So I don't personally mind the 'god you pretend to be' line because I figure it speaks more to Gale trying to bury himself under whatever qualities, skills, achievements, or possessions he finds impressive. I interpret it as 'you don't need stuff to impress me'.
The "pretend" bothers me because it is not true. He wouldn't be a pretend god, he would be a real god and it still would be a shame to loose the human for it. Many of the Gods we deal with were mortal once, Mystra was mortal once but in becoming gods they became focused on their domain and lost parts of themselves. Gale knows that, he even says it about Mystra, but when spinning his idealistic tale about bettering the gods, he completely forgets about this. Probably mostly because the godhood thing is a way out for him, revenge against the goddess who wronged him and getting rid of all the human aspects of himself which he doesn't think much of. The "god you'd pretend to be" is dismissive of him and his vision, if you take the pretend out and say "the man you are is worth more than the god you could be" there you have statement that hits - and also reflects disregard for all the divines who have treated you as their playthings until now.
I'm also in what's probably a weird minority position where I don't think Gale is ambitious for its own sake so much as he uses ambition as a crutch against his mental health issues.
I think there are two sides to ambition, the magical side and the renown side. He totally is an ambitious wizards, is insanely curious, loves a challenge and needs to understand everything. That's what he is personally proud of and that never goes away, even in his human epilogues. Then there is the side of public acknowledgement, of fame and being respected, that's the crutch. It's this sentiment that made him pick his monicker because his family name doesn't sound like much. If you look at the other wizards we meet, Rolan and Lorroakan, one can imagine why, wizard academia seems to be extremely cut-throat and place importance only on individual power and prestige. I'd go as far as to say this environment might be the reason for his mental health issues. For a long while he was only valued as a great wizard (or at least that's what he thought) and then suddenly all that power was gone and he was worthless in his own eyes and those of his envious peers. The need for fame is the part of ambition that his human self gets rid of - and the one thing that is left to his god self.
In that conversation Lorroakan mocks him for following around some adventurer and Gale begrudgingly says, that it's his choice to do so. I would just like for an opportunity to tell him how much I value him, his exposition and his expertly timed counter spells. It would be a nice opportunity to show the value of a group against that individualistic wizard behaviour too.
I'm kind of grossed out but not surprised Mystra spread word of that the way she did too.
I don't think she did. I figured that was the academic grapevine. You probably notice when a famed wizard suddenly goes into hiding and never leaves his tower. There probably was a lot of gossip.
