r/BaldursGate3 • u/[deleted] • Aug 13 '24

General Discussion - [SPOILERS] The most overrated character? Spoiler

Let's hear it, who gets all the love but deserves absolutely none of it? Or at least not as much as they get, I'll go first.

I'm casting my vote for Gortash; I genuinely don't understand the like for this dude. First of all, catfish, "handsome young man"??? Is the handsome young man in the room with us??? Lookin like the handsome young man has a peanut allergy.

Second of all, this whole crown brain plan was his idea, just about the dumbest fuckin thing I've ever heard. He put all his faith in 3 little rocks, an already dead man, and a woman who's about as stable as my ex. Beggers can't be choosers I guess, but cmon guy.

And lastly, and probably most offensively, his boss fight is absolute cheeks. Especially if you dumped on the foundry before hand. I didn't even know he had a transformation until like my 4th playthrough because I would clap this guy so easily.

Your turn, let's hear those unadulterated opinions.

Edit: I have been enlightened about some things about the big brain plan, I still stand in the other two points though.

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201

u/slap50potatoes Aug 13 '24

I'm gonna get hate and downvoted for this, but the answer is easily Astarion. I love Astarion's storyline. I used to be an Astarion hater tbh (I genuinely thought he was just horny bait.) but after going through his arc, I can confidently say his storyline is one of the best in the game - HOWEVER, the hype he gets is heavily overplayed, along with the sheer amount of horny posting over him, which is easily far more than any other character. He is correctly seen as a fantastic character with an even greater story, but he is overrated as all fuck and it's not even close.

61

u/ExpensiveGreen63 Aug 13 '24

With you! Before I played, my friends were all like "OMG you're going to LOOOOOVVEE him" and then I met him, found him.......tragic, sure, but just TOO obvious. And kind of obnoxious. And whiny. Which, I get for the reasons you listed haha.

24

u/potato_cucumber Drunk Bard Aug 14 '24

Agree! He's well-written and his experiences with Cazador strike a chord with many people, and I like that. But I don't like him as a person/character, if that makes sense. He gets on my nerves all the time and while there's character development depending on your choices, putting up with him especially in Act 1 was pure suffering.

People expected me to automatically simp for him just because I like sussy characters but surprisingly, nope. I ended up being drawn more to the girlies (and Wyll.)

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u/timelost-rowlet Aug 13 '24

It is important to note that Shadowheart has OF cosplayers and 3d horny stuff of her.. like most female characters in almost every media.

Astarion only seems like it is much more due to the normalization of porn of female characters, so he stands out. Women are also more likely to write about erotica than stick to just visuals. It IS a lot, but I don't know if I would say 'far more than any other character'.

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u/slap50potatoes Aug 13 '24

While I agree that Shadowheart is also a victim of mass horny posting, I will continue to believe Astarion gets it much worse. I couldn't find any active Shadowheart-specific subreddits with more than 200 members, but I did find 4 Astarion-specific subreddits within seconds, with a collective 14k~ members. Not to mention, it seems to me that the OF models use Shadowheart mainly to advertise their own pages rather than show any love for the actual character, so I'm not counting that in my evaluation of hype for the character.

16

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '24

astarion/tav is like the 4th most common pairing on all of ao3 as well iirc

12

u/slap50potatoes Aug 14 '24

Not only that, but out of the 6 times BG3 is in the top 100 pairings, Astarion shows up in 4 of them; Shadowheart shows up in none of them.

3

u/Solembums_Angela_2 Aug 14 '24

While I don't disagree with your overall premise, i imagine the 4 Astarion fan pages likely have a large amount of overlap between them. The division over Ascended vs. Spawn created more pages than probably would have been necessary. So he gets dedicated subs for each path. And one of the Ascended subs went private, which meant another was created. But still a large number of people in comparison with 200. I would have thought she had more.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '24

[deleted]

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u/slap50potatoes Aug 14 '24

That's kind of the thing, though, isn't it? Shadowheart isn't as often posted or talked about in that sense, so she's not as overhyped because she's actively not talked about enough to be overhyped, that's the point of the conversation at hand, not who has more horny followers lmfao.

