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 understand many are frustrated with the content of the Shadowheart and Halsin interactions. Everyone is entitled to this opinion and to discuss it. I also understand the frustration with the writing. Let's keep it focused on the writing itself, not the writer.

We have had other Halsin and Shadowheart threads like this one that are very long. I will say here what I have also said there months ago:
Please do not identify Larian employees by first and last names while also posting their socials and implying they are perverts or otherwise some variant of sexual deviant. While you may not intend anything harmful by this behavior, you do not know if someone will read your posts and engage in harassing behaviors toward Larian employees. While you may intend these posts as a matter of discussion, others may use it as justification to cause harm.

I think this forum stands out as one where critical comments are welcomed and that spirit of openness and tolerance has produced some of the best commentary on the game. And I'm glad that the new mods are continuing that spirit of tolerance. But there also come a point where one needs to ask if one too many warnings have been issued.

There is a statement that could be taken as a death threat in this thread, people have started using the name of a Larian author as a lighting rod for their ire and the last few pages of this thread are pretty grim. It really does feels like people are stirring themselves up.

I would vote to put the thread in a timeout box a while. The authors can create a new topic in a few weeks and try to avoid doing some of the things that lead to the demise of this thread like attacking authors, talking about stoning women to death and using words like shadowhore.

I want this to remain a forum where people can advocate for changes to the game and to say sharply critical things about the quality of the writing. But this thread is a pretty poor example of such.

Having reviewed the defamatory and threatening language in some of the earlier posts in this thread (including the posting of socials and a threat of violence), I am imposing a zero tolerance policy going forward on engaging in specific and hateful attacks against Larian staff. I will not be locking or banning anyone in this thread at this point, as I clearly was inadequately policing it and failed to issue an earlier warning. This is the warning I should have issued.

To EVERYONE who posted in this thread:
If I see you posting the names of Larian staff in a hateful manner or implying harmful things about Larian staff, or threatening Larian staff, you will be banned without warning. These are real people, and your actions here can do actual harm.

Man this website is old

I agree that last pages thread devolved quite a bit. However it was an obvious joke with "shadowwh*ore" from me.

But I wanted to know your opinion on that thing(unrelated to SH generally). Do you think it is normal, that mr. Halsin once declined with his offer(3rd option, "If I wanted to rut with half a tonne of dumb muscle, I'd seduce a deep rothe") continues to try even in brothel? Yes, you can decline him there again, but apparentely he doesn't care and the next time you visit there - he tries again(you can loop this interaction forever). Of course we can add there Halsin's banter proposing a threesome to SH/Tav later.

So you take him with you all the time and want that interaction? It just seems like a repetition of the dialogues, how should a mod answer you?

I personally haven't seen anyone defend Halsin asking to join in the brothel if he has already been told no, whether they love or hate Halsin. It's particularly out of place given his focus on consent both when proposing sex and during the elf sex scene.

I hope it's a messed up dialogue flag and not intended. Mostly because messed up things get fixed.

It's called "testing things" , because you expect reactivity and consistency. Besides, I've heard that he is "more than happy to remain just a friend".
I do hope that this is a bug too or an oversight. But it isn't fixed yet and makes poor impression on "consent king".
There are some, who defend these kind of interactions. Speaking of which, there they are: Edalee/Jansetlee

Must be, it just seems to be a constant repetition.

I didn't know about these repetitions and until now there was nothing in this thread, at least I hadn't read anything. Accusing me of something and associating me with other users doesn't help.

This thread evolved into a pretty decent discussion about Halsin's behavior and the issues he introduces into the writing of all related companions (and player character), not just SH. There are some very good posts here. There was also a suggestion to rename the thread so that the name reflects that. Maybe this could be done?

I second that request.

Don't think OP is here to rename the thread unfortunately

Maybe a mod or admin can do it. OP obviously just needed to vent and won't miss this thread.

Ok, I had no idea that people from Larian were checking these forums. In fact, I didn't even know they read this stuff (I'm new to the forum and have never commented this much before). I apologize in advance for including names in some comments (I've already deleted them). I say this because I do not endorse the violence included by the person who wrote this thread, and I think they should edit their post.

With that said, I would recommend to Larian, if they really want to solve the problem at its root, they should modify the behavior of Halsin and Shadowheart (or at least modify their flags), just as they had to do with a comment Halsin makes about people with SA. Because it's clear that this is a problem many found annoying and it ruined their game immersion (and I assure you more comments like this will keep coming).

There's a reason why some protagonists in these games are voiceless and interact with the world around them through dialogue options (like Joker in Persona 5 or the Hero of Ferelden in DAO), and it's so the player really feels like they are that character (this said by Larian themselves). And when you include themes that border on infidelity, people can take it even more personally than if Tav were a character who spoke (like Shepard).

You have to keep in mind that there are many people with different realities who will consume your product and can take this situation differently. People more sensitive than others who have actually suffered infidelities, people with OCD, lesbian women.

Now, if you ask me if I think Halsin's behavior is right (which auto-invites himself with the drow twins in the brothel when it should be the player who does it), or Shadowheart who flirts with Halsin while in a relationship with the player right after their romance scene in Act 3, I don't think so. These are issues that should have been approached with much more care due to the above reasons and not in such an insensitive way as the game does (especially when this revelation comes in Act 3 when the player has like 200 hours of gameplay).

I won't say the game should be boring and not include sexual humor. I laughed at the bear scene and I laughed at the emperor scene, but it should be done with a bit more care.

That's all I wanted to say. Again, I apologize for including names in previous comments, as I said I've already deleted them, and if I comment in this thread again, I won't do it anymore.

P.S.: Note that I was not the person who shared the author's social network, that comment I cannot delete.

Good post! I double it.

I think they read forums obviously, but I bet that sending feedback via https://larian.com/support/baldur-s-gate-3#modal or discord is also good while we discuss things there.

They either don't read it or just don't care lmao. This is one of the most discussed topics here as well as their Discord and in 6 months they still haven't changed anything. Larian is telling you they don't care if you don't like how her interactions with Halsin were written by choosing to ignore this feedback while implementing countless other things for other characters in the meantime. You either ignore it as the out of character fanservice and/or self-insert garbage that it is and get rewarded in the epilogue or you romance someone else because nothing is ever going to be changed.

What an optimistic comment, haha. I had no idea. It's funny how some assume that everyone commenting here is keeping up with all of Larian's forums. As I mentioned in my comment, I'm new to the forum.
PD: The game hasn't been on the market for more than 4 months, as far as I know.

Given the death threats in the first post, it might be more appropriate to move this to a new thread? Or a mod could remove that from the original post.

When it comes to sexual content, it's impossible to please everyone. For example, there have been many posts on reddit complaining about being approached by companions of the same sex, even though you only have to say no and move on.

I feel like a good median would be to allow companions to have their own sexual identities, but ensure no means no consistently. Those identities, whatever they may be, need to be clearer at the beginning of the relationship. SH has lines very early that say she has experience with multiple casual partners and even prefers it -- but that doesn't necessarily connect to when she chooses to be in a relationship.

Noone asks to remove this entirely? Just remove weird shit like banter and adjust brothel lines so people don't feel as shitty about it(should occur as normal when you decide to romance both Halsin and SH, but I would prefer her to feel more threatened in this offer, maybe separate Shar and Selune SH, same style like Spawn/Ascendent Astarion. So Shar feel more freely about it and Selune feel more threatened maybe?).

And this banter lines that you mentioned occur early in the game, before she falls to MC and applies to Shar SH and is consistent kinda with her DJ path.