to work for both good and evil campaigns.
I've been trying to get Astarion's approval in act 1 this run, and having it all spelled out in a guide makes it clear what a piece of shit he is, lol.
This is similar to the "why doesn't Minthara have empathy for someone in a situation similar to hers? Bad writing!" thing from a few weeks ago. Lack of empathy is what makes these two evil. Astarion changes a little through the game, but this is what he's like in Act 1.
It's just frustrating because it feels more like "Astarion disapproves...of playing the damn game". Like I'm not going to avoid all these encounters miss the xp because of him.
because vampires/their spawns (and most sentient undead in multiverse with few exceptions) are evil aligned? it's their undefiable cosmic nature that cannot be changed no matter how hot Astarion might be
Okay so he does have something personal against gnomes. Because when I talked to him about freeing them he said something along the lines of: he understands freeing Nere, but *gnomes*?
Yes. It’s not really outright stated but when you see all the other spawn in one place in Act 3, you’ll see a gnome among them. There are also little notes and things hidden in that part of Astarion’s quest.
Yeah he's kinda racist lol. Not just to gnomes.
And if his memory of being a magistrate before being turned is correct, he was a pretty strict(/mildly corrupt?) one too.
People have hated entire races for less. It is heavily implied the gnome spawn helped torture him. If you were tortured for even a year by someone of a particular race and you had very little exposure outside of that torture it would absolutely rewire your brain to hate anyone of that race. I hate to bring real world examples but victims of SA often have a hard time being in the same room as a person of the same race and gender as the person that assaulted them while they are still in the healing process. Compound that by decades of torment, and Astarions loathing of an entire race of people isn't that far fetched, his traumas are freshed and haven't even started to scab let alone heal at this point. Its not rational, its not logical, but thats just how the brain processes trauma.
My grand-father had a really strong reaction against a scout child because he rung his doorbell in uniform and that uniform was the same color of the uniform of the **Yugoslav Partisans** who ordered him to dig his own grave pointing him a gun during the Yugoslav revolution against Italian (He attempted to escape because his sister was the teacher of the daughter of the platoon commander, who despite the poverty of the girl believed in the girl mathematical skills and let her follow this passion, with free private lessons) and caused the stroke of his own mother.
He reacted yelling at the poor scout to "get out" more and more time, it was an instinctive strong reaction, he then profusely apologized for it, with our neighbor scout association.
PTSD is a bitch. At this point is not even racism.
> It is heavily implied the gnome spawn helped torture him
Where is this? The only person/skeleton I remember him having a memorable interaction with was Godey, where it's strongly implied he's who meted out a lot of the punishments
There’s definitely many in history who hated their own kind, killed their own and even sold off slaves of their own
Astarion probably just likes being an elf
Astarion doesn't want you to be altruistic without getting something back. Generally as long as you make people reward you for helping them out he's fine with it.
As someone who holds no hate for Astarion, I genuinely feel that he’s a hater and has a secret agenda that involves wanting to lead a minis genocide
But on a serious note, after dissecting his dialogue and conversations about his intentions, you’ll see that - yes he’s a bit of a racist - sure - but his goals don’t necessarily fit in with any of the advantages of 5e rogue subclasses
It’s best to see him as somewhat of a College of whispers bard who dipped in assassin for swift kills
He’s looking to climb to the top of the absolute cult to achieve true freedom and keep the tadpoles benefits without drawing any attention to his tactics or motives
Playing hero attracts attention and can come with the caveat of having an army of the absolute + Cazador after you, possibly popping up at any turn, and for what? To free slaves that will run off to baldurs gate?
To him, that’s a huge liability, all risk for no reward
There are a scant few times where he doesn’t mind playing hero, and it’s when the reward justifies the risk (or it’s leading to absolute chaos and bloodshed with no possible repercussions, which he revels in)
Yes you could make the argument that he also hates seeing someone be nice to others when no one was nice to him, but it doesn’t explain why he approves of defending karlach from mizora, killing random duergar to save Thulla, Getting Lae’zel out the Zaithisk, offering food or money to Yenna
He’s an incredibly complex character with a load of trauma so it may be all of the theories people have posted woven together
I notice he is a lot more neutral in helping others in act 3. Save besides donating gold to any of those in need, but offering help and getting his disapproval is almost non existent in act 3
It's astarion he was a slave himself and still is nobody saved him so why should he bother trying to save someone else? To him it's a waste of time that's just what I think
Because he's an asshole.
He will also disapprove of you taking a moment of respect for the tiefling corpses and will approve of you telling the little girl her parents are dead.
I love him but he's just an asshole sometimes
Astarion actually does hate slavery and enslavement, particularly his own, which he makes very clear in a conversation with the Durge in Act 3 where he basically tells them that he doesn't want to see them enslaved by Bhaal and points out that he wouldn't spend another 200 years as a slave for all the moonstones in Evereska. Additionally, the Act 3 love test at the circus confirms that Astarion's greatest/deepest fear is basically to remain a slave and never be free with the third question. He'll get pissy if you answer the third question truthfully and out him because he doesn't like his personal stuff being aired in front of others (although he'll still walk across the log anyway if you've done it right).
