I personally have hinderance with how Astrarion�s evil romance is handled because of my own world experiences and personal issues, it physically and mentally repulses me. But again, like this dialogue between Halsin and SH, it is entirely, totally avoidable and is on the player character if they continue to interact with it. I literally reloaded to a previous save state to avoid the romance scene after Astarion became ascended because it made me uncomfortable. I had no idea what was going to happen, encountered it once and then decided that I never wanted to interact with it again. Should I go around telling people who do enjoy this specific side of his romance that is �problematic�? No, because fiction and media is designed to explore this stuff.


Now, for Halsin himself, I could be paraphrasing here as my memory of interacting with him is a little fuzzy because I haven�t played in a while (so correct me if I am wrong), but the only unavoidable dialogue I can genuinely think of with him is Halsin confessing that he has physical feelings for you once back at camp, which you are free to turn down. I don�t recall him ever bringing it up again, and I avoided the whole SH and Halsin debacle because I never interacted with the drow twins bar once and then never again (again, avoiding content I don�t want to interact with). Does my option of SH and Halsin tank for this scene even existing? No.


Could Halsin have been handled more adeptly with his specific background and subject matter that it is attempting to explore? Yes (I think EA Halsin was miles better than what we got on release). Is him making advances towards Tav, even if unwarranted and completely out of left field, odd? I would argue that no, it�s not, because you have the agency to turn him down. Just as people have the agency to avoid this specific dialogue that seems to be a weird mix of folks having problems with Halsin�s character and then another crowd who take issue with the fact that SH can have the hots for someone else when they themselves are attempting to initiate intimacy with two drow.

The point of SH being into Halsin in the background even if you don�t trigger the brothel dialogue is a level of mental gymnastics that I myself could apply to Astarion�s evil romance (or evil route in general) again as an example of an action a companion would like to take but wont unless initiated by the player. Is this out of character for Shadowheart? Again I would argue no simply because of her Sharran background and her being upfront about being appreciative of other companions (Karlach for example).

I feel we are approaching Bioware levels of discourse over this topic.