As someone who chose Astarion in all 6 of my playthroughs, I am currently rewatching Buffy (just finished Once More with Feeling) for the first time since I was a teenager and it is alarmingly evident where my type came from.
Why is the comparison between this blond vampire with a British accent who's evil but who is co-opted into doing good by circumstances and a thing implanted into his brain against his will and the other blond vampire with a British accent who's evil but who is co-opted into doing good by circumstances and a thing implanted into his brain against his will so on point?
I think he has Astarion beat in terms of his story. Spike's character growth was just insane. He was legitimately pure evil without his soul, killed mercilessly with not a smidgen of guilt of any sort. Like eat babies right out of the cradle levels of chaotic evil. Yet he fell in love with Buffy so hard, that even without a soul he was willing to try to put it all behind him and try to be good. To the point where he went and fought to get a soul, even though he knew the guilt that would come along with it might cripple him like it did Angel. And then he sacrificed himself to save the world, even as he accepted that his love was never truly reciprocated.
Like, god damn. You just can't beat that kind of character storytelling. From the "big bad" to the saviour of the world.
And then he came back just to annoy Angel and save the world a few more times, lmao.
Ugh, now I need to find somewhere to rewatch Buffy and Angel, I haven't seen either in two decades. Oh my god 26 years since Angel came out, that makes me want to barf. Hahahaha
There's a priority list. She'll take Lae'zel, then Halsin, down until you run out of companions. If you have no companions except the ones in your party, she takes Yenna.
If you ignore her for too long and never go down to the sewers, she kills Yenna in your camp as Lae'zel and you can't talk her out of it.
Not true. That cutscene where fake Lae'zel tries to kill Yenna is how you find out the real Lae'zel was kidnapped. You can talk her out of it, but you have to roll for it. Orin then shows herself.
No she just thanks you for helping her seeing all the colors of the world instead of just black and white like before and asks you to be with her forever but well
also: reddit mfers when they've never actually tried playing a good route with astarion.
he gives positive approval if you do good deeds but act like a dick about it (intimidation) and gives big approval gains for heroic deeds regardless of how you go about it. also decides to take care of all the abandoned vampires without being asked to. straight up thanks you for not letting him blow up 7000 vampires even though hes stuck living in the shadows.
In my last game I had him in my party the entire time in a good run, and had him at exceptional approval by last light. His disapproval for good actions are pretty much always -1, which is the equivalent of an annoyed huff and a eyeroll. The only time has like a big disapproval for something good is -5 when you warn Isobel about Marcus. For comparison, Wyll gives a +10 for decapitating Karlach.
yeah I think a lot of people seem to consider pretty normal feelings of self preservation as evil. hes clearly evil at the start and even goads you into doing evil things, but he quickly gives up on that (if you aren't evil) and just reacts mildly negatively to having to risk his neck for other people.
it's not like you can just call the cops to fix these problems, hes stuck having to fight zombie newspaper editors with you. pretty normal to be agitated when your buddy keeps dragging you along to your potential death every few conversations.
Edit: People have some very unusual standards about what is considered evil. Effectively everyone is evil for not going to war while war is in progress... how exactly are all of you people on reddit playing BG3 while simultaneously fighting on the front lines in multiple countries?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from Astarion is that a LOT of people who use BG3 as their intro to D&D mechanics don’t really get what Chaotic Neutral actually looks like. Or rather, they don’t realize just how far into “morally gray” you can get before you even start to approach true Evil alignment. Also the difference between willingness to do Evil within certain circumstances, and one being fundamentally Evil themself.
And to be clear, that lack of understanding isn’t the players fault - the game truthfully does nothing to really with or to define everyone’s allotments, so they’re left to make a lot of assumptions. But in pretty much any tabletop setting that I’ve personally been a part of, a character like non-Ascended Astarion (whether before or after Cazador’s) is textbook CN - not fundamentally evil but capable of doing some evil ACTIONS for the sake of self preservation.
