I wholeheartedly agree that the romance scenes are an important extension of characters and their personality, and an important contribution to the story meant to enrich them as characters rather than be a mindless sex act just for eye candy, as they tell a lot about our characters.

  • Shadowheart is an innocent and shy romantic who loves picnics, so her romance slowly blossoms which I find absolutely beautiful.
  • Gale is a gentleman and quite a romantic. I hope to see some magical creativity during his romance.
  • Lae'zel is pretty much a straight forward "strip! we're banging right now!" type because the concept of love does not exist in her culture of warriors. So to her it is just a carnal pleasure meant to be satisfied and she doesn't mince words, which I absolutely adore and enjoy seeing as part of her culture. However I hope that by the time the game ends we'll get to teach her in some extent the concept of love and devotion, along with other values. I would really like that for her as a character.
  • Astarion I didn't get to research a lot, but we do actually get incredibly important details about Astarion and his past, especially the scar on his back
  • Wyll I admit, never slept with. But I will eventually.

As for Minthara, I wouldn't call her unhinged as that is not what her romance is supposed to portray nor who she is. I fear a lot of people have misconceptions about her, and all other companions for that matter. People think she is just a lustful pleasure driven dominant badass Drow, when in truth she is an ex-Lolth Drow with an extremely traumatizing past of consecutive betrayals against her who for the first time ever actually lowers her psychological and emotional barriers in order to overcome her traumatic fear of being betrayed, by putting all her trust in Tav because for the first time ever she is genuinely in love. And she is in fact so much in love that she wishes to take Tav as her consort to spend an eternity together in Menzoberranzan after the war is over, which utterly shatters her heart when that dream is almost ruined by the Absolute's wishes. But her love runs so strong within her that she goes against the Absolute's wishes and helps us reach Moonrise Towers, with hopes that her dream with us will become a reality eventually.

So hardly unhinged and hardly just a pleasure ride for her. Her romance actually portrays that she sacrifices a lot in order to make love to Tav by going against the very essence of who she is in order to surrender to the moment fully and for the first time ever experience something she never ever had the privilege to receive... love and trust. Which is why if you try to probe her during the romance, you'll break her heart and she'll see it as betrayal.

Personally it kinda hurts seeing people perceiving these romance scenes as nothing but porn and eye candy, when in truth they are quite beautifully crafted and meaningful intimate moments with a lot of subtle meaning and lore about our characters meant to enrich their backstories and them as characters.

[Linked Image from bg3.wiki] Minthara's Compendium Of Issues