Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Problems with Halsin's character, advances, LI and general character interactions, etc.

All of these cases are different than Minthara, for one reason.

Halsin has been very clear that his one and only redline is DO NOT FUCK WITH THE GROVE. If you do not fuck with the Grove, he can put up with a LOT. If you do fuck with the Grove, he will hunt you down and kill you.

Shadowheart is a Sharran (and there actually is a way to have a discussion about this if you do an SH Origin run). HOWEVER, the first time Halsin met her, she rescued him and the Grove. Therefore, he was able to see her capacity for good- by protecting the thing that mattered to him most.

Having casual sex with someone is a lot different than trusting someone who tried to murder you and everyone you cared about not to do so again. We also know the twins' affiliations. The woman was never Lolth-sworn as she has no red eyes. The man had them but likely switched allegiances when they defected from the Underdark. Also, they did not ever try to fuck with the Grove.

Kagha admittedly imperiled the Grove (in a deeply wrong attempt to help it)- but demoting her instead of exiling her (which even then, he will do it if she causes Arabella's death with Arabella's parents being dead, and in the path where her parents live but Arabella doesn't, there's very subtle implications he knew they wanted to poison her) punished her even worse since she couldn't make herself a martyr, couldn't contact the Shadow Druids again, and had to face shame/social stigma as a punishment. Also, he knew Kagha before she went crazy, so he knew she was capable of doing better.

Ketheric, Halsin lowkey blames himself for (even with the removal of the EA plot thread where Halsin killed Isobel); in full release thinking it was his fault for not being able to stop him sooner. He knew that before the Shadow Curse, Ketheric was a loving husband and worshipper of Selune. There was at one point a capacity for good in him.

Minthara? Halsin's first introduction to her is her having him tortured in bear form while trying to track down his Grove and murder everyone there. AND this ultimatum only happens when the Rite of Thorns is carried out, meaning that Halsin lost his home and loved ones forever because of Minthara. "But she was brainwashed!" Okay.

Halsin is 350 and was a sex slave as a "young Druid." Minthara's exact age isn't know, but she's somewhere between 225-300, because she was alive for the fall of House DeVir and was old enough to understand it but young enough that it left "quite an impression" on her. Halsin VERY likely was kidnapped while Minthara was a young adult from the most prominent Lolth-sworn house in the Underdark. He would have heard about the evil deeds she committed all the way back then. (Such as, you know... owning slaves. Something he barely escaped himself.) And notice that in the ultimatum, never once does Minthara actually apologize for what happened to him (because that's not who Minthara is). She doesn't even explicitly say she won't harm him; she says she "has no quarrel with" him. She turned from Lolth because Lolth rejected her first, not because she disagrees with literally anything Lolth says (she still supports slavery and the subjugation of men).

Do I think there are better alternatives than the ultimatum? Sure! I think in that case Halsin should just leave- you don't get to pick who stays. But if they really need there to be a player choice here, why not just have Halsin start to pack up his things, and then the player either has an option of saying they'll have Minthara leave instead if he'll just stay, or say "farewell, stay safe out there" to Halsin so that the ultimatum is strictly in the meta sense?

Halsin isn't doing this to punish Minthara; it's not out of spite/hatred/malice. It's fear. He says he feels he "has to weigh her freedom against [the player]'s." If the player chooses Minthara, he doesn't try to persuade them, and even says he HOPES he's wrong but can't stick around to find out. He is terrified that if he stays, he'll be murdered, and possibly his loved ones at the Grove too. Remember- Halsin has no tadpole. He can't found out Minthara's true intentions.

I get that sometimes, things get lost because it's a video game and we have meta-knowledge that can't be forgotten. That colors how we approach it. But while we know Minthara means Halsin no further harm, Halsin has no reason to think she has no intention of harming him, a surface elf she has already caused harm to before. Why is there no hate for Lae'zel and Shadowheart trying to murder each other in cold blood in the camp?