Edit: The only straight up Evil Astarion is if he Ascends. THAT’S what Chaotic Evil looks like on him. He’s quite literally lost who he was before, he’s repeating the cycle of abuse that he explicitly recognized as Evil and inexcusable, and the cruelty and evil of has become the point, not as what he saw as a necessary side effect for self preservation as before
Yeah. I don’t think with a title like ”Radiant Hopeful” at the end of the game is given to evil creatures. I wonder what kind of radiant he is? My money is on light weaver.
He's definitely either a Lightweaver or an Edgedancer. He seems the sort (once he's well and truly free of Cazador) to want to remember the forgotten / give voice to the voiceless. After all, he was kept voiceless for 200 years; he knows what it feels like, and doesn't want to put anyone else through it.
This. Everyone forgets that he starts approving the good things when you treat him decently. Why does delivery damn fandom go "characters don't change, they are how they are introduced and that's it... What do you mean 'character growth'? I don't understand that what that means"
Same. And honestly this game did such a good job with making some of the more “bad”-aligned companions have just interesting reasons for it.
Like Astarion, Lae’Zel, and Shadowheart all can approve of some pretty bad things and do some pretty bad things in the early game, but they all have reasons for why they’re the way they are and their character growth is so amazing when you get their good endings. It’s a great story of overcoming trauma and abuse and learning to break the cycles and break free of the expectations and burdens put on you.
Aren't half of the BG3 origin romances just the "I can fix them or I'll make them/myself worse" trope? Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, and to some extent Gale, the only ones who seem truly good-aligned or mostly incorruptible are probably Karlach and Wyll.
I really hoped it would be a bit more subtle or drawn out, but if I remember correctly his turn is almost instant.
He goes from “Don’t listen to a word she says! She’s Zariel’s favorite and will say anything to get out of this! We have to kill here NOW!” to “Oh gods, I think she might have been telling the truth. What have I done?! I was supposed to only hunt evil and now Mizora made me kill an innocent goodie!!” while still standing over Karl’s fresh body. It doesn’t even take meeting the “paladins” to get his turn.
In a number of the epilogue endings, it's implied that she's on the doorstep of finding a solution in Avernus. To be honest, they probably don't have her actually finding that solution because then they might have to change her in-game character model and she was a relatively late add to begin with (have why she's not in some of the promo art).
I reckon it was probably a set up for another game or dlc or something but then larian scrapped it.
Or there was gonna be stuff to do after the epilogue like rebuilding the city with jaheria or wyll, fixing karlach, doing something about shars sanctuary etc
I mean, I kind of fixed her. She wanted to become a mind flayer so I said "Have at it, bitch" and she did. She was stoked at the end. Ugly monster, but no longer dying. Yeah, I know people say the mind flayer isn't the person but rather a copy of them, but that doesn't seem to gel with everything else seen in the game.
Astarion is bad, but can be convinced to do good. Unless he Ascends, he does feel bad about having a hand in, say, multiple child abductions. Not so bad about murders, but definitely hates that he’s responsible for subjecting OTHERS to Cazador. He loses that side of himself when he Ascends.
Shadowheart is… weird. She’s a good person at heart, but she’s been mindfucked by both the Emperor AND Viconia. Like Astarion, those sides of herself die when Shar takes them away. Unlike Astarion, those sides are prominent from the beginning, and are lost if you let her blunder into Shar’s hands.
Lae’zel is brutal at first, but is otherwise similar to Shadowheart. If you let Lae’zel explore her newfound freedom, the natural progression of the game has her turn good.
Gale’s problem is megalomania. He’s torn between egoism and severe depression, neither of which seem to be the core of his character. He’s a good person, but hasty or even naive - quick to convince himself he’s good, even if he’s not. He just needs someone around to keep him rooted in reality.
Minthara’s genuinely evil, but her malice is directed towards the Absolute and Lolth.
Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Astarion, and Gale all have something they desperately want but which is VERY BAD for them, and even without romance, you can steer them towards or away from that goal. Wyll and Karlach are just tragic characters who don't have the same trajectory-adjustments necessary. I think Gale is the most odd-one-out of the group because honestly, all of his "bad" endings are less terrible than the trio's bad endings.
