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.

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.)