#like yes astarion is extremely popular and with good reason

[itwasabeautifulwebbing]

baldur’s gate 3 really is the game of all time for the gays who want to celebrate both sad pathetic wet men AND women’s wrongs

#baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #minthara #minthara baenre #i am still thinking about that post i saw a couple of days ago #where OP was mad about men being categorized as babygirls and women as the only braincell havers #and OP was right that the latter girlboss-ification of women while subsequently never letting the narrative focus on them #(or having fandoms actually focus on them) #is depressing and exhausting #but that’s why!!! bg3 is so great imo!!! #the women characters in bg3 are absolutely the main appeal of this game!! #like yes astarion is extremely popular and with good reason #but he is not the only character with a delightfully feral and dedicated fan base happy to excuse all his wrongs because of his big sad eyes #/flourishes both hands @ minthara baenre will smith style #look at this sad war criminal and her big sad eyes and her arrogance and her insecurity #and her devastating sense of humour #she is hyperfixation material

[saremina]

(sending anon bc im scared of social interaction) he isnt an exact copy of cazador, but it’s fairly obvious to me (as an ascended astarion enjoyer) that he is controlling & toxic. if you try to leave him after the netherbrain it’s glaring lol. he isn’t abusive in the same ways cazador is, and an evil aligned tav likely doesn’t get the same treatment a good one does. but the entire game has a theme of abuse cycles, not just astarion. so long as you follow his rules, he won’t abuse you. i play as a reluctant tav, so idk if it’s different for different rps.

oh I'm not saying he's not toxic and the relationship can't be abusive (though power to the people who hc the relationship as happy and healthy, they're the real mvps), and personally I love that you can't leave him post netherbrain because it makes sense if you've paid attention to his character through the game (and I won't get into that topic now or this will be a 10k essay).

and I'm not ignoring any themes or anything. I'm just saying that Astarion doesn't come across as Cazador 2.0 like the fandom especially and the game to an extent wants to insist by letting you compare the two. being abusive doesn't make him Cazador because Cazador is a very specific kind of fucked up that Astarion just isn't, and saying controlling = sadistic torture enthusiast is... not something I think we should probably be doing so readily? because yes, Astarion is controlling, and can be so to an extreme for sure (I really have so many thoughts on why he's that way and I don't actually think it's a power thing for him, at least not primarily but that's still not the topic here lol), but is he like Cazador? not really, no.

I mean if you (not you specifically but like a general you, you know) don't want to look at nuance and only focus on 100% healthy and wholesome vs 100% toxic and abusive then yes, he is like Cazador. and he's like Mystra, and like Vlaakith, and Mizora, and Bhaal and Shar, because there's no room for differing motives and reasons or different kinds of toxicity/abuse. everything is just either wholly good or wholly bad with no layers or shades or anything to be seen.

and this is my problem with the 'he's controlling/abusive so he's Cazador 2.0' reading. my point is not that he's not abusive. my point isn't about the themes of the game (yes I know it's a popular point to pull out but I'm not talking about themes here, I'm talking character). my point is that the text doesn't support likening ascended Astarion specifically to Cazador like he's just magically turned into a mini-Cazador post ascension because he's now evil or something, because the similarities between them (willingness to kill thousands for power and the power hunger) were things that Astarion had before ascending, and his control issues are also pretty clearly rooted in things he was (not) dealing with before ascending, and while Cazador controlled his spawn, his whole thing was having power over people (according to Astarion) and torturing the spawn, which just doesn't sound like the Astarion we have in game to me.

#I hope this makes sense I'm running on fumes and have lost the ability to check myself lmao #asks #Anonymous #ascended astarion