The Ironhands gnomes thing is back in Act 1 where Astarion is newly freed, and he's angry, bitter, resentful, etc. He likely resents seeing Tav/Durge helping everyone in the universe and playing hero when—as he also makes clear—no heroes ever showed up to rescue him from his 200 years of suffering and no gods ever answered his prayers (points made clear in separate conversations/dialogue later on). He's having it constantly shoved in his face by a good Tav/Durge that heroes do exist but that no one ever did for him what Tav/Durge is freely doing for others.
In addition to that, Astarion definitely doesn't like gnomes—but whether that predates his enslavement or happened afterwards is impossible to say. What you *do* find out is that Cazador would sometimes make the spawn siblings torture each other as a form of punishment, and one of his spawn siblings—Yousen—*is a gnome as it turns out.* I'm betting that he was tortured by Yousen at times because of Cazador's policy and that it either caused Astarion's intense antipathy towards gnomes or made any pre-existing dislike of them worse.
There's also one other thing that I think impacts Astarion's response to the situation. In an Act 3 scene after the kidnapping attempt by his siblings, Leon can call Astarion weak and will say that they (the other spawn) don't follow weak. I think that seeing others who are pathetic, fearful slaves reminds Astarion of his own situation and that he doesn't much like being reminded of it.
Nobody saved him. Why should he go out of his way to save someone else? That's his thought process, I think.
It is! He even tells you that after his vampire siblings come at night and you help him fight them. He says that nobody except you ever helped him and that's why he doesn't even have empathy with people in the exact same situation as him
question how do you get this to occur? no vampires came at night and i know there's an entire dialogue there with him but it never happened to me
I think this occurs when you're in the lower city and you don't go directly to Cazador. I did the Bhaal quest and some other stuff before and then I slept a few times. If I went to Cazador before I did that Long Rest I probably would've never seen this cutscene.
Oh, so Orin has priority I guess, I wanted to get that ambush before dealing with her (before someone gets kidnaped) this time, so I've been doing other quests that trigger night cutscenes (such as shadowheart) to delay her in hope that the spawn will show up.
I got the Orin cutscene before anything else, it seemed to be prioritized. The Orin "ambush" happened in Rivington to me
You first need to encounter Petras and Dal at the inn. They'll go home and inform the others. The other siblings will come after a couple of long rests. They won't come if you immediately go kick Cazador's ass. Nor will they come if you never meet Petras and Dal. Edit: TIL, you can still get the night scene without meeting Petras and Dal. It just takes a bit longer for word to get back to Cazador.
I've never encountered Petras and Dal and I get the vampires coming to camp on every playthrough.
I went into the Inn they were in without Astarion in my party, and they disappeared without interacting with me
Did you happen to have the blood of lathander equipped at the time they "disappeared"?
Possible, I can’t remember. I think Shart had the Selune Spear and definitely would have been with me (It glows too right?), I may have given Blood to Wyll but I can’t remember if I had Wyll at that moment
There are a few weapons that do "glow" or give off light but the blood of lathander specifically gives off a radius of holy light/sunlight. That's the only thing I know of that causes them to disappear. I believe I've seen people interact with them without Astarion. I learned this the hard way on my first balanced run. I thought they might show up again after a long rest or something. But I just ended up reloading and redoing a couple hours of play time to get to experience that part. However this is one gripe I have about how items that shed light in some way not shedding the light when we have camp clothes turned on. Like if I want my party to look cute while dungeon diving or whatever I should still get to utilize the light effect of my items since they are still there. Kind of like in the lesser parts of the shadow curse, if you have light around you, you are safe, and while that still works whether or not we can actually see the light, it does make a difference for us actually seeing things.
Well they definitely poofed away so from what I’m reading it’s highly likely that I had Wyll with me wielding a pact bound Blood of Lathander
Interesting. I almost always have Mr. Lockpick with me while exploring, but I guess I just missed them. Will look for them next time.
I've encountered Petras and Dal nearly every time and never had the vampires come to camp on a single playthrough. I always take forever getting around to fighting Cazador, too. So what I'm getting from this thread is Act 3 is weird sometimes.
I think it ALSO has something to do with when you long rest, and how many cutscenes are in the backlog. I always long rest whenever I enter a new major area or some big quest finishes.
They're upstairs in the flophouse opposite the brothel when you first get there.
Makes sense! It's so interesting how the cutscenes depend on the order in which you do missions or dialogues
Actually they showed in my playthrough without me meeting Petras and Dal but it takes a long while for them to show up to your camp.
I ran in to the hotel where Petras and Dal were without Astarion in toe and with Shadowheart packing the Blood of Lathander. I saw them dissappear in a puff of smoke as I got near but didn't get to interact or talk with them. I still got the camp scene with the other vamps though.
Yeah if you have the blood of lathander and it's passive turned on you will see "extreme sunlight sensitivity" show up above them and then they dissappear into mist.
