Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Companions mixed fan base (some spoilers)

Yeah, in Inquisition the main character has no idea what Solas did. They see Solas a companion who is well versed in magic but they was always something hidden about him and you can sense that. It's not until the end that it's revealed he knew the whole time what happened, let alone that he was involved. I wonder if Larian would add some BioWare elements to Baldur's Gate as a tribute to it's original creator.

Even "Let the Right One In" as a movie wasn't exactly faithful to the book. Book was messed the hell up.

But I'll agree with you on vampire representations. And Astarion. I think the only reason I like Astarion is because he's good looking and not Gale. Gale pisses me off for some reason and I never bring him. Cant put my finger on it.

I find Shadowheart annoying. Wyll's personality isn't bad but I don't like his class. I bring Astarion because I can't stand rogues and I need someone with a decent shot at opening locks(every time I try to do it on a Tav, it fails, because I don't have sleight of hand, I have better places for skills) Lae'zel gets pushed off the ship. I don't like being bossed around. I can't figure out why I dislike Gale. Might be his "I'm better than you" attitude.

I really hope the next acts' party members are better because I'm not much a fan of the personalities of most of the ones we have, I bring them for their class features. IRL I don't associate with people that any of them remind me of because I don't like it. Liars, boasters, jerks. All of them. Except Wyll. Why did he have to be a warlock. -_-

Lol. In the beginning, Gale was one of my favorites.

But time has made me not like him as much... Or trust him. He's just too dang suspicious and TOO good. Let's give everyone a second chance and let's be good and do all good things, and I'm a good, intellectual mage with this terrible condition.

NEVER MIND WHAT KIND OF CONDITION! It's just a condition...

THAT'LL STEAL ALL YOUR MAGICAL ITEMS OR YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IN A 100 MILE RADIUS WILL DIE!!!

That's Gale. He's good. He swears. Really.

Soooo..... you're suspicious of him because he's... good? You don't trust him because he wants to encourage you to give people who have fucked up a second chance (because, you know, he fucked up bigger than most people ever get a chance to, and is glad to be given a chance in return...)

I mean, you're still not telling what about him you're finding suspicious... what about him makes you leery of him, or makes you feel like something's off about him. I want to know what that is, because I can't see it, and no-one will tell me! People just Say "Oh he's so suspicious," and "Clearly there's something sinister going on there!" But No-one ever actually says what it is! What about him makes people think this? What does he do or say that leads people to that conclusion? I want to know!

I feel like you'd be convinced that my PC in a different game would be some kind of villainous mastermind ebcause she wants to see the best in everyone, wants to give everyone a second chance or three, and does her best to convince people that they can be better people, even the ones that have tried to kill her... I feel as though by your judgement scale you'd probably declare her to be the ultimate evil, because she's clearly too good.... now, I'm assuming that's not the case, and you wouldn't (I don't think...) so what is it about Gale's desire to act for the good and to be forgiving where possible, that makes you feel suspicious?

His condition, incidentally, eats one (1) magic item, and then he doesn't ask for any more, even as you find them... people really over-blow the whole "he'll take your things" angle.... it's super insignificant, all things considered. I also don't understand why people judge Gale as some kind of criminal for saying "I've got this problem, and I need your help to deal with it, but promise you won't freak out when I tell you what it is." ... like, how is the fact of the problem a reflection on him in any way?

Agree Niara. I like his character. Was suspicious when I first met him as he came out of nowhere and immediately made googly eyes at Shadowheart. I thought him very sus. But after I did the romance path with him and got his whole story…and you see how he is really just selfish and a bit of a fuck up with women…idk…It is all just too human. And it explains so much of his other responses to the world. He is also analytical and cocky…he thinks he can solve everything by being smarter. But intelligence is not wisdom. I find him flawed in this way and thus, endearing.

Don’t get me wrong…I would secretly love it if he turns out to be a total liar and con man and breaks my druid’s heart. She is a bit innocent of the wider world, and the angst would be epic. (I dig the angst)

My sorceress however would zap him into oblivion! Lol

One reason people might distrust Gale so much is because, since many of the other companions have a big scary evil secret, people expect Gale to have one too. SH worships Shar, Astarion is a vampire and will bite you and others to death if you let him, Wyll made a pact with a demon and there's something off about his hero reputation compared to his skills/personality, and Lae'zel...is refreshingly open about her thoughts of you and her desires actually. But she wants to bring you to Gith who will almost certainly kill and/or enslave you and she's brainwashed, so you still can't fully trust her words.

