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

"Uh oh, Halsin accidentally turned into a bear again! Hope he doesn't maul anyone on our way back to the Elfsong - would be hilarious, though!"

To be fair, Gale could go nuclear at any point, Karlach could spontaneously combust, devils keep appearing everywhere Wyll goes, Astarion is about to turn into an ascended vampire and Lae'zel picks fights with everyone. The accidental bear may be a lesser concern.

This! Since he was added late with not a lot of time to add content for him, best to keep it simple.

So I stumbled across this thread while googling Halsins romance, and read all of it in one go yesterday. Made an account just to respond to this thread. I havent romanced him, I turned him down because I already romanced Astarion, and I wanted Halsins romance to be a surprise for my next playthrough as my mental narrative was going CRAZY with excitement and anticipation. I was only googling his romance because I was hoping you could sleep with him in his true form, wasnt too keen on being forced to have sex with a litteral bear. And I legit thought the threesome with Astarion that was blowing up was just a fun joke thing you could do in game, fans went with it. Ive seen fanarts of the Astarion/Halsin/MC threeple going around just thinking it was just fanart. When Halsin confessed to me in act 3, I got the vibes still that HE was mono but he wanted Tav/Durge to go be "poly" if that was their thing. Which in a way makes sense, you get him so late in the game that most players would already have invested in another character romantically and who would want to throw that away for Halsin, who we barely know and have had no real intimate moments with? It felt like he wasnt really poly, and wasnt designed to be that way at first but he was decalred the default poly option because if the free love hippie stereotype and bear sex meme hype. The whole wood elves are non managamous and the fact hes okay with being in a threeple seems like a convinient way to shrug off limited development time, bad writing and poor planing.

I am woefully dissappinted in what Ive read, and I almost dont even want to play the game anymore. If what I read about his romance is true...it is definitely NOT what was being advertised by his language in acts 1 and 2, to beat a dead horse. Me being on the Demi side of things, my love language being words of affirmation, and having an energetic erotic blueprint the idea of his romance was DRIVING ME INSANE. I was SO looking forward to it. I wanted to have a real connection with him.

Im absolutely heartbroken about how badly this was handled. I feel like in game Halsin is completely ruined and there is no going back. I was SO excited, I was so madly in love with him after talking to him just a little bit at the party and in the mountain pass. Not having ANY new dialogue until you recruit him, I came up with all kinds of ideas for him in my mental narrative. When he talked about how people who persue positions of power probably arent the ones who should be in them, how being a leader wasnt all it was cracked up to be. That was a great moment of characterislzation for him, especially when it was followed up by news of the grove doing well, and him wondering if he was ever a good leader at all, doubting himself. Oh, wonderful! Maybe we get a chance to discuss with him the nuances of what being a leader actually means, supporting him and telkkmg him inspite of his insecurities we think hes awesome. Him being happy to enjoy all of oak fathers creation was something that my Ranger MC could have bonded with him over, both classes being nature lovers and all. Maybe MC shows appreciation for animals most people find unappealing, and Halsin admires that they care about unloved creatures. But they also could have had philosophical disagreements too. When Halsin was talking about how he sees the city, I wanted to tell him something along the lines of "Nature and Civilization arent as different as they seem to be a lot of the time. Everyone is just trying to survive." That would have made for an interesting conversation with him. I was imagining how this romance could go, especially since I was playing a Ranger, and how much in common our characters would have. I imagined him in act 3 being MCs rock, as he one of the only conpanions at that point without baggage. His stuff is done, and as HE HIMSELF told the MC, he is there for THEM now that he is free to do so because his goals have been accomplished. He left his whole circle, uprooted his whole life because he made a promise to help the MC with their tadpole(a wierdly commital thing to do for a single person, for someone who ends up wanting to be non commital one person)and for mildly selfish reasons as he also wants to break the curse. I play as a chaotic good character so in my head I had this idea that, the MC has taken on everyones burdens as their own, trying desperately to help all the companions with their problems. And maybe MC had a vulnerable moment. Maybe going of into the woods when everyone is asleep to lament and have a cry, being overwhelmed with everything thats happening (a feeling I legit felt at times in the game) not wanting to show weakness or burden the others with their feelings. Halsin notices or Scratch gets worried and tells him, he finds MC and gives them comfort and support, tells them he is grateful for all theyve done and that he wants to return the favor, or that he has been so inspired by everything thats happened or whatever. That would have been a nice scene. He also gives off vibes of being gentle and fun, like hes the kind of guy who would play with you; like idk pick you up and throw you in the river laughing his ass off or something.

I just wanted to live in the woods or travel with him happily ever after, maybe some babies too. But no. That isnt what Im going to get? After telling me he wants to be by my side and basically turning his entire life upside down for me when he diddnt have to, just for him to be like "Nah I dont do exclusivity" and to just fuck off into the horizon?