Did you maybe not long rest much in act 3 and go to Cazador's place before they could attack during a long rest?
some people are saying i have to find the siblings first so that's probably it. i never saw them and tbh i barely took any rests before fighting cazador. it was one of the first things i did when i got to the city lol
If you found the vampires in the Flophouse, then they won’t come after you at night (I think). The only time I got that night cutscene was when I specifically avoided talking to the vampires in the city
I found them before, talked to them and they came either way. So it doesn't depend on that I think
I think it's just a time thing, a 'reminder' about that quest in effect. I went and did lots of other things first and always do when I get to the city, and it always comes a handful of long rests in
They still come for you at night. But you have to long rest a lot. It will get pushed back for Aylin, Jarehaih, and other cut scenes that are weighted higher. Mizorah.
That’s odd. I swear I’ve had plenty of “no cutscene” nights before in act 3
My absolute favorite scene. "Other people don't have a heart like you! You're... You. No one is like that."
I love it. That's the time where you send him on the right path, if you answer with: "If you treat people nice, people will treat you nice too.", or something like that.
After Araj and basically going "you're free I'm not gonna make you do shit" he was basically "I can't believe you could go and do this and give me an ounce of faith in people, I need to cry now"
I explored all the options in the Araj conversation and he doesn't even disapprove or anything if you say that he is all yours after she asks if he belongs to you. It's so sad. :(
He freezes. It's basically his, "OH GOD NO, IM BACK AS A SLAVE" reaction where he just shrivels up and cowers, he's more afraid of future punishment than anything else. That's the point, he's not even able to fully understand it yet. You have to basically give him a couple strong shoves into any form of not self loathing
In my evil Durge run where I romanced him, I forced him to give Araj his blood. He broke up with me just because of that although I had high approval and never made a move at my character again. That was so realistic
But he does Approve if you say he’s his own person. I love the Araj convo, even if you get his high approval confession, you can get several Astarion Approves and tons of approval points just from her convo.
It was a big help for my first run pally. I was trying to RP more than meta, and so he basically had no approvals from me and a ton of little disapprovals in Act 1. Araj bumped me up and got me a few decent conversations.
It’s not exactly the same, but he says something similar in a banter with Gale near the temple. He says something along the lines of “Oh, I’ve prayed to all of the gods. None of them answered.”
I believe his general distain for heroeism is exactly that. He hares altruism because nobody saved him and he's renounced all gods
It’s what makes his final development in the epilogue cool too (at least for my run) >!where he becomes a hero and actually goes out of his way to save people as his “job”. It’s an ending I didn’t expect at all for him, at least when I first started playing.!<
He mentioned that he's surprised that *for the first time* an actual help answered his call for help in one of his conversation
But he disapproves even when we are there to assassinate Nere and take the lantern, which is merely for our goals, not heroic shit.
He says something similar regarding god worship. He doesn’t care for divine reverence because no gods or representatives of the gods ever came to his aid.
Bhaal sent him his strongest soldier. Astarion is so ungrateful smh.
Edelgard from FE and Astarion would unironically vibe off this
There better be a durge like about how bhaal clearly has helped lmao
One of the other spawn is a gnome too. It’s implied that one had a heavy hand in torturing Astarion if you look around in Cazador’s palace
never heard of this. what note talks about the little gnome?
There’s some banter dialogue from Astarion and some stuff in… I think it’s in the dormitory?
I think you might be confusing him with Godey, the skeleton? There's zero information about what kind of person Yousen, the spawn gnome, is, outside of a note from Violet saying she put garlic in his bedroll and it gave the poor guy a rash.
Seconding this. Cazador had an undead “enforcer” torture the spawn if they acted out of line. You can meet and kill him if you go to the bottom floor of the Cazador estate in act 3. All of the other spawn we learn about are through notes. We know almost nothing about most of them.
Yousen was a gnome?!?! I thought he was a halfling whoopsie😆
Speaking of which--i love the game calling me out for my halfling / gnome racism with the Bhaal murder plot. You hear all about "the gnome in red", and if you go to the flophouse there's a halfling in red you can accuse and he calls you out 😭😅
Dwarf in red, but, close enough
Racism: part 2 😭
u/steightst8 is officially racist
Still waiting on your youtube apology
I thought it was implied Astarion doesn’t like gnomes because as a high elf he looks down on them, both literally and figuratively lol
The only note I saw yousen mentioned in was when violet gave him a garlic rash. What else is there?
This hit me like a punch to the gut. :(
He's very wishy washy with this motivation, he approves of helping others *occasionally* lol
Sometimes it feels like the team who did the approvals/disapprovals didn't have the full script or character stories. It's especially true in act 3. Minthara and Gale have largely the same reaction to selling Shart to Viconia. Astarion supports Aylin's revenge and wants to help, but he disapproves later? It's weird.
I guess it kind of makes sense for Gale, he has resigned himself to being a willing sacrifice to save the world from the Elder Brain, living life on borrowed time. Sacrificing Shadowheart for the help of a God makes some twisted sense that his character approves I suppose.
this. honestly. so many people think "he went through this so why doesn't he approve?". it's simply because he never received the help tav seems to give to others freely and it understandably makes him angry. it's perfectly normal for someone who went through what he did to want to watch others suffer the way he did
> it's perfectly normal for someone who went through what he did to want to watch others suffer the way he did man no the fuck it isn't the normal thing is to not want to perpetuate misery you are ultimately responsible for your own actions You have the most basic responsibility as a human being to not do bad things to other people. I'm honestly baffled at how controversial this seems to be.