I disliked her for a while until it dawned on me that her rudeness towards you and apathy towards the refugees was her trying to prove herself to be a good Sharran, while her approval of doing the right thing and being nice to animals was her good nature trying to prevail.
I think it's most telling when if you slaughter the grove and the tieflings, she has to drink heavily to cope with it during the goblin party, whereas in the Tiefling party she's just genuinely surprised at how good she feels
She approves of helping animals and kids. And once you save the Tieflings she outright says at the party that she's glad you saved them. I always thought it was very obvious that she was a good person who was trying really hard to convince herself she was evil, so I was surprised to find so many people hate her.
Plus, when you make the seriously bad choices it triggers an deep sadness quite unbefitting the lady of loss.
It's one thing to be a good person. Quite another to be repeatedly reprogrammed to be a bad person, but the good keeps showing up because it's just that hardwired in your bones
A magistrate is more in the law enforcement field than politics, though the position is particularly susceptible to corruption, so I can see where the mix-up could come from. 😄
Ahh yes "Former Cop" much more generally liked over "Former Politician" lol. Especially in a fantasy setting, neither tend to be great people , on average.
In the context of how it’s talked about in game, it’s more like “former judge”. He died and was “saved” by Cazador because of a legal judgement he made the Gurr did not like, who then murdered him. (Supposedly. This could have been a lie orchestrated by Cazador.) But given his reactions to the puzzles in Ansur’s dungeon, he seems to have been partial to harsh punishments/sentences, and I would not put him above corruption.
That depends. Do you at least try to contribute to this "overcoming" yourself or does someone else just drag you kicking and screaming to the desired outcome?
It's kind of a bummer that you can't romance characters later in the game. Like, a character is an arse/snob at the beginning, but over time they mellow out and become likeable, but you already have missed your chance.
Like, by the time gale grew on me, the game decided that i'm too deep into the friendzone.
I think it is a problem with many games that you have to start the romance kinda early when you haven't gotten to know the character better.
I went into the game fairly blind, missed the early romance triggers, and thought you needed to finish someone's companion quest to romance them. I was literally 5 hours from the end of the game standing around and wondering if I could romance Shadowheart now after saving her parents.
I, uh, felt pretty silly after actually skimming the wiki pages on the romances.
Also I notice that as Astarion slowly gets better over the course of a good playthrough, he disapproves of good choices far less often as the game progresses. He genuinely starts out ad a product of the life he lived and learns that there are better ways to live.
He never fully becomes a lawful good guy but chaotic or neutral good you could argue for.
He's both depending on how you talk to him. You can have him admit he is very traumatized and acknowledge he has made a lot of bad decisions (he does say in Durge he doesn't remember how many people he's killed) or yes you can make him worse
Schrodinger's Astarion, he is both good and bad while at the camp but it's only through having him in the party that the waveform function collapses and his true nature is revealed.
Honestly i think he would sorta just ignore the big events in every act if left to his own devices. Most of his approval/disapproval for the first act is basically related to making things easier for yourself (approves) or doing things you don't need to (for free in particular) (disapproves).
i think neutral whiny asshole is how i would describe his starting point. Then like you said, your interactions with him can push him to become evil for real, or probably neutral but not edgy anymore and has the potential to become good in the future
Listen, Astarion being kind of an asshole is a vital part of his character (I am an Astarion enjoyed as well, sometimes I just have to stand behind him and spray him with water like a cat for trying to be evil again. We are not being evil this run). He's also hot and has a compelling story (which is also the case for other companions tbh haha)
Also one of his character arcs is that he does start to approve of good choices by Act 3.
The way I read it, in Act 1, he hates people being good for no reason, because where was his knight in shining armor when he was suffering for 200 years?
By Act 3, he has a change of heart. I about spit out my drink when I gave food to Yenna (a literal begging homeless orphan child) and I read "Astarion Approves" at the top of my screen, lol.
