#ascendant astarion discourse

[qwainte]

My little post about Astarion fans trashing Wyll attracted an extremely strange and troubling anon ranting about Ascendant Astarion despite my post never mentioning AA once, so I want to make my stance on AA clear as this isn't the first time someone in my inbox accused me of being a fandom "puritan":

I do legitimately like Ascendant Astarion. I typically go for the spawn ending as I usually play "good" characters but I definitely understand AA's charm and I'm not immune to it. I think both endings are satisfying conclusions to his character arc, albeit for different reasons. AA makes for a really good corruption arc that doesn't feel forced or OOC.

Fandom content should never be obligated to appeal to canon, so writing content where AA is "nice" and not purely evil doesn't bother me one bit. And while I sometimes make fun of mods that make AA more friendly, I don't actually hate them at all. Fan content is supposed to be self-indulgent, source material be damned.

What I do have a problem with is when fans think that their warped interpretation of a character and their story should be acknowledged by the official creator(s) and catered to.

I'm not talking about disagreeing with or critiquing the quality of a story/character. I'm talking about fans who fundamentally refuse to engage with a work of art within its framework and expect creatives to prioritize fanservice over crafting a story or experience. It makes zero sense story wise for the writers of BG3 to portray Astarion's ascension as a "neutral" or "good" choice. The "cycle of abuse" isn't some crackpot theory spawn stans came up with, it's a legit motif that is present in Astarion's story. You don't have to like it, but at least acknowledge that it's there and respect the writers' decision to tell this particular story and not your own.

To make things even clearer:

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo wants to write fluffy headcanons about AA

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo writes a 100k story where AA is basically Vlad Tepes Dracula in Faerûn.

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo doesn't t like the moral dilemma of the ritual decision.

I do not care if astaristan101xoxo likes the Ascension ending.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo inserts themselves into discussions and healthy discourse about Astarion and derails them by focusing on their personal feelings and attachment to him and completely ignoring story and framing.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo obnoxiously comments "Its not that deep, lmao" on posts where the OP is trying to honestly engage with Astarion's story.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo makes 30+ posts on Larian forums demanding that AA receives a full rewrite that radically changes the entire theming of his character arc to better replicate a generic power fantasy with no in-text moral implications and acts like they are a persecuted minority when they discover that the majority of the fanbase does not share this view.

I do care if astaristan101xoxo waxes lyrically about Larian "removing player choice" and "bad DMing" because their PC frowns while being choked and degraded by Astarion but IMMEDIATELY shuts up about all this once they change the PC's expression to be smiling in patch 7.

Inb4 someone claims I'm "policing" completely harmless behaviors: I'm not policing anyone. You can do and say whatever you want as long as you aren't hurting anybody, just like I'm allowed to find your specific behaviors really annoying and unpleasant.

[astarionancuntnin]

he's not only a clown, he's the entire circus

astarion + text posts (part 22)

[alexa-nowak]

Fandom culture has changed so much, I honestly just don't get it anymore

It used to be absolutely normal to like morally questionable or straight up irredeemable characters, there was no "if you like a bad guy, you are agreeing with the bad guy" in my 2013

Now nearly in every fandom villain lovers are getting bullied, fandoms are busy protecting pixel's feelings, while severely hurting real people's mental health with this neverending flood of toxicity

And it genuinely upsets me, because villains and the whole concept of liking "against the good guys" characters in media/ literature/ art/ etc was always a safe space for outcasts and people who felt rejected by society, for being queer, for just being different and unable to fit in for any reason

And seeing that even inside online fandom culture villain lovers are getting nothing but this bs is heartbreaking

And all this discussion about "healthy relationship with imaginary bf" is the whole different bucket of crap that I would waffle about at some point

How these people are doing in literature classes, I mean, every other classical book has some kind of toxic love story, do they need a trigger warning for every book or something

[bananasfosterparent]

"Astarion can be a good person."

"Astarion can be vulnerable and tender, namely when he's exploring the concept of non-sexual intimacy."

and

"Astarion is a selfish and hedonistic vampire who has a penchant for evil."

are all statements that are true at the same time. Get you a man who can do it all.