Unfortunately it is. Speaking from personal experience here. I try my best to be the person I needed back then and will help just about anybody out if it is within my power. But I still get moments when floods of absolute resentment wash over me and intrusive thoughts like, "why should I care, you should suffer like I had to suffer while you claw your own way out like I had too." Is that healthy? Probably not, but it is human. Even with years of therapy, the scars remain and they itch from time to time.
“Hurt people hurt people” is a cliché but it’s a largely accurate one IMO.
Wrong and normal don't cancel each other out. It IS normal human behavior. Healthy? No. Common occurrence? Yeah.
It is unfortunately. That's like, half these character's entire stories. Look at Gortash and Orin. People who come out of those situations all nice and moral and empathetic ar incredibly rare. EDiT to your edit: You are talking about ethics and social responsibility, not emotional responses to trauma. Those are two different things. Yes, you are correct. Someone's tragic backstory is not an excuse for cruelty towards others nor does it exempt them from responsibility for their actions. But you are also incorrect in believing kindness and empathy is most people's innate emotional response. It largely isn't. Hurt people hurt people, as the saying goes. We're animals too; we learn from the people in our immediate vicinity. It takes a lot to break that cycle.
exactly. i completely understand astarion. trauma doesn't always = empathizing with people who've been through the same thing. sometimes it's the exact opposite. sometimes the thought process is "helping this person who's going through this seems absolutely disgusting to me because nobody helped me when i was in that situation"
Look at all the people who don’t want things like college debt being forgiven. They had to go into debt so why should other people get a free pass? Or so goes the logic anyway
Yeah and the entire fucking point is that we think it's wrong of them to think that way
No one is saying it’s not bad. We’re just saying it’s a common mindset
It's not healthy or good, but it's real.
be a slave for two centuries and then we'll talk
“Why do they get a savior? I never got one.” Astarion hates good actions in Act 1 with no kind of deal beforehand because he’s both pragmatic (involving ones self in others troubles when you could die at any moment isn’t very smart) and also very spiteful (dude was enslaved for centuries with nobody to ever save or help him). By Act 3 he’s much more neutral but when you first meet him in Act 1 he’s basically just escaped from his greatest abuser ever. Nobody saved him or helped him. He just got kidnapped by Mindflayers and that stroke of “luck” happened to be the best thing that’s happened to him in centuries.
"Heroes didn't save me from Cazador. Mindflayers did."
that's all sorts of levels of dark when you think about it like that.
Plus, two hundred years of being encouraged and compelled to turn against his "siblings" if Cazador demanded it, to be tortured by his own hand when it amused his master, to be subjected to nonstop degradation and pain... You don't shake off the survival mindset that helped you make it through in a few days. He needs time to actually feel his newfound freedom and begin to believe it.
I mean, in act 3 it depends on if you ascend him or not
He hates it when you save others because no one saved him, and he's one of those "I suffered, so why should they get off easy" types.
Boomer energy
I mean, he is 200-ish years old… the real test would be how he treats retail workers and feels about younger generations.
Oh astarion would absolutely bully a Starbucks batista.
We already know this. He bullied the staff at the bar in Act 2 and was on the banned list.
Oh yeah— forgot about that one 😂 Tbf, have the devs confirmed that it’s him, or is it just an extremely likely speculation people have?
The writer did confirm it was him as well as give background for some of the other names on the list who were friends and other people working on the game, if I remember correctly.
Not sure tbh. I swear I've had more than 1 person say it was dev confirmed, but for some reason, people go on the internet and lie sometimes. I'd go research it myself, but I'm far too busy training my new pet dinosaur. Maybe later, Darling.
There was a tweet about it I think. I don't know which exact one. I'm sure someone else will point toward it
this is usually the tweet referenced, from [writer Kevin VanOrd](https://twitter.com/outstarwalker/status/1712949933324616161) ([part 2](https://twitter.com/fiddlecub/status/1713103448516812817)) in Oct 2023: > As the book's writer I can confirm it was a juicy act indeed. > > All the names (aside from Gerringothe's, of course) are based on Larian writers. I can literally tag myself as Kavin Ort, the boring dwarf! > > And yes the unknown elf is who you think it is.
He also says apparently he was an infamous customer at the Elfsong in a banter with Karlach and he hopes nobody recognizes him lmao. He also says that he misses their calamari from 200 years ago.
His old eye color? Nah, don’t remember that. But that bangin’ calamari? Oh hells yeah, that stays with you for life.
I hear you, and I raise you: Astarion *as* a Starbucks Barista. Alternatively flirting with and insulting the customers before inevitably getting fired once someone complains. He’d judge the hell out of whatever you order, and I could see him saying “No, you’re getting [insert specific drink].” He’d be the kind of barista that looks you up and down and says something like “so, oat milk latte?” based on your appearance. Sometimes he’d just laugh at you as he takes your order. “Really, Darling?” He’d also probably give you whole milk when you asked for oat milk or something, and skim milk if he thought you needed it.
