Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion I love Halsin SO much

He's a gorgeous character, inside and out. I love the subtleties to his story- how much he hates being a leader and wants anything else, how he's out of place and looking for a family/loved ones as he's lost his family of origin, how he's so kind and gentle and loving. And this is unpopular I know, but I love that he's so horny. We need more sex-positive, non-traditional characters. I love that he's strong, and brilliant (being considered one of the best healers in the land) but he also likes to fuck, shamelessly. I love that he's aggressively healthy in a game where all of the other characters have hangups that affect their relationships. After all he went through, it takes courage to be kind to others, yet he goes out of his way to advocate for the helpless. I love that in the end, Halsin, who says and/or implies several times that he wants children, gets to be the one taking care of countless orphans who adore him and call him Daddy Halsin. It's just really beautiful and... thank you for this character, Larian.

Another for the Halsin fanclub! We don't keep much alcohol around, but there's a wide selection of herbal teas and all-natural trail mixes. Plus some climbing equipment in the corner. Welcome!

Thank you! The only Halsin thread I could find was overwhelmingly negative, so I thought we could use a space for positivity and such here, because the problems I have with the writing are tiny in comparison to how much I adore this character. He really resonates with me.

One underappreciated part of his character is that he shows, really beautifully, that not everyone should be, wants to be, or is meant to be a leader. He is utterly miserable as Archdruid (which is why he jumps at every chance he gets to do ANYTHING else), he was never taught properly how to lead (which is why he makes so many mistakes), and the entire thing was intimately tied with his traumatic memories of the Shadow Curse, since that's how he became Archdruid to begin with. He sounds downright thrilled when he gets an update from Francesca, stating that the Grove is thriving- because that's the permission he's been looking for. You can almost see the switch flip in his dialogue as he stops planning to return to the Grove, and instead wonders what he'll do after this is all over, with his destiny free, because in that moment, he has made up his mind. He's finally free of that obligation now that a worthy successor has been found and he is free now to do all the things he's been holding back on when the Grove needed him.

THAT is why I will defend his ending all day, with my only complaint being that we need a way for the player to join him. I can't think of a better ending for Halsin than getting to care for helpless orphans who need and love him, free to forge his own way of helping that doesn't involve the entire commune's problems falling squarely on his shoulders and bound by the narrow rules of the Druidic traditions to boot.

Well, the main Halsin's thread is not filled with so much negativity: we truly love Halsin, we love his bright sides, but yes, we also critisize some things we see as poor writing, for example. For many Halsin is a perfect love interest. He desperately needs an epilogue with Tav, that's for sure.

It's true that the other active Halsin thread was started mainly as a critique of his romance path, and given that framing understandably focuses on specific elements of his character and of his romance, and one element in particular. It's also valid to start up another thread that has a broader and more positive focus.

I'll just jump in early with an appeal to folk to not tread the same ground here as already covered in https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=918913, which remains open for discussion of the specific topics raised there. Not that anyone has done that yet, so apologies for my possibly unwarranted pessimism

I agree 100%, OP.

He wouldn't even be a companion without gamer demand in EA. Nor would there be 77 pages of feedback about one specific part of his story if many people did not completely agree!

I agree with all of this except: He is not healthy in terms of trauma and as poly representation. And it's so sad, because he could have been so great. If they had just kept him being wholesome in all areas, he would have been a non issue.

But Beast, who was written by the same author, was awesome after he got a full overhaul in DOS2, so I am truly hoping for the same here.

Can we make for a healthy bear to remain healthy in all areas?

It's funny that you bring up 'written by the same' writer, because within BG III itself the same writer wrote the incredible Shadowheart, with her layered story, and Halsin, an execrable bit of fanservice for horny people online.

This constant “healthy” because he prefers open relationships. Long live the author of these two characters and everyone else from Larian.

Appreciate so much how fatherhood is a core journey for this character. And it doesn't rely on the player character having kids. There doesn't have to be conversations or rp of a pregnancy. He doesn't need to ask the player character how they feel about him adopting kids. How his character is handled, in every way, it's cleverly dodging the issue of a partner providing kids for him to have a family again.

In his recruitment his bear form is immediately shown to be out of control and dangerous to the goblin kids: he will slaughter the whole place to protect his druid grove in papa bear mode. He begs player character to stop the kids from throwing rocks, his blood is murderous.

That thread is picked up again if he's there's a callback to this theme: Orin acts out the monstrous version of him as a
His healing parallel with Thaniel and nature.

And his end with wagon full of orphans! Since he himself has been orphaned in his old age, having no living family and being the last of his line, him rebuilding this home for refugees is wonderful. Going with these kids to try out his new confidence in his leadership (after seeing the hellhole of how Baldur's Gate is run) is an amazing arc for him from having shaky confidence, being distracted and desperate to heal, being buried under the weight of responsibility, to him grasping for this responsibility to community. HE'S JUST SOOOO *shaking him in my teeth*

I really appreciate having a guy in his midlife who's always wanted a family, but who has always been forced to have work come first, get his family. He gets his kiddos, he gets his home back, he gets his best friend. And he steps into a midlife of fatherhood without me the player having to choose a specific biology for my character to tell this story. I can't gush enough about how much I appreciate that choice on the writers' part.

