Fucking FASCINATED by Astarion’s Test of Love with the nymph at the circus.
When she asks
1. When he’s happiest
2. What he wants most
3. What his biggest fear is
You gain approval for responding with the very surface level things that are a little true but not really the real answer.
1. Elbow deep in gore
2. Revenge
3. Breaking a nail
But getting the answers right and truly passing the test means gaining disapproval, because he is both upset that you are saying the quiet parts about himself out loud, and that you are revealing the deepest truest parts of himself to a stranger (the nymph testing you.)
1. Astarion has never been truly happy
2. Freedom
3. Being enslaved
There are so many ways to interpret this, so many ways to play the test out based on your character and your relationship dynamic, and it’s brilliant writing on Larian’s part in that way.
Personally, the way I interpret it is as a parlell to the mirror scene in Act 1.
Astarion is thrilled at what he admits is “shallow praise” because the shallowest parts of his appearance make him feel beautiful.
But, if, when “being reflected through someone else’s eyes” he is instead met with objectively true and more unique qualities of his, like laugh lines and the way his hair curls around his ears, he becomes distressed and begs to just be told he’s beautiful.
Astarion puts a LOT of work into performing his outer persona just as he wants it, he puts a lot of work into controlling how he is perceived.
When in the mirror scene and the Test of Love someone sees past that immediately, seemingly with little effort, he doesn’t know how to handle it.