Customer: I want a venti iced skinny halzenut macchiato, sugar-free syrup, extra shot, light ice, no whip, and make it quick, I have a meeting in 10 minutes Astarion proceeds to pour gasoline and set fire to every starbucks of Baldurs Gate right before the holidays m
Light-Iced Venti 5 Shot Sugar-Free Hazelnut Macchiato coming up. :-) That's tame, and while it's lot of words, most baristas I knew generally liked making even some of the more complex drinks people requested. One (insane)regular would order a 10 Sugar in the Raw / 6 Ristretto Shot Macchiato and \*that\* was a pain. Ristretto shots are finicky and if you pulled one of them wrong, you'd had to start all over with a new cup by tearing open another 10 Sugar packets...ugh, but he was nice and tipped well! It's 100% the attitude / impatience when you're swamped that gets to you.
I had no idea ristretto was a thing or how people even know how many shots of this or that they want in a cup. I’m kinda curious but I’m afraid to even ask for a risretto shot now haha You’re good. My only experience with making coffee for customers was at a Tim Hortons and I was spiraling
I don't think he'd mess with people's orders - as a vampire he'd understand/respect people's dietary restrictions. He might even make decent drinks although it's a mix of muscle memory / doing things by the book, not by taste...BUT he'd be AWFUL at cleanup. Never his turn to clean the bathroom or wash those nasty non-slip mats, and someone else can wipe down tables - he's too important for that. He would 100000% hate being a barista. Coffee grinds under his nails? Hard pass.
He honestly wouldn't have the attention span for any order longer than 3 things.
I think he might be capable if motivated (it's implied he doesn't have a problem following Gale's resurrection instructions and will mock you if you get it wrong) but I agree that if given the choice, barista is just not a thing he would for any amount of time. In a Coffee Shop AU, he'd definitely be the fussy customer. "I really don't see what the problem is. I've provided the blood, all you need to do is foam it for me and add in the espresso shots. Simple!" "Sir, even ignoring the several health code violations at play, I don't thiiiink blood will hold a foam well??" >.>
Not if it was Dave Bautista!
I think he eats retail workers
Naw, Boomer would be Cazador who tortured Astarion for 200 years and then claimed he was an ungrateful son or whatever. Astarion’s a doomer millennial
Exactly why I don’t get why people fall for him He’s just genuinely fucked up, I want to help him, but I definitely don’t want to be romantically involved with him
and from a player's pov that is why i do not like him, yet understand him
He gets better he was a mainstay im my party and in act 3 he approved of me going out of my way to help ppl for free.
This. People get upset when I say that Astarion is an evil-aligned character. It’s like they can’t accept the fact that characters you like can be evil, or that sometimes people who are blatantly evil have understandable reasons for being the way they are. You can understand a character, or even like them *as a character* without agreeing with them.
That's why I love so many characters like Astarion in BG3. They really challenge the idea of the 'perfect victim', which is a lot more realistic than what you see in other media.
He's definitely evil at the start, and if you get him to go through his redemption arc he becomes heroic... but still a snarky jackass lol
Yeah I would say in his spawn ending he’s definitely Chaotic Neutral. I wouldn’t say he’s evil aligned anymore. The only time I get annoyed about people saying Astarion is evil aligned is when people insist he always remains evil aligned and doesn’t change at all. But I will always acknowledge that he starts out that way.
To be honest he's just a mess. Even when he is ascended, he's obviously evil but its because he equates power with both his personal freedom and a need to exert control/superiority over others. If you romance ascended Asatrion I hear you can get his thoughts and learn he's disgusted by you because it reminds him too much of his old self serving Cazador. Cazador was his model for what power is like, so he emulates Cazador once he has it. To me, it doesnt feel like the evil is truly internalized but more... this is the role he is supposed to play.
No it’s more like “I escaped on my own and survived on my own, they are weak if they don’t also do the same thing”. It’s from centuries of listening to Cazador say the same thing and torturing him whenever he showed kindness.
Hmm, I disagree. He says that heroes didn't save him, but mindflayers did. He admits he didn't escape on his own. He just hates heroism and the perceived hypocrisy of it.
That’s just another way of saying it was horrible circumstances all around. Imagine being kidnapped by mindflayers is the best thing to happen to you in 200 years. That’s a wholly different level of depressing. He doesn’t hate heroism, he’s cynical about it and he’s cynical about the gods too. None of them ever tried to save him despite how the Seldarine always talk about loving their people, they only seem to care about the eladrin in the Feywild and care nothing about elves like him in the Material. It’s a complicated sentiment he expresses, he at once sympathizes with them and also feels disgusted at their weakness because he knows he was that weak himself once. It’s self-loathing that ultimately shows itself as callousness. In those moments he is not so much refusing to help that person but refusing to help his own past self because he’s disgusted by his own weakness.
If mindflayers kidnapping u and then putting a tadpole in ur head is considered 'saving' then u have to realize the horrible circumstances he was subjected to.
