OMG, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, AND THANK YOU ONCE MORE FOR WRITING THIS!!! I WILL GLADLY DIE WITH YOU ON THIS HILL!!
I really thought I was alone. Even people who call themselves his fans tend to call him evil and blame him for things he was forced to do against his will by Cazador, and I find it deeply disturbing. They play a game where, with a well-chosen spell, it's possible to force an enemy to kill their allies instead of you—a game that repeatedly explains how vampiric compulsion forces the spawn into submission, taking away free will, and that practically hammers home the point that it's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a spawn to not follow orders because if they try, their bodies will move on their own to fulfill the command... and what do they do? They turn around and blame a mind-controlled, tortured slave for following orders he was physically unable to disobey... like the Gur children (the game even stresses it was an order) or taking people to Cazador...
Blaming Astarion for things he was forced to do by Cazador or calling him evil for not being able to resist is just victim-blaming.
As for calling him 'evil' for what happens later... He doesn't do anything evil until the ritual. After the crash, he is immediately found by the player, and his actions until the ritual depend on what the player decides, the same as the actions of other companions. He doesn't really do anything evil on his own. All he does is 'disapprove.' Does that make him evil? His story and circumstances should also be taken into consideration.
He's an escaped vampire spawn, which automatically makes people in Faerûn call him a monster and wish for his death. This is a world where the death of people like Astarion is celebrated, and people who kill them solely for their race are hailed as heroes, like the Gurs. Yes, Astarion doesn't want to risk his freedom and life to help many people, but frankly, I can't judge him. If society labeled me a monster and wanted me dead, I wouldn't want to risk my life to help them either.
Trauma response. People love perfect victims, but that is rarely the case. It's normal for people to feel anger and negative emotions and to express them. Astarion, at the very beginning, is basically someone who was a victim of slavery or human trafficking for years, who was tortured to the point of forgetting his entire previous life, who knows nothing but pain and the fact that nobody has ever done anything to help him, and who was temporarily freed just by accident barely hours or days ago. He had no time to deal with his trauma and no opportunity for therapy. It is normal for a person like him to be angry and to lash out. As I said before, he is not actively trying to hurt anyone before the ritual; all the "Astarion is evil" arguments come down to him lashing out, being mean, and turning his head in disapproval. If you think he is evil for that, ask yourself whether you would have the guts to tell a real victim of human trafficking who has just been freed by accident one week ago that you consider them evil if they said they hate the world, or that it should burn, or some other mean thing.
Objectively speaking, just judging their actions, many other companions who are not considered 'evil' by the fans have done worse things than Astarion and weren't mind-controlled while doing it.
I'm also not a fan of calling his arc a 'redemption.' The idea of him needing to be redeemed for things he was forced to do while mind-controlled puts the blame and the guilt on him rather than on Cazador, who is the real perpetrator. I prefer using the term 'healing.' He doesn't start as evil, but during his story, he can either heal from his trauma, accept it, and become a better person (spawn route), or drown in fear and anger and become truly evil (ascension).
Sorry for ranting, but I really thought I was the only person in this fandom who didn't consider pre-ritual Astarion as evil. Thank you for this post once again :D
P.S. I've seen some people saying vampires are inherently evil in D&D, but that's just not the case. The Monster Manual says:
"The alignment specified in a monster's stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster's alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there's nothing stopping you."
The same exact point has been repeated over and over again by the lead designer of D&D rules, Jeremy Crawford. He says that alignment in the Monster Manual is just a "mythological assumption" made by the world and not a 100% binding rule, and also that alignment can change. So if you think Astarion is evil because he's a vampire, sorry, but the designer of D&D rules disagrees with you.
