#minthara gets controlled the absolute and suddenly she's acting on her 'base instincts' and is a 'viper waiting to strike'

[moffnat]

Okay, last thing I'll say about this.

Minthara did not torture Halsin. She is not "his abuser."

When you meet Minthara and she talks about torturing a prisoner to make him talk, she's referring to the human on the torture rack near the entrance to the goblin camp. When the player asks her if she has any leads on the grove, she says this:

We captured a human who knows exactly where it is. He's been resilient, but he'll talk.

And if you ask her about Halsin:

I have not seen this druid, but he harbors worshippers of a false god in a hidden grove nearby.

She has no idea that the bear in the prison is Halsin. She never laid a finger on him. (And besides, if she had, he would not be in one piece: she was trained as a follower of Lolth for god's sake, and if she knew she had the Archdruid in her clutches, she'd make good use of that information.)

Case in point: there is no reason for Halsin to be so cruel to Minthara in the datamined dialogue after she explains that she was being controlled by the Absolute. It is against his generous character.