the truth in the Astarion girlies becoming Gale girlies with time.

Tim Downie's background in stand-up comedy really enhanced Gale's awkward dorkiness. I love this man the most in the game. Domestic, nerd, and funny cat dad, hell yeah.

I think something a lot of people kinda gloss over when talking about Gale and Mystra is how exactly Mystra chooses her chosen (ha.) She picks them based on who's most dedicated to learning the weave. Who's willing to go the furthest in the pursuit of magic and power, and to understand the we've the best. This is how she had a Lich as her chosen for a while. (Something to note: Mystras alignment is Lawful Nutral, not good. So, you don't really have to be "good" to earn her favor.) In this context, Gale begging and pleading with her to give him access to "forbidden" magic was exactly in line with what she wanted from a chosen. It's a behavior she herself cultivated within him. Him going to find this "lost part of her" to impress her makes absolute sense, she ENCOURAGES adventure in order to better understand and utilize magic. He did everything (to his knowledge) right. And instead of helping him the first time he messed up, she casted him to the side like an unwanted and unloved toy. One she absolutely had the power to help, but just chose not to. Bg3 really said fuck the gods man

There's some kind of irony that Gale would _settle_ for being the God of Ambition.

Him being a cat dad just makes him so much more relatable as a character and him becoming a professor at a university after abandoning the pursuit of godhood just means he's the coolest teacher at school.

I also love that Gale is the only companion who loves you as an illithid. This man loves you unconditionally and he is my ultimate comfort character.

In light of the Gale groomed by Mystra knowledge, he may not have realized just how... charged? The lesson was? If that is the same first lesson Gale received, as an entry to being groomed, you can see how she eroded his boundaries.

your point about everyone at camp becoming friends isn't just your cannon, it IS cannon! it's one of the many things i love about the game. it's imo most apparent in the earlier part of the game when Mystra gives Gale the order to blow himself up and you can talk to everyone at camp about it, im pretty sure everyone decides they hate Mystra all at once and that they wanna cheer Gale up. Astarion says "it's such a waste of a perfectly good cult we could control...and a perfectly good Gale" Karlach: "there's devotion and then there's stupidity. If Mystra, the goddess of magic, can't destroy the Absolute herself then she's no god at all. I'll distract him by telling him I haven't read a book since secondary school and watch his face melt off" and my personal favorite: Lae'zel's "Mystra demands Gale's faith but holds no faith in him...does she think he cannot destroy the Absolute with his own immense talents? Does she not know the company he keeps?...Perhaps he'd find forgiveness in a fiery death, but I don't see why he'd want it at all." (sorry this was so dorky but i love this game so much it's such good writing)

“For those of us who may be a bit too much like Gale, specifically” is such a callout 😂 He turned me off for all the same reasons that I consider myself unlikeable, and that’s a LOT to unpack before I opened up to liking the character

He can also come along with you and be an adventurer instead of being a teacher. Either way, I think, he says he wants to write about your adventures during the game. He wants to take back the narrative and celebrate his and his friends’ achievements.

Gale: "As long as you don't lick it, we're fine. And if you do lick it, STOP LICKING IT" I am a nerd who loves nerds. So Gale is my bae. Baele. 😂

As much as I dislike talking about intimacy lol I do agree that the intimacy scene with Gale is super important to his character. The fact that if you mention that he basically did all of the work he sort of shyly dismisses you and undermines his own hard work is sooooo telling. He worked so desperately to please you and expected nothing in return because that’s how Mystra operated. She was the goddess and he had to please her in every way. As fun as the scene is it’s underpinned by this sadness that he thinks sex has to be this one sided experience with duplicates of himself and magic and spectacle. It’s funny to say but I think that scene with him is one of the most telling for his character lol P.S. really good video essay!!! Subscribed for sure :]

Me and my homies hate Mystra. I love Gale, he is such a sweet silly wizard guy (romanced him on my first playthrough, planned on it since early access and regret nothing) and it made me so mad to hear what Mystra did. Still makes me want to throw hands with her.

