#my hyperfixation is out of control please spay me

[nqgmx]

✧ ASTARION: BALDUR'S GATE 3 - a character analysis

this essay contains HUGE spoilers for baldur's gate 3, specifically astarion's questline! you have been warned lol

so baldur's gate won game of the year and for me that was my sign to finally buy it and try it out; i'm a pretty big dnd player / enthusiast as well as a crpg fan so i honestly have no idea why i didn't buy it sooner. i think like many other players, i was immediately drawn towards astarion's character: he's charming, enticing and he's literally a vampire so... who doesn't love vampires. i've become so hyperfixated on the game and astarion that i decided to watch all of his cutscenes, and one really caught my eye: the scene where you refuse to help him with ascension and he kills cazador. however, rather than being focused on the story of this scene, i was focused on something else...

astarion cries like a child.

and i don't mean that in an insulting way, like 'oOh, asTaRioN cRiEs LiKe a cHiLd', no he actually cries like a young boy, scrunching his face up and just weeping and weeping (and may i just say neil newbon did an INCREDIBLE job during this scene, like he did that in one take?! holy shit!?). it also really makes me think:

astarion is the oldest party member in the game, why does he, of all the characters, cry like that?

like you'd assume wyll or even shadowheart cry like that, but astarion? he's literally a 239 year old charlatan that flirts with you at every chance he gets. the reasonable answer is that the game directors / animators wanted to make the moment as emotional and effective as possible, however i'm an autistic teenage girl with a problem with overanalysing things so guess what i’m going to do? overanalyse it. i do truly think that despite everything, astarion saw cazador as his rock. he was his master, captor and abuser, yes, but he was the only other vampire he knew - he taught him everything. like, picture this, you get turned into a vampire and the only other vampire that you knew was the one who turned you. of course you'd look towards them for support despite everything, like you're a vampire what the fuck else are you supposed to do? i find their relationship so fascinating as on the surface, it's a heavily abusive dynamic with a severe power imbalance, however you look a little deeper and realise the trauma bond that astarion had with cazador. but again, that's just my take on it as somebody who only started playing the game two days ago and hasn't even finished act 1 soooooo

another thing about astarion's character that i really really love is during the cutscene at camp where, after making the correct dialogue choices, he confides in you that for the past 200 years he has sought company through sex, however after meeting your character he realises that he just simply wanted somebody there for him. being hypersexual as a trauma response is fairly common in real life, so adding it to him makes him seem like such a deep and complicated character. i find it so interesting that astarion is the only character in the whole of the game that you can have this unique 'not platonic yet not romantic something inbetween' relationship with. it's a really sweet moment as he's removing his tough persona and is just being honest with you, and it shows how complex of a character he is.

i finally want to take a moment to fangirl and just talk about neil newbon and how be ABSOLUTELY deserved performance of the year at this year's game awards. he's so incredible as astarion, like everything he says makes me feel an emotion (whether it's heartbroken, humoured or flustered as hell) and i have never gotten that in a va performance before. also, the fact that when he was recording his voice lines the crew had to tell him to calm tf down is so funny, and like i mentioned earlier the fact that he did the crying cutscene in one take is so ?!?!?!?! like SIR oh my god?? he 100% deserves that award, and his acceptance speech alone proves it. plus i love him so much for coming up with the goosetarion meme i love it so much it makes me want to explode

apologies if some of the points that i made aren't accurate, like i mentioned before i haven't played too much of bg3 so i could be completely wrong with everything i just said, so please feel free to let me know if i'm incorrect at all!! this is just my yearly tumblr post, i want to start posting more but also i forget about my account and then remember every like six months or so lol

#astarion babe come home the kids miss you #i love vampires so much it's becoming a problem #my hyperfixation is out of control please spay me #somebody save me from myself #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #dnd