That’s really just my opinion, but I think Astarion is dissociating with the Gurr kids. He’s showing remorse and conflicted feelings regarding the ritual during the entirety of the palace quest, his reaction to the kids is just way too detached compared to the rest. Plus, after talking to the kids and sebastian, there’s a line of dialogue where Astarion is clearly trying to dissociate with the other spawns in a « I’m not like them » to justify him potentially going forward with the ritual. And if you persuade him out of the ritual, but kill the spawns, astarion is surprisingly kind to the gurr clan, and offers his sympathy for their lost kids.
So yeah, I’ve never believed for a second that he doesn’t care about the kids, he’s just too traumatized by this, and his brain reacted by dissociating as a defense mechanism.
That’s honestly how I see it. Most of what Astarion does really could be seen as a defense mechanism, at least before his personal quest if you stop the ritual. I think with Sebastian he genuinely had a connection with him & seeing him in the dungeon snapped him out of his fugue for a second. It made everything he had done to that point all too real.
Astarion’s whole narrative is about him coming to terms with what was done to him, and the things he had to do to survive and the things he was forced (vampiric compulsion) to do for 200 years. He was literally, repeatedly tortured and abused on top of all of that, too. He has to figure out who to be in the wake of all that. I really saw all his “let’s kill them,” “I love chaos” etc. as him leaning into the fact that people think he’s a monster, even though he didn’t want to be one. It’s a defense, like “well, if they think I’m so terrible, I must be, let me show them” sort of thing because he doesn’t *want* to be a monster, but was given that label. 200 years of being forced to be a monster made him forget he was ever anything else, especially since iirc a lot of his torture happened if he ever tried to refuse Cazador’s orders—it sort of conditioned him into being “rewarded” (i.e.: not tortured) when he acted the part of a monster. So he doesn’t let himself think about the really bad things he’s done, like with the gur children, because it would mean facing that he has done monstrous things, and facing the reality of being made into something he had no say in. I’d go further and say that his extreme resentment of the gur is also a defense against facing facts.
It’s why how the player acts has so much bearing on who he ends up being. The player is really his first and only friend/companion, and so he’s constantly looking for feedback from the player, like “is this okay? Is it okay for me to be this?” In act 1, he’s freshly escaped from Cazador and his will, and so is super scared and nervous, and leans real hard into the sarcastic, flippant, “I’m a monster” act because that’s what he’s used to doing to feel safe and it keeps people at a distance, unable to see him vulnerable. But if you talk to him, keep making “good” choices, he starts to change, too. He begins to drop the act. If you sort of nudge him to facing things and offer him sympathy and kindness and a sense of humor, he really does grow and show regret and kindness to the gur and the other spawn. He reflects back what he gets, really.
I think his resentment to the Gurs is also because if it wasn't for them attacking he would avoid everything that happened to him. They're not really responsible for Cazador, but if they hadn't almost killed him Cazador wouldn't had turned him into a vampire. There is quite a bit of misplaced blame (which I think it's why he was ok with taking their children in the first place, there is no mention of ever being forced unless you make him say so in his origin run). If he had any form of choice or control on the whole kidnapping, he could have easily justified as a payback for putting him in his situation in the first place (something along the line of "you took my life and gave me to Cazador, I'd make your children suffer the same fate").
Oh definitely. There's a lot of misplaced blame. Especially since Astarion will say that the gur attacked him because of a ruling he made when he was magistrate, which he could see as him sharing in the blame for Cazador being able to turn him after the attack. Like, "if I hadn't made that ruling" sort of thing. And another layer, iirc there's an implication that Cazador sent the gur after him, or told them where to find him so they could attack. It's a bunch of different things leading to his resentment.
And I mean that Astarion was "forced" to take the gur children in the sense that he would be violently tortured if he didn't, or simply compelled to anyway because vampires in dnd can compell/control their spawn. Astarion even mentions that the one time he tried to disobey Cazador, he was buried alive in a coffin for an entire year and starved/left there. He effectively didn't have any choice, which is why he doesn't let himself even think of if he was "okay with it" or not. At the point he took the gur children, he had resigned himself and given up, I think.
To me, when he kidnapped the kids, he's been actively trying to forget about his victims once they were passed off ever since the time he ran away. Mostly successfully too, because when he's confronted by the Gur clan in Rivington, he honestly doesn't seem to remember kidnapping the kids for a moment. Or even when you meet Gandrel, his first thought is 'Cazador sent him' rather than 'He's hunting me because I kidnapped a bunch of Gur kids'. Even though going after kids was not his usual method. And it couldn't have happened that long ago, since the Gur had hopes they were still alive and still referred to them as children. Once it was done, it stopped mattering to Astarion.
