'Character development? What's that?'
(I wrote my original reply to this to the wrong blog by mistake, and also on my phone so it was full of typos. Here's the new one.)
Gods, isn't it fun when people with barely passing familiarity with a piece of media want to lecture fans who know better about it.
I don't mean to pick on this person in particular, but I've seen bad faith takes like this before and it's time to say something. It’s bad enough when people feel a need to make a grand announcement about how they personally hate a thing specifically in places for people who like the thing (the tags) when literally no one asked, but it’s even worse then they clearly (and even sometimes proudly declare,) that they’ve never actually engaged with the thing themselves, and worse again they make a whole essay about how thing bad actually when again it’s not something they’ve in any way engaged with. That’s all silly and annoying. But mostly I let it slide, especially since I usually figure they’re probably just kids anyway. But no, when you turn around and start dragging the writers about your own lack of understanding of a piece of media you never engaged with, that is several steps beyond too far.
So anyway, for people who actually care...
Astarion is a fictional character in a video game called Baldur’s Gate, which is based on Dungeons and Dragons. Astarion was murdered when he was about 40-ish years old after an unspecified ruling he made as a magistrate. As he was bleeding to death on the street, he was ‘rescued’ by a vampire lord, Cazaror, turned into a vampire, and enslaved and viciously tortured for 200 years prior to the events of the game.
Astarion dislikes Gur because it was Gur who murdered him in the first place and he’s still kinda bitter about it. Also, whether Astarion had a problem with Gur before being murdered by some or whether his ruling as a magistrate was wrong is never even implied. So it makes zero sense to assume he deserved the murder.
During the early part of the game he can bump into a Gur monster hunter named Gandrel, who explicitly makes it clear he’s there to hunt Astarion. He doesn’t say why other than that it’s a sacred mission from the leader of the Gur tribe to hunt down Astarion. Astarion, who is a terrified and recently-escaped slave, believes the Gur hunt him on behalf of Cazador. Even though this turns out to be untrue, if the Gandrel catches him at this stage, the Gur do torture and murder him again.
The extent of Astarion's racism against Gur here is he snarkily repeats a stereotype he's heard when he first meets Gandrel, which the Gandrel himself cheerfully (and I believe endearingly) plays along with. That's it. It's still not cool, but it's one bit of bitchy dialogue from a character full of bitchy dialogue. It's not like spends the whole game obsessively ranting about how much he wants to round up all the Gur and burn them at the stake. It's not really a big part of his character motivation. So no... not remotely like Frollo.
Yes, he can murder Gandrel during this meeting if you, the player, lead him to do so. But that’s really more because he’s a monster hunter who is explicitly hunting him rather than about him being Gur. When he’s on edge, he says he wants to kill monster hunters on sight, not Gur on sight. Not that we encounter any more Gur until Act 3.
Oh yeah, it’s a 3-act game. This encounter with the hunter occurs in Act1. In act 1, Aststion is not a good guy, nor is he trying to be. He says so himself. He’s a recently-escaped slave, a literal monster, and has no memories of kindness to him – his only concern is survival. He hasn’t had the time or space for anything else. He’s at best on the evil end of neutral if not firmly into neutral evil territory at this stage of the game – and when it’s the evil character doing a racism it’s clearly being depicted as a bad thing. Although is prejudice against Gur is explained, it isn’t justified by the writing. The game still clearly depicts this as racism on his part, and you as the player reprimand him for it and convince him to reconsider his views. He isn't inclined to be convinced at the time because, ya know, they're currently hunting him. So no, the writers are not on board with racism just character who leans towards evil was a bit racist.
That’s act 1. There are two more acts to go. Each act is almost as long as a lot of entire games I’ve played. We’re in for a looong story here. This is a fact that I suspect is lost on people who only got their information from a few scattered, disjointed clips. You completely miss the development.
The thing about character growth is it kinda requires a starting point to grow from. And if you influence him toward good, he does just that. By the time Astarion meets the Gur camp again in Act 3, their leader observes that he has changed and offers him redemption.
The culmination of Astarion's story in a good run involves making peace with the Gur. They show up before reaching Baldur's Gate in Act 3 to ask Astarion for help, and again at the conclusion of his personal quest to remark on their final thoughts on him.
During Astarion's personal quest he looks into the faces of the people who he has hurt, the wrongs he has done even under Cazador's command, including some Gur children that Cazador had turned into vampire spawn. The trauma of facing his victims again can even give him a debuff. If lead towards good, Astarion can refuse to sacrifice the spawn (which again include the Gur children), placing some value in the lives of others as well as his own. And it’s not a small thing, he gave up the chance to gain the power to finally feel safe as well as relief from the pain and danger vampires are cursed to exist with.
Astarion can free the spawn or mercy kill them at this point. Either way, the Gur meet him afterwards and say he’s redeemed in their eyes and they will not hunt him again.
So, to recap, writers wrote a story where the good outcome is the racist asshole learns to stop being a racist asshole. Astarion was wrong about the Gur and that was always the point. The writers are pretty explicitly presenting racism as bad, actually. So really anyone can F right off with any mud flung at writers here.
When you see a lot of people talking about Astarion, wirtting about Astarion, making art about Astarion, and there are so many that they’re seemingly inescapable, what’s more likely:
A. That they, the people who have played the game, read the wikis, engaged in discourse, looked at datamined content, all just don’t understand something?
B. Or that you, a person who has had no exposure to the game besides whatever happens to randomly come up when browsing don’t understand something?
We sure as hell didn’t all just miss the Gandrel scene.
Writing that acknowledges racism is not promoting or condoning racism. And Gur aren't even the only example in the game. Astarion himself hates vampires while also fearing his companions will murder him if they find out he is one – which can be exactly what happens. Everyone is suspicious of drow because they’re drow. Hardly anyone seems to care about gnomes, even other groups of gnomes. And hell, DnD has a canonical moral alignment system, which can involve race – which in DnD is a real thing (Unlike among humans which don’t actually have races, biologically speaking, but we socially recognize race anyway, for good or ill.)
This is not Animal Crossing. Baldur’s Gate 3 touches on topics of racism, sexism, abuse, tyranny, murder, slavery, genocide, sexual assault, and a hell of a lot more. It's rated for mature audiences for a reason - it contains a lot that can be difficult for some people to deal with. If this isn't your cup of tea, that's fine.
But there's really no need to announce to people who do enjoy the game that you'll never play it or that you irrationally hate a character you know nothing about in tags meant for that game or character, unless you're just looking for drams. (Like, what do you expect? You announce you hate a game you've never played and everyone who has it and likes it will just... change their minds???) And while I do love a good critique, even a negative one, you should at least make the effort to actually know something about the subject first before you go putting in front of those who do. And if you want to go at writers – just don't - really just DONT – At all. And if you do anyway, you better got a lot more to go off of than 'these vampires, which are fictional, and these Gur, which are also fictional, don't get along. Therefore, the writers of this game are racist against me, specifically.'
Flawed character =/= bad writing. And if you want to go as far to accuse Larian writers - real people!- of being bad and racist, then you sure as hell had better have a lot to go on than a few barely-understood, contextless youtube clips regarding one character who is meant to be clearly in the wrong which you made up your own story about.
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