I think the main trait of Gale that people leave out (both fans, and sadly, from his Canon endings) is his very earthly hedonism.
Gale does not really care about status, which is why he is bewildered when his Godhood is unsatisfactory, why people do not recognise him, why Tara despises him. Godhood is empty and stagnant and the world narrows to his portfolio, a particularly empty one at that. His curiosity vanishes, his playfulness turns cruel.
Gale has a god-sized hole that neither devotion not divinity can fulfill. Gale is desire incarnate; yearning for Mystra, for Tav, for Waterdeep, for something yet unknown own over the horizon. He never says what he wanted the power Mystra denied him for. He just wanted it.
He wants the best in everything, but look at what he talks about, lusts for: books, wine, beer, food, soaps, a bath, a crackling fire, a warm Tressym in his lap, a quiet tower, beauty, poetry, sex, sex, sex.
They are all very sensory things- things to savour, experience, not hoard miserly. He talks about savouring the little things to both Tav and Karlach, even in his fantasy of being a teacher it's the apples he's after half as much as the praise.
And yet to Lae'zel he admits he wants time to stand still, he asks he repeatedly about the Astral Plane. He mentions how much he misses Elysium to Shadowheart, how much he liked and respected the transcendental nature of his lovemaking with Mystra.
These two conflicting desires are what make Gale, Gale.
The hedonist, who is curious and appreciative of nearly everything he comes across; who gives compliments when they're due; who wants the best out of and for the people he comes across, who is generous and warm and charitable.
The hedonist who is greedy, and thoughtless, who thinks of himself and not the consequences, who gets off on watching others sate the desires he cannot come to terms with. He eats gold and jewels and magic and ultimately himself.
The transcended one, ascetic; the martyr, who seeks to remove power from the unworthy, to break the shackles of tyranny, the one who can make the hard choices, who can deny himself desire itself for over a year, the one who has transcended and come back different, filled with the compassion born of the outside perspective, who sees the world as one, who wants the end of suffering, who can see how it could be done.
The transcended one, who has lost all human perspective, who sees the world as one and cannot fathom why people would choose differently than his right way, the one who treats mortals as the very playing pieces he sought to wrest from the hands of the god. The one who is so afraid of growing old and weak and irrelevant that he would rather stop time.
Both sides of Gale are selfish. Both sides can be kind. It isnt a battle for good and evil.
If Gale chooses to stay, he should stay for the stars and the firelight and the flow of magic in his arms and the taste of boar on his tongue - not (just) for Tav, for the the promise of forgiveness. To do otherwise is to make a wet noodle out of a man who nearly tore a hole in the world because he wanted just another taste.
his lesson, imo, should have been to realise that the pit of his desire is endless and unfillable - but to numb it would make him inhuman. Instead there is a middle way
(Are there other traits that play into this? Obviously. But this is one I think a lot of people forget in the fantasy of making him some sort of classic gentleman academic.)
Edit: this took off more than I thought it would! If you like my perspective on Gale, perhaps you might like my Gale/Tav fic. It is the Seldarine variant of the ever popular Drow/Gale fic, and hopefully this little meta above explores why Gale is such a popular choice for a Drow Tav (of either flavour).
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