I will concede one point here, which is that yes, it isn't great that Halsin lets Minthara go, knowing she'll become a thrall for the Absolute. I think it would be cool if choosing to keep Halsin caused Minthara to aggro the player in sheer rage/desperation/possible suicide by cop- both because it would add more stakes in Halsin's* favor, which is needed, and because it would eliminate that issue.

*Keep in mind, again, that this ultimatum will only trigger if the Rite of Thorns is completed. Those are definitely stakes- but most people, even those who know about the ultimatum, don't seem to have connected those dots yet.

Sorry for the essay but I definitely have thoughts here.

Maybe the ultimatum could instead be a high persuasion check?


I can see Halsin really not being on board with Minthara, but it would make sense for him to trust Tav's judgemenrlt, however begrudgingly.

Halsin *is* very forgiving, but hes still firm and holds people accountable. The best example is Kahga, particularly if you save Arabella. He's still pissed, even I got a little intimidated when he scolded her. But he still gave her a second chance. Him being forgiving in this way is one of the resons I liked him so. I also like how he approves when you try to talk Ketheric down, but I see this as him more appreciating Tav trying a more nonviolent approach.

I don't know where you're even getting that from.
There's zero indication in-game that either of them heard of the other prior to Grove business. Even then, only Halsin heard of her name (likely from Goblin guards). If you play as Drow and refuse to kill Minthara (one of your own kin) for him, he goes on to rant about general racist stereotypes and sentiments about dark elves, not even remote hint of personal connection.

In release version of the game she only has one lead - Liam - young mercenary newbie currently tortured by Spike. Dialogues with Gut and Ragzlin show they distrust and dislike the drow and Gut's note she drops on death proves that they were, in fact, hiding that bear in cage was a druid as they were plotting against her (plot thread that went nowhere, ofc).

From Early access I can only recall the datamined line from her at the goblin party mentioning that the druid was sent to Moonrise (likely a reference to now cut/rewritten Ketheric vs Halsin plot), but there was no more to it. (I suspect in this scenario he could've been tadpoled? We'll never know)

Also let's not forget that it was Ketheric's idea to destroy the Grove, not Minthara's. He saw them as a potential threat, so he threatened Shadow Druids into submission, provided them with "gifts" (likely tadpoles) and used them for that plot with Kagha (so he'd win even if Minthara's attack fails). Letter "Taking the Groves Off the Table" at Moonrise confirms it. Minthara in Act 1 is pretty much a hyperbolized husk of her past self so Halsin blaming her yet telling us prior that "Innocents enter Moonrise, True Souls come out" is rather hypocritical and unfair. She has been wronged equally, if not more, by Ketheric, Orin and the rest of the cult. Imagine awaiting your inevitable brainwashing for days, while seeing your drow subordinates, who came with you there to destroy the cult, being either tadpoled or killed and processed for food.

Yeah, back Early Access days him and Wyll were my favorites, but the the rewrites came... Really gave that vibe of a wise, experienced mentor-like person who'd put reason above hate and violence.

Still sad to this day, Kagha never becomes a companion or a recurring ally. Honestly, always liked her personally, especially for that snake theme and when she legitimately repents for her actions (shows lots of character development for a one-off NPC). Even her hair gives her a viper silhouette.

Thissssss I like this Halsin. I havent recruited Minthara but I think I lean towards the ultimatum is un Halsin like.

I never got to experience EA Halsin, I wish I had. I liked him as soon as I rescued him tho. It really sucks he changes so drastically in Act 3.

I would say that as far as Halsin goes, you're not missing anything for not having been part of EA. I'm pretty sure all the Halsin stuff there is in the full release.

Wait a second, from what I know, Halsin doesnt even recognize Ketheric when we see a painting of him, but he knows about his past? Yeah, no, unless they changed that at some point in the patches.


All of this is headcanon. You can try to mask it as an educated guess, still it is headcanon and as such, it is irrelevant. I think AlexZebol explained it pretty well, so no need to further go down that path.


