Timestamps: 0:00 Giving Him To The Gur 1:20 Companions Reactions To Letting Him Be Taken 1:45 Arriving To Act 3 3:23 Cazador 4:30 Astarion 4:43 Killing Cazador 5:44 Reading Cazador's Mind 6:22 Extra Info
The most depressing aspect of all of this is knowing Astarion died without a single soul caring that he died. It's very sad, but makes his romance route all the more impactful.
@@DarkWidget But if you care about him enough and play it right, you can get him to see sense. He wants power so he can finally feel safe. He's prone to stupid decisions.
Curious if the player made him bite anything before getting punched in act 1. If he’s taken from our party, likely he did not receive a Long Rest and never removed Happy. Had a similar situation happen with Halsin. His wizard Transmutation Stone never expired when Orin took him, even after several Long Rests. Similar when I moved from Moonrise to Druids Grove to Long Rest, he gave me his bag and never expired his Transmutation Stone from not Long Resting with my party
@@117zombieson a similar note, I noticed that the Scratch in your camp doesn’t long rest, so when I cast Longstrider on him, he kept it the whole game. But when I summoned him out of camp, he didn’t have it, meaning that the Scratch you summon is a different thing. But strangely, the owl bear cub had Longstrider and still had it in the final fight, when he’s fully grown, meaning that those are the same.
What's even more amusing to me is that when you talk to the other companions in the camp immediately after, she seems to be the only one even a little bit salty about getting rid of him, because he was useful.
I let him bite me, then he killed me. After I was resurrected, I pickpocketed my gold back off of Withers, talked to Astarion, watched him not apologize, punched him, and then killed him and put his body into a barrel which I then carried the entire game until the final battle during which I used his body as an improvised weapon.
I can never be mean to them and commit to it. I'll do it to find out what they say, then reload SO fast. Even unromanced, Astarion is just always in my party. I miss his snark when he's not there.
Laezel aside...I kinda got a kick out of convincing her to accept more and more tadpoles. I was like, "I ain't touching that shit, but you, Laezel, you're different!"
@Resi1ience I keep seeing people say this and I'm wondering what y'all are doing because Astarion is critting left and right on my playthroughs. Just laying waste.
@@NorcalNoisethe thing is, even if he is critting, if he’s only a rogue, you’re likely doing max of like 70-80 dmg, and that’s in ideal circumstances. Meanwhile, most characters have much better AOE, or more than enough attacks to make up for it. Generally speaking, if combat lasts more than 2 turns (which usually happens if Astarion is there) a fighter would have higher average dmg per turn/much bigger impact
@@Resi1ience I thought so too until I learned how to play it. It it has bonus actions to go into hiding without wasting primary action resources. If you use the rogues tab you can hide better, sneak, better and use sneak attack at will to rain heavy damage from afar. You have to learn what advantage and disadvantage is to make full use of it.
@@stoiccrane4259 I know how advantage and disadvantage work, I'm fluent in 5e's rules. The problem is that when he misses, that's it - his turn's done and the mediocre damage he could've inflicted is wasted.
I seriously don’t understand these comments. That’s like the one person you can talk to in act 3 with that spell, in act 2 there’s basically no one interesting. In act 1 it’s pointless fluff. I would argue it’s under utilized in this game with the amount of non lacerated corpses you find.
@salamantics5225 Their awe is not targeted towards the 'relevant' dialogue but rather the fact that they voiced a lot of them considering a lot of people won't even see the majority (me included during first playthrough). You have to admit that these would have taken a lot of effort and money considering how expensive voice acting. Regardless of its implementation it's fair to be impressed by their effort
@@salamantics I agree that I wish there had been more bodies to speak to because to me it was a fun and unique feature. However, there were definitely more bodies to get some tips/interesting lore from than you let on. In act 3 I got tips from corpses during the Bhall quest and Orin's mother, in act 2 the first time I heard Ketharic Thorm's name was from a random corpse, in act 1 you get an insight into why the hag wanted the baby from her corpse. These are just random examples off the top of my head, I know there were more
@@LaFonteCheVi ikr. the excuses ppl make for him, oh trauma...as if karlach doesn't have any trauma. i'd say Laezel is walking bag of trauma, but she'll never admit it or make a fuss about it like Astarion XD I will say however Gale takes the prize for being insufferable. he almost got everyone killed in the city and still is chipper about it. At least Astarion deflects blame and shows shame for his evil deeds.
