I don't think hybris - especially if you really take it as becoming godlike - is much of a problem for him at the start of the story. When we meet him, that orb left a pretty deep impression. He is curious about the tadpoles but advocates caution, he is curious about the shadow weave but if you leave him to deal with Balthasar's Moonlantern circle, he will cleanse it. When he first sees the Crown, he isn't instantly thinking about challenging Mystra, he sees it as a fascinating artefact and a possibility to save his life. In his mental-health-tracker (the "How are you feeling?" line in the romance menu) after seeing the crown but before studying the Annals he says: "More excited than I've been in months. I can't tell you how curious I am to learn more about the crown controlling that elder brain. Believe me when I say how important this could be for me. For both of us. Potentially lifesaving. so long as we can learn how it can be taken, and used." He mostly sounds excited too. The whole bettering the gods thing only starts after he reads the book and understands the bigger picture.
I'd put loneliness pretty low down on the pyramid. It's there but it doesn't seem to guide many of his actions.
A large chunk of what he uses his magic/knowledge for socially is as a means to connect with the player and the other characters. Magic brought his best friend to him (when he was denied a pet friend) and his Magma-Mephit penpal, his magic lesson is a means to connect with the player through the craft he loves and a lot of his banter is trying to use his knowledge or curiosity to connect with others. I think the first nice conversation anyone can have with Lae'zel is him praising her fighting styles and showing interest in her culture, which allows her to show off and be generous in return. I'd say making friends is pretty high on the importance scale for him. He is also the only one who in the end remarks how much he likes the gang - and if he offers to explode in Act 3, he does so in order nobody has to become a Mindflayer. Unless you can bend him terribly as a cleric, he doesn't offer sacrifice for Mystra, but for his mortal friends/ his partner.
Do you recall the day we first met, m'boy?
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/bmQtF3q.jpg)
That is Elmister's letter to God-Gale. A good nature ruined by the system - and, while you probably disagree, I put becoming Mystra's Chosen on the side of the system. Being a Chosen is not a good thing in this game, whatever it might be outside of it. The whole wizarding academia seems to be exploitative and focused on peak performance only. In his professor ending it seems to be a totally strange concept for his students, that he encourages them to have fun with their magic. Rolan, who has a very loving family, also needed a heavy hint in order to distance himself from this system.
And so if I had to pick one thing at Gale's core, it's this boy weeping for the roses. He is curious, he is very open minded, he rarely judges but mostly tries to relate to those around him, and has a love for beauty and art - and there is a sense of melancholia in him most dominantly during the first two acts of the game.
I don't know if you read my previous post on the subject - it got a bit buried in other debate - but I tend to read the whole story more as one about work-life balance and about dealing with one's ambitions and passions in a healthy manner. Just being focused on one's craft isn't healthy. I wouldn't call him "old fashioned"- I think he loves very deeply. For him sex and its astral version of it is about "the exploration and acceptance of the self and the other" - that doesn't work casually. He also gets passionate about and lost in the things he engages with. In the romanced version of the epilogue (especially in the Waterdeep ones) it is implied that you had to drag him along to the party a bit. And that is just the way he seems to feel which makes Mystra again a bad fit - and he seems to be aware of that. He doesn't seem to mind that Elminster brings up his relationship with her ... at least twice. So you might see his strong desire for a faithful partner and a stable relationship as a new development maybe? Because to me it reads that Gale had other romantic/sexual entanglements while with Mystra. First mortal lover since the relationship with Mystra came to its end, is the wording after all. He did have a long time to think about what he might want from a partner while stuck in his tower. I also thought it curious that when he mentions his past mortal lovers, he has less enthusiasm for them than for his mom's sauce recipe.
When I say that all the stories miss the point, it's because in them pride, aspiration is the goal of the endeavour. For Gale it is a means to an end, even the ambition of godhood has its purpose in a quite nice altruistic vision. I think if you want to pick a classical example Prometheus might be a direction into which God-Gale aspires (preferably without getting eaten, I presume.)
