I want to show my support for all Minthara fans, I think Minthara is the most interesting, undiscovered and undeservedly overlooked female character in the game. How much better and more appealing she is as a friend and companion compared to the horny Halsin justifies even having to destroy the druid grove for the sake of it. But personally, I'm excited about the possibility of attaching her by knockout method, since the animals are pitiful, and Orin needs to be given some kind of bear-shaped rattle to walk around in peace in the third act and not worry about anything. Though if they implement a variant where Halsin finally blatantly shows all his shitty "good and noble druid" nature and demands Minthara be kicked out, then I could finally kick his ass in a storyline-driven, roleplay-aware way without any metagame.
Also, after reading this thread, I learned how deep and beautiful her romance line is, and I would like to reveal Minthara from that side as well in the Astarion origin walkthrough, and I sincerely wish that by now, the developers will finally give proper attention to this beautiful and deep romance (just not attention like our Astarion romance, please, I mean normal, human attention).
Of course. As with any new implementation, bugs are bound to follow, but their inability to fix her bugs in a timely manner, to prevent these bugs from even appearing, and seemingly ignoring them for months is a completely separate issue.
To be honest, it amazes me how "attentive" the developers are not only to the wishes of the players, but also to fixing real bugs and errors. At the same time they don't forget to add some nonsense that nobody asked for, or fix something that was better before and didn't need fixing. Ignoring Minthara's mistakes on the background of adding unimportant content to "kind" companions, while the players themselves write to the developers about all these problems in detail - just read and do, you don't even need to test anything yourself, it's all done for you! This seems like a deliberate ignoring of the character and the players who love her.
That's kinda the thing for me though. Even if they massively rewrote the scene to narratively fit the scope of the game and the character, I would still not be in favor of Minthara trying to break up with the Dark Urge in any shape or form.
At best the only compromise I would be completely alright with is her potentially questioning our decision and lecturing us about it depending on how deep our bond is, as she has been doing so throughout the whole game when we make decisions which she does not entirely agree with. This I can totally see happening and would even welcome, as it would give us an opportunity to explore her way of thinking even further (this is even mentioned in my raw feedback post to have her react to Dark Urge's fate).
But breaking up over a personal quest regarding our own eternal fate, after everything we did for her? Just no.
Regarding the scene where Minthara breaks up with the DU - I see it, frankly, as a specific intentional insult to the player, by breaking the plot, completely disregarding Mintara's character and her relationship with the DU. And also a bit of deja vu... It feels like someone somewhere has an unhealthy predilection for "showcasing toxic relationships" (or rather, dragging "toxicity" into deep and sincere monogamous relationships with "evil" companions without any correlation to the plot).
It feels like we are left with no freedom of choice. There is "evil" and wrong unhealthy deep monogamous relationships ("ew, don't touch her/him, now quickly realize your moral failings, accept the "catharsis of separation" and do things the "right" way, like those for whom we are not sorry to add normal content"). And "goodness" and "healthy free relationships" with bears, illithids, incubus/succubus, brothels, threesomes, and other delightful joys of life for the beautiful and infallible hero who brings light and the joy of fixing all living things in their path. Honestly, in no game yet has "goodness" been shown/imposed with such force to cause such deep disgust.
I wish Minty the best, decent treatment, fixing what needs fixing, and adding those scenes that fit the character!
