‘Baldur’s Gate 3’s Neil Newbon Reflects on Why LGBTQ+ Fans Connect to His Characters
Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the most sex positive, LGBTQ+ positive RPGs ever made. Neil Newbon, who voices fan favorite vampire Astarion, recently reflected on why LGBTQ+ fans connect with his characters so hard.
Anyone who’s playing BG3 will undoubtedly be aware of Astarion. He’s the pansexual flirty vampire with a history of trauma and abuse, and he’s also something of an LGBTQ+ icon that many queer fans have latched onto. Neil Newbon recently did an interview with The Gamer, in which he talked about his process for becoming Astarion, along with his thoughts on LGBTQ+ solidarity.
“I get a lot of trans men coming up to me,” Newbon told The Gamer. “Which I think is amazing, not just for Astarion, but Heisenberg as well. I’m really blown away by that, and I feel humbled by it all. I have had a lot of young kids talk to me about comfort characters, and it’s meant a lot to people. It’s really amazing, humbling, and something I wasn’t quite prepared for. But I love it.”
Newbon has played a fair number of roles in high profile video games, such as Detroit: Become Human, Forza Horizon 4, Resident Evil 3, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. He’s also been fairly prolific in film and TV. Newbon went on to talk about how he identifies a lot with Astarion.
“The big thing for me identifying with Astarion is that he’s pansexual. He’s attracted to anybody that he’s attracted to, and he loves anybody that he will love. I think that’s a beautiful message, especially these days when we’ve seen great strides in the LGBTQ+ community, but also seen this unfortunate right wing sweep back against us, especially in America where we’ve seen horrendous laws come into effect. It’s important to keep pushing the message forward that you should love who you want to love, and that shouldn’t be an issue, and nobody should judge you for it.”
Neil Newbon On Becoming Astarion In Baldur’s Gate 3 (thegamer.com)
As we’ve talked about before, Baldur’s Gate 3 has opened up a number of discussions about sexual and gender expression in video games. We still live in a time where LGBTQ+ identities are restricted or non-existent in most of mainstream gaming. It seems quite clear that Newbon understands this and shows full queer allyship.
Newbon mentions something, in my opinion, quite beautiful about Astarion and Baldur’s Gate 3 as a whole. He says, “You don’t have to pursue romance, you can be his [Astarion] friend, and a very close one at that. It’s important to normalise those things in games, media, film, and TV to mark an evolution of our society to what it should be—which is you live your life how you want, we support you, and we love you.”
More games need to be this. It’s sad this isn’t the case. Thank you, Newbon, for understanding the LGBTQ+ struggle in media that we all continue to fight for.
(featured image: Larian Studios)
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