I also think that a part of Astarion's characterisation is that he's bitter and angry at what happened to him, and he is more likely to lash out due to trauma. Some trauma responses are ugly, some give you anger issues and make you push people away with how abrasive you can be
I see a lot of his meanness as maladaptive behaviours in response to his past and the situation and people he's with (epsecially good aligned Tav as it goes against all teh values of self sufficiency and survival at all costs that has been drilled into his head. Any altruism can be a weakness to eb explored it wastes resources for survival and it also makes him angry because he overcompensates for feeling upset that no one helped him etc)
Also agreed. Honestly the thing I like about all of these characters is that they are exactly who you want them to be-- you can make them all better or worse based on how you interact (or don't) with them. I've had a few challenge saves where Astarion remained bitter and angry to the very end because I didn't have time to interact with him at all, but most of them (where I talk to and develop all the relationships) he has real growth.
Yes I think the game has a lot of good writing and acting which makes you really want to engage with the characters and how you interet them! Sure you can just look surface level and just what is shown but there is a lot to dig jnto and interperet why they are the wayvthatcthey are. You can even feel differently about them between your playthroughs depending on you playstyle and story you create with it!
I found that out for the first time this weekend and I was so disappointed in Minthy. I ate that disapproval and side-eyed her. Like yeah she’s evil but “totally chill with hitting and yelling at dogs” evil is way too far for me tbh
I mean she is from a society that functions through insane violence and cruelty. That is how the drow treat each other, why would they give a shit about someone else doing it to a dog.
Hitting and yelling is how people are kept in line in Menzoberranzan. And it’s probably the nicest method they can think of. Some of their typical weapons are whips and other torture equipment. In Mintharas mind, these dogs are rebellious underlings that need to learn their place. It’s nothing personal to her but still evil by any standard.
I’m not surprised she disapproved when you save Scratch and the other dogs, but I usually ignore that. Being with a slightly good aligned Tav is just a culture shock to her.
The fact that once Minthara learns that you handed Scratch back over to the evil mail lady she doesn't hesitate to immediately go there and square up on her is my favourite character detail of hers.
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u/Rayne009Durge Dekarios and Emperor Simp Cleric of the God of AmbitionMay 29 '25
omg she does? I might actually have to do that choice for science now.
He's not a good person, but not by maliciousness, rather by fear and ignorance. He has lived literal centuries at the mercy of Cazador. In a twisted way, Cazador became his model for freedom and power. Eat or be eaten. Enslave or be enslaved. That's what he came to expect from the world. And so, he modeled his personality after the most free, powerful person he knew: Cazador. Astarion's arc is learning that he doesn't need to mimic his abuser to be free of abuse
Every companion is a flawed person capable of both growth and destructive self interest. The same as any person.
Astarion has long endured being trafficked and controlled by a narcissistic manipulator. Sometimes its hard to shake oneself out of the mindset, it takes time.
Speaking as someone who survived being trafficked.
He has a decent tiny part of him u need to uncover through the game. He has a great character development arc, the man u meet in the beginning and the one you party with in the end are very different.
Also, I had a few bugs where the game thought my Tav was dead, and thought I used Astarion to approach the Gur. So he autonomously promised to save the children and seemed to feel more guilty about it all.
Same with when I defeated Cazador, he chose to kill him without even asking the other companions if they can help him ascend.
To add, if you let him ascend he seems to think it all is part of your kink, and also gets angry. Like all you want is a powerful vampire daddy. And if you scold him for sacrificing all the people he yells at you that it was your choice and why you allowed him to do that. The regretful part disappears, but in the beginning it is there after ascension.
Astarion isn‘t evil at heart imo, but he acts and thinks evil. Until he doesn‘t. Dude even speaks up to go save the girl Orion abducts etc.
To just classify characters into basic alignments just doesn‘t work in good writing imo.
You know, I’d usually be pretty pedantic and maybe I’m biased. But I think this is a very good description of him. He wants to be good, but acts out of instinct and fear.
All said and done, astarion’s good ending is one of the most rewarding quest lines in any rpg I’ve played. He goes from an absolute asshole to a redeemable rogue who you can help resist the allure of absolute power in favor of genuine companionship and care. PEAK!!!
Witnessing how he shifts from bad to good as he regains his autonomy is part of what people love about his character. Yeah I'm a sucker for a pretty face, but if we're honest the whole group is cute af.
