The Sharess' Caress stuff makes me very uncomfortable. I posted about it on the "Justice for Gale" thread, but I'm specifically focusing on Halsin’s characterization here. I was really happy to see there were changes to Gale's scene in the patch notes, but I personally thought the continuation of the scene (if Halsin is in the party) was the most overtly problematic part, and that part hasn't changed.

Halsin inviting himself, especially if the player has already rejected his advances, can make people uncomfortable. I understand that they want to give players the choice here, but I believe Halsin had already expressed interest in the twins, so the player could just invite him without another prompt.

Gale "agrees" to Halsin participating with the line, "Well I suppose it would do no good to back out now. Let us begin this little anthropological study, if we must." The first part makes it sound like he feels he can't back out. Calling it an “anthropological study” makes it sound like he’s trying to emotionally distance himself, and the "if we must" is makes it clear that it isn’t something he wants. If that was supposed to portray enthusiastic consent, then it failed massively. Every part of that sentence expresses discomfort. If it was supposed to show Gale felt coerced, then we move onto the problem with the framing.

Halsin is pretty consistently portrayed as good aligned. He can end the game caring for orphans, and that's framed as wholesome. If the player agrees to romance him when they already have a partner, he explicitly says he needs the other partner's consent. A good person, who cares about enthusiastic consent, should not participate in a sexual situation with someone who is so clearly uncomfortable and unenthusiastic, but Halsin doesn't bat an eye at Gale's response. He's not concerned about Gale when Gale flees the situation, and just complains that the projection Gale leaves behind is "no equal to nature's true creation." Larian wouldn’t deliberately write Halsin as a sexual predator here and portray him as a good person for the rest of the game. That makes it seem like the writers didn’t see anything wrong with Halsin’s behaviour (or the player’s, for that matter). The inclusion of the projection (which is usually played for humour) makes it seem like it’s intended to be seen as funny. The scene accidentally plays sexual coercion as a joke.

I don’t have a problem with the game depicting evil acts, or giving the player evil options. There sexual coercion scene in act 2,
with Astarion
, and it is powerful. People praise it. The difference is, it’s framed as a violation, and there are consequences.

It’s strange to me that a companion that explicitly talks about the necessity of consent clearly doesn’t care about enthusiastic consent in this scene. I WANT Halsin to be a good example of someone who values enthusiastic consent. I enjoy him when he’s doing druid stuff. His introduction was funny. He has some interesting party banter. I hope Larian can iron out the things that are making people uncomfortable.