Halsin

Character
Name:	Halsin
Occupation:	Archdruid of the Emerald Grove
Relationships:	Varies with gameplay
Fandom:	Baldur's Gate III
Other:	voiced by Dave Jones in Baldur's Gate III
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Halsin is a character in Baldur's Gate III. He is one of the non-origin companions of the game (which means he cannot be the Player Character) and is romanceable. He is an Wood Elf Druid with the Outlander background.

Halsin is the Archdruid of the Emerald Grove and is one of the two permanent companions who aren't tadpoled, the other being Jahera. He is a skilled shapeshifter with a preferred bear shape. He is known as a healer, which is the main reason that leads the adventurers to seek him out. He is also polyamorous.

Canon

Halsin is a companion but not an origin character and thus cannot be a player character. He also can only be recruited after the completion of a number of certain quests, limiting the number of players who either come in contact with him or are able to ask him to join their party. He can only be romanced at the start of Act III if the groundwork has been laid beforehand.

Halsin starts the game captured by goblins, locked in the animal pens of an old, rundown Selûnite temple. He is stuck in bear form and won't turn back into an elf unless rescued. Like Astarion, he's been a victim of sexual slavery, a detail that he shares only after visiting a brothel with his lover(s) in Act III. While he tells his lover he has come to terms with what was done to him, he blames himself for having been young and getting himself into the situation, and tells the player that he had enjoyed parts of his captivity, leading many to speculate he is victim blaming himself. It's important to note that the visit to the brothel mirrors, in many ways, the way he was trapped underground and enslaved: a male and female Drow couple. Some fans believe his confession post-session might come from having been triggered through it. With the introduction of patch 5, his dialogue regarding his SA has been expanded, and the Player Character may now try to call attention to the tone Halsin uses to talk about his slavery and rape.

In the epilogue from patch 5, a Halsin who has left Baldur's Gate to become "daddy Halsin" will express his joy and happiness, calling the children his greatest purpose and greatest reward. He will share that he need not roam anymore, as he has found something worth laying roots for. He will also drink Wither's honey mead, get drunk and dance to the music.

Fandom

Due to his (rather rare amongst elves) strikingly tall, hairy and muscular figure, Halsin is popular with Bara fans. In circles of these fans he's usually given more body hair, such as armpit hair or a beard and his muscles are exaggerated. Fans jokingly say he's a bear who can wildshape into a bear. Fans of this particular depiction of Halsin tend to create more digital 3D animation than other fans, usually NSFW and including a Dragonborn character.

Common Tropes

• Halsin is physically large: Halsin is very big for an elf. Usually this is something noted by other characters in stories or visible in art through size difference. Size kink is also common. There is a tag of the same name on AO3.
• Partial Wildshape: Many fanworks feature Halsin gaining animal characteristics while still in elf form, usually due to stress, anger or excitement. This includes elongated nails and teeth, yellow coloured eyes and change in hair texture, sometimes even going as far as bone deep transformation. The trope has some basis on what Halsin tells Astarion during their session with the twins at the brothel, where Astarion teases that he kisses with teeth and Halsin replies that he caresses with claws.
• Substances: Canonically, Halsin smokes a pipe. Fandom depictions of the character will show him smoking, either to calm down or relax. He also refuses to drink, and some fans theorise this might have to do with him having been part of a war and his past SA. In some stories, Halsin doesn’t partake because he might have previously abused alcohol in the past, as a way to cope.
• Animalistic side: If romanced, Halsin will lose control of himself and wildshape during his solo sex cutscene. He will also warn the player that, should they storm the goblin camp together, he won't be able to hold back from killing everyone. This as led fans to portray him as temporarily losing control of his form when in extremely volatile or emotional situations. While similar in tone to a werewolf transformation, Halsin isn't depicted as a mindless beast while in wildshape (in stories).
• Daddy Halsin: if the Shadow Curse is lifted and Baldur's Gate is saved, Halsin ends the game becoming "daddy Halsin" to several orphans. This is a cheeky nod to fans calling him such during EA, many in direct reference to daddykink. It's also a reference to him being a pillar of the community and a father figure to many.
• Artisan: Halsin is skilful with his hands, whittling small wooden figurines during his travels. Fans enjoy depicting him creating small wooden ducks or other animals for his friends and lovers. He's also represented using his skill for more than art, sometimes creating his own pipes or utensils.
• Healer: Halsin is a skilled healer, making this a typical theme in stories and art that feature him.
• No Abs: Halsin canonically has abs, but many fans choose to portray him with a soft or fat belly. There is even a mod for this.

