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That's why I save EVERY TIME before doing such things. xD

Dude, this video couldve been 5 minutes with the exact same information...

TODO: where does Wyll go if the grove is being attacked by goblins? On the barricades, I bet. I wonder if that means you'll have an additional fighter. What about Halsin, and Jaheira?

I hate everything Orin is. And since I'm Durge, it's personal.

those expressions were so NOT Halsin it gave me the creeps

I wish every single characters had an adventure of their own like Shadowheart and Lae'zel... Like Astarion just standing there doing nothing for 2 whole acts is quite wild 😂

They're all like, "why didn't you tell me SOONER???" Dude, this is LITERALLY one of the earliest parts in the game, if I am showing you at this point it's not as if I am trying to keep the secret hidden.

I didn't see karlach.. Or she's just sitting there bleeding?

My first playthrough I didn’t find laezel at all… and then she was dead by the risen road where the giths were. So if you don’t interact with her at all, she dies.

In my first runthrough I didn’t touch gale’s sigil bc it looked slightly dangerous and also never found Karlach

It's DC 25, and you only have a +4. You literally HAVE to roll a nat 20. If you use all 4 Inspiration points, you chances of succeeding this roll are about 22.6%. That's less than 1 in 4.

Orin is a bit of a joke at this point :p .

can you use speak to the dead on origin characters, wonder if lae'zel says anything in shadowland

Outta curiosity: is that an AI voice of Astarion at the end? If so, I would advise being cautious using it moving forward. Unless it’s officially released by the devs, the only explanation for it existing is someone feeding dialogue from the game into a machine to produce his voice. Which means it was done without the actor’s consent 😓

Why is that dex so low? Other class??

Most depressed playtrought

Why is no one pointing out that Gale is neutral to the fight 😭

Me seeing Orin do this for the first time actually scared me. I was like this blacksmith seems fun.

Not withers saying “I don’t have time for this”

I am a little shocked Laezel even makes it to Shadowfell, I would've thought she would get purified by the z'athisk and die unless she just discovers the truth before letting that happen. Also can anythign occur at all with the Karsite Weave if you never get Gale?

Shouldn't a Scroll of True Resurrection bring his dandy ass back?

Honestly it’s pretty cool that some of them have entire solo journeys interweaving with your own if you don’t recruit them. Shame it’s inevitably fatal

I love how the head rest on the throne is just saggy balls

I feel almost everyone has neglected the other RP fact that some characters... Cleric of Lathander, Vengeance Paladin, and Barbarians to name a few would kill anything trying to feed on them in the middle of the night. Out of the dozen throughways I have done only once has he come out and told me he is a vampire. The other 11 he tried to bite me while I slept which on most of my characters provoked a very bad reaction. Some like my Necromancer did accept him because it made RP sense for them.

If you want to know why people like Astarion, go watch "The Astarion Iceberg - Baldur's Gate 3 Deep Dive" by Skullie By The Sea. Particularly the end.

i have a tendency to kill astarion in my playthroughs as a roleplaying decision. it's not just that he's evil. were that the problem, lae'zel would face a blade rather often, as she intimidates her way through act 1, encourages ignoring the plight of refugees on the brink of death, and is frustratingly judgemental. what lae'zel does right though is that, one way or another, she always puts the party's interests first. she acts as a voice of pragmatic reason the majority of the time. don't waste time with the grove because they have nothing to offer you. don't bother with nicety because you literally don't have time for it. the clock is ticking and we could all die soon, so focus up and lock in. that's lae'zel. astarion has no such urgency or pragmatism. his "evil" influence comes from what he personally finds amusing, not from reason or utility. when people suffer, he laughs in their faces, and he attacks your character possibly multiple times throughout the story while your guard is down. depending on what specific cutscenes proc in your playthrough, he is at best a loose cannon and at worst an active threat, a dagger at your neck every time you need to rest. unlike the other companions, he doesn't give the impression of someone who is loyal to the party and cause, at least not for a while. evil can be tolerated when that evil aligns with a greater purpose. but when it exists for its own sake and threatens your life directly, in a survival situation with a ticking clock, dangerous people on your tail etc? unforgivable.