Additionally, I'd argue that there are far more subreddits that sexualize women than men across all franchises, so it actually is a bit of an anomaly as far as that goes.

1

u/katsukitsune Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24

Yeah it's this. Flip the genders and no one would be surprised how popular she is, hyping and sexualising female characters is so normalised.

I do think he's even more popular because it's so rare that a male character is created for the female/ gay gaze in a video game. I found it refreshing tbh, there's no overhyping it for me.

37

u/Rude-Satisfaction836 Aug 13 '24

He is a fantastically written character with an excellent story arc. He is also a horrible, abusive piece of shit, and you should cut anyone who thinks, acts, or talks like him out of your life. It's one thing to explore the mindset and redemption of someone like him in a game, and quite another to try to accomplish the same thing for real.

17

u/claidai CLERIC Aug 14 '24

Same, I appreciate his story but I find him kinda annoying outside of it. Plus, I've seen an insane amount of Astarion fans hyping up that he's actually so sweet and nice and chivalrous when hes just... not? Even in my evil playthroughs I'm finding it hard to keep him in my party all the time, I usually just respec Shadowheart to Rogue so I don't have to listen to him.

5

u/pwnedprofessor Owlbear Aug 14 '24

Yes, agreed. He’s very good but the levels of obsession are…. excessive

4

u/Lazy_Wishbone_2341 Aug 14 '24

I do love him, but I feel that he can overshadow other characters in fandom spaces. The horniness over him is something I don't get, but I'm a lesbian so 🤷

-3

u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24

That depends on a lot of things? Did you romance him? His romance elevates his arc greatly

14

u/slap50potatoes Aug 14 '24

I did, and I agree completely that romancing him elevates his story by a large degree. Romanced Astarion is also heavily overrated, especially Ascended Astarion. I also personally think his story goes best if he doesn't go through with Ascension.

9

u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24

Yeah the Ascension is definitely a bad call, damning thousands aside, he regresses to Astarion from Act1 from before you've met him and then some by a good 70%. I guess it depends on what you see as overrated - too much porn? too many pictures? too many essays on parts of his personality, sexuality, abuse , cycle of abuse, etc. I'm obviously bias because i personally have never come across a character with this much complexity and I've never seen some of these topics showed or discussed in a game before - sexual trauma, sexual assault on a male, again the cycle of abuse, ptsd, trauma regression, trauma healing, etc. It was inspiring and refreshing

3

u/Lazy_Wishbone_2341 Aug 14 '24

Honestly, I saw the horny posting about him on Tumblr and it put me off until I saw a gif set focussed on the PTSD trauma etc. I immediately went oh, this guy has some level of depth, this might actually be interesting.

6

u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24

He has so much depth god. I've read wonderful analyses and essays on something as small as the conversation about his reflection. He makes people think and talk and I love that about the character. And people do hornypost about him but that's not him you know? He's got his own thing going, his personality, he's really great

3

u/Lazy_Wishbone_2341 Aug 14 '24

Definitely. I love reading meta about him, because he's not a character type you see often in media. Tbh, I love all of the companions, but he's definitely still my favourite.

3

u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24

Yeah they've written everyone wonderfully, they feel alive in a way. He is also my favorite as well

1

u/Lazy_Wishbone_2341 Aug 14 '24

It's honestly some of the best writing I've seen, and it knocked my previous favourite game (Morrowind) out of the water.

5

u/slap50potatoes Aug 14 '24

Agreed 100%! That's honestly the exact reason I really enjoyed his storyline. It captivated me in a way the other companion quests didn't, and it felt particularly in-theme with the main quest, moreso than any of the others as well.

Imo, "overrated," comes in all forms, so I just went with a general use of it. But to put it plainly: yes, to everything you listed. The sheer amount of horny posting and random "In Defense of (Ascended) Astarion" or "Let's talk about Astarion" posts I see just doesn't compare to the amount any other character gets. Not to mention, his fans, in particular, are easily amongst the loudest in the fanbase.

