I did not romance Gale, but I did observe the forums here when he was up for a hot discussion and a lot of the things I read about him made me think of that there is DEFINITELY something more about Gale that we'll see on full release - either that he is very much more sinister than he appears to be, or something else. I am intrigued to see what Larian is cooking up for him - and, I just want to point out that I SINCERELY (but politely) disagree about Gale being even a minor reflection of NG (or any type of good, for that matter). More about that later.

First of all, regarding the more obvious parts of his nature (aka, whenever he is a narcissistic arse or not), Tarlonniel summed it up pretty good in the comment above:

Originally Posted by Tarlonniel
For me, everything goes off the rails character-wise at the party. The first time I actually managed to trigger his romance, I was really enjoying it until this one-two-three punch:

1) After some minor flirtation and stalling the PC romantically for days, on the night of the party Gale decides to go from 0-60mph in terms of physical intimacy, even if the PC has explicitly indicated that they want to take things slower. It's either sex or the end of the romance.

2) The next morning he reveals that he's still-maybe-probably in love with someone else. A goddess, no less. AND he hid this from the PC because he knew it might be a problem and he wanted that sweet booty.

3) Immediately afterwards, he reveals that he's a walking high-yield explosive and a serious danger to everyone around him, especially if those people are ignorant of his explosiveness. Which everyone basically has been until that moment.

One of these things? Not so bad, I can work with it. Two of them? Eh... sketchy, but I can make allowances. All three? Gale has crossed a line in the sand for me. YMMV, of course.

These things just come up as extremely off-putting. First time I read it I actually laughed out loud because it was so... Out of place when it comes to my experience of CRPG romances. In my experience, most CRPGs have this really sweet (but cliche) love interests that would do anything for you and then Gale comes up like an almost too-real douchebag. It was very unexpected, at least for me! :'D While his counterparts like Astarion and Wyll at least are more obvious in their less flattering sides (Wylls obsession with himself and heroism and Astarions... Well, general behavior). With these two, there is more room for pleasant surprises than negative ones - but that is for another discussion entirely.

So, regarding that Gale might not just be a bit more of a douchebag, but might actually be directly sinister / evil (Major spoilers ahead, do not read if you don't want to know potentially data-mined information):

I am not able to retrieve the entire discussion, since it was so long ago that the forum seems to have put them in the archive (or trashed it completely) - so bear with me as I am trying to recall the most important parts with my extremely non-viable memory. If someone sees anything faulty in my text, please do not hesitate to correct me. I am trying my best to verify the information externally, but I am going mostly on memory here.

Basically, the discussion summed up the fact that there is definitely beyond a doubt at least something EXTREMELY fishy about Gale. Why? The most obvious reason is the fact that Gale is the only person that we do not directly link ourselves with through the tadpole. He says he has one, but unlike all other companions (and other affected parts) - we do not actually touch his memory, as we do with *ALL* other tadpole'd people. This alone is *extremely* suspicious.

Other than that we have the fact that his former lover is not just a demon (looking at you, Wyll) - but an actual *GODDESS*, and not just *A* goddess, but a *GREATER DEITY* (according to the Forgotten Realms wiki). This is absurdly huge, assuming Gale isn't straight up lying to our face. If Gale truly was Mystras lover, then he should be not just on par with her chosen (who are insanely powerful, as expected by a greater deity's chosen) - but he would actually have to be *EVEN* greater. And this begs the question - what in the Prime Material plane did Gale do to lose her favor? Mystra is Lawful neutral, according to the wiki. Her chosen holds any kind of alignment from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good (also accorind to the FR wiki), so Mystra does not seem to be picky about the morals of her followers. What could Gale possibly have done to displease her so severely?

So, we have this absurdly powerful wizard in our party who is as weak as us "regular" heroes. We do know that we're supposed to be "zapped" of our strength due to the tadpole, but Gale would be in an entirely different league of having his power zapped, compared to the rest of us. And while it is very obvious that he actually has been stripped off a great deal of power (hence his level and available spells) - we cannot even properly confirm that he has a tadpole. We do have some ways of accessing his mind through the tadpole, which causes interactions similar to those we gain from interacting with other people with a tadpole - but this is far from definite proof, imo. All in all, everything regarding the tadpole seems to afflict Gale differently than anybody else that we know of. From the initial interaction to the power-level decrease.

And finally, regarding Gale not being in the "good" alignment spectrum, hit YouTube and check what happens if you do not feed Gale with artifacts. All that talk about not wanting to put people at risk for his own sake? Yaaaah, about that... Whatever he did was NOT very good-natured. Whenever he is a selfish prick is not up for debate, in my opinion, any longer - he is most certainly a selfish and greedy type. And that, on top of everything else, makes me believe he most certainly might be sinister or directly evil on top of that.

All this said, I think Gale is an EXTREMELY interesting character, as he is far from obvious. I will definitely bring him along for at least one playthrough just to see his character development and his story. So far, he might be the most interesting companion in our party - however, I'll say that I am more than pleasantly surprised by the work Larian has put into our current companions. Can't wait to see the final work!

Last edited by Dez; 28/03/21 08:45 AM. Reason: Correcting some stuff
Hoot hoot, stranger! Fairly new to CRPGs, but I tried my best to provide some feedback regardless! <3 Read it here: My Open Letter to Larian