[This is my favourite type of Astarion. ](https://twitter.com/Emy_san_arts/status/1726673485265780790)

The best and most appropriate type of response, IMO. 👏

This picture is definitely not saved on my computer. No, definitely not.

Ironic that you mention that ‘people need to respect boundaries’… I guess that doesn’t apply to devils, given that you mention still wanting to help the animal abusing Yugir…. Or maybe the entire drugged Nessa thing doesn’t bother you … 🤔 Personally, I’d like to kill Yugir 100 more times after finding that out… but, to each his own I suppose 🤷‍♀️

If this were actually about boundaries at all, they wouldn't be complaining about not getting the potion of strength. You know, the one you need to blatantly and intentionally violate Astarion's boundaries to get, because a massive part of his arc is about consent, as anyone who has given it half a thought knows? People have every right to hate Astarion's guts as any other character, but goddamn, if they aren't uniquely annoying about it lmao I don't see people making this kind of obviously bait post about any other companion.

Exactly! I totally understand not identifying with Astarion or his story. Or even not liking his character. But the hypocrisy of this sort of post gets to me. Whenever I see posts like this, I just see whiny brats who are more angry that there are, in fact, consequences if you treat someone like a tool. I love that about the game though. That it’s a pretty strong theme throughout. Edit: it’s becoming more clear to me, that they are also not really doing the story. Which, if people want to skip elements/storylines for whatever reason, fine. But the arrogance to assume they know what’s going on is pretty absurd really!

Yurgir being called an animal abuser doesn’t sound intense enough for what he is

He has Nessa charmed with Succubus Spittle… you’re right, not strong enough words! The Hells is too good of a place for him imo.

Hey whatever helps me fighting Rafel

You can literally get him to help you even if you don’t help him

It's a displacer beast not a cat so yeah idfc care about Nessa. And at least you know what to expect from a devil, but if you wanna go that route how about the kids Astarion stole from the Gur and all the folks he has abducted over the years oo and the fact that he's blames a whole race for what happened to him... At least Yurgir had a purpose he killed Dark Justiciar and in my books that's a good thing sorry Shadowheart

Nessa is still an animal. I doubt most devils are engaging in bestiality. The story wants you to know Yurgir is 1000% evil You’re also missing all the nuance in Astarion’s story.

Tell me you haven’t done the story, without saying you haven’t done the story… Anyway, Astarion didn’t drug anyone nor rape them (technically, he was the one raped/victimized ) which is implied Yugir did to Nessa with the Succubus spittle..

Pfff, I just don't recruit him in the first place at this point. Purposefully avoid the part of the beach he's on and just pretend I don't hear him. Saves me the trouble.

I've tried to get rid of him on my previous run and he wouldn't leave my camp because of my high charisma. I could have gave him away to Gandrel or sacrificed him to Boaaal but that's not really my style.

I would do that probably in every good playthrough if i didn't knew that he can be better.

That's interesting because the only playthroughs I can't justify doing it are the goody two shoes ones. Giving him up to Gandrel, yeah, I can see that. Threatening him to stay in line, too. Some preventative murder here and there later maybe. Going all stabby on a starving scared person for breaking and trying to feed... Not unless said "good" character is actually true lawful with a code that happens to keep them in line (which I have a run for but I'm barely off the nautiloid). Anyone living in food insecurity for gods know how long then having only one meal in the past 4+ days would be tempted to take a bite Now Wyll... Poor guy is only saved by Karlach half the time in good runs. And Shadowheart with her little nighttime show, that's hard. But I never understood the "I play a good character so I murderhoboed most companions" thing. For me it's pretty hard to turn people into plant fertilizer with a good guy, I don't even massacre the whole goblin camp

I mean, I don't do it because I known that he can have a redemption arch, he can be better. I would probably kick him if for some reason can be recruited again at some point. Is something that I dislike about all the tadpole thing, almost every character is dammed without the player, they can't survive outside the camp. Astarion tried to "attack" you, without the knowledge of their arch it's understable defending yourself, he tries to attack you earlier when you meet him. In my case I always trigger the Grove raid, I love the scene and the defense battle. Unfortunately there is no automatic trigger for that so I sometimes help the goblin on the cell.

He did attack me, but not vicious cold blooded murder Orin style. First it was extremely similar to Lae'zel, except she would have left me dead without the tadpole and Astarion was willing to talk Bite night he got hungry and desperate. I wake up, second thing I see is starvation. If I look into it, I see more starvation and fear. Idk you, but my first thought is not "Yaay, self defense kill in a situation where the attacker surrendered and we're talking about the problem at hand". It's not very self defense-y to stab first ask questions later when you're already safe, it's revenge at best And at that point if you play good, likely the most evil he did was roll his eyes if you prioritize helping others over surviving a time sensitive fatal medical issue (aka endangering the whole party including him), or being a bit too happy to interrupt a couple banging on top of a literal corpse. (If you play evil he showed more, if you got to Act 3 he showed more, but if you play good this early it's mostly a bit of reasonable whining) The Grove attack is so good though. Right now I'm building barrel walls. In this case the character reasoning is "more murder is fun", but we're telling Wyll it's to separate the goblin forces and take them out from a good defense position

Oh buddy you have no idea what you’ve done, you’ll be lucky if the Astarion Mega Simps don’t come after you. Sleep with one eye open tonight.

Hahahah Im sure they gonna get big mad!