@@HisameArtworkyou must be fun at parties. There is no need to grade trauma. 1) Astarion is like a victim of human trafficking and a sex slave 2) his master himself and with the help of his minions used to torture him 3) he was stuck in a dark to alone for a year 4) he has no self esteem, being squashed by cazador 5) karlach knew she was goid at what she did, she was the best soldier 6) Karlach had a fighting chance if escaping (and did), vampire spawns HAVE TO OBEY their masters, it's built in the lore 7) he feels constant hunger that was never satisfied for 200 hubdred years Me, personally, I would prefer Karlachs fate
@@HisameArtwork If you develop his storyline he changes a lot, you get to know that he seeks power and act like that out of fear, he loathes what he has done, can't thank you enough for believing in him and showing him a different path, he is glad he renounced his chase for power and wants to start a new life in which he does good, the character is incredibly well written and his arc is amazing, consider it for another run, it might surprise you.
There is something so incredibly funny about Big Bad Vampire Spawn getting cold clocked by a normal ass human. They were _both_ making him seem waaaaay more dangerous than he is (supposing he's caught off guard).
If you find certain reading material in game, you find out that Cazador is just one vampire lord of many. He is responsible for Baldur's Gate, but he really isn't the big baddy he is described as by Astarion.
@@hutao1950 the implication is that at some point between being taken by the gur and being taken back by Caz, he was killed. Or maybe Caz killed and zombiefied him to get Astarion "back in line"?
This has got to be one of the most detailed, not clickbaity, straight to the point videos I've ever seen. You deserve a medal just for that and a second one for playing the game without the dude :D Now if only the rest of youtube was like that...
The interesting thing is that this is worst ending for the Gur as well :'D Gandrel likely never realizes it even when you see him in act 3, but you not revealing Astarion to him is best thing that could have happened to him in this situation Like normally Gandrel explains that their plan was to interrogate Astarion on Cazador and Gur children and then destroy him, but here it turns out they likely burned Astarion on pyre and then Cazador was mad to realize Astarion is dead and slaughtered them all before raising him as zombie for ritual
I mean i killed and looted him in my playthroughs bc i found him incredibly annoying lmao. I guess the worst ending would be letting him go and not letting him have astarion bc cazador would not be happy about him failing
@@yourlocalalien3790 I mean... That's the thing. Gandrel ISN'T working for Cazador. The gur you meet in act 3 planned to capture Astarion so they could find out location of their children Astarion lured from them :'D Only reason why player has any reason to assume Gandrel being directly or indirectly working for Cazador is because Astarion speculates so. Though its not impossible that Cazador leaked information so that somebody would bring Astarion back to Baldur's Gate
@@yourlocalalien3790it would be interesting if you killed Astarion (say in camp when he tried to feed on you) that Cazador finds out and tries to kill you for it later
If you reach Gandrel before you learn that Astarion is a vampire, Astarion actually kills him very early in the conversation. And if you DO know that Astarion is a vampire, you can defend Astarion by killing Gandrel. So things don't always work out for Gandrel 😅
Yeah it was a bit underwhelming. I can see how he wanted to knock him out to keep him alive to return to the Gur tribe. But could have used a sleep/slumber potion or sumthin’…lol.
Even though Astarion acts like a dick to anyone, it's understandable seeing he lived 200 years of utter enslavement, misery and torture. It's good i got him his revenge on my walkthrough and persuaded him to be good vamp. 🙆🏻♂️
he was a fancy pants judge before... at a young age too by the looks of it (though elf so age eeh), so maybe nepotism for the win. and even if the alleged "thugs" who killed him were sent by chazador to beat him to death they could have just shanked him, but instead they beat him, so they enjoyed it. Supposedly they were disgruntled by a decision he made. Curious how the details of that get left out by Astarion like so many other details he conveniently forgets. And he accepts to live and feed on others at the very least, in reality he also kidnaps children and gays too and never shows much remorse, so I'd say his morality has always been flexible, not ideal for a judge imo. I wouldn't be surprised if it was revenge killing for a perceived injustice. Could be why Chazador chose him too, power, position... flexibility.
@@HisameArtwork "at a young age too by the looks of it" He was only 39 if I can trust a random person from the internet that looked at the graves dates. though I do have to say I always doubted his statement that he was a judge. Just another lie to safe his ass.
@@grief6052 i see, i didn't dig up much more lore about him, based on my casual walkthrough. However, if he did spent 39 years of being a shady judge. He still had got karma hit him back for the rest 161 years of misery under cazador's spawn. Eventually he closed his heart to it and learnt to live with it kept bringing spawns to him regardless even how bad he felt. That's why i thought to free him of past in my walkthrough.😂🙆🏻♂️ Haha Larian did make his character deep and interesting.
