#tldr: Gale is ace or demi and you can’t change my mind

[sparkyskid]

Gale Dekarios The Wizard of Waterdeep ace-spec propaganda

Spoilers for Gale’s romance below the cut

I, an Aroace, have finished BG3 having romanced Gale and taken the route to “fix him” (I.e. encourage him that he is enough as he is and doesn’t need godly power, that his value does not depend on his power or talents or usefulness to others.)

Yes you make out a little in his romance scenes. Yes he says that he has been intimate with mortals before Mystra, and was Mystra’s lover.

BUT.

It is never stated that you have sex with him.

At most, it is implied that you are physically intimate in some way, primarily the post-game where he asks you to marry him, you wake up together and you can beckon him to come back to bed.

Even then, even when it is implied, Gale’s romance is entirely chaste. For a game so horny, a game so ready to let you fuck so many people, a game that gives you power to make your party hang out at camp in their underwear or even naked…

Astarion and Shadowheart definitely have topless/nude scenes. Karlach and La’zell express sexual attraction. Wyll is entirely unknown to me. But Gale, despite being very upfront about his feelings in some key moments, does not have a nude or partially nude cutscene. A game that loves showing or describing the sex you have with NPCs, and Gale has none of it.

Furthermore, the moment that stands out the most as possibly showing sexual attraction, in Act 2 when he comments about reading a book that links the rush of battle with desires for other “stimulation”. He is having such thoughts, but even as he says he wants Tav, it seems to be about pleasure and stimulation more than flat out sexual attraction.

As we all know, willingness to engage in sex and the experience of sexual attraction are different. Gale expresses a very ace or demi sort of relationship with sex- for him, it’s about pleasurable stimulation with a beloved person.

Take this in contrast with Halsin. In my game, Halsin came onto my Tav in the last night before the final battle. He spoke of natural desires, of wanting skin on skin etc. similar to how La’zell expresses a desire for Tav’s body in Act 1 or Karlach “ride you till you see stars”. Halsin, La’zell, and Karlach, all clearly express sexual attraction. Astarion is, well, Astarion. I don’t know Wyll very well, but his first romance scene is a dance and he gets such puppy eyes when you reject him. There is none of these things in Gale’s route.

One last thing, the compliments Gale gives. Yes, this is a difficult thing to write because the appearance of Tav can vary wildly. But his compliments are centered around aesthetic attraction, not physical. “Beautiful” is one of his most common ones. Non-specific, wholistic, and aesthetic. It would be hard to write anything more specific with the Tav’s appearance being so variable. But the other NPCs still have doubtless sexual attraction.

So Gale is a romantic, so what? He could also be a “wait until marriage type”? False. He has not been married, but (at least implies that) he has had sex before.

But it could just be that his route is supposed to be the most romantic, and not all of the NPCs need to have equal levels of horny? Yes. Not all of the NPCs should be the same amount of horny. And the least horny, if they are this different, will always come across as ace-spec or aro-spec, if only by comparison (as it is in the real world).

Consider another detail as well: how the people closest to him are expected to react to him finding a relationship.

Both his BFF Tara and his mother apparently want him to get in a relationship. Tara is obvious, Gale speaks of Tara encouraging him to have more mortal friends after his relationship with Mystra ends. And Tara does at one point comment on Gale finding a mortal partner in-game. Later when Gale asks Tav to marry him, if you accept, he remarks how his mother will also be very pleased to hear the news.

This is a theme in his life. People pressuring him to find a relationship. This is also a very commonly shared experience for a-spec people of all kinds. Pressure from others to find someone. (The most toxic variation being “you haven’t met the right person yet”)

My own mother would be overjoyed if she heard I found someone to get married to, even though she knows I don’t want that. Sure, many parents are this way about their allo children as well, but that’s hardly talked about. Parents of a-spec people, whose children “finally get married” or “finally find someone” are specially invested in the outcome. Of course anyone’s supportive parent would be happy if their child got married to somebody they loved. But it’s noteworthy here, for some reason. As if his mother has, in the past, also given him some grief about it in a way that Tara does as well. If she hadn’t, why mention her at all?

Gale being pressured by those closest to him to get a relationship is thematically similar to the way ace-spec (and aro-spec) people get pressured by those closest to them. And the relationship he crafts is one based not on physical attraction, but on aesthetic attraction and romantic attraction. Gale shares physical forms of affection with his partners for the pleasurable stimulation of it. He does not exhibit the same lust or sexual attraction that the rest of the romanceable/fuckable NPCs do. All this to say that Gale is consistently sex-favorable, but does not experience sexual attraction in the same (allo) way that everyone else does. Therefore, he falls on the ace spectrum. Most likely ace or demi.