I think that Thaniel isna victim of Larian's approach to giving player freedom. If you think about it, ending the shadow curse should be a major thing, an action which should be central to the plot of the act. Healing the land or not should have been a big deal and all things related to it should have been equally big. But ultimately he's a side quest, something we're told is important but we could entirely skip it. We could never recruit Halsin, we could fail at several stages, and ultimately it doesn't matter to the experience. Because for it to matter, Larian would have to enforce things, they would have had to *gasp* make some npcs essential. But he's no different to any other side quest and he feels that way.
I have no investment in Thaniel. The guard guy died during the battle at the Inn and I used speak with dead on him. Then Halsin went into a portal to save him, then I had to find Oliver, got sucked into a battle and then and he was just standing in my camp doing nothing and barely having dialogue. I barely understood who Thaniel was because I didn't ask Halsin about ending the curse. I meant to but forgot since Halsin isn't a character I care much for. So suddenly Thaniel was important and I didn't understand why. And he's the spirit of the land but I barely had context for what they meant, everyone talked like it was obvious. Is he the spirit of all the land everywhere? Was he the spirit of just this land? I don't understand him enough to feel invested. He's an archfey apparently? Never found that out! So yeah, Larian's approach made the character fall flat for me.