I don't understand this black and white, flat way of interpreting Astarion's personality. He can be selfish and vulnerable. He can be hedonistic and do good deeds. He can be loving and cruel. All at once. All in different situations and in different ways. For different reasons and different people. Just like all the other characters in the game, Astarion isn't locked into one list of personality traits that follow strict rules based on which ending you choose. I'm so confused by players who praise the game for its depth in narrative and emotional response from characters YET also treat Astarion's endings as if they're just:

Hidden Heart of Gold trope guy VS a mustache twirling villain in an 80's cartoon. Or Zuko VS Christian Gray.

Viewing his endings that way just completely flattens out his entire canon personality in ALL routes.

Astarion isn't as different in his endings as some seem to think. It's just really baffling to me to ignore entire parts of his background and personality for more "favorable" ones. It's always fine for roleplay, but to say those things were never there canonly or can't be there for other players is the most bizarre behavior to me.

[simaraknows]

i see your "'does he want to lick my boots or chop off my hands' is a Nicki reference" and raise you "what if Armand's relationship with sex is so fucked that his two modi are total submission and 'don't touch me or I'll chop off your hands' and Louis is still clowning on his trauma" in this essay I will

[brain-rot-central]

Idk why I bother going into the AA tag because it's just people trying to claim that because AA is like "I'm gonna spoil you rotten and you're GOING TO LIKE IT" he's abusive like girl

girl

no

like

That man. Will never settle with you being upset. EVER. If you want someone beheaded for wronging you, he'll do it. If you want caviar on toast every night for dinner, he'll make it happen. You wanna sleep in silk sheets, be adorned in gold and diamonds--he will do it.

That's what he's saying to you at the reunion party. He's not saying "I'm going to give you whatever of my choosing and you're going to like it!!" as if you have no choice in it. You need only say what you want and he'll do it.

The man is at your service. Not the opposite way around. He is obsessed with you. To the point where it should be considered a sickness lmao.

[blacklodge13]

thinking about astarion and how like, this may sound crazy, but i like seriously miss the baby early days of the fandom and the true sense of WONDER that was like everywhere with it??

like i'm being sappy for a second shouting outloud on my little blog here but like, i desperately miss the fics that weren't thinly-veiled quips at spawn or aa or fuck even the fact that astarion at his core in the fandom is split into two: spawn and aa

like, how if you're into any version of astarion you gotta slap an asterisk on it to alert people since there are mfs out there that this really really matters to

i guess tl;dr any astarion is good astarion and the best astarion is one that overcomes his trauma and takes his story into his own hands, and flourishes in whatever outcome that comes from it

he is strong, he is capable, and he is free

[absolutehomosexuals]

Astarion's ascension is extremely popular, despite it clearly being the designed bad ending for him.

So many fans of this version want to argue that it's a "valid" path to choose if you enjoy his character, or that it's equally good as his Spawn ending. The "it's what he wants" argument is the hegemonic justification in question.

But is wanting something better than needing another thing? Yes, he talks about ascension ever since he finds out about the ritual.

Yes, when push comes to shove he's still committed to ascend. But is this enough? Should we support his choice, even when everything but his words tell us not to? Should we trust the judgment of a deeply traumatized man about the best way for him to feel better?

This may sound harsh, but the answer is no.

Because in many circumstances, we see Astarion behaving unhealthily as a result of his trauma: he's hypersexual at the beginning of the game, using sex as a survival mechanism. He's yet to learn what his boundaries should be, what it means not to be an object, to see himself as a person that deserves respect and has so much more to offer than just his body. His trauma is still fresh. And he's so scared of losing his freedom, being trapped under slavery again.

We can't blame him being so desperate to feel safe that he will trade everything he is for it.

Because that's what the ritual means, Cazador says so himself: despite gaining the ritual's power, Astarion is still part of the bargain for said power. He still loses his soul in the process, and that is clear once we see how he acts post-ascension.

Of course, someone that is still suffering from the consequences of 200 years of abuse wouldn't care if he became less of himself, in the process of becoming untouchable ever again. Astarion's behaviour towards himself highlights that he doesn't care for the person he is because that person is, sadly, the product of those centuries of abuse.

