#i like gale more and more honestly

[ruairy]

.

[galedekarios]

i am unwell again about act iii gale and the variations the astral sea/boat scene can have:

node context: genuine, vulnerable - the player just told him they loved him in a way no one else has gale: i conjured this illusion often during my confinement in waterdeep. an escape for the mind where there was none for the body. it was easier to stare at the celestial abyss than recognise the emptiness within myself. easier to pretend my destiny lay among such stars, than work to salvage a life on solid ground. you changed all that.

[mukuharakazui]

the bg3 fanbase is funny as fuck in a bad way for primarily shipping gale, who is the most garrulous man you can imagine, with astarion, whom gale goes "uh 😐 not really looking to talk with you man" at when prompted for conversation, and not with wyll, whose party admission gets a "gale approves" and then they proceed to compliment each other 24/7.

update: i think ship wars are stupid as fuck + this is about something very different. a very notable problem not just among the general bg3 and d&d fan circles but among certain fans of this sort of fantasy genre as a whole.

[scorndotexe]

honestly i'm coming around to gale can i say that

[josephslittledeputy]

G... Gale..;....???

[galaxymagick]

𝔅𝔞𝔩𝔡𝔲𝔯'𝔰 𝔊𝔞𝔱𝔢 3 | 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱 𝘣𝘺 @laiostoudenn

[tonberrykins]

Hey, I get I've been raving about Astarion a lot but, like, are there ACTUALLY people out here who hate Gale and are calling him an incel? Is this a thing? Thank God I apparently curate well bc holy fucking shit I would be having heart palpitations DAILY out of SHEER ANGER.

So, like, we're always going to make fun of our faves and whatnot bc lbr "bro, you were banging Mystra and fucked up that bad?" THOUGH TO BE FAIR, if you're a wizard it isn't that hard to bang Mystra. It's kind of her thing. P sure her banging Elminster as many times as she has is the main reason he's still kicking and out being the Faerûnian Gandalf that he is in-game. Mystra's bodycount aside (especially since that has ZERO bearing on ANYTHING least of all her portfolio and purpose), like, Gale is a very intelligent man. He is also what we would consider as an objectively good person. Save the kids, help the tieflings, be kind and compassionate to those the average "good" aligned folks would consider "worthy" and yeah. He is literally the Alistair Theirin of BG3 if you Fusion Danced him together with Awakening Anders.

That being said, he is also very deeply flawed in that he KNOWS he is brilliant and in that brilliance, knowing his own talent, he thinks he knows better than even his own goddess BUT-! But, but, but, he is mortal, is young enough and in an age to not be able to wrack up the accomplishments of, say, Elminster whom he clearly knows on a fairly personal level so, like anyone who knows they are capable of doing great things, he feels INFERIOR bc he hasn't, in his mind, PROVEN that he is as great as he knows he is. And that's the hubris of mortality.

Objectively, LOGICALLY, he knows that he's more than proven himself capable. Mystra wouldn't have started a relationship with him otherwise, and she never asked him to prove himself. It was his own desperation to prove that he was worthy of her and thinking he knew EVERYTHING that lead to his terrible situation. Is he very clinical and logical about it? Yes. Is he squirrelly about it in the beginning? Very much, yes. Hell, I would be. No one wants to be friends with a literal ticking time bomb and the man is VERY lonely. Hell, that's the name of the game baybee! Baldur's Gate 3: These Bitches Need a Hug; YES EVEN LAE'ZEL, I WILL FIGHT Y'ALL!

Back to Gale, your friendship with him is something he very much treasures and when he starts all his finger wiggling and magic talk he's like any nerd sharing the thing he is most passionate about. He is also the first to admit he fucked up. HOWEVER, that does not (imo) warrant him needing to sacrifice himself all for Mystra's forgiveness, and even Elminster isn't on board with that. And, like, when he talks about Mystra it's never in an accusatory manner towards her. He clearly still loves her, likely always will, but that never negates his love for the PC who chooses to romance him. He is also very much prone to falling into the same pitfall of hubris that got him before and very clearly needs guidance that, yes, Mystra clearly did neglect in giving him. But he never outright blames her, at least he's not in my playthroughs thus far even after having spoken with her in the temple. He's just a sad, lonely nerd and that does not automatically make him an incel; y'all just don't know how to read, listen, or understand nuance. Apparently.

tl;dr

Gale deserves as much love as Astarion but bc he isn't evil "babygirl" material that's "fixable" he's just called an incel when he can be a very genuine friend, but what are those nowadays I guess?