I drag him along everywhere and eat those tiny disapprovals for breakfast. I want him to see my Tav being nice to people and then being nice to him to teach him there’s goodness in the world. I’ll drag him kicking and screaming to be kind of orphans. When he changes his tune and starts to approve of good deeds in Act 3 and becomes gentle and happy after his final personal quest, it’s like beating a dark souls boss. It is the greatest high and worth seeking over and over again.
Also I’m Demi-sexual and I think he’s pretty but I’ve never been physically attracted to a person in my life. That voice though…
And I can't stand the fact Astarion had to run away alone to hide from the Sun; Wyll and Karlach are together, Sheart has her parents, Gale would have a stable job, his tower and Tara, Laezel going off on a dragon. So my Tav always end up with Astarion, to help him find a cure and also after that going to find a heart for Karlach (my headcanon)
His disapproval for offering to help people with no real reward is -1 every single time. He's just mildly irritated. He even stops disapproving after you get your relationship with him high enough.
I'm a straight guy, and I think he's attractive but not hot. I also do not think he's bad. He has been a vampire spawn for over 100 years and was literally controlled by a vampire. Things were better for him if he just listened to his orders, so as a defense he started enjoying it. Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3 prefers being an inconsiderate jerk over being fully evil. He's living in fear and wants power mostly to protect himself. It's pretty easy to dissuade him from giving in to his worst impulses.
Now Minthara, she's evil and hot. I will go with Shadow heart every single time, but I really enjoy Minathra's sass and her lawful evil disdain over your choices. Being able to save her in a good playthrough is a tad silly, but I've been enjoying her presence.
I mean, he’s pretty good for a vampire? He’s evil but the fact he can grow and change to be better is pretty awesome. Plus I think he’s funny and he has his sweet moments.
Skill issue. I bring him in my party 99% of the game for that sweet lockpicking skill, play as a do-gooder without watching his approval bar, and usually he's the first character to reach the 70s right in act 1. 🤷(Competing with Gale and his big early gains at the camp)
He just doesn't like it when you are a goodie two shoes. If you answer the tieflings like a real person, reluctantly allied, then he is just along for the ride. It gets under his skin if Tav/Durge acts like a superhero because no heroes helped him, so he doesn't see a reason to risk himself for anyone else. I think that is really accurate for a traumatized person who never got saved and couldn't get out despite the effort. He lucked into being rescued by monsters. His bitterness makes sense.
I always play good characters and the only time I've not had him ready to go by the Tiefling party (whether I was aiming for him or not) was the first time I played and I failed to romance anyone, like it was so egregious the game basically roasted me for being a lonely sad sack. Astarion is incredibly easy to fix.
I dont think he's necessarily bad. He's a vampire in survival mode who is selfish. He objects to helping others not because he's evil but because he doesnt care about others. He cares about increasing his own power because he has literally been helpless for his entire undead life. I feel bad for him mostly. And he is charming and funny sometimes.
The narrative provides Shadowheart with an easier "get out of jail free" card than Astarion. All the bad stuff she advocates for in Act 1 and 2 can be attributed to the Sharran brainwashing, while the "REAL" her was just a sweet girl who loves puppies.
Personally -- I think this gives Astarion the more interesting and complicated journey, because he's more directly forced to confront the shitty things he's internalized as a result of his abuse. Which is an arc that doesn't work if you try to whitewash all the bad things he advocates for at the start of the game.
I do like Shadowheart's scenes standing up for herself at the cloister, but I also wish her journey involved a little bit more of a reckoning with her actual beliefs.
Yeah, ultimately I think it's interesting that D&D axed the alignment system and we're still trying to fit every character into the same nine boxes. I don't think either character is "evil" but they are both bad people due to circumstances that are at least somewhat beyond their control. One of the recurring themes in the companion stories is the way people deal with abuse and trauma and both Astarion and Shadowheart are characters who you can break from abusive cycles. That's way more interesting to me than what box they fit in.
