on the Astarion prequel novel: cálmate, marketing blurbs have always been trash. let's not panic YET
Get ready for a YAP (wizard style)!
ok, let me start out by saying that I get the anxiety. The fixation on Astarion is absolutely cash-driven, and I don't want his story to be substantially changed either. Another quick note: I am so happy for Neil that he gets to be Astarion again and be part of this! The art is beautiful, and while it isn't the part of his pre-BG3 story I would like to see (magistrate plz), I am here for more Astarion content, and I do like some of Kingfisher's work (and I'm quite picky).
and this blurb is bad! I can't argue with that!
source: https://bg3books.com/
"Astarion never lost hope?"
wdym 😭 he specifically did. (overall, this reads to me like it was written by ChatGPT. Something about the way the sentences sound alluring, but make little sense if you stop to think about them for more than a second. I'm not impressed.)
But specifically w/r/t never losing hope:
"I gave up on myself. I gave up on any hope of escape after a few lashes."
So again, this sucks and appears to contradict canon to some extent.
HOWEVER. I for one am not ready to despair yet. Because:
Marketing in the publishing world is a shit show. I can't count how many times I read a book and found it to have little if anything in common with the initial summary. This is especially true lately--everything is all "Game of Thrones meets ACOTAR" blah blah blah, in a way that resembles the AI slop spotify throws at you and calls genres. I can't even count how many books I've read (and was disappointed by) that were marketed as sapphic romances that had, at best, a minor subplot that involved lesbians. Astarion is a cash cow--just look at all of the damn funkopops with their freaky abs (sorry). I am not surprised there is a major marketing effort behind this, and the soundness of the strategy is borne out by what I've seen splashed all over social media today: a lot of what I find to be distasteful rubbing of fans' collective hands about the smut of it all (?), although of course not exclusively! My point is: sex/romance sells. But I doubt sincerely that we're looking at a first-and-foremost romantasy based on a) Neil Newbon and Stephen Rooney's involvement, b) Astarion's entire backstory...like jfc and c) Kingfisher's oeuvre and commentary about the content of the novel:
I personally think complaints about the presence of a romance plot messing with the canon of Astarion's story are a bit overblown or too black and white. Look, nobody wants to cheapen those lines about Astarion learning to trust Tav/Durge after so long with nothing and no one--that no one helped him. But I legitimately saw someone claiming that a romance subplot would nullify the entire point of Tav existing in the game and romance being a part of BG3. No??? Romance elements do not make trust and love between these characters, especially not on a lasting basis. I, for one, can enjoy the specter of characters who don't necessarily trust or love each other circling one another to figure the other out or decide how they can benefit from the other's interests. In fact, that's just how Astarion's bg3 romance starts...if this ends poorly, or the paladin dies, or Astarion ends up feeling betrayed, or a hundred other ifs--it can happen before there is a mutual and secure love, and Astarion's story about what happened remains intact. WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.
Re: romance, it's specifically interesting to see this concern raised so consistently because we already have Sebastian and the "sweet boy" in Astarion's story that indicate some level of romantic storytelling in canon. Some people see these two figures as one and the same, but I don't, personally. Astarion seems shocked and guilty to see Sebastian in the dungeons, but he remembers him as someone he met once before he'd learned to close himself off to the emotional impact of what he was doing once upon a time, and he doesn't seem to have the reaction I would expect if he had in fact run from his master to protect this "sweet boy." Also, tragically, I imagine Cazador would have repeated Vellioth's teachings in his punishment and made Astarion watch him kill that boy before he locked him in that tomb for a year. In any case, clearly Astarion did have other smaller romantic subplots in his 200 years as a spawn, and that is as it should be. Two centuries is a LONG time. Let my man have some character development. Also people are complicated and although Astarion says he gave up hope, he also clearly swung between being aggressively noncompliant and bowing his head and taking the punishment to the best of his ability while being compelled. This seems to me like it would hold true with his relationships, too--that he might have a glimmer of hope that things could be different, only to have it smashed like a bug. Why else try to run? I have read that this story takes place early in his time with Cazador, too, and these swings in perspective make even more sense to me in that time period.
TL;DR last two points, Astarion can have some aspect of a romantic relationship in his past without this contradicting what he says to MC during the game. What Astarion is really saying to you is: “I stopped trusting people before you.” He can still have slept with or had feelings for others without changing the fact that he felt that he was alone, that he had no one he could trust, that no one ever helped him. It does not necessarily nullify the power of his romance with Tav! And it's not like there aren’t hints of past romance/tragedy in his canon story already. Idk, to me, it feels a bit possessive to demand that you are the ONLY PERSON IN 200+ YEARS HE HAD ANY KINSHIP WITH. He ends up with Tav/Durge. It's true that writ large, he feels that he was completely alone and no one helped him--and that can still coexist with him having some relationships that are less than perfect, especially if they end badly.
I see a lot of complaints, too, about the paladin aspect of the story. Astarion prayed to all the gods and they never listened, and people perceive the information we have to be indicating that he gets rescued by some holy knight. Well, A) he can't get rescued. The end point of this story remains the beginning of the game....and B) have you considered that the bitter ending of whatever this chapter holds could be more fuel for his specific disdain for religious figures? I just don't get the ire based on the information we have.
Complaints that this will further cement the "Astarion is Gay" truthers. Look, y'all, as a pansexual, we just gotta let them be idiots, idc. I am married to a man that everyone assumes is gay. He is ;) he's bi. Effeminate traits aren't hardlocked to not being interesed in women, OR EVEN LIKING MEN FOR THAT MATTER. Take it for what it is: bi/panphobia and ignorance, plain and simple. That's not a reason to be a weirdo about Astarion being with a man in official properties which...makes you kinda look like you're doing it the other way around! Also also, I hate to be That Guy but I do think Astarion likely has a bit of a preference for men. We have the handsome virgins line, Sebastian, the aforementioned boy he fled to save...but none of this means he can't be with women, which I say with my whole chest as a) a queer person with a preference for women who is married to a man and b) someone who romances my female durge with Astarion.
also...I am willing to acknowledge that I am one of the naysayers about the HBO series. we all contain multitudes ;) To me, something that happened in a character's past just won't affect things as much, maybe a few headcanons. But messing with post canon in a game where YOU CAN CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS is wild stuff. Then people don't feel like the thing that made bg3 what it is--their story-- has the same weight. I know they claim they're going to be focusing on other characters and that's all well and good, but you just KNOW they're gonna have cameos and/or references that will in fact speak to how the story ended for our companions--and I just don't want to see that. Especially not from Craig Mazin. But I'd love to give this book a chance! It might be bad, but given the involvement of not one or two but three people I admire, I'm gonna go in with an open mind.
Hate away, don't let me stop you! But I just wanted to provide some things to consider. You are, as always, free to disregard anything that doesn't happen in game as non-canon, too.