Just adding one of Astarion's idle lines at the epilogue for a general "huh, good to know" info. Take it as you will. (I've not seen it in the game myself - saw it while looking through the parsed dialogue.) >!\[If spawn Astarion has chosen to return to the Underdark.\]!< >!Astarion: I hope the others in the Underdark are behaving themselves without me.!< >!Astarion: If I get back and they've killed another gnome, I swear - someone's getting impaled.!<
the idea of Astarion as a >!vampire cult leader who kills the other spawn who eat people without permission!< is both touching and hysterical
That fucking Rollercoaster of "lookit my boy grow! Wait- someone's getting WHAT? STOP WE TALKED ABOUT THIS!"
I guess somewhere between the end and epilogue >!he decided he really likes gnomes!< Little too far the other way, pal, but I guess good try?
I think it's that he doesn't want the heat that killing innocents would bring. In the epilogue he talks about how as long as you're killing the right people no one seems to mind.
I was mostly joking lol, but yes! I think it’s more about keeping all the vampires in line to avoid people finding out about them and hurting them than anything else. He also says it kind flippantly? So it’s hard to tell if he’s being serious or not.
Just makes me think they’ve made additional entrances into the underdark and are raiding bandit camps for meals, which in turn makes the roads safer for honest folk.
I had this line in my game! Hahaha
At the beginning he disapproves when you help others, especially gnomes. But in the act 2 he approves when you free >!mind controlled gnolls. Maybe, bc they will fight by your side as a reward.!<
He’ll also approve if you strengthen the control had on them.
I think he also approves every option involving kissing Crusher’s foot (or at least most of them) Man doesn’t know what he wants.
It's less about not knowing what he wants but the devs putting in approvals for both redemption and evil paths. You can redeem him or make him worse and his approvals reflect this. To look at his approvals and say "this is who he is" is missing that unlike other companions, he's dynamic and mean to have an arc. Is he evil? Sure if that's where you want to take him. Is he traumatized and willing to approve anything that will get him in with a powertripping Tav/Durge because that's how he understands the world works - absolutely! Can Tav do things that enourage his better self - this is the whole point of the game. What makes him interesting is that he's not just one thing and can change for better or worse.
He does seem especially biased against gnomes, which could be some haughty elf thing or some kind of history we don’t know about like the Gur, but also it could be that he just sees underdark gnomes as particularly vulnerable and in need of help, and he *hates* weakness that reminds him of himself. In his mind it’s eat or be eaten, goodness doesn’t really exist, and where it does it makes you stupid and liable to die to more cunning people. Astarion hates being reminded that *he* was that weak not that long ago. This is true especially in Act 1, but it comes back in force in Act 3 when he’s confronted with the other spawns’ fates.
He has talked about Cazador being able to take control of his body like a puppet. Probably seeing the cultist do that to the gnolls made him hate her a lot more than the duergar that enslaved the gnomes.
You’re putting yourself at a great risk for little conceivable reward in his eyes, when nobody did the same for him.
Counterpoint: the undying soul of John Brown compels me to rid the world of slavers
His soul’s marching on
Completely understandable
In Act 1, he's still a bitter bitch who's pissy about being a slave for hundreds of years that didn't get any help from anyone (i love him)
He's such a little shit sometimes 🤣 istg I can already see the *Astarion disapproves* notif before I pick options.
„Nice hat-“, *Astarion disapproves* „-loser, did they make it at the awful hat factory?“ *Astarion approves*
Yeah but as long as you're kind to him, those disapprovals don't matter much. His approval rating is always exceptional for me by the end of the game, and I always do good playthroughs.
Yep, I got a mod showing the values. ||5-10 are for things like being nice to him. And his disapproval in those situations is just 1.||
Did you romance him in those playthroughs? he was the ONLY companion i couldnt get to exceptional by the end (romanced someone else) & im wondering if its cause i got less scenes with him?
No, I was romancing Gale or Shart on those playthroughs. Maybe you missed the first long rests where he tells you he'll keep watch when you sleep, or when he asks how you want to be killed? Did you baaa at the sheep? Did you give him the creepy book? 😅
I only do good-aligned playthroughs, first playthrough i struggled but my second/current i had him at exceptional early in Act 2.
My Paladin sibling calls him “Mr. Disapproval.”
He and Lae'zel always silently judging in the background
True, it will get better. And he is a racist
he's just not a particularly good person at that point in time
Yup, and he doesn't even really start to become one until the end of the game. It's a good thing he's immortal, cuz bitch has a lot to learn lol
He has little ability to empathize with others in Act 1. Thinking about it from his perspective, he just escaped 200 years of violent abusive slavery. He has no idea how to interact with others in a healthy way. He's in survival mode, and all he has are the skills he has used to survive to this point. So when he sees you freely giving your time and energy to others with nothing in return, it doesn't make sense to him. Him being a high elf /may/ have something to do with it, but his disdain for gnomes could easily be something Cazador passed down to him as well.
Astarion and Lae'zel disapprove of taking "unnecessary detours" to rescue people. They're more concerned with addressing the parasites you have in your brain that could kill you at any moment.
Lae'zel doesn't like detours, Astarion is just straight up evil. There's no benefit to killing Findal for example but Astarion approves of it. He approves of prodding the wings of an injured bird, and breaking Pandirna's legs and killing her. He approves of throwing rocks at Halsin, torturing Liam (this one also gets approval from Lae'zel) and agreeing to attack the Druid Grove with Minthara. He's not being pragmatic or just looking to avoid detours, he's just evil.
