Unpacking Gale - A Baldur's Gate 3 Deep Dive
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Let's talk about Gale of Waterdeep, from Baldur's Gate 3! Everyone's favorite wizard!
Supplemental Clips:
astarion banter - • Baldur's Gate 3 | Gale...
act 2 romance - • Gale Romance Scene & A...
gale judging your clothing choice - • Baldur's Gate 3: Gale ...
Tim Downie's background in stand-up comedy really enhanced Gale's awkward dorkiness. I love this man the most in the game. Domestic, nerd, and funny cat dad, hell yeah.
"Domestic man" THAT'S MY TYPE
There's some kind of irony that Gale would _settle_ for being the God of Ambition.
the truth in the Astarion girlies becoming Gale girlies with time.
The pipeline is SO real…
Facts
I went the opposite way, from Gale girl person to Astarion 😂😂😂
True! First Tav: romanced Astarion. Then I've played as Astarion and he loves Gale now! :D
First save i finished was romancing astarion. Then i romanced gale and while i still adore astarion goddamn gale has drawn me in with his silly little words and (percieved) autistic rizz
Him being a cat dad just makes him so much more relatable as a character and him becoming a professor at a university after abandoning the pursuit of godhood just means he's the coolest teacher at school.
He can finally move on from "oh yeah, so... I dated a god" to brag about something else much cooler: "I could've become a god if I wanted to, did you know that?😎"
I freakin love that he becomes a Teacher, hes Patient and kind, is a fatherly kinda guy so i think it fits perfektly. Especially since i think all of his Students have a crush on him
Eww no, anyone with that type of thing is a automatic DISLIKE
@Zombina638 You could've just kept that to yourself.
This wasn't an open question. Move along citizen.
@@TheEngineerYTDS seems like just a bot or smth like that to me. A normal human being would at least say what they're talking about.
I think something a lot of people kinda gloss over when talking about Gale and Mystra is how exactly Mystra chooses her chosen (ha.)
She picks them based on who's most dedicated to learning the weave. Who's willing to go the furthest in the pursuit of magic and power, and to understand the we've the best. This is how she had a Lich as her chosen for a while.
(Something to note: Mystras alignment is Lawful Nutral, not good. So, you don't really have to be "good" to earn her favor.)
In this context, Gale begging and pleading with her to give him access to "forbidden" magic was exactly in line with what she wanted from a chosen. It's a behavior she herself cultivated within him.
Him going to find this "lost part of her" to impress her makes absolute sense, she ENCOURAGES adventure in order to better understand and utilize magic. He did everything (to his knowledge) right.
And instead of helping him the first time he messed up, she casted him to the side like an unwanted and unloved toy. One she absolutely had the power to help, but just chose not to.
Bg3 really said fuck the gods man
It's all quite familiar. to the legends of some gods in reality, to be honest.
❤
Withers only goid God
@@spankme5142and selune
The current Mystra, the one that exists in BG3, should be a good aligned goddess as far as I'm aware. You are mistaking her lawful-neutral alignment with the original Mystra who died a long time ago (killed by Helm).
The current one was Neutral-Good when last expressed. At least, that's what it was before her most recent revival. I don't think it's been explicitly stated as being anything else since then but if you've got the most up-to-date info on her I'd love to see it. Since I enjoy Mystra lore, as confusing as it can be.
As far as I know, the current Mystra is a mixture of the previous Mystra and Midnight and so we can't fully go off her original alignment due to Midnight's good nature. If we were to go off of a balance between them then if anything she'd be somewhere right in the middle between Lawful and Neutral, and Neutral and Good. So overall she'd lean more good than bad.
I also love that Gale is the only companion who loves you as an illithid. This man loves you unconditionally and he is my ultimate comfort character.
Oh really??! I just recently did the becoming an mind flayer ending, and both Halsin and Astarion dumped my ass asdfasdfas I was so sad, but I hadn't looked into how other romanced companions react to that.
Minthara Is also in the would love you as a worm squad
Shadowheart stays too but she does take a bit of convincing
I assumed laezel would try to kill my mind flayer tav, but she wanted to fight vlaakith with them instead. Seeing her kiss a mind flayer was uncanny
Gale: "As long as you don't lick it, we're fine. And if you do lick it, STOP LICKING IT"
I am a nerd who loves nerds. So Gale is my bae. Baele. 😂
your point about everyone at camp becoming friends isn't just your cannon, it IS cannon! it's one of the many things i love about the game. it's imo most apparent in the earlier part of the game when Mystra gives Gale the order to blow himself up and you can talk to everyone at camp about it, im pretty sure everyone decides they hate Mystra all at once and that they wanna cheer Gale up.
Astarion says "it's such a waste of a perfectly good cult we could control...and a perfectly good Gale"
Karlach: "there's devotion and then there's stupidity. If Mystra, the goddess of magic, can't destroy the Absolute herself then she's no god at all. I'll distract him by telling him I haven't read a book since secondary school and watch his face melt off"
and my personal favorite: Lae'zel's "Mystra demands Gale's faith but holds no faith in him...does she think he cannot destroy the Absolute with his own immense talents? Does she not know the company he keeps?...Perhaps he'd find forgiveness in a fiery death, but I don't see why he'd want it at all."
(sorry this was so dorky but i love this game so much it's such good writing)
The way she compliments his "immense talents" is so unexpected from Lae'zel but also so wholesome and supportive. Everybody needs a friend like redeemed Lae'zel, c'mon. 🥲
As much as I dislike talking about intimacy lol I do agree that the intimacy scene with Gale is super important to his character. The fact that if you mention that he basically did all of the work he sort of shyly dismisses you and undermines his own hard work is sooooo telling. He worked so desperately to please you and expected nothing in return because that’s how Mystra operated. She was the goddess and he had to please her in every way. As fun as the scene is it’s underpinned by this sadness that he thinks sex has to be this one sided experience with duplicates of himself and magic and spectacle.
It’s funny to say but I think that scene with him is one of the most telling for his character lol
P.S. really good video essay!!! Subscribed for sure :]
That is precisely the reason I refused to let him do the whole spectacle thing. I just wish you weren't penalized for doing that. When I saw the Waterdeep part of that scene on UA-cam I was a little jealous because him inviting you into his world in that way was quite cute.
@@Nihilist_Porcupine out of curiosity, may I ask what you mean by being penalised for choosing the "wow me" option? Because if you're referring to it affecting his ending choices, it doesn't have an influence on those as long as you choose the right responses in certain act 3 scenes :) but please feel free to let me know if I'm missing something specific!
And in case you didn't know this, you can let him show you the Waterdeep scene and still have a few opportunities to back out and do the "normal" ending of the whole romance scene.
I do agree that there's an element of sadness that he's been neglecting his own physical and romantic pleasure in favour of Mystra's for so long, but I don't agree that he undermines himself with that comment the next day- I saw it more as him actually settling back into his romantic tendencies, owning that he was good at it by using an incredibly flirtatious euphemism in contrast to his self-deprecating comment the night before about being out of practice.
