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I’m talking about the idea that “Ascended Astarion isn’t a different person after the ritual,” or “Astarion is always the same as at the beginning of the game, regardless of the ending you choose”. Or even “if you don’t like Ascended Astarion, then you don’t like Astarion at all, because he’s always been like that.” Well, frankly, I have to disagree.

Before diving back into the discussion, I want to make a premise. The usual one, maybe. I don’t care how people play, what they believe, or what they like and why. I mean it. You’ll never hear me say that those who enjoy AA are apologists for abuse. It’s a game, it’s a fantasy. It’s made to be explored and enjoyed. For me, it’s also valid to appreciate Astarion purely because he’s hot and turns you on. Of course, I can appreciate different things and disagree with certain interpretations of the story and the character, but without passing judgment on the player.

What matters to me, first of all, is not letting the message spread that those who appreciate the Radiant Hopeful ending (a title that, by itself, should already suggest quite a lot, by the way) are somehow “unworthy” of Astarion . Well yes, somewhere I even read something along the lines of “if you don’t accept Astarion for what he is, meaning the Ascended, then you’re not worthy of Astarion,” which is really absurd because no one has the right to decide who is worthy of what. And secondly, not letting Astarion be flattened into a one-dimensional character, with all that this implies.

On top of that, if through my posts I can somehow support those who might feel overwhelmed by the sea of negativity that comes with these kinds of statements, then all the better.

Now, going back to the idea that “Astarion has always been this way from the very beginning and hasn’t changed.” Simply put—no, not from my point of view. And not because the ritual somehow ripped out his soul, suddenly turning him into another person or something like that. It’s clear from the fact that even Cazador himself can be used as a pawn to be sacrificed that vampires still retain their souls, and I don’t see why the Ascended should be an exception—or why he would lose his soul in a ritual where the agreed quota of souls had already been met. Devils in particular are very strict about honoring agreements, since in the D&D manual they’re classified as lawful (which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t always read contracts carefully—especially the fine print, lol).

It’s not about infernal magic—it’s simply about going through a journey and coming out different. Changed. Not because of the ritual, but because of the experiences and choices made along the way.

We can break down the analysis into three levels. The first is to consider Astarion’s story from a screenwriting perspective. The second is to analyze his story from a real-world, psychological standpoint. And the third and final one is to analyze Astarion’s story through the lens of D&D lore.

Why look at it from all these different perspectives? Simple: because Larian’s character is extremely multifaceted and can’t be confined to a single framework—though many would like to flatten him so he neatly fits into their ideal narrative, without contradictions and without alternatives.

For example, and I’ll say this plainly, while Baldur’s Gate 3 is inspired by D&D, it does not strictly follow its rules or lore. Astarion himself is an exception (not a dhampir, but a vampire spawn within the party, and fully playable despite being nerfed). The Ascended Vampire is also an exception and appears in none of the sourcebooks. There are quite a few poetic licenses with Illithids as well, for instance.

And since Astarion in this case is a vampire spawn—who, by the way, is statted as a humanoid in the game—and used as a player character, it follows that he operates under the rules of player characters. Which, for example, include the possibility of alignment change based on events, experiences, and choices. And right there, we’re already talking about possible changes.

So let’s begin!

From the perspective of screenwriting, as I’ve already said HERE, Astarion follows the rules of good storytelling, which means he necessarily has to go through a transformation arc. It’s not optional, young ones—not for the role of protagonist that Astarion holds.

The character arc is the inner journey a protagonist undergoes throughout a story. It’s not just about what they live through or the actions they take, but above all about how those events and actions change them. How meeting and clashing with other characters impacts them, what those interactions leave behind, and how they redefine them. And further, how the way they face their past and the choices they make for the future reshape them.

And it’s important to emphasize that this arc doesn’t exist in the abstract: it must intertwine with the external plot. The events the protagonist faces are never random, but deliberately built to force them to confront their deepest fears and desires. In Astarion’s case, the struggle for survival and freedom are not just practical challenges, but the narrative opportunity to lay bare his inner conflict.

Because it is precisely conflict that drives every transformation. Without the tension between desire and fear, between the need to change and the temptation to remain still, a character cannot evolve. Astarion embodies this contrast: on one side, the vampire and his desperate search for power as a form of total protection and vindication; on the other, his more human side, with both the fear and the longing to expose himself to the vulnerability born from genuine bonds, from reconnection with the mortal world, and from the complete freedom that makes the future uncertain and frightening.