Imagine if there was a "be stupid" option with Gandrel >What? "Astarion"? Huh, I've literally never heard that name before... (Gandrel tries to speak but you continue) >But, uh, no. No Astarions...that I've seen...Like, you don't really meet anyone in these woods! No one! Except you! (Cut to Gandrel looking confused and annoyed) >And my party members! But that's all. All the people...Like, um, this elf lad. Next to me. His name, is, uh...Dave. (Cut to Astarion also looking confused and annoyed) >Yeah, Dave and I met...in the war...You know the one. Astarion: Well, thank you for explaining our friendship to him, it's been enlightening but we'd best be going!! (Gandrel leaves) Astarion: ..."Dave"?? > Shrug.
If i had to guess, the reason Astarion is a zombie is becuase by the look of things, Cazador flayed him alive (Something the game references alot with him) but didnt want to wait for him to properly heal and recover before the ritual (Or he simply died since its also probable that cazador was so angry that this torture was much more severe than others had been) so simply made him a zombie so he would do his bidding regardless.
Nah doubt that. Zombies always look flayed. No the likelier reason for killing Astarion is the tadpole. Astarion is no longer near the artefact keeping him from becoming a mind Flayer and if he becomes a mindflayer there is no soul to feed the ritual. That's two massive reasons to kill him then trap his soul in a zombie corpse.
@@RazielTheUnborn the artefact doesn't stop him from becoming a mind flayer, it just stops the absolute from taking over (and the tadpole stops cazador's control). cazador prob killed him because astarion was going off about the absolute instead of obeying him
@@qtacontessenu The Artifact does stop the process of becoming a Mind Flayer. Blocking the command to transform blocks the process of transforming as the tadpoles aren't normal tadpoles and need to be commanded to begin ceremorphosis and won't do so on their own without it. They are supposed to be sleeper agents, hence needing the command.
@@RazielTheUnbornHeavy spoilers: The dream visitor is lying about the ceremorphosis command. The commands are coming from an elder brain which is being controlled, and the people controlling it want power, not mindflayers. It's only at the end of the game, after you've killed those people and the brain starts releasing from that control that ceremorphosis starts happening to absolute followers and the artefact is actually protecting you.
@@complainer406 .... The Dead Three do want a Mind Flayer army... Withers/Jergal even comments on their stupidity for wanting one in the credits since their new followers wouldn't strengthen their divinity for lack of souls. They would have fucked over all of creation with their dumb plan. And the ppl become mind flayers BECAUSE the brain gives the command. Transform is echo'd all over the map in both Act 2 (command given by the elder brain to you while in the colony) and again in Act 3 if you get too close to where the brain is. If you side with Orpheus, he directly states he will remove his protection from you or Karlach to allow the command to transform from the elder brain to reach you then reinstate his power once the transformation is complete. The tadpoles being different than normal need to be commanded to transform. Period.
The fact that no one has anything to say about him dying says so much about his character. When seeing how truly alone he is, it gives so much more weight and truth to his words and to his actions. Particularly in seducing Tav to have an easy ally.
This is exactly what happens if you also fail to recruit him in Act 1 (by just not inviting him to your party). Interestingly though it seems Astarion will keep the HP of whatever level he was when you abandon him, he was Level 1 when I met him so he only had 10 hp during the Ritual.
@@maxwellmendo2828 I failed two strength checks to rescue Gale out of the portal (on a godddamn half orc paladin, too, wtf!), and i hadn't saved in ages because I thought the weird portal was dangerous and I left it alone for a long time. so no Gale for me on the first playthrough.
@fizzplease6742 I did a bunch of things like this on my first play through where I ended up missing stuff. Missed Arabella quest because I went to the hospital first and then the towers and when I didn't find her parents I assumed the game wants me to be patient and find them in baldurs gate or something, only to transition into act 3 and Arabella ditched me. Also misplayed so hard at last light inn that I not only didn't get jaheira as a companion but I accidentally failed karlach's quest because the guy you talk to died and I missed him at the Grove. I suppose that's the value of replayability
I wish I never knew his fate in that scenario.. damn my curiosity. my heart aches so much.. even though in my play through it never happens, I can’t stand to think that he could suffer that much.. He doesn’t deserve it… This is a perfect example of “ignorance is bliss” moment.
Detecting Thoughts on Cazador gives us one more reason to NEVER HAVE ASTARION ASCEND. Even if he makes Tav his “improved spawn”, the two of them will eventually be miserable in eternity 😿
Exactly my thoughts after seeing this. It seems like true vampires (or ascended ones), even Cazador himself, are prisoners inside their own mind. As if the dark evil takes control and the person they used to be has to watch helplessly as they commit the most cruel und heinous crimes. By staying a masterless spawn, Astarion is at least himself, able to feel, able to love, and able to make his own choices.
@@empty_akuma6577 Yeah. It seriously feels like Cazador tried his best to be a good vampire back in the day. I do think he was worse than Astarion, he probably didn't fancy himself to just animals, but in comparison to his Lord, he was probably better, especially considering the memories you can uncover.
