Agency, Identity, and Seeing Astarion Beyond the Ritual
Just rambling for a bit. Let me vent and don't ask questions. I know it's about the same old topics, but they keep making my eyes bleed whenever they pop up on Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, and the like.
Aaaaaanyway…
I’m always a little baffled when people passionately defend Astarion’s agency the moment the Persuasion check comes up only to deny him agency over something even more fundamental: his own identity—who he is and who he might become. Suddenly, he was evil, he is evil, and he’ll always be evil, with no room for growth, no room for discovery, and no room even for the theoretical possibility that he could become something else. Or perhaps, as I see it, that he has been something else all along: someone who has always carried both light and darkness within him, rather than darkness alone. In a game with multiple endings, no less.
There’s another irony in all of this. Tav/Durge is often criticized—sometimes quite harshly (and it’s worth remembering that Tav/Durge is the player’s avatar, not a character acting independently of the person behind the screen—someone who may deeply resonate with the spawn path and wholeheartedly believe in it)—for supposedly imposing a moral framework on Astarion. Yet, the very people making that criticism often end up imposing one of their own. Only this one is permanent, predetermined; it defines who he is, who he has always been, and who he will always remain: evil. He’s trapped within that definition, denied the possibility of change—as though he were caged. Trapped within a wonderful moral label that, to make matters worse, brings with it a whole range of related concepts.
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, evil, when used to describe a person, is defined as: "(of people) enjoying harming others; morally bad and cruel.”
Words carry weight—sometimes enormous weight—as well as a very precise meaning.
Indeed, turning “Astarion does evil things” into “Astarion is evil” means adopting an essentialist view of his identity. It means attributing a moral essence to him, and that essence inevitably shapes the way the character is interpreted. Among other things, it can imply:
Untrustworthiness: his words, his gestures of affection, and even his moments of vulnerability can all be interpreted as manipulation.
Being dangerous: he is perceived as someone to be feared, controlled, or kept at a distance.
A lack of genuine empathy: his positive actions risk being seen as purely instrumental, never sincere.
Moral unworthiness: it becomes easier to believe that he is undeserving of trust, compassion, forgiveness, or love.
The need for punishment: if he is truly, irredeemably evil, then judging him, despising him, or wishing for his condemnation becomes a logically consistent consequence of that premise.
And then, when someone judges him according to that very moral framework—or even despises him because of it—the reaction is often one of outrage. “How dare you say Ascended Astarion is dangerous, manipulative, or incapable of a healthy relationship?” But if the premise is that he is inherently evil from the start (he was evil, he is evil, and he’ll always be evil), those conclusions are hardly surprising—they are the logical extension of that premise!
Why does this happen? Because there’s an interesting inconsistency. The essentialist reading often seems to apply only to pre-ascension Astarion. Once he ascends, that rigidity mysteriously disappears. Suddenly, he is allowed to be more than just “evil.” He can be read as loving. Tender. Protective. Generous. Sincere. As someone who poses no danger to the people closest to him. Even vulnerable in certain contexts. If complexity isn’t incompatible with evil after ascension, why should it be before it?
I’d like to make one thing clear: my point is not to invalidate ascension. It’s one of Astarion’s possible paths. In fact, I have no problem acknowledging—and I think it’s entirely plausible—that Ascended Astarion remains a nuanced character. However, that is his evil ending. Before that, I think it’s more accurate to say that Astarion does commit evil acts, yes—but that is not what he intrinsically is, at his very core. For me, there has always been light within him: room for growth, even for redemption, for those willing to see it.
Astarion’s approval goes beyond words and empty pretenses.
Some might object that, according to the Monster Manual, vampires are Lawful Evil. That’s true—but I’d point out that those stat blocks are simply the default. It’s ultimately up to the Dungeon Master to decide the alignment of a specific vampire character.
Jander Sunstar, for example, is a canonical vampire character in D&D lore who is not evil. Likewise, the alignments of player characters can change over the course of an adventure depending on the events they experience and the choices they make. That’s built into D&D’s rules as well.
