Rare scene - One of the darkest choices in the game
Well hello. I'm back with a rare scene with the potential to break your heart entire. Or give you ideas for your embrace durge runs, I guess.
This scene has popped up a couple of times recently in comments, but I've never seen anyone do a deep dive on it. So I thought I would.
First of all - this post has a trigger warning for rape. If you're sensitive to this topic, this post might not be for you.
. . .
One of the darkest choices in the game
More than a few players have spent the night with Astarion in Act 1. Some even continue his romance, eventually experience his conscience getting the better of him leading to his confession (two mutually exclusive confessions exist, but this is the high approval one):
“Look, I had a plan. A nice, simple plan - seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you'd never turn on me. It was easy - instinctive. Habits from two hundred years of charming people kicked in. All you had to do was fall for it. And all I had to do was not fall for you...which is where my nice, simple plan fell apart. You - … you’re incredible. You deserve something real. I want us to be something real.”
Astarion's Act 2 romance scene is one of the more surprising and deeply intimate ones ever made. It touches on trust, trauma, agency and love.
But it also touches on abuse.
Most players don't know because some of the options in this conversation make you recoil just looking at them. They are easily forgotten as things you'd never say, or do to someone you care about.
Astarion makes it very clear that having agency is new to him. That he has been puppeted, used for sex for as long as he can remember. In fact, if you tell him "I slept with you to have some fun, not deal with this" he makes this quite clear:
But saying no is also new to him. He doesn't quite know how to do it, he wants to make you happy, and he is just starting to believe he could possible have some worth outside of how well he can perform a very well known dance.
He tells you that he doesn't think he wants you to see him in terms of sex. He doesn't think he wants anyone to.
You can of course support him in this - have him explain to you what he's thinking, what he wants.
...or, you can instruct him to learn to enjoy sex for his own pleasure - with you. Or perhaps even command him to lie with you - that will make it better.
Or of course, you can tell Astarion that you want your reward for being nice.
In sum, this conversation has many ways to trick Astarion into trusting you, then gaslighting him into sleeping with you. Even though he clearly doesn't want to - he just told you - but somehow you just didn't hear his words.
\"I-I'm not sure if I should.\"
\"I suppose... If this is what you want, then I shall provide.\"
The actual intercourse is not shown. But the aftermath is. In a scene many people have most likely never seen, we find your MC blissfully asleep in front of a warm fire, with Astarion sitting awake on the floor - staring blankly into space.
\"Why in the Hells did you agree to sleep with me then?\"
\"I didn't know how to say no.\"
\"But you seemed like you were enjoying is last night?\"
\"Of course I did. I know that dance better than anyone. But I always felt nothing.\"
\"Not last night though. Last night I felt MISERABLE, and it was a revelation.\"
\"Whatever we had - whatever THIS was - it's over.\"
He breaks it off with your MC, thank the gods.
There is also a YouTube video showing this scene here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSdEqypnLo4&list=WL&index=11
Interestingly, you can bring it up the day after. Because Astarion doesn't leave. He can't - he knows his only chance is sticking with you.
"Why in the hells are you bothering me now?"
\"I can't forgive myself for what happened between us.\"
\"I can't forgive you either.\"
He follows up with "Just... don't make me think about it. Let's talk about something else. Anything else."
And life in camp goes on.
. . .
To conclude - the reason I'm writing about this is that I feel that this scene is unique in video game history.
I have never seen a fully mocapped game give you this sort of agency, nor have I ever seen a depiction of the most common type of rape in a game - the sort that happens in close relations.
It is gutting, masterfully executed and acted, and I want to commend Larian (and the writers, actors, devs) for including it in the game.
Very few studios would include something so dark - and especially not with a man as the victim. It adds so much to the character - and your MC's darkness.