I know most comments are going to be from females romancing Halsin, for the simple point of demographics being that gay men make up 4% of the population.

But as a same-sex male/male relationship, I must say the valuation of this romance is even worse and damaging.

First, this seriously reinforces negative stereotypes about male sexuality, especially gay male sexuality. That is, of the few male options where you could have canon gay relationships (Gale is obviously bi, constantly rambling about Mystra, and Wyll eyes Karlach), the single remaining option for a full gay male character is a detached, theoretically promiscuous guy with commitment issues.

Second, it's outright nonsensical for a druid. Druids revere nature. Nature overwhelmingly represents bonding as longlasting pair bonds, because the alternatives are usually predatory low investment male mating where the mating happens and then the male moves on to another female and leaves the burden of raising offspring to the female exclusively. The exceptions here are lifelong pair bonds where there is equal parental investment.

So Halsin suddenly favoring a non-commital fling mentality which is rarely reflected in nature, especially in the emotional sense, feels completely at odds with the concept of natural order.

Then there is the issue of quality vs. quantity.

I get he was a late addition and only happened by fan demand.

The fact is, though, that we did not get quality to compensate for the severely poor quantity.

You rescue this guy since ACT 1. He tells you to be patient. You think there will be a payoff for that patience since the romance only starts by Act 3, nearly the end of the game. But there is no backloaded romance. It's the most barebone of romances! And the guy walks away from you in the end, he just goes his own way and tells you he will think of you and tell people of the hero of Baldur's Gate.

Like, what? I'm freaking Faithwarden of the druid circles. We are both druids. In what world is it incompatible for us both to work for the balance of nature together? This was such a bitter pill to be given by the writers, I'm sorry. Extremely disappointed and disrespectful not only of my character, but for the one good aligned strictly gay same sex male relationship available in the canon.

Last edited by Zenith; 18/08/23 01:38 PM.