His loading screen image, GM4Him, really? A mage doing mage stuff, to skeletons... there's not a single thing that is even remotely suspicious about that.... compared to 'consorting with a devil' and 'surrounded by cultists and wearing their logo'? Two of those images are suspicious... Gale's is not one of them. I feel like I want to mention that they didn't say the were releasing the evil character first, they said the non-good ones. In our five, we have three evils (Astarion (CE), Lae'zel (LE), Shadowheart (NE)(likely highly variable as we progress)) and two neutrals (Wyll (CN) and Gale (TN)).
Gale absolutely does mind link with you, once you garner his trust, and it's the most honest and open mental communication anywhere in the game thus far.
Pretty much all mages who study beyond a certain point learn about netherese magic - it's a pretty big part of magical history, considering what the netherese empire was, and what they did. Especially anyone who takes a direct meta-interest in the weave itself, the fall of netheril, and the surrounding events, are going to be the core of their study. There's nothing sinister about that at all. Gales interest in Mystra and his longing to feel the weave, not just too use it, in particular, means that it would be suspicious of his story is he Wasn't well versed in netherese magic history. What is odd here, rather is that Gale doesn't have specialised dialogue lines when we learn that the tadpoles have netherese magic about them - he really should have!
As for being power-hungry... one line in a mirror, okay... is that ALL you're getting that from? Because building that assertion on that one line alone seems like you'd already made up your mind and were just looking for things to justify it on, from my perspective... so, what else?
I'm not sure how trying to learn about your companions runs against being a good person... you'll have to explain that to me, too. I want to learn more about Shadow and Lae'zel too... does that make me suspicious of being secretly evil?
Most of our characters are not ruling out dealing with raphael if it comes down to it. Not ruling it out is purely pragmatic, when the alternative may well be becoming an illithid. Remember - If you transform into an illithid, you don't just die.... you are destroyed body and soul; you don't go to your afterlife, and you don't continue in any way - you're simply gone, ceasing to exist at all, utterly, and it's dubious as to whether even a wish spell could restore you at that point. If a devil can get you out of that, and there's no other option, then your soul may end up belonging to them, but for the time being, it is safe, and you have time and opportunity to find a means to get out of that situation, which is very much possible... and even then, the goal is to entertain the offer and attempt to get the better of the devil in the deal - something which is also possible, though extremely difficult. Not ruling out the possibility, especially for a pragmatist who considers himself the most intellectually capable person in camp, is not really 'suspicious' of anything. What do you feel it's suspicious of?
I put the last point down to the ridiculousness of Shadowheart's character situation and writing, rather than laying that at Gale's feet, frankly, but I'll give it to you as a very dubious point, since yes, he should have more objection to that, all things considered, however, I will add that as a magic scholar, he's more likely to view the deities in an academic sense, not a religious one, so it's entirely believable that he's simply dismissive of Shar 'worshippers'.
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What I do have to admit to is that, no, I haven't seen how he behaves if you don't help him with his problem. People have mentioned that that is telling, but I don't know what actually goes on or is said, because his burden has never felt even remotely like a burden to me, and I don't want the northern sword coast to explode, generally speaking... even my evil characters do not wish to be close to ground zero of a city-destroying explosion, surprise surprise... I'm not stupid-evil).