5:45 Such a needless tragedy, all that blood, centuries of evil and suffering, and even then Cazador simply hates himself and secretly just wishes to not be what he is any longer. How could one bear such a weight and continue as he had? Nothing more than a selfish coward, unable to willingly embrace the final end he truly longed for.
I don't think I'll ever be able to do this route. The writing in this game is amazing, I have to remind myself "It's just a videogame, It's just a video game" 😂 But yeah I don't think I could carry out any options in the game that would hurt Astarion. He's been through enough and the concept of betraying him and leaving him to feel alone in his last moments hurts. I think its worse that your other companions don't seem to care at all. If your character does care, you're the only one who seems to care at all. If your character doesn't, then he's really all alone.
I’m for redemption, but he’s kinda the most evil companion I’ve seen, and he’s had 200 years to not be one. And he knows what life was like before he was captured/turned. Unlike the other eviler characters who were born into evil (or not good at least) societies
@@williamgrimm2452I am not really sure what you mean. For 200 years, he was in literal enslavement. Tortured, abused in every conceivable way, and forced to commit horrific acts, and had them committed against himself. Astarion, as well as the other vampire spawn, had no control. Cazador mindcontrolled them. That's how vampire masters work. Spawn are literally incapable of going against commands. Astarion starts off by no means good. But it's very clear he was warped severely by Cazador and the abuse he endured for 200 years. When you romance or become his friend and play a good run, your actions influence Astarion for the better. That's part of the beauty of the writing in this game. Your character's actions influence your companions. And I especially don't understand how you could consider Astarion "more evil" than the others. In terms of villains, Cazador is one of the worst I have seen in a long time. He physically, psychologically, and emotionall abused his spawn to extreme degrees. He starved them. Forced them to be sex slaves, to torture one another and themselves. He commits mass murder. Nobody is safe, including children. Cazador is the embodiment of evil. Astarion suffered immensely under him. Orin and Gortash are also horrific. She is a serial murderer committing atrocious rituals where she tortures and slowly kills people. And Gortash pretends to be good while doing all sorts of evil shit. I mean, he's causing and controlling a war, committing genocide, and turning people into literal monsters, amongst a LOT of other stuff. One quest literally reveals he is having a toy maker blackmailed to make explosive toys in order to kill refugee children. Kids. The list goes on and on. Astarion doesn't even scratch the surface compared to these other evil bastards. Especially considering his worst deeds by far were when he was mindcontrolled by one of them. Now does he start as the worst of the companions? If you exclude Minthara, I suppose? Although Lae'zel is incredibly extreme and would do some pretty bad shit if you let her. But he can end up about just as good as any of them and it's hard to really say he also wasn't severely manipulated. In one conversation, he reveals that he doesn't really remember much of his life before being a vampire. All he has known is loneliness, pain, and suffering. It's no real wonder he is selfish and manipulative starting out. Astarion is in pure survival mode and doing all that he knows. He is a survivor and has a significant amount of trauma. Man needs therapy for the next 600 years. 😅
Eh, about the companions not caring - at this point in the game, they've all spent maybe 3 or 4 days together if you're using long rests really frequently. On Astarion's introduction he tries to trick and kill you. Most likely you just found out the night before he's a vampire and he tried to suck your blood while you were sleeping. Some players accidentally let him kill you after trusting him to suck your blood and he barely cares you died. Every good action the party has taken up to this point, he's disapproved of - a point where all other companions you recruit are basically good-neutral and good-lawful. Tbh I don't know how anyone is surprised that no one cares about Astarion at this point in the game. It's not like the companions know his entire back story yet. It's more believable they're more-so relieved.
@smol_pupper123 I'm still in Act 1, haven't seen Cazador at all yet- but Astarion has come around to approving of my good choices. I don't know if it's because I'm romancing him, but he really hasn't been evil at all- sure he can be a bit cocky- but not evil at the point I'm at. I've focused on side quests, not the main story, and we know quite a bit about his background.
@@williamgrimm2452He really isn't evil at all- he's more of a morally grey character with trauma. He doesn't really remember his human life, and is EXTREMELY traumatized.
I'm a simp for Astarion, but damn if I didn't laugh way too hard when the gur just casually gave him a punch and he fell off like a empty potato vamp bag lol.
Thanks for making this! I'm always curious about pursuing alternate story line trajectories but Astarion is just too valuable as a team member to give up in my pay through
bless you for not adding cartoon sound effects and unnecessary edits in general. it's very frustrating to see videos like this and all the different paths this game can go only to be met with air horns and bullshit lol. thanks again! appreciate the bit at the end of the misc things you checked and their results.