So we are talking about the grove that he leaves behind easily when the chance appears to lift the shadow curse. Let's face it: The most important thing for him isn't the grove but Reithwin and Thaniel. Ofc he cares for the grove, but using said place as the only reason for his decisions is a bit weak.
Beside that, he even went to the Selûne temple as he saw a chance of finding out more about the shadow curse instead of staying at the grove like a true leader would've done.
Correct me if I'm wrong and not sure if it is something in the game, but I remember him not even wanting to be a leader and that his subordinates and Halsin had trust issues. Might just be a discussion I once read, maybe someone can enlighten me on that topic.

About the whole brainwashing:
The same man who knows that the Tav (and all other origin companions) could end up as a thrall to the Absolute (wasn't it for the utterly bad Emperor plot armor) quickly judges Minthara to be guilty even after knowing she was brainwashed. If anything, its seems more of a personal agenda against Lolth Drows than anything else. Which is quite funny, because if you play a Lolth Drow he has no aversion having sex with. Why would Halsin trust the Tav then? (I know, otherwise it wouldn't work out that every Tav could have him, again, that's game features and not story.)
The whole ultimatum makes him just plain umsympathetic and racist ("Cruelty comes to Lolth' followers as naturally as breathing", "A viper cannot escape its true nature") and there is no way to talk good about that, especially not with headcanon.
DnD is about decision making, about seeing your chances, thinking out of the box and such, so at least ALLOW the Tav to roll instead of forcing a decision upon them. Every GM who acts like that would never be invited again if he limits the creativity of the players this way.


I really like it, too, that he is forgiving, but I wouldn't mind if he has his limits. A limit that shouldn't be Minthara, but more someone like Ketheric. He draws the line at civilization because of Silvanus but at the same time he is fine with letting Minthara go into what is basically her death at some point. Then why does he even care about Arabella if lives can be discarded so easily? Because it is a child? It's pretty contradicting for someone who claims that life is the most important thing. Especially in a situation where we need any possible ally (even if its for just using her, as cruel as that sounds.)
It's not about what Ketheric has been but it's about what he is, what he has done and what he represents now and subsequently what his plans (and that of his comrades) mean to the world.

As for the appreciation for the Tav trying to make a non violent approach, I think that is a valid point.


There are some huge differences as well as a lot of subtle changes. The most noticable is the complete rewrite of his background with Isobel.
So yes, there are lot of lines that aren't in the game anymore.

I think I'm going to agree with this. Halsin rejecting Minthara kind of doesnt fit his character, given the tadpole situation. Doesnt mean hes okay with her, there can still be distrust and stuff there. Look at SH and Lae'zel.

Ketheric too, but Ketheric doesnt get saved, as it should be. Tav trying to talk him down and Halsin approving is more about Halsin seeing that Tav is a good person, and makes attempts to solve things peacefully, even when he may not choose to do so. My headcannon is that hes been watching all of Tavs good deeds so far and thats why he starts to catch feels.

Forgiveness doesnt mean absolution of your crimes, which is why his scolding and punishment of Kagha is so appropriate, especially if you redeem her. Though I wish we could talk to her a little and give her some words of encouragement, I would need something like that if Halsin yelled at me the way he did her. But it was necesary. So him having a forgiveness limit, to me, is intuitively obvious. Which is why he should really begrudgingly take in Minthara, and not completely reject her. Like maybe hes thinking "Shit, Tav is right, I cant just let the poor woman go out there and die."

For me the issue isn’t that the first Act is missing anything from EA (the datamined stuff was never in EA and who knows if it would be good or not) but instead how his romance doesn’t follow the serious nature of his character in EA. Instead they gave him a nonserious meme romance that was seen as a side fling to an origin character romance. The added epilogue content helps, but to me he is still missing the option of a serious romance path for the rest of his romance.

This

I have that user muted. Even if it is "just headcanon" (very convenient dismissal), the fact is still that while he was a sex slave in the Underdark, he would have heard about the most prominent noble House in the entire Underdark and would know what their deeds were. Like, say. Owning slaves. Like himself. Minthara has literal in-game lines about "my Duergar slaves."


