Bg3 Fandom Critical - Blog Posts

It's one thing to dislike Halsin, but don't flipping try to justify a rape threat from Minthara while accusing Halsin of something he NEVER does.

Halsin: I understand, and I still cherish our relationship

Minthara: I already know your mind. I will know your body, one way or another.

Fans wouldn't like it if people kept lying and misrepresenting their favorite. Why do Halsin fans have to listen to these lies?!

I'm not ok with anyone saying this sort of thing regardless of gender. And Minthara may be a drow, but she's on the surface, where, you know, consent matters?!

Halsin is many times creepier than Minthara. Minthara atleast has the courtesy to let you know you have no choice. It's an act of domination not sexuality. Halsin instead pretends like he would be alright with not taking his violent sexual urges on you

.

I'm actually super surprised to see that there are people who don't like Halsin. I guess I've found myself in the right circles because I've never seen anything but love for him!

Ok, so I've been trying to gather my thoughts on this, because it's not a fun topic to discuss. But some of the most insane takes I have seen has been like this:

While others are pointing out how insane it sounds and getting call out posts for it as though they have had no good reason to talk about it:

It's gotten bad enough that Dave Jones, Halsin's voice actor, is being quoted by people saying he should be put on a list:

Dave is a voice actor. A goddamn voice actor. He doesn't have control over how Halsin is written nor is he endorsing any creepy behavior. This is a serious accusation to make and honestly, why are Halsin haters following the voice actor of a character they hate?!

People are entitled to their feelings and they have a right to feel safe, but that does not give them the right to falsely accuse real people for things that did not happen.

This is fictional work. Fictional characters who are written out with a set plan in mind. We know Halsin's intent from start to finish and it's never changed like other, more controversial characters are intended like:

Halsin: I understand, and I will cherish our relationship.

Minthara: I already know your mind. I will know your body, one way or another.

This is not a condemnation of Minthara. She's intended to be difficult and bossy, because she had to be in the cutthroat world of the Underdark. This is, however, intended to be a comparison of the double standards I've been seeing from fans and wish would be applied fairly and civilly. I would deeply dislike being deceived if I was a new player trying out this game and found out I had been misled so badly on different characters. I've already felt aggravation finding out fans pushed a popular headcanon over what's actually in the game in other games.

Gortash fans are saying this?! Gortash fans?! Fans of a guy:

-Who violated Karlach's bodily autonomy

-Sold Karlach into slavery

-Who experimented on people

-Streamlined the interrogation of people's brains in a jar by using an elven woman's head to voice their thoughts in that Mindflayer pit. One of those brains was a child's by the way.

-Ran a dictatorship through the Steel Watch with innocent civilian brains running them

-Whose own fans admit that part of Gortash's appeal is his "rapey" look?!

And they have the gall to act self righteous about nonexistent creepy behavior from a character?!

I fucking HATE the Facebook girlies sometimes.

Ripped this from the comments of a post in a Gortash simp group that was talking about which of them smelled better/worse

The amount of people who think he's creepy TRULY confuses me. Like where do you get this from, who hurt you????

He's an autistic man who loves animals and nature and has a soft spot for orphaned children????? If you romance him, he is the most loving, comforting, and supportive character in the game and is ALL ABOUT CONSENT????? And you think he's A CREEPY PREDATOR????

Being a Halsin fan is....a unique experience in that you're frequently prone towards running into all sorts of taunts and insults from being called "mentally ill" for liking him because people assume you're into his "deviant behavior" to hearing that there's only "7 romances" because he doesn't count, to hearing that he's a sex pest, constant reminders of how players kill him in a feedback or fan thread about him, him being seen as fit for only being left as "Orin bait" by a few Astarion fans (who hate him because they see him as a sex pest) when I'm meanwhile turning Astarion down only to run into Astarion canonically admitting that he sees Tav's denial of consent as a "dire mistake to be corrected":

Or, frequently running into complaints as to why he's there when Jaheira is around for the Druid role (he was around first so it's clear why they're not acknowledging that).

"He's just fanservice that didn't need to be there! Why can't we have Alfira?!"

"We could have had a werewolf instead of him?! Wasted opportunity!" (Fans datamined that and discovered that Helia was dropped long before they added Halsin so it wasn't a toss up between them that fans think)

"He's a cheater trying to get you to cheat!"

Ironically, another fan found a post that not only was this wrong, Shadowheart and Astarion approve of the player sexually harassing a married NPC:

His point and click lines have still not been fixed despite requests to address them for months now.

Requests for more depth from his days in Early Access has not happened.

Pleas to Larian to please fix the writing that has him making fans uncomfortable has only just now been addressed but the damage has been done.

I see all these moments that get other characters amusement and affection while seeing Halsin vilified for stuff that doesn't even happen. I see acknowledgement that Gale's Weave scene was a bug, Wyll's dance scene where you couldn't avoid him trying to kiss you as "not a big deal" (until they were corrected) and I agree, that's exactly what they were: unintended side effects of poorly thought out writing/coding/scripting.

And yet, Halsin's presence has to be justified every step of the way.

There is so little sympathy for this character. So little sympathy for fans of this character. It even feels like Larian wrote him off when their attempt to make him a companion backfired.

I'm not even sure why fans want more romances added when this one ended with such hostility. I'd rather they fix and expand on the current romances like Wyll's, Minthara's and, yes, Halsin's (he does count as a romance).

*Pinches nose*

PSA Announcement: Solomancing Halsin does not make him monogamous. It's not a fan's responsibility to go sleep with others to make sure gatekeeping poly fans are reassured he's still poly. There is no minimum quota of people a fan has to sleep with for someone to still be poly. I'm sorry I don't find others attractive enough to put them above Halsin, but it's my playthrough, not the ones who are complaining. I don't owe the polyamorous group validation ON MY OWN PRIVATE PLAYTHROUGH through denial of my own preferences. What I like does not change that Halsin is still polyamorous.

On that note too, Shadowheart and Astarion are also poly despite some fans' insistence that they're monogamous victims being preyed upon by Halsin.

If you have never said this to anyone, carry on, this message is not directed at you.

*Waits for the torches and pitchforks*