Because Astarion Is A White Guy With A Sad Backstory That's Why Some People Are Hysterically Overprotective

Because Astarion is a white guy with a sad backstory that's why some people are hysterically overprotective of him

I love Shadowheart. She was my bae throughout my first (unfinished) Tav run. I abandoned that run because Astarion convinced me I needed to restart as Durge for him, but Shadowheart forever holds a very special place in my… well, heart.

I’ve been thinking about the contrast between them and their arcs and the way fandom interacts with them.

They both start off as characters that by D&D standards are “evil.” Shar is an evil aligned goddess, and vampires are evil aligned creatures.

However, Shadowheart isn’t evil. She disapproves of actively evil decisions and approves of kindness to animals and the helpless. She just doesn’t like it if you seem to be putting do-goodery above your search for a cure to the tadpoles. She is fine with killing the grove, but the contrast between her at the tiefling party and the goblin party shows pretty starkly how she really feels.

Astarion starts off the game evil. I will fucking fight anyone on this. He has very very good reasons to be evil, but so does Shadowheart… and she’s not. Astarion enjoys chaos, he likes murder, he likes hurting people. He thinks being “good” is weak and stupid and that might be a trauma response, but it is how he genuinely feels at that point in his story.

And yet. AND YET. For some reason, I have never seen anyone complain about making Shadowheart a Dark Justiciar. If she likes you, you actually have to encourage her to kill Nightsong. Even on my evil run, she spared Aylin if I didn’t tell her not to. You have to either not care about her or intervene to make her evil, and right up to the end where she kills her parents and Shar wipes her memory again, she is just so miserable and resigned to what she’s been influenced to be.

But people do it to get the hotter sex scene or whatever and that’s fine.

But Astarion? The man who spends the whole fucking game begging you to help him take over an evil cult and murder his “family” so he can become a living vampire as soon as he realises it might be an option? The guy who will throw a fit and leave you if you don’t either succeed in a persuasion check or help him eternally damn 7007 people— no matter how close you’ve gotten to him?

Apparently you’re an evil piece of shit if you find his “bad” ending compelling or, dare I say it, hot.

I don’t really care which ending you prefer for either character— I think the game does a great job on its own telling you what you should think and it’s fairly nuanced for both characters. I just don’t understand why Astarion has to be so woobified and his “bad” ending fans vilified as if they’re naive morons with no media literacy.

Shadowheart, the character, hates her “bad” ending way more than Astarion, the character, hates his. And fandom can’t reflect this because I don’t know…

Oh god. It’s sexism isn’t it?

Am I the only one who just gets excited when someone uses they/them pronouns for me? I go by she/they pronouns and it’s typical for people to use she/her pronouns with me, which I’m fine with. But my queer friends use they/them pronouns when referring to me and when I see them use those for me, I get all happy and bouncy. I can’t explain it. 😂

Warm up drawing!! Exams nearly killed me but its over

Yah they're toxic for each other 😩

Why do you think the option of Astarion drinking from Cazador to become a full vampire instead of ascended wasn't an option? I'm sure he would have let Astarion drink from him if it meant that or death 👀

Well, from a lore standpoint, I think it would have been redundant to have that as an option when ascension offered more power and the ability to feel alive, two things Astarion really wants. If ascension was not on the table, I don't know if Astarion would want to become a true vampire. While power-hungry, yes, he may be scared of the idea that it could alter his body again/more, the same fear he had with the mind flayer parasite, as it does not offer what ascension does. At least with ascension, he is guaranteed to live again. Then again, he might risk it just to get out of the position he is in now. I can see it going both ways.

And I'm on the fence about whether Cazador would allow that because he is cruel and sadistic so it could go both ways. Either A, he's too prideful and would rather watch Astarion lose his chance at becoming any higher on the totem pole, or B, he does it to allow Astarion to know the torment and restlessness he's felt since he turned.

You have to wonder, too, if the whole "permission" thing is even a thing. I did point out the idea that Vellioth allowed Cazador to bite him when he was dying to have the last laugh, but what if Cazador got the drop on him, bit him, and ended up evening out the playing field as Vellioth would no longer have control over him AND Astarion did say that the biggest threat to a true vampire is another true vampire which is why they don't elevate their spawn to that level. A comment from Jahiera made me wonder about this as it made me think IMMEDIATELY of Volo, how people who write books on subjects may not be as knowledgeable on the subject as they appear.

Plus, if a spawn thinks they need permission to bite and have been compelled/punished for trying, it would curb that thought process, and they'd be less likely to sneak attack their masters.

This stance makes me feel unholy things

I feel like the best you get over the course of the game is shifting astarion from chaotic evil to neutral evil. Maybe true neutral if you really wanna try to push an argument. Either way the man is just evil during the game. I think people just don't like to acknowledge it so they hate it when after ascension he goes mask off with it

I think this is why they got rid of the alignment chart cuz while it might be fine to use it as a base, changing a character is difficult because those alignments have different meanings. He'll start out as Chaotic Evil, but where he lands is difficult to place afterward without a full analysis of each ending. Honestly, from all of the things I've researched on the topic, I wonder if there's even a big enough shift to put him in any other alignment at this time. Astarion has a LOT of baggage that may take centuries to unpack before he gets any further. And, there may be the fact that he may not want to change past what he has done with Tav.

Astarion is Astarion, no matter what. Nothing was stolen or replaced. Nothing was corrupted. This is who he is when he knows he can't be touched or harmed. Astarion doesn't have to maintain a facade anymore to keep himself safe. He feels free and happy enough to tell everyone to fuck off, he's in charge, and what his plans are while inviting anyone who wants to try to stop him to do so. What I do think goes over a lot of people's heads is the "degrading" thought that nods to him still being himself. The wording is a dead giveaway. It's not about you. It's about how he views himself. His low self-esteem did not get replaced. His trauma is still there and still needs to be worked on, but what he has now makes him feel happy and free. Give it time. It's his enemy, after all.

This is why I advocate for the possibility that he can change just as much as his spawn self did once he settles into his new life. Nothing that was done was a drastic enough change to prove otherwise.

People need to stop clutching pearls over fantasy. It's absolutely ridiculous. Why else would they play video games if not for choices they wouldn't normally make in real life? Spawn Astarion is one of them.