#bg3 reaction

[ohwolfling]

Gale’s evil ending is out on Youtube now! How do you feel about it and is there any analysis to it?

[goes to YouTube because I have Toy Story disease and know I will never do this myself]

Ooooh boy. The thing is, this is an RPG. If you played the game in such a way that Gale would get here, alright. I don’t wish to yuck anyone’s yum. But for me this feels nigh on impossible. 

-please not, I have not slept right in like a month, this is not as polished as I usually try to make my asks/meta-

Gale at his very worst wants to be worshiped, adored, and praised. He wants to be equal to gods because it’s gods who have made playthings of the little guys. I don’t think that this kind of submission would satisfy Gale, nor do I think that Gale is someone who does direct violence on purpose, even on his worst days. 

Choice One 

As for destroying the heavens, I don’t know, Gale seems aware that being a Chosen is a curse regardless of who the god is and I don’t see Gale focusing his ire on throwing his testament to Mystra and having a crowd beat up a Mystra statue that came from I am not sure where? Sort of echoes my sentiments that while BG3 is some of the best and most varied representation of abuse and trauma on personal and systemic levels I’ve ever seen, it still has it’s little flaws, both because of its commitment at times to DnD lore and the fact that I don’t think that survivors/advocates/educators were consulted so much as we got lucky. I’ve talked about this mostly in regards to how the narrative fails Wyll (not because Wyll should be more important than other companions because he’s literally from Baldur’s Gate, an argument that is just… so dumb, your hearts are in the right place but jfc). 

Choice Two 

I just don’t believe in any version of Gale that wants to lead an army. It made me laugh honestly. 

Choice Three

ILLUSION MAGIC, CONTENTMENT, LOVE (djinn, careful what you wish for, etc, so there’s like… existing lore and stuff for this in the greater pantheon of storytelling)... This one had such potential. Disappears immediately, however.

Does he need a big statue of himself? What is that meant to communicate? I don’t get this. Gale likes pretty things and this world is still hideous for himself. God Gale shows us that Gale’s “Bad” ending is leaning into aesthetics and power-posturing. This is… just not in character to me under any circumstances.

Choice Four

Killing everybody is just plain mean. Gale needs something to gaslight himself about. Frankly, this is too simple for the kind of mental illness this man holds within him. The line says, “this is mercy” but nothing around it actually implies that. Actually kinda pisses me off. A thing doesn’t need to look menacing to be evil and I expect Larian to know better. A power move here would’ve been Gale finding he still feels hopeless after all this and detonating himself against even the Orb’s will! 

Choice Five

Gale could never wish for chaos to rule. He would get IBS. I also don’t think “people are inherently bad” is a Gale thing. That might vibe with Shadowheart and Astarion before their healing journeys or if you play them that way, but even then there’s so much foundational wounding that gets them there. This is just… lol ok. Gale very clearly loves children, at least in the sense that he wants to protect them. If there’s an evil Gale who would turn a child into a little killer, it would be against an abuser of some kind, not a mother protecting them.

Generally,

Let him kill Mystra and have chaos ensue that way, cowards. 

A Gale who would control or limit you would do so leading with pleasure, not cruelty (maybe some Willow erasing Tara’s memories vibes) and even where they did play with this they ultimately failed. It doesn’t serve Gale in any way to create illusory magic for big statue. Some of the language around some of the choices feels… very insecure masculinity? And I don’t particularly associate that with Gale. His problems with Mystra are not based in not feeling like A Man™, but in not feeling enough as Merely A Mortal Man™. That’s a reading that people falsely make of Gale of Waterdeep™ throughout the game, which is good world building and makes sense, as he is a renowned wizard, was a child prodigy, and is a known paramor and Chosen of Mystra. That’s the social dig at his facade. Gale Dekarios, however, doesn’t demonstrate any issues in that flavor?

