I'll try to wind down, because I think we've both articulated about as well as we're going to.
Heck. I keep searching youtube for one that takes the option that makes Gale say "It won't be just me that suffers"
It's okay, don't stress yourself ^.^ He does definitely say those things, in a couple of places – there's also the line where he talks about how the catastrophe would extend far beyond the confines of his body alone.
My point there was mainly objecting you to recriminating him and judging him on the particular dialogues you mentioned, and your grounds being that your interpretation was that he was invoking the deaths of many and putting them on you for not doing as he wanted – when he did no such thing in those lines for which you were judging him, and that it was, in fact, you who had inserted those elements into those lines where they did not exist, and then judged and blamed Gale for your own fabrication of those elements. Quite a manipulative move on your behalf, wouldn't you say ^.~
This is lots of fun but it's a bit lawyerly isn't it?
No, it's not. They likely wouldn't sell it, granted, but the other suggestions are all perfectly valid. The
player character inserts the concept of theft into the conversation, not Gale – but you blame Gale for it. That's not fair.
It think a slow tapering off of contact would fit what we know about the shadow weave - in 3.5 it's hinted that even the god of divination can't divine things obscured by the shadow weave - so she could have been calling him but failing to reach his phone. Perhaps she was never upset at all?
This is possible too, yeah, and it does fit, you're not wrong. This is where I fall back again on the 'above table' tools we have indicating that he's being honest. The sneaky, back-handed thing that I'm doing with pushing back on that so hard is that I genuinely
Don't trust that Larian are not god-moding our tools unfairly for the sake of their weak story-telling. There are places, where all of the characters are probably going to be 'shock-twist' revealed that they were deceiving us in some way, and have lied to us and misled us directly in various ways... all which we were not allowed any chance to detect, despite having the tools to do so and other opportunities where we were shown that those tools do 'work'.
And yes – I want to trust Gale and take the majority of his motives at face value, because I like him, and I'll be annoyed if/when (and let's be honest, it probably will be 'when') Larian turn around and pull back the curtain to say “Ah-ha! He was actually doing THIS!!”, because I won't buy it, and it won't feel believable or acceptable to me.
Note that Gale has an opportunity to suggest some version of ethical non monogamy but doesn't - he wanted an affair or a break up. I mean come on! I can't believe Astarian wouldn't be open to the idea of ENM (or, since it's Astarian it would just be NM wouldn't it?)
Yeeeahhh.... let's just say that I absolutely do not trust Larian to do a comfortable or appropriate representation of poly relationships or ENM, at all, and I'm bracing myself for their attempts at such feeling gross and being deeply unhealthy. As someone who lives in a three person household, I'm always on the lookout for proper rep for these styles of relationships, but it's rare to find one that is done well.
You can convince him to stay and he will help you slaughter everyone but he feels awful about it - another place where his reactions and actions are at odds.
Not really... you, the player,
manipulate him into staying, otherwise he would abandon your course, no matter the cost or danger to himself (the likelihood of a “Well, I can't let you leave, can I” heel turn from the player and party, for example). Shadowheart goes along with it without question, and feels rotten about it afterwards (but not as rotten as Gale, it seems) – and she's the one that so many folks like to cast as a sweet cinnamon roll that is really a good person underneath her brainwashing. Wyll also goes along with it without question as long as he's not standing right next to you when you tell Minthara that you'll do it... and at the party, Wyll does not seem to have any regrets of negative emotions
At All, and is just caught up in the victory celebration, if I'm recalling correctly. Gale turns up as the best of a dubious bunch, on this score, at least in my opinion.
Yes. Except that it is everywhere.
No, it's not... and I say that with as much regretful sincerity as I can for your position. It's simply not. If we wanted to go full behaviourist, we arrive at a point where every possible human social interaction is a case of manipulation and counter manipulation... because we always have some purpose or desire when we interact socially with someone, and whenever we have a discussion with anyone, we say things to them, and those things we say have a purpose and are intended to evoke some kind of effect, response or reaction – so, by that definition, literally every word ever said to another is a form of manipulation.
But that's not practical, and it's not fair, and it's ultimately not a legitimate stance to take. You are seeing manipulation where it is not happening, because you've trained or been trained to be hyper- over-sensitive to it, and to see it in everything and to interpret everything through those lenses. If someone looks at the world through green-glass lenses, they see that everything in the world is a little bit green to some extent... but they aren't correct in that perspective. It's their lenses mapping something onto the world that isn't there, and I'm concerned that that is what you are doing, whether you are aware of it or not.
However, this is really getting well off topic for talking about companion trustworthiness, so I'm going to stop analysing your mindset here, and apologise for maybe going too far with that train of thought. My apologies, and nothing but good intentions.
Such is the irony for me that the people who tend to see the world the way I do are usually either Focauldians or heavily into the D/s lifestyle - but they and I have very different reactions when they see what I see.
Well, this probably supports your confidence, but, it may not surprise you that I'm, let's say, intimately acquainted with that latter (strongly on the /s side, contra to my intellectual personality and general outlook on life) as you might have gathered from some of the things I wrote in the Minthara intimacy discussion.
But, granted, manipulation is everywhere and, try as I might, I've not purged myself of the impulse to manipulate so I might have done so unconsciously - if so, I'm sorry.
I'm not going to accept your apology – because to do so would be to affirm that you did someone worth judgement or reprimand, and you did not.
==
Just trying to keep up with the rest – the irony I'd mention is that you don't let or tell Nettie to end you safely
now – you tell her you'll end yourself if the transformation is about to happen... but until then you'll keep searching for a solution. Soooo.... you're
also choosing to fly to NYC. You're going to keep looking for an answer, rather than immediately self-terminating because you're a danger to others. You're doing the same thing as Gale.
I know there's a bunch of bits and pieces that you didn't choose to address or come back to, and I won't push it – I think we've about covered the most interesting aspects of our very different reads on Gale's character for now. It will be interesting to see where it goes when the game launches.
Thanks again for staying candid and cordial ^.^
