but then it kind of sucks that you can't play as ifan, bond with your companions, and experience the healing process from his perspective :\
I don’t know. Honestly, I liked this detail, because it means that developers really thought two different sides of his arc. As Lohse I’m not seeing that (I didnt finish her run yet). I can see that you can choose her tags and it’s always a repetition of what she usually said as a companion. Ifan changes in that aspect sometimes. Sometimes you don’t have Ifan-tags of things that he said as a companion and were pretty related to him (like ending divinity. He leaves your group if you don’t promise him to end divinity. That’s a strong opinion of him).
Besides, I think there is a nice narrative detail; putting aside all that typical speech that claims that we need to actively heal ourselves, it’s true that sometimes others, choosing to help, engage into our healing process. Without them, we may never start.
Ifan, as a companion or main char, is all the time repeating he won’t forgive himself for the Deathfog, and is consumed by revenge. However, it’s as a companion when in Arx he claims to have compounded his mistakes. There is a bit, but not complete, self-forgiveness. Maybe it has to do with Hannag. As a companion, you let Hannag speaks her horror, and Ifan goes soft. He says that she was following order like him. And after forgive her life, you can embrace Ifan. He says he needed that. His crazy inner-wolf is soothed.
But playing as Ifan, you don’t have that. And Ifan goes crazy. If you kill Hannag, ifan CONSUMES her source. Like... WOW. Ifan’s dark side is ruthless and cruel. His inner wolf is just crazy.
I tend to like the narrative of chars that are stuck in their life. Fist, because it’s not expected. We always see a hero falling from Grace (tragedy arc), or a disgraced character getting better in his life (the hero/redemption arc). It’s how char arcs work usually. Sometimes a char wants to heal, wants to go forward, wants to change... but can’t. This reminds me of Reyes Vidal, from Mass Effect. (A spy-like military that left Earth wanting to leave that life behind, wanting to stop living in the shadows... and he failed. He ended up pretty much doing the same in the new world). I think they did this with Ifan. Larian did it amazingly, because as a companion, Ifan is the narrative of a char getting over his revenge and healing. When you play as Ifan, using only Ifan-tags, it’s a stuck-narrative. And maybe it makes sense, when you play as Ifan none of your companions stop you, or challenge you, or embrace you (we all know how much Ifan needs that). Ifan life has been always surrounded by “friends”, but these are shallow friends, like his friendship with some of the Lone Wolves (Roost) or even with Tarquin. He has no problem to call him a “friend” even though they specify that this is all business. As a player, Ifan has no tenderness giving to him openly.
Nobody is soothing his “savage wolf inside”, and Ifan is being devoured by revenge meanwhile. So, he follows that path to the end. (even in the end of the game, his tag is crazy: he doesn't care what Lucian has to say, he want to kill him).
Also, it’s curious that as Ifan, you don’t have the option of giving Divinity to everyone marked with Ifan tag.