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

Glad we're on the same page about tone! Back on-topic:


This all seems eminently reasonable to me. Halsin can express himself mostly as before, but giving the PC more options for response can then broaden what he says in answer to that. For instance, on point 2, we could have the option to challenge how he presents his SA, and that could allow some exploration of the coping strategy he's used up to this point.

As I see it, we generally want additive updates to the game, not subtractive ones. Adding things to the game feels good, for fans and developers. Removing things won't feel good nearly as often. There may be conversation options we don't like, but their existence generally isn't a problem if we just have alternatives that we do like.

That being said, I can understand how a few things could fairly be removed on a conditional basis, such as Halsin making an overture to join a couple in one scenario when he was already told no in another. I can't imagine that too many people who said no the first time will want to say yes the second time.

That's my thought as well. I don't like when people say that Halsin talking about his sexual assault should be removed entirely. That removes him as representation. And Halsin represents a very important, overlooked kind of sexual assault survivor- namely, the messy kind. The kind who downplays their trauma because they can't face it, who self-victim blames, who still enjoys sex- a LOT- the kind who is big and was abused by someone smaller, males who were abused by women... You get the idea. The kind of survivors who are heard less in real life because people have one idea in their mind of what a victim is "supposed" to be. Halsin is very important to me, for just this reason, and so I don't want to see his conversation removed. Like you said, I want things added. I want to be able to talk to him about it; to ask why he won't call it abuse, why he will show sympathy to others who have been abused (like Astarion) but not himself. I want to be able to validate his feelings and help him put a name to what happened to him, to remind him that just because he's big doesn't mean his feelings don't matter (something he says multiple times is a sore spot for him) and that his survivor guilt (both towards the Shadow Curse and towards the other murdered elf victims he noted he saw in the Underdark during his captivity) doesn't mean he has to be grateful to his captors. I want to help him through it all.

These are valid points and I do think too that adding some content about his SA would probably feel better than outright remove it(But I think ppl wanted either to expand on this theme so it feels more right or, if there are no resources/time, better to just remove it).

I do think though that Halsin should be pruned a bit in his attempts to join MC or couple in some in game scenarios. I'm obviously talking about famous drow scene and Shadowheart/Halsin banter. I am not talking to remove these interactions entirely, but to put it behind active double romance option(Halsin+SH at this point). That would make much more sense.

Yeah, that's fair! To me that just reads like the flags being poorly coded, as opposed to a characterization issue- we all know Gale and even Shadowheart have had issues with the flags for their romances before! Put it behind a few checks, and for the Drow, give hte player the option to invite Halsin but don't make him say anything if he's been rejected.

Exactly! You both hit the nail on the head.

This was expressed so well. I'm so glad you said it. I agree 100%.

Yes, precisely. When I talk about removing things conditionally, I don't mean removing them from the game completely. I mean that they won't show up under some conditions anymore, but they will remain in other situations. What you described here I hope would improve the game for everyone.

I just think the whole poly thing needs to be Tav initiated; when Tav is already romancing someone else as is most likely by act 3 and he be open to Tav romancing someone else while with Halsin. If Tav is solomancing him the whole poly thing doesnt even need to be brought up, especially since Halsin seems very commited to Tav regardless.

Halsin says he only wants Tav anyway, he just wants Tav to see others if they want. It really doesnt need to go further than that. Halsin doesnt actively seek out anyone else anyway unless Tav does it first (or Tav has already told Halsin no)

This way all they need to do is record a few lines, add a few flags, and thats it. It would be relatively quick and cheap to do it that way than to try to make a whole complicated convoluted conversation about Halsin being free to still be poly and seek out other relationships and Tav being ok with it.

Ok, it's me again, an update abouy my adventure.
I finished the game and what can I say about Halsin's last scene? Honestly, it was not as bad as I thought: he does not really "dump" Tav. Yes, he has his new goal, his new work to do but he wants Tav to come and see him as soon as they can, he says about "selfish reasons for wanting to see you again" (which, imo, proves his love and bond towards Tav) and he'll "watch the horizon each day until I feel your touch again". So, on one hand he still loves Tav and will be waiting for them.
But yes, as it was said many times by many people, on the other hand we NEED to have an option to have the ending WITH Halsin. There are no reasons for Tav to not help him with refugees and orphans, Tav would be the first person to provide their help to the man they love.
*off topic* Karlach epilogue was nice. I really like this scene. I wish we could have such scenes for all our companions because the end of the game felt empty.