I also think -and please feel free to ignore me if this makes you uncomfortable at all, I just wanted to share my thoughts- that while it is telling that he focuses so intensely on his partner's enjoyment and clearly wants to be everything to them, to be enough romantically in order to make up for not being enough as himself, you can see the moment at the beginning of the illusion where he notices Tav's appreciation and gives this little smile before continuing, and I think that says more about how this is him finally being able to show someone else this thing he loves, to connect with them intimately and magically, and experience a more balanced, reciprocal partnership for the first time. The fact that with either choice in the romance scene he still says the line about Tav loving him for the man he is and not his magic shows that he is still learning that that's possible, whether or not you allow him to wow you and show you everything.
I also doubt very much that he and Tav ended the night immediately after the illusion sequence, because to me that feels like something that would allow him to be comfortable enough to remember oh, right, I can do this, they saw my home and my soul and they had a good time, now doing the "human" version sounds great, let's go.
Again, it does say so much about his character because no line or moment is wasted with this man, but I think there is healthy connection in that scene and more next-morning confidence than you thought. 💜✨
@aerieThis is definitely a sweeter and more positive way to see it, and I totally see that perspective! Maybe it resonated more toward bad in my head because of personal experiences, which I think is really cool that video game dialogue can spark such different takeaways yknow!
@@ryesaur I had a feeling it might be something like that and I'm so sorry to hear you've experienced that. 💜
I'm glad I could present a different perspective and I hope it can make these scenes a little more enjoyable in future, at least. So much of Gale's story is about self-acceptance and separating his identity and self-worth from his magic, but it's also about experiencing things anew with someone who enjoys his company differently to anyone else he's been with before, and I think that allowing him to share his genuine love of magic with them is part of that. He does have personal trauma, yes, but he is also a born romantic (his words) with plenty of other dialogue to show that he's a very generous partner who loves grand gestures but also really does love expressing himself through his magical art, so I think that if the illusory version was meant to be detrimental to his character growth, the music and dialogue during and after would be different. As it is, Gale realises that there is someone who can accept his offering to share in a moment of intimacy and appreciate it but won't expect him to be like that all the time, who can bond with him body and soul without it being transactional or solely on his partner's terms (looking at you, Mystra), who grounds him and reminds him that he loves being *alive* and that's not something to throw away, so to me it feels more like him beginning to reclaim that pure artistic joy and love that comes so naturally to him.
Again, please don't mind me if that was too long or too much, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about him and I only hope to offer a different perspective where I can. 💜✨
I am so glad Gale gets more attention. 😊
His whole orb-situation mostly made me think of artistic (or magical) burnout. You have this craft you love and pour more and more energy into it, trying to get better and better until at some point, what used to bring you joy becomes an all consuming vortex in your heart that sucks the joy out of this thing you once loved while still demanding that you keep pushing on and feed it. In this light, the magic lesson did not start out as romantic for me but as him bonding with the pc over this activity he deeply cares for. Because the scene has a more playful approach, it rekindles his joy in magic and both characters get a little carried away. But I am very much on the ace side of things so a lot of things that register as flirting for others don't for me. 😅
Omg, I love the burn out metaphor! I can totally see that.
That's so fair to read the earlier scenes with Gale as more platonic!
He can also come along with you and be an adventurer instead of being a teacher. Either way, I think, he says he wants to write about your adventures during the game. He wants to take back the narrative and celebrate his and his friends’ achievements.
That is so sweet! I love the idea of Gale reclaiming his story, and I feel like he'd be a really good writer.
Out of curiosity I did save and try back peddling in the end, telling Gale to go be a god. And he was essentially like “from all I learned, largely from you no less, why the heck would I do that???” So I definitely felt the impact from my long term support there :) he really does listen.
Ah, I love that!! I was able to easily talk him down in my most recent play through that I finished, which was nice. I love how supporting him actually does make a difference on his outcome!
@@PocketLeaves Yeah! Full release truly does a great job at making that romancing path feel mutually supportive and strongly communicative. He mentions being glad that he learned from your patience and wisdom and it was just truly lovely 😊
Lovely vids PocketCon, thanks for your deep dives!
47:06 He's the only one who offers a real comfortable BED for makin' love, that bought me entirely. Astarion offers nothing but leaves and ground (and himself).
“For those of us who may be a bit too much like Gale, specifically” is such a callout 😂 He turned me off for all the same reasons that I consider myself unlikeable, and that’s a LOT to unpack before I opened up to liking the character
same here! it took a while
Oof this hit me where it hurts. Though my issue is more with Astarion than Gale. I like him okay but I just cannot bring myself to romance him because he reminds me of myself at a very raw time in my life.
In light of the Gale groomed by Mystra knowledge, he may not have realized just how... charged? The lesson was? If that is the same first lesson Gale received, as an entry to being groomed, you can see how she eroded his boundaries.
Ooh that's fair! I hadn't considered that! But that's a really good point!
I mean Mystra was dead for a century and Gale's mom is still alive, so he is not 100+ years old (since Gale is Human). And Mystra has only been around for a decade after being brought back. So Gale was probably mid 20s or so when meeting Mystra, so not sure why people talk about grooming. But of course it is not a good thing for a mentor and mentee to start a relationship.
@@dianabialaskahansen2972It is brought up by Minsc that his people would hide young boy wizards from Mystra
@dianabialaskahansen2972 Oh boy, you're gonna have to excuse me because the denial of Gale's trauma/grooming is becoming exhausting and I may get snippy.
If you are going by the dictionary definition of grooming as in children and young people, Gale would qualify as a young person at the time of her return. I ball parked his age in game as anywhere from late 20s to mid 30s so average that and you have him at about 17 when she had physically returned...aka a minor by irl standards and a quote unquote young person. I have seen him ballparked anywhere from 15 to early 20s when he met her in the flesh. Anyway you cut it, a young person.
Now, Mystra was dead for that 100 yearish period, but by canon she was not Gone. She still had influence and acted through her chosen to resurrect herself.
Elminster, her chosen and lover, Canonically met Gale and started mentoring him when Gale was 8. Meaning Mystra through Elminster and the Weave (which is Her) knew of Gale and was present in his life from at Least 8 years old. But Gale had already been doing intense magic by the time Elminster found him, so "Weave touched" aka "Mystra touched" has so many many meanings. We even have canon proof that the Weave feels like Love and Mystra tries to lovebomb him with it in Act 2.
Now, by non dictionary logic, Grooming also can indicate a vulnerability, an Inbalance that can be present in an Adult relationship in different ways. You don’t get more unbalanced than a God and the chosen that she as per EA seduced.
He was by all definitions groomed.