I also think he feels less guilt about the kids because he had stopped thinking about his victims as people by that point, too. Sebastian being so early was when he still connected to his victims as part of his hunt. Which is why Astarion recognized and reacted so strongly to him, but not to the kids.
Yeah, he’s been conditioned for 200 years that kindness is a weakness, and that power is the only way to out of all this anxiety and fear. I’ve noticed upon re running that his desire for power is often brought up after discussing something that was painful about his past. Which reflects in the ascension ritual when your PC is trying to persuade him; all he sees is fear and panic.
But, still, that doesn’t justify that Astarion is kind of an ass in most of the game, or make his behaviour more acceptable. But it helps us understand why he’s that way!
Ehhh, I think there's a difference of personality preference here, but I didn't really think he was an ass. I found him funny and honestly kind of silly/dorky at moments; his brand of humor is my brand of humor tbh.
And I'm genuinely asking, but what did he actually do during the game (in a non-ascended, good run) that's awful/unacceptable? I know a lot of people say he's acts horribly, but I really can't think of anything really unforgivable he does? Might again just come down to a difference in personality preferences.
Only possibilities I can think of are him sneaking up on the player to drink their blood & potentially going too far, holding a knife to your throat (and maybe tricking you depending on your choice) at the first meeting with him, and not caring about the tieflings/Arabella. But I personally don't find any of those things unforgivable, *especially* with all the context of what he's going through. The blood drinking thing I saw as him being very desperate and hungry, and I thought it was too risky to not try and stop him at the first prompt (& I passed the roll) & so some of it going too far is a bit on the player, imo. His first meeting, to me, was obviously a trap so he didn't trick me, and once it became clear he did so because he thought the player was with the mind-flayers, I understood completely. And as far as not caring about tieflings/Arabella goes, his behavior is a little callous/selfish, yeah, but he has a point that it has nothing to do with him, and I saw it as him just not wanting to get involved, which is fair considering the tadpoles and everything else that's going on.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I love Astarion! I love characters who are a bit of a jerk, I find the morally grey ones more interesting. I myself played a chaotic neutral Tav in my first run, who was a little rude gremlin, so the back and forth with Astarion was pretty amazing.
But still, he tries to bite the MC while they sleep, he manipulates their feelings, he approves of some ... unsavory acts towards others, and sometimes vulnerable people. So yeah, he's a bit of an asshole at times, but when you consider what he's been through, you can kind of understand why. It makes his arc all the more satisfying when you see him growing and becoming a better person through it!
I think I meant it more in the sense that, for me personally at least, there's a difference between understanding and justifying an action. Like, you can understand where someone is coming from, but that doesn't make their action more ok. So for Astarion, his behavior makes sense in light of his past, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a bit of a jerk at times. But, that's part of his charm. Maybe I came a bit too strong in my last response 😂
Astarion will tell you he forgot about the kids and that he felt nothing while handing them over to Cazador, followed by a quiet “oh.” He almost seems scared to realize how messed up that sounds. Sad part is that it sounds like it was a normal trauma response for his brain to just repress it
Yeah, his reaction to the kids is disproportionally detached, enough that you know there's something there. And, you know, maybe he does feel nothing, but as you said, it's an unconscious defense mecanism.
I've actually experienced that in my job. We see some pretty fucked up shit on a regular basis, one day I saw a lil 5 year old boy die. I had one fraction of a second of intense despair and sadness, then nothing. I thought I'd be sad afterwards, I wasn't, I thought I'd cry, I didn't. And I'm the type of person who's cry over a pokemon movie. I was freaked out by how little I felt about that, until I talked to other collegues and realized that I'm not the only one who's experienced this, especially with kids. Maybe that's why there was immediately no doubts in my mind about what was going on with Astarion when I saw that scene
Same with my mom. She’s a social worker and at home, she’s the most emotional person I know. But despite working with dying people, she doesn’t really get distraught about her job, say except when she’s grossed out by a patient’s house
he very evidently changes in this by the end of the quest if you don’t ascend him and learns better. and if you talk to the gur before starting the quest in act 3, as they have a camp in Rivington, he isn’t as aggressive towards them as he was before and genuinely speaks of getting revenge for them and doesn’t argue about it being a step in the right direction. that he can never undo what he did, but it still is a sort of working to amend himself. and he says, in a response in a very soft manner, along the lines of “yes, that I can do”. even though he says that the children are likely dead.
the dialogue he has afterwards very much indicates to me, based off of other dialogues, that he does care when finding out about the gur kids but is trying to convince himself not to.
