Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Halsin's motivation

It manly comes down to him not respecting the no.


Act 2:

Halsin accuses you of treating him like a lover when all you did was try to get to know him at camp.

That’s classic “nice guy” 101 tactics accusing you of leading them on.

Act 3:

You tell him you’re not interested in him yet he will still flirt with your LI.



Halsin and Shadowheart become overly flirty / horny for each other he talks about consent yet ignores the fact Tav has made it clear they aren’t attracted to him and they don’t want a poly relationship so him flirting and hinting at a 3 some with Tav / Shadowheart is wrong.



When you go to the brothel he invites himself into the foursome after being rejected twice beforehand.



Then you’ll get the Halsin and Shadowheart disapproves message so it comes across as them not caring about Tav consent.

That is another “nice guy” tactic Coercion:

Tav already said they aren’t interested in him and aren’t poly so now he and shadowheart are trying to pressure Tav/ player into something they’re not comfortable with.


Shadowheart isn’t innocent she’s just as guilty for not caring about Tavs consent.

It doesn’t help that Halsin is basically a sex meme.

Larain really f up with the disapproval message at the brothel as this is about consent so someone disapproves you not consenting to something you’re not comfortable with is just plain wrong.

Kinda off topic

Larain should give us an option to talk to Shadowheart regarding this so you can either lock into a mono or poly relationship with her or at the very least allow us to romance a monogamous character after breaking up with her in act3 so the player isn’t forced into this poly relationship if you don’t want it.

I’d like to add that at the Brothel scene, Halsin’s whole spiel about the importance of Tav’s partner’s consent goes out the window.

Like previously mentioned, Halsin simply invites himself regardless of whether or not he was rejected (either outright or because the partner in question is monogamous).

Halsin doesn’t ask for the monogamous partner’s permission to have the foursome with Tav at all, nor does he bring up asking for the partner’s permission first if they’ve been left at camp.

Furthermore, after all is said and done, there’s no repercussions or discussions for Tav and their partner’s relationship afterwards. It’s like it’s all swept under the rug.

This, combined with what the previous post stated, really doesn't cast Halsin’s behaviour in a favourable light.

Now I know that this probably wasn’t the writers intentions with Halsin, but it’s like Pandora’s box in that once the unfavourable things come out, they’re basically impossible to put back in.

He does ask rather courteously and you can accept or decline, so Tav's consent is still there (Though in regards to Gale's consent, I find the entire writing very disturbing as it basically makes a joke out of someone's boundaries and inhibitions to sex, which is in really poor taste in my opinion. But Halsin is only a part of the problem here as it is Tav that coerces and pushes Gale into accepting it in the first place.).

The disapproval if you decline is something which a lot of people have strong opinions about and I understand and respect how people may feel that it is rubbing it in your face. I don't pay it that much attention as there are a lot of places in the game where the disapproval or approval can feel out of place depending on your headcanon and where the game coding can't read the intentions or tone you had in mind when making the decision. There are a lot of ways to interpret the dynamics of what is going on there, and depending on your interpretation, the disapproval can feel warranted or out of place.

I think Milsonwheels95 means that Halsin will still participate in the orgy if the player's monogamous partner is at camp, and don't even know the orgy is going to happen. I did some quick testing (so I may have missed some variations) and found that the Drow twins did not agree to the group scene if my character's partner wasn't present, so Halsin didn't ask if he could join too.

HOWEVER there was an exception to this. If Astarion was in the party (I was not partnered with him), the Drow twins would invite Astarion. Astarion agreed, and if the player agreed to that, then Halsin asked if he could join. So in that particular circumstance, Halsin does not care if the player cheats on their partner with him. I'm hoping this was just a programming oversight (since in his confession scene he says he wants their consent), but it is something that can happen in game.

Oh, I didn't even know it was possible to initiate the orgy if your romanced partner was not there.

That's crazy and either Halsin must have been replaced with a doppelganger or he is just a rotten bag of dicks (along with Tav and Astarion too ofc, but Tav is up to the player if they want to play as a decent person or not and Astarion is kind of expected).

Lae'zel and Minthara should definitely break up with Tav over that and severed dicks would not be entirely out of character either. That drow scene is such a mess. Sure, it's all probably meant as a joke, but destroying the image of a likeable character for some cheap jokes is pretty bad in my opinion.

I mean, it sounds like Halsin had every reason to assume the player had their partner's consent if the player and Astarion were already planning on having an orgy. It wasn't the factually correct assumption, but it was hardly a wild leap of logic to take. What's the alternative? Halsin sees a friend ready to have sex and goes "wooooah there buddy, are you sure you're not cheating on your partner?" Dude, that would be the biggest asshole move EVER.


Honestly, that just sounds like a euphemism for "I'm looking for excuses to hate the guy." The writers didn't open Pandora's Box- the portion of the fanbase that feels possessive over pixels did.

The kisses? The romance scene? His adoption of a lot of orphans? His calling out about how much capitalism sucks? That adds up to four.

It's odd that he would assume it there when he is very adamant that there is explicit consent from your partner in the earlier scene. I would chalk it up to the scripting and depth of that scene not being very thorough. The complete lack of reactivity from your romanced partner that you went behind their back suggests that they didn't bother thinking too hard about consistency and consequences in this scene.

If my friend was in a monogamous relationship with someone and about to do something that would really upset and hurt their partner, I would 100% call them out on it and I would certainly not want to be complicit in it. I really don't see where that makes me the asshole.


This is what I would rather assume. With it requiring utilising specific flaws in the scripting to set up the situation, I think you would need malicious intent to go through all that just to point a finger at Halsin saying how awful he is. As I said, I find Halsin generally likeable, there's just a few places where they have made some mistakes with the scripting and writing, and if you go out of your way to find them, it makes him look very out of character. Rather than seeing these things as canon and finding some warped logic to defend them, I would just assume they are attempts at jokes or glitches and avoid them.

The thing is, the player and Astarion weren't planning on having an orgy in advance. The player tries to have a threesome with the twins, the twins say only if there's another person and request Astarion, if he's in the party. Astarion's dialogue makes it clear that they had not previously planned it, and it was spur of the moment. I think assuming the player had already discussed it with their partner would be naive, and Halsin is supposed to be wise.

Considering being wise and caring about the partner's consent are already established for Halsin, I'm inclined to believe him asking to join is a programming oversight, as I mentioned it might be in my earlier post. It's a specific set of variables and could easily have been missed in testing.

I think a lot of the brothel stuff is poorly thought out/implemented, and I try to not let it impact my views of the characters too much. It is in the game though, so unless Larian fixes/changes it, I can't blame people when it does impact their perception of the characters.