This combines with the fact that Larian said they were releasing the evil companions first, so an not-obviously-maniacally-laughing-Gale must be secretly evil.

As to the last point, does he really only ask for one? I'm out-of-date patch-wise at this point, but I thought I remembered him taking multiple..?

He took two items from me that I did not care about. The stuff he ate was nothing special imho. Loot is all over and items are always for sale. His relief and dialogue when you feed him is better than some random stat boost from a sword that you will soon replace. I never missed them personally.

But…I do get why folks do not like the mechanic. Loot is a motivator for dungeon crawling in these games. I understand why it frustrates folks. But two items by level 4 is not super egregious imho.

It would be better if you had to find specific objects just for that purpose maybe? Like…shards of netherese magic or something only useful to him. Idk…not sure what fix is that would make that part better for folks.

1. Gale's load screen image; Psycho Gale
2. Gale doesn't mind link with you
3. Gale knows about Netherese runes and magic, and what is potentially keeping our tadpole at bay? Netherese magic.
4. He's power hungry
5. He acts all good, but I see snippets of him trying to learn secrets about Lae'zel and SH especially.
6. He's not opposed to necessarily playing games with a devil
7. He supposedly loves Mystra but doesn't say a word about SH being a Sharran cleric, and Mystra hates Shar

I think there's more, but ultimately I started looking at him differently the more I played the game. He started becoming less good to me and more potentially manipulative.

I will say, though, contrary to that, if you are evil, he does seem to genuinely feel bad about killing everyone, and he will leave.

Mini note —-One reason I think Gale is honest…he goes out of his way not to lie to you during his “condition” speech. He is careful with his wording, very careful. He for sure withholds info that he does not want u to have before he trusts you…but he has not outright lied to me so far as I have seen…not once.

And he plays games with devils because he thinks he is smart enough to. Not because he is evil or shady. That is my perception of it, at any rate.

Gale does not mind link with you because his mind is his. It is the thing that makes him special. Wyll is a dipshit, Lazael has little to hide and is all ego, and Shafowheart is secretive but does not have Gale’s control. Gale is private, and he has excellent control and to an archmage, who has spent his life learning magic by using his brains…frankly…I think he feels that you don’t deserve to poke around in his head. And, he does open up snd show u more, but only after you earn his trust. He minds melds with u big time in a pretty emotional scene.

He is also the only companion discerning enough to not ask u for sex unless he genuinely likes you and u have already laid some groundwork. In comparison, the other companions are shallow horndogs! Lol

In summary.. I just think he chooses his friends carefully.

This along with the way he acts if you do not feed him relics (not going to spoil it here, but you can find it on YouTube) just makes me extremely suspicious towards him. Like something is SERIOUSLY off here.

Still love his character design, and I love the mad potential he is having towards literally all alignment spectrum - that is what makes his character so exciting and fun to bring along! Gale always has a spot in my party (non-romance though) just because I am eager to see how is story will turn out !

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I like all the characters in the game except maybe Mayrina. It's one of my favorite things. I even like the duergar though I wish I could filter their vulgarity.

But I'm just expecting to find out Gale has his own very sinister intent and part to play.

But I've had all sorts of theories about him. One was that he was actually Elminster, turned young by the tadpole situation or something. After all, Elminster has always been one of Mystra's favored.

Elminster is normally a witty, clever, and very charming man. He can, however, be imperious, grave, and terrible. Furthermore, he is a natural storyteller and a consummate actor. He rarely reveals the full extent of his true nature to anyone who is not an extremely close friend. He can portray himself as a trickster, rake, stern father figure, fool, or any other stereotype that he wants to assume, depending on what he wants to accomplish or what reaction he wants to elicit from those around him.

He has no known wife, but retains contact with several previous lovers, including the goddess Mystra — although his relationship with Mystra changed when the goddess was slain during the Time of Troubles and the sorceress Midnight assumed the mantle of the Lady of Mysteries.

Following the events of the Spellplague caused by the destruction of his patron, Mystra, Elminster lost much of his power but remained unaging. He continued to live in Shadowdale, but he became bitter and withdrawn.