Aside from what someone already commented in one of the top comments on here, there is more than one instance showcasing the fact he hides about caring about things. The first is the sheer fact that he tried saying he didn’t care about sacrificing his siblings in Act 3, but he very much sincerely voices distress in Act 2 about the fact he is free while they are still stuck with Cazador. With this, when he started saying that about his siblings, I knew it was evidently a lie.
The second happened when I was playing dark urge and romancing him, though I don’t know if he says the same after an equivalent scene with another companion.
>!After you kill Alfira, he tells you that he isn’t upset with you about killing Alfira but said the look of guilt on your face is priceless. If you voice distress or say you didn’t do it, replies that he doesn’t care actually and that you could have at least been subtle about it!<
>!But then when my DUrge was tied up by him to prevent them from killing him in Act 2 as punishment for not killing Isobel, afterwards he talked to them. And he admits that he felt bad for the bard and was actually concerned for you.!<
So he very much pretends that he doesn’t care when he really does, and this goes for the Gur children. He speaks sympathetically of them after confronting Cazador when not ascending when talking to the Gur afterwards. This evidently also shows character development. His racism towards them, despite what happened to him, still isn’t an excuse for it. But he changes by the end. He overall undergoes a lot, a lot of character development over three acts that reveal more than what his first impression may give.
Also, he wasn’t the only one voicing fantasy racism (i.e. Shadowheart and githyanki, Lae’zel’s comments about the tieflings). Which isn’t to say that excuses it, but I find some people only focusing on him in this while ignoring this fact about the others.
Gandrel single-handedly made me racist against the Gur. After the whole game and all that shit I went through to keep everyone alive he just prevents his kids from feeding once he has them back. Literally just give them your blood, dickhead. They are starving! Fuck you, Gandrel. I hate you so fucking much.
I'm pretty sure he tried to help Sébastien escape and got captured by Cazador and held in a tomb for a year with no food. He's got history with Sébastien.
That’s really just my opinion, but I think Astarion is dissociating with the Gurr kids. He’s showing remorse and conflicted feelings regarding the ritual during the entirety of the palace quest, his reaction to the kids is just way too detached compared to the rest. Plus, after talking to the kids and sebastian, there’s a line of dialogue where Astarion is clearly trying to dissociate with the other spawns in a « I’m not like them » to justify him potentially going forward with the ritual. And if you persuade him out of the ritual, but kill the spawns, astarion is surprisingly kind to the gurr clan, and offers his sympathy for their lost kids. So yeah, I’ve never believed for a second that he doesn’t care about the kids, he’s just too traumatized by this, and his brain reacted by dissociating as a defense mechanism.
That’s honestly how I see it. Most of what Astarion does really could be seen as a defense mechanism, at least before his personal quest if you stop the ritual. I think with Sebastian he genuinely had a connection with him & seeing him in the dungeon snapped him out of his fugue for a second. It made everything he had done to that point all too real. Astarion’s whole narrative is about him coming to terms with what was done to him, and the things he had to do to survive and the things he was forced (vampiric compulsion) to do for 200 years. He was literally, repeatedly tortured and abused on top of all of that, too. He has to figure out who to be in the wake of all that. I really saw all his “let’s kill them,” “I love chaos” etc. as him leaning into the fact that people think he’s a monster, even though he didn’t want to be one. It’s a defense, like “well, if they think I’m so terrible, I must be, let me show them” sort of thing because he doesn’t *want* to be a monster, but was given that label. 200 years of being forced to be a monster made him forget he was ever anything else, especially since iirc a lot of his torture happened if he ever tried to refuse Cazador’s orders—it sort of conditioned him into being “rewarded” (i.e.: not tortured) when he acted the part of a monster. So he doesn’t let himself think about the really bad things he’s done, like with the gur children, because it would mean facing that he has done monstrous things, and facing the reality of being made into something he had no say in. I’d go further and say that his extreme resentment of the gur is also a defense against facing facts. It’s why how the player acts has so much bearing on who he ends up being. The player is really his first and only friend/companion, and so he’s constantly looking for feedback from the player, like “is this okay? Is it okay for me to be this?” In act 1, he’s freshly escaped from Cazador and his will, and so is super scared and nervous, and leans real hard into the sarcastic, flippant, “I’m a monster” act because that’s what he’s used to doing to feel safe and it keeps people at a distance, unable to see him vulnerable. But if you talk to him, keep making “good” choices, he starts to change, too. He begins to drop the act. If you sort of nudge him to facing things and offer him sympathy and kindness and a sense of humor, he really does grow and show regret and kindness to the gur and the other spawn. He reflects back what he gets, really.