Nobody has said this already so I'll bring it up. I don't think this type of interactive media can depict healthy polyamory. In a TV show or Movie absolutely, it's more like a voyeuristic experience, you're watching, detached from the actual plot on the screen.

In interactive media, especially in an RPG, you're the one making these decisions. You're practically the center of the universe, all things revolve around you and what you do, no matter how good the game is at hiding that fact, you are the center of attention. That makes for a pretty unbalanced relationship. When comparing it to a linear movie, I imagine it's way more difficult to implement poly into a video game that already has a million possible little decisions that multiply further along. Devoting so much time to managing relationship mechanics would take away from the actual game due to how complex it would become (this game isn't a dating sim after all).

Most implementations of polyamory in video games will have no real depth as a result, all it'll amount to is "the player can have multiple romantic partners at once" ignoring the nuance of a real relationship. Do you really expect Larian to do a good job of implementing things like relationship anarchy for example, given their past handling of simple flags (or lack thereof)

I'm not throwing shade at anybody here, you're free to have your opinion, this is just my take. You can have undeniably undeveloped poly or have no poly (i just don't think they will commit so MANY resources to fix what is a very niche issue, nor do I think they will actually remove it). I'm not against the idea of having polyamory in this game, as long as it has proper build-up and writing backing it up. I'm not intending to put anyone down or challenge anybody's view, if you think the content of this game is fine as is, more power to you! All i want from Larian is a farm epilogue and a bug fix for what is a simple issue that can be effortlessly fixed with proper flags, that is all I want and expect from them.

I am going to suggest in that case that perhaps it's best to stick to making the case for what you personally want to see, rather than opening - yet again - a line of argument that is likely to lead to comments that have uncomfortable personal implications.

That said, I have no objections at all to folk who are poly themselves talking about what they'd like to see in the game, and if that's where you're coming from then my apologies.

But having people who are not poly themselves opining on what makes a "healthy" representation of a poly relationship seems almost guaranteed to lead to offensive comments, even if that's just out of ignorance. In fact, what looks like a repeated insistence on any poly content (or at least content that isn't straightforwardly monogamous) being "healthy" from people who would seem to prefer there not to be poly content at all feels possibly disingenuous, or at least unreasonable given that doesn't seem to be a standard applied to other relationships. And in my view, it's probably also undesirable given problematic relationships can make for interesting stories, at least if it's not done too clumsily.

Given I think we've recently had way too much of folk who aren't poly themselves making comments that have obvious real life implications for people who are, I suggest that anyone who is not poly themself really should step back now from the discussion of what good representation of polyamory in the game would look like.

Everyone else is still, of course, welcome to share their preferences and ideas for Halsin's romance as long as they express them in line with forum rules and show the level of sensitivity we'd expect when discussing topics that impinge on such personal issues. And as long as they don't derail this thread about Halsin when their primary concern is actually something else.

I think that the extent to which interactive media can depict complex and realistic relationships is broadly questionable. As you say, the PC is the main character of the story-world in a way that none of us is in real life. There's a level of escapism involved in how much our actions matter, and, frankly, in how much we matter to every last person around us. (Of course, in real life, we do matter to some people very much.) If you want to make this sort of analysis, I don't see why it should be limited to the depiction of poly relationships. It applies in general.

In spite of the limitations of interactive media, we enjoy making and playing games anyway. We can never achieve a life-like level of detail and complexity. However, with the time we have, we can still write and enjoy some splendid characters. I think it's never wrong to make suggestions for improvement. At the same time, it's okay to allow a work to be "completed" while, in some grander sense, it is incomplete.

As a recovering toxic perfectionist, I'm trying to make my motto "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." I can report good results so far.

Thank you for this. I have noticed so much how there's people asking for Halsin to be "healthier" about how he engages with poly, but no requests for, say, Minthara to be healthier in her mono romance. There is a lot of anger at Halsin for being poly, but none at Lae'zel for being monogamous when the rest of her culture are poly by default. It starts to feel very disheartening, and as you said, disingenuous, because these comments being only applied to poly characters starts to feel like the issue IS with poly. Monogamous characters are given a pass, poly characters have their every word and every action put under a microscope.

