It brings me so much joy that we are all keeping each other fed with Emmrich content to stop ourselves from going mad before Veilguard comes out. I honestly really look forward to checking Tumblr and AO3 throughout the day to see what other treasures have been posted.
Oh, Emmrich. You still have so much lovin' coming your way, darling 💚
Has your opinion/understanding on Astarion's character changed much as you play through the full game?
Actually, yes! Big spoilers again btw.
So, I will admit, my perception of characters is always slightly biased. It's always tilted in favor of my own predilections and desires, so I tend to see things in a skewed way. The less information I am presented, the more my brain will fill in the gaps thusly.
In the early access, Astarion is presented as a selfish vampire spawn clawing for his own survival from the vicious vampire lord that spawned him and has held him captive for centuries. It should be noted that he is one of the only companions open to the idea of abusing the tadpoles rather than removing them and only seeks to cure them if they cannot be controlled. It becomes apparent that he craves power above all else. He dislikes altruistic speech options, tends to veer directly towards ones that bolster said power, especially at the expense of other people. He seems the closest to a stereotypical 'chaotic' follower that you really get.
However, he isn't evil. He's a very rounded character despite his inherent selfishness. He is manipulative and vicious, but he is also desperate and afraid and slow to trust. Most of what he does, he does for his own survival and comfort rather than active malevolence-- though that isn't always the case.
You get an alright idea of him in the early access, as in enough to know if you're going to want to keep him around and invest time into him as opposed to just dropping him at camp perpetually. You catch glimpses of the man he is behind it all, but mostly he appears flamboyant, resourceful, flirtatious, and of extremely dubious morality. Fun, right?
Very, very wrong, actually.
As you progress through the game, you come to understand him better, and it's... tragic.
The first thing to slip is his explosive temper. He is confused, bitter, and frightened. He expects Cazador around every corner, stalking in every shadow, watching and waiting to sling the collar around his neck and yank once more. Paranoid. He has mystery scars painstakingly carved into his flesh that he cannot see because of his condition, in a language he cannot read, with horrible memories he doesn't want to recall. He is angry, and he isn't in the company of people he trusts even remotely at first and literally cannot remember the last time he was in centuries. He bottles up all those emotions to avoid the devastating vulnerability of showing emotion and shoves them down beneath his posh and nonchalant facade, and eventually, it finds a way out.
Occasionally, he snaps. He becomes enraged and has these moments of intense anger.
And then, there is what you might think to be a moment of connection.
Astarion, once he decides that he approves of you, will make a move to seduce you. Should you accept, you might find that he says something along the lines of "Isn't that why you came? To lose yourself in me?"
It seems like typical seduction dialogue at first, but this is very deliberate. The wording is very deliberate as is everything he does. Like a choreographed waltz that he has danced again and again and again--
Until it comes as natural as breathing.
After your night together, he evades a conversation that would take anything any further. No relationship, no nothing. Just a one off that turns you into the equivalent of ye olde fuckbuddies. He stays by your side, of course, but nothing changes between you other than him acknowledging what happened.
So, you progress a little more.
Eventually, both through necessity and happenstance, he does end up opening up little by little. And you find out bits and pieces about him. But there's one that stands out to me:
The crazy blood bitch in Moonrise dehumanizes him, speaks down to him, and refuses to even acknowledge his personhood. She only speaks to you, and makes you an offer regarding your 'property.' An invaluable potion for a moment with 'your pet vampire spawn.'
And he has a visceral reaction to this.
If you have a fucking heart and you don't make him do this, he comes to speak to you later and confides in you. Cazador had used him essentially as a honeypot, forcing him to use his body to lure unsuspecting citizens back to the vampire's den-- against his will. He was so degraded, so dehumanized, and so looked down on for so many years that he has genuinely come to believe that it's the truth. He thanks you genuinely for considering him and viewing him as a real person with emotions and feelings, but is also... confused. He doesn't understand, because that rotten, stagnant belief is still a truth to him: That he is nothing but a tool and a means to an end; that he doesn't matter. That he is a filthy thing to be used and cast aside when convenient. He doesn't understand why you didn't make him do it when it was only his comfort on the line.
And if you ask him to drink from her, he will. He stiffens his upper lip and drinks despite the fact that something is wrong and he knows it. He does it because you command him to. Because that's what he has done for so long that you don't have to have the lord's control over him anymore for him to follow orders.
There is a moment of stark, dreadful realization that sex and seduction have an entirely different meaning to him but he has still been doing it. That the love and connection that he truly needs might be support and a friend and not a bedfellow. That his agency and personhood have been stripped away for so long that he doesn't even recognize them anymore. He is bitter and mean but vulnerable and confused and terrified and he doesn't know how to seek comfort, so he resorts to what he knows while simultaneously distancing and degrading himself.
He does not believe that he is worth loving or caring for, or anything but being an object to be molded. Used. Discarded. He suffered for so long that this is a fundamental truth to him. He is a monster. A filthy vermin barely a step above the rats he's been fed.