He doesn't want to be that person anymore: even better, he doesn't want to be a person anymore: people suffer, people get taken advantage of, people are submitted by more powerful beings. He is willing to give this up not despite losing everything he is, but because of it. And that's what happens after his ascension: he retains his body, which becomes an empty shell of who he once was, with someone else inside of it to fill the void left by his soul.

This situation is a perfect, brutal metaphor of an abused person that later in life becomes the abuser himself, a thing that often happens to male victims of SA.

This is what is fundamentally wrong with Astarion's ascension: he's choosing power, his abuser's tool, over healing. Instead of learning to feel like a person again, to deal with his trauma to life after having endured it, he chooses to not feel anymore, while letting thousands of spawns (like he was) be consumed to get what he wants.

This terribly selfish act is the first instance of Astarion behaving like Cazador, considering the spawns as lesser beings, as nothing but his tools, like all vampire lords do. In this process he also sees himself, the person he gives up being, as a tool. He isn't healing. He's losing all of himself entirely.

Why would someone see this sacrifice as not only necessary to leave his trauma behind, but also preferable to healing from it?

The fan-favourite characteristic of Ascended Astarion is his behaviour towards Tav: in this version of "himself", he clearly is even more sexual than he was in his first days with the tadpole. And this expression of his sexuality is drastically different from the one we got to know prior to this point.

He is dominant, prevaricating, demanding in his avances: he enjoys being in a position of power even in his relationship.

This isn't the Astarion that slowly learns to trust his partner, to build a real loving relationship with someone who sees him as equal and truly cares for him.

Everything that he learns during his romance and his plot gets nullified by his ascension; and yet, this gets overlooked in favour of this more sexually appealing version of him. For people that claim to love his character because of his complexity, Ascended Astarion fans seem to only truly love him when he's less of himself than ever.

When all that's left of him is his body, and he behaves more like the toxic love interest from a young adult romance book, a great number of his fans get wild. Is this all that they want from him? The husk of the funny, sarcastic, dramatic and complex character, filled with this more traditionally masculine attitude, replacing what he used to be? An Astarion that never heals from his trauma, choosing to leave behind everything he was instead? Who resembles his abuser more than ever?

Do his fans who like his ascended version so much to genuinely think this is the best outcome for him, or do they just enjoy being able to project this "macho" fantasy on a physically attractive male character, that otherwise isn't anything like this prototype of man?

We can't help but think that appreciating Ascended Astarion is the same as believing in, if not loving, his hypersexual facade: it's overlooking his humanity in favour of sexualising him.

Which is the biggest disservice one could ever do to his character.

[autistichalsin]

I'm not normally one for selfcest but I firmly believe that the only way to fix the Spawn Astarion vs Ascended Astarion discourse is by shipping them together. Sorry, I don't make the rules, but y'all are fighting and the only solution is to make A!A and S!A kiss about it

[captainshiloh]

i don’t know i just think that the disconnect in this fandom between people who see ascension as the best ending for astarion and people with media literacy lies in the simple failure to understand that astarion’s motivation for damn near every single thing he does throughout the entire game, ESPECIALLY ascending, is fear

[astarionconsort]

Me casually saying: My Tav is very happy with ascended astarion and they are currently chilling

some random guy who cannot understand what RPG/DnD means:

If other people want to see A!Astarion as abusing their durge or tav that is fine by me (like its their campaign/DnD session, personally I dont see AA abusing my tav tho their relationship is complicated)

But they cannot just come over into my table and decided what will happen to MY TAV especially post the main game. Why? Because it is dungeon and dragon based RPG

(especially with the fact my tav is a yandere dark sorcerer who is obsessed with AA and matching his unhinged-ness anyway)

And I also doesnt have the rights to say to other people how their Tav/Durge will fare and how their love life will be because that is YOUR business and not mine. I hate this 'lolz it is only your headcanon' Pal this is DnD, your headcanon is canon, each campaign is their own isolated canon universe that's why Vos in act 3 mentioned about 'the multiverse'

I can't just screaming into your account saying that your tiefling will be beaten and assaulted by Minthara or Duke Wyll

There's also something called respecting other people's enjoyment

edit: (tbh my tav and astarion relationship is unhealthy but THAT IS BECAUSE MY TAV IS INSANE DEVOTED YANDERE, it is Astarion who should be worried about himself lmao tho their marriage do work) yet this guy insisted that EVERY Durge/tav out there must suffer without exception

Just because you and your tav are unhappy with AA doesnt mean others feel the same

[nerdmutant]

[mywitchcultblr]

Can people stop doing this?