I don't want Halsin, a wood elf, to discard his cultural beliefs for me. If I were uncomfortable with polyamory to the extent that I was bothered by a video game character practicing it, I would simply not romance the polyamorous character. And I know monogamous people will then protest that it's not fair, why can't they then have this character as a romance option? I would like to gently tell such people that this is how poly people have to approach all romances, fictional and otherwise- they have to forgo real life romances all the time when people don't have the same values, or in video games, they have to enter into exclusively monogamous relationships when these don't necessarily represent their own lived experiences. If one character being exclusively poly makes monogamous people feel unseen and unvalued, I would like to gently request they use it as an opportunity for perspective-taking to see how the entire media landscape feels for poly people.

Whenever a marginalized character is portrayed, by the nature of marginalization, the largest part of the audience will be people who don't have that experience. That's fine, that's just numbers. But it leads to a lot of being spoken over, being told what representation I should and should not enjoy. It happens to me as a queer person, as a not-strictly-poly-but-not-strictly-mono person, as a person on the autism spectrum, etc, all the time. Is Halsin a perfectly written character? Of course not, and that includes his poly. Is he better than much of what I've experienced up to this point? Yes. Would I be absolutely devastated if Larian made him monogamous (or wrote him to compromise on this core part of who he is for the player) in a game where monogamous players have seven other characters they can pursue it with? Yes.

I hope this isn't too long or too personal but I have been getting really uncomfortable with some ways poly is treated by the fandom (including the fandom off of this forum, and I realize not all of them will read this, regardless), and I wanted to share my thoughts/experiences. Thank you again, RedQueen

That's fair, I apologize if my comments offended anyone. I understand that a mono person shouldn't be dictating what a healthy poly relationship looks like in the first place. I recognize the inflammatory nature of this topic and how easily it can devolve into bickering, and I would like to avoid that.

we all really want the same thing here though, like I said I'm not opposed to polyamory in this game. As long as it is done with the care it deserves. We can all agree that it was treated like an afterthought with little development time. SH/Astarion were only chosen for this because they were the fan-favorite male/female companions, (and like has been repeated a thousand times) with no build-up or regard for previous characterization. I've already made my point, just wanted to clarify I meant no offense to any poly people, I understand this is a sensitive topic, their voices should be heard as well, even if we disagree on some things.

I have absolutely no issue with poly, whatsoever. I love diversity as it makes the game a lot more interesting and gives people options. Options are always good. I am no expert on poly relationships either, but this is how I view the situation. This'll also be my last post regarding this matter for a bit because I'll just be repeating what I and others have already said as a reply to what others have already said. Fancy way of saying that the details have all been analyzed and it'd just be repetition at this point.

For me the problem lies in what they have done so far. I agree entirely that problematic relationships make for way more interesting stories. It's why a lot of these stories are so great - while the relationships themselves may not be overly complicated, the circumstances are and the choices given to the player to 'betray' their love interest's trust are great. But they did give us one situation where the relationship itself is complicated, and that's poly between origin companions in act 2 (so with the exception of Halsin/Minthara). I was even quite surprised that none of them are written to be interested in it with one another, considering the conversation is brought up (why bring it up if none are, if not to establish their preference and start the official mono relationship?) - even if I can understand it from a non-writer point of view (difficult to implement in terms of triggers et cetera). But since the conversation is brought up, and they are all written toward mono in these situations (and other situations), that's when them changing their opinion entirely out of the blue later on doesn't work for me. And only because you ask - otherwise you'd never know, because they're not really written to change unless you ask.

Characters need to be malleable to some extent. Player choice should matter, but I do not want to see them change entirely based on what the player does. I'll use the example again of Halsin and betraying the Grove. What they could've done is write Halsin in a way that he will support the player's choice no matter what - he becomes a completely different person then based on whether you play evil or good. One would love goblins, the other would hate goblins. The need for Minthara would be entirely void then, because you have what is essentially two Halsins. This is what it feels like - to me - what they tried to do to the relationships. They wrote one Halsin (and Astarion/Shadowheart) for act 1 and act 2, and then just for Halsin's romance, they wrote a different Halsin (and Astarion/Shadowheart) to fit a poly romance in act 3. But then you don't have the same character anymore. They change their entire romantic interest based on the player's choice, which to me is character assassination. Because you basically get two different versions of the same character and the only thing that triggers the change is your preference, not their preference.