ALSO I feel SO LUCKY to be in Halsin fandom because WE HAVE DAVE JONES!!! Every time he clocks into social media to give us more Halsin, it's S-tier content. It's a delicious meal he serves up that rewards Halsin lovers for the fan creations. I love the extra clips of Dave giving us more Halsin voice! I'm so grateful. Dave is confident in delivering the goods of this character for those of us who adore and want more of him. He's the number one Halsin lover, he loves the character so much, it's a million warm cozy feelings to see Halsin's character get such celebratory attention from his va. Treasuring him

I spent like all last night watching Halsin kick ass and take names and it was pretty damn entertaining! So I fell down a Twitch rabbit hole past few weeks, totally new thing for me, like I only hopped the train just cause I was having fun hearing about the BG3 actors playing the game, but then I also slid into Annieonetoo's stream (I think Jay Britton sent us there the one time, must have been) but anyway, she had Halsin rocking so hard in the second Act!

It was encouraging cause I think he's got some definite charm and in all my runs so far he was pretty much relegated to the camp lol. I led with Durge right out the gate for full release, cause it's more classic BG for me that way (I did my first ever run in BG1 with Monty, Xzar, Viconia, Viconia on the team (rotating Kagain, Eldoth and Faldorn), just playing a total villains back in 1998, so for me that's the true BG nostalgia hehe) But I also got deep love for all things Druidic.

It's always been my favorite class in D&D, and it's fun to see the mechanics in the newer editions compared to the oldschool Druidic stuff. I still thumb through all those old handbook source books from time to time. Anyhow, I was really excited that we had such a strong showing at the Emerald Grove in BG3, which felt like was a bit of justice for the short shrift the BG2 stronghold questline got way back when. I'm not at all disappointed that we have 2 Elf druids in this game. I kinda wish we had 3 honestly, cause Kagha I think would make a excellent Druidic Avenger! And she'd slot in with the villains pretty well in the Shadowfell, but I thought Halsin was a great hook. The Performance was excellent and he does a lot of heavy lifting for the plot of the early game, which is still my favorite. Halsin kinda lays the foundation for what's cracking off in the second Act as well, and he doesn't have the tadpole so a bit of a touchstone there. I also really enjoyed watching the stream where Neil Newbon and Dave Jones played and talked shop. Since this thread is more pump up the guns and general I guess we can stick some links and images right?

Some Act II spoilers in that vid



And then the interview with Dan Allen was really fun too...




Then just yesterday I had that Orin scene mentioned above with Halsin! And it was fantastic haha. I grabbed a screen, but sadly I just noticed the imgBB's server is down, which means that pretty every image I've ever posted to these boards over the past 3 years just got a busted link. Bound to happen I guess. Hopefully its restored at some point. This is always an issue with 3rd party image hosting for forums. It'd be great if we could attach webp images to the larian boards directly. I wonder if we can at least link from the BG3 wiki archive. I'll probably have to just use images there for now till I can find a more reliable host. For me it's always fun to add some visuals into the mix, which for me aids in communication, since my brain is so backwards and typing can be tough hehe.

Anyway lets see if I can get this to work



hmmm no dice there I guess. Still doing the wrong encoding I think when using the image attachment button in the full post editor. I'm not still sure how to grab the bbcode for images to use them on these boards.

I did wonder which scene he was talking about in that interview - I guessed it was the Orin thing, but I wasn't sure. It was certainly intense!

I almost fixed the link for you, then worried it was an abuse of my moderator privileges, so I'll just say you can right click on the image in the wiki and choose "Copy link" then pop the result in img tags to get this:


Which gives ...

Haha fantastic! Yeah that works for sure!

Halsin's looking solid!

Right on! Least I can use the wiki and such then. I think the only reason I ended up using imgbb was cause imgur went down for a few days there when EA first started so I just went with that other one. I guess maybe I was just doing it wrong the whole time? Crazy lol. Thanks for tip! And the assist!

Given that this thread was created by a fan of Halsin, that “horny people online” comment comes across as dismissive and insulting. People are welcome to criticise Halsin as a character (though it does feel a bit mean to do that in a thread specifically created to reflect on his positive aspects) but it’s not okay to be rude about his fans.

I note this isn’t the first time you’ve made a comment like this, but let’s make it the last.

I am really excited about the datamined new content Halsin is getting. I like to see Halsin being firm about setting a boundary- he won't stay where Minthara is because he doesn't feel safe. Halsin has a right to that, and more, and it makes me happy to see.

Just popping in to say my favorite thing about Halsin are his eyes. They seem to be so full of sorrow, yet also full of kindness. (Also the way light reflects off of them in moonlight)

I hope Larian gives us some tender/emotional moments with him in the future.

He has such beautiful eyes, doesn't he? And so expressive. I love watching them as he speaks.

I've been wondering if this is just for the "sheep" workaround people are using, or if they are normalizing the initial recruiting of both? I agree that the boundary setting is excellent to include. There's no way Halsin would be chill working on a team with someone who was in charge of destroying his home.

For those who haven't watched the Dan Allen interview above, I recommend it. He comes off as a humble, down to earth guy.