so I wound up having a whole Thought Process in replying to a fic comment and just
okay fair warning this probably leans heavily on my own interpretations of Cazador and also Astarion and a bunch of the Cazador backstory in particular is pure headcanon
also fair warning there's discussion of abuse and sexual assault in here
BUT
man these two actually have quite a bit in common--the "my Master is an abusive asshole" thing being the big obvious one
also neither of 'em seem to have a great relationship with their families: Astarion never even mentions his in the slightest, ever, so I remain unconvinced that there was anything good there, and Cazador uh
well
Amanita's notes imply that there were only a grand total of like four remaining living Szarrs despite having multiple estates and a huge fuckoff castle smack in the middle of the city and yeah I absolutely headcanon that Cazador had most of them merc'd because none of them did a damn thing while Vellioth--who only married in and who Donnela picked for vampire-ing over her own grandkid because she held Cazador responsible for his dad (her son) going AWOL as a vampire hunter, it's a whole Thing I should really write it down at some point--basically ran the family reputation into the ground with his insistence on indulging his own brutal assholery over anything else (instead of balancing it with blackmail/politics so they don't get Found Out)
so yeah he is fairly obsessed with his family but in the sense that it's his and belongs to him and he gets to own it and shape it and bring it back to how it was when he was a kid and they owned damn near the entire Upper City in one capacity or another
so really no he isn't fond of his family but more the idea of it and being able to control it which is. uh. quite different!
and that kinda leads into my next point that they are both fucking Obsessed with power, "over people" specifically to quote Astarion in-game
I mean after all on Cazador's side of things: that was how Vellioth got to be where he was, that was what Vellioth wielded over him and all the other spawn whenever he decided to torture/sexually assault/etc them as he pleased, and that was how Cazador himself finally got Vellioth killed, too, and turned himself into a full vampire finally--it wasn't dry politics it wasn't law it was just interpersonal trickery wielding Vellioth's personal desires against him, and Cazador not only wanted his own abuser dead but wanted to make damn sure that it never happened again, that no one would ever be able to hurt him like he did
even when it meant hurting other people--LOTS OF THEM in all sorts of horrifying new ways!--to do it
and that's why he really just is not fuckin redeemable by the time we see him: he's molded his entire fucking existence around that notion, he cannot will not trust anyone but himself, he tried over and over with that as a spawn and always got punished for it--his family was not kind, his lone friend died for his kindness, and considering that his general social circle was a bunch of rich people, I'm willing to fuckin wager he probably didn't get any notion of it outside, either, and in fact it probably made it even easier to just think of people in general like things--cattle, even
so all that's left for him is (what has to look to him) like stone-cold objective knowledge that everything sucks, the world is vicious and cruel and the only good things you can have you have to TAKE by force or trickery from someone else and they don't matter, they'll only take from you the second they get a chance
and yeah Astarion clearly had a bit of a similar problem over the past 200-something years, considering--he was also tortured quite extensively for years, despite Cazador genuinely thinking he's being nice about it in an I HAD IT WORSE SUCK IT UP sort of way; he got faced with an utterly impossible task to constantly hunt down prey for his Master while fuckin starving the whole time, and eventually in sheer desperation resorted to literal prostitution only to be met with a very blase okay that works I guess keep it up from Cazador since it wasn't like Cazador really thought Astarion had much in the way of other talents to lure people in and all he cared about was having people lured in
shit, Astarion's entire approval set damn near until the last act of the damn game are just reflecting that mindset--the world is vicious and cruel and the only good things you can have you have to TAKE by force or trickery from someone else
...thing is, Cazador was basically surrounded by enablers and even outside of that is also hellishly stubborn and molded his entire existence around the pursuit of power because he thought that was literally all there was to anything, even to the point of making deals with not just a devil but one of THE devils, one of the Big Boys and one who's pretty damn tricky at that
he was not and is not going to give up on any of his plans, even if someone SOMEHOW gave him a chance to, and if we ignore the whole VAMPIRES EVIL LOL thing for a sec--far as Cazador's concerned, the kind are weak and murdered and tortured by the strong, and that is just how it is. that was how it always was and always would be and he's been surrounded by it literally all his life, personal and political, with basically no evidence to the contrary that doesn't immediately get ruined, whether at his hand or someone else's
if this isn't what he should do in life, then what else is there? just being a horribly broken person for literally eternity or until someone up and stakes him? he can't afford to let this go because it would obliterate his whole fucking identity in the process
...Astarion though at least has the benefit of running around with people who do not in fact enable his FUCK EVERYONE ELSE BUT ME! bullshit, and in fact (can be, anyway) relentlessly kind to him and show him that yes, actually, there is a life beyond what happened to him
there's a whole lotta life beyond it, actually! even while he's trying to "just" be manipulative, because the kind are weak and he can't afford to be weak when his Master HAS to be hunting for him by now, he fuckin fails at that and actually gets attached to the people trying to get him to knock off his assholery--they treat him like an actual person and he actually gets pretty into that despite himself, even though it clearly scares the hell out of him to have to make his own identity over again beyond just...being the flirty vampire
but thing is
he's at least brave enough to try doing it (presuming the non-ascended route--the ascended route he just refuses and falls right into Cazador's own neuroses), and when he's given the chance he takes it despite being terrified of it
he's seen more, he wants more and he's willing to risk himself to get it because it was worth it
Cazador though
lol nah
ultimately he's a coward about doing that exact thing
he's petrified of having nothing left of him if he gives up on what he's doing so he just never even tries and would pretty violently refuse any attempt to make him, for that matter--to him, it can't possibly be worth it
Astarion at least believes a small selection of people would be worth trying for
but Cazador's got none of that because he gave the fuck up on ever finding that and split the world into people he owned and people he would eventually own when he got what he deserved in Ascending after so many years of pure shit--and after his existence had turned into a meaningless morass of violence and horror that he inflicted on literally everyone around him like the walking nuclear fallout of a man that he is
part of being better is wanting to BE better, and (non-ascended) Astarion at least eventually wants to
but Cazador would very literally rather die instead
tl;dr yeah one of these two is a "small pathetic little boy who never amounted to anything"
but it ain't Astarion