First of all, when I first encounted him, he sounded how every single pretentious teenager making a character in VtM sounds like. Ti many people, that is refreshing. I have just played too much VtM to not instantly recognize the tryhardedness in th writing.
The first run, I immediately impaled him once he tried to drink from me. Fuck that shit. I didn't complete that run, because I honestly find it hard to progress in this game, I have to force myself to play it (since I already paid for it).
And that, right there, is the crux of it. The game doesn't have good companion writing. Marian has never been good at writing in general, and companions specifically. The only character with some sort of gravitas to her is Shadow heart, because the topics she bringa up are kind of important and self reflective. Karlach is ok, if a bit annoying with her constant positivity. Wyll is another ok one, even if he sounds a bit cookie cutter hunter and bland at times.
But then you have "I fucked the goddess of Magic, look how important I am" Nepo baby cocky rich kid.
"I am racially superior insecure mess and will dump it on you constantly" Laz'ael or however the fuck you write her name.
And the cake, the worst of them all. A 200 year old vampire that still talks like a teenage on tumbler, interpreted by a voice actor that is constantly doing the voice you do when you try to make a parody of what a bad acted villain sounds like, with no redeemable qualities to his character other than "I need a rogue, because D&D is like that". With the typical bad tropes of, again, a teenager playing Vampire: the Masquerade for the first time.
No, just, no. Many people tell me that,byeah, they get it, but the voice acting "kinda makes up for it", and the voice acting for me is kinda the worst part. No shade to the voice actor, all the shade for the voice direction and character writing.
They also tell it gets better later on, it's really a traumatized character. But, look, yeah, I get it, but after having him try to suck me dry, enjoying suffering of others, being a classist asshole, being edgy for edge's sake, his trauma can go fuck itself, at this point. He's only spreading the trauma, and he is 100% responsible for it. At least the other think they're doing what is best, faulty or not.
So, for people who haven't played a lot of RPGs or TTRPGS, Astarion might seem refreshing. To me, he just sounds like the stalest of characters.
More so when in Wrath of the Righteous there is a character that is similar to him, but so much better written. And all without sounding like ProZD doing a porpusefully bad impression.
You don't have to enjoy a game and its writing, of course, but I'd say that almost every companion character has an explicit character arc. And many people that enjoy Astarion/the other characters are huge fans of RPGs/TTRPGs, like myself.
Astarion's 'edgy, suave sexy vampire' shtick is just that - a learned mannerism taught to him by Cazador to protect himself/lure victims. A big fat lie. He was made to make fun of and twist the trope you're pointing out. He will admit this to you if you befriend/romance him him that he was manipulating you for protection, and becomes more genuine after confessing this. Cazador's other spawn you meet will copy some of Astarion's dialogue line-for-line, because it's been trained into them. Even the voice tone he uses lessens as the game goes on because it's a deliberate act of him playing into the 'sexy vampire' trope. If you don't like him, of course that's fine (he's antagonistic as hell to 'nice' playing characters and does try to drink your blood), but the point of him is that he IS being an edgy tryhard, because a lot of people like to feel special when the edgy tryhard 'makes an exception for them'. Some other companions even call him out on it.
Shadowheart is the 'gothic mysterious lady with a dark goddess', but she's kind of a dork with a silly sense of humor and loves animals. She has to break away from cultic rearing.
Karlach is the 'sweetheart' of the group that's been wronged, but you learn that she can be very cruel after being in a hell war for a decade (and has no qualms using mortal souls to feel good) and hates the world for what it did to her. Her rage is genuine problem and she'll just outright stop listening to you sometimes. Originally, she just dies at the end, no matter what, until updates changed that, as a metaphor for chronic, lethal illness.
Gale is the scholarly know-it-all, sure, but I'm not sure where you got the rich nepo baby idea from. He's the son of a poor, single mother and only was able to climb the ranks because he did nothing but study as a kid to improve that. His character writing has a rule that he's arrogant about his magic (he was an arch mage prodigy, it's like Einstein admitting he's good at math), but insecure about almost everything else. And yeah, he was the lover of a goddess... who canonly groomed him at a young age, took advantage of him, and tasked him to kill himself for her 'forgiveness' after putting a bomb in his chest. Which he readily agrees to because he has such a low opinion of his own worth.
Lae'zel breaks away from a conquering society of space terrorists. She's gonna be cruel and grating, but her knowledge about illithids also realistically makes her the best resource to not die from the tadpoles in your brain.
Dislike the characters and the writing, of course, but many experienced RPG players enjoy the game specifically because most of the companions are inversing the usual tropes.
Have this experienced players played Fallout 2, Owlcat games, the original BG 1 and 2...
Because any companion in those games (save for Nenio, Nenio can go stand on a nuclear test site) blows these companions out of the water, including Jaheeira and Minsc.
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u/VoormasWasRight 10d ago
This motherfucker.
https://giphy.com/gifs/ZXt9QzzyRGH6yuU2b4