Well...never doing that. I wondered how it would turn out if you betrayed him, but...nope. Also, the monster hunter was maybe the most incompetent monster hunter ever, since Astarion was standing RIGHT THERE when he asked about him. So, I didn't feel bad picking his pocket and then murdering him.
I think he can be excused for it, he’s hunting down a vampire spawn (probably just going by a rough description) and Astarion is just standing there in broad daylight.
Astarion was described as a vampire spawn who die in broad daylight He was also bypassing the protection the monster hunter set up Depending on when you talk to him, he could have also seen Astarion walk into the hag's house without invitation Astarion was the least vampire vampire there ever was in that moment
tbf Astarion was in sunlight. The Gur had no reason to believe that a vampire spawn could suddenly be immune to dying in the sun. He had no reason to suspect him.
you can talk to the skull of his former master/abuser. it relishes on how it punished chazador, seems to be the same story as astarion. it's in the basement iirc. dunno how long it lasted, kinda skipped over. curious how chazador succeeded in liberating himself where astarion failed or never tried because he's so weak willed, or chazador is just extra special or something.
@@HisameArtwork Velioth says that Cazador managed to trick him and performed a rite of slaughter on him and they both laughed before Cazador boiled his skull and turned his soul into ink.
@@HisameArtworkisn’t that typically how abuse works? Sometimes the abused eventually becomes the abuser once they are in a position of power. The cycle continues
This is so heartbreaking :( Thank you for the video. As a Astarion simp I can never bring myself to give him away like that. Poor baby. At least he is zombified with a happy buff. I wonder if the buff was there when he was handed to Gandrel?
@@omgwtfbbq11111 he becomes this way because the source of his power is pure evil. so to choose ritual is a black evil choice. And in lore, vampires are pure evil, all their emotions, feelings and intentions, even positive ones, are distorted by this evil.
It’s hilarious seeing some people complain about him like this game doesn’t start with every single companion as insufferable so you can help them become better. No one arrives a Mary Sue here 🤷♀️
I feel like the beauty of the game is everyone is their own person with agendas and personalities. You're not Commander Sheperd, savior of humanity, with a ship full of companions who look at you in awe. You're some random person named Tav who got stuck with other random persons. So some people you may enjoy being around and some people you may not. You're all just kind of brought together by circumstance.
This game is so crazy in depth. I actually never picked up Astarion. When I get to that camp they are all alive although complained that the Vampire killed some of them that went to hunt them... Its crazy how things you did 30 hours ago are constantly impacting gameplay still.
really cool that you read Cazador's thoughts at the end. Love the character dynamic between him and astarion/the cycle of abuse that is shown through the detail in their relationship.
Likely the player used Bite before getting knocked out and with Astarion removed from our party, our Long Rests do not affect him. Never hitting the requirements for the “Happy” to expire
*Spoiler* Astarion finds the same ending if you don't join up with him during act 1... if you end up taking the Gur quest and stop the ritual you will find a zombie Astarion corpse after the ritual.
Damn. Thanks for doing and uploading this. I will never ever take this route and it's cool to see the content I'll never experience in my own play throughs!
Cruelest ending for Astarion, at least he dies when Cazador dies too, so he maybe can have some peace in death. But dang, the dude died as a kid by his kind's standards, spent 200 years tortured and at the mercy of a cruel master simply because said master is evil, and then the one time he gets kidnapped and have a chance to break free, you betray him and he gets flayed and returns as a zombie and then dies with his master. My heart. I guess some people plays that part just to see what happens to him, then probably regrets it all and redo it so they can save him. I couldn't throw him back to Cazador even under torture. Pretty sure if the characters knew his whole story too, they wouldn't let him go without a fight, and would go kill Cazador without hesitation or mercy.
@@martinnolhaf3151 He's not evil, only in his ascended ending. And do you know what he really went through? Again, tortured for 200 years, used as a sexual lure, got trapped for an entire feed without food or being able to get out of a tomb just because he let go of one person once, fed only on rats and insects for 200 years, had to perform self-mutilation a lot, got carved into himself, was constantly asked to join in sexual endeavors because if he didn't he would get flayed, and basically was bound body, mind and soul to a heartless monster, so of course the first time he gets to be free of that, he's gonna be out to look for himself before anyone else, especially since his master seeks to have him come back to perform a ritual that will sacrifice him and 7000 other to a ritual. Astarion goes off the deep end if he ascends, because the power completely corrupts him, and I think it corrupts anyone using it I guess. So yeah, forgive him for not really being mister nice guy after all his trauma, that has lasted longer than your life and your parents'. And he got that freedom because he got infected with a tapdole that will turn him into a bigger monster if he doesn't have it removed, and given how he spent 200 years as even less than a slave and people only wanting him for his body more than himself, of course he's not gonna be the nicest guy around.
