Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Halsin Romance, Expectations and Obligatory Poly

Thank you very much, in my opinion it is also quite traumatic when he tells you: with you I have enough babe, but I have the strange fetish and demand that you sleep with everyone. Don't argue baby, I know what's good for you. The first time the line of dialogue completely throws you off, it doesn't leave you any options and in your head you can't stop thinking: when did my Tav say he wants to go to bed with everything the world? You can't choose anything but Halsin can? Halsin can decide for Tav unless he breaks the relationship? Even the astarion character is more reasonable. It's Harmful Daddy Halsin strikes again in its purest form. I commented on all the points to Larian in a ticket, and although I did not get an answer, I hope they read it.

Honestly, the more I read through people's experiences with Halsin's romance the more I am glad I ditched him for Wyll (who has some really sweet moments) in my first playthrough and for

I don't understand his dialog the way that he wants Tav to have other lovers and more like he isn't opposed if Tav has other lovers beside him. Because he himself might take another lover while he is in a relationship with Tav too. Right now, all he wants is Tav, but this might change. And if Tav doesn't like it I guess this means break up because he has to follow his "nature".

If you select the option to reject him after you admitted that you feel the same but your nature is different to his nature (meaning you want monogamous relationship and not what he wants) there is a bug - he will first react to the rejection (saying he had to try at least) but the next day he will great you with the normal romance dialog, calling you lover etc.

Yes, it's true that his feelings might change and he might want to take another lover at some point, but considering "his heart doesn't stirr lightly" one can assume that another lover isn't really on the table in the near future at least. And what does that make him then? Well, monogamous. Aren't all monogamous relationships sort of like that? Everyone who's in a relationship might fall in love with someone else at some point, and at that point one would reevaluate the one they're in. The problem I find isn't that he can't promise himself to Tav for eternity of whatever, my problem is that at this point he doesn't want anyone else, and he says so and makes a point of telling you it's a rare feeling, so why can't he just agree to only be with Tav for now and see where that takes them? And then let Tav know if things changes so that they can either agree to poly at that time or end it. If he truly has a heart that doesn't stirr lightly, then one can assume that this relationshop will be monogamous for the foreseeable future (if that's what Tav wants), as most monogamous relationship is. There should at least be an option to talk to him about it and express your own thoughts and views and perhaps ask him to be just with you for now. like: "I want you, but I don't want to share. I don't ask for forever, only that you stay true to me for however long this will last."

I don't know. It just annoys me that he's manipulating you into really liking him and then telling you how much he likes you, and then only to throw his garbage about roaming free in your face after you've probably rejected everyone else for him, and at which point it's impossible to romance someone else. So it's either, be alone or agree to a relationship that doesn't feel right.

And therein lies part of the problem: that with so much fluctuation in personality it turns out that what you receive as a player is that he is a manipulator. In theory Halsin is a good alignment character, I don't think this is compatible with manipulating Tav and her feelings. It's just that with the behavior of Halsin's character in part of the game you expect this:



And what you finally get is this:

Well, Orion is not a hoe for one, and he's so devoted to Ariel he dies and is reborn into their union to eternity, he dumps no one ad the end of the story ;*(. He's not a meme Tumblr character. I really wish the writers would banish that godforsaken place from their inspiration for writing. Nothing good comes out of weirdo fanfictions. More Tolkien, less Stephanie Meyer.

With the memes I don't want to refer directly to Orín, it is simply an image with an evil Halsin. According to behavior and alignment, Halsin's romance should be good and sweet, like the first meme, and of course that is what the player expects. The result is more of the second meme: you have good Halsin and bad Halsin in the same conversation. Halsin goes from kissing the ground under Tav's boots to clearly manipulating it. The good Halsin seems extremely affectionate, until you realize that there are no I love you exchanges. That's what happens with the whole Halsin romance.

I have seen a lot of people use manipulative to describe Halsin and I can't agree more especially the ending if you romanced him.

I think manipulative is a wild exaggeration. People are just projecting negative traits at someone for stating upfront his approach to relationships. We may not like those reasons, but it seems passive aggressive to call someone who will not negotiate an open relationship as some sort of callous manipulator. He's just written to have a romantic approach that does not have widespread appeal.

I don't really agree here, he's not upfront with his intentions until the moment when he asks you for more and tells you what he wants. He leads you on in a romantic kind of way, hinting that as soon as the Shadow Curse is dealt with, he can devote himself to you. Which per se isn't a lie, but he kind of makes you want to wait for him. And when you've done that, he says (very romantically) how he found you and how his heart doesn't stirr lightly etc etc. And only then, after you sort of tell him you fell the same way as him, only then does he mention his "free-roaming nature". He's leading you on and when he gets you, he says he wants an open relationship. He should have been clear about his views about poly when first approached with the questions about whether or not he has a lover in his life.