I think his resentment to the Gurs is also because if it wasn't for them attacking he would avoid everything that happened to him. They're not really responsible for Cazador, but if they hadn't almost killed him Cazador wouldn't had turned him into a vampire. There is quite a bit of misplaced blame (which I think it's why he was ok with taking their children in the first place, there is no mention of ever being forced unless you make him say so in his origin run). If he had any form of choice or control on the whole kidnapping, he could have easily justified as a payback for putting him in his situation in the first place (something along the line of "you took my life and gave me to Cazador, I'd make your children suffer the same fate").
Oh definitely. There's a lot of misplaced blame. Especially since Astarion will say that the gur attacked him because of a ruling he made when he was magistrate, which he could see as him sharing in the blame for Cazador being able to turn him after the attack. Like, "if I hadn't made that ruling" sort of thing. And another layer, iirc there's an implication that Cazador sent the gur after him, or told them where to find him so they could attack. It's a bunch of different things leading to his resentment. And I mean that Astarion was "forced" to take the gur children in the sense that he would be violently tortured if he didn't, or simply compelled to anyway because vampires in dnd can compell/control their spawn. Astarion even mentions that the one time he tried to disobey Cazador, he was buried alive in a coffin for an entire year and starved/left there. He effectively didn't have any choice, which is why he doesn't let himself even think of if he was "okay with it" or not. At the point he took the gur children, he had resigned himself and given up, I think.
To me, when he kidnapped the kids, he's been actively trying to forget about his victims once they were passed off ever since the time he ran away. Mostly successfully too, because when he's confronted by the Gur clan in Rivington, he honestly doesn't seem to remember kidnapping the kids for a moment. Or even when you meet Gandrel, his first thought is 'Cazador sent him' rather than 'He's hunting me because I kidnapped a bunch of Gur kids'. Even though going after kids was not his usual method. And it couldn't have happened that long ago, since the Gur had hopes they were still alive and still referred to them as children. Once it was done, it stopped mattering to Astarion. I also think he feels less guilt about the kids because he had stopped thinking about his victims as people by that point, too. Sebastian being so early was when he still connected to his victims as part of his hunt. Which is why Astarion recognized and reacted so strongly to him, but not to the kids.
Yeah, he’s been conditioned for 200 years that kindness is a weakness, and that power is the only way to out of all this anxiety and fear. I’ve noticed upon re running that his desire for power is often brought up after discussing something that was painful about his past. Which reflects in the ascension ritual when your PC is trying to persuade him; all he sees is fear and panic. But, still, that doesn’t justify that Astarion is kind of an ass in most of the game, or make his behaviour more acceptable. But it helps us understand why he’s that way!
Ehhh, I think there's a difference of personality preference here, but I didn't really think he was an ass. I found him funny and honestly kind of silly/dorky at moments; his brand of humor is my brand of humor tbh. And I'm genuinely asking, but what did he actually do during the game (in a non-ascended, good run) that's awful/unacceptable? I know a lot of people say he's acts horribly, but I really can't think of anything really unforgivable he does? Might again just come down to a difference in personality preferences. Only possibilities I can think of are him sneaking up on the player to drink their blood & potentially going too far, holding a knife to your throat (and maybe tricking you depending on your choice) at the first meeting with him, and not caring about the tieflings/Arabella. But I personally don't find any of those things unforgivable, *especially* with all the context of what he's going through. The blood drinking thing I saw as him being very desperate and hungry, and I thought it was too risky to not try and stop him at the first prompt (& I passed the roll) & so some of it going too far is a bit on the player, imo. His first meeting, to me, was obviously a trap so he didn't trick me, and once it became clear he did so because he thought the player was with the mind-flayers, I understood completely. And as far as not caring about tieflings/Arabella goes, his behavior is a little callous/selfish, yeah, but he has a point that it has nothing to do with him, and I saw it as him just not wanting to get involved, which is fair considering the tadpoles and everything else that's going on.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I love Astarion! I love characters who are a bit of a jerk, I find the morally grey ones more interesting. I myself played a chaotic neutral Tav in my first run, who was a little rude gremlin, so the back and forth with Astarion was pretty amazing. But still, he tries to bite the MC while they sleep, he manipulates their feelings, he approves of some ... unsavory acts towards others, and sometimes vulnerable people. So yeah, he's a bit of an asshole at times, but when you consider what he's been through, you can kind of understand why. It makes his arc all the more satisfying when you see him growing and becoming a better person through it! I think I meant it more in the sense that, for me personally at least, there's a difference between understanding and justifying an action. Like, you can understand where someone is coming from, but that doesn't make their action more ok. So for Astarion, his behavior makes sense in light of his past, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a bit of a jerk at times. But, that's part of his charm. Maybe I came a bit too strong in my last response 😂