This is what makes a character alive, believable, and three-dimensional: without such an arc, they would remain static, always the same, and the narrative would fall flat. As if nothing and no one mattered to them or left a mark. A monolithic character, where everything bounces off without leaving a trace—as if made of rubber—one who, in turn, has no “call to action.” And crucially, this transformation isn’t only for the character’s sake: it’s what allows the audience to empathize with him, to be moved, to see themselves reflected in his struggles and victories. A character’s arc is what creates resonance, what makes us care.

(Curiosity: the call to action is that event which breaks the initial balance and forces the character to set out on the path of change. It’s not yet the change itself, but the push that sets it in motion: something that tears them away from their old life and compels them to face new possibilities, challenges, and choices. These elements must have an effect on the character, leaving a mark.

For Astarion, this call comes when he awakens free from Cazador’s direct control and discovers that, thanks to the parasite, he can once again walk in the sunlight. The sudden possibility of living without chains confronts him with an inevitable question: what can he do now that he is no longer just a victim? Who can he be?

That is the moment that triggers his transformation arc: the point where he can actively do something to ensure he’s no longer defined by his past, and where the future becomes a road to choose deliberately—no matter how perilous.)

There are different kinds of arcs, of course: the positive arc, where the character overcomes fears, traumas, or illusions and becomes more self-aware, mature, and free from what once trapped them (es. Frodo, Luke Skywalker); the negative arc, where they instead slide toward corruption, self-loss, or the repetition of old mistakes (es. Anakin, Macbeth); and finally, the flat arc, typical of mentor or symbolic figures, who don’t change themselves but instead transform the world around them (es. Mary Poppins, Gandalf).

Looking at Astarion’s character, it’s almost embarrassing how perfectly his two possible arcs embody a textbook character transformation — one positive, the other negative. Larian is not exempt from the rules of good writing. And in fact, at the beginning we meet Astarion as a character ruled by trauma, fear, and the will to survive: he uses charm, manipulation, and sarcasm as weapons of defense, he fears vulnerability, and he lives in a constant state of alert.

But he is not “just like that from beginning to end,” as we see as the story progresses: he is at the beginning of a journey. His journey.

From there, his arc can branch off in two directions:

In the spawn ending, Astarion completes a positive arc: he chooses to reject the path laid out by Cazador (the work of his entire life), gives up the ritual and absolute power, integrates his painful past, accepts it as part of himself, and embraces his own limitations and the darkness. It’s a choice that leaves him vulnerable and afraid, yes, but at the same time free — and above all authentic, open to the possibility of future growth.

In the ascended ending, however, his arc turns negative: Astarion chooses power, follows the path set by Cazador, completely rejects his painful past, and instead internalizes the teachings of Vellioth and Cazador along with a self-image fully aligned with that of a vampire lord. He doesn’t lose his soul, but he does lose himself—first and foremost morally: from victim, he becomes perpetrator. And second, in the role he has chosen to embody. But — and this is important — this choice doesn’t leave him any less afraid than the other one, a point I’ll return to later.

In both cases, however, Astarion is no longer the Astarion we met in Act 1: he goes through a process, he changes. That is what makes his writing so powerful, what makes him feel alive and real. Whether redemption is chosen or not, Astarion undergoes a genuine inner transformation that reflects real psychological dynamics: trauma, the pursuit of power and the fantasy of revenge, the fear of intimacy, and the possibility (or impossibility) of healing.

In narrative, the transformation arc shows how a character changes throughout the story: experiences, choices, and conflicts push them in one direction or another. What’s fascinating is that this principle is not just a narrative device — it also mirrors real human functioning.

Every individual has their own personality. Personality is never the result of a single element, but of a constant dynamic between what we inherit, what we experience, and what we choose to become (biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors). Personality does not remain entirely unchanged throughout life, although some traits tend to be relatively stable. Chief among these is temperament, which can be considered innate and is evident even in newborns.

Research on the Big Five model (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability/neuroticism) shows that personality has a stable foundation: someone who is generally introverted will remain so, someone with high levels of conscientiousness will hardly become suddenly chaotic, and vice versa. At the same time, however, personality can and does tend to change. First of all, with age: people generally become more emotionally stable, more conscientious, and more agreeable.

Saying that Astarion hasn’t changed, that he’s the same person, that his personality has always stayed the same, isn’t completely wrong—though, as we’ve seen, even personality can change to some degree. But what I think is happening here is a fundamental confusion between personality and attitude.

In psychology, attitude is the way a person tends to evaluate an object, a situation, an idea, or another person. It’s a mental and emotional disposition that leads us to feel sympathy or antipathy, to approach or withdraw, to accept or reject something. For example, having a positive attitude toward studying means that, overall, we see it as useful and rewarding, while a negative attitude toward mathematics may lead us to see it as difficult or boring.

