Asterion started wearing a nose ring when he was a teenager. The ring itself was a bracelet given by his father, and when Asterion outgrew it he adapted it into a nose ring. With this in mind, Asterion sees it very differently than how it's framed in today's context.
What happens in the story is that, at a certain point, Asterion brings up the nose ring and asks you if he looks good in it, and you can choose how to respond to that. In-story this is not something of the player imposing his will on Asterion.
That said, you are not "reading too much into it". I don't want to spoil or spell things out, but there is a meaning to things like Asterion's nose ring and the player character's armband. We use that imagery very consciously and it's a recurring thing in Build 0.5.
So, yeah, rest assured you are not "reading too much into it," we're aware and conscious and use these motifs as a means to build up some ideas.