Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Character Musings: Is a Gale Narcissistic Scumbag, Guarded Soul, or something in-between?

1) After some minor flirtation and stalling the PC romantically for days, on the night of the party Gale decides to go from 0-60mph in terms of physical intimacy, even if the PC has explicitly indicated that they want to take things slower. It's either sex or the end of the romance.

2) The next morning he reveals that he's still-maybe-probably in love with someone else. A goddess, no less. AND he hid this from the PC because he knew it might be a problem and he wanted that sweet booty.

3) Immediately afterwards, he reveals that he's a walking high-yield explosive and a serious danger to everyone around him, especially if those people are ignorant of his explosiveness. Which everyone basically has been until that moment.

I am not able to retrieve the entire discussion, since it was so long ago that the forum seems to have put them in the archive (or trashed it completely) - so bear with me as I am trying to recall the most important parts with my extremely non-viable memory. If someone sees anything faulty in my text, please do not hesitate to correct me. I am trying my best to verify the information externally, but I am going mostly on memory here.

Basically, the discussion summed up the fact that there is definitely beyond a doubt at least something EXTREMELY fishy about Gale. Why? The most obvious reason is the fact that Gale is the only person that we do not directly link ourselves with through the tadpole. He says he has one, but unlike all other companions (and other affected parts) - we do not actually touch his memory, as we do with *ALL* other tadpole'd people. This alone is *extremely* suspicious.

Other than that we have the fact that his former lover is not just a demon (looking at you, Wyll) - but an actual *GODDESS*, and not just *A* goddess, but a *GREATER DEITY* (according to the Forgotten Realms wiki). This is absurdly huge, assuming Gale isn't straight up lying to our face. If Gale truly was Mystras lover, then he should be not just on par with her chosen (who are insanely powerful, as expected by a greater deity's chosen) - but he would actually have to be *EVEN* greater. And this begs the question - what in the Prime Material plane did Gale do to lose her favor? Mystra is Lawful neutral, according to the wiki. Her chosen holds any kind of alignment from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Good (also accorind to the FR wiki), so Mystra does not seem to be picky about the morals of her followers. What could Gale possibly have done to displease her so severely?

So, we have this absurdly powerful wizard in our party who is as weak as us "regular" heroes. We do know that we're supposed to be "zapped" of our strength due to the tadpole, but Gale would be in an entirely different league of having his power zapped, compared to the rest of us. And while it is very obvious that he actually has been stripped off a great deal of power (hence his level and available spells) - we cannot even properly confirm that he has a tadpole. We do have some ways of accessing his mind through the tadpole, which causes interactions similar to those we gain from interacting with other people with a tadpole - but this is far from definite proof, imo. All in all, everything regarding the tadpole seems to afflict Gale differently than anybody else that we know of. From the initial interaction to the power-level decrease.

And finally, regarding Gale not being in the "good" alignment spectrum, hit YouTube and check what happens if you do not feed Gale with artifacts. All that talk about not wanting to put people at risk for his own sake? Yaaaah, about that... Whatever he did was NOT very good-natured. Whenever he is a selfish prick is not up for debate, in my opinion, any longer - he is most certainly a selfish and greedy type. And that, on top of everything else, makes me believe he most certainly might be sinister or directly evil on top of that.

All this said, I think Gale is an EXTREMELY interesting character, as he is far from obvious. I will definitely bring him along for at least one playthrough just to see his character development and his story. So far, he might be the most interesting companion in our party - however, I'll say that I am more than pleasantly surprised by the work Larian has put into our current companions. Can't wait to see the final work!

he tries to convince the PC to make the deal with Raphael; because he believes himself clever enough to outsmart the cambion. And he is willing to make this deal on his own, even behind the PCs back.

I don't think your second point is a major reveal of sorts if you notice the signs. He does signal several times, though not directly, that he does have lingering feelings for Mystra. Conjuring her image so that he may look upon her, the very specific sensory images as your channel the weave together ("smell of rose water", "a kind word and kind touch at the same time", "a sliver of weave that tastes sweet on the tongue", "the unmistakable presence of Mystra, Lady of Mysteries", etc.), the remorse and pain he felt when he finally opened up about how Mystra abandoned him when you see him fail a once trivial spell, and a couple of other signals. Gale himself very much questions his affections for Mystra, acknowledging her as being his muse but not a goddess of love. Anyway, I'll link the video I referenced earlier here, as I think it makes for interesting commentary and perspective while going into far more depth than I ever could here. Hopefully you find it enjoyable to some degree.

Gale's love of magic and his love for Mystra are deliberately muddled in said conversations. It's understandable, the two things are probably very muddled for him, too, especially since she is magic and all. But the result is that it's not at all obvious he's in love with her as opposed to a general wizardly obsession with sparkly magic stuff (note that if you play a wizard, the PC doesn't notice anything odd or different about the sensations during the Weave scene, it's all exactly as they've experienced it before).

Also, the number of people in the Realms who have actually romanced a god is... small, to say the least. As a result, the leap from "this wizard totes adorbs magic" to "this wizard was banging Mystra" is a pretty big one; few people are going to make it.