So, yes, to me he comes across as very manipulative since he's romancing you, leading you on, saying things to make you fall for him, only because he ultimately wants to get into your pants and nothing else.

A strange approach given he was added by fan request! I think they should make it so that the relationship can be either poly or not as the player wants and not have the romance gated behind being poly!

LMAO

https://streamable.com/07l78r

^thanks for the laugh Rotsen, I appreciate you bringing some light here.

i feel they're on the right path when it comes to implementing our tavs wanting a singular romance with halsin, vs poly. they gave him different lines when you address him in a monogamous relationship, and when you're in a poly with shadowheart or astarion. they can easily give us the option to tell halsin that we would only want to pursue him when he brings up only wanting our character. that way the responses for him caters to both people who only want him, and people who want him on the side with shadowheart/astarion. there's a push for putting in your feedback in the larian feedback ticket because in the EA john made shadowheart a lot less friendly and approachable, 'bitchier' as they say, thanks to feedback he's recreated her into the shadowheart she is today. i'm noticing with the characters he's written, he often has to redo them because he messes up in someway. unfortunately for us halsin's romance is in the release version of the game and we're quite literally playtesting it

I like how Halsin is a clear communicator with firm boundaries. He's good representation of relationship anarchy. He is a fun character outside of his sexuality, though it's nice he's also happily and comfortably sexual to a receptive player character. He shoots his shot in realistic ways. I feel desired and pleased by Halsin's writing. I hope more of his romance and friendship gets developed. I would be very surprised if he is written to agree to monogamy at any point, but I hope that it would not be something he is written to arrive at through a storyline that foregrounds free love as something negative about his character, that would be very upsetting to do to this rare example of a polyamorous, relationship anarchy style character in a piece of mainstream media.

I hope that his click-on voice lines are patched in soon.

I refer to the previous post: it is not sincere, Halsin's character seems to create a bad relationship with Tav that whether people believe it or not:

1- with that thing of pushing Tav even though he has enough with Tav and Without Tav being able to reply, he complies quite well with: Baby, I know what's good for you, let me decide.

2- He fulfills a stereotype that ends in very harmful relationships for the deceived person: he drives you crazy by saying how much he loves you, that he needs you, and then tells you that he doesn't want anything serious with you. In my country they say that he is the type: that he promises and promises until he put it , once he put what was promised is over

3- This whole point leads to manipulation, and if Halsin, as it is written, is now himself a manipulator or a person with a split personality.

4-He only needs you, he doesn't want anything else, but he doesn't give you an important character reveal if you don't have group sex with the drow and him. What's the true? that he only needs you, that he wants to have sex with everything that comes within reach.... by the way, Halsin has a somewhat sick fetish with the drow, if you have played the board game you will know it


He is a typo? Sure, it doesn't fit with the rest of the game's personality or alignment, but Halsin is currently manipulative with tav. And please, I think we should all have the maturity to distinguish an unhealthy relationship even if it is in a video game, that is not "our vision of relationships" it is to distinguish what is wrong from what is right. For example, Astarion's bad ending gives rise to a pretty unhealthy relationship, you may want to play it just to try it but if you don't know that it is a bad relationship... bad thing.

I've been thinking about how people feel about this character (though I admit that I haven't read everything - it's a long discussion already ).

I actually had no idea that Halsin as a romancable character wasn't an original idea but a fan request. It makes more sense to me now why people feel let down. It's uncomfortable to wish for something, then kind of get it, but with an unpopular twist. Writing Halsin as a poly seems a risque approach from that background.

I jumped on board only recently and thought that Halsin was written poly from the start. While I'm still happy to see a presentation of an orientation that I can't remember ever seen in games, I believe I understand the disappointment better now.

I've discovered a few things that I personally feel would make the poly story arch better:

- Him telling about it earlier.
While I don't think that real people should out themselves untill they feel comfortable with it or the relationship develops to a point where it's fair for the other to know, Halsin is a game character. Games revolve around mechanics, so it would help the player to decide how they want to approach the available romancable characters.

- Have conversations about the subject (even before the player can romance them)
It's true that currently Halsin mostly lectures. It might be better if the characters could have more realistic conversations back and forth: ask questions, tell how they feel, get better explanations than just The Nature.

- Discuss the rules of the relationship (when entering the romance)
Things like do you want to know about others, when and how you want to know, what's okay to do with others, how do you prioritise your time, how do you talk about difficult emotions like jealosy. The things that poly people actually talk about.

- Simply more content
More time together, more intimacy, more just them being them. To make it feel like a real relationship. And maybe just a bit less lectures about nature. :'D

I don't know if you'd be interested in that kind of content, but I think it'd be interesting, because I've never seen that in games.

Of course there is always the possibility of simply re-writing him as not poly (and maybe just open to different arrangements). I'd miss the current version, because as I said, there simply never is presentation of polys.