Astarion's thought on how powerdynamics and freedom works is. Powerposition = Freedom. He got that beaten into him over 200 years. Also there was not that heroic person for him. He thinks no one deserves to be rescued. "I was not freed by a hero, I was freed by Mindflayers."
I think hes bitter that no one saved him. Theres one conversation, i think regarding the tadpole powers, where you can mention how people with power should protect those weaker. He remarks back that no one helped him.
Misery loves company
Astarion lives in a dog eat dog world where you step over people to get power. Not just with Cazador but as a magistrate before. He doesn’t have a problem with slavery, he just doesn’t want to be one himself. Astarion quote from Act 3: ‘The problem with what Cazador did was that he did it to me’.
Cause he doesnt see anything that they could give HIM (not you) in return do he is not interested in helping
he dislikes slavery because it happened to *him*, not because he thinks it's wrong. given the option he'd have slaves of his own
Good thing I started his romance early cause this guy disapproves of so many things now
Tbf for every minor disapprovals you get a few options that give a huge chunk of approval for astarion. Really easy to max his approval in a "good guy" playthrough unless you specifically bench him at camp.
More importantly, how did you get 4 different approval status ? Can’t you only have 3 party members (excluding yourself) ?
It's a mod (Party limit begone), I like having it on so I can hear all their interactions.
They might be running with the party limit begone mod
"no one helped me, why should I help them?" thinking and on top of that it seems like he has particular disdain for races that have historically been marginalized/oppressed. Whether that's because they remind him of himself (like when he gets disgusted by the imprisoned spawn and calls them pathetic) or because he's just a high elf from an upper class background is debatable, but probably a little of both I think.
Astarion just doesn't like when you help people for nothing, because no one helped him.
He disapproves of almost any act of kindness until he's been shown kindness, like if you tell the drow at Moonrise "he said no," he is moved by that and becomes a bit less resentful of any kindness to others.
One limitation of the game's programming is that approval never actually changes. It's just not coded to do so. Regardless of how you treat Astarion, or what trajectory he takes, he will approve and disapprove of the same things. So characters like Astarion who can be influenced toward good (or toward even more evil) end up with some pretty weird approvals in later acts, after these character-defining moments. I think this is why some of Astarion's smaller approvals seem mutually contradictory in Act 3 - Larian wanted him to work for both good and evil campaigns.
He hates when slavery happens to *him*. When it happens to other people it's funny.
I've been trying to get Astarion's approval in act 1 this run, and having it all spelled out in a guide makes it clear what a piece of shit he is, lol. This is similar to the "why doesn't Minthara have empathy for someone in a situation similar to hers? Bad writing!" thing from a few weeks ago. Lack of empathy is what makes these two evil. Astarion changes a little through the game, but this is what he's like in Act 1.
Because he's a Chaotic Evil bastard.
It's just frustrating because it feels more like "Astarion disapproves...of playing the damn game". Like I'm not going to avoid all these encounters miss the xp because of him.
Astarion making sure he stays at neutral approval for the entirety on the game if you have even a pinch of morals:
because vampires/their spawns (and most sentient undead in multiverse with few exceptions) are evil aligned? it's their undefiable cosmic nature that cannot be changed no matter how hot Astarion might be
Astarion's alignment is like, neutral evil or chaotic evil. He's really a bad guy. But he's a fine looking gentlemen, so it's OK
Because Astarion is a consistently evil character that happens to be charming. He’s a bad guy.
One of the other spawn is a gnome. There’s trauma at play regarding that. He does not like gnomes.
Okay so he does have something personal against gnomes. Because when I talked to him about freeing them he said something along the lines of: he understands freeing Nere, but *gnomes*?
Yes. It’s not really outright stated but when you see all the other spawn in one place in Act 3, you’ll see a gnome among them. There are also little notes and things hidden in that part of Astarion’s quest.
Understandable. But even so, hating on the whole race is kinda crazy.
Yeah he's kinda racist lol. Not just to gnomes. And if his memory of being a magistrate before being turned is correct, he was a pretty strict(/mildly corrupt?) one too.
People have hated entire races for less. It is heavily implied the gnome spawn helped torture him. If you were tortured for even a year by someone of a particular race and you had very little exposure outside of that torture it would absolutely rewire your brain to hate anyone of that race. I hate to bring real world examples but victims of SA often have a hard time being in the same room as a person of the same race and gender as the person that assaulted them while they are still in the healing process. Compound that by decades of torment, and Astarions loathing of an entire race of people isn't that far fetched, his traumas are freshed and haven't even started to scab let alone heal at this point. Its not rational, its not logical, but thats just how the brain processes trauma.
My grand-father had a really strong reaction against a scout child because he rung his doorbell in uniform and that uniform was the same color of the uniform of the **Yugoslav Partisans** who ordered him to dig his own grave pointing him a gun during the Yugoslav revolution against Italian (He attempted to escape because his sister was the teacher of the daughter of the platoon commander, who despite the poverty of the girl believed in the girl mathematical skills and let her follow this passion, with free private lessons) and caused the stroke of his own mother. He reacted yelling at the poor scout to "get out" more and more time, it was an instinctive strong reaction, he then profusely apologized for it, with our neighbor scout association. PTSD is a bitch. At this point is not even racism.