So it’s no coincidence that Astarion has both a good ending and an evil one. The outcome depends on which part of him the player chooses to nurture throughout the journey: the light within him, or the darkness already there.
And that’s precisely why I find the idea that the Persuasion check is somehow forcing him, imposing something on him, or stripping away his agency so absurd.
Seriously, what do people think this mysterious Persuasion check actually is? Some terrifying, supernatural power, apparently?
Astarion is supposedly perfectly capable of choosing ascension knowingly and with complete clarity. Yet this idea that he’s “perfectly capable of making his own decisions” seems to remain valid only until Tav/Durge succeeds on that Persuasion check. Apparently, that’s the exact moment he forgets how to think, abandons all independent judgment, and starts blindly following Tav/Durge’s morality instead.
As if he’d just hit his head harder than he had in over two hundred years.
It’s not magic, folks. It’s not mind control. It’s not a charm spell. It’s not even an Intimidation check or a Deception check.
It’s words. They’re simply words, spoken by someone who knows him well and genuinely has his best interests at heart. And a series of arguments that can strike a chord deep within him.
Even the Oxford Dictionary defines to persuade as “to make somebody do something by giving them good reasons for doing it.” The very concept of persuasion assumes that the other person remains capable of listening, weighing those reasons, and ultimately making a choice. If they weren’t, it wouldn’t be persuasion anymore. It would be coercion.
But why is there a Persuasion check at all? Because Astarion has been saying, loud and clear, from the very beginning that he wants to ascend. Well... NO. Because there’s that pesky little Insight check.
The game itself introduces a tool for reading his inner state at the very moment it matters most.
The very fact that there’s an Insight check during the ritual implies that there’s something to understand beneath the surface. It’s not as simple (or as flat) as saying, “Astarion said he wants to ascend, therefore that’s all there is to it.”
Among its definitions, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines insight as “the ability to see and understand the truth about people or situations.” Pretty fitting, wouldn’t you say?
Indeed, if Astarion were simply determined to ascend, in the sense of being perfectly lucid, completely certain of himself, free of any inner conflict, and driven solely by ambition, there would be no need for an Insight check.
The game could simply present it as a fully conscious decision and leave it to the player to either support or oppose it. On the other hand, an Insight check only makes sense if there’s something beneath the surface for the player to perceive.
Look into your lover’s eyes — try to see what’s driving this.
“Try to see what’s driving this” is literally an invitation to look beneath the surface—to understand the deepest, most visceral motivations behind his actions.
Neither the wording nor the choice of words is accidental.
But let’s look at what the Narrator actually says, because the Insight check gives us a direct, unfiltered glimpse into Astarion’s inner world—without relying on his words or anyone else’s—at the most pivotal moment of his entire questline.
“You can see the fear in his eyes, but also the hunger. The thick smell of blood in the air and the promise of power being so close is intoxicating to him. All he can see is the power of the ritual, and the freedom that power brings. The freedom to do anything—to be anything.”
So what is actually happening inside Astarion? What does Tav/Durge truly perceive after succeeding on the Insight check?
The narration begins with: “You can see the fear in his eyes, but also the hunger.” The words “but also” are crucial. They don’t replace one emotion with the other. The Narrator isn’t saying, “He’s only terrified. Nor is the Narrator saying, “He’s only hungry for power.”
It’s both.
Both emotions coexist, and both are genuine for Astarion in that moment. But they can only be fully understood within their proper context and the narrative as a whole.
Then comes: “The thick smell of blood in the air and the promise of power being so close is intoxicating to him.”
As I said before, words carry enormous weight, and they are not chosen carelessly in writing as refined as that of Baldur’s Gate 3. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary gives the following definition for the adjective intoxicating: “making you feel excited so that you cannot think clearly.” And here I can’t help but smile, because immediately afterward it provides an example that feels almost ironic: “Power can be intoxicating.”