Attitude is not the same as personality. Personality represents the underlying structure of an individual—the stable set of traits and characteristics that influence how we generally think, feel, and behave. Attitudes, instead, are more specific and limited: they refer to individual areas of life.

The link between attitude and personality lies in the fact that personality traits often influence the formation of attitudes. An extroverted person will be more likely to develop positive attitudes toward social interactions, while someone high in neuroticism may develop suspicious or anxious attitudes toward new or uncertain situations. At the same time, attitudes are the way personality manifests concretely in everyday contexts: it’s not enough to know that a person is open to new experiences, but we can observe it when they show a favorable attitude toward travel, books, or different cultures.

It’s also important to remember that attitudes aren’t determined by personality alone. Social, cultural, and personal experiences come into play, which can reinforce or counteract certain traits. For instance, a shy person may still develop positive attitudes toward teamwork if they’ve had rewarding experiences in that context.

In short, personality provides the “ground” on which attitudes grow, but attitudes are more dynamic, changeable, and sensitive to context.

For example, significant life experiences—a trauma, a relationship, an illness, a child, a failure, or a great success—can deeply change attitudes, values, and priorities. With conscious choices—through introspection, psychotherapy, or personal growth—patterns of thought and behavior can be changed.

Above all, and I’ll say it again because it’s crucial, we must not forget context. The same individual, with the same basic structure, can in one context become more resilient, empathetic, and open, and in another more distrustful, closed, and aggressive. The difference lies in the experiences and the coping strategies we develop to face them. Consequently, attitude will change as well.

And this is precisely where narrative and psychology meet: the transformation arc of a character like Astarion reflects the possible paths of real change. Trauma can lead him to become one of the many vampire lords on the list, or to break the cycle. Two opposite outcomes for the same person, tied not to an “unchangeable” personality, but to how that personality reacts to experiences, the meaning attributed to them, and how their attitude toward them changes.

In short:

Personality provides the foundation.

Experiences are the catalysts.

Choices (conscious or unconscious) are the turning points.

Attitude is what changes as a consequence.

In real life, as in stories, this means no one is “always the same, end of story”: we are dynamic beings, capable of changing even radically depending on the paths we go through and how we face them.

And now, try a little experiment: think about who you were 10 or 15 years ago. I’m sure each of you will see an abyss of difference—not only in behavior, but also in how you experienced the world and other people. We simply change. Sometimes we adapt out of necessity, we grow, we improve, and then maybe we regress again and get worse. We develop preferences, likes, and aversions. We accumulate information, form and dissolve relationships that change us, enrich us or impoverish us, push us to reevaluate and to change our minds about bonds, friendships, and family, we face challenges and endure tragedies that leave something inside us and perhaps make us stronger. Or perhaps not.

The point is that an event like the Nautiloid, and later Ascension, is a watershed moment. As mentioned earlier, powerful, traumatic, or epoch-making experiences have the ability not only to change our general attitude toward life (and partly even our personality), but even to restructure our value system, our priorities, and even our perception of ourselves. It’s not just a “power-up”: it’s an experience that reshapes identity, exactly like when Astarion went from magistrate to slave, until he came to see himself as nothing more than a whore.

And Astarion, after the ritual—whether he completes it or not—cannot in any way be the same as the one we knew before. Both because he has technically brought his transformation arc to completion, as per the rules of good storytelling, and because he has objectively absorbed new beliefs, acquired new tools, and set new goals in line with what he has chosen: an attitude and thus a completely new way of existing in the world. To say that Astarion is always the same from beginning to end means ignoring both the rules of narrative and the very nature of human beings, which is made of transformations.

When, in dialogue, Tav/Durge brings up what he was like before the ritual, Ascended Astarion himself will speak of that version of him in the THIRD PERSON, as if it were someone else entirely—pathetic and weak—and he will stress how much better he is now compared to what “that one” ever was. A clear and deliberate split, carried out by him.

And this is without even mentioning the implicit message in the game, which gives you the dialogue option “You’re not the man I fell for. Not anymore” precisely to highlight that a real change has taken place—and one acknowledged by Larian itself, enough to include that line.

And here, though, I’ll pause to return to the beginning of this post. Let me quote the description of how Astarion was at the start, copy-pasting it here:

At the beginning we meet Astarion as a character ruled by trauma, fear, and the will to survive: he uses charm, manipulation, and sarcasm as weapons of defense, he fears vulnerability, and he lives in a constant state of alert.

Ascended Astarion has changed. But in what way, exactly? In how he uses charm, manipulation, and sarcasm: no longer to defend himself, but to control. He still fears vulnerability, just as before, but now he places himself above everyone else to avoid being hurt or betrayed. He sees others as cattle or tools. And he still lives in a constant state of alert, except now, from his position of power, he has sunk straight into the paranoia of someone who never learned to trust, to let go, but only dominate. It isn’t his personality that has changed, nor the core of who he was, but his attitude toward the world and toward others.