No, the reason for my suspicion is not because he's good, but because of all the spell casters in your group including yourself if you choose to be a spellcaster, he is the only one who knows about Netherese magic. We don't know about this in the beginning unless you do the mirror scene before seeing Auntie Ethel. The reason why I say Auntie Ethel is because, it's her that tells you that the tadpole in your head was tampered with Netherese magic. She even looked sacred and said she can't help you. If you did the mirror scene then you might remember that Gale is the only one who had an answer regarding Netherese magic, he wants to to be a manifestation of it and wants to be a mythal. With Gale the thing is, I get the feeling that he knows more than he's telling you. Plus, he will leave the party permanently if you use the mind connection on him. He displays a great amount of anger if you do that, the other companions do get upset if you do that to them but not to the extend that Gale does. My first mixed feeling about him was when you first meet him, he's nonchalant about seeing you alive.

If the tadpoles were tampered with Netherese magic, which is supposed to be the most powerful magic there is, I find it hard to believe that Gale did not sense that. Considering the fact that he studies that. This is where I compared him to Solas from Dragon Age. Solas is an elf companion that you can also romance, he a mage. In Dragon Age there is something called The Fade, were demons and spirits exist. In that game a rift was opened during an accident that caused the main character to be cursed with a mark on their hand that gives them the power to open and close rifts (which is a tear into the fade). This mark is also a ticking death mark on your character, basically it will kill them. Solas is a "good" guy who helps you throughout the game, he's a party companion. Here's where Gale can be like Solas, he could end up knowing (if he wasn't involved somehow) how the tadpoles were tampered with Netherese magic. Just like how Solas is the reason why rifts were open in the world. Solas leaves your party later, he's now the main antagonist in the next dragon age game. Like I said, he was also romanceable. He's not an evil guy but he had selfish motivations that he chose to follow in the end. This can be a possibility for Gale.

His loading screen image, GM4Him, really? A mage doing mage stuff, to skeletons... there's not a single thing that is even remotely suspicious about that.... compared to 'consorting with a devil' and 'surrounded by cultists and wearing their logo'? Two of those images are suspicious... Gale's is not one of them. I feel like I want to mention that they didn't say the were releasing the evil character first, they said the non-good ones. In our five, we have three evils (Astarion (CE), Lae'zel (LE), Shadowheart (NE)(likely highly variable as we progress)) and two neutrals (Wyll (CN) and Gale (TN)).

Gale absolutely does mind link with you, once you garner his trust, and it's the most honest and open mental communication anywhere in the game thus far.

Pretty much all mages who study beyond a certain point learn about netherese magic - it's a pretty big part of magical history, considering what the netherese empire was, and what they did. Especially anyone who takes a direct meta-interest in the weave itself, the fall of netheril, and the surrounding events, are going to be the core of their study. There's nothing sinister about that at all. Gales interest in Mystra and his longing to feel the weave, not just too use it, in particular, means that it would be suspicious of his story is he Wasn't well versed in netherese magic history. What is odd here, rather is that Gale doesn't have specialised dialogue lines when we learn that the tadpoles have netherese magic about them - he really should have!

As for being power-hungry... one line in a mirror, okay... is that ALL you're getting that from? Because building that assertion on that one line alone seems like you'd already made up your mind and were just looking for things to justify it on, from my perspective... so, what else?

I'm not sure how trying to learn about your companions runs against being a good person... you'll have to explain that to me, too. I want to learn more about Shadow and Lae'zel too... does that make me suspicious of being secretly evil?

Most of our characters are not ruling out dealing with raphael if it comes down to it. Not ruling it out is purely pragmatic, when the alternative may well be becoming an illithid. Remember - If you transform into an illithid, you don't just die.... you are destroyed body and soul; you don't go to your afterlife, and you don't continue in any way - you're simply gone, ceasing to exist at all, utterly, and it's dubious as to whether even a wish spell could restore you at that point. If a devil can get you out of that, and there's no other option, then your soul may end up belonging to them, but for the time being, it is safe, and you have time and opportunity to find a means to get out of that situation, which is very much possible... and even then, the goal is to entertain the offer and attempt to get the better of the devil in the deal - something which is also possible, though extremely difficult. Not ruling out the possibility, especially for a pragmatist who considers himself the most intellectually capable person in camp, is not really 'suspicious' of anything. What do you feel it's suspicious of?

I put the last point down to the ridiculousness of Shadowheart's character situation and writing, rather than laying that at Gale's feet, frankly, but I'll give it to you as a very dubious point, since yes, he should have more objection to that, all things considered, however, I will add that as a magic scholar, he's more likely to view the deities in an academic sense, not a religious one, so it's entirely believable that he's simply dismissive of Shar 'worshippers'.