So, Astarion is overwhelmed on multiple levels. First of all he is afraid. Then, for a vampire, the scent of blood is already something capable of clouding judgment and awakening instinct. Add to that the promise of power—something vampires are almost instinctively drawn toward—and the Narrator paints a picture of someone whose perceptions are profoundly altered in that moment.
So, in this moment, Astarion is no longer capable of thinking with the detachment he normally might.
Then we arrive at what I think is the most crucial line, one that connects perfectly with everything that came before: “All he can see is the power of the ritual, and the freedom that power brings.”
“All he can see…”
Those words are incredibly powerful. They tell us that his perception has in fact narrowed.
From a psychological perspective, this resembles what is commonly known as tunnel vision. When someone is terrified, emotionally overwhelmed, in urgency, and confronted with something they believe could offer them a way out—a chance for relief—they often become unable to see any alternatives. Their focus narrows until only one path seems possible: the easiest one, the one within immediate reach.
But let’s be clear about one thing: the Narrator isn’t telling us that the ritual is his only path to freedom. Nor is the Narrator saying that it cannot lead to freedom. What the Narrator is telling us is that, in that moment, Astarion cannot see any other path.
Finally, we get: “The freedom to do anything—to be anything.”
Here, I think the game is reminding the player of what has always been Astarion’s deepest desire. Not power for its own sake.
Freedom.
In this case, power is the means. Freedom is the end.
A brief aside. Another of Astarion’s core motivations is the need to feel safe. Freedom and safety—those are the goals he is ultimately striving toward.
The encounter with the nymph Naoise Nallinto in Astarion’s Origin run is particularly telling because it confronts him with several possible aspirations, many of which would seem fitting for a vampire. Yet none of those is what Astarion chooses. His priorities, in truth, lie elsewhere.
Now let’s go back to the beginning and put all the pieces together. The Insight check prompts us to “try to see what’s driving this.” But if power is the means and freedom and safety the end, what is the driving force the game itself is inviting us to see? Fear. The emotion that has accompanied Astarion throughout the entire journey—deep, overwhelming, burned into the very core of his being by Cazador and two hundred years of abuse.
Can we conclude from this that Astarion genuinely wants to ascend? Absolutely. But that desire exists within a broader and more complex context—one shaped by his history, his instinct for survival, his trauma, and an emotional state so profoundly clouding that, in that very moment, it prevents him from perceiving any alternative.
And this is precisely where the Persuasion check comes into play. Its purpose isn’t to override his agency, but simply to broaden his perspective—to move beyond “all he can see,” to cut through what is “intoxicating to him,” and allow him to consider by presenting an argument another possibility before making his decision.
I’d invite you to take a close look at Astarion’s facial expression in the screenshot at the exact moment the Persuasion check succeeds. His head is tilted slightly to his right. And do you notice the direction of his gaze? It’s lowered, off to the right. He’s no longer looking at the person speaking to him. His attention has shifted elsewhere.
Psychological research has shown that this kind of gaze aversion often accompanies the shift from external attention to internal cognitive processing, particularly when someone is engaged in complex reasoning or effortful memory retrieval.
In that light, it’s not difficult to read Astarion’s expression as someone who, immediately after hearing Tav/Durge’s words, is genuinely reflecting on what has just been said and mentally working through it. It therefore comes as little surprise that his very next words are, “You are right.”
And can we talk about the ellipsis in “You… you are right”? It’s difficult not to read that pause as the precise moment Astarion processes what Tav/Durge has just said and arrives at a realization.
And that’s when he chooses. He chooses not to become like Cazador, but to become better than him.
It would almost be unnecessary to point out that Astarion approves when he’s persuaded to abandon the ritual—but I’ll do it anyway. Because approval is an objective game mechanic. In fact, it’s even more compelling than any line of dialogue a character can deliver, because dialogue can always leave room for deception or self-deception. Approval doesn’t.