And here I connect directly back to D&D.

Maybe not everyone enjoys looking at Astarion through the lens of the ruleset from which Baldur’s Gate is derived, but I believe that in order to make a comprehensive analysis of the various aspects, it’s essential to also consider this perspective—without necessarily reducing the character to mere mechanics. Doing so would be far too limiting, but it can help us expand our reading of the character.

In D&D, vampires are aligned with evil; in particular, mortal feelings after transformation (as stated in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (2021) and the Monster Manual (2014) become twisted along with emotions. Love turns into obsession, friendship into jealousy, sex into a power dynamic, and the relationship into a means of control.

“It’s all about power. Sex, relationships, violence. They’re all just different forms of control,” says Ascended Astarion.

As I’ve always said, perhaps because of some poetic license Larian took to better integrate the character into a functional party, in Baldur’s Gate 3 spawn Astarion still retains many of his “human” traits, even though the influence of vampirism often emerges with all its most classic features—such as the drive for power, blood, and violence.

This has always made Astarion, in my eyes, an ambiguous character, divided in two: light and shadow, right and wrong, monster and human. Two forces struggling within him for dominance. The player, through Tav/Durge, has the opportunity to emphasize one aspect or the other, through two different arcs and their respective endings.

Now, for me, Ascension means that Astarion completely relinquishes the last traces of his humanity—the echo that still remained within him—and fully surrenders to the curse of vampirism, despite the bonuses Mephistopheles may grant through the ritual. It means giving up that part he sees as “weak,” the part in conflict with himself, the part that leads him to feel empathy, pity, and so on. The part that, broadly speaking, makes him human.

“They must die,” he says of the vampire spawn imprisoned in the dungeons, “better that they serve a purpose.” And when Tav/Durge points out that this isn’t really who he is—“This isn’t you. Not really”—he responds almost in desperation, “It should be.” Because in that case, sacrificing them all would be so much easier and far less painful.

And so, in the moment Astarion completes the ritual and abandons his “weakness,” I believe vampirism should not be underestimated as a lens for observing his transformation: how typical vampiric traits such as paranoia, obsession with control, and hunger for power end up distorting even his feelings and emotions, exactly as described in the source manuals.

Especially since Tav/Durge has not challenged any of his rigid, maladaptive beliefs acquired during centuries under Cazador—beliefs that crystallize the moment Astarion takes his master’s place as lord of the Szarr Palace.

Last but not least, I want to say a few words about this whole “if you don’t love Ascended Astarion then you never really loved Astarion” thing.

First of all, in the spawn ending Astarion remains a spawn—what he’s always been from start to finish. So you could actually argue the opposite: who exactly did you love before the ritual? The one you call pathetic, weak, dependent, and doomed to live in the sewers? The one who’s worth nothing unless he becomes rich and powerful? Okay, I’m being a little provocative here, but it’s just to show how easy it is to flip the perspective.

What I really mean is this: honestly, I find that statement a bit toxic, reductive, and frankly, wrong.

Loving a character does not mean loving them in every single version and across all possible narrative developments. Spawn Astarion and Ascended Astarion are two radically different paths that lead to radically different changes in the character. Both versions make sense, both are consistent, but they don’t have to appeal to the same audience.

And no—it is not “never having loved Astarion” if you don’t appreciate his ascended version. It’s the same logic as in real life: you meet someone, you like each other, you get together. Then things change and love ends. When someone changes for a thousand reasons—valid or not—not everyone is able to follow them through that change. That doesn’t mean the love in the past wasn’t real or sincere; it means that the new “self” no longer resonates with what we feel or want. We fought hard for divorce rights, for fuck’s sake—once upon a time you had to stay and endure a relationship that no longer brought you joy or well-being. There was a reason for that, wasn’t there?

Loving spawn Astarion doesn’t make anyone “less worthy” of him. It simply means that version speaks more to some people, touches deeper chords, or better represents a healing journey.

Loving both versions is valid. Preferring only one is valid. This isn’t a competition about who loves him more—for fuck’s sake, sometimes it feels like kindergarten.

To conclude: whether you prefer Spawn Astarion or Ascended Astarion, the point remains the same: he changes. That’s not just good writing — it’s a reflection of what it means to be human. So love him in the version that resonates with you most, or even in both. What matters is recognizing that the very reason Astarion feels so real, so alive, is because he transforms. That’s what makes him more than a fantasy vampire in a video game. That’s what makes him unforgettable.