i’d probably be more sympathetic to Cazador and understand the people who are like “he was a victim too!!!” if it weren’t for the fact that forcing the spawn to have sex with his victims is a completely unnecessary step in the plan.
like, i can understand he wants the power of the ritual, i can understand that the spawn are pawns that he’s using to gather victims because it’s faster than luring people in on his own, i understand Vellioth abused him, Vellioth’s master abused Vellioth, going back generations. i even sort of can kind of understand Cazador wanting to hurt the spawn because they remind him of himself or whatever. i can understand all of that.
but the levels of sexual torture that the spawn underwent was completely unnecessary.
he could have even had them lure his victims back to the palace under the guise of having sex, and then just taken them before that happened.
but he didn’t do that. he forced the spawn to objectify and humiliate themselves for absolutely no reason, other than cruelty.
like, when you are exploring the palace, Astarion points out the room where he would “entertain the guests”. meaning, they’re already there, in the palace, able to be taken at any time. there’s absolutely no reason that the spawn siblings need to be involved beyond “get them into this room”. but that’s not how it went.
as boo hoo poor me womp womp sad Cazador’s thoughts are when you use Detect Thoughts on him are, he still very much chose to force the spawn to have sex with people they did not want to have sex with, nearly every night, for centuries.
that alone is why i will never be sympathetic towards him. the ritual could 100% have been completed without that aspect, and he chose do do that anyway.
fuck cazador, you’ll never convince me that he’s a sympathetic villain, you’ll never convince me to feel bad for him, i’ll always relish in watching Astarion, his most hated spawn, stab him to death while he grovels on his knees.
