To be fair, one could certainly argue that Ascended Astarion learns something. Perhaps he learns never to be a victim again. Perhaps he learns not to depend on others. Perhaps he learns that no one is coming to save him, and that the only way to guarantee his own safety is to acquire enough power to protect himself.
And yet, if we reduce the arc to its essential structure, the result is fairly simple:
he was right from the beginning.
Which raises an interesting question: what exactly did Astarion learn?
Narratively speaking, very little.
His worldview is never truly challenged. His fundamental beliefs are never disproven. The possibility that he might be wrong about power, control, fear, or domination never even really presents itself. The answer is simply that he did not have enough power.
In that sense, we are not really witnessing character growth.
We are witnessing confirmation.
In practical terms, the character lacks a transformational arc in the strict sense of the term, at least according to the conventional principles of character writing. Which would make the narrative rather flat.
Paradoxically, however, I think the Ascended route gains much of its depth precisely because the Spawn route exists. The two paths function as complementary halves of the same character study.
Two sides of the same coin.
Two different responses to the same trauma.
Two different ways of confronting fear, vulnerability, freedom, and survival.
Without the Spawn route, Ascension risks becoming little more than a power fantasy. Together, however, the two paths create something far more interesting: the portrait of a character standing at a crossroads, with two radically different futures emerging from the very same wounds.
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