#wall of thoughts

[loremmaradeur]

It's been quite a while since I wrote any kind of posts on Astarion's topic, as I thought I was more or so done with everything game, books and lore overall has to offer. Yet after randomly looking through some fanart I realized that people heavily associate Astarion with "rat" figure... and that doesn't really sit right in me.

Do consider this post not as a proper analysis but rather my flow of thoughts and not so processed feelings, shorter - maybe even a headcanon, if you please.

So, the core of my thoughts is that it isn't Astarion who is "the rat", speaking metaphorically, but Cazador. You don't have to go far to see the connection, as even his overly dramatic doors in Palace has an image of circle of rats on them, altogether with writings in his own native language.

That being said, we can also say that Cazador isn't just a "rat" but rather a "Rat King", so he's gathering all the rats "below him" to rule them. But there I think he doesn't just "gather" them - he, as it would be only fitting for his character, was degrading everyone down to being just a rat. No matter who you were before - now you are beneath him, now you are his "little rat".

So, there where I had funny feelings about the association of Astarion with rats. You see, I started thinking that "becoming Cazador's rat" isn't just about to become his vampire spawn, but equal to becoming loyal to Cazador, to seek his favor, to embrace the position he had given to his spawns. We can clearly see that in other spawns as Violet or Aurelia - they are happy to serve to their "Rat King".

Do we see the same in Astarion? Absolutely not. All the time he was fighting against Cazador and being his loyal spawn, maybe being the most disloyal among the whole group of seven. He rejects the very idea, trying his best to remain who he truly is, not Cazador's puppet.

I see Astarion more feeding on those "rats", also loving the comparison of him to cat from Neil's streams. Setting aside the real life where domesticated rats and cats can absolutely live in peace and still thinking in literature way, cats are bigger than rats, cats are more graceful, more dangerous, cats are predators and hunt those rats. And now apply this to the whole Astarion-Cazador situation. A rat tried to belittle a cat to a position below himself, yet we all know the end of this story.

The mouse smiled brightly; It outfoxed the cat! Then down came the claw, And that, Love, was that.

[loremmaradeur]

I don't think that overall BG3 community takes it seriously enough how actually dangerous the world of Faerûn and the universe of Forgotten Realms really is - and especially how the characters, the "people" of that world is living with it. Therapy, healing from traumas? Please, try to find at least someone there not deeply traumatized. It was shown over and over that being a "good hero" might be not the best decision - and sometimes even plain stupid. To be a hero there must be freaking exhausting and challenging, to make the "hero" question it all the time if that was ever worth it. Like, come on, in Act 3 we were shown that people gladly take their children on circus show with undead barely controlled monsters among staff, with damn redcaps as staff the very same bloodthirsty little fey creatures, dangerous beasts in sloppy cages, and even damn genie that will make you a dinosaur's food if you annoy him. You think this is an exception? It's a commodity. And it's just Faerûn - there are planes far more dangerous than that.

So no, I wouldn't ever consider any seasoned character to go through any "therapy" or them "regaining their belief and faith in world", the world itself is fucked up, how can you force anyone to believe in better of it, because for them it would mean being killed even faster than before. To trust people? Yeah, but like, definitely not everybody. Whatever it takes to survive, you know.

[loremmaradeur]

I woke up too early and in my attempts to regain lost couple hours of sleep I caught a thought that perhaps it would have been much better if the Netherbrain proved itself completely autonomous right at the end of the Act 2, not Act 3 when we deal with the consequences of it in literal couple of minutes.

Act 3 severely lacks any real tension and only Orin with her attempts to spook everyone tries to do the job... but that's literally it. You don't feel the real danger, you don't feel that maybe it would be better to hurry before everything goes nuts, before you reach the point where no one could do anything with the actual threat. And now imagine what fun it would be when you not only have to deal with Gortash and Orin but also with the now active and independent Netherbrain with also completely infected city in every corner. Or you could actually now become allies with those remaining two avatars of the Dead Three (as the Netherbrain's independence seem to require one of the Three lost) in attempts to not make everything worse. Just anything that feels like the actual end of the world, not screams and fires for five minutes before everything goes back to normal again like it's a usual tuesday.

But no, even Gods are absolutely absent (for like, two exceptions, really), they don't care, when the threat of illithid's new empire is actually super dangerous to them as well as it can absolutely lead to their demise. Enjoy your little city walk I suppose... Nothing bad is going to happen anyway.

Not to mention! That we saw ourselves that there is standing a whole fucking army of the Absolute cultists by the end-gates of Act 2... And then later they are only mentioned a couple of times by the random refugee NPCs. A whole fucking army just completely disappearing somewhere to the background to never actually bother anyone and to never really appear, again existing only somewhere at the back of your mind for a moment or two.

Act 1 then would have been with the anxiety of the soon inevitable transformation if you don't find the cure or clues of what the fuck is going on (even though it feels much, much lighter in release version of the game rather than it was during EA), Act 2 shows you the cult, the heart of the Absolute, the curse of lands of shadows, and Act 3 of Netherbrain and why it's so freaking dangerous.

...maybe now I will be able to sleep back.

[loremmaradeur]

I think that creating the "self-insert OC" or just any OC that you put much of your traits and likings etc into, feels like taking a metaphorical slice out of your current life, mindset, personality and preserving it in time. Like it can sort of tell what a person you were, what you liked at that time, and you can also watch how things change or if they change at all. Like taking a photo, but of things you can see only through this "vessel" being your character. Maybe also appliable to regular OC that are your most favourite at the time period. Shame that a few years ago I haven't really developed any of this kind of OC and all of that is now left in the mind of "me-past" (which is mostly forgotten for "me-present"), but I think that now when web is more friendly for this type of OC it would be fun to make it and share with people (actually I do have one, I just showed it to only a couple of people being my friends), and then live a few years more, take a look back at it, wondering things. Preserving the memory.

Just some funny thoughts before sleep

[heppafaiston]

Visualizing the 'wall of thoughts' concept with 62 panels. The idea is to have 200-300 properly framed panels in a larger format covering an exhibition wall.

Don Hepster