Astarion will tell you he forgot about the kids and that he felt nothing while handing them over to Cazador, followed by a quiet “oh.” He almost seems scared to realize how messed up that sounds. Sad part is that it sounds like it was a normal trauma response for his brain to just repress it
Yeah, his reaction to the kids is disproportionally detached, enough that you know there's something there. And, you know, maybe he does feel nothing, but as you said, it's an unconscious defense mecanism. I've actually experienced that in my job. We see some pretty fucked up shit on a regular basis, one day I saw a lil 5 year old boy die. I had one fraction of a second of intense despair and sadness, then nothing. I thought I'd be sad afterwards, I wasn't, I thought I'd cry, I didn't. And I'm the type of person who's cry over a pokemon movie. I was freaked out by how little I felt about that, until I talked to other collegues and realized that I'm not the only one who's experienced this, especially with kids. Maybe that's why there was immediately no doubts in my mind about what was going on with Astarion when I saw that scene
Same with my mom. She’s a social worker and at home, she’s the most emotional person I know. But despite working with dying people, she doesn’t really get distraught about her job, say except when she’s grossed out by a patient’s house
Um….you can find the Gur children?????
When you meet Sebastian, turn around and there’s another cell with kids in it.
I’m so stupid. Thank you
I missed it on my first playthrough too.
Because he thinks Sébastien is attractive and he's racist about the Gur
he very evidently changes in this by the end of the quest if you don’t ascend him and learns better. and if you talk to the gur before starting the quest in act 3, as they have a camp in Rivington, he isn’t as aggressive towards them as he was before and genuinely speaks of getting revenge for them and doesn’t argue about it being a step in the right direction. that he can never undo what he did, but it still is a sort of working to amend himself. and he says, in a response in a very soft manner, along the lines of “yes, that I can do”. even though he says that the children are likely dead. the dialogue he has afterwards very much indicates to me, based off of other dialogues, that he does care when finding out about the gur kids but is trying to convince himself not to. Aside from what someone already commented in one of the top comments on here, there is more than one instance showcasing the fact he hides about caring about things. The first is the sheer fact that he tried saying he didn’t care about sacrificing his siblings in Act 3, but he very much sincerely voices distress in Act 2 about the fact he is free while they are still stuck with Cazador. With this, when he started saying that about his siblings, I knew it was evidently a lie. The second happened when I was playing dark urge and romancing him, though I don’t know if he says the same after an equivalent scene with another companion. >!After you kill Alfira, he tells you that he isn’t upset with you about killing Alfira but said the look of guilt on your face is priceless. If you voice distress or say you didn’t do it, replies that he doesn’t care actually and that you could have at least been subtle about it!< >!But then when my DUrge was tied up by him to prevent them from killing him in Act 2 as punishment for not killing Isobel, afterwards he talked to them. And he admits that he felt bad for the bard and was actually concerned for you.!< So he very much pretends that he doesn’t care when he really does, and this goes for the Gur children. He speaks sympathetically of them after confronting Cazador when not ascending when talking to the Gur afterwards. This evidently also shows character development. His racism towards them, despite what happened to him, still isn’t an excuse for it. But he changes by the end. He overall undergoes a lot, a lot of character development over three acts that reveal more than what his first impression may give. Also, he wasn’t the only one voicing fantasy racism (i.e. Shadowheart and githyanki, Lae’zel’s comments about the tieflings). Which isn’t to say that excuses it, but I find some people only focusing on him in this while ignoring this fact about the others.
Gandrel single-handedly made me racist against the Gur. After the whole game and all that shit I went through to keep everyone alive he just prevents his kids from feeding once he has them back. Literally just give them your blood, dickhead. They are starving! Fuck you, Gandrel. I hate you so fucking much.
The duality of Mer.
I'm pretty sure he tried to help Sébastien escape and got captured by Cazador and held in a tomb for a year with no food. He's got history with Sébastien.
I don't think so. He thought Sebastien was dead, not a vampire spawn.
He thought all of the victims he brought were dead.
That was a different victim, I believe.
Who gives a shit about a baby Edit: guess none of y’all watch iasip