Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What Companion don't you Trust?

I could understand this as reasonable, if not for the way you based it on something that you literally made up and inserted yourself. The fact that you took a line, added in a completely non-present blame-for-killing-many-people, that didn't exist in any way, and then cast the line as sinister and manipulative based on that thing that you literally invented and put there yourself... to be honest that feels manipulative and deceptive, KR ^.^ Said in good humour, but no less serious.

It's just... that is in no way a reasonable accusation or criticism to make, when nothing he said indicated, hinted or even remotely suggested anything like that, and you just whacked that 'blame' in there on your own, then tarred him with it as part of your justification for reading him as sinister and manipulative in that line. Please take a step back and look at what you did there, and how far you framed that situation up to match your narrative when it didn't actually fit it.



Yes... he wants you to be as agreeable as possible for this. He's picking the best moment he can to broach the subject with you, in the hopes to get you at your most favourable, because he is quite eager to get your willing help on this.

That's Normal. Normal sensible people do that, every day, and it's entirely mundane. It's not manipulation and it's not deceit. It's just a normal every day element of social interaction and social awareness. You don't ask someone for help moving boxes when they just got home from stocking a warehouse all day and are exhausted – that's dumb and socially unaware.

He is asking you because of all of the reasons he lists – he's asking you because he has come to the conclusion that you are his best option to secure help from and to give his confidence to; the reasons he lists are the reasons why he has come to that conclusion. He thinks you're his best bet for this, and he'd like to be able to trust you with it as his first choice from amongst this available options. Why is that a problem? It doesn't seem or feel like a problem to me. There's no 'sinister manipulation' in any of that – just normal human behaviour... unless you are predisposed to treat everything he does with cynical prejudice and presume ill intention without evidence of it... which is what, again, it feels like you are doing.

If I had a group of travelling companions, and one of them looked at me like I was an insect, one of them looked at me like I was meat, one of them can't even see me because she's too busy trying to look down her nose at me while simultaneously holding it up in the air, and one of them seems to be a more or less upstanding person who has listened to, taken on, and solved the problems of others despite being in danger themselves already... and I felt it was necessary that I tell one of these people about my needs, and ask for their help... who do you think I'm going to ask? Of course I'm going to ask the decent person! And of course I'm going to do it at a time that I think is probably the best moment to get them in a good mood and congenial disposition – especially if I'm concerned that the thing I have to ask them is hard to swallow! That's not being manipulative, that's just being a socially aware human being. That's pretty normal.


Once again, and off-handed joke said with no weight and a chuckle... but if you are determined to construe that as villainy and manipulation, then there is virtually nothing this man can do that you would not find some way to malign as manipulation, or at least that's how it feels as I read your perspective.... like you've already decided, and you are going to twist, extrapolate or straight up invent out of the ether (as you did earlier), everything that is said to force it to fit the description you've already come up with, whether it fits on its own or not. It feels like you're being disingenuous with the facts, I'd even say, just to make them match your stance, when they don't.


Yes... he's projecting. That's what I was implying; in trying to convey that he is aware that he's asking a big thing of you, he projects the values that he, personally, finds in such things, and why the action would be a sacrifice for him. That's not malicious or evil – inept, perhaps, but not manipulation, especially if it's not true of us. It would be great if we could correct him on why we're not eager to give him the items, and it would be a chance for more character building, which I would welcome, but in terms of examining Gale's character it's irrelevant.

Bear in mind, as well, the comment about the allure and power of the artefacts only comes directly in relation to artefacts you already have – you've already Stolen the idol from the grove. You've already either taken the sword from the cold dead fingers of its former wielder, or else been given it as a gift to use and serve you as needed by someone you helped. The assumption that you want to keep it because you wish to use it is not only not an unfair one... it's straight up one of the only reasonable assumptions one can make, and it's a true one in the extreme vast majority of cases... Why do the vast majority of players not give him the sword of Tyr? Because They Want To Use It.



So... again, and I'm sorry, but here's you, attempting to escalate a situation and throw shade on the character of the side of the argument you want to discredit, by inventing recriminations that do not exist and tarring them onto the character you want to malign. Why do you keep doing this? Are you aware that you are doing it? Is that not extremely similar to the thing you are accusing Gale of doing? In point: Who said anything about slaughtering a grove? No-one – only you said that. That's you, inserting the supposition of violent death (Again!) where it was not mentioned or even implied. It's not necessary and never was. You put that there, and you characterised it as being the only outcome tied to acquiring the idol when it's not, and it seems very much like you do this, just so that you can characterise anyone defending the first statement as being someone who would not stand against the slaughter of innocents... when loss of innocent life never even entered into the picture in the first place, until You put it there. Why do you contort yourself so? Take a step beck and look at the rings you're twisting yourself into to make this fit the person you feel like he is... the simpler answer is that you are projecting the idea and motives of a character onto him that simply is not there... and that is why you have to twist so much to make the things fit when they don't.

I do grant, yes, he does only mention power and value in that phrase. I don't feel it substantively changes anything though; that whole exchange simply does not in any way come off to me as him trying to guilt or shame, at all – quite the opposite, in fact. It comes off to me as him accepting that you may feel your need for a particular item outweighs his more general need for items – but to impress upon you that he does consider it a desperate need all the same, and that he thinks you should place a similar importance upon it as well. There's nothing deceptive or manipulative about this – it's a bald-faced, up front request that you make this as much of a priority as you can.


And yet... unlike when Wyll bullshits at us, we are not presented even a single insight check at any point to discern whether he is being genuine or not...

