#the reason why i even play tetris is because of a reddit post that says playing tetris can surpress trauma and reduce the possibility of-

[miutonium]

Playing the NYT mini crozzword everyday because I love the satisfaction of hearing the jingle when I solve a puzzle and hhhh I think if Utonium ever have a smartphone he def plays NYT crossword just for the jingle too and he gets so excited over listening to it hhh

[lairofsentinel]

Hiii!! I’m the last anon. I loved reading your take on the Oskar situation! To be honest I was a little paranoid because of all the Gale hot takes on Reddit. Most of them seem to think he will betray you in the end and it’s a little discouraging! Your post made me feel better tho :)

Hello there again!

Ah... Reddit... Honestly, I'm so TIRED of reading their bullshit when a friend of mine shares with me some post there. Most of the time they do stuff based on plain lies. Like, all the drama about “Gale asks you to cheat your LI to whom you are married” XD like 5 shades of lies… it is just such a level of garbage. People doing that can't read, and can't understand a game which qualifies for +18. They should play tetris, please. XD

I think Gale can betray you like all chars can: it depends on your actions. If you go evil, and do the goblin path, Gale leaves the party unless you roll the dice and get a very high number. In that case, he remains, but he is super bitter and filled with regret. I can see that this Gale will “stop” an evil main char from doing more evil if you keep going on that path. Gale is a char who defends life. Like Ifan in DOS2 [a char I can speak a lot, and I can do a lot of comparisons with Gale, and even though both games are different world, the “larian style” with which they write their characters is kind of “obvious”, but that's another topic, I jump a lot in different topics XD sorry], As I was saying… the most sacred thing for Gale is Life. If Gale starts seeing that you are a menace, bigger than his own orb problem, you are going to be killed by him. Or attempt to be so. Specially if he can see you are beyond redemption [which is something he believes, but he needs to see you trying].

I'm pretty convinced of that. We already have a char who tries to kill you, and in fact he kills you if you fail the dice. If you know about datamining stuff... There is a situation where 2 companions are going to struggle to kill one another in their sleep. Swen said in some interviews that this mechanic is going to happen. So, it seems fair to expect this from the rest of the chars, Gale included. But it has to be “in character”. After all, it's the same style we find in DOS2. Again, I know I've said that it's pretty poor to compare BG3 with Dragon Age games... BUT comparing it with DOS2, you can see certain patterns in Larian style that make you suspect certain things. If you played DOS2, you can remember that ALL your companions can betray you, if you give them reasons enough to do it. Which is, to no one's surprise, how most RPGs with companions work. Again, Reddit just does a drama out of nowhere, and magnifies everything related to Gale just to make people hate him even if nobody played with him. XD So… how can you criticise a char you never played with??? Meh.

Gale is a flawed char. Perfect chars are boring. Gale's main flaws are emotions, but we also see him in a moment of his life where he has reflected about his mistakes. A lot of his approvals and scenes and comments are DEEPLY related to “forgiveness” and to “accept the mistakes of the youth”, and “learn from your mistakes”, “second chances”, and “take responsibility for it”. He approves if you redeem Kagha, he asks you to be kind to children who do big fuck-ups, he approves and is relieved when he is forgiven for not having told you about his orb after the party [which is pretty weird… because we have like 4 scenes where we are hinted that whatever is happening in his chest is pretty wild, but well, maybe we can fail ALL the dices and inferring that fact with the death protocol is too much for us... who knows]. If we know how Larian works, we know that most of their chars represent “concepts”. I think Gale explore all the concepts related to mistakes and forgiveness [which are very human concepts] : accepting to make mistakes, but taking responsibility for them, even if it's a bit late, even if it's harder, even if it's beyond forgiveness.

Gale, in the second dream, speaks very clearly: he knows the tadpole dreams are not true because [we can infer] he saw Mystra forgiving him. And he KNEW that was a lie. Because he has accepted he is beyond forgiveness. He desires it, sure, because it's human nature to desire things you can't have, but also he is a pragmatic, realistic man: it cannot be her. Because he knows that when he uses magic, when he taps from the Weave, she is “disapproving” him [all this info is in that video, people only needs to think about why he says what he says and check lore in wiki, that’s all].

After the romance you can ask him if he is in love with Mystra. I found a meta in tumbl pretty long but very worth reading that I share in many points: human love is not just that sexual, romantic love. Love can get complex shapes, including the divine love. And Gale has that: he has the ashy love for an ex, that played with him because that's what a Goddess does in Faerûn [people should learn SO much lore before thinking that Mystra needs to be defended of anything XD], but he also is a devote to her, because she IS and REPRESENTS all what it's life for him: Magic. So, any person expecting him to “get over her” as you do with a normal ex.... are ignoring the immense religious and arcane part his story has—inserted in Faerûn. So yeah, he may have a complex love for Mystra, but betraying you if you are not an asshole to him, or evil, I cannot see it. Because that’s not what Larian has done in previous games either. I wish people could understand that Larian is not Bioware, and DOS2 and BG3 are not Dragon Age.  You see... People see Gale as if BG3 were a high-school sitcom. I have no idea how much can I stress the fact that Mystra is a goddess in a world where gods play their wars between them by using mortals as paws.... Anyway. I have some few, old metas in my blog [probably too out-of-date since I did those in patch 1 I think], and like I said, there are some really good deep metas in tumblr too on this matter. Reddit is just a pit of brainless hatred. To me, reading Reddit seems a waste of time (and mental sanity, too). And I hope Larian doesn't focus only on the crap that appears there, because it's very discouraging to think that these people with so little ability to understand contexts will shape the game eventually.

Have a good day!