And you could argue that, for example, Ascended Astarion is different from Vampire Spawn Astarion, which is technically based on player choice. But that's circumstance that changes him, not necessarily the choice the player made. He gained power through a ritual that is heavily implied to destroy who he was before, so it makes sense he changed - there's an explanation to why it changed him. He didn't just change because Tav said "change please". The only character in the entire story that we should have such influence over is ourselves. If I want to take over the Netherbrain at the end of the story despite having played a good person the entire game, then I'd be out of character, but that's my decision to make. The companions, however, should be written to remain in character throughout the game, regardless of player choice.

I think the reason that it feels like he's blowing you off is that he obviously needs help with 9 carts of kids. He's not afraid to ask you to off the goblin horde or rescue him from...well, several places, but he can manage cartloads of children on his own? He should be recruiting Withers and Astarion to take the night watch. Poly is fine, but he's going to need all the hands he can get, so why not yours? It should definitely be a request, and maybe before the final confrontation, so that the last scene is of the rebuilt grove and kids everywhere, and you and him in the new circle. It would also leave it open for the monogamous - is it just the two of you, or just the two of you in that moment? Could go either way.

I keep seeing the same comments, both the exaggerated ones about SH and the still weird desire to change the only poly character, to give him an option that goes against his nature, so much so "we love him". I would like to go with him but I don't want to change his attitude and you don't have to change it to go with him.
What is so difficult to understand? He is poly and stands for open relationships, if I don't want it, I leave it, just as I can't force a mono companion to share me with another.
His ending isn't bad, he's waiting for us, maybe we'll get an ending where we can go with him, but it doesn't have to be that way, after everything I had to read and am still reading...

Edit: I can't understand why Halsin should be quiet when we're with the twins, he only asks once, it's a brothel, so we don't have to be in a relationship. The reactions of people here are sometimes more than exaggerated, it's still just a game and not real life. He asks once completely independently of your relationship, Gale then has no problem, even if you said no and therefore don't have a relationship with him, it's random and bearable, it's a question in a brothel and you want to hook up with twins, please! Nothing needs to be removed, are there moral guardians here or what?

Sorry to come on the other side of this argument, and I do want to try and phrase things so that they don't come across as offensive, so please bear with me for a bit. Lets start off with good representation of messy SA survivors: Astarion. His writers actually researched and consulted and put in a lot of work to make his complicated, messy reactions be something authentic and real. I do not think Halsin is a depiction of a messy survivor. I think it's just fetishization. I don't think they intentionally wrote him as having a complicated relationship with his trauma. I may be a bit presumptuous, but I think the only reason they added that was for titillation and humor. For me, the entire way the scene was handled does not feel respectful at all. The representation feels practically like an accident that happened while someone was making a fetishy joke. It is for this reason that I do not consider Halsin to be good representation, and for this reason that I would much rather it be removed. I'm so tired of male victims being a joke. I think that the game already did a really good job with the representation of a messy victim with Astarion- and a male victim, at that!- and because of how the writing has been handled so far, I do not currently trust the writer of Halsin to put in the work to do it correctly. I'd love to see more representation like you describe, but I just don't have faith in it for this particular character in this particular game.

Again, I do apologize if this post comes off too strong. I tried to use a lot of "I feel" statements but if I've done a poor job at communicating this, let me know.

I have a separate thread specifically dedicated to this issue in the Feedback forum, if you're interested: Criticism for Halsin's Drow Backstory

It's obvious that if he doesn't do/say anything with SH and Astarion, he's "mono". I see where this is going, because “homophobic” or “Astarion’s trauma” whatever, should be a reason why it can't work with these companions...
Well, the authors can still learn something from the "fans" here, the people seem to know Larian's character better than Larian himself...

Edit: Of course these two companions wouldn't fit when it comes to polygamy, how many times have I had to read that, people seem to want to have history rewritten in their favor, despite the fact that the game was published, people especially love it on social media and Larian has definitely chosen these two companions. I'm assuming Larian knows this.

Now you interpret and experience this differently and that is fine. If you like Halsin and enjoy these interactions I don't want to take any of that away from you, have your fill, you are not in my game and I am not in yours. I don't need him to be re-written because he is a non-issue to people like me who don't like him, we can just avoid him. It's sad for people who do like him, or did like him and campaigned for him, because I feel that some of the things the writer did ruined him for them.

I'm polite and he doesn't try all the time, once in a brothel, again in a brothel, with twins, a man, a woman and he only asks once, say no, that's it.