Pairings

The two most common Halsin pairings are Halsin/Tav and Astarion/Halsin, with an also popular and canonical OT3 being Astarion/Halsin/Tav. Other pairings include Astarion/Gale/Halsin.

Last Name

John Corcoran, senior writer at Larian Studios, was asked by a fan if Halsin had a canon last name and shared that in an earlier draft Halsin's last name was Silverbough.

While there’s nothing in the game itself, an earlier character outline stated it was Silverbough. This is probably semi-canon at best as there’s nothing supporting or contradicting it in the game.

I do still like it as it alludes to an aspect of Celtic mythology that has nice thematic resonance for Halsin and Thaniel (the silver bough or branch granting access to the land of eternal youth).

John Corcoran on Twitter (X)

Harassment and Controversy

A loud minority of fans are of the opinion that Halsin is a particularly problematic character, although most fans seem to see him as an unproblematic fave, or at the very least, as an unimportant minor character, to the point of finding it hard to create fanworks in which he enacts harsh themes, needing to resort to making him OOC. It seems that the public arguments against Halsin come from external sources other than canon and fans are quick to point out that some are particularly biased towards him, while excusing the same or worse behaviour from other characters. For example, an Astarion/Cazador and Cazador fan's opinion on Halsin:

Aaaghm I already made a thread here some months ago but in short, he's imo a man with a very fragile masculinity and a potential ab/user 🤣 [Rolling on the Floor Laughing Emoji] Too many 🚩🚩🚩[three Triangular Flag Emojis] and nasty comments (while he plays being a "good bear").

LehyScraps on Twitter (X). Feb 17, 2024 (Accessed 18/2/2024)

To which another Cazador fan replied:

Let me get this straight. Halsin being "potential" abuser but ur literally simping for Cazador and shipping him with Astarion which is literally abuser x abused. Hello?

I genuinely want to know where Halsin is potential abuser.

Thank you.

caprisun_sora on Twitter (X). Feb 17, 2024 (Accessed 18/2/2024)

• Bugs: similarly to how Gale initially was, it appears that Halsin would believe the player was interested in them without the proper dialogue trigger, leading some fans to see this as a "red flag", and call his behaviour harassment. This bug seemed to have been much rarer than Gale's, as most fans usually complained about a lack of Halsin romance triggers. Some lesbian fans, in particular, harbour a strong dislike towards Halsin due to this bug, stating that it reminds them of male forwardness in real life, and wishing for a in-game character sexuality lock, in order to avoid male characters' interest in their Tavs. Gale, meanwhile, doesn't seem to suffer the same amount of mischaracterization, with most fans using this to meme him, or see him as someone who easily falls in love.
• Cut content: particularly, non-implemented material that showed Halsin not wanting Minthara to enter the party due to her attacks against the grove and his biased belief she would turn against them due to his enslavement and rape by drows in Menzoberranzan. These fans' point of contrition is that, without the Artifact, Minthara will become enthralled by the Absolute, a future she also doesn't wish for herself. The dislike for Halsin's decision isn't usually equated to other characters' tumultuous relationships, such as, for example, Lae'zel and Shadowheart's, who will always try to kill each other if in the same party, with Lae'zel in particular also wishing to leave Shadowheart behind, to her likely death, at the start of the game.
• Non-canon content or fan interpretations of his behaviour: believing his dislike or mistrust for evil or evil aligned drow characters, such as Minthara and other Lolth-sworn drow is racism. It has been pointed out that while this behaviour is seen as racist and judged harshly, many of these same fans typically don't show the same energy in relation to Astarion's casual, and seemingly cryptogenic racism towards gnomes; Believing Halsin and Tav forced Astarion into being in a poly relationship because Astarion does not have a "decline" dialogue for the relationship.
• Some of the hate for this character is also, either caused by or, turned into dislike for his Voice Actor's, Dave Jones, joking personality and Twitter (X) interactions with other adult fans' art or other VAs, which antis have misinterpreted as sexual harassment towards others. The jokes are seemingly very well received by the fans he interacts with. Due to this, fans have also asked antis to not quote, mention or harass the VA(s).

