My analysis of the sources of Gale's story but first:
@anska
The whole message reads aggressive to me.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I tried to make it clear that while I found illegible's analysis offensive and I tried to raise the very dangers of trivializing an issue like CSA in a playful manner I seems I wasn't successful.
After reading @illegible's response I've concluded that should have dropped the playful air and simply been aggressive. While I flatly reject the reading that I was being cruel or mocking towards them I make no apologies for taking offense at their trivializing such an important issue. Indeed their response only cemented my mistrust of them because illegible is clearly someone who brings a warhammer to an arm wrestling competition. And their self reveal as CSA 'advocate' does make me wonder if they are one of the political actors I mentioned earlier -- actors who I truly believe are aiding CSA perps by using grooming in sloppy manner as to make the word meaningless. Words matter and crying wolf too often will have an impact.
It saddens me that someone so well spoken is doing the damage they are.
Addressing @sailorsnoopy
one of the core themes in BG3 appears to be "abuse of power" and that "the gods overreach."
I think that's right and that's the correct interpretation of the Avatar crisis. But I don't that's Gale's story. Gale's story is: mortals overreach. Let me explain
As I read Gale's story there are four Ur sources for it. The tale of Icarus, Gwain and the Green Knight, Adam & Eve and the Folly of Karsus. (and all of those inform Karsus' story as does Gulliver's travels)
While I'm sure that forum members already know these stories - just as I assume that forum members are capable of reading subtext * - I want to give my account so the reader knows how I am interpreting them.
Icarus:
In my reading the story of Icarus has two morals - the traditional Greek moral of "don't mess with the gods" and a story of Hubris. The Greeks thought that certain sorts of vices were simply an excess of a virtue. Icarus's father - Daeldus - is brilliant but he is brilliant in way that challenges the gods. His technical reason is so strong that he steps onto the domain of the gods - he is able to construct a set of wings for both him and his son. The wings are held on their frame by molten wax. When Daeldus and Icarus take flight the older, more experienced man sets a middle route. Not flying too high or two low. Icarus, on the other hand is so pleased with his ability to fly that he approaches the sun and his wings melt and he falls to earth.
I think it's important to remember that Apollo was both a divine being and the manifestation of the Sun just as Mystra is both a divine being and the manifestation of the weave. Icarus died because his pride brought him too close to the gods.
(and it's worth Mentioning that Hubris a word that crops up in Gale's story time and time again. In the original meaning of word Hubris was a prideful arrogance towards divinity)
Sir Gawain and the Green KnightIn my reading of this story Gawain is a young knight at Arthur's court eager to prove himself. He's a new member, not one of the original crew and not shrouded in the glory that the others enjoy. One night a giant green knight shows up in Arthur's court and challenges the knights. His challenge goes as such: one of the knights is free to make on attack against him and he will take no pains to defend himself. The green knight will be free to attack one of the knights in a similar manner - they must stand perfectly still while the green knight takes his shot.
Gawain knows he would die at the hands of such a giant but believes he can can roll a 20 a remove the green knight's head. And he does so - the green knight's head is separated from his shoulders but, to everyone's alarm, the green knight is alive and he declare that he will take his shot at Gawain one year hence and that Gawain should show up at his castle to be killed.
Now Gawain has all sorts of reasons to back out of the deal but he's a knight! A knight at King Arthur's court no less and he accepted a knightly challenge. If he fails to follow through he will have failed as a knight.
After a year of knightly trials Gawain decides to fulfill his oath and shows up for his beheading. But as he prepares himself the Green Knight stays his blade and praises Gawain for his commitment to knightly virtue. Had Gawain tried to evade his fate the knight would have killed but his willingness to die saved him.
Gawain is now a full member of the court and as glorious as any other member!
(tanget - the recent film adaptation is very different telling but it is amazingly well done, you should see it)
Karsus' Folly
I need to preface my telling of the story by making it clear that I'm an atheist - I'm not trying to preach or to communicate religious values to anyone. The author Karsus' story "Slade" is indeed a fundamentalist christian and the story is really a christian allegory. I was surprised to find how much I liked it despite my disagreement with the moral of story. Yes it's possible to appreciate things you strongly disagree with *
In Slade's Nethril the floating cities are ruled by atheist arcanists. Atheists in the Pathfinder sense that they believe divine magic is just raw form of power and that the gods are either super powered individuals who have persuaded fools to worship them or primitive ways of understanding magic. In the mechanics of the setting the super powered arcanists refuse to accept assistance from clerics and only accept healing from potions.
Karsus is Nethril's greatest arcanist and he plans a great experiment that will show that the atheists are correct. Divine magic is a force that can be wielded without worship. He will cast the greatest spell ever cast and as a "god" show that divinity is just really complex science magic.
He casts the spell Karsus' Avatar which allows him to take over the portfolio of any god. In his Hubris he chooses Mystrl the magic force the peasants mistake for a god.
But upon casting it Karsus realizes his mistake and, indeed, the mistake of all Nethril. Mystryl is indeed a god and his human mind cannot process all the information he is receiving and so he turns to stone and falls to earth. As do most of the floating cities of Nethril.
Karsus's great empire is reduced to ruins in a moment and he is become a broken a statue in a desert. "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Karsus was a victim of his own Hubris, in his arrogance he reached to far and he challenged the sun while flying on wings of wax.
