I said this in another thread, but it's very clear Minthara was never intended to be a companion. They seemed to add it after everyone liked her so much (which is a good thing), but they never bothered to actually finish her or go back and fix her recruitment (which is a bad thing). I don't think it was a lack of trying, but I think they likely didn't have enough time.
What they really should have done is, when you reduce her health to zero, she is "knocked out" instead of killed, and a cut scene plays where she has been weakened enough that the Guardian is able to reach out and break the Absolute's hold on her. She realizes what's been happening, swears vengeance against it and everyone that is responsible for it, then asks to let her join you in pursuit of that. At THAT point you should be given the option of "no, please die" or "yes, come along."
In the end, I suppose we have to hope there will be an Enhanced Edition that fixes a lot of the problems that still exist. It's certainly clear Act 1 had A LOT more work done on it than the remainder of the game.
Then again, considering the absolute hack job they did on
I'm not really surprised.