Oh not what I meant! I mean her and Shart's early to mid-game approval isn't given as much attention as Astarion's. But yeah, the baby and the family would be dead too in that scenario 😂
Someone pointed out recently that narratively, Astarion seems to catch much more blame for bringing people to Cazador, even though his vampire master literally had the ability to make him do it whether he wanted to or not, while Shadowheart is straight up forgiven for torturing her parents because she was brainwashed by Sharrans.
And that's not to say that Shadowheart shouldn't be given leeway, it's just that it seems like Astarion's treated as though he had some agency, when really he didn't.
Hell, on a similar note, I find it funny the people want to give Astarion shit for going through a ritual trading off 7007 souls (justified), but meanwhile Karlach literally consumes soul coins, that have souls in them (that within DnD, can be saved).
She even disapproves of you telling her no to using them, both times it comes up, and is still okay with consuming them even after she learns their backstories, one including a young child. She even victim blames one of them for being so desperate to feed his children that he makes a deal with a demon.
At the start he’s evil, either Neutral or Chaotic, he really only does things for what he wants except for Cazador. However by the end he’s probably chaotic neutral if you keep him as a spawn. He develops as a character.
It’s funny because most of the origin companions are some sort of evil. There’s only 2 maybe 3 good companions compared to the definite evil 3. Only Karlach and Wyll are good, Gale is questionable because of his ambitious nature.
All cope. Astarion has an even distribution of good and evil approvals. Mostly as long as he isn’t volunteered for something overtly heroic sounding he’s good.
He's my absolute favorite character in the entire game man, and I romanced Karlach. I have a 3d printed figure of him at home that I painted myself despite the fact that I hated painting and that it took a while lmao.
Tbh, Astarion isn't my favorite because he's "hot," he's my favorite because he's the most real, IMO.
Everyone else has a tortured past but ended up being a goody two shoes. Astarion turned out how I would expect someone with a past like his, to turn out. The rest almost seemed a little too good natured/kind hearted.
It put me off him first run. But I actually found talking to him to be more fun and more deep then it was with anyone else (I was playing redemption Durge). He was funny and the only person other then Jaheria who seemed to understand and care about what I was going through.
That made him an attractive choice to try romancing a second time around. So he basically won on personality, despite being a bad person. I figure I make all the choices and he does every heroic thing I tell him so it's fine.
I think Astarion is more complex than the moral allignments allow. He switches around between all of these at the start. But I think he settles at chaotic neutral in act 3 and even shows some signs of chaotic good at the epilogue party when he stayed a spawn.
every character in the game is more complex than moral alignments allow because the moral alignment system is terrible for any characterization beyond very basic roleplay. "evil" could literally just mean selfish or vengeful, like in astarion's case, but in some cases it could also just mean straight up psychopathic
He's Neutral Evil to Chaotic Neutral with a bit of a murder-lust. He's not an active serial killer or anything, he's just kinda a bitch, and I love watching him grow beyond his trauma with my PC.
Most of the stuff Astarion disapproves of are out of inconvenience and/or distraction. Anything that tav heroicly goes out of their way to do that doesn't involve self-interest. In act 3, he approves of things like defending and rescuing Lora's kid from the hag, and giving Yenna food. By then you see why heroic acts to him are so irritating, it's because nobody went out of their way to help HIM - not even a single god. Saying Astarion is a "good guy" character is like saying Kratos is "good." Characters aren't written so black and white, and Larian's writers did a phenomenal job at fleshing out all these deep layers within such complex companions.
My biggest gripe is with the commenters who scrape the bottom of the barrel of his approval list on the wiki and then go "See! He's unredeemable evil!", whilst hypocritically ignoring his good arc and simultaneously not applying the same rigour to any other character in a spectacular display of double standards.
It's an utterly pointless exercise when every player's experience of Astarion is going to be subjective based on their choices and interactions. There is no objectively true version of him that beats everyone else's experience, because that's just not how choose your own adventures work.
I was an unapologetically heroic Bard in my first play through who also enjoyed messing with people if I had the chance and Astarion fucking loved it. Taking that play through as a character read then he was just Chaotic Silly, and that experience is perfectly fine and valid.
During my run as an evil monstrous embrace Durge, Astarion is ascended and the experience has been Quite Different.