@@Karomix3 you know, the Thing is that you are right. It is entirely reasonable that He Acts in the was He does. I Understand it. BUT no Part of this makes it good. All evil people have their reasons too and He is No different. People tend to forgive him because of a simple fact, He is a funny and Well written Character. But also an evil one.
@@martinnolhaf3151 More of a jerk with a horrible and tragic past that explains his entire personality, and gets evil in his ascended ending. But I suppose 200 years of trauma will not make him a hero right off the bat, because he has a target on his back, his master will get him unless you kill him first, and either he dies at the end of his master or becomes another monster via tapdole, he can't really win, he only gets to find solace in you if you choose the right options, and well 200 years of not being treated well (to put it mindly) did broke him pretty much and left him with tons of issues that are also understandable, like he's a vampire spawn, no one in their world might treat them nice, he's confined to the night once the tapdole is gone, ect. But well there's also worse than him in the game, and he looks nice next to them. Most of his assholish demeanor seems to be trauma response, defend mechanism, and survival, cause either he would charm someone to bring to his master, or get beyond punished for it and one of his other siblings would probably go do the job either way. Even in game he has a lot of trouble of letting go of his behavior that he had during his time under his master, probably because he's been so broken that he's conditionned to fall back on those whenever he sees fit to save himself. He's a 200 years old abuse victim of the worst kind of shit he had to go through, and just a few days after leaving all of that, again, he's not gonna become a valiant hero right off the bat, he needs to be safe and protected, his best chance is with the party and mostly the main character, and he fucking knows it, though of course depending on if you decide to let his behavior pass or not is entirely up to each of us and well some of it could be seen deserved, but once you know his past, kind of hard to fault him for his behavior, he doesn't feel like he can trust anyone completely much until later on in the game, and again, understandable given his past. The rest of the party are also quite something with their pasts. You as the player character can also probably do worst than Astarion depending on your choices, or not. Astarion even feels extremely guilty about learning that his targets were all alive after this time, though depending on if you convince him to let them go or not, can probably choose to kill them all too, if you tell him to do it I think. Your character can be evil too, Gale can wind up learning nothing from his mistake and redo an entire mess in his ending as well, Karlach's only "happy ending" is probably the one where she dies as herself, as being a mindflayer probably just change her problem for another one that could be even more of a pain in the future. Also Astarion wants to stay with you even if you become a mindflayer, he still wants to be with you despite it all, though again that's if he stays a campire spawn. I'd say he's more chaotic neutral at first, can become chaotic evil in his bad ending, chaotic good in his good one maybe. But he's a lamb compared to other characters, he can still feel some empathy for people who had their freedom stolen from them like he had. But I just feel like he has entirely valid reasons for being himself with the situation he's in in the game, he's a victim trying to save himself from a fate worse than death and he doesn't have a lot of options or time to get to choose much.
@@Karomix3 you seem to Not have Understood my Point at all. First of: what Happens if you make him good is Not Part of the debate. It is entirely possible and fine and good. This is about His Personality without your Influence. Now again, He has reasons for acting Like He does. But his Trauma does Not apologize for that. Its Not Like He has a "childhood Trauma" were an innocent/stupid child learned that Doing X is a Very appropriate way to gain Y. Astarion on His own is powerhungry and wants to make other spawns as a Vampire for example. Essentially having learned nothing. He wants to replace Cazador, Not remove him. That Said, all without your Influence on him, but that the Point. What He is and Not what He can become With the right help. I would even make the Claim that Minthara ist way less evil. She is mostly concerned With stability and Revenge (but thats literaly her Paladin Oath) which fuels a Lot of evil choices (for example she thinks you should kill the other spawns/Not Set Them free because Well.. they are spawns. What do you except that they do in the City to the Population?). Furthermore she May be Powerhungry, yes, but she actually does have the excuse of being Born and raised in a society thats fucked Up and values those traits, she has Said "childhood Trauma" (I put those "..." for a reason) I was talking about.
The sad part is that I truly believe that Astarion killed himself after he was captured by Cazador, either because he preferred death to the life that he had before he was captured by the nautoloid and the worm inside his brain gave him enough power to actually do it, or killed himself to stop the ritual, but I do believe that the first option is the more plausible. I don't think that the Gurs killed him, because otherwise Cazador wouldn't have known about the fact that his travelling companions betrayed him, or that Cazador killed him, because killing him, just to resurrect him as a zombie is too much work, without considering that if Astarion gets captured in the fight in act 3, Cazador doesn't kill him, just restrain him and before the fight with Cazador, he restrains Astarion, which shows the length that he would go in order to make sure that Astarion will be ''alive'' for the black mass.