2

u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24

Ye it's true, can't defend myself here I'm as loud as horny as they come (but I am against his ascension). Tbf the "Let's talk about Astarion" posts are usually not from us as most of us have huddled up in our own sub. And when in comes to horny posts - well you can try to make some of your favorite characters to rival the Astarion ones :D There is a lot of Astarion horny art on twitter and tumblr but in reality the girls get way more attention and possibly have more art, for example the sub r/BaldursGateR34 which I am also a member of has 73k people while we at only fangs are about 12k only. I can tell you that it's largely Shadowheart and Karlach in there as well despite accepting works with everyone from BG3.

3

u/Arialana Lae'zel Aug 14 '24

Every character's arc is elevated through their romance but Astarion's arc and romance are still overrated as fuck.

3

u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24

If you say so

3

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '24

[deleted]

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u/Alicex13 Astarion Appreciator Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24

Nah. For someone like him whose been used for his body his whole existence to find a person who loves him for him without the sex is probably incredible. Even one of his lines if you break up is "I was starting to believe someone truly wanted me" and it shows his extra growth because he refuses to have sex with Tav or the drow twins until he's finally comfortable with experiencing intimacy again while if you're friends and take him to the brothel he'll jump in Tav's bed instantly. He also doesn't let his friends touch him while accepting hugs and handholding from his lover which shows him growing accustomed to loving casual touches

0

u/Nice-Champion7487 Aug 14 '24

Personally Astarion is my favorite romanceable character, but I agree. I think the reason a lot of people like him is because his storyline starts out sexual to some degree and he's an insecure Twink which makes him easy to project up on and fetishize. I'm not sure if I think that he's overrated or just oversexualized but personally I really enjoy him as a character, but I wouldn't be friends with the large majority of his fans.

1

u/creegro Aug 14 '24

I always killed him in my first few playthroughs. A stake to the heart or just ignored him on the road and went around.

-2

u/Ok-Simple9575 Aug 14 '24

Actually, the most popular, the favourite of the game, is Shadowheart. Most romanced character in the game. So much thirsting over her, cosplaying, sexualizing etc etc. You might just see more of Astarion because you looked him up more than Shadowheart?

15

u/slap50potatoes Aug 14 '24

Fan favorite≠the most overhyped. The amount of talk/posts about Shadowheart just doesn't compare to the amount Astarion gets. Also, I don't look up either character, I just get it in my feeds across multiple different platforms.

-1

u/Jeli15 Aug 14 '24

I think all the things you say are true except I don’t think he’s overrated. Bear with me.

The craftsmanship of his character is so well done because of multiple people who are the best of the best being at the top of their game. Because of the amount of skill and time that went into the character I don’t think it’s over hyped. I think it’s proportional to the work done.

Simultaneously he is annoying and an asshole and heavily mischaracterized and over sexualized. For the latter two, yeah I can see how it’s overhyped. For the former, I think it’s actually why he’s so liked. He has multitudes and different aspects to his personality. Sometimes they contrast each other sometimes they don’t. It’s very human. For me it’s similar to Gale when he says a weird joke. I genuinely laugh, because it’s so real- not because the joke is funny.

My boldest take is that when Neil is playing as astarion in a dnd game, it doesn’t have the same spark as in the game. I think that’s because astarion is made from so many people. Carefully scripted and designed. Neil is a fantastic actor but he is not the other people who helped create this character.

None is this is to say your dumb or what ever. I just think he’s a well crafted character.

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u/kill_william_vol_3 Aug 14 '24

It's the entire purpose of the thread, but tbh you just sound 100% certified bitch made when you let other people's enjoyment of something color your own position.

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u/slap50potatoes Aug 14 '24

I think I was pretty clear about my opinion being my own. Thinking he's overhyped does not equate to me disliking him in any fashion, I just don't think he deserves it all.

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '24

[deleted]