Canonically, Minsc refers to there being a cultural behavior in his society to hide/protect boys who are gifted in magic, to protect them from Mystra's attention.
Me and my homies hate Mystra.
I love Gale, he is such a sweet silly wizard guy (romanced him on my first playthrough, planned on it since early access and regret nothing) and it made me so mad to hear what Mystra did. Still makes me want to throw hands with her.
In my 1st game, when Gale said "I should leave, I'm dangerous." I was like okay and sent him away, because I wanted to romance Astarion. In my 2nd, I married him and I keep reloading the last party to get the kiss scene. In my 3rd, I'm finding it hard not to fall for him again :D
That's fair! I didn't want to miss out on any story, so I kept him around and fed him items because he was not going to make me miss out on anything!
@@PocketLeaves I was kinda scared on my 1st play through. Any time I play a game for the first time and there's the loom of imminent doom I'm kinda stressed out :D so when he was like "I might pop" I was like "okay man, just do it far away from me 'cause I wanna finish the game." :D my first play throughs are always chaotic. Then I chill the next time I play and explore more.
That's so fair. By the time I was actually able to play the game, I'd already heard the jokes about Gale eating shoes, and I figured as long as I fed him magical items, it'd be fine. Even after he said it wasn't fine asdfasdf
The 17 years old being used as the time he gained Mystra's favor is probably from one Tumblr post that tries to calculate Gale's age and matches it with Mystra's return in 1479 DR. That is 13 years apart from the current time (1492 DR) and that would make Gale 30 years old. I remember reading it when I tried to search up his age once.
Also a wonderful deep dive! I also suffer from being a child prodigy with expectations and how people perceived me and honestly, Gale is just so relatable. I feel his insecurities, his fears, his self-loath and I can't help but love him. You really deserve more subscribers just for this video alone!
Ooh okay! That explains the age and also why I couldn't find hard evidence from the game about it. That's very cool though, I love seeing how people are able to take what we do know and try and figure out what's not explicitly stated!
I’m firmly in the “Gale did nothing wrong” crowd when it comes to all we know about him at the beginning of the game. I think you hit the nail on the head pointing out that his grand gesture to Mystra was mostly fueled by a desire to be on equal footing with who he believed to be his loved one.
I had no idea about the early access idea of the grand gesture being due to Mystra growing tired of Gale, but now he makes much more sense to me. Especially if you ask him if he would agree to a more open relationship (or just messing around with Halsin in particular lol) he panics! Gale is heartbroken just from the thought of opening up the relationship and I think the background of Mystra tossing him aside really informs that fear that Tav may be having a wandering eye and that Gale is not enough for them. I read that situation as more of him just being a romantic but this video made me realize how awful that question must have been for his character.
It also makes sense then why his first reaction was to think that Tav meant having kids rather than opening the relationship! Gale devotes himself wholly to those he loves and would sooner doom himself (or otherwise embrace major life changes aka kids) than see other people.
I remember showing off the skills my groomer showed me to other people, just like Gale does. Vulnerable and isolated (and young) people latch onto skills given to them by their groomer to prove themselves worthy of attention to other people, as they've been taught that the person they trust gains attention through those skills. As an audience we learn over the course of the game that he does what he knows - he proves his skill, and he doesn't know what else to do. I think as a tragic intelligence based dnd character and as someone who has been groomed, Gale does an amazing job of expressing a feeling many people know but don't know how to express. Overall u did such a good job with this deep dive and omg am I excited to watch more of them!
i haven't watched this entire video yet (will do in a moment), but there is a letter from elminster to gale (SPOILERS!) after he becomes a god. elminster basically writes about gale's innocence when he was eight (which is around the time when mystra began grooming him, i believe?), and how elminster feels that he has failed him. imo this can be interpreted as both elminster feeling he failed gale as a role-model (by not successfully steering him away from godhood), but also not protecting him from mystra. if mystra hadn't groomed gale, he would not be wanting to appease her the way he did, and would probably not end up in the predicament with the orb and idea of ascending to godhood. just a few of my thoughts :), thank you for the amazing video!
Interesting thing about how he was groomed is that elminster scouted him as a child or a preteen as a candidate for mystra's chosen. And fun fact about her - she had a sexual relationship with all of her chosen. It makes it all feel sm more sinister.
And in his origin (which is one of the best, i 100% recommend) if he decides to become a mindflayer and returns the crown, mystra reveals she has the power to turn him back but will only do so if he becomes her chosen again and leaves to live with her permanently, leaving his love intrest, friends, tara and his mother with whom he is very close with behind. To be with her. Forever. :D
Which means the transformation was always within her control and she was stringing him along, massive cunt goddess.
Yeah, Mystra is rather horrifying.
First of all: F*ck Mystra.
Now we got that out of the way, Gale is the bestest boy and I adore him. I went into my first playthrough fully intending on romancing either Astarion or Karlach but kind of accidentally walked into a romance with Gale? My character flirted with pretty much everyone, so obviously during the magic scene they imagined kissing him, but after that everyone else just kind of... fell behind because he's SO pathetic, he is literally a wet cat of a man, but he's SO DAMN SWEET and despite being insufferable about anything to do with magic it's an endearing insufferable and I just fell in love with him.
There is an option during his first romance scene to have him show you Waterdeep and show off his magic and his home, do a little daydreaming with him, but when he talks about the romance novel he's reading you can pivot and tell him that while all this was great, you want the man and not the magic, and he snaps it all away without a second thought and the rest plays out from the "A small gesture towards your comfort" line.
Personally I really love that option. It gives him that moment to share another piece of magic with you, flex his mastery of the weave a bit, but then when you have seen it and experienced the power of the things he can conjure, you still choose just him as he is. It's very sweet.
And it makes that comment from him about being loved for himself and not his magic so much more palpable. ❤
It’s my guy! My man! I think it’s just my love of sweet witty dorks but I loved him instantly and he was one of my big motivations for buying a ps5 to play Baldur’s Gate 3. The rizz is that powerful.
You're so real for that!!!!
A fellow woman of culture, a bloodweave enjoyer 😌
Top tier breakdown of my comfort character
Edit: Gale being enthusiastic about going to a bookshop is literally me trying to explain to my partner why going to the library is the best thing on earth lmao
I remember my first run, I was romanicing Gale and when he revealed that his background invloved Mystra I was very excited given that Mystra was a big presence in the dnd campaign I was running and I really liked the role she took in it.
That quickly soured as I saw how bad Mystra is in bg3 and I had to reconcile that my Mystra and Gale's Mystra were just completely different.
Yeah that's fair. People have since told me that BG3 Mystra is characterized more like the original Mystra and not the Mystra that would exist at the time of the game in the actual DnD lore.
@PocketCon oh i should probably clarify i meant Mystra was "bad" in the moral sense, not that she is a bad character
@@AlecSpell Yeah, I got that!! Thank you for the clarification though!