He does say that he's not sure whether he still loves her, but he's obviously still hung up about it and conjuring her image and stuff. And saying, "I won't know until I see her again" is not very helpful. He might never see her again - where does that leave his relationship with the PC? And if she happens to pop up again tomorrow, is he gonna go, "Oh, I guess I'm still in love with her, see ya!" and hang the PC out to dry?

Gale pulled a very dangerous, volatile piece of primal weave back into the Prime Material plane. If you recall Gale's retelling of Karsus' Folly, you can see the parallels. Karsus tried to usurp Mystrl, goddess of magic during the reign of the Netherese Empire. He crafted a spell that would allow him to exchange places with Mystrl and in his attempt, caused the Weave to unravel and magic along with it. Mystrl sacrificed herself in order to save the Weave, but the damage was already done. The Netherese Empire, that which remained in the Prime Material plane, came, quite literally, crashing down. It was the use of such magic that endangered not only Mystrl but the magic as a whole, bringing about destruction likely not seen in eons. When Mystrl was reborn as Mystra, she rewove the Weave so magic on that scale could never be cast ever again. Gale, struck by his infatuation with Mystra when she wouldn't visit him anymore, tried to tame a piece of the very same magic that escaped Mystra's influence by being in the Astral Plane. Gale tried to wield magic that Karsus did, which, as you could imagine, would be very alarming to the goddess of magic given what happened all those millennia ago. Mystra, by abandoning Gale, sought to nullify this loophole by taking away Gale's ability to cast magic like he once could. Gale, in my mind, is right to call his actions "Gale's Folly", recognizing the parallels between himself and Karsus (I do recommend reading about Karsus' Folly on the FR Wiki. It's a good read imho). Chosen or not, if they seek to damage the Weave or herself, Mystra will not hesitate to cut them off. I don't think Gale is evil by any stretch. In his youth, he wrongly assumed that a greater deity truly loved him and when he learned the truth, he (in his youth) could not accept that and did something immensely stupid, causing Mystra to abandon him entirely and effectively giving himself a death sentence.

And to quibble about the artifacts: you need only give him two artifacts and he will feel like the orb is satiated for now. If you think about his situation and, if your life and the lives of others were threatened by the actions (or lack thereof) of another, your back is against the wall, what would you do? You do something desperate in order to prevent something worse from happening, even if that means dealing with a devil. I would question whether or not we are the evil ones for driving Gale to such an end if that is to occur. That isn't evil, he is desperate. If you go the evil route and slaughter everyone in the Druid grove, Gale will feel sick and vile for committing such actions and will leave unless you convince him otherwise. If he were evil, then he might be upset for causing unnecessary bloodshed or sticking our noses in matters but he isn't. He is livid at himself for following you and furious at you.

Is selling your soul to a devil to save your life an evil act, or a neutral one? I'm not sure where FR lore stands on that. And this game might have its own spin on the matter.

Assuming that's even the deal Gale made. He may've worked out something different.

Right, though anything about what kind of deal he made with Raphael is largely conjecture. Though Gale hinted at Raphael's desperation and possibly being able to manipulate him, details about the deal are scant at best. It'd be interesting if Raphael wanted the tadpole rather than Gale's soul, but I can hardly grasp at what that would imply.

The weave is a large piece of divine essence of mostly Selune with a smaller piece of shar. That is the origin of the goddess of magic. Shar of course knew this and eventually made her own weave known as shadow weave. Karsus is currently a rock and can even be a patron. It is possible that Gale is like a piece of Karsus but highly unlikely. The Goddess of magic has been known to go as far as protecting dracolich's as long as they make new magic. If what Gale says is the truth, highly unlikely the whole truth, Mystra rejected him for something more serious. If it was regular magic, Mystra could just cut it off or kill him. It's unlikely Gale outsmarted Mystra's way to stop mortals from using high magic. My guess is that what he has does not come from her but someone else. Possibly Shar, but it could be from anything divine or stronger. I also suspect that the tadpole nerfed his levels rather than Mystra so something does not add up.

Their is also a long list of mysteries including the following: why it needs to be maintained with weave in the first place, how did he seal it in his body, why necro damage, where did he find it if he has never been to the astral(party banter with laezel), why can't an Elf wizard just instantly know since elves see the weave differently, why isn't Gale being hunted by Mystra if she already knows what it is.

If Larian sticks with lore, Gale is quite the deceiver and not good at all. Approval from him could be him liking being put in a favorable position to manipulate.

Unlikely theory 64: ethereal version of shadow magic. I doubt Larian would allow the border ethereal or deep ethereal though. The void planes are more likely with all the tentacles Larian could want. Lol

Unlikely theory 65: Mystra is just sluuty and she got bored.

He is, after all, under constant threat of losing control over the Netherese orb and leveling a city-sized area on the Sword Coast while ALSO dealing with a tadpole that could, at any time, spontaneously change him into a Mind Flayer. Personally speaking, I think that very much defines a crisis.