Now Karsus might have succeed if he had challenged any other god - as Gale correctly notes - but his worldview was shown to be false. And that's why there are no atheists in Faerun . . .
Gale's story is a combination of all these stories. He's also Eve who hungers for knowledge that her god doesn't want her to have - but Eve doesn't know that god's restrictions are kindly meant. If she eats that apple her life is going to take a turn for the worse . . . This comes up several times when Gale talks about how unjust it is that Mystra left certain knowledge just out of sight. Why did his god put the apple there but not allow him to eat it?
When Gale told me how unfair it was that Mytra kept certain knowledge from him I found his tone petulant. As a cleric of mystra I had faith that Mystra had her reasons, as a multiclass wizard I knew the story of Karsus but was shocked to learn that Gale knew the story but failed to grasp the moral of the story. I mean come on Gale how can you know the story but miss the point?
Gale and the Green KnightMystra is a god in a game setting and she does put her chosen through a series of trials to confirm their worth just as the Green Knight tested Gawain. Elminster's trials did involve suffering but each time he proved his worth and - with one exception where Bane intervened - emerged as a better person for it.
Is it fair for a lover to put their beloved through trials to play games with them? In our world, no. Is it a okay for the god of game setting to give their followers quests? I think so - I think you need to make allowances for the silliness of the setting.
The whole Chosen thing: It comes with its perks but those come at the cost of freedom
And yes, becoming chosen does involve a loss freedom. Elminster gets tasks he likes and those he doesn't.
the lines of "I love you for the man you are are, not the god you'd pretend to be" and the usual "power corrupts" both feel very moralising to me
This is a matter of taste. I like that the Forgotten Realms - unlike Greyhawk - is a realm that sticks closely to the fable / fairy tale / passion play tradition of communicating moral lessons. Even if I, as an atheist, preferred the moral lesson of PoE1 to the moral of the fall of nethril I enjoy stories with a moral to them. Settings with "grey morality" feel as blah as a day with grey skies.
Gale, Icarus and KarsusGale's story of course most directly relates to Karsus and Icarus. After we got the instructions for the crown Gale's rendition of Karsus' story was "yes but it wasn't his ambition that was wrong, indeed it's not fair that the gods don't share the nuclear codes with us and besides if change the formula of the wax can resist the heat of the sun". Gale, tell me you missed the point of the story without telling my you missed the point of the story . . . I told him to shut it.
This, incidentally, was the only time in the entire game I got a "Gale disaproves" reaction but I still had perfect approval and he listened to my advice when talking to Mystra so perhaps he needed to hear some difficult truths.
I get that others have seen dialogues that I haven't but since I always choose the "you're acting like Karsus" / "mystra is probably right" options and
The Elminster meeting - getting metaYou are right that Elminster is not enjoying the task that Mystra gave him. As a cleric of mystra I had the additional options say something like "this doesn't sound like Mystra" and then "Mystra should trust in me I am also her servant". But this test of my faith held out. Mystra hadn't communicated with Gale for a year because he the orb had stolen his chosen abilities. Mystra did send aid - she developed a charm that would allow the virus to spread from Gale's PC to the internet and spared him the damage.
What isn't clear is why she waited a year. Did she, like the Green Knight, wait to see if Gale would demonstrate the virtues of a chosen? If so she would have been disappointed because Gale's reactions to his mistake violate the "code" of chosen. The chosen are supposed to make new magic items and to put them into dungeons for adventurers to find not destroy them.
Or, as I suspect, did Mystra not understand why he dropped off the radar? Now we don't the rules of Karsite weave. It's something that Larian made up for the game. And like it! But I suspect that they originally meant to use the shadow weave and only belated realized that Karsus was not using Shadow Magic but Mystryl's weave. This is consistent with Auntie Ethel's EA diagnosis that the parasite was altered by the shadow weave.
If Gale were infected with a shadow weave orb Mystra wouldn't be able to hear from him. The Shadow weave is the anti mater to the weave's matter and even the god of divination magic cannot see things obscured by Shar's penumbra. I think the Karsite weave is playing a similar role. He just dropped off the radar for a while.
Is this head cannon? Yes. Does it explain why EA told us that the tadpoles were infused with shadow magic? Also yes.
So I'm interpreting Mystra in light of the way she has been presented in the Forgotten Realms lore up until now. She's a quest giver. And she gave Gale a quest not unlike the one the Green Knight gave Gawain. Difficult choice - Gawain needed overcome his fear and demonstrate his honesty. Can Gale overcome his hubris and demonstrate his fidelity?
Now if I would make a Justice for Mystra thread I would ask why Elminster didn't show up at the party to tell us that Gale-bomb Gale is now enjoying his afterlife in the best library in existence. But I suspect the authors didn't care about representing Mystra accurately as they did as seeing Justice for Gale. With just his Tressym and the projection at the party his sacrifice seems weightier than a Forgotten Realms death should feel. I would have preferred if Gale bomb got the full Green Knight treatment - "you did as I asked. Do you want to return to life as a chosen or spend eternity with me and learn all those secrets you wanted to learn"? It seems strange that Gale only gets those options with the reforging of the crown.
* And yes, that was mocking. I'm offended by illegible and don't feel like I should spare the feelings of someone who treated mine with so little respect and whose 'advocacy' is doing so much damage. They might consider themselves the white knight but they are acting like a blackguard.