Ive started a Wild Magic Sorcerer run and the dialog between her and Gale is adorable!
Huh, Gale as being overly obsessed with magic being translated as a functional autistic trait never struck with me but makes so much sense now that I think about it. I didn't think Gale was too annoying when I first met him, but on a second viewing his language does seem very autistic: using lots of words that are either archaïc or very specific to his obsession, and losing your train of thought when presented with an unexpected question, but straightforward in saying what you mean. Perhaps that's why he makes so much sense for me.
Also I'm surprised at how sex and abuse is treated in BG3 in general. It is somehow extremely straightforward and yet very subtle at times. Both the fun aspect and the serious aspect of sex and the ways it can go wrong are present. Astarion not knowing how to say no to abuse, Gale being groomed and suffering from it, Karlach who is desperately in need of all the hugs in the world, it all portrays intimacy as something valuable yet fragile. Baldur's Gate 3 somehow manages to make that message work BESIDES adding some of the most direct sexual content I've seen in games so far into the game.
Edit: While I totally support the idea that Mystra has been a serious prick in how she deals with Gale, at the same time it's not entirely fair to say Mystra is completely in the wrong in how she acts. Or more accurately, just like with Zeus, her decisions are not made with human morality in mind. Ancient Greeks didn't see grooming mortals as a godly being as 'wrong', because they didn't see power as an equal exchange. Gods have powers they can use, and it's foolish to call the use of these powers immoral if said morals have been created by mortals themselves. The same goes for Mystra. For gods, toying with humans is like how humans toy with, well, toys. You can hurt characters in fiction without being called a monster, and the gods feel the same for humans, even their favourite ones. The power imbalance is so big that gods simply don't have any reason to care for how their power hurts creatures in this world. This doesn't make Mystra a good partner for Gale by any means, and she is definitely a dick for what she did to him, but it does go to explain Mystra's behaviour towards Gale in a way that goes beyond 'she's an a-hole'.
I get that! An explanation for Mystra's behavior and not an excuse. Aaah, that really grinds my gears, but it does make a lot of sense. I don't know if you ever watched Steven Universe, but Rose Quartz and Greg had a similar dynamic at first with Rose seeing Greg more as a toy because to her humans were these fascinating little creatures that were new to her and also beneath her. I just wish the humans in Gale's life could have done more to protect him, or maybe warn him.
@@PocketLeaves Exactly! Though I am fully on board with Mystra as a character being a jerk for grooming Gale, ultimately she was the one responsible for a relationship that was clearly not compatible.
I agree to an extent, but the game also showed a case in which that power dynamic relationship WAS done in a healthy way, with Isobel and Aylin - Mystra could have been better to him, but did not.
@@TheJediMazter Ah, I get what you mean, but Aasimar are servants of their gods, not actual deities. Angelic lore usually places angels above humans, but not by much, sometimes even a bit lower, and definitely not godhood. I imagine that goes for Aasimar too.
@@the_tactician9858 that makes sense! I was just thinking about one having a huge amount of power and immortality and not the other aspect
Unlike Shadowheart and Astarion, Gale isn’t an immediately toxic, perpetually snarky taint in need of being institutionalised, so no wonder the “I can fix them” crowd and Twitter ghouls don’t drool over him
Personally, I was on Gale's side since he came out of that stupid portal. It's hard not to romance him 🥺
I looked up "Baldur's Gate analysis gale" hoping there would be something, and now I'm so excited for the next hour+ of my life
Also he was absolutely love at first sight for me and my second run is all focused on romancing him and I am planning a gale tattoo and yes I am autistic why do you ask~
His voice cracking in excitement over the bookstore is me about this game tbh
REAL me too akdgahdgsgs
@@PocketLeaves that like and him laughing at his own pun in the Astarion origin when he bites Gale then says no I'm not a vampire are probably my two favourite Gale lines
I do love Elminster. I think he is a good friend to Gale, but he isn't really a good support person due to his own connection to Mystra.
He is considered one of Mystra's Chosen and is one of her past lovers as well, so...
(As revealed in conversation with Minsc and Gale once again.)
In case you didn't already have enough reasons to dislike Mystra: I have a strong suspicion that Mystra is the one who traps Gale in that portal at the beginning. It's the one and only time we ever see one of these magic portals malfunction in any way. Mystra would have been able to see that Gale was taken from his home and tad-poled. Also she knew what the Netherese orb was all along, even if Gale didn't. And as Gale himself says in his first conversation, as he's falling from the Nautiloid, he reaches out "with the weave" to access the portal. The weave is literally Mystra, so of course she knows about it. I think she trapped him there in a sort of limbo outside the material plane in order to neutralize the threat of the orb.
Wow that is... a horrifying but extremely believable theory. I figured that it was simply him not having the same amount of control over his magic due to the tadpole (him being brought back to level 1 and all) causing him to "undershoot" so to speak.
But if it was Mystra taking the chance to neutralize him and the orb, that might be because she sees him as an actual threat now because of the tadpole. Before she could depend on him doing his best to avoid blowing up around people, but if he were to fall under illithid or Absolute control, they could use him like a tactical nuke.
Doesn't he say "Mystra's eyelids!" or something when dark urge does the hand thing? Like it's just an expletive, but also I feel like I could read way too far into it (he's basically going "Mystra do you see this shit? Help me!")
It kind of disappointed me that there's no real middle ground with what you advise Gale to do at the end, it's either "let your hubris consume you" or "submit to your abuser, she really wasn't THAT bad" I wish there was a way to be like "yeah fuck mystra, but it's not a great idea to try and become a god, nor to piss one off, bring the crown back to her then high tail it the fuck outta there"
Yeah, it was really sad honestly. You can tell him to just leave the crown, abandon ambition and Mystra, and that's what I have picked a couple different times now.
I'm so glad more people are starting to better understand Gale! And I believe that EA Gale's dialogue about Mystra and the "veil", as well as his very clear reflection on Mystra losing interest in him, 100% translates to the full game.
EA Gale had a lot of dialogue that showed insight and clarity regarding his relationship with Mystra. But it was likely written that way to quickly give players insight into his character and backstory, as only Act 1 was available for people to grow connected to and understand the motivations of these new characters, and Larian was still working on Gale's arc for Acts 2 and 3. EA Gale's dialogue wasn't the most 'natural' for a character who has only just recently fallen out of a relationship with someone he was groomed by (as to say, most victims may need time and perspective to fully understand the circumstance they were in, especially if it was framed as a 'romantic' relationship). Only in Act 2 of the full game does Gale go through the arc of being disillusioned by his past feelings for Mystra once Elminster arrives with her message, which leads to the revelations that EA Gale displays, only now being seen during Act 2/3 in the full release.