You do what you should do: You give him the power. You try to build him back up. Try to help him understand that he isn't a monster or a tool. He is a man; he is a person, and he deserves a say in his own fate. His wants and desires matter. What he wants matters.
If you've done things right, he will take a gigantic leap of faith. He will be with you-- truly be with you. It's slow and he doesn't understand, but he knows he wants it, and you take it as slow as he needs-- but he's still hurt. He is still scarred.
In the Sharess Caress, there are a pair of Drow twins that will attempt to seduce you into what is essentially a foursome. If Astarion is there and he is a love interest and you attempt this, he will say "I'm really not ready for this." while looking extraordinarily uncomfortable, and almost panicked. The scars are still there, and they're barely healing over, and still so, so tender. Easy to tear right back open. Easy to push back into his shell to never come out again, because he tried vulnerability and it burned him.
He does not think he is worthy of love or happiness. He doesn't get to have a loving partner who adores him. Even slipped free of Cazador's yoke, his claws are still stuck steadfast in his soul. He is taking it slow and barely learning to trust another being again, leave alone put his neck out and care for one. He wears his misery as a shield because it cannot hurt him that way. He is a monster who has done horrible things and deserves to be alone forever. And even if that isn't the truth, then Cazador is still lurking out there, waiting to strike-- to rip away that newfound happiness.
Astarion is, above all things, a truly tragic character, and one that I empathize with. It makes my adoration for him slightly guilty. I'm not all the way through the game quite yet, but what I have seen hurts my heart something dreadful. With my character, he is slowly learning to trust and love again, but it's painfully apparent that he thinks he doesn't deserve this, and he is simply waiting for something to fall apart and send him back into the spiraling black chasm that is his life. He still believes all these miserable things about himself. He was forced into immortality, and he believes he's going to spend it alone, reviled, and wretched - not to mention enslaved.
As fun as it is to have a sexy, dark, controlling Astarion, I don't think it's necessarily true to his character as he is presented if you choose to do things right. He isn't evil - he is a complex, tragic man who desperately needs to be able to see his own reflection in a way that isn't horrifically warped by everyone else's eyes.
Vampire. Monster. Killer. Slave. Pet.
It's been so long he's lost track of himself. Of Astarion the man.
He needs to find himself and find peace. He asks to view himself through your eyes, maybe because he's looking for something-- anything-- within himself to hold onto.
If you ask me again in a few days, I'll probably have a fully fleshed out idea of his character, since I'll probably have completed the game or at the very least gotten a bit further, but this is what I have at the moment. Doesn't mean I'll stop writing Astarion as I adore, but I've always openly admitted that my writings on characters are skewed despite their actual content lmao.
ACT 2 SPOILERS!
Dev notes for Astarion's confession (version where he doesn't interact with Araj)
(You get this version of Astarion's confession if his approval is very high and you lose the chance to interact with Araj at the Moonrise Towers, for example if you kill her)
A: Do you have a moment? I think we need to talk.
MC: Are you all right?
A: Oh yes, I'm fine. I just-... feel awful.
“Reflexively brushes it away before dropping the mask”
A: Look, I had a plan. A nice, simple plan - seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you'd never turn on me.
A: It was easy - instinctive. Habits from two hundred years of charming people kicked in. All you had to do was fall for it.
A: And all I had to do was not fall for you... Which is where my nice, simple plan fell apart.
A: You -... you're incredible. You deserve something real. I want us to be something real.
“slight emphasis on 'want'”
MC: So the nights we spent together didn't mean anything?
A: Of course they did - that's the problem! Or part of it.
Being close to someone - any kind intimacy - was something I performed to lure people back for him.
“him = Cazador”
A: Even though I know things between us are different, being with someone still feels... tainted. Still brings up those feelings of disgust and loathing.
A: I don't know how else to be with someone. No matter how much I'd like to.
MC: I care about you. Deeply.
A: Really?
MC: Open your mind so he sees you care.
“Astarion and the player stare at each other, mindmelding. He understands the player speaks the truth.”
A: You... you are full of surprises, aren't you?
A: Honestly, I have no idea what we're doing. Or what comes next.
“earnest”
A: But I know that this? This is nice.
“Facing the player, holding their hands”
“'This' referring to your relationship together”
ALTERNATIVE ANSWER
MC: How dare you! We're done.
A: I - yes, all right. I can understand.
“A little surprised, then sadly accepting”
A: It's a shame, but I don't want to risk treating you like you were one of his victims.
A: Perhaps it's better if we don't continue with whatever this was. Perhaps we'll both be better for it.
(PART 2/2) Flower language: Purple hyacinth can symbolize regret and sorrow. What the slide implicates in Fyolai context is up to your interpretation, the main point is that they will definitely not have a happy ending (I love how this is fluff but there are still sad undertones to it) I will post the slides without the text soon in case anyone wants to translate or edit (if you do Remember to credit me^^)
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