They're just digging their hole deeper, aren't they.
The way Gale presents himself in game as a carefree light-hearted fellow is completely at odds with a story about a power hungry usurper who failed and was cast down from Archmage status. He should be either completely humbled or gone insane. But he's more like "well that happened, let's go adventure!". They crank his story up to 11, and then downplay it completely. Fail.
Larian storytelling is like kids at a sandbox enthusiastically stating who's dad is the strongest.
Why didn't Mystra cut him off from the Weave completely? Or just kill him instantly instead of killing him with a time bomb? This is 1970's James Bond villainy.
And of course, it couldn't simply be a mage who tried to steal power from a master Wizard - it had to be an archmage and a god. We need to go over the top already at level 1, because we simply can't pace ourselves.
The more I read, the less I believe in these characters.
And now we have two level 1 characters out of six who have some magical bomb ticking in their chest. This is so bad I just.. can't.
It makes a lot of sense if you have ever known a manipulative/abusive person.
deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender.
Gale wants to make himself seem like the poor hopeless romantic with a heart of gold trying to win back a fickle goddess.
In reality he's a power hungry asshole using the party for his own ends.
You can clearly see this if you bring him to the Necromancey book in the village.