I am so glad Gale gets more attention. 😊 His whole orb-situation mostly made me think of artistic (or magical) burnout. You have this craft you love and pour more and more energy into it, trying to get better and better until at some point, what used to bring you joy becomes an all consuming vortex in your heart that sucks the joy out of this thing you once loved while still demanding that you keep pushing on and feed it. In this light, the magic lesson did not start out as romantic for me but as him bonding with the pc over this activity he deeply cares for. Because the scene has a more playful approach, it rekindles his joy in magic and both characters get a little carried away. But I am very much on the ace side of things so a lot of things that register as flirting for others don't for me. 😅

I remember showing off the skills my groomer showed me to other people, just like Gale does. Vulnerable and isolated (and young) people latch onto skills given to them by their groomer to prove themselves worthy of attention to other people, as they've been taught that the person they trust gains attention through those skills. As an audience we learn over the course of the game that he does what he knows - he proves his skill, and he doesn't know what else to do. I think as a tragic intelligence based dnd character and as someone who has been groomed, Gale does an amazing job of expressing a feeling many people know but don't know how to express. Overall u did such a good job with this deep dive and omg am I excited to watch more of them!

Interesting thing about how he was groomed is that elminster scouted him as a child or a preteen as a candidate for mystra's chosen. And fun fact about her - she had a sexual relationship with all of her chosen. It makes it all feel sm more sinister. And in his origin (which is one of the best, i 100% recommend) if he decides to become a mindflayer and returns the crown, mystra reveals she has the power to turn him back but will only do so if he becomes her chosen again and leaves to live with her permanently, leaving his love intrest, friends, tara and his mother with whom he is very close with behind. To be with her. Forever. :D

Out of curiosity I did save and try back peddling in the end, telling Gale to go be a god. And he was essentially like “from all I learned, largely from you no less, why the heck would I do that???” So I definitely felt the impact from my long term support there :) he really does listen.

I’m firmly in the “Gale did nothing wrong” crowd when it comes to all we know about him at the beginning of the game. I think you hit the nail on the head pointing out that his grand gesture to Mystra was mostly fueled by a desire to be on equal footing with who he believed to be his loved one. I had no idea about the early access idea of the grand gesture being due to Mystra growing tired of Gale, but now he makes much more sense to me. Especially if you ask him if he would agree to a more open relationship (or just messing around with Halsin in particular lol) he panics! Gale is heartbroken just from the thought of opening up the relationship and I think the background of Mystra tossing him aside really informs that fear that Tav may be having a wandering eye and that Gale is not enough for them. I read that situation as more of him just being a romantic but this video made me realize how awful that question must have been for his character. It also makes sense then why his first reaction was to think that Tav meant having kids rather than opening the relationship! Gale devotes himself wholly to those he loves and would sooner doom himself (or otherwise embrace major life changes aka kids) than see other people.

47:06 He's the only one who offers a real comfortable BED for makin' love, that bought me entirely. Astarion offers nothing but leaves and ground (and himself).

First of all: F*ck Mystra. Now we got that out of the way, Gale is the bestest boy and I adore him. I went into my first playthrough fully intending on romancing either Astarion or Karlach but kind of accidentally walked into a romance with Gale? My character flirted with pretty much everyone, so obviously during the magic scene they imagined kissing him, but after that everyone else just kind of... fell behind because he's SO pathetic, he is literally a wet cat of a man, but he's SO DAMN SWEET and despite being insufferable about anything to do with magic it's an endearing insufferable and I just fell in love with him. There is an option during his first romance scene to have him show you Waterdeep and show off his magic and his home, do a little daydreaming with him, but when he talks about the romance novel he's reading you can pivot and tell him that while all this was great, you want the man and not the magic, and he snaps it all away without a second thought and the rest plays out from the "A small gesture towards your comfort" line. Personally I really love that option. It gives him that moment to share another piece of magic with you, flex his mastery of the weave a bit, but then when you have seen it and experienced the power of the things he can conjure, you still choose just him as he is. It's very sweet.