If you’ve played Gale as a man constantly on the cusp of evil, you may have an insight to this that I don’t. But for me, even where things feel somewhat possible, it’s giving Daenerys burns down King’s Landing because we forgot to write her for four seasons in the middle and are bored now. Which is to say that GRRM has a few books left to make Daenerys accelerate herself and could do it in a way that is beautiful and breaks my heart but that ain’t what happened here today, ya know? 

This is an observation no one asked for but I think part of the perfect storm that led to SO MUCH additional Astarion content (the obvious being casual hornies + Neil Newbon being as accommodating as he is passionate [affectionate][complimentary][in awe]) is that the default setting for how Larian Studios views evil, struggle, grief, trauma, abuse, etc is in these very flashy, edgy tropes of Hurt People Hurt People being very literal. And that is a genuine and beautiful load-bearing wall of Astarion’s belief system. But Hurt People Hurt People doesn’t apply to Gale, at least not in that way. Gale tries every other thing possible before he comes up with the idea to restore elements of the Weave to Mystra through relics and such. And when he gets the orb, he’s moving to be sure his own inevitable detonation doesn’t hurt anyone. Gale’s entire story is about the risk of reaching out, of trying to connect, you literally pull him out of a hole of unstable magic.

As a note - Nothing I say here is too critical of Larian studios. For me personally, multiple endings of the same flavor are not what fuels replayability but for most people who simply play this game and do not examine it as a piece of literature or find community around the discussion of it, it does. Studios are a business and they’ve been through it working on this with WotC/DnD. I totally get it. But I’d really rather more in world characterization than additional endings. 

[douglasbradburyverne]

Larian should definitely give a raise to whoever's in charge of their social media

[coffeenonsense]

gale's reaction to mystra telling him to blow himself up is obviously heartbreaking but on the other hand it is deeply DEEPLY hilarious when Gale, Learned professor of renown, is like "if there was another way to defeat the absolute don't you think the goddess of magic would have thought of it" and the band of badly socialized half-feral murder children he's running with just go "well maybe the goddess of magic is stupid, gale"

[onlyancunin]

So I had an idea –

Let me know if this is too unhinged and/or if you have an idea for a badge of (dis)approval of your own.

Standard badges

[dekariosclan]

Reactions to Mystra’s Orders for Gale

The companions: Mystra is selfish, petty, and incorrect in her assessment of Gale’s worth. Unbelievable. Poor Gale :(

Tara: I WILL HUNT DOWN EACH AND EVERY GOD FOR SPORT

[erzvolnes]

adding this to my growing collection of favourite astarion lines

[amygdalae]

I love Gale and his storyline is sad but it also cracks me up like. Imagine your friend (an EXTREMELY famous and powerful old wizard) finds you traveling somewhere in the very ass-crack of Faerun. And he has a message from your ex. And the message is "kill yourself"

[paarthursass]

genuinely love how the whole gang is like "fuck this guy"

[nukbody]

This is too funny after Moonrise Towers

[jibberjibbsart]

Absolutely loved this screenshot from the BG3 High Rollers session so I had to redraw it

[iicaru2]

gale is just like me in the sense that he’s a chronic yapper who loves deeply and has a somewhat unreliable moral compass and some kind of poorly concealed god complex but also because at the first minor inconvenience he can and will threaten to kill himself

[cheekylittlepupp]

He's so adorable when he's annoyed

[lunian]

Gale: *practices shadow magic*

Lae'zel and Shadowheart: wtf

Astarion: TWIRLING HAIR GIGGLING KICKING FEET

[andsylphy]

they just put up with our bullshit

[onlyancunin]

+ Bonus:

Custom Astarion reaction badges - Part 2 / ? ______________

Today's batch is sponsored by all the reblogs & comments under the previous part, I am absolutely floored with the response. I read every single one, including the tags, and picked a few I liked.

It was something created on a whim, I thought long and hard if I should even post it, so thank you all the more for accepting my brainrot.

If you have more ideas and/or suggestions for the next batch - for Astarion or anyone else - let me know!

[pinacoladamatata]

the entire party after learning about what Astarion's scars mean