Maybe I let my imagination run too wild with his potential. I KNEW his romance wasnt gonna be like I was imagining. Duh, of course. I knew that. But it doesnt change just how much of this had just gone down the toilet. Its like they started him off as a legit love interest but someone somewhere was like "Nope Astarion bear threesome" and that became his whole character.

i've fallen out of love with Halsin, since it seems like this is the intended way his writer wanted him to be. Before the game released dave did post some tweets regarding working with the scripts and john. there was one post where dave was embarrassed to read the script and he said john encouraged him to "think of all the the fanart that'll come out!" Well, knowing all of halsin's act 3 scenes, it could pertain to the bear, drow twins, or one of the party banters halsin has when he's talking to tav's romantic partner. John also strongly pushed for the bear scene, so his priority with Halsin was already not so good. I've abandoned my current playthrough of BG3. I did'nt beat it yet, i'm still on act 3, I also stopped playing because of the performance issues. To still savage my first playthrough, I'll just wait for the DE version of the game and i'll attempt to romance astarion since he's a complete character and romance. Hopefully in a year or two from now. With mods of course.

I believe John knew exactly what he was doing, but underestimated the negative impact. What I don't understand is how no one else on the team didn't pick up on it. Or maybe they did and he overruled them.

I feel a little lost, because I don't know what else to do, but this. I loved Halsin so much, but he has been entirely destroyed for me.

During the panel from hell you could see Johns glee and he was the one bragging in all the articles about how horny the game was. Halsin could have been better than this.

I find it super strange, because he was the same writer who did act 1 Halsin, right? How could a character take such a drastic nose dive in quality?

I wasn't here for EA, were players THAT thirsty for him?

No one picked up on the fact the other character used in the bear scene has a backstory with 200 years of SA and has a lot of dialogue about feeling like shit during any kind of intimacy.

We have two party member who are survivors of slavery and sexual violence: Astarion and Halsin. In case of Astarion his whole character is based on this theme hence, I think, this theme is brought up i? not in a perfect way but in a good way. Throughout the game we learn more and more of how he was abused and those facts have impact on us. I think one of significant moments is conversation with Astarion after meeting drow Araj Oblodra in Act 2, he talks about how he was used and no one cared about what he wants. So, the goal for some players (I say some, because we are all different and have different opinion on companions) is to help him to overcome his struggles and to help him understand he is not a slave anymore, he has his own will, help him to heal his wounds. We have empathy to him.
In case of Halsin his story with drow also have an impact - we want to discuss it more openly with him since, even though it was long time ago, we don't really know if he had overcome this (I personally in my head had an idea that he propably had. He knows that being chained for three years was wrong, but he also told us he had to do such things because he wanted to survive). But we get nothing. As I proposed earlier, it would be nice to expand this story (especially for drow and half drow Tav) and talk about it, because we, as player, are worried about his feelings (especially if player romances Halsin). Or, as some people proposed, just get rid of this dialogue (I would prefer expansion).
Now, about hypersexuality - I have an example of person who survived sexial violence and who expessed signes of hypersexuality and confusion of sexual orientation (what I mean is that person started questioning heterosexuality and started gay relationships). Right now the situation ended up well, this person has heterosexual relationships, is married and and happy. So, can trauma can be the reason to Halsin's present behavior, the reason which makes him struggle with relationships? I think, yes, but in this case it would need to have more work and additions to his scenario. maybe exen changes.

Damn, I didn't know that, I feel sorry for Dave, he did such an amazing job (even when he just breathes those breathes have so many emotions). Yes, Halsin is a fictional character, he is not real, but Dave and Halsin's writer made him real for us. He deserves better, imo, not just "funny bear sex fanarts".

The fact of the matter is, Halsin as written in acts 1 and 2 are antithetical to the way he was written in act 3. The stuff about his past doesnt make sense to his character, and the stuff that you could make sense of are handled so poorly and imho unrealistically, and again seem a bit too antithetical for what he was portrayed as before. People wanted Halsin because they loved his PERSON. Instead we got kinkbaited in with a false sense of love and who he was and its criminal at best. I diddnt even have access to his EA counterpart, I diddnt buy the game until september. But knowing that he was put in as a companion and love interest due to fan demand...I understand why. I legit fell head over heels in love with this man, as he was, in acts 1 and 2 and he ended up being a completely different character, exploited by his writer and turned into a sex object for horny people to make fanart of. He was literally written to be a sex object when thats what no one really wanted.

Edit: There were already themes of a story here. His flaw is that he can get too focused on things and not have room for anything else. A druid who has a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. His feelings of inadequacy as a leader, but seeing the refugees in the city and wanting to step right back into that leadership role and help people. Its who he is. The whole drow sex slave thing is just not needed and needs to be cut.

Okay folks, we're getting too much into discussion of real life sexualities and sexual trauma, which could have very personal implications for some readers and is not a subject that they necessarily want to be getting into on a forum about a game. And I'm not at all happy with the apparent implied equivalence given in Noelle666's above post to being in a heterosexual relationship as the happy ending and exploring other kinds of relationships as being a result of trauma, and this of course not the right place to be discussing the very specific case they cite. Let's steer well clear of such comments and be much more careful about the potential real world consequences to others of what we're saying.