So speaking of headcanon... What you just said is a headcanon.
The Grove, which he left because he never had an interest in leadership and because he recognized that the best way he could help it was to save it from the Absolute, is the most important thing to Halsin as of acts 1 and 2 before breaking the Curse. He even says in act 3 that when they left, he intended to return to the Grove- deciding that he wasn't coming back happened later. He says, specifically, "the Grove is everything to me." He never says anything equivalent to "these lands/Reithwin are everything to me." Even at the end when he is the happiest he's been and clearly considers it his home. They have become extremely important to him by then, of course, but there's more evidence for the Grove being most important to him in acts 1 and 2 than there is for Reithwin.
You can care about a place and have zero interest in leading it. Case in point: I love my city. I also have less than zero interest in becoming the mayor, and in fact, if forced into such a role, I would grow immensely resentful.


1. He knows who she is without the brainwashing. 2. Minthara never showed that she can be good. The rest of the party did by helping the Grove and saving his life when there was nothing at all in it for them. She never even expresses sympathy for what he went through.
As for him sleeping with Lolth Tavs, that's a clear case of player privilege- just like how Astarion hates gnomes but says nothing to a gnome Tav. And again, Tav showed they were trustworthy, while Minthara has done the opposite, by getting his home, friends, and place of worship sealed away from him forever.
Also, it's the Lolth part he hates, not the Drow part- he shows no problem with Seldarine Drow. It's not racist to say that worshippers of an evil god are evil, unless you also want to say it's racist to say Bhaalists are evil, which would be a fascinating argument.
The viper comment is referring to Minthara herself, not Drow broadly. It would be better if he framed it as won't instead of can't- Minthara won't escape her nature because she is a terrible person and has no interest in being anything else- but that's neither here nor there.
Baldur's Gate games have ALWAYS included incompatible sets of characters. In the first two games, evil and good characters would regularly refuse to join the party if the other alignment was there. Just because you're the main character doesn't mean every single character is required to treat you as such. And really, you think DMs have a duty to their players to never let their choices drive an NPC away?


Of course the limit should be Minthara, who got the place he lived in for over 150 years sealed away from him for good. (Again- this only plays when the Rite of Thorns happens.) Losing your home is no small thing. If someone in our world entered some kind of fugue state and started a wildfire that burned my house down, I would still never want to see them again.

Those two things aren't related. "Hates civilization but also doesn't want to work with the person who cost him the sacred ground of his god which was also his home." Yes. Those things are not contradictory.
There is a huge difference between Arabella (an innocent child) and Minthara (owns slaves, got Halsin's home taken away from him [even if brainwashed], only stopped worshipping Lolth because Lolth discarded her first). A huge difference. If anything, Halsin being unwilling to include Minthara (who openly wishes to enslave the refugees in Baldur's Gate) in his plans for a peaceful world shows just how much he cherishes it, because by definition, a refuge cannot shelter someone who thinks those who live there should be enslaved.
Halsin never once claimed "life" is the most important thing, and ascribing that as a value of Halsin's is a bad misread of what Druids believe (which happens a lot in this fandom judging by the comments calling Halsin a tree-hugging hippy). What he believes is that nature and balance between nature and human(oid)s is most important. Druids can and do kill those who threaten nature, which even Minthara herself alludes to in the reviled ultimatum.
Halsin DOES about people, yes, and protecting the innocent. (The best way to protect the innocent, for the record, is by not allowing Minthara anywhere near them.) But that doesn't mean his priority is individual lives. He'd let individual organisms die for the sake of the ecosystem. Those Druidic beliefs are also why he's so consistent on his philosophy that self-defense is an absolute right- he doesn't blame the player if they order Yenna's death mistaking her for Orin, even, and says the trap was of Orin's making. If his priority was life above all else, he would blame the player for it. Instead, he sees self-defense as an inherent right because he knows every living being has a survival instinct, and in a "them or me" situation it's reasonable to choose "me".
(Which is also why he's choosing to cast Minthara out here. Because he still believes her to be a threat to him. Which he says. Multiple times. "I truly hope I am proven wrong, but I cannot remain in order to find out" is one such example. He wants her to be better than he thought- but he is too afraid to remain in either case.)