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What I do have to admit to is that, no, I haven't seen how he behaves if you don't help him with his problem. People have mentioned that that is telling, but I don't know what actually goes on or is said, because his burden has never felt even remotely like a burden to me, and I don't want the northern sword coast to explode, generally speaking... even my evil characters do not wish to be close to ground zero of a city-destroying explosion, surprise surprise... I'm not stupid-evil).

That is true but don't you think it's a little weird that you do those things with him on his terms. He's the one in control. I'm not saying that he's a liar but he's is is not too open of what he possibly knows. I don't know if you played Dragon Age but it's the same with Solas. He too was very private and didn't like you prying. Everything he showed was because he let you. It's not until the end that you find out he has something to do with what was happening. Who's to say that Gale is not like that? There's even a theory that I saw somewhere on the general forum where someone thinks Gale doesn't have a tadpole. If and that is a big IF that theory is correct, the only way Gale could act like he has a tadpole is by using Netherese magic. He could be doing that in order to manipulate you. This doesn't necessarily make him evil but it does paint him on a negative light.

Lol. Niara. The load screen image thing was somewhat a joke, though it is his psychotic looking, power hungry smile in that image that I was referring to most. He seemed a bit too happy there.

I was also wondering if the loading screens might be glimpses into a small scene from each of their pasts. I think everyone was clearly much more powerful, and the tadpole reset them, all of them. Wyll said he used to do all sorts of things he can't do in the game. Mizora gave him that power. That loading screen seemed like maybe one instance where he was standing in a smoking ruin after maybe he'd slaughtered a bunch of... Goblins maybe?

Either way, I'm just suspicious of him, and I have lots of theories. I'm not 100% sure either way. He could be, like I said, Elminster, for all I know. I mean, Volo is in it, and you know Elminster will probably be as well. Gale's personality sure fits the old crazy wizard, and in BG1 or 2 or both, Elminster disguised himself. If he lost a good deal of power during the Spellplague...

And he was a lover of Mystra's.

Let me pitch a thought here. What if Gale is Elminster in disguise? Just how Solas is actually Fen'Harel in Dragon Age.

Okay, but maybe don't list jokes as part of your explanation when someone is trying to have a serious discussion with you about reasoning that they aren't understanding or that confuses them...

I would not put it past Larian to make him Elminster...

Anyway... I did just look up all of Gale's item refusal, final recourse, and extra tadpole probes... and to be honest, no... I still don't see why people are suspicious of him, even after seeing all of those.

He asks for your help, and when you don't give it, he warns about getting close to a point of no return... and after that, when it is past that point, he uses the only other solution available to him to prevent a catastrophe, and his own soul be damned - because, you know, if he'd just let the catastrophe happen, his soul would be intact and he'd go to his afterlife, and even be available for resurrection, most likely... his choice there is the good choice, born of desperation and lack of options.. so... I'm not seeing why it's suspicious or untrustworthy... why do you (or others) see it as being so?

He gets insistant if you don't give him things, yes... and I see nothing wrong with that at all, considering the consequence of what he's talking about.

When you probe him, and get caught, he gets offended by the breach of trust and violation of person that it represents, not what you actually saw. He is receptive to being reasoned with about the necessity of your actions, though it's clear he still doesn't like that you did it.

When you probe and don't get caught, you see the mistake that he made, and you see the oppressive, dark pressure that he constantly faces and feels - remember, the tadpole links are sensory and emotive transpositions, not onlooking impressions; when we feel something dark, sinister and oppressive bearing down on us, that's not Gale doing something or being something... that's us experiencing what it's like to be Gale, same as when you experience what it's like to be Astarion lurking through the streets.

I'm trying to understand, I truly am, I promise... but I'm just not seeing anything suspicious or untrustworthy of Gale in any of this... help me understand, please.

Sorry Niara. In all seriousness. That image does seem out of character for him, though.

We are trying to help you understand why some of us have mixed feelings on Gale but unfortunately it seems you are very dismissive of everything we say. I even gave you the comparison to Solas, not sure if you played Dragon Age. Solas is very much like Gale, yet he was a traitor. He manipulated you the entire time, made you think he knew nothing when he was the brains behind everything. That reveal was the biggest shock to the fan base, even though a lot of us love Solas, but he is what he is. It seems that you just don't want to accept the possibility that Gale could be the biggest manipulator of the group. He could be good to you for 95% of the game and not reveal his true intentions to the very end, just like how Solas did in Dragon Age.

Or, he could be totally good.

However, I would say that every character in the group seems to have a dark side that is very dark. Why would Gale be the exception?