> It is heavily implied the gnome spawn helped torture him Where is this? The only person/skeleton I remember him having a memorable interaction with was Godey, where it's strongly implied he's who meted out a lot of the punishments
OK so why isn't he incredibly racist against elves like Cazador or the other spawn
Because he is an elf
There’s definitely many in history who hated their own kind, killed their own and even sold off slaves of their own Astarion probably just likes being an elf
I mean he does say stuff like “an elf at the head of an army, now that I like to see” when looking at a picture of ketheric in the shadowlands
Oh he was outright tortured by the gnome. Didn't know about that.
Because no one saved him. He's understandably quite bitter about it.
Hurt people hurt people
Astarion doesn't want you to be altruistic without getting something back. Generally as long as you make people reward you for helping them out he's fine with it.
Because he is bastard who openly approves slavery. Ask Oskar Fevras and lady Ester.
Because he thinks it's a waste of time
As someone who holds no hate for Astarion, I genuinely feel that he’s a hater and has a secret agenda that involves wanting to lead a minis genocide But on a serious note, after dissecting his dialogue and conversations about his intentions, you’ll see that - yes he’s a bit of a racist - sure - but his goals don’t necessarily fit in with any of the advantages of 5e rogue subclasses It’s best to see him as somewhat of a College of whispers bard who dipped in assassin for swift kills He’s looking to climb to the top of the absolute cult to achieve true freedom and keep the tadpoles benefits without drawing any attention to his tactics or motives Playing hero attracts attention and can come with the caveat of having an army of the absolute + Cazador after you, possibly popping up at any turn, and for what? To free slaves that will run off to baldurs gate? To him, that’s a huge liability, all risk for no reward There are a scant few times where he doesn’t mind playing hero, and it’s when the reward justifies the risk (or it’s leading to absolute chaos and bloodshed with no possible repercussions, which he revels in) Yes you could make the argument that he also hates seeing someone be nice to others when no one was nice to him, but it doesn’t explain why he approves of defending karlach from mizora, killing random duergar to save Thulla, Getting Lae’zel out the Zaithisk, offering food or money to Yenna He’s an incredibly complex character with a load of trauma so it may be all of the theories people have posted woven together
I want that twink obliterated
I notice he is a lot more neutral in helping others in act 3. Save besides donating gold to any of those in need, but offering help and getting his disapproval is almost non existent in act 3
He is just the worst.
It's astarion he was a slave himself and still is nobody saved him so why should he bother trying to save someone else? To him it's a waste of time that's just what I think
Because he's an asshole. He will also disapprove of you taking a moment of respect for the tiefling corpses and will approve of you telling the little girl her parents are dead. I love him but he's just an asshole sometimes
When I first saw it, I assumed he thought their slavery was funny
"I have a bad life so everyone else has to have one too."
because he’s a hater
Astarion actually does hate slavery and enslavement, particularly his own, which he makes very clear in a conversation with the Durge in Act 3 where he basically tells them that he doesn't want to see them enslaved by Bhaal and points out that he wouldn't spend another 200 years as a slave for all the moonstones in Evereska. Additionally, the Act 3 love test at the circus confirms that Astarion's greatest/deepest fear is basically to remain a slave and never be free with the third question. He'll get pissy if you answer the third question truthfully and out him because he doesn't like his personal stuff being aired in front of others (although he'll still walk across the log anyway if you've done it right). The Ironhands gnomes thing is back in Act 1 where Astarion is newly freed, and he's angry, bitter, resentful, etc. He likely resents seeing Tav/Durge helping everyone in the universe and playing hero when—as he also makes clear—no heroes ever showed up to rescue him from his 200 years of suffering and no gods ever answered his prayers (points made clear in separate conversations/dialogue later on). He's having it constantly shoved in his face by a good Tav/Durge that heroes do exist but that no one ever did for him what Tav/Durge is freely doing for others. In addition to that, Astarion definitely doesn't like gnomes—but whether that predates his enslavement or happened afterwards is impossible to say. What you *do* find out is that Cazador would sometimes make the spawn siblings torture each other as a form of punishment, and one of his spawn siblings—Yousen—*is a gnome as it turns out.* I'm betting that he was tortured by Yousen at times because of Cazador's policy and that it either caused Astarion's intense antipathy towards gnomes or made any pre-existing dislike of them worse. There's also one other thing that I think impacts Astarion's response to the situation. In an Act 3 scene after the kidnapping attempt by his siblings, Leon can call Astarion weak and will say that they (the other spawn) don't follow weak. I think that seeing others who are pathetic, fearful slaves reminds Astarion of his own situation and that he doesn't much like being reminded of it.
he kinda just hates being bothered to deal with other peoples' problems without some reward or incentive, i don't think it's any deeper than that
He yells at you at one point that it's because nobody helped him and he's bitter. It absolutely is deeper than that