What I find truly beautiful, though, is how the game’s writing had been building toward this moment from the very beginning. “I can be better than him” calls back to an Act 1 conversation that takes place after Astarion feeds on a bear and is riding the high of its blood—provided, of course, that you don’t encourage his darker impulses.
When Tav/Durge tells him, “You can be better than what he made you,” Astarion initially twists those words into something else. To him, being “better” means being more powerful than Cazador, cleverer than him, stronger than him. Only then, with a teasing tone, does he realize Tav/Durge actually meant kinder.
Which is why hearing him say those exact same words at the end of his quest—“I can be better than him”—is so powerful. This time, he means them exactly as Tav/Durge did all along.
And whether you’re romancing him or not, these are some of the words Astarion has to say the morning after rejecting the ritual. They perfectly reinforce the interpretation suggested by the Insight check and by the narrator’s own description—which, once again, is an objective part of the game’s text.
“Back at the ritual, all I could see was the power on offer and the safety it promised. I was so blinded by it. Just as Cazador was.”
The narrator describes, from an external perspective, a state of mind characterized by fear, the allure of power, and a narrowing of perspective. The following morning, Astarion doesn’t contradict the narrator; instead, he retrospectively confirms that description. The parallel is striking.
The narrator tells us that “all he can see is the power of the ritual, and the freedom that power brings.” Astarion then uses almost exactly the same words: “Back at the ritual, all I could see was the power on offer…”
The narrator goes on to explain why: “The thick smell of blood in the air and the promise of power being so close is intoxicating to him.” The following morning, Astarion reaches precisely the same conclusion, but in different words: “I was so blinded by it.” The metaphor changes, but the meaning does not.
And the parallels don’t end there.
Immediately afterward, Astarion adds that Tav/Durge saw something in him—a recurring theme throughout the entire game. Does that remind you of anything?
From the very first conversation after the bear encounter, Tav/Durge sees something in Astarion. Despite speaking to a vampire—a creature typically feared and despised—they take it for granted that he "can be better than what he (Cazador) made him.”
"I can be better then him," say Astarion at the ritual. “Someone else I could be,” Astarion later confirms after rejecting it.
But let’s go back for a moment to the prompt for the Insight check: “Look into your lover’s eyes—try to see what’s driving this.” The key word is see. And that’s exactly what Tav/Durge did. And for Astarion, in his good ending, that make all the difference in the world.
And can we talk about how this same message is then passed on by Astarion to his brothers and sisters?
Newly free, frightened, and unsure of what lies ahead, they ask what will become of them. Astarion already has an answer:
“You can hide here, living in the shadows like parasites, or you can be more than what he made us to be.”
This is more than just a clever linguistic parallel. It demonstrates that Astarion has truly internalized the message he once received. What Tav/Durge saw in him (“You can be better than what he made you”) becomes the very way he comes to see others (“You can be more than what he made us to be”). In other words, he has learned to recognize in others the same possibility that someone once recognized in him.
The only difference is that the pronoun changes from you to us. And I think that’s incredibly significant. For the first time, Astarion doesn’t place himself above the other spawn. He doesn’t say, “…more than what he made you to be.” He says, “…what he made us to be.”
He includes himself.
He acknowledges that all of them were shaped by Cazador, and that all of them are capable of choosing something different.
This continuity makes the ending of the Pale Elf’s quest even more powerful. Astarion’s transformation is not simply about rejecting the ritual; it is about changing the way he sees both himself and others. No longer as creatures defined by Cazador, but as people capable of choosing who they want to become.
It is an ending that isn’t about power, but about identity, possibility, and freedom. It completely transcends the simplistic archetype of “he was evil, he is evil, and he will always be evil.”
This is what agency looks like: the ability to choose. One way or the other. For good or for ill. And to accept the consequences of that choice.
But let’s return to the parallel with the Insight check—to what Tav/Durge saw beneath Astarion’s surface. The narrator concludes with the words, “The freedom to do anything, to be anything.” The morning after rejecting the ritual, Astarion echoes that idea as well:
“When I look at my future, anything and everything feels possible now.”
