Gale rather grew on me as I played *as* him. As a companion, I do find him a little too talky, but then again - I have that with most companions. Wyll - and by extension Mizora are just annoying as the Hells. Nowadays, I pick a party of four that I run with and don't recruit anyone else.
But I include Gale for all my arcane needs, for certain. I like him better than Wyll, but Mizora popping up *all the time* triggering a bazillion conversations with both Karlach and Wyll.. Gods no. He was kind of bugged or something at release, where he was super-easy on the romance and that rubbed many people the wrong way, including myself. But as a character, I quite like him. His backstory is a little...... Well, they put him among the levels of Elminster, where I'd say he needs another thousand years and a pointy hat before he could kick his arse. Also, that kind of power-level is something that would have been an established character beforehand. Maybe he is, but it's super-weird that I've never heard of Gale of Waterdeep if he's *that* big a deal. Anyway. They all have these wicked over-the-top backstories, and Gale is no different, I suppose.
However, he comes across as an actual person to me; much more so than most others. I don't really know how or why he's the punching bag, though.