It also feels like a joke if you play origin Karlach and romance him.
He doesn't go to Avernus with her, but promises to look for anything that could help her with her engine. What happens in epilogue? He was chilling with kids the whole time and couldn't be bothered. John did really ruin his character with his bloody rewrites, turning otherwise (in EA) serious and mature character into a horny freak. And that Drow dialogue in Act 3? Completely out of the blue and doesn't lead nowhere. Johnny boy ruined Beast in D:OS2, mischaracterized Shadowheart in Act 3 and did that to Halsin - how he is still allowed to do this is beyond me.

What does "muh irredeemable evil" Minthara do in the meantime? She bloody weeps and begs Karlach not to waste her life like that, if she decides to stay in Faerun and die. Otherwise, despite her supposed ambition for power, she volunteers to venture to Avernus to kick Zariel's butt with or without Karlach, risking her life for someone she truly loves. Curious isn't it? (I honestly refuse to categorize her as "evil". Much like BG2's Viconia she has all the chances to switch alignment to lawful neutral given the proper choices and companion quest)

What John did to SH is tied to Halsin, just couldn't help himself I guess. Otherwise she is pretty good story/romance.

Blocked me on Twitter, Tumblr and even here. Why am I not surprised you had me muted here knowing full well I'd be critical of your takes? To think, I though people came to forums to engage in discussion, not ignoring it.
It's not a "very convenient dismissal" given the nature of your actual fanfic where that "thread" is touched upon. Nothing alike is even implied in game.

I'd suspect most of Baenre House assets are owned by the house itself, or, say, matron and, by in-game's implication, Mithara's mother - Quenthel Baenre. Slaves are never referred by Minthara, however, aside her speech of using refugees in Rivington so they'd work for food/housing/security, however, her house obviously owns a lot of them. Say, her unique Act 1's mace "Xyanyde" was forged by said duegar slaves as description implies: "Cast deep in the Underdark by duergar slaves, the head of this mace is engraved with spiderwebs. It is ice-cold to the touch."

Slavery is a normal practice in Menzoberranzan. Not really a vile act in the context of a drow society. She, herself, didn't do all that much to earn any infamy, however.


Her initial goal for coming to surface was to destroy the cult at the Moonrise for sacrilege against Lolth (they sent True Soul and couple of cultists to spread their faith at Menzo). Regardless of Lolth's nature, it was a rather honorable act. Ketheric and Orin tricked her, using her (and pretty much any drow's) weakness - ambition. Fact she's a paladin of vengeance, oath which tenets don't really go well with evil alignment also very much indicate she's capable of being if not good, neutral at least.


Rite of Thorns is Shadow Druid's fault, which was part of Ketheric's conspiracy. If it happens, Minthara fails her mission. She didn't cause it, not even remotely.

Also spoke to person who datamined that ultimatum, given the scripting, it ought to happen in all scenarios, not only when Grove is sealed.

She was written by a different writer, however. Everything that's good about her isn't even John's work.
He likely only made some "finishing touches" for Act 3.

Like "climb mountain Halsin" cringe. Or that "God's favorite princess and a gatekeeper" from epilogue.

Don't know about you, but to me all of it feels very out of character for her.

W8 what? I thought he wrote her fully... Well that might explain a lot, if thats the truth.

Ofc her act3 reactions are cringe and feels OOC. They should've at least split her on Shar/Selune paths.

Excuse me for butting into this discussion, but where does she say this? As someone who's played with Minthara several times, I've never heard it before. Since you have a very strong opinion built upon this, would you also kindly provide the source? Thanks in advance :3

Nope, he didn't. Whatever's wrong with her in Act 3 - he's the culprit. A shame, really.

Who wrote her mind you sharing? Very curious.