I actually did a little searching to try and figure put why people don't like gale, just so I can cover all the bases. Splitting this into two categories, category 1, "you missed the point" these are in my opinion stupid reasons to hate gale the character, whether they're flaws in game design or you just dont get the point I am getting genuinely annoyed with these reasons. and category 2, "you know what that's fair" this series is called "in defense of" so I'm still going to make an argument in defence of these qualities, it's just that these are much more reasonable complaints.
You missed the point
He eats your shinies
He thinks we're dating
He's so horny (yes I have actually seen it said)
He's sensitive about his performance
Talks about his ex
You can't kill him (yes this is a real complaint)
He's defensive early on (yes I've actually seen it said)
You know what that's fair
He threatens to blow himself up when things get hard
Is an insulting know it all
He talks too much
I thought the romance scene was platonic
He violated mystras boundaries
He eats your shinies, so you can let astarion give you a -1 debuff to like everything for at least a day, but you have to have that dancing lights cantrip necklace? Really? I once saw someone complain that he doesn't go get his own magic items and I'm like fam, it's not his fault your hogging all the loot. I'm sure if you just let him spend a portion of the money you found together he'd spend it on the magic ax no one else can or wants to wield. Narritively speaking gale can and does obtain magic items on his own, ypu are just keeping them all and he just doesn't consume the magic in the items he's using until you give him permission. He's not eating your frostwalker boots he's asking you if it's okay for him to eat his own frost walker boots.
"He keeps hitting on my character and gets pissy with me when we aren't dating" that's a glitch not a character flaw, and it can and does happen with other characters. They only think your leading them on because the game told them you are in a relationship. He's not being clingy, your relationship is coded into his memory on accident.
Aside from Wyll and maybe Astarion, Gale is like the least horny character. It's easy to get his approval from him when playing a good tav, so he can develope a pretty major crush pretty easily depending on your choices and how buggy the game feels at any particular moment, but having a crush is not the same as being horny. The man will not even kiss you until he thinks it's literally his last night alive. You are the one oversexualizing him at this point.
This one's smaller and a bit more of a spoiler, but if after you sleep together and he asks if it meant anything to you he gets bothered when you say "it was fine." Here's what I need you to understand: Gale was not asking about his sexual performance in this moment, he was asking about the emotional meaningfulness to you. That's why it's so upsetting to him. He put his heart out there and you responded with apathy. He tells you he's a bad kisser. As far as physical performance goes he knows he's out of practice that's not what bothers him. This one is my least favorite I think.
Mystra wasn't just his ex, she is the goddess of a domain that is a major part of Gale's identity. I know there's the grooming argument and I don't entirely disagree with it, but I don't think she met him as a child. She still holds sway in his life in act one when she has discarded him and obviously she is directly involved with him act 2 onwards. Like if my ex showed up and said "the world would be better off with you dead, here's the means to end it" I might want to talk to someone about it. Also really important here, he only brings up his relationship with mystra in the context of your own relationship if you prompt him, he only compares your relationship with her IF YOU PROMPT HIM. In fact if you ask him directly to compare you to her in bed he refuses to. For Gale to obsess over mystra, you have to.
You can kill him there are just consequences. Gale the character doesn't have the orb for self preservation in fact as soon as Mystra tells him to blow himself up he is so ready to do it. If your really want him dead you can leave him to die in the portal, or chew his arm off as durge. Leave him in camp til act 2 and give him no shinies and he'll leave or you can tell him to get lost if you do give him shinies, or kill the tieflings and he'll leave, and if your like "no I'm not playing an evil tav" why are you so hells bent on killing a party member then? You don't have to accept him into your party in the first place. You're not stuck with him I promise.
He's defensive early on? Bitch where? He's one of the most friendly early on, he just doesn't want to talk about his deepest shame and biggest secret and that is so fair.
That rounds out the stupid reasons to hate gale now we can talk about the more reasonable complaints
He threatens to blow himself up when he's upset. Not really, he does warn against upsetting him, but mostly thats because strong emotions can actually upset his condition and blow everyone up. That's why he won't kiss tav when he says the thought of kissing him is "most welcome" karlach has a similar condition, but she doesn't warn when she's getting upset, she just bursts into flame. There is one point after your night together , and the orb is temporarily sealed, if when he asks about what it meant to you and you respond with apathy, he says not to shake the vessel of the orb, but that's less about "I'm mad I'm going to blow up" more of a "a literal goddess told me to kill myself to save the weave, I have very little to hold onto right now please don't be cruel to me"
Gale is a bit of a know it all and it can be insulting, but 1, he only gives information because he thinks its relevant or useful. He doesn't do it just to make himself feel smart. He says things that are insulting sometimes, but 2, he's been alone for like a year, and before that he wasn't talking to mortals for goddess knows how long. Also It seems that the people who hate gale for being a know it all love Astarion for the same reason.