@@roisingrant Well, it's the only explanation that makes sense to me. The only people who could have helped him, betrayed him, the only saving grace, was the fact that he had a worm that protected him from compulsion. Talking to you, I came up with the hypothesis that Cazador came to learn that his spawn is infected with a tadpole, which means that he might go through the transformation.
People in the comments saying that Cazadors thoughts are sad and they pity him. Bah! What is there to pity? Up until the very end his thoughts were all about himself, how he’s sorry for himself. Not a thought towards his victims. The only thing I pity in this scenario is the fact that he didnt suffer enough before death.
Yeah this play through doesn’t seem satisfying even in the slightest. Cazador gets a swift death, doesn’t suffer as he should have for all his heinous actions. And then the player abandoned Astarion for no good reason. The Gur Tribe dies anyways lol… no one really wins in the end. I guess except for ending the ritual. But that’s it. You can still end the ritual with everyone in tact except for Cazador. 🤷🏻♀️
Looking for someone to blame when clinging to your grudges and resentment? I don't pity you. Sympathy isn't the point. You know that much at least. Pain has a purpose, it teaches people things. But let's get one thing clear here. Cazodor learned form his master. Astarion learned from Cazodor. "I'm not above doing this." Before grief and despair. Looking for someone to blame. He knows he's being petty. The fear and hate winning. Remind you of anyone?
@@Veldazandtea lmfao what? bestie, are you comfortable sitting with your panties twisted in a bunch like that? why are you acting so pressed over me neither sympathizing nor pitying a literal piece of abusive shit that ruined the lives of over 7000 people? I dont give a shit who cazador learned that behaviour from, he chose to act the way he did. nobody made him perform the literal hellish ritual to condemn 7000 souls to the void just to further his own power. And then he has the gal to go “boohoo woe is me” And you’re acting all precious because I’m not going “uwu he’s such a sad bean uwu”? Go cry about it. Also. You can fuck right off with that holier than thou attitude. TLDR: L + ratio + didnt ask + die mad about it + I hope Larian releases a patch where cazador chokes on a bunch of dicks and dies uwu uwu uwu
@@rekettyes8453 thats fair. and far more reasonable than that galaxy brain take bellow your comment. still, personally, I will have no pity for cazador.
Bruh idk how everyone is saying Astarion is insufferable, I guess everyone has prefferences but I love how colorful his personality is 🤣😭 Karlach and Wyll are awesome characters too, and despite her rudeness I do enjoy having Lae’zel around. Gale and Shadowheart are both a little more difficult for me to bear, just because Shadowheart takes so much effort to get to and Gale is too needy with little payout 😂
Gale actually annoys me so much, probably the only one that does. I just half expect him to go “CHEESE GROMIT!” because he’s that much of a caricature, even if I love his VA in other projects.
See this is the beauty of the game, so many people like these characters but you also get people who don't. Like for example I really REALLY do not like Astarion after the stuff he did in my first playthrough, in fact in every playthrough after that I have actively avoided getting him or just killed him. Also Shadowheart isn't really as hard to get to as Astarion, IMO of course. God this game is honestly just amazing,
for me it's just how unapologetically evil he is. he's funny but it's not worth seeing "astarion disapproves" every time i decide not to throw rocks at a child
This was heartbreaking. I'm in a plauthrough atm where he's very much my most devout follower and his story is so close to my own, real life story (minus the vampires of course). To see someone with centuries of trauma being betrayed and then used up to nothing but a worthless husk by his abuser actually makes my heart ache.
Not even having experienced this myself, I still would never turn in or betray someone who I know had gone through this. Sure, just abandon your companion for some random stranger who you have no real reason to trust…, you know? Just doesn’t seem logical. Even if he made a good case for it. It’s always worth investigating before you make any brash or sudden decisions. Maybe this player just wanted to see what would happen.
@@WoWGirl6 BG3 suffers from a lot of immersion breaks. For every one thing it does well, it doesn't something else that doesn't make sense. I could believe everything before the hit in the face. Just getting knocked out like that? Turning in the campire to what appears to be a vampire hunter makes some sense at least. This game is trying too hard to not take itself seriously. Which leads a lack of meaningful character depth when it's anything other then a companion. So the game has this very "forced" theme where the devs have shoe horned things in for the sake of "funny". Two problem with this. 1: It breaks immersion. 2: This s a computer game. Not a tabletop game. The devs seem to keep thinking in terms of "tabletop". Like things have to be "done with". Sarovak is the perfect example of this. And the final boss. Which is big and talks like a cavewoman. Meaning I stop thinking of mindflayers as smart. "Funny and cool" isn't the way to do it. Things have to make sense.