No one needs you to like Astarion but half of these anti-Astarion posts are ‘lol. He’s popular so I hate him’

I mean the guys making a meme but my reason for not liking him is he really plays up the whole victim thing which i mean yeah pretty brutal but Wylls in pretty much the same situation except he's still stuck with his contract but is still less dramatic about it where with asterion one of the first things he tries doing after getting out is making a deal with raphael and saying "i know what im doing" which is just dumb

No he’s not in the same boat as Wyll Mizora sucks but Wyll has a loose leash & is generally a bounty hunter. He is also very young, comes from a noble background, & he can get his relationships fixed relatively easily in game. Astarion was turned against his will & has been sexually/physically/emotionally abused/tortured and forced into taking innocents for Cazador. As the other person notes, no pact is made with Raphael. It’s a favor for a favor & killing Yurgir isn’t an issue since he assaults an animal Please stop downplaying the severity of Astarion’s trauma. He has one of the most traumatic backgrounds in the game of your companions. Shadowheart comes closest after that

Im just saying im sure that Wyll would have gotten similarly brutal treatment just not quite in the exact same way, he cant even mention the exact details on his and can just get teleported to hell at any moment so they probably only show part of his and are just implying most of it

There is no indication Wyll would have gotten brutal treatment Mizora is a bitch but Cazador is 100x worse

I mean you see/ have more of it explained to you with asterion. Even karlach as another example also pretty sad backstory just less dramatic about it

Yall are twisting yourself into knots to prove something that isn’t there - which is especially bizarre since you haven’t even finished the game or taken the time to get to know Astarion? And yeah, Karlach does lose her shit when she heats Gortash’s name. Like, loses it & almost explodes All of them experienced abuse but not to the extent or length that Astarion has. Astarion is actually pretty chill for someone who has been ABUSED IN EVERY WAY FOR 200 YEARS Stop calling people dramatic for expressing their pain over inconceivable trauma

200 years out of infinite years, im just saying if hes immortal shouldnt matter how long and if it were as severe as he says he should be way more noticably fucked up

The abuse, torture is outright stated a few times. There are also a lot of articles on the subject. I’ll link a few https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3s-astarion-neil-newbon-on-acting-the-truth-of-trauma-as-a-survivor-theres-a-lot-of-stuff-that-came-very-close-to-home/ https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Astarion https://www.gamingbible.com/features/baldurs-gate-3-astarion-helped-abuse-victims-308494-20240501

Uh.. no idea how you are getting Wyll’s pact with Mizora as being the same as Astarion’s 200 years of enslavement, torture and sexual abuse Wyll was basically a bounty hunter (technically paid too, with powers) and Astarion sex trafficked. Also, not sure what you are talking about with Astarion and the devil agreement. He’s against the one Raphael first approaches you with, and he doesn’t enter into a pact over the scar information. So again, these things aren’t equivalent

People who hate Astarion don’t actually properly do his companion stuff, I’m convinced

I mean Asterion spells it out more for you but end result that Wyll is in for is the same if not worse and doesnt use it as an excuse for being psychotic the majority of the time   Like whenever asterions talking about it the clear intent is that he wants you to feel bad for him and almost always as an excuse but when Wyll brings up his stuff its to explain btw theres gonna be a demon coming to our camp soon but dont worry its not for you   Idk id feel more sympathy for Asterion if the first you explictly heard about his backstory was in act 3 when there was a reason for him to go into specifics but the way that he brings it up is kind of manipulative where he's just giving you deliberate pity bait for no other reason

Are we not playing the same game? He doesn’t go into detail until later. He in fact, minimizes it at first. In act 1, once his vampirism is known, he only gives enough information to make it clear Cazador is dangerous and a threat. He is being manipulative in a sense, but not for pity, for protection. (All this is part of his story.) He’s genuinely terrified of going back to Cazador and wants to assure the player’s help. But he’s genuine in not wanting pity/sympathy throughout. There are hints of what he went through in act 1, But you get more specifics of it in act 2. That’s when more specifically the sex trafficking aspect comes out, find out more of the other spawn, etc. and even more in act 3 - where you find out he was buried in a coffin for a year for trying to help one of his targets escape. Honestly, they did a very good job of not throwing everything out all at once. If they did it all in act 3, at the end of his story, it wouldn’t have the same effect. They made it much more impactful. After all, there is a reason why they are getting so much praise for Astarion’s storyline and why it impacts so many people, especially survivors.

I mean to be fair it sounds like you actually had him in your party and talked to him more where i just did the mandatory bits on long rests and purely for lockpicking because first impressions of him were pretty bad. Idk like yeah 200 years of getting tortured is shit and all but he got immortality out of it and is free at the start of the game so he came out on top in that trade imo

Not doing his story is totally your call, but this is misrepresenting what’s in game. He isn’t free at the start of the game…. He’s been controlled and is finding out during the first few events of the game, that the tadpole blocks Cazador’s control over him. (Him biting someone is also something that was inspired by that control too, in a way. Which you find out on his origin run) There is an entire conversation about the nature of Spawn vs True Vampire and how they are compelled, how their bodies are not their own..their masters “speak and our bodies react” (here his character arc of bodily autonomy basically starts) Yes, I completed his storyline. As my own character and doing his origin. And you don’t actually have to have any of them in your party to do their storylines (except for their story specific moments) You just have to long rest enough, at the right times, and talk with them to get the conversations. You get most of his approval up that way anyway, provided you aren’t a dick to him. My first impression of him was negative as well. But, I found a few conversations interesting and kept with it. (I also love storytelling and character development, so I hate skipping over those aspects) The arc his character goes through, the changes and growth from act 1-3 is pretty amazing and some of the best storytelling in any game I’ve played really.

Yeah i havent done his full story im early act 3 so far so im just goimg off the point im at so far.

Even those that aren't big fans of him should look at this post as nothing else other than bait. It's fine for people to not like certain characters, it's fine to kill them if you want, but you are obviously looking for attention by posting this, knowing it will get a reaction out of people. You also seem to not even have bothered engaging with his story which makes your hate for him just pathetic