On my playthrough I didn't know where to find Lae'zel at all so I kept going and once I got to the mountain area she was dead on the ground since I never saw her at the bridge either lol

I liked Astarion, I chose him first before dropping him and creating my own character. He was was funny and useful. Then, he tried to bite me, explained he was a vampire and needed blood, and I was like "don't worry dude I got chu" and I thought I was going to give him my arm for him to feed on; instead, he sucked the heck out of my neck with never seen passion in what felt like the gayest scene I've ever seen. Now I kill him every time. I'm just saying, the woke crowd are really into representation except when it comes to heterosexuality. There's just no way to unambiguously let the game know YO, I'M NOT INTO IT. That's the worst part of the game hands-down. Like I was recently having a moment with Gale thinking we were going to be wizard bros and he teaching me magic and suddenly NOPE, YOU ARE GAY NOW, KISS THE WIZARD. Like yooo, can I please not be gay?

was kinda already lightly spoiled on BG3 (thanks TH-cam recommendations & thumbnails...), so I spared Astarion in my first run after his "bite you in your sleep" attempt. even after sparing him, I still disliked his Act 1 sadism both personally & role-playing as my good-aligned Tav, as he gave me so many flashblacks of my evil run in Skyrim, mentally comparing him to a companion named Cicero, who you can recruit after sparing him & completing the Dark Brotherhood questline. "LEt's KILL SOMeone" - Cicero it wasn't until after reading posts & comments raving about "Astarion is best romance for Resist Durge playthrus" that I begrudgingly caved in and decided to give that playthru an honest try for myself. I'm glad I did cave in, in this instance. not only did the devs favor and give Astarion extra dialogue for Durge playthrus, I can attest that the Resist Durge romancing Astarion playthru, up 'til the end of Act 2 at least, is satisfying to roleplay (still need to play thru Act 3 for myself)

I feel like the majority of women like Astarion and the majority of men hate him (either out of jealousy or because he looks/acts "gay")

So, most of their fates are confirmed. The ones we can only speculate on? Karlach - Gets killed by Wyll, or kills Wyll but burns up later, or gets dragged back to Avernus by those devils hunting her, or gets taken control of by the cult and eventually transforms into Illithid... Shadowheart - Loses the artifact so gets punished to death by Shar, or gets taken control of by the cult and eventually transforms into Illithid... Wyll - Gets killed by Karlach, or kills Karlach but gets taken control of by the cult and eventually transforms into Illithid...

All these choices, all his paths and the depth of Astarion's story make him one of the most interesting companions in the game. This game is unique. I love Astarion, both as a spawn and as an ascended. ❤️ Well, you already know that. 😉😁

I Heard some very "heterosexual" man, who's got fragile self esteem about their sexuality and toxic masculinity traits, hates Astarion because he flirts with them. That's rocking their World juste to think about it.

Lae’zel one is hilarious and yet sad, imagine you start your long pilgrimage, busting your way through numerous enemies *ALONE* while having the whole ass congregation following you but didn’t even help. And on the final moment, all of them just stand there and be like “Wow, she’s the longest one who survive!!” then loot your corpse.

I love astarion.Because he’s the most honest character.I do highly doubt that i’d go along and follow the rules of our own world if i lived in a world of magic.These laws we are decreed with.They work within our own world because in the end we are all forced to accept them. Out of weakness.Our own dreams are so very limited by reality that there is but only one single course to take.Personal wants are all but excluded and society decides for you what’s possible.If magic was real i’d plot and scheme my own way out of our socities clutches and obtain true freedom.Not this water’d down nonsense that we call free will.

Good work ❤

I hate him because he could possibly outlive my character and thus acquire more power than my Tav (which i play as mixture of Ferengi and...well typical wizard) i can't have that, so his only use is to drink blood of that crazed Drow for +2 Strength for myself be a possible sacrifice to Booal OR make him Baahls assassin force him to steal the gear from the merchant before going to big bad vampire THEN you kill him and your hands are clean after all you just killed thief who is also Bhaals assassin and someone who was going to sacrifice thousands of innocents almost makes my Machiavellian character look good points if you are cleric or better yet paladin of Kelemvor.