Some fans have expressed worries that some of the anti behaviour stems from pan and/or polyamory phobia, due, in part, to the strong ties to Tavalstarion dislike.

Public arguments against Halsin by antis seem to grow in visibility whenever a Halsin, Halstarion or Tavalstarion post reaches a certain popularity (usually on Twitter), as it was the case with Larian's Valentine's Day Halstarion kiss post, which made many Baldur's Gate III fans aware of this sort of behaviour. Fans that were aware of previous anti behaviour have grown to expect it and have expressed their wish that fans who dislike him stop using his name or tag to share hate towards him, while some antis seem to want their "hate" seen by Jones and Larian Studios. There have also been cases of antis harassing fans of the character off Twitter (X) and even off the official Larian Studios Discord. There has also been targeted harassment towards fans, including encroachment of private Halsin friendly spaces.

Full Release and Early Access Differences

Physically, during EA Halsin had darker coloured hair and a darker face tattoo. In terms of story, a lot of Halsin's backstory was either erased, not mentioned in-game or retconned, but is remembered or was datamined by fans and also used to create fanwork.

Halsin was such a popular Early Access companion that fans frequently asked Larian Studios to make him a romanceable option.

Fanworks

Fanfiction

• Claws and Horns (Halsin & Wyll) by autistichalsin, Wyll is volun-told to have an uncomfortable conversation with Halsin. (2023)
• Safe (Halsin & Astarion, Astarion/Cazador) by slyblueshiny, In the heart of the leafy Emerald Grove, Halsin leads an orphanage that takes in children rescued from difficult situations. After the kidnapping of seven children by the ruthless Cazador Szarr, Halsin organizes an expedition to rescue them. After facing dangers and challenges, they manage to free the children from the mansion of Cazador Szarr, a vampire. Arriving at the orphanage, Halsin struggles to integrate the new arrivals, facing challenges such as the aftermath of the trauma and the revelation that the children are vampire spawns. In particular, the mysterious Astarion, a white-haired elf, stands out for his reserved and distrustful attitude. (2024)
• stars growing brighter (Gale & Halsin, Gale & Tav) by hermitized, As absorbing the weave of items begins to fail him, Gale grows exhausted fighting the dark power inside of him. Halsin, new to the group, helps as best as he can. (2024)
• Steady Steady (friendship fic between Halsin & Karlach) by ZiGraves, Karlach enjoys watching Halsin whittling. Halsin shows her that she can do wonderful things with her own hands, too. (2023)

Fanart

• Taking Halsin to BaldursGate was just an interesting experience. Poor boy had an existential crisis by AvernusArtistry on Twitter (X)
• Bear boyfriend by redraccoonart on Twitter (X)
• My hc for #Halsin in a Pokemon AU by GoodBiRanger on Twitter (X)

Cosplay

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Gallery

• 

  Halsin portrait by nackrosor99

• 

  Halsin by Vera Severin

• 

  someone asked about trans halsin and im here for it >:) by Malacandrax

Resources

• Halsin tag on Tumblr
• Halsin tag on AO3
• Halsin tag on Fanfiction.net
• Halsin tag on Y!Gallery
• Halsin tag on Pillowfort