Full-release Gale gets to go through his full arc:
1. He's still stuck reminiscing about Mystra & believes his connection to her was pure, when really they never had any deep love and he sees no faults in her (toxic mindset); he feels guilty for wanting to be on an equal footing with her and thinks the orb is justified karma
2. He hears Mystra's order and realizes she's never seen him as worthy beyond his talents and that he was only a plaything; he starts to learn through the other companions/the player that he has self-worth outside of Mystra's approval and his talents
3. Gale's natural curiosity manifests into anger when he learns of the crown and he seeks "reactive abuse" to show Mystra his worth and challenge her
I also don't believe that Gale not taking over Mystra's domain has anything to do with him still loving her. He tried following her orders to sacrifice himself not because he loves her, but because his self-worth is so closely tied to her that he feels he needs her validation to prove that his existence means something. There are also probably regulations regarding ascending to godhood, such as Ao/the other gods playing a role and Gale being only a lesser god who controls Netherese magic & not the true Weave. So I think with all that in mind, he figured it would be better to not challenge Mystra and just take whatever new domain he can get his hands on.
Im a shy woman who is really attracted to friendly nice guys, so i was really down bad for Gale since the beginning lol.
I romanced gale first time cause who doesn't love an empathetic, hot nerd but I also love astarian and halsin so much ^_^
I don’t play baldur‘s gate, but I’m completely hypnotised watching this video
I highly recommend giving it a shot if you can get the game! Or watch some playthroughs!
YIPPEEEEE You cannot fathom how pleased I am to see this video. I absolutely loved your deep dive on Astarion, I'm so excited to see you unpack all the stuff going on with Gale!!! Common pocket con W!!!
akdhsgdhs thank you!!! I've been rotating Gale (and Astarion tbh) in my brain nonstop!
Been a gale girlie since the beginning, fighting for my life, now everyone wants a piece 😒
So at one point I think he does mention he hasn't ONLY been with Mystra, and my headcannon - which is purely my conjecture and I have nothing to base this off of other than vibes - is that in her grooming process, she guided/encouraged him into relationships that were clearly (from the eyes of someone older and more experienced) doomed to fail, in order to further push him into thinking she was his only option for everything
Again, this is just my own headcannon/idea/conjecture!
omg that is so upsetting!!! Thank you for sharing!!
@@PocketLeaves like yeah there isn't anything to back it up but also it makes way too much sense that as soon as I thought of it I was convinced
I can’t remember exactly where I heard this, but I think Gale was “eight summers old” when he first met Mystra. Mystra also apparently has enough of a reputation that parents often try to hide their children from her if they demonstrate a talent for magic at a young age because they fear Mystra taking them away. I’m not sure if that information is accurate or not, but either way, Mystra is still incredibly creepy towards Gale.
I've heard that as well! We do know that he's known Elminster since he was round 8 or maybe 10? It's mentioned in Elminster's letter post game.
I let Gale became a god on my first playthought, he was so passionate about that damn crown with his big brown puppy eyes, so I thought “okay my guy do your thing”. But on the epilogue party Tara was SO DISAPPOINTED and I took that to heart, that man is never becoming a god ever again.
In terms of him still being in love with Mystra, its pretty common (speaking from experience) for abuse and grooming victims after the relationship has ended to still feel like they are 'in love' with their abuser, especially if a major part of that relationship was them being made to feel like that relationship was it for them. If you have been made to feel unlovable or unequal to your abuser, feeling subservient and reliant on their affection is a major part of how you perceive yourself. There's still an emotional attachment, and until you've properly processed what happened, that attachment can feel like love. If you are isolated from other people, then that can be even stronger; your abuser being your only real connection to someone else can make it so hard to shake those feelings. Gale and Tara reference the fact that he doesn't have a lot of friends, something that can slow down the processing, and he literally locked himself away in a tower for about a year out of fear that he was a danger to society. He hasn't had the time to properly heal from the breakup bc he is constantly carrying the reason they broke up with him every single day (also consider the fact that she puts the blame for that breakup onto him, so he is also carrying guilt alongside it)
Gale's life involves Mystra on a daily basis through his magic. Every single spell he casts has a reminder of her. Imagine having a tattoo on the back of your hand of your abusers name and every time you look at them to do something your reminded of what they did to you. He is going to be processing things slower, bc there is no separation of her from himself. A wizard without magic is just a man, something he is terrified of being. He used to be a prodigy and now he cant do magic to the same level he used to bc the orb is eating away at the Weave, and he fears that his actions could potentially lead to the destruction of hundreds of lives. He got out of a relationship where he was a victim and he cant even do much of the grieving he is entitled to; he cant get too upset or angry bc it would a) prove Mystra right that he was never right to be on equal footing to her, and b) could agitate the orb and destroy a city. He doesn't still love her, he just doesn't understand what his life could be without her bc there is no version of events where he can still be a wizard and not have Mystra in his life, and he is processing that complicated web of emotions as love
(sorry for the long comment, i could talk for hours about gale and his responses to his trauma - i have a lot of thoughts about his reaction when you ask if hes up for an open relationship, and his reactions to elminsters message are an entire essay inside my head)
That's so fair!! I really appreciated what you've had to add here!!
@@PocketLeaves thank you!! this video was fascinating and i really really appreciated the way that you presented everything! it was so interesting and fun to watch. thanks!!
gale was love at first sight for me. as a former anders girlie i saw a goofy mage with a cat and was instantly smitten.
Gale to me is what Astarion is to many others, this video made me realize that lol! He is my awkward babygirl who still manages to be effortlessly charming, stole my heart with that confidence mixed with deep insecurity and his closest companion is a freaking cat like he’s just like me for real😂
Simply said Gale is just a great person to be around and I love him for that
"he just has that autistic rizz" should be his canon description
Oh, Gale was my first favorite
I honestly am not a fan of this representation of Mystra. Mainly because, while the past Mystryl was Lawful-Neutral, the current iteration of Mystra (Midnight + an amalgamation of the previous Mystra and Mystryl) - at least going by her most up to date information - she was still Neutral-Good like she was when Midnight alone was Mystra.
I cannot really see a good-aligned god acting in such an awful way. I could see a neutral one being rather flippant (though I see grooming children as fully evil behaviour personally) but not a good-aligned god.
I love BG3, it's one of my favourite games of all time. It's honestly a masterpiece. But there are definitely some very odd parts of the writing of the game that feel off. As fans of the previous games have said (I have not played 1 and 2, I am baby) they really messed up the writing with Sarevok and Viconia. And throwing references to the abhored Baldur's Gate novel that isn't even in print because it's so hated by everyone involved with it (including the author themselves) seems real odd too.
Those are just the very few examples that I find off though. For the most part I love the game's writing. There's just the very few things that seem off, and Mystra's representation here as a flippant child groomer is certainly one of them. At least she does in fact restore Gale and bring him to Elysium if he dies saving the world, instead of that being a lie.