In my 1st game, when Gale said "I should leave, I'm dangerous." I was like okay and sent him away, because I wanted to romance Astarion. In my 2nd, I married him and I keep reloading the last party to get the kiss scene. In my 3rd, I'm finding it hard not to fall for him again :D

It’s my guy! My man! I think it’s just my love of sweet witty dorks but I loved him instantly and he was one of my big motivations for buying a ps5 to play Baldur’s Gate 3. The rizz is that powerful.

Ive started a Wild Magic Sorcerer run and the dialog between her and Gale is adorable!

Huh, Gale as being overly obsessed with magic being translated as a functional autistic trait never struck with me but makes so much sense now that I think about it. I didn't think Gale was too annoying when I first met him, but on a second viewing his language does seem very autistic: using lots of words that are either archaïc or very specific to his obsession, and losing your train of thought when presented with an unexpected question, but straightforward in saying what you mean. Perhaps that's why he makes so much sense for me. Also I'm surprised at how sex and abuse is treated in BG3 in general. It is somehow extremely straightforward and yet very subtle at times. Both the fun aspect and the serious aspect of sex and the ways it can go wrong are present. Astarion not knowing how to say no to abuse, Gale being groomed and suffering from it, Karlach who is desperately in need of all the hugs in the world, it all portrays intimacy as something valuable yet fragile. Baldur's Gate 3 somehow manages to make that message work BESIDES adding some of the most direct sexual content I've seen in games so far into the game. Edit: While I totally support the idea that Mystra has been a serious prick in how she deals with Gale, at the same time it's not entirely fair to say Mystra is completely in the wrong in how she acts. Or more accurately, just like with Zeus, her decisions are not made with human morality in mind. Ancient Greeks didn't see grooming mortals as a godly being as 'wrong', because they didn't see power as an equal exchange. Gods have powers they can use, and it's foolish to call the use of these powers immoral if said morals have been created by mortals themselves. The same goes for Mystra. For gods, toying with humans is like how humans toy with, well, toys. You can hurt characters in fiction without being called a monster, and the gods feel the same for humans, even their favourite ones. The power imbalance is so big that gods simply don't have any reason to care for how their power hurts creatures in this world. This doesn't make Mystra a good partner for Gale by any means, and she is definitely a dick for what she did to him, but it does go to explain Mystra's behaviour towards Gale in a way that goes beyond 'she's an a-hole'.

In case you didn't already have enough reasons to dislike Mystra: I have a strong suspicion that Mystra is the one who traps Gale in that portal at the beginning. It's the one and only time we ever see one of these magic portals malfunction in any way. Mystra would have been able to see that Gale was taken from his home and tad-poled. Also she knew what the Netherese orb was all along, even if Gale didn't. And as Gale himself says in his first conversation, as he's falling from the Nautiloid, he reaches out "with the weave" to access the portal. The weave is literally Mystra, so of course she knows about it. I think she trapped him there in a sort of limbo outside the material plane in order to neutralize the threat of the orb.

I'm so glad more people are starting to better understand Gale! And I believe that EA Gale's dialogue about Mystra and the "veil", as well as his very clear reflection on Mystra losing interest in him, 100% translates to the full game. EA Gale had a lot of dialogue that showed insight and clarity regarding his relationship with Mystra. But it was likely written that way to quickly give players insight into his character and backstory, as only Act 1 was available for people to grow connected to and understand the motivations of these new characters, and Larian was still working on Gale's arc for Acts 2 and 3. EA Gale's dialogue wasn't the most 'natural' for a character who has only just recently fallen out of a relationship with someone he was groomed by (as to say, most victims may need time and perspective to fully understand the circumstance they were in, especially if it was framed as a 'romantic' relationship). Only in Act 2 of the full game does Gale go through the arc of being disillusioned by his past feelings for Mystra once Elminster arrives with her message, which leads to the revelations that EA Gale displays, only now being seen during Act 2/3 in the full release. Full-release Gale gets to go through his full arc: 1. He's still stuck reminiscing about Mystra & believes his connection to her was pure, when really they never had any deep love and he sees no faults in her (toxic mindset); he feels guilty for wanting to be on an equal footing with her and thinks the orb is justified karma 2. He hears Mystra's order and realizes she's never seen him as worthy beyond his talents and that he was only a plaything; he starts to learn through the other companions/the player that he has self-worth outside of Mystra's approval and his talents 3. Gale's natural curiosity manifests into anger when he learns of the crown and he seeks "reactive abuse" to show Mystra his worth and challenge her I also don't believe that Gale not taking over Mystra's domain has anything to do with him still loving her. He tried following her orders to sacrifice himself not because he loves her, but because his self-worth is so closely tied to her that he feels he needs her validation to prove that his existence means something. There are also probably regulations regarding ascending to godhood, such as Ao/the other gods playing a role and Gale being only a lesser god who controls Netherese magic & not the true Weave. So I think with all that in mind, he figured it would be better to not challenge Mystra and just take whatever new domain he can get his hands on.