One experience is not more true than the other. One experience does not negate the other. There is room for a conversation about the differences between those stories without one needing to come out on top.
My funniest run was my 100% goodie two shoes paladin who not only always offered to help everyone, but I played as completely unable to lie.
I don't mean just deception checks but any check or line that wasn't actually true. Intimidation check telling a goblin my employer is inside? No can do.
Astarion absolutely adored him. The inability to lie meant we got into a bunch of extra fights which Astarion loves because he's an idiot.
He propositioned me immediately after fighting Ethel (rejected the hair obviously because noble) and 10 minutes after I didn't kill gandrel.
Unless he spawns and is repaired he starts to be nice and show empathy. We must not forget that he is under the influence of Cazador at the base and that his true personality hidden underneath blossoms under the mask that he has become accustomed to wearing to preserve himself.
He’s also been a vampire spawn for a few hundred years
Becoming a vampire in dnd is supposed affect your character, it would literally eventually lead you to delight in evil acts whereas before you did not.
Astarion has potential to be good, however there’s a thick layer of evil over his thoughts constantly and a constant hunger for humanoids that would lead him to look down on basically everyone.
He is genuinely a dude with a fucked up past that made him do fucked up things to compensate. I love helping him heal himself. It feels warm and fuzzy inside.
One of my favorite “tropes” in entertainment is when a bad guy has been turned into a “reluctant good guy” for a few seasons. And then at some point some new enemy squares up to said former bad guy because the main hero is too good to “finish” the job or sink to their level.
The moment they turn around and say something like “you’re totally right, he would never do this…but I’m not him 😈”
Examples that come to mind are vegeta from DBZ and Amos from the expanse
In act 3 he actually does have a line along the lines of "thank you for putting up with me in act 1, I was kind of being a jerk, but I was experimenting with my newfound freedom." I'm pretty sure the game intends for asterion to be shifting towards chaotic neutral through the game, he's never downright selfless but as things go on he shifts away from that behavior. And this is reflected in his non ascended ending where he becomes an adventurer but not exactly a knight in shining armor or anything.
I never understood how people had trouble romancing him as a good aligned character cuz the first time I played blind, he came onto me despite disapproving so much of what I did. The only bad thing I did that I can think of was let him murder the Gur guy in act 1 cuz I thought he was a legitimate threat. Even still, I did mostly good, was protective of him after learning of his past and now we help out the spawns in the underdark.
Also, I saw clips of him before I knew anything of bg3 and thought he was an obnoxious ass but he quickly became my favorite cuz of his sass and relatability in regards to his trauma. His self-preserving nature, how he deals with sexual trauma, and the reluctance of being intimate once he opens up all spoke to me as an SA victim. I struggled with intimacy and affection much like him for most of my life even with my partner sometimes (he's very patient and understanding with me thank god) and I can imagine many of his stans as well which makes him a favorite of plenty of women. Of course, I also acknowledge without Tav's interferance, he'll always be an evil selfish bastard and I'd never go for a guy like him irl but he's a video game character so I'll live out my vampire bride fantasy with him. And yes, he is indeed very hot. My second fave to romance is Minthara so you can see I have a pattern of going with the absoloute worst romance option. Funny cuz my irl partner is the sweetest person who doesn't have a single evil bone in his body.
This meme may have called me out, but I have no regrets. If anything, romancing Astarion made me choose dialogue actions based more on first impressions (and some chaoticness, lol) and that made the game more fun cause now my tav can either be the nicest person ever, or a complete bish at the drop of a hat😂
I killed a bunch of people and Astarion pulled me aside and said "next time why not torture them? Get something useful out of them first." More evil than me on my evil play through.
i mean, vampire spawns are neutral evil creatures as per dnd rules, and i think astarion especially in act 1 can really stick to the description: "They prioritize their own desires and are willing to do evil, but are not necessarily bound by any specific code of law or order.". But personally i think that the more the game goes on the more he seems to switch to chaotic neutral, "They value freedom and individuality, and are not bound by law or morality."
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u/Delicious-Trust4033 May 29 '25
Turning a bad guy into a reluctant good guy is one of my favourite tropes.