I can somewhat understand her order toward Gale to sacrifice himself to save the world, since she's not allowed to directly interfere herself, and she has a rather long history of sacrificing herself so it seems to be a common thought for her. Mystryl sacrificed herself to save the weave after Karsus destroyed it and a later incarnation of Mystra - Midnight - sacrificed her own life to destroy Shar's shadow weave. She left a part of herself alive so that she could be reborn with the help of Elminster (current Mystra), but in essence she did decide that sacrificing herself to cause the destruction of the weave (and with it, the shadow weave) was for the greater good. So... sacrifice for the greater good does seem to be a common theme of hers. But still the nature of her behaviour toward Gale and the whole "history of grooming kids" seems totally off for a goddess who should currently be good-aligned. And even the previous Mystra before Midnight (the neutral one) was at LEAST Lawful-Neutral. She has never been evil nor chaotic.
I kinda read him saying he "offers" nothing he just inspires as a god as darker: more like now he is a god, he's continuing similar cycles (mirroring astarion's story) and that his new position has let him justify those blurred lines of power
Bruh my brain blocked out the part where the narrator said that Gale would see, so when tav imagined them kissing i was like "WAIT HE CAN SEE THAT???"
This video caused me to re-rank Gale, from a companion that grew on me to my favorite
I entered the game planning on choosing Karlach. I never even thought about Gale. Then my halfling Tav adventured and…damn it. Now she’s Mrs. Dekarios.
the astarion to gale lover pipeline is so real
The Astarion to Gale pipeline is so real! I couldn’t stand him in my first playthrough. The “you’re not lEaRnEd in magic” line really turned me off, but now he’s my Durge sorcerer’s dorky boyfriend and I love bullying him lol
OMG yeah, I always play as a bard, and when he said that to me the first time, I just looked down at all my spells on my hotbar and was like "sure, yeah, I don't know magic, huh" But once you get past that, he's really sweet and fun!
Considering volo is a secret chosen of mystra i think she has a thing for beards
Wasn’t fully paying attention here so if you’ve already said this I apologize lol
Grooming can be non-pedophilic, but, Elminster discovered Gale (which is the reason he caught Mystra’s attention) when he was “No older than eight.” Minsc talks about how people had to hide away young wizards from Mystra. This is pedophilic grooming, as well as all the other huge power imbalances.
Also, when Gale said “I crossed Mystra’s boundaries” I doubt he meant… relationship boundaries. I think he was referring to him crossing the limits of the rules Mystra put over magic itself. Not deliberately trying to cross a personal boundary of hers, but the weave she controls.
Gale is going to be my Romance next time, I was romancing Astarion and some how Gale thought we had something, which…no…but his little “I wish you’d told me you weren’t interested sooner” speech gave me feels. 😢
Whenever I play big bad characters like a rabid barbarian or cold conquest paladin I ALWAYS romance Gale. It’s always just so unwaveringly cute to have this monster of a man having a deep soft spot for a bumbling boyfailure.
I always figured I'd go for Astarion on my first playthrough and try Gale on my second, because I really love both of them. but then suddenly Gale was just "I'm in love with you". and my heart just melted. then i figured sure, and rolled with it.
and I'm glad I did.
he is a really sweet and kind guy, if not just a little bit too ambitious (with the whole god thing).
but I just grew to love more anyway.
And even though I have never been in that situation myself, I understand very well the feeling of not being good enough. so I will always stand by him and tell him that he is good enough just the way he is. with quirks and flaws and all
by the way what is that light behind you? it's just so pretty and fits the theme so well :)
Gale is really sweet! I actually have a harder time not romancing Astarion, but I do have a soft spot for Gale.
It's a star projector!
@@PocketLeaves
at first I was romancing Astarion as well.
I just accidentally romanced Gale too. and since he confesses first
I just went for it.
next time i go for my other true love Astarion 😂
Same, I was gonna go for Astarion at first, but this dorky wizard stole my heart lol
Personally I literally saw him when me sibling was playing and went "GASP! PURPLE MAN PURPLE MAN PURPLE MAN CHOOSE THAT ONE" and my sibling went "He's a wizard" and I went "GAASP MAGIC PURPLE MAN CHOOSE THAT ONE!!!"
On my multiplayer with my husband I chose Gale. I chose him as the man he is every time and it made me sob. Making him know that I love him as the human he is. That’s he’s worth more than his magic. By the end of the story it gave me as much feeling as Astarion.
The cut scene in Act 2 broke my heart. The graphics do such an amazing job of capturing his sadness. Obviously the voice acting quality goes without saying. Loved this video, thank you for sharing.
i desperately wish i could romance gale but he reminds me TOO MUCH of my high school english teacher that every time i triggered romance with him i had to turn it down and its like gale it is not you. its me. and the fact you are too english teacher coded
"Settles for ambition" seems like an oxymoron. And i think he works really hard to not think about it
Weirdly it does make since in a poetic way. Once you achieve your goals you no longer have ambition and you have no need of it.
In a weird way someone who goes so far only to be stuck eternally one step away from their goal is the perfect person to be a god of ambition. Only through an unobtainable goal can one represent infinite ambition.
Although Gale himself seems like he gave up on further power so IDK.
This was another very good deep dive. Looking forward to more of these if you have time. Gale is probably the companion easiest to identify with for a lot of us, and as you pointed out that may be why so many of us snark about him.
Thank you!!! I really love making these character deep dives, so there will definitely be more!
@@PocketLeaves I’ve been looking for videos on story and characters for BG3, and this and your Astarion vid have been excellent.
so upset that Mystra basically groomed him; from the convo with Elminster you basically find out that she could of gave Gale the power to control the orb from day 1
I mean that's gods being gods right?
Love the video, genuinely surprised anyone can come to hate Gale. Mystra saying "be contented" with what he has is not too dissimilar to telling a man he's "big enough". Being a goddess with eons of knowledge on human interaction knew exactly what her actions were doing to each of her chosen but just didn't care. In the ending where Gale becomes a mindflayer to stop the absolute, she offers and SUCCEEDS in changing him back(with strings attached), which means she was likely capable of reverting Gale's condition at any point but just decided not to.
Gale does indeed have that "I can fix him/I can save him" energy, that all of the Origin companions in their weird "brokeness" do.
I love the tism rizzard so much 😭 thank you for making this video, I enjoyed every minute of it.
He has only one technique: rizz 'em with the 'tism. Awkward Rizz Gang rise up!
