Wanted to add something that I had written in another thread to share my thoughts on here, too. Also, I will try to add more feedback over the weekend (work has kept me busy lately).
First of all: possible trigger warning.
Just to clarify that: I have never romanced Halsin, I liked him as a buddy in EA and I really hoped for a nice adult friendship with the release (or lets call it bromance). My fiancee and I are playing BG3 together (sitting next to each other) so I was totally able to see all he has to offer in terms of romance.
While it started out pretty fine and I felt like he became what I was hoping for (and with that also what a lot of people were wishing for), listening to his voicelines after we liberated the Shadowlands was a huge disappointment.
I don't know how else to phrase it beside: It felt like my Tav lost a potential really good friend. We seemed to be sharing so many values (he is well-spoken, caring, friendly, grown-up) just to lose all of that. Suddenly, he lost so many personality traits I liked him for. Its not about him being open for just lot of sex or anything, its more that he showed a side of himself that he hid well before. It almost felt like a betrayal.
As you know, things got even worse with all the additional creepy sex offers (that he never was invited to). His whole Drow "misadventures" got me to a point where I really started to hate what had become of him. I started to hate Larian (or Halsins writer to be precise) to show such a lack of empathy. Fortunately, I never experienced any kind of SA, but I know people who went through different phases and stages of being exposed to toxic and abusive behaviour - be it being beaten by alcoholics, being forced to move to another city every few months or years because a parent had a new relationship or being beaten a lot just so the victim could be blamed for his sisters' faults.
While some of them had a really hard time making it through life and/or therapy, I only once experienced someone claiming it had it positive sides ("If they beat me, at least they dont beat my sisters") and that was pretty much while the abuse was still happening.
Sadly, I know that there are lots of victims out there, who either blame themselves for being the guilty one (like "If someone abused me, maybe I did something wrong and deserved it") or trying to find the positive things in it (I just read a story about a woman who never found joy in the toxic relationship she had, but even tho it was more SA than mutual sex, she was at least thankful for his attention - and that made me feel so bad and lead to even more hate for the way Larian handles this topic). It feels like Halsin is still in this stage of defense, of sheltering his mind and heart from what he went through and trying to convince himself (more than anyone else) that what he had to go through wasn't "that bad".
If we try to apply Erikson's stages of psychosocial development on Halsin (using a formula x = 0.2987y˛ and transposing it - x = elf-age and y = human years, so that he had been around 29 years old 100 years ago), we could even go further deeper down the rabbit hole.
Erikson calls the phase between 20 - 44 years the "Early adulthood", "Intimacy vs. Isolation". The main value in this phase is love, being present in the form of friends, family and love interests. It is within this stage, that we seek to find someone special for us to settle down for the rest of our life.
The main question in this phase is "Can I unite myself with another person?"
Now let us transfer this knowledge over to Halsin, who most likely spend the 3 years as a slave within the "Intimacy vs. Isolation" phase. It was within this time, that he learned that trusting others leads to being hurt, being abused and living a life with constant fear. This lead to his isolation within his own heart. He had to cut the connection between his heart and his body, isolating himself. All of that led to Halsin still being stuck within this phase or even somewhat developing backwards, more towards the phase before, where sex has a way more important role.
Erikson says about the "Intimacy vs. Isolation" phase: "[...]there is more to intimacy than sexual gratification." and this is exactly what Halsin never learned.
A thank you to
this post for being an inspiration to write this.
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The main problem I have with Halsin is it all of this feedback, while valuable and insightful, feels very much like we are trying to figure out ways to explain and/or justify Halsin's character and behaviour after the fact. I understand that this is what we have to work with, but there some part of him that feels permanently tainted because I dont think this kind of thought and care was put into his character by Larian and his writer. I dont like the idea of being given poor quality content, and trying to find any and every way to try to make it seem like its not. Im not sure how I feel about trying to work around what we were given just because it was handled SO badly. This doesnt seem to be the first time his writer has done this and it diddnt seem to be too popular with his previous characters, but people made it work after the fact becauae it seemed consistent with the character. Which is fine, but I think this incentivised his writer to not listen and keep doing what he does, maybe even more so, and we got Halsin as a result.
This is what's always on my mind, why do players and fans have to come up with solutions to problems a 'professional' writer came up with. Just for him to not change a single thing in the next game because why should he? The fans will come up with ideas and solutions to plot holes, toxic behaviour and such - and sometimes even be completely blind for the obvious flaws and problems.
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Also thanks to everyone who adds something to this topic, your words are much appreciated.
