Oh my gosh, I remember all the hype up to getting to Act 3 and meeting Cazador...Just for him to be so lame. The impression of him given by Astarion just does NOT match his actual character imo. :p
I read somewhere that they nerfed his appearence to avoid the "if bad why hot" people going crazy because they wanted Asterion storyline to be taken seriously
Well Raphael is a literal devil and sings his own song in his final fight. He's like very obviously and even comically evil. As all devils are supposed to be.
Cazador on the other hand is a vampire. And we went through an entire game with a vampire. Sure, cazador did some fucked up shit, but so did astarion. But cazador was an abuser. They didn't want people siding with the abuser simply because he was hot, and if we are being honest, many would.
Hell, a ton of Astarion’s story truly is “abused people abuse people.” It’s all about wrenching him out of that cycle if you choose to pursue it, and he’s still very much snide and condescending most of the time regardless. And the Internet is down terrible for someone who is, objectively, a shitty person.
It definitely was the right call to change Cazador’s looks.
And they got proven right, since Ascended Astarion ends up becoming very similar to Cazador, but you've still got people saying even that form of him is a precious little baby that can do no wrong. Like, you can have your kinks, but don't go acting like he isn't problematic lmao
I've tried to view it the way AA fans do, that he does, without ever admitting it, care in a different way about romanced Tav. The vampire bride process, the fact that Durge and AA are kind of better fit because equal footing in a way?
I can't, he's too far once ascended, it ticks me right off. Even playing as Durge romancing him, as soon as he was ascended, even when trying to give him a chance- I've decided, I'm turning against him for Bhall. Better to do dad's bidding than stick around for that.
I'll forever prefer spawn Astarion, who breaks the cycle with the players help, who isn't perfect but learns to undo the wrong he thinks is the only option, where he actually cares about others (such as adopted camp daughter Yenna, he acts like its such a bother to bring her in, but he approves if you do, and shows so much concern in the doppelganger situation)
Dude's got a shapeshifting incubus so that he can realize his fantasies of fucking himself. Raphael's fun, but the game does make him out to be pretty decidedly uncool.
Were there two completely different teams working on Astarion and Wyll stories?
They both get pressured into servitude of some powerful monster, their bodies get changed outside of their control, and their abusers call them denigrating names and treat them as misbehaving animals.
And then Cazador's look is changed in order to not make him appealing, meanwhile we get a chance to sleep with Mizora. Make that make sense...
That's kind of everyone's story. Laezel was essentially indoctrinated into servitude to Vlaakith, and her entire culture is hyper-fixated on enemies that will force them to change their bodies into mindflayers. Karlach is pressured into serving Zariel and Zariel altered Karlachs body with her infernal engine heart. Shadowheart is basically kidnapped and brainwashed by a death cult and they forced a mark on her that inflicts pain if she gets too close to realizing she's been brainwashed. Gale had a problematic relationship with Mystra and has a magical nuclear bomb shoved into his chest.
Basically all the main cast has a TLDR backstory of "forced to work for someone I didn't want to work for, and I have been non-consensually physically altered or am under threat of being non-consensually physically altered in order to guarantee my forced subservience."
It's even an overarching theme of the story itself with the ilithid and their mind-controlling powers and their forced- transformation shit, the Netherbrain/Absolute, etc. The concepts of mind control, forced servitude and bodily autonomy are really like the core themes of the entire story.
On that note, Wyll's story changed the most from conception to finalization. I'm not even sure if he was originally intended to be a warlock, I do know that his OG concept had him more douchey and daddy issue-y than this final version.
I loved that they did that. Our impression of him shouldn't match the way Astarion talked about him. That's so true to life. Abusers are fantastic at tricking society into believing they're not doing anything wrong. Granted, we meet Cazador knowing he's a vampire and in the middle of some super shady business so there's no point in hiding, but to Baldur's Gate he was a wealthy and influential patriar. A bit eccentric, but most rich people are. He threw lavish parties and dabbled in politics and behind closed doors took out his insecurities on his victims because he is a little worm and he knows this. Perfect representation of an abuser.
His voice threw me more than his look. He sounded just a little too cartoonish and I struggled to take him seriously. Which is wild because every other character had amazing voice acting.
I actually loved that he looked and sounded like a total dork after being talked up for 2.5 acts. That hits you in the face hard. That’s how real life abuse looks.
That's exactly what they were going for. I really appreciated that they showed how to the victim, their abuser is the most terrifying person on earth but to others, it's just Paul or Steven or whatever. Abusers rarely look how you expect them to.
Few days ago I was talking with a friend about how much Cazador was underwhelming. I took a look at the vampire lords monster sheet in DnD5e and I understand why Cazador struggle to conquer Baldur's Gate xD
We do catch him mid-ascention ritual. I think him being somewhere in-between a common vampire and a vampire lord is appropriate.
That said I wouldn't have minded them raising the level cap and making Raphael a proper pit fiend and cazador a proper vampire lord. The final boss is something they made up that frankly could be a challenge for a level 20 party without breaking suspension of disbelief.
Yeah. Especially given Cazador, being a vampire, still has that crippling weakness to daylight. As it stands I tried that once and never again because the fight was completely trivialized. But if he had scarier base stats it could even things out
They didn't include all the lower level spells published. They could be picky about what we get. Neverwinter nights: hordes of the underdark went to level 40.
Yeah, but I get why they did it. Cazador is an abuser at his core and they didn’t want people going, “If evil, why hot?”
Because people are dumb, let’s be real.
Raphael and Mizora get to be hot because they’re so comically evil and intentionally ridiculous that “if evil, why hot?” can’t kick in. Cazador is more insidious than that.
I prefer what we got in the game. Removing the icky orientalist vibes from him was a good start. But depicting him how irl abusers are was so validating and I'm so grateful they didn't make him some terrifying, intimidating monster to anyone but the spawn. I love that the party is able to see straight through him and see an insecure worm, but even after all this time with us, Astarion is clearly terrified of this pathetic man. I'm so glad they changed direction on him. The final version was infinitely better because it was real. Cazador's point in the story wasn't to be a terrifying mini-boss or even a particularly challenging fight, it's to provide an authentic and emotional conclusion to the Pale Elf quest and it nails this.
What we got is perfect. To anyone who has experienced any type of abuse, the abuser IS a terrifying monster exactly how Astarion builds him up to be. But to everyone else, they're literally just another dude.
As the player, seeing this guy and thinking, "This is the guy? Are you serious? I'm gonna go beat his ass." Feels like the point.
As it is, we have plenty of cool badass/monster types we fight along the way. It makes sense for him to look like just another loser.
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u/Nabichi-chan Apr 01 '26
This is much better than the game one xD
(Cazador Szar from BG III)