I looked up "Baldur's Gate analysis gale" hoping there would be something, and now I'm so excited for the next hour+ of my life

I remember my first run, I was romanicing Gale and when he revealed that his background invloved Mystra I was very excited given that Mystra was a big presence in the dnd campaign I was running and I really liked the role she took in it. That quickly soured as I saw how bad Mystra is in bg3 and I had to reconcile that my Mystra and Gale's Mystra were just completely different.

i haven't watched this entire video yet (will do in a moment), but there is a letter from elminster to gale (SPOILERS!) after he becomes a god. elminster basically writes about gale's innocence when he was eight (which is around the time when mystra began grooming him, i believe?), and how elminster feels that he has failed him. imo this can be interpreted as both elminster feeling he failed gale as a role-model (by not successfully steering him away from godhood), but also not protecting him from mystra. if mystra hadn't groomed gale, he would not be wanting to appease her the way he did, and would probably not end up in the predicament with the orb and idea of ascending to godhood. just a few of my thoughts :), thank you for the amazing video!

A fellow woman of culture, a bloodweave enjoyer 😌 Top tier breakdown of my comfort character Edit: Gale being enthusiastic about going to a bookshop is literally me trying to explain to my partner why going to the library is the best thing on earth lmao

The cut scene in Act 2 broke my heart. The graphics do such an amazing job of capturing his sadness. Obviously the voice acting quality goes without saying. Loved this video, thank you for sharing.

"Settles for ambition" seems like an oxymoron. And i think he works really hard to not think about it

I don’t play baldur‘s gate, but I’m completely hypnotised watching this video

It kind of disappointed me that there's no real middle ground with what you advise Gale to do at the end, it's either "let your hubris consume you" or "submit to your abuser, she really wasn't THAT bad" I wish there was a way to be like "yeah fuck mystra, but it's not a great idea to try and become a god, nor to piss one off, bring the crown back to her then high tail it the fuck outta there"

"he just has that autistic rizz" should be his canon description

I let Gale became a god on my first playthought, he was so passionate about that damn crown with his big brown puppy eyes, so I thought “okay my guy do your thing”. But on the epilogue party Tara was SO DISAPPOINTED and I took that to heart, that man is never becoming a god ever again.

Personally, I was on Gale's side since he came out of that stupid portal. It's hard not to romance him 🥺

Bruh my brain blocked out the part where the narrator said that Gale would see, so when tav imagined them kissing i was like "WAIT HE CAN SEE THAT???"

gale was love at first sight for me. as a former anders girlie i saw a goofy mage with a cat and was instantly smitten.

I can’t remember exactly where I heard this, but I think Gale was “eight summers old” when he first met Mystra. Mystra also apparently has enough of a reputation that parents often try to hide their children from her if they demonstrate a talent for magic at a young age because they fear Mystra taking them away. I’m not sure if that information is accurate or not, but either way, Mystra is still incredibly creepy towards Gale.

