#gale meta

[bladesingerlily]

For anyone who says that arrogance isn’t a core trait of Gale’s….

(From an interview Tim did on the craft of mo cap acting)

[weavingwyvernx]

I love the idea of Gale whose love makes him dangerous. Gale who was Mystra’s Chosen once, and whose devotion runs deeper than his own life. Gale who would do anything, destroy anyone if it saved Tav. If it kept them safe. It’s not toxic; it’s not possessive in a way that restricts Tav’s autonomy or choice—but gods help the fool who tries to hurt them as long as they still choose him.

I posted about this a while back, but I love the idea of Tav falling in battle and Gale erupting, razing the battlefield with uncontrolled raw Weave, overdrawing and destroying anything that threatens them. Channeling more Weave than his body can handle, becoming again, for just a few minutes, the divinity-touched archmage he was when he was Mystra’s Chosen. Forcing life back into their body without a spell, pouring Weave into them until their breath returns. The party tries to approach and a blast decimates the ground at their feet—not meant to hurt, not meant to wound, just a warning. Don’t come closer. Don’t touch them. He doesn’t look up.

It’s not meant to be romantic. It’s not meant to be a “good” decision. It’s just who he is. He loved Mystra with the intensity of a devotee and a lover, and that’s the same framework he applies to other loves. His devotion IS terrifying. His love is deep, intense, and it is beautiful, it’s the same love that makes him attentive to Tav’s needs, the same love that makes him a romantic and someone who feels deeply and poetically. But it also makes him incredibly dangerous when someone crosses that line. Calm, with the certainty of a man who knows exactly what he will do for the person he loves. It IS scary. It IS something that probably makes the party wary afterward. He’s not sorry. He would do it again. It’s a price he will pay every time.

Gale is not a scary man. He is gentle, endearingly charming, affectionate, kind. He treats Tav with the utmost respect for their autonomy and capability. But his devotion is not a choice. It is not something that can be reduced in intensity. It’s at the core of who he is. He is a man with the potential for great tyranny and cruelty based on his ability and prodigy, and he chooses goodness—but it should not be mistaken for weakness.

[mercaque]

Did we all know Gale was once hospitalized for a long illness? Because he was once hospitalized for a long illness.

An interesting tidbit that parallels Gale’s later self-confinement in his tower after being afflicted with the Orb.

We don’t learn if this hospice stint occurred in childhood or adulthood. But “pox” makes me think of childhood illnesses, and a long hospitalization seems like exactly the time when a lonely smart kid would learn to find his solace in books rather than people.

[synchodai]

BG3's Introduction to Classic Wizard Hubris

BG3 fandom immersion has made me really examine the game's dialogue and piece together why other people come out of it with such varying interpretations. So, let's look at the dialogue with Gale where he finally tells you about the Netherese Orb.

Because Gale mentions becoming good at magic at an "early age" and his skill earning the attention of Mystra, people assume that means Mystra was watching him since childhood, when that is pretty much not what he is saying here.

There is no timeline established here other than the fact that he was a young talent.

What Gale here is referring to is pretty common knowledge in D&D. When he says "Mystra keeps us in check," it means no mortal can cast any spells above 9th level. This was a rule implemented after the earlier editions because high-level wizards curbstomped all other classes, virtually becoming gods as they leveled. Since wizards can theoretically craft their own spells, a powerful wizard can also theoretically do anything without a power cap.

The in-universe justification given for this magic ceiling was Mystra's initial death sort of making a "net" around the Weave. This prevented Karsus from ascending to godhood and limited the power of all other wizards. Thus, the pervading stereotypes of wizard hubris and a wizard's desire to never be satisfied — because they miss those over 9th level spells, baby.

HOWEVER, if you only knew what Gale is telling you, "Mystra keeps us in check" sounds like she's hoarding power for no reason when that is pretty much not the case. Wish is a 9th level spell, and it can reshape reality and make miracles — and Mystra very much lets any wizard have access to it. Imagine wanting more than that.

