Swen Vincke told us, that Minsc (and Boo) and Jaheira can be recruited as companions, but they can't be played as an origin character, like you can do with Astarion.
This is GREAT NEWS if Larian decided to walk back the whole "every companion will be an origin character" thing. That makes me way more confident that we will likely get a companion for every class and should open up way more variety.
