Content Warning: The topics of abuse, sexual assault, and survivorship are discussed in this article.
Of all the characters in Baldur's Gate 3, I think Astarion surprised me the most. He's an eccentric, sulky, seductive vampire spawn with a flair for the flamboyant and an undying love of the word "Darling"—yet his story also deals with heavy subject matters, with reassuring nuance. I'm going to spoil a few plot points of his story over the course of this article, though I've yet to see his storyline to its conclusion.
Astarion is a victim of a greater evil. On the surface his goals are power, politics, and blood—but underneath that hardened exterior lies a young man turned into a monster, desperately seeking safety. This especially struck me when, in Act 2, I floated the idea of transforming him again with an astral tadpole we'd found: "I don't want to turn into anything else. I can't do that again. I can't watch my body be taken over."