One thing that I'm actually happy about current writing is that he isn't willing to have a mono relationship. I understand that's what bothers so many, but that's the core of being a poly person. Poly is not a description of a relationship arrangement - it's who they are. Being forced into a closed relationship is as ill-fitting for them as is forcing into an open relationship for a mono person. I know those kinds of arrangements happen in real life, but it's a really, really heavy and sad price to pay just to be with a person you love. It's a situation where you give something of your core self away. It's different than people who are open to try different arrangements. If we talk about Baldur's Gate, Halsin is the only poly character there, while Astarion and Shadowheart clearly are not - they seem content in different kinds of arrangements. So if Halsin was re-written so that he would settle for a closed relationship, then I'd hope that he wouldn't be a poly at all, but something else (but, as said, I hope they keep this rare poly in the game).

I hope I was able to write this somewhat coherently. It's getting really, really late this side of the globe.

Also polyamorous (for me, relationship anarchy), and also queer here. Appreciate your comment very much. Relatable feelings about the monogamous-dominant responses across platforms. Good examples of the kind of More Scenes Halsin romance could give that would rock while not taking away non-monogamy rep. If the monogamous players need a flag like this like you've mentioned to break up because they are not wanting their character to commit to something other than monogamy, they should have it.


A good reminder for this discussion overall, thank you.

Yes, originally he wasn’t going to be a companion or a romance. Then a lot of people, including me, loved his character and asked for him to be a companion and romance. But I guess I wasn’t specific enough and failed my wish spell!!!

Okay, so several things:

1. Representation is great - but at a character you add ONLY because of player feedback, this was a very poor choice. It's like they saw the request for romance and fans thought "relationship" the anyluzers thought "Oh, they all just want to bang him.

2. Halsin being comfortable with his sexuality is great. Unfortunately, this is extremely fetishsized in a way that makes it seem like and extremely unhealthy reaction to rape, imprisonment, loneliness, abandonement, being fetishsized by others and being a people pleaser. On his comments on it, in no other context is fine, but when you see the character as a hole this becomes really messy and really icky.

3. You are right about his dialogue if you look at it seperately from the rest of the context. He does try to be upfront and many of his lines are endearing, lovely and wonderful. The issue is, that there are other dialogue that is in direct contradiction to these lines, which gives you whiplash - which is what gaslighters do. Now, a person might be a relationship anarchist, but they can also adhere to monogamy and more importantly: Being a relationship anarchist should not be 1-2-1 comparrable with gaslighting and manipulation - Halsin's poor writing does this.

4. Halsin is presented to us as loyal, kind, carring, supportive and thoughtful by the game itself. But then after the shadow curse he takes this weird turn where everything becomes abnout what he wants - this is even directly stated.

- He tells Tav how he feels about them, and then makes an assumption ()in some cases based out of nothing) that they must feel the same. When they say they feel the same, he is overjoyed and then again, goes back to what he wants - which is a politely worded ultimatum.

- During act 2 he gives several equivalent responses of "soon" and "you should have my full attention", which gives the implication that he is highly dedicated and doesn't partake in anything he isn't fully commited to. This gives the vibes of a slow burn demi-romance - which is also underrepresented btw. But what you then get by act 3 is the exact opposite of that. Specifically saying it's not a relationship, it has no commitment, and no permanency though all other parts of Halsin's personalioty gravitates towards this like a black hole.

- By the end of the game he makes a choice without even really involving Tav - and talks about as if they have no freaking clue what is going on - then gives another ultimatume (again lovely worded, but still an ultimatum) "I want to do this, and I have decided to do it alone. But if you wish you can come by and we can fuck, okay?". Relationship anerchist or no, this is disrespectful to another person and takes away much of their agency

4. Polygamy is wide, but the most healthy poly relationships (not this word) takes a lot of work, commitment, and respect of other peoples agency and feelings. The way poly is presented in the game is not that. With Karlach and Astarion it seems coercede, and they clearly do not like it, but agrees to keep Tav. Just like Halsin requires the same of tav without further discussion. Now, is that really the best representation that could be brought to a relationship prefference that is already under so much stigma?`Personally, I think it's the worst because it confirms all of the most misunderstood believes about it.


So, yes, this is certainly represantion, but it's horrible representation that does harm to everyone involved. I am all for including relationship anarchy (you already have this in Lae'zel) and polygamy - especially the healthy and respectful kind - but for several reasons Halsin was the wrong choice for this because he was a fan request. He was added to please the fans, and as this thread is evidence of, this was not achieved.

I would by fine with Halsin prefering polygamy, but for his personality to do so without discussion or empathy for Tav's feelings or point of view was awful.

Do we roughly know what's in the upcoming patch 3? Do you all think we will at least get an alternate ending with Halsin?