A deeply unnecessary analysis on Astarion’s burial and elven funeral rites:
Yes, in the beautiful tapestry of Astarion’s backstory and character arc, one question has haunted me. Why does he have a grave?
(I should start this unhinged rant with a few disclaimers. Lore is subject to change and not all lore is canon to the world of bg3. Even if it was, no culture is a monolith, and even if they were, people aren’t. So there’s exceptions to every rule. All this to say…this is 85% headcanon per volume.)
So, elves don’t generally bury their dead. In fact, most of the races of Faerun don’t do burials. Most prefer cremation for spiritual and practical reasons (as seen in this post I did). You see, in a world where necromancy is a viable career path for Med school drop outs, you’d want to take a little extra precaution with the remains of your loved ones. Humans seem to be the only creatures whose traditional form of funeral rites involves burial.
Elves don’t really do cremation in a traditional manner either. They usually have a cleric perform the spell dust to dust.
So given all this, why the hell is Astarion buried? By all right he should be dust blowing in the wind. My first thought was Cazador dumped him in the dirt, but that doesn’t really explain why Astarion is buried in a public cemetery. If all Cazador wanted was the trauma of his freshly made spawn crawling his way out of the dirt on his belly, he could have just buried him under the mansion. There’s plenty of coffins in the place (too many, in fact. There’s a city wide coffin shortage and you’re hoarding them in your attic. Truly Cazador’s evil knows no limit.) Why risk being spotted lingering in a public area in the middle of the night when you’ve got a perfectly fine secret burial place under your house?
Well, maybe the underground caverns weren’t built yet, sure, that still doesn’t explain the headstone. Why not leave him in an unmarked grave. Wouldn’t that be more upsetting? Speaking of the headstone, we’ve got some information on it. His last name, the year he was born…but no message from a loved one. I think some people take that to mean Astarion was unliked and unloved, but I don’t personally think that’s the case. I think it has more to do with the nature of Astarion’s death and where it happened
Now, I don’t think this is an actual mechanic of how the elven afterlife works. But given how reclusive and closed off Elves are, it makes sense they would have superstitions around violent death outside the community. And Astarion death was extremely violent. So it makes sense that proper elven funeral rites were not undertaken in Baldur’s gate. I’ve mentioned before in this post, but elves don’t generally have children outside of elven communities. Elves would rather give birth surrounded by trees than other races. So the likelihood that Astarion was born in Baldur’s gate is very unlikely. That would mean that his body would need to be sent home. But if that’s the case, why bury him?
This, to me, explains the barebones information on Astarion’s tombstone. It’s not that he’s unloved, it’s that the grave is temporary. It was only ever meant to help identify where his body was, not to be his final resting place.
Now if I may be be so indulgent as to present the following scenario:
You are an elven couple, after being together for who knows how long you are blessed with one of Corellon’s rare gifts: a child. You, as elves, know how special and precious this new life is, as only a few elves are born every decade. You watch this child grow and soon the day comes where they must begin their journey into the world to figure out how they want to spend their long life. You happen to have a relative or close friend in Baldur’s Gate, someone who is more than happy to safeguard your precious child while he’s away from home. It’s going well, after a short decade or so you hear he’s become a magistrate. He seems to be thriving. Then one day you get the dreaded news that no parent wants to hear. Your son is dead. Murdered. Left in a pool of his own blood in a filthy human city. He was found too late to be saved. Surely his soul cannot rest there, he must be brought home. You travel to the city, bracing yourself to see the broken body of your baby boy, not even a century old. Only, as the last bit of dirt is brushed away from the broken coffin…it’s empty. Someone has stolen your child, and you will never get him back.
kianamaiart
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