[chronurgy]

I totally understand why Gortash had to die facing the netherbrain - thematically it makes total sense. HOWEVER I really wish he hadn't died because it would have made things much worse for my Dark Urge Vesper. Namely, they would have actually had to choose between their romance with Gale and whatever the hell they had going on with Gortash. And it would not be an easy choice!

Gale loves Vesper and Vesper loves Gale and it's sweet and nice and lovely and maybe a little obsessive but. Well. It's sweet. There are no teeth. And Gale can't ever really understand them the way Gortash does. He makes them a better person. But that means they're constantly on, always fighting their instincts, always trying to be better.

Vesper and Gortash want to eat each other. They play their sick twisted mind games with each other because they both love it. Gortash knows Vesper, has seen them at their most monsterous, and wants them anyway. Wants them because of it. With him, they can be their worst and truest self.

And that's the question at the heart of it - what do they want? A sweet and uncomplicated love, one that will make them a better person, the kind of person that they might like to be, but who will never really understand them, never play their favorite vicious games with them? Or do they want to spiral down into an all consuming relationship that will have the two of then tearing each other apart with their teeth in perfect mutual harmony, to be totally understood, to give in to their worst impulses, lean into the manipulative push and pull schemes that they so enjoy?

[antiqua-lugar]

fun fact, during my first fully blind playthrought of bg3 I honestly thought gale was the writers' favourite if nothing else because of how much varied dialogue he had. like I never reallly had a conversation with astarion that wasn't about his trauma, his vampirism or how boring I am for not wanting to take over a cult but I knew all of gale's hobbies, two or three childhood's anecdotes and the whole history of tara, who he was making plans to introduce to me later.

[wantonlywindswept]

me: hmm who to romance who to romance

me: gets to the party scene

me: wait why is everyone all ready for sex now I BARELY KNOW YOU

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Fuck it what if not all ripped 6 pack abs. What then.

[minthara]

idk. the dichotomy what ppl say about wylls romance vs my own experience with it. it was def the romance that clicked most with me and i enjoyed most, and i remember even thinking "wow so MUCH and such GOOD content!". but i also went into it from minthara's romance (and astarion's which sadly didn't click with me as much) lol.

[recitedemise]

𝗚𝗮𝗹𝗲, 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝗹𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿'𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗪𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲. That isn't to say the Weave, however, the very source well of magic, was made any lesser for Gale. Rather, it was Gale's ability to draw from it that was egregiously stunted. While every other mage may experience fatigue, weary with that effort to manipulate magic, Gale's body was slowly wasting. In his case, his body could only take so much, and unfortunately, no amount of rest would do him well. For a time, casting to Gale brought him a conflicted feeling of joy, elation, and the chronic hollowness of a ruthless ache. His skin cracked apart, nails stained black with the ruptures beneath them, and under duress with incurable exhaustion, plainly put: every spell Gale would cast could've been his last. The realization? Well, it was gutting. Abstractly, he knew one day, on a day likely balmy for cruelty, he would've burned himself out to the end of his wick. One day, he would fan out his fingers and conjure nothing at all. Unable to absorb more Weave, it would have been the beginning of the end.

Honestly, at that point, he'd believe death comparatively merciful.

[sochilll]

Okaaaay just finished my first re-read of all 3 Hunger Games books since I was 12..... inconsolable frankly

[dykeogenes]

okay listen neil newbon would absolutely deserve to win best performance for astarion at the game awards and I’m going to applaud if and when he does. however. if devora wilde isn’t at least NOMINATED alongside him you can all expect me to make some angry posts about it.

[sb-essebi]

"I was surprised you'd stick up for Astarion"

Shadowheart. GIRL. He's biting me every night. You sleep right next to us. I'm bending my goody-two-shoes paladin ass over backwards to get him to like me. Do you not have eyes? You tought I'd sell him out to a monster hunter??? Girl. Girl, I figured out what your hand wound does. It's selective blindness. Shar, goddess of darkness, makes perfect sense, girl, Shadowheart, listen-