Astarion is a great character. He has one of the best emotional arcs. On the other hand, he tries to bite your character as they sleep, and if the character gives in they have to talk him out of accidentally killing them. People argue that a vampire biting you as you sleep isn't sexual. That's their take. But Astarion, every companion, and the sex scenes all treat Astarion biting you as sexual. He tried to molest your character in your character's sleep. How you feel about Astarion is going to depend on how you feel about that.

For Wyll, something interesting I experienced recently was I forgot to recruit him but I did get Karlach. I had never spoken to him at all, and once I had made my way to the Underdark for a long rest, he showed up and had mostly the same dialogue as he does when Karlach and him meet at camp after they're both recruited. It felt a tad un-immersive though as after I convinced him Karlach was cool he talked to my Tav like they'd known each other a while already.

I neither Love nor Hate Astarion. I find him an interesting character, more so that the other 2 main male characters, whose back story does not gel with me. Lae'zel remains my character, and yet many people seem to hate her. But to my mind she is a character thrown into a world that she barely understands, and she struggles for much of the game to understand it's "culture". That resonates with me far more than any others.

Some things I would add to why people hate Astarion: -- certain old school DND players ("rules-lawyers") refuse to believe a vampire can be anything but pure evil therefore they don't even give him a chance. -- homophobia: while he is canonically pansexual, I have seen tons of homophobic remarks towards him because of his flamboyant attitude and the fact he seemed to have preferred seducing man. -- can't relate to his story: his story is closely tied to the theme of trauma and the narrative that there is no "perfect victim". If you cannot relate you might only see an evil unredeemable monster. -- the fandom is toxic: not everyone ofc but it can be very "intense" and annoying. There are also a good number of fans who treat him like a poor baby boy who never did anything wrong. -- not paying attention at crucial moments/ lacking knowledge(?): People not deep into forgotten realms lore might not realize that for example compulsion means he literally had no control over his own body. I have seen a lot of people blame him for things he did while under Cazador's compulsion. Although I have to say it doesn't help that the narrative sometimes puts blame on him too. -- the way he is written: he is intentionally written in a way for you to put in effort to see who he really is. For that you need to talk to him, offer help when he lashes out or doesn't know how to ask for it. And some player just don't want to bother. -- the humour: I think Astarion is really funny, but some people just think he is annoying. -- the romance: a lot of his more emotional moments are locked behind the romance path. If you don't like him that much to begin with you probably will never see that content. Personally I like him because I can relate to him. To the bad and ugly side of trauma. To the bitterness and resentment. Trauma doesn't make you stronger, it just makes you harder to be around. His story helped me realizing some things I can now work on to get better. Seeing him finding friends and heal from the awful shit he went through makes me feel better. Then there is the other side of how easy it is to continue the cycle of abuse; how it might feel good to be the perpetrator for once; how it shapes you into something that you hate. But in the end it does not heal your own mental state and only isolates you further.

What are your thoughts about Astarion as a character and whether you are TEAM LOVE ASTARION or TEAM HATE ASTARION, please do share what you did to the Pale white Elf ☺ 00:19 - Introduction to Astarion as a Character 01:07 - Player reactions to Astarion as a character and it's basis 02:25 - Why do players choose to kill Astarion during gameplay 05:32 - Why players choose to help Astarion become the Vampire Ascendant 07:43 - Why players choose the Ultimate Ascendance/Dominate netherbrain for Astarion 08:52 - How much are you willing to compromise on your decisions 09:22 - The recapitulation

I've never seen this because I always have Halsin with me; this was horrifying. I will make sure Orin never takes him in any playthrough I have.

if you try to kiss the force ghost instead of hug then he'll say "I can see why I loved you" and that's one of literally less than 3 times I've cried playing any game

I just can't believe they had the time to code all of this

Well I guess I will stake him for the 6th time then.