@@gerardkowala5873 There's a few ways you can lose the artifact's protection throughout the game and it results in the Absolute instantly transforming you. There's also some newborn mind flayers in the colony under Moonrise and you witness a couple newly transformed illithids in Act 3 before the Absolute breaks free.
@@gerardkowala5873 You would have transformed in act 1 when Lae'zel was going to stop it by killing everyone but the prism stopped it instead. Not everyone transforms at the same time, it was also mentioned in the line: The order for your transformation has been given many times already. So it really depends on whether or not it suits the Absolute
@@Unarthadoxtry to leave the Shadow-cursed lands to return to the Act 1 regions after completing the Gauntlet of Shar. Dream Guardian will order you to stop, but if you persist they will basically say "fine, if you're intent on ignoring me then I'll stop protecting you and find someone else" and you immediately turn into MFs in the Game Over screen.
I was hoping we'd find him in a cell or something and be like "lol jk man you think i was gonna let him kill you? Lets get you out of there" after the vampire hunter takes him away :(
Wow it was actually good acting from the Cazador actor as he's thinking in his sleep, not the usual cartoony madness, and so few of actually hear in in our playthrough!
On not being able to speak with Gandral, the game treats non-lethal the same as lethal. Its a pretty big grip with the game in general. Whether you knock someone out or kill them, other than the occasional line of dialogue from other NPCs, there is never a difference and character wont reappear. Its the same with Minthara
Eh, it depends on situation. In act 3 (SPOILERS, BY THE WAY), there's a Way to save girl from Ethel without Hag's bane. Just defeat Ethel with non-lethal option on and you can perform c-section on her. Also, when you fight Minsc if you use non-lethal and defeat him, you will be able to recruit him. And Jaheira probably wont claw your eyes out.
I feel like they didn't fully flesh out the non-lethal combat system enough. Like the other person said, it treats it as knocking someone out in specific situations, but for the most part everyone sorta acts like they died if you use non-lethal. I used non-lethal on Kagha but everyone treated her as dead, they teleported her body to where she would be standing if you didn't attack her but they all still lament her death.
I think it's because Cazador couldn't control him with the tadpole in his head. So Astarion was killed but still needed for the ritual so was brough back undead.
One thing to notice, Astarion appears to have been skinned, I can only assume that Cazador killed him via torture accidentally and had to raise his corpse for the ritual.
They say so if you talk to them on a normal Astarian filled run. If you talk to them in their camp they say they would have interrogated him, before ending him.
omg... i will NEVER EVER do this to Astarion.... 😭 I just can't... it's such an horrible end.... tortured, skinned and revived as a zombie afterwards... he lost everything, every single things... killing him at the camp is at least a far less cruel thing than this... every characters have their own traumas, they can't be compared between each other, traumas can't be compared at all.... but when i see all of them, Astarion is the one who really give me a huge huggies/kisses urge... 🥺😢 Thank your for your upload, because i would have never done this in game 😅
Astarion wanted to do this to 7000 souls just to bite abit harder. He is probably and literally the only spawn that actually deserved it, if any.. Astarion was just as evil as Caz, just that astarion developed it in mere 2 hundred years while Caz had lived for thousands.
@@DarkWidget baldur's gate 3's character are far more deep and complex than just "evil" or "good". None of them can be sum up on "they deserve this" or "they're just like that". Astarion is a very complex , like every other characters. You actually have to have a high approval bar/romanced à character to actually really know one of them at the fullest. For example, i don't know Lae'zel and for now i honestly dislike her and i think she's quite stupid but... I let shadowheart kill her, i didn't take her in my party... Basically, I don't know her so.. I must be wrong, and i know that. but you've the right to dislike Astarion in the end, i won't argue on that. ~
@@DarkWidget Did you even play the game? He was abused and manipulated for years on end and forced to do the things he did. Of course that doesn’t excuse what he did, but it wasn’t exactly free will. He was a slave. Like the other person said, you can’t sum it up as simply “good” or “evil”. Every companion has nuance to their story and was abused in some capacity. It’s not like Astarion just gets away with what he did. He fully acknowledges that he killed innocent people, grapples with that fact, and gets reminded of it plenty of times, especially with the Gur. I don’t mean to write out such a long comment, but the audacity to dismiss a character you clearly haven’t interacted with or given thought to when the writers definitely put a lot of thought and love into his story is sad.
@@DarkWidgetOn top of that, if you read his thoughts in the climax of the Cazador interaction, he STILL doesn’t want to complete the ritual because he’s scared. Like… media literacy is needed.
@@mochamatcha777 he is evil tho. If you let him bite you and not interrupting he will kill you, because he dont care, also if you choose to massacre the grove astarion is the only one who were positive about it other than minthara. and there is a lot more about him later in game that I dont want to spoiler.