I would only say it was a very short version of events (maybe phrasing was not really correct since English is not my native language). But I understand, let's stop here with "real life" since topic is controvercial and sensitive. After all, we are here because of specific reason, specific character.

Thank you for your understanding and clarification. And I agree, let's keep as focused on the specific fictional character that's the topic of the thread as possible.

I know exactly what you mean. I was also kind of hit in the face with his polyamory and Act 3 behaviour.
I guess Act 1 and 2 simply had so little Halsin-centric content that my brain filled in the blanks, just like you said, and I ended up imagining this mature and kind soul with a silly but domestic side... I don't know. I was hoping for an Alistair-esque relationship to be honest. Maybe that was my mistake, maybe it was the writer's... I think Minthara suffers a similar issue.

I haven't read through all 48 pages of the thread, but I am just chiming in to say that I appreciate the OP's detailed and well-worded issues regarding Halsin's "romance" (honestly, feels like it's a stretch to call it that at this point). It's saving me the disappointment and time I would've otherwise felt and put in on a save specifically for him. Somehow, even the Dream Visitor "romance" sounds and plays out better than it seems to with Halsin.

Very monkey's paw feeling, honestly - and the OP's general rundown of how Halsin's romance goes rings eerily familiar to me, as someone who dealt with a similar disgust and disappointment in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, with regards to Regongar/Octavia's "monogamous" romance option (Reg, specifically, but I imagine it was little better with Octavia). The "polygamy", and the characters themselves, were handled so poorly - and your avatar having little to no input or ability to have an adult discussion on boundaries and expectations, while just dragged along into the mess - was enough to make me quit the game for a while and abandon the save where I'd been romancing him.

I'm disappointed to hear Halsin got a similar treatment, to the point of it being incredibly out of character to how he'd been depicted as well.

But, ah well; saves me a playthrough, I guess.

I'm well and truly convinced that monogamy-inclined writers need to stay far away from even attempting to write a poly character or relationship, though. It always seems to end up as this sort of gross, stereotyped, harmful, or out of character mess of a thing.

Im going to blame the writer. I think people are trying to work with what we got in regards to Halsin, but I think it boils down to this: it was bad writing. Even within the limitations of Halsin being a bit last minute, I dont see why it had to have gone this badly imho. I dont know much about Larion studios or their other games and things like that, but this John guy seems to have taken Halsin to be one big joke, not sure he actually takes the character seriously. Which I do not understand because as I said before, you can talk to him a little before the whole Thaniel thing. There is some bits and pieces there, and theyre good and interesting, I do not understand why they diddnt just expand on it, they just made up new shit. Im wondering if it was even the same writer. And now all the ways people *could* justify and/or work around his new behaviour, just feel like a huge cope and it just doesnt work. You cant make gold from shit. From the grove, to the shadowlands, to the MC. Everything in his actions and dialogue in the first two acts completely contradicts the "poly" thing, especially with the bullshit explanation he has as to why he is "poly", the drow thing adds uneecesary excuses for his behaviour and we honestly dont need another sexually traumatized character. And for someone he has dedicated so much of his attention to, he just up and leaves? Ok bye? No, that kind of 180 character turnaround in behaviour is inherintly flawed. Hes been ruined, and the only way to fix him is one of 2 ways. Either remove him as a companion and love interest entirely, keep him a camp companion. Or a re write. Him being "poly" was the excuse, not the reason. And it shows.

Oh, I like Alistair, but *probably off top* in BG3 Gale reminded me of him. To be specific, Gale looks like a mix of Alistair and Anders (Awakening version).
Halsin is more mature, but they both have big kind hearts and yeah, I also search for "good guys" in games with romantic options.
Act 1 has not much content with him, I agree, but Act 2 gives us a lot of info plus his quest to save Thaniel also shows who Halsin is.

Totally agree. I got exactly the opposite of what I had expected, which made me feel manipulated.

Omg yes especially the Alistair-esque relationship. Kind and a bit goofy and willing to spend the rest of his life with our Tav because he finally found the one (after what Tav has gone through to save him). Maybe it's just all of our imaginations lmao

Exactly. It was the impression he gave in EA and the same all through act two, but in act 3 they ignored his character and character development to such an extent that the character I loved was nearly lost.

Then ever so often he would show up again, but instead of making me smile it felt like a cruel manipulation.

The constrictions he puts on the association (since it's not a relationship) is not freedom for anyone but him - it's a prison for someone who truly loves him, because they have to constantly watch what they say or hope for. Even asking him what his thoughts are on their relationship, he turns into a lecture and is borderline condescending.

This is not what I asked for, not what I pictured, and not what he leads you to believe during the first two acts.

What is even worse is that he is not even a good representation of what they chose to do with him. He becomes selfish and manipulative under the guise of kindness and concent.