I love your video essays about those characters, hope you will make more from Baldurs Gate :) And for Gale, i really like Gale, so what he is into Tav too soon ? he is so me, i get attached to people for no reason at all too :D :D He reminds me of Alistair from Dragon Age Origins, so i guess i have a type :)
One thing I like about Gale, and I wonder if this is a very male phenomenon, is the intertwined inferiority and superiority complexes. I think it's something a lot of guys, myself included, have going on up there, it's a very bipolar "I'm so fucking good at this" and then "I'm literally worthless and nobody likes me", often at the same time. I say it's a guy thing because I think women are socialized to be better at developing an independent identity and sense of self-worth outside of their status, abilities, utility, and money, even if they have a lot of all of those things. But of course I'm sure plenty of them have this too. But it specifically interacts with masculine expectations and the inherently competitive and ambitious nature of masculinity as a mental framework. Gale thinks he's the best wizard ever, a genius, a prodigy, BETTER than others, he clearly thinks very highly of himself when it comes to DOING things and having skills. But when it comes to himself as a PERSON, he's the opposite, he thinks very little of himself and doesn't see much value in who Gale the dude is. Like if you take away a guy's acumen in his chosen field, his skills, abilities, the things that we invest time and effort in to achieve status and self-worth, we're often left very bare and insecure with just ourselves.
He's my favorite male companion because he has the most interesting, nuanced, and thought provoking take on masculinity, as his portrayal is based on maleness in vulnerability. I absolutely love it when masculinity is portrayed in such an incisive way while being empathetic instead of just flatly critical, because masculinity crystallized in our brains when we were all just impressionable little boys trying to figure out how to live, and if you can't be empathetic towards that I think that's kinda fucked up.
I think Mystra can be seen to represent women in general in that way, something you're not going to hear a lot of guys say, but something I genuinely think we all feel deep down, is a sort of deep inferiority complex towards women. Not on an individual level, but women in general, as a class. We're constantly trying to impress them not just because we want to have sex with them, but because we want to fill that internal hole in our ability to respect ourselves with external female approval. We place it on a much higher pedestal than male approval, because we subconsciously know that to be vacuous and materialistic, as other guys are similarly fixated on quantifiable skills and abilities rather than the actual human qualities that women are culturally perceived to be more in touch with. Men only have value if they're good at something, women have an innate value, they're better, more moral, more in touch with the human spirit, and we desperately want them to share that with us. Not saying that's true of course, that's just how it feels.
This is also why I like the inverse, absolutely fucking awful female villains who exhibit traditionally male villainies like grooming and sexual abuse. It flips the cultural kaleidoscope and lets you look at these dynamics from a new angle.
I used a lot of 'we' in this post, of course I was painting with a broad brush and this isn't true of everybody, but I know pretty well what it's like to be a guy lol. Hopefully I didn't just massively tell on myself.
When I sent him to blow up the Elder Brain I ugly cried so hard my SO thought something was legitimately wrong with me.
Gale is a Bard with a special interest in the weave. I'm not sure someone can convince me of something else.
Baby YES. Finally, someone with the correct opinion. I could write a whole novella just explaining why Gale is a repressed Bard.
I didn’t like him at first because he was stuck up, sheltered, and a simp. That also made his romance option seem cheap, and one of the most popular fanfics to write about him is your character not feeling good enough in comparison to Mystra. And I think that’s why his behavior in act 1 is so weird.
By act 2, I didn’t mind him. I was like ‘ok this is going somewhere, yay!’ Because facing the worst outcome or reality of ourselves is necessary to grow even if it hurts or almost destroys us. But I feel like Act 3 doesn’t quite handle his story right with really any of his endings. There’s something off about it that I just do not like at all. He continues to be a love/hate of a character for me.
"You gnaw off his hand"
//Silent Hill 2 music plays in the background
AYO???????
asdfasdfads dark urge is WILD
I dont even play video games. I found Gale on Tumbr and my autisim did the rest.
This is so real!!!! That was me with Astarion before I got the game myself.
I'm always a bit surprised that more people don't adore gale from the start like I do. I find him so funny and charismatic. He's also the only one of the initial companions who is friendly and somewhat open. This could be different for other players who behaved differently but but I decided very early on that Gail was my tav's best friend and I kept him in my party almost constantly for that reason. Even his need to consume magic items gimmick didn't bug me that much because I was easily able to find two I didn't mind loosing and he only ever consumed two in my play through before the problem stopped cropping up.
Gale is similar to Kael'thas from World of Warcraft. They're both mages who suffer from magic addiction and must consume any forms of magic or else they'll die. Difference is that while Kael'thas sides with a Demon Overlord and use the Sunwell, the source of the Blood Elves' magic, to summon him which lead to his demise, Gale was able to overcome his magic addiction with the help of Tav and ascend to Godhood in order to face Mystara and take her place.
I can't remember if there was no persuasion check (in that one I was a bard so I passed all of them easily by then) but I do know that the easier way to persuade Astarion not to ascend is 1) have him in your party 2) separate and leave him by the cells on the way right before cazador 3) fight cazador & crew with your remaining two companions 4) once cazador goes into the coffin, go get Astarion and bring him there to finish cazador off
I only know this because I had a friend walk me through the battles in real time because I didn't want spoilers but I did need help 😂
Oh, wow! I didn't want to rob Astarion of his confrontation and the catharsis of standing up for himself against Cazador before the fight, so I'd never considered leaving him out of the fight like that!
Boy did I try to see if the Gale pipeline was real for me 😬 Act 1 was cute, bedded him in act 2 after turning down Astarion and was… disappointed by the results. Called it off the relationship the next morning and went for Wyll since Astarion was no longer an option and well, Wyll did kinda win me over with his goofy dance. And that dance twirl into a kiss with Wyll grabbing the PC’s wrist 👀 Oooh~ yes please! Wyll and my tiefling boy can bump horns lol I do enjoy Gale though, him and I could autistically talk about magic for hours. But yes it is so much fun to tease him lol
i finished my first playthrough very recently in which i romanced karlach, and i did the final segment with gale in my party. i had warmed back up to him, because for a bit in the beginning he kind of irritated me (he left my party early on when i stalled too long to give him a magic item because i got too attached to a particular tunic which was the only thing i had left to give him, so i reloaded to give it to him), but man that final section just fully thrust me into loving him. i tried to romance astarion on my next playthrough because that was always the plan, karlach then astarion then wyll, but gale just kept being so silly that i had to drop astarion. gale is a real treat, i love that guy and his funny words so much.
It was definitely a slow burn kinda love for me with Gale but now I'm full blown infatuated with this fictional man 😭
Love this!! Gale grew on me more so on my second run than my first and I got way more invested in his character than I was expecting to, since my first run I was just laser-focused on Karlach. Regardless, they’re both very easy to like pretty quickly and their idiosyncrasies just make them so well-crafted in a larger than life setting.
Gale is so relatable cuz if you talk to him about Tara he falls in love with your character and like as a cat owner same 😭also I feel so bad for writing him off so quickly in the beginning (in my defense it was his early access self who I didn’t find really find appealing). Once the game came out I love a lot of the changes to him and he’s a constant in my party. Also his romance is so well-written, ITS JUST YEARNINGGG and two people learning to trust and love again. I could go on about how much I love him and Tara.
Literally the only romanceable male companion I have absolutely zero interest in romancing is Halsin.