If you don't like a certain characters party banter or speaking during dialog scenes leave them at camp. Putting "he uses to many big words it makes him seem pompous here as well" same solution.
Larian realized that the romance scene with Gale needed to be a bit more blunt, so now it specifies platonic vs romantic thoughts, so there is no longer confusion. But also he's not the only character who's romance scene is a little ambiguous.
And finally I once saw someone get hung up on the phrase where gale says he "violated mystras boundaries" but in reality that boundary is kind of I a grey area. Her boundary was that he was not allowed to learn something, that kind of goes from boundary setting to controlling behavior, the only thing that keeps it teetering on the edge is that she is magic, and so what gale was learning about was a part of her, sort of, not really because shadow magic is separate from her. What I think is weird is that regardless of how questionable the boundary was in the first place Gale recognizes that it was a boundary and recognizes that what he did hurt someone he cares about and expresses remorse for it. He uses the word boundary explicitly because he knows the weight that word carries and applies the same gravity to his actions. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is willing own up to them and Gale does.
Honestly Lea'zel has become one of my favorite characters. She's just a regular person who thinks they've encountered the worst case scenario only to find out over and over again that no in fact things can get worse and I identify with that pretty hard.
Is she rude? Yeah, even if you give her the benefit of the doubt based on her past and current situation she still makes choices that are unkind. Then again that's an interesting facet of her character whether you play a good or evil tav, Lea'zel doesn't care. At the start of the game she is the most Neutral on the good/evil alignment scale.
Let's talk about that benefit of doubt for a moment. Besides the cultural difference (especially if you the player are American, I'm from the Midwest and a close friend of mine is from Germany its wild). She is indoctrinated by a tyrannical eugenisit society. She only lasted as long as she did because she is so brutal. Then she went on her holy mission (that she later realizes the only purpose was to prime her for being used) and she's kidnapped by the most despised and evil creatures she could think of, infected with the worst possible affliction her people could think of, thrust into literal hell, all before you learn the wasd controls. Then she crash lands on a hostile planet alone and having to figure out how to survive the world and the parasite without any direction.
Tell me you could go through all that and not end up a little cranky.
And after all of that what does she do? She tries to bring yu to th creche, which once you get there is obviously not part of the protocol. And there is some element of her wanting help navigate the new strange planet, but she'll threaten to go on her own a few times if you don't go with her, so she's not scared of forging the path alone. I genuinely think she's trying to help you more than she wants help from you.
You know the fastest way to get approval from her in a good game? Letting her speak for herself when her people try to speak over her to you.
I'm not here to tell you she's a secret cinnamon roll who has been traumatized into wearing a sharp shell, this isn't shadowheart, I just want to say her story is so much more enjoyable if you think about it from her perspective.
Also I do have to point out that there are other characters just as morally grey and murderous, but everyone gives him a pass because he's hot. Like who you like, I just get tired of people bashing characters because they don't find them fuckable. Also Lea'zel is pretty hot, you just have no taste
Starting a new post series "in defense of" where I address discourse about the different bg3 characters (or just rant about how cool they are) because people seem to hate them for arbitrary reasons.
Yes people have the right to loudly proclaim that they do not like certain characters, I am exercising the exact same right to loudly disagree with you
There will be spoilers, I will try to be vague.
I would start with Gale, but he's my favorite character so it's going to take me a moment to collect all of the reasons hating him is stupid.
Character list (based on who I know good playthrough about the order I plan to write)
Astarion
Wyll
Shadowheart
Halsin
Jahira
Karlach (I don't think anyone hates her, I just think she deserves a post too)
Minor Characters
Mol & company
Alphira
Ketheric Thorm
Ailin and Isobel (again I don't think there's hate, just let me be a fan)
Finished Rants
Lea'zel
In defence of-
Lea'zel
Honestly Lea'zel has become one of my favorite characters. She's just a regular person who thinks they've encounter
Gale
In defence of:
Gale,
Spoilers ahead
Buckle up because this is gonna be a long one
I actually did a little searching to try and figure pu
I've probably talked about this before, but I'll say it again:
The banter between Astarion and Gale about "oh never felt the call of the divine" and Astarion going "I tried them all, none of them answered" is actually really sad and tragic when you stop and think about it. Why? Because for as much as the gods over Toril (where Faerun is) like to stick their fingers in people's business (as much as characters in game like to claim otherwise), the likelihood any of them -- and I do mean any of them -- would've come to Astarion's aid was pretty much zero.