Look man I'm a person who wrote a ton of essay defending anders from dragon age and even during a heat of the moment when debating (once I debated someone for 5 hours) I never told someone to kill themselves. I get it that you might be feeling passionate about your blorbos but this attitude is cancerous... If you tell other people to kill themselves over a blorbo you need therapy

[bananasfosterparent]

I saw some of the Reddit drama regarding the Astarion subreddits (the spawn sub vs. OF) and it's really saying a lot how most Spawn fans care more about AA/AA fans and being free to bash him however they see fit on the main sub, but allegedly the evil moderators are censoring their opinions and are not allowing AA criticism so they are transforming the UA sub into an anti AA one. It's amazing how they don't realize their criticism actually consists in telling AA fans they are abuse apologists who spread misinformation on purpose (the bride theory) and media illiterate lmao. Yeah, I wonder why that's not allowed on the main sub. Perhaps they should reflect on the state of their sub which can be resumed to "I like UA because fuck AA and AA fans".

Heh... funny I got a message about this when I did, because I was quietly observing the drama when it happened. Well, sort of drama. Really, just the usual cliched "anti-AA person must save the igorant AA fans from their own selves via condescending and patronizing vagueposting" situation.

For context... An anti-AA person made posts to a few Astarion and BG3 subs, challenging the validity of the bride theory with zero context or reason, which unsurprisingly fostered negativity and arguments. They had other negative comments on semi-related posts which didn't make their case better. Then they argued with the OF mods about their arguing with other users and was banned after reporting others out of spite.

But looks like the person tried to run to the spawn sub to get validation for arguing with the mods, but I don't think it went very well lol

From what I could observe, they got a lot of downvotes and even comments directly calling them (and their aggression) out. People admitted they joined to gush over Spawn and their Tavs, not seethe over AA and his fans. It was quite refreshing to see. Even moreso, seeing the mods of the sub create a new rule to not dogpile on the mods of other BG3 subs. So perhaps the situation is getting better.

Still strange that "a place to talk about AA as an abuse narrative" is one of the main focus rules of that sub, buuut I'll take the small victories. Any time people are pointing out the AA fan witch-hunt nonsense as what it is (nonsense), it means there's a positive shift happening.

Unfortunately (especially in creative realms), there will always be argumentive people who just want to argue that their vision and perspective is the only one that matters/exists, and they believe it too. But maybe the direct heat on AA fans will die down or... Die out completely (one can wish 😩).

That said! That whole situation makes me wonder...

A gaggle of anti-AA Redditers were suspended from the site for brigading (organized downvoting) of positive AA posts and comments. I'm wondering if the user who made that rant post is one of them with a fresh account. The timeline kinda match up and they bring up the same exact talking arguing points 🤔

Idk, but for now I'm glad to see normal spawn fans speaking up against the anti-AA nonsense finally. I think it's at the point everyone is just getting sick of it lol

[brain-rot-central]

I cannot believe this needs to be said but just because someone who drew AA art turned out to be a Nazi doesn't mean the entirety of the AA fandom are Nazis

Like have we really lost our ability to separate one person from the other

Y'all realize everyone is an individual person and not a collective hive mind, right

[tavs-brainworm]

It frustrates me that so much of the Astarion discourse revolves around what it says about YOU as a player for ascending / not ascending him, instead of just… idk. Discussing and analyzing the text?

There’s so much to talk about with regard to Astarion’s character and development in both routes, but somehow the discussion always comes back to “the fictional ending you prefer reflects your personal moral character.” Shut up lol. I can’t tell you how uninterested I am in the moral purity of *checks notes* people on tumblr. I want to talk about ASTARION.