In terms of him still being in love with Mystra, its pretty common (speaking from experience) for abuse and grooming victims after the relationship has ended to still feel like they are 'in love' with their abuser, especially if a major part of that relationship was them being made to feel like that relationship was it for them. If you have been made to feel unlovable or unequal to your abuser, feeling subservient and reliant on their affection is a major part of how you perceive yourself. There's still an emotional attachment, and until you've properly processed what happened, that attachment can feel like love. If you are isolated from other people, then that can be even stronger; your abuser being your only real connection to someone else can make it so hard to shake those feelings. Gale and Tara reference the fact that he doesn't have a lot of friends, something that can slow down the processing, and he literally locked himself away in a tower for about a year out of fear that he was a danger to society. He hasn't had the time to properly heal from the breakup bc he is constantly carrying the reason they broke up with him every single day (also consider the fact that she puts the blame for that breakup onto him, so he is also carrying guilt alongside it) Gale's life involves Mystra on a daily basis through his magic. Every single spell he casts has a reminder of her. Imagine having a tattoo on the back of your hand of your abusers name and every time you look at them to do something your reminded of what they did to you. He is going to be processing things slower, bc there is no separation of her from himself. A wizard without magic is just a man, something he is terrified of being. He used to be a prodigy and now he cant do magic to the same level he used to bc the orb is eating away at the Weave, and he fears that his actions could potentially lead to the destruction of hundreds of lives. He got out of a relationship where he was a victim and he cant even do much of the grieving he is entitled to; he cant get too upset or angry bc it would a) prove Mystra right that he was never right to be on equal footing to her, and b) could agitate the orb and destroy a city. He doesn't still love her, he just doesn't understand what his life could be without her bc there is no version of events where he can still be a wizard and not have Mystra in his life, and he is processing that complicated web of emotions as love (sorry for the long comment, i could talk for hours about gale and his responses to his trauma - i have a lot of thoughts about his reaction when you ask if hes up for an open relationship, and his reactions to elminsters message are an entire essay inside my head)

I kinda read him saying he "offers" nothing he just inspires as a god as darker: more like now he is a god, he's continuing similar cycles (mirroring astarion's story) and that his new position has let him justify those blurred lines of power

I do love Elminster. I think he is a good friend to Gale, but he isn't really a good support person due to his own connection to Mystra. He is considered one of Mystra's Chosen and is one of her past lovers as well, so... (As revealed in conversation with Minsc and Gale once again.)

Personally I literally saw him when me sibling was playing and went "GASP! PURPLE MAN PURPLE MAN PURPLE MAN CHOOSE THAT ONE" and my sibling went "He's a wizard" and I went "GAASP MAGIC PURPLE MAN CHOOSE THAT ONE!!!"

YIPPEEEEE You cannot fathom how pleased I am to see this video. I absolutely loved your deep dive on Astarion, I'm so excited to see you unpack all the stuff going on with Gale!!! Common pocket con W!!!

The Astarion to Gale pipeline is so real! I couldn’t stand him in my first playthrough. The “you’re not lEaRnEd in magic” line really turned me off, but now he’s my Durge sorcerer’s dorky boyfriend and I love bullying him lol

Whenever I play big bad characters like a rabid barbarian or cold conquest paladin I ALWAYS romance Gale. It’s always just so unwaveringly cute to have this monster of a man having a deep soft spot for a bumbling boyfailure.

Gale does indeed have that "I can fix him/I can save him" energy, that all of the Origin companions in their weird "brokeness" do.

I romanced gale first time cause who doesn't love an empathetic, hot nerd but I also love astarian and halsin so much ^_^

On my multiplayer with my husband I chose Gale. I chose him as the man he is every time and it made me sob. Making him know that I love him as the human he is. That’s he’s worth more than his magic. By the end of the story it gave me as much feeling as Astarion.

Oh, Gale was my first favorite

Gale is going to be my Romance next time, I was romancing Astarion and some how Gale thought we had something, which…no…but his little “I wish you’d told me you weren’t interested sooner” speech gave me feels. 😢

This video caused me to re-rank Gale, from a companion that grew on me to my favorite

the astarion to gale lover pipeline is so real

Gale to me is what Astarion is to many others, this video made me realize that lol! He is my awkward babygirl who still manages to be effortlessly charming, stole my heart with that confidence mixed with deep insecurity and his closest companion is a freaking cat like he’s just like me for real😂 Simply said Gale is just a great person to be around and I love him for that

I can’t stop thinking about Gale summoning the bed. Could he just be summoning beds for camp but we all sleep on the ground for some reason. Damn wizards.

