As someone with zero gift for brevity I can't help but identify with the guy.
My favorite line in all the dialog branches is the one that says "Give him a chance"
That one always hits super hard!
For me Gale is a bit tricky, because he holds up a mirror image for me in a way that's much closer to home than some of the other characters. My first serious romantic relationship as an adult was with a woman twice my age, who was also one of my college professors. Like I don't feel I need to go into it overmuch, as I'm sure I'll be unpacking that stuff till the end of time, but anyway when he has his moments I sometimes might see that. I don't mind all that much if it was handled slightly off key, it's interesting to me that they even tried to go there at all. I'm also a melancholic sort and have struggled with depression my entire life, like since I was a little kid. Tend to identify with the uxorious archetypes among the male characters in these types of games, which I've never understood as a pejorative, but maybe that's just cause of how my mom raised me. So Antony over Caesar, like obviously, every time for me. I'd also rather hang out with Sappho than Plato for the deeper depths. Like there's just all these little things in Gale's baggage train that make me really love the guy, despite whatever flaws, but then I do question whether that's a little easy for me sometimes.
He never came off particularly showboat-y in my view with full sails unfurled, but he's certainly long winded lol. I think in EA you also had that initial suggestion about the villainous path that made me pretty skeptical, cause I just figured the original fab 5 were all going to be the bad guys. You know that we'd have say 5 more good and 5 more neutral-sh after that maybe, but instead they kinda morphed over the course of the EA to the full release, so in my mind there's also a Good Gale vs Bad Gale dynamic in play here. I don't love him all the time, but half the time for sure.
There's also the pathing, cause if you hang that left you'll first find Astarion going knives out, and that primed me to be extra suspicious. Like who's this dude with the spectacular hair who's all trying to glad hand his way right out the portal? And then it's extra disarming when he's basically pretty polite and enthusiastic, and not too terribly judgmental. Like who can draw your weapon immediately, and then he'll stay and still try to play if off cordially. I just kinda appreciated that.
Anyway, the literal first thing I did once he revealed his detonation dilemma was to start trying to play around with that mechanic in horrid but to me amusing ways, cause I find dark humor cathartic. I tried several times to get the Necrotic cloud to do interesting delayed stuff like a remote mine in Goldeneye, like I thought maybe we could take out the entire Goblin camp that way, but he's got a long reach. I leapt into multiple chasms just to see what would happen. Curiosity can't really kill the cat when you can reload everything and do it 9 times over.
The more I sat with Gale the more he grew on me, and the more I felt like he's really the foil for me here in this game, cause the thing he tests from the player is patience, so he has a bit of time. At first everyone at camp wants to talk and get down, and then Gale wants your enchanted items, so he's got all that working against him. Like it's not just that he might come off verbose, or maybe patronizing, probably cause he's a dude talking about his own problems, and people I'm sure have their fill of that on the reg, but you know what I mean. He's generally at odds with Astarion in terms of early approval, so sets up a bit of a split there. It's interesting to me though, considering the first impression, that all 4 of the characters who we can meet on the beach, they'll never really party-break once recruited. I mean except for the Shadowheart Lae'zel showdown, but otherwise they'll all get down regardless, like if it's Durge or Tav goes evil. The only thing that causes Gale to bounce is if his plea for help goes continually ignored. You know like if one really can't part with the Ring of Color Spray or those boots nobody can wear, I guess. Minthara maybe could count for this too, if we include that first cutscene as someone we meet on the beach, but by the time you get to the Grove, pretty much everyone after that will push the party towards righteousness if you follow their cues. The villains are all basically heroes here, cause unless the player intervenes to put their thumb on the scale the companions tend to find a heart.
He has the best smiles though! Like when meeting the animals! Oh and when you finally start getting to do wizard type stuff in the big city and hit the books. I'd probably play him for the Origin, but then every time I've tried that I feel like I'm kinda seizing the wheel from them overmuch. I prefer them all as companions, though I might be missing out on some stuff because of that.
Anyhow not sure what else to add, but justice sounds good! Unless it's somehow Bard Gale with the hat on, in which case "Injustice for Gale" would probably be a pretty good album too. But then I guess someone probably has their bass lute levels dropped in favor of the big drums. Bound to happen I guess sometimes lol. This thread's pretty good though! If there weren't some big thoughtful block posts up in the Gale thread I'd be pretty disappointed hehe
ps. knock on thought, not sure how fruitful it is, but I think because this is somehow a AAA game that I have this initial association like it needs academy award winning gravitas that can handle some of this stuff a bit more deftly. Then though, I think really the better analog might be something like B flicks coming out the Hays era, Bettie, or a Rocky Horror thing later, maybe Kids in the Hall, you know like where you had encoding and ciphers, and if it misses the mark or appears maybe exploitative or mocking in retrospect it can still be beloved just for even trying or getting it on air somehow. I think this is because the medium is undergoing a shift to catch up with the culture, so you get those growing pains, but then also where it's just cool to see up in any form at all. I think it's not foregrounded maybe because it's just harder to see operating in general, like irl, but I think Gale gives us a bit of window onto some curious stuff and lends weight and perspective to the game same as the others. Justice for all these characters hopefully would come in a sequel - BG4, but I guess in a definitive edition or expansion would work well too, I'll take what I can get. I just want to see the band back together and they keep recording I guess. More Gale couldn't hurt, least not for me!
Last edited by Black_Elk; 15/01/24 09:19 AM.
