"You Want To Talk? We'll Allow It."

"You want to talk? We'll allow it."

Art by Zp Zhang

Sorry for disappearing, got into modding consoles and playing some games I haven't in ages XD

Anyway, while I'm waiting for my Steam Deck OLED to come in, I had this thought.

I think Ascension fails to be the "Bad route" because it doesn't give Astarion any downsides. It was only designed to provide a ROMANCED TAV with a bad end if the player wasn't aiming for an evil character but still found a reason to ascend him while romanced. Astarion has a lot of things in his favor with Ascension but doesn't lose anything unless he's romanced a Tav who decides to leave him after choosing to ascend him. Otherwise, everything else goes his way.

It's not like Shadowheart who loses her memories and more and faces possible punishment if she fails to live up to her new status or Gale who will lose his sense of mortality and possibly be consumed by Karsus magic in time or Lae'zel who will lose her life. Astarion doesn't have anything like that, not even in a future sense.

Astarion can now openly be the prick he is with little consequences but doesn't have anything really rivaling him as a downside. It's not like he's defenseless. He never was, really. The only one he had no control over is now dead. He won't become the next Cazador because his personality is different, has plans for his own spawn that Cazador would have never allowed, and still seems to have a heavy reliance on consent or his entire group would have been turned into spawn long before the six-month reunion.

So yeah, looking back at Ascension compared to the other endings, there really isn't much stopping Astarion from having a good ending with it. Yeah, you can speculate that he'll have issues with trying to take over Baldur's Gate but it wouldn't be much different if he was a noble. The game really doesn't give us a downside for his ascension other than the "my Tav is not evil" schtick.

A little sketch of my Tav as Lord Astarion's bride.

Tav-Frog partner in crime with Lord Astarion won't let me go.

It has this thing about the relationship line still developing and going on. They have this huge tension of wanting sometimes to repeat the intimacy that drives them crazy, but they don't cross the lines. He's like a bat flying around in the clouds to chill out. She dives into a large faux pond near her house. - She enjoys living in the city, but often travels outdoors. Often with Astarion, which is the only reason why he's in wild nature instead of the Upper City park. - If he flirts too much… an arrow through the heart (she's ready to throw herself at him) Tav then wears green swamp patterned dresses for a month. Doesn't work for him, but it's a reminder to herself. - He gave her the nymphaea-rings himself. - I looked at the Faerun swamps and found such a place Mere of Dead Men, there were a lot of castles and trophies sunk there. I want these two to get there somehow.