Im a shy woman who is really attracted to friendly nice guys, so i was really down bad for Gale since the beginning lol.

Considering volo is a secret chosen of mystra i think she has a thing for beards

The 17 years old being used as the time he gained Mystra's favor is probably from one Tumblr post that tries to calculate Gale's age and matches it with Mystra's return in 1479 DR. That is 13 years apart from the current time (1492 DR) and that would make Gale 30 years old. I remember reading it when I tried to search up his age once. Also a wonderful deep dive! I also suffer from being a child prodigy with expectations and how people perceived me and honestly, Gale is just so relatable. I feel his insecurities, his fears, his self-loath and I can't help but love him. You really deserve more subscribers just for this video alone!

When I sent him to blow up the Elder Brain I ugly cried so hard my SO thought something was legitimately wrong with me.

Gale is so relatable cuz if you talk to him about Tara he falls in love with your character and like as a cat owner same 😭also I feel so bad for writing him off so quickly in the beginning (in my defense it was his early access self who I didn’t find really find appealing). Once the game came out I love a lot of the changes to him and he’s a constant in my party. Also his romance is so well-written, ITS JUST YEARNINGGG and two people learning to trust and love again. I could go on about how much I love him and Tara.

I entered the game planning on choosing Karlach. I never even thought about Gale. Then my halfling Tav adventured and…damn it. Now she’s Mrs. Dekarios.

So at one point I think he does mention he hasn't ONLY been with Mystra, and my headcannon - which is purely my conjecture and I have nothing to base this off of other than vibes - is that in her grooming process, she guided/encouraged him into relationships that were clearly (from the eyes of someone older and more experienced) doomed to fail, in order to further push him into thinking she was his only option for everything Again, this is just my own headcannon/idea/conjecture!

I love the tism rizzard so much 😭 thank you for making this video, I enjoyed every minute of it.

I always figured I'd go for Astarion on my first playthrough and try Gale on my second, because I really love both of them. but then suddenly Gale was just "I'm in love with you". and my heart just melted. then i figured sure, and rolled with it. and I'm glad I did. he is a really sweet and kind guy, if not just a little bit too ambitious (with the whole god thing). but I just grew to love more anyway. And even though I have never been in that situation myself, I understand very well the feeling of not being good enough. so I will always stand by him and tell him that he is good enough just the way he is. with quirks and flaws and all by the way what is that light behind you? it's just so pretty and fits the theme so well :)

This was another very good deep dive. Looking forward to more of these if you have time. Gale is probably the companion easiest to identify with for a lot of us, and as you pointed out that may be why so many of us snark about him.

I fell in love with Gale the moment he confessed he was turned on by all our fighting. It was my first playtrough, I was planning on doing the Astarion route but he completely charmed me. He's a princess and my babygirl. I love him.

Love this!! Gale grew on me more so on my second run than my first and I got way more invested in his character than I was expecting to, since my first run I was just laser-focused on Karlach. Regardless, they’re both very easy to like pretty quickly and their idiosyncrasies just make them so well-crafted in a larger than life setting.

It was definitely a slow burn kinda love for me with Gale but now I'm full blown infatuated with this fictional man 😭

He does NOT come back if you take his hand off at the portal as dark urge.

I'm always a bit surprised that more people don't adore gale from the start like I do. I find him so funny and charismatic. He's also the only one of the initial companions who is friendly and somewhat open. This could be different for other players who behaved differently but but I decided very early on that Gail was my tav's best friend and I kept him in my party almost constantly for that reason. Even his need to consume magic items gimmick didn't bug me that much because I was easily able to find two I didn't mind loosing and he only ever consumed two in my play through before the problem stopped cropping up.

I’m listening to this at work and I’m over here trying not to melt down sobbing.

In my epilogue gale was just straight up dead. I feel like I missed out on a few scenes as a result of him being kidnapped by Orin.