The evidence we have in game directly countermands the supposition that these are lies and falsehoods that he's telling us... So, we can take that on board and adjust our opinions, or we can tie ourselves into a pretzel adding on ad-hoc suppositions to explain why this directly countermanding evidence does not negate our stance but actually supports it. One of these is a sensible action, the other is the action of a zealot uninterested in the actual truth.

Here, you're doing the latter: you're deciding that Larian are god-moding that tool away from us, for this singular character, when they don't appear to be doing that for other characters with secrets to hide. Just so that you can suppose dishonesty where none is actually present in game. Why are Larian giving Gale the ability to lie to us without rolling dice, and without subjecting himself to our dice rolls, but not the other companions? Why do you feel the need to suppose that they are doing that, just with him? Also worth noting – there are cases where we Do get insight checks on Gale himself, and where we Can call him out on hiding something from us and being dishonest... so it's worse than that, because you're having to say that they're taking away that tool for just some specific things he says, which you think are lies but which we are told by the game are not, but not others, which we can reliably test using the tools the game provides. Please take a step back and realise that you are doing this.


Based onnnn...?

He told us that in his questing for forgotten lore and magic he found what he believed to be a lost fragment of weave that had been cut off from Mystra, and he thought it would be just what he needed to re-win her attention, if he returned it. When he accessed the piece of weave, though, it assaulted and attacked him, and embedded itself in him, and turned out to not be what he thought it was.

We can peer into his mind and see images that more or less confirm that this Is exactly how it happened, and at no point during any of his story to this extent are we given any indication that he might be deceiving us with anything he says – no insight, no deception, nothing.... So what grounds, other than personal prejudice, are you using to suppose that this is all deceit?

==

Soul deals with devils come due upon death, and they generally contain no other requisites or contingencies levied upon the individual to act in certain ways, or grant the devil any right to command or instruct that individual – such caveats create the potential for invalidation, and they don't need to put them in if they're getting your soul anyway. They generally go the other way, actually, and give nothing but benefits for your mortal life, since they are trying to sell the target on the deal. Soul deals come due when you die, and Gale would definitely have negotiated as best he could to get as favourable a contract as he could, to allow him as much room as he could to wiggle out of it. I'm not saying he'd have done well, or succeeded, but he'd definitely have tried his best and fought for every inch of freedom in life as he could get, and as much boon as he could get out of it in that time, to boot.

Beyond that... It sounds to me like your 'good person' solution is “I'd give up and die”. That's not good enough, sorry. What do you do Before you give up and die?

Presuming we go with “Give up and die” though.... your plan is... Get as far away as possible – on foot, through unknown landscapes, with few resources? Sounds reckless and stupid to me, and basically just like a choice of suicide that doesn't actually care if anyone actually does happen to be in your blast range – just as long as you can tell yourself that you tried to get away.

- Flying into the air? When you don't know exactly when you will explode, and don't know how great a detonation it may be except that it would be enough to level a city or more, and fly only lasts a few minutes? No, that's pretty darn stupid and ineffective too.

- Sell your possessions for a teleport scroll? From whom are you buying this powerful spell scroll that is the exclusive domain of highly powerful spellcasters... here in the middle of the wilderness and a string of small fishing villages, townships and outposts? That's not happening. And are your possessions and belongings valuable enough to buy a spell scroll (7th level, very rare) that might sell for up to 100,000 gold? I doubt it, considering you escaped enslavement and crashed with the clothes on your back a few days ago; remember, you don't have the backing of your allies on this, you're abandoning them in order to manage your own problem on your own, in this solution you're proposing.

In fact... the nearest place you could reliably expect to buy a magic item of that level anyway would be... well... Baldur's Gate. So... you're being exactly as 'selfish' as you accuse Gale of being, in that case.

Have you got any other 'solutions'? Any other options? What does a good person do? So far you're zero for three, plus one that is doing exactly what you are trying to call Gale selfish for doing – going somewhere where you can acquire more resources to solve your problem.

Incidentally... If you can get a teleport scroll, you can get a plane shift scroll; Gale has already suggested that if he can wrangle a way to get himself into the astral plane (and ideally back again afterwards...), he can release the orb there, unexploded due to how the astral works, and solve the problem without anyone dying. That seems like a goal to strive for to me – and it's his best choice solution too.


Once again, I'd like to point out that you are making a denigrating and back-handed attack on his character status; you're doing the exact thing you're accusing him of doing. “Wife he cheated on”? Only if you assume against all evidence to the contrary that he deliberately sought out shadow weave, knew what it was and choose to absorb it himself, with intent. Only if you assume that the evidence we see in his mind, and the explanation he gives us of events, which both line up and agree and give no indication of the possibility of deception, are, in fact, false and lies... at which stage, I feel I must ask... what is the gain you get from having a conversation about him, if you're going to write off anything that doesn't line up with your belief as a lie, and invent things that were not said or indicated in order to maintain your stance? Why is characterising Gale as a dishonest manipulator so important and essential to you that you are – either consciously or subconsciously – undermining your own intellectual honesty and conversational integrity just to force the square pegs into the round holes?

“Lover that got bored and dumped him” would be more honest – “and then publicly roasted him on all her socials for his failed attempt to recapture her interest” could be added.

But yes – the ~three scenes that deal with Mystra and his spurning by her all have that jilted lover mourning vibe, no arguments there, they do. However... we were not talking about his love of Mystra – we were talking about his attitudes towards loving magic, sharing it, teaching it, and spreading it to others – all of which, I pointed out, he is actively doing at any opportunity. As much as he talks the talk about Mystra and magic being one and the same, there's a fairly clear delineation between the two, even within Gale himself; the scenes that have Mystra come into play all have that vibe, definitely, and it's a bit awkward... but all the rest are just simply the image of a boy who has loved all things magic and magic related, and has always and continues to be enthusiastic about it.