But while the narrator’s words are impersonal and abstract, describing an ideal, Astarion’s are not. They are deeply personal and concrete. He is genuinely looking at his future now: “When I look…”
It is a future full of possibilities, one he attained not through ascension, but precisely by rejecting it. And for the first time, he is looking at it with his own eyes—not through Tav/Durge’s gaze (“you see”), nor through eyes blinded by the promise of power (“I was so blinded by it”).
None of this is meant to argue that Ascension isn’t a valid possibility for Astarion. It is. The game clearly allows for that choise, and it leads to a coherent ending of its own. But rejecting the ritual is just as much a possibility, and just as valid.
That’s why I find statements such as “Ascension is Astarion’s canonical ending,” “it’s his only true happy ending,” “Astarion says he wants to ascend, so there’s nothing left to discuss,” or “Tav/Durge simply imposes their own morality while Radiant Hopeful Astarion is wearing a mask” so profoundly unconvincing.
Those claims don’t simply reject one interpretation in favor of another. They deny Astarion the very agency they often seek to defend. They reduce him to a single, predetermined identity: he was evil, he is evil, and he will always be evil.
After everything this character’s story has to say about choice, identity, and the possibility of becoming something more than what abuse made you, that strikes me as an oddly reductive conclusion.
That doesn’t mean everyone has to like the Radiant Hopeful ending. Of course they don’t. Personal preference is an entirely different matter. But dismissing it as illegitimate, or claiming it cannot genuinely belong to Astarion, overlooks much of what the game itself spends his entire character arc exploring.
Anyway...
For those who, like me, prefer the Radiant Hopeful ending, I’d like to leave you with these final two screenshots, which I think beautifully summarize everything I’ve been rambling about so far.
The first comes from one of Astarion’s earliest moments at camp, when he asks the player directly what they see—because he can’t see it himself. Even the mirror he looks into is already shattered, a subtle visual detail that only reinforces the metaphor. The missing reflection serves as a powerful symbol of his fractured identity.
By the end of his journey, Astarion revisits the themes that have defined his character arc. Setting aside power, which belongs to the other ending, he speaks once again about safety… and about being seen. Something he ultimately found in his partner.
And with that, I have to ask the obligatory question: are you still alive?
I swear, every single time I tell myself I’ll only write a little. Just a few lines about a couple of thoughts or ideas. Then my brain just… opens up, kind of like your stomach when you start absentmindedly snacking. Before I know it, I’ve written a novel. I honestly don’t do it on purpose, I swear!
To the absolute heroes who somehow survived all the way to the end: you have both my admiration and my gratitude. It can’t be easy getting through this many walls of text—especially when they’re probably a bit messy and all over the place. At some point there was so much I genuinely think I lost the thread myself. Sob.
“He was probably quite decadent in the past, perhaps abusing his power a little bit. I see him as being very intelligent — very erudite — and highly manipulative when he wants to be. Very vulnerable and traumatized, but also incredibly witty and funny. He’s got etiquette, he’s articulate, and he’s very sophisticated. He’s a lover of the arts without, I believe, having the talent to produce art himself. He’s also rather good-looking, and he’s not afraid to use that as a way to shield himself or to get what he wants. He’s immoral, not amoral. I would say he’s quite aware of morality. He just chooses not to [be moral], darling, you know?”
“His sense of freedom is the most powerful thing about him. The drive to be free — the need to be free at all costs, including things that are morally gray and sometimes completely wrong. But the overriding sense is never wanting to be trapped again in a situation like the one he’s come from for the last 200 years. Underneath all of that, if you can find a way to him, he’s also probably one of the best friends you’ll ever have.”
-Neil Newbon on how he would describe Astarion (source)
Face of a guy who is definitely not up to atrocities. Welcome to modern graphics, Anders.
I still *really* suck at porting clothing so just cobbling stuff together.
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