I can't remember if there was no persuasion check (in that one I was a bard so I passed all of them easily by then) but I do know that the easier way to persuade Astarion not to ascend is 1) have him in your party 2) separate and leave him by the cells on the way right before cazador 3) fight cazador & crew with your remaining two companions 4) once cazador goes into the coffin, go get Astarion and bring him there to finish cazador off

"You gnaw off his hand" //Silent Hill 2 music plays in the background AYO???????

Gale is a Bard with a special interest in the weave. I'm not sure someone can convince me of something else.

Gale is similar to Kael'thas from World of Warcraft. They're both mages who suffer from magic addiction and must consume any forms of magic or else they'll die. Difference is that while Kael'thas sides with a Demon Overlord and use the Sunwell, the source of the Blood Elves' magic, to summon him which lead to his demise, Gale was able to overcome his magic addiction with the help of Tav and ascend to Godhood in order to face Mystara and take her place.

Well you've convinced me to do a Durge clerk of Mystra /wizard and try the Gale romance out lmao

Unlike Shadowheart and Astarion, Gale isn’t an immediately toxic, perpetually snarky taint in need of being institutionalised, so no wonder the “I can fix them” crowd and Twitter ghouls don’t drool over him

I was fully intending to be a simp for a certain vampire, but then the wizard crept in unawares. I didn't even have a chance to start romancing Astarion, when Gale came at my Tav with his Mystra-head-bust/tutor-though-the-Weave-shennanikings. Once he started sharing his admiration for the way I saved the kid from the snake and diffused the Zevlor/Aradin conflict, I was a goner. Then he started asking me to be on the lookout for magical artifacts and I was like 'say no more. I will search this realm for every magical artifact for you' 😂

i desperately wish i could romance gale but he reminds me TOO MUCH of my high school english teacher that every time i triggered romance with him i had to turn it down and its like gale it is not you. its me. and the fact you are too english teacher coded

honestly, Astarion is the one who introduced me to Baldurs Gate 3 cause I kept seeing his romance stuff on social media. But I did go down the Shadowheart to Gale pipeline, weirdly enough. I love this sad lil wizard man with all my being. And the more I learn about his backstory, the more I just want to give him a hug and remind him that he is enough just as he is. All this to say, I love the breakdown about Gale! Definitely earned a sub from me

Gale and Astarion are very similar in that at first it's very easy to be annoyed by these haughty men, but as you get to know them, their annoyances become more charming. i knew the most about Astarion going in so I warmed up to him pretty fast. But I kept finding myself annoyed by Gale so I actually went out of my way to learn more about him since I knew as soon as I knew more about him I wouldn't be annoyed anymore and sure enough I was starting a new playthrough last night and found all of his little quirks in his introduction to be adorable rather thab irritating

so upset that Mystra basically groomed him; from the convo with Elminster you basically find out that she could of gave Gale the power to control the orb from day 1

He has only one technique: rizz 'em with the 'tism. Awkward Rizz Gang rise up!

Gale definitely the type to say “The sex was cool, but let me tell you about the Weave.”

Some of my favorite things about my Gale romance play through. He will stay w you if you turn squid and still is so proud of you and wants to introduce you to his family and get married. The tiptoe kiss at the epilogue party. Planning to have tea w gale’s mother and Tara. And this is not related to his romance but if you haven’t heard his barbarian scream it’s so amazingly awkward , go search for it.

I’m def in the camp of people who have only watched your bg3 videos, but I do love them!

I love that I preemptively said I loved the bg3 community when I was only being shown tactician min maxing and goofy “can you beat” stuff and now I’m finally getting a real ass video essayist hell yeah

My first character, Paul Best, was a Wizard. His best friend, Gale, was also a Wizard, both Evokers. Paul promised Astarion to deal with Cazador, so long as her re-speced as a Wizard. Astarion asked if it was ok if he could be a Diviner. Paul's gf, Shadowheart, was totally ok with that. Everyone had a fantastic rapport with Paul, it was a nice little group where Gale's irreverent attitude lifted everyone's spirits. Even Shadowheart cracked jokes on a daily basis, which is not the case in my current Dark Urge run... where everyone is more guarded with their witty comments... except for Gale, who is still cracking wise, even in the face of even greater gravity than in my first run. I like playing Wizards, and I love Gale's backstory. After saying all of this, I will now watch your video!

on the "Astarion choosing not to ascend on his own" as of Pre-patch 6 I didn't find any way to have Astarion choose not to ascend *on his own*. That is if you still want him to be in your party afterwards. If you outright refuse to help him at the start he will kill Cazador, then break the staff and tell you he wishes you die screaming before permanently leaving the party. if you interrupt him during the ritual he will turn hostile Only thing I found so far, is splitting the party after the fight and positioning everyone to the far end of the staircase and have Astarion alone open the coffin at which point he just kills Cazador.