Other than that, here's reasons why would marry one of the bachelors of Baldur's Gate 3:
Wyll is undoubtedly the most mentally stable. Although he was bound to Mizora through a pact, his personality (from what I could tell) didn't change much, if at all, from the pact. He's still fiercely devoted to fighting for the greater good, to standing against tyranny and oppression, and to defend those who can't defend themselves. Those values are very close to my own. I often fantasize about being a hero, about standing up for others even at great personal risk. Wyll would 100% back me up on my desire to make the world a better place for everyone. No doubt about it. I'd be happy with him as a lover, I'd be happy with him as a friend. Either way, I have zero complaints.
Astarion's backstory closely mirrors my own. Although I wasn't literally tortured by my abuser like he was, I was still a victim of sexual assault. My very first romantic relationship was incredibly toxic. I found it incredibly difficult to say no, to stand my ground. My first "lover", if I can even call it that, didn't see me as anything more than a means to obtain his own personal pleasure. He used me. Manipulated me. Made me feel like I was nothing without him. It took me a couple years before realizing that this was not a healthy relationship, and another year after that before I finally plucked up the courage to end things with him. Not to mention my well-meaning parents also played a hand in stunting my ability to make my own decisions; they were the literal definition of helicopter parents. I have no doubt they wanted what was best for me, but as I've grown older and am now suffering the consequences of my own poor decisions for the first time, I don't think they knew what they were doing. If I'd been allowed to stumble and flounder when I was younger, I probably wouldn't be struggling as much as I am now. So Astarion's story resonates with me in a way few have managed to capture. Learning to make my own decisions. Learning how to build healthy connections with people. Learning how to stand up for myself. I think of all three of them, Astarion would be able to uniquely understand my trauma. He'd be more than willing to take things slow, and would value my consent. And also there's something very therapeutic about helping someone else heal from their traumatic past. It makes the prospect of facing my own demons seem less daunting. It gives me hope that "the impossible is more likely than we think".
Gale mirrors me in personality and interests. Socially awkward, often unable to read the room, incredibly nerdy. His passion for magic mirrors my passion for music. And like him, I'm also a bookworm. Curling up by the fire with a book in my hands and a cat on my lap seems like the best way to relax after a long day. And of course, I can appreciate any man who knows how to cook.
I started my BG3 journey gunning for Halsin because of my own experiences with grief and healing, but by the time I finally was able to recruit him, I was so caught by Gale that I felt I needed to do another entire playthrough just for him. His has such a powerful story and he's such a charming companion,
My one Mystra is catching these hands comment is that I simply can't believe Mystra didn't know about what Gale was trying to accomplish. I think Gale says something about her knowing and forbidding it. She never says why. It was just "do as I say, because I say so." though that might be from having read too many fanfics. But if true, like many groomers, she refused to explain herself or why she was forbidding something. She simply expected the young man to just do as she said without question. She was supposed to be his teacher. A teacher explains why things are dangerous. Instead, she lets him do it and then punishes him. She takes a young, scared, venerable man, strips him of the one thing that can protect him (his full might of magic), casts him aside like trash, and then allows him to suffer in an excruciating pain and arcane hunger that will one day kill him and everyone else in the neighborhood. Mystra wasn't just condemning Gale. Gale says it himself "The moment it becomes unstable, however. It will erupt." Mystra isn't just punishing Gale, she's also making Gale responsible for every life in the area. She's made it so he HAS to lock himself away, has to beg for her forgiveness, because if the orb becomes unstable or if he dies before he can fi it, he takes everything around him out with him. She's made it so he can't ever do anything but be the destruction of all he knows and loves other than her unless he crawls to her to save him. When he finds out he doesn't have to be alone and gets a support structure, her response is to immediately send a fake Elminister (he was a simulacrum), to tell Gale that for her forgiveness, he must end himself. As soon as he might find redemption and happiness in anyone else, her response is "I guess you have to die now, it's the only way." At least that's my take on it.
But what do you expect from the Goddess who made VOLO into a pillar of magic
I just started playing BG3 and first chose Gale to romance. Astarion has started growing on me but Gale was my first choice lol
I can’t stop thinking about Gale summoning the bed. Could he just be summoning beds for camp but we all sleep on the ground for some reason. Damn wizards.
I’m 17 and was groomed by a 22 year old man this year hearing you call that out is so validating, I kinned Asterion and now I kin Gale due to the mutual abuse….
Well now I want them both to adopt me…
Well you've convinced me to do a Durge clerk of Mystra /wizard and try the Gale romance out lmao
In my epilogue gale was just straight up dead. I feel like I missed out on a few scenes as a result of him being kidnapped by Orin.
Oh yeah, him being kidnapped locks you out of a lot of things, but you could theoretically do them before going to confront the brain. But that's a point of remembering to tie up all the loose ends
I don't know how to word this without sounding weird, but: my platonic-partner told me about this character, and how I could relate to him potentially. Told me to look into him, and explained a bit why.
I found your video, and it made me come to terms with something I didn't realize about something I experienced a few years back.
I know you didn't write this character, but I sincerely appreciate your analysis as it helped me to realize I wasn't making it up (related to coercion/grooming I had experienced), and it made me finally get the closure I was seeking: I miss the person who harmed me, because they made me feel special till I was discarded. I did nothing to deserve what happened, and there is no way to prove my worth to them to fix this, as I didn't do anything??
There anyone in this game that isn't traumatized my god 😭😭😭
Your Bg3 videos are now officially my comfort videos :) - it’s crazy how this game has overtaken my every waking thoughts
I think it's so annoying that they dropped addressing the grooming implications from Gale's story in the rewrite. It kind of feels like some of the writers chickened out while Astarion's held strong on addressing sexual victimhood and trauma. They really should have stuck with it because the nature of Gale's relationship with Mystra and how it is abusive is so different that Astarion's. Interestingly, Wyll's EA backstory involved a romantic or sexual relationship with Mizora who tempted him into a contact as a teen instead of it being something he did in duress to save lives. So you'd have an example of someone who was outright taken by force and violence, someone who was exploited through power imbalance isolation and religion, and someone who was tempted down a path as a teen seeking glory and sex only to find himself entrapped.
I get how it might be downright weird for all the men to be victims of sexual abuse in some way but not the women, but it's not like subversion of expectations is bad if it's written really well. Granted... I think addressing the role sex might have played for the women in the Origins would have been valid, too... all of them had vulnerabilities in their backgrounds and it's just so common a trauma.
One of the reasons I can't easily let go of the game, ADHD aside, is the abuse themes. How to grow beyond it. It's a painful, arduous process. You grow, then shrink. You think you're healing, but then you regress. It's awful. Gale and Astarion are the two I most relate to, and to this day, I always help them get better. IE, no ascension for either of them.
God!Gale is literally an MLM head.
about the scene with Gale where he shows you his tower, you can still opt for a regular night with him - that's my favourite version imo.