Mystra didn't seem to hide the nature of the tome of Karsus. It wasn't like someone forbidding a child from doing something and refusing to explain why. Gale seems to have been fully informed and treated like an adult. The "smiled and told me to be contented" might be read as patronizing, but not at all controlling, demanding, or overbearing.

So, Gale wanted to return Netherese magic to Mystra as a "grand" gesture, so he could have access to "forbidden domains." He just finished telling the player about the Fall of Netheril, so he knows why said domains are forbidden.

But he sought out that Netherese tome to prove that he was an exceptional mortal who could control the power that destroyed Karsus and almost destroyed Mystra. Again, classic wizard hubris of wanting those sweet double-digit-level spells.

It's a very straightfoward introduction to the concept of wizard hubris™️. It gives a textbook example of a wizard who overreached and explicitly parallels Karsus with Gale. We are supposed to see Gale as the creator of his own folly, and the writing could not have been more obvious about it as Gale straight up calls himself a "villain."

The game cannot make it anymore clear that the historical precedent of wizards is if their power-tripping isn't kept in check, they will make the game awful for everyone. It's rather perplexing how some people choose to ignore all this set-up in favor of, well... reducing it into another story where an authority abuses someone under their power by limiting them. Those are lich and Red Wizard talking points!

[lemonwoodwrites]

The other day I encountered Gale's 'any undue, uh, excitement might trigger the orb' line in the wild for the first time. I of course already knew of that line's existence from a million smutty fanfics, in which it's pretty uniformly read as a euphemistic way of saying that if he gets a boner then the orb is going to go kaboom. What surprised me was the context in which he said it: I'd asked him to tell me what he liked about me, and he told me there were too many reasons for him to list 'and besides, any undue excitement' etc etc.

And of course you can still just read this as him saying 'if I start to think about why I like you, I'll start thinking about how much I want to fuck you, and then boner and then orb goes kaboom'. But although I think the writers (and Gale) definitely had the sexual innuendo in mind for this line, I also think that primarily he really does just mean excitement.

The kind of excitement he hasn't felt in a year. The kind of excitement he hasn't felt about a potential lover for much longer than that. The kind of excitement you feel when you meet someone you really click with, and you're starting to think they just might feel the same way about you. The kind of excitement that's breathless and giddy and causes your heart to race with much more than just sexual desire. The kind of excitement that's fundamentally an expression of hope.

And that's the thing that's really dangerous. Not that he might get a boner. That if he allows himself to hope – to look at something new in his life and set aside all the reasons it's impossible and let himself just feel the wonder of it, let himself imagine for a moment that he might somehow deserve it – then the orb, which after all is linked to his emotions just as much as to his body and his magic, might roar to life and break free of its chains and destroy everything he cares about.

No wonder his first reaction to Mystra's decree is acceptance. He's spent a whole year literally unable to hope for anything better for himself than limiting the collateral damage.

[kcwriter-blog]

Gale As a Man of Faith

One thing I think gets lost a little bit in discussions of Gale is the fact that he is as Wyll put it “a man of faith.”

It isn’t that we don’t know that. It’s just that his faith seems to be so tied up with his ex-lover that we forget Mystra is also his goddess and that worship of her pre-dates her manifestation to him.

Often his faith is discounted as the indoctrination that allowed her to prey upon him. There is absolutely an element of truth to that, but I don’t think it’s the whole story. Gale’s arc is as much about his questioning his faith and coming to terms with it, as it is about his lack of self-worth. More under the cut.

Gale says he has been in touch with the Weave for as long as he can remember, which, if he was born during the Spellplague, means he was in touch with an unstable Weave. He would not have been in touch with Mystra at all because she was “mostly” dead at the time.

If Gale was old enough to understand what was going on with wizards at the time, he probably learned that they expected Mystra to return at some point because she always had before. Gale might also have had that belief.