I started my BG3 journey gunning for Halsin because of my own experiences with grief and healing, but by the time I finally was able to recruit him, I was so caught by Gale that I felt I needed to do another entire playthrough just for him. His has such a powerful story and he's such a charming companion, My one Mystra is catching these hands comment is that I simply can't believe Mystra didn't know about what Gale was trying to accomplish. I think Gale says something about her knowing and forbidding it. She never says why. It was just "do as I say, because I say so." though that might be from having read too many fanfics. But if true, like many groomers, she refused to explain herself or why she was forbidding something. She simply expected the young man to just do as she said without question. She was supposed to be his teacher. A teacher explains why things are dangerous. Instead, she lets him do it and then punishes him. She takes a young, scared, venerable man, strips him of the one thing that can protect him (his full might of magic), casts him aside like trash, and then allows him to suffer in an excruciating pain and arcane hunger that will one day kill him and everyone else in the neighborhood. Mystra wasn't just condemning Gale. Gale says it himself "The moment it becomes unstable, however. It will erupt." Mystra isn't just punishing Gale, she's also making Gale responsible for every life in the area. She's made it so he HAS to lock himself away, has to beg for her forgiveness, because if the orb becomes unstable or if he dies before he can fi it, he takes everything around him out with him. She's made it so he can't ever do anything but be the destruction of all he knows and loves other than her unless he crawls to her to save him. When he finds out he doesn't have to be alone and gets a support structure, her response is to immediately send a fake Elminister (he was a simulacrum), to tell Gale that for her forgiveness, he must end himself. As soon as he might find redemption and happiness in anyone else, her response is "I guess you have to die now, it's the only way." At least that's my take on it. But what do you expect from the Goddess who made VOLO into a pillar of magic

Such a great listen and agree wholly with all your points! I knew what was coming, but it also still stung every time his trauma/insecurities were brought up. I love how he was written so much and how multi-dimensional he and all the companions are. Looking forward to watching your other video essays!

Wasn’t fully paying attention here so if you’ve already said this I apologize lol Grooming can be non-pedophilic, but, Elminster discovered Gale (which is the reason he caught Mystra’s attention) when he was “No older than eight.” Minsc talks about how people had to hide away young wizards from Mystra. This is pedophilic grooming, as well as all the other huge power imbalances. Also, when Gale said “I crossed Mystra’s boundaries” I doubt he meant… relationship boundaries. I think he was referring to him crossing the limits of the rules Mystra put over magic itself. Not deliberately trying to cross a personal boundary of hers, but the weave she controls.

I made a Druid for a dnd game once who's a massive atheist in the sense that he believes gods shouldn't be allowed to interfere with the lives of mortals. The amount of gratification that character would've got from Gale's questline is crazy On several occasions I've actually caught myself saying "Hroldr was right", so that's something

I love your BG3 deep dives! I've binged them all now.. so hoping you do ones for Lae'zel, Wyll, Halsin, and Minthara eventually! You have really interesting analysis

bullying&supporting Gale as a dragonborn sorceress with dumped intellect and overmaxed charisma was a superfun experience. His ex being a goddess and his only friend a sassy flying cat, it only felt right that he'd marry a flying magical lizardgirl with cursed divine lineage

This really opened my eyes to Gale's struggles. Great video

oh my god, how do you ONLY have 3.9k subs? This is such a good video, cant wait to binge all of them !!

Stumbled across this channel through a recent BG3 kick I’ve been on, I have to say you just seem so sweet, and I love your hair! I’ll watch your Gale video when I have time