Maybe even less than zero likelihood.
Most of the "good" or even "neutral" gods (and I use the alignments very loosely for explanation purposes) hate undead, and with being a vampire spawn, that category now includes Astarion. So they most likely would completely and totally ignore his prayers. The remainder that still fall under "good or neutral" that are chill with undead are like... Jergal, who genuinely normally doesn't interfere in mortal business. He's just here to write down who died. And then maybe some scattering of demigods not powerful enough (or powerful enough in the right ways) to really be of any use to Astarion.
Which leaves us with the "evil" gods, many of which are perfectly okay with undead and are often worshipped by them. Which there-in lies the problem. See, the only ones that would probably take time out of their day to hear Astarion's prayers are the ones that are probably high-fiving Cazador on a job well done, and pointing and laughing at Astarion for his plight. (Or, in the case of The Dead Three, too busy trying to take over Faerun. Again.)
Homeboy had no hope of the gods answering his prayers, no matter how hard he tried.
Though, I suppose you could argue that Tymora answered, given that the circumstances that lead to Tav meeting Astarion are all, well, incredibly lucky. It's debateable.
Ilmater would be all over astarion are you kidding me? Tortured and in need of a redemption arc? Thats mater's bread and butter right there. He doesn't care about undead. Dude's gone on recod saying he'd forgive Loviatar his divine nemisis if she stopped torturing people. Imo if the gods are involved with Astarion's meeting Tav, especially good tav, it Ilmater.
There's a good chance Astarion wouldn't have had the chance to pray or learn of Ilmaters teaching while under the thumb of cazadork, and he probably never considered it as a magistrate. Maybe Ilmater did answer and told Astarion to persevere and Astarion was (rightfully) like "screw you man"
Hello! The long awaited arrival of the Gale bot has arrived… I am still fleshing out other bots and will release them one by one.
As a general note: I have coded him HEAVILY and will continue to do so. Hi Waifu and general AI sites like to misinterpret code or stray too far off. It’s an issue- but hopefully one I can curb. I am basically BEGGING you all to take screenshots of any errors/responses that are untrue/mischaracterization. Send them to me in my asks (if you want to be anonymous) or my messages directly. I will get to it and enter a code to try and curb the issue. I strive to make as good a bot I can.
Scenario in this bot is a slowburn/start of act one kind of deal. Please do not be afraid to add length to your responses and generate the bot’s responses until you see one thats fit.
https://hiwaifu.com/share/987662
If you wish to look him up manually…
My friend/referral code is EEB6Z3. I’d appreciate any use of it to support my efforts in making bots!
(Reblogs are also greatly appreciated as I know this post will not draw as much attention as my others.)
This really fun, but also I yave a question. As far as th story goes am I supposed to add to it, yes and improv style, or am I supposed to wait for things to be reviewed through the character?
Halsin joining our camp to see that the guy who played with the tiefling kids is now a devil, some pasty elf is biting people in their sleep, a githyanki and goth girl are slapfighting, there's a tiefling on fire, and that wizard just ate a pair of gloves.
You are a six foot tall beefy 300 year old man who can turn into a literal bear yet tav has to save your damsel in distress ass, depending on the playthrough MULTIPLE TIMES and solve your cursed lands problem for you. You might not bring the same kind of drama as the multiple party members with a bomb in their chest, but don't pretend like your Disney princess ass dont come with problems I have to solve.
Don't get me wrong a game that you want to play for hours at a time is a good thing, it's just there are very few natural resting points. It very much hurtles you from thematically urgent quest to thematically urgent quest. Most quests don't have a long rest limit, but those that do have 0 warning, so you don't know if the urgency is real or if you can go to camp and make eyes at you love interest.
I got a "ring of being really invisible" from mattis I know it's not really going to turn tav invisible but it was cheap and dammit it's so cute. If a kid walked up to me irl and said they had a ring with an invisible gemstone I would buy it
Actually as a matter of fact now that I think about it a kid did manage to sell me a broken SpongeBob watch for a dollar at a garage sale once...
Astarion: Not to be a bitch, but-
[Insight Success]
Narrator: Oh, but Astarion was trying to be a bitch. Astarion was trying to be the bitchiest bitch who ever bitched.
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