That’s faith of a different sort. A belief in a goddess that may or may not return. She doesn’t exist at the moment, but she may exist someday. Gale just has to have faith. That’s a profound sort of faith and different from what most people in Toril believe because their gods are alive.

Gale’s faith was also probably wrapped up in his faith in the Weave and his ability to use it. There would have been no presence in it until, hey presto, one day Mystra is there.

Gale’s faith in the Weave now becomes wrapped up with faith in Mystra. For him at this point, every incantation becomes a prayer, every spell a psalm. He is devoted. Then she reveals herself to him and that, of course, makes his faith stronger.

Gale is often cast as power hungry and hubristic because he wants to give the Orb to Mystra hoping she will lift her Ban for him. He is, according to this line of thought, partially lying to himself if he says he did it out of love or to prove his worth. If we look at it through the lens of faith, we get a different interpretation.

Faith in a higher power often has an element of transaction. Follow these rules and you receive a place in heaven and potentially blessings in this life. Make an offering to them and they may look favorably on you. If bad things start happening, it’s because you angered your deity, your offering wasn’t good enough or simply because you are not worthy.

When Gale says he wanted to prove himself worthy, I believe him. It’s a natural thing when it comes to faith. Sure, he shares her bed sometimes, but she is his goddess, and he has faith that if he proves himself worthy, she will bless him.  Is he ambitious, sure. Does he want to be a god at that time? I don’t think so. I think he wants to be the next Elminster, otherwise why call himself Gale of Waterdeep? An impressive title to go along with that ambition. All he has to do is prove himself worthy, the way Elminster has.

But, he messes up. He doesn't do his homework. If he had, he would have known what he was dealing with and never tried to bring it to Mystra.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Mystra doesn’t tell him how he messed up. She doesn’t tell him anything about the Karsus Weave. She doesn’t give him a second chance.

She can remove the Orb; she does so in one of the endings. It could be a learning experience for our young, still inexperienced, ambitious wizard. Instead, she lets him rot in his tower. Punishment? Maybe. Gale certainly thinks so and he thinks he deserves it. He has faith that she is doing the right thing.

Why? Because he angered her. She is completely justified in turning away from him. He proved unworthy. His faith prevents him from even questioning her.

One thing to note is that while Shadowheart spends a lot of the journey trying to figure out who she is without Shar, Gale is already there. The difference is that while Shadowheart turned her back on Shar, Mystra turned her back on Gale.

So who is Gale without Mystra? Is he even a wizard anymore? He has to believe in her. He has to have faith that she will forgive him.

So, he doesn’t get angry that she left him. He calls himself the villain. He still worships her. She is still the source of all creation to him. She is the incarnation of his beloved Weave, and she can do nothing wrong.

Until she tells him to kill himself. At first, he is on board because she is his goddess, and he has faith that she is right. As a man of faith her forgiveness is important to him – not just because she holds the keys to a nice afterlife but because he wronged his goddess.  

In the real world, the faithful often ask for their deity’s forgiveness for transgressions. Gale is no different. As he points out, if he does what Mystra wants, “wrongs will be righted.” He’s talking about his own transgression. He blames himself and needs her forgiveness.

As he moves along, he begins to see that his faith was misplaced (this is similar to Shadowheart’s arc but it’s a lot more subtle). His goddess, who is supposed to protect him, the one he tried to do everything for, will only forgive him if he dies. What kind of god does that? Well, most of the gods on Toril will, but as a man of faith, those are other gods, not his, she would never ask that of him. But she did.

He will tell a romanced Tav that there is no love lost between him and Mystra because she would have seen him dead. He is questioning the faith he had in her, but he isn’t ready to renounce her the way Shadowheart does Shar (if that happens).

By the time we get to Baldur’s Gate he is seriously questioning his faith; to the point that he wants to become a god himself. He believes he wouldn’t toy with mortals the way Mystra toyed with him. He will become a god who answers prayers and helps the good and punishes the bad. This is Gale trying to take back his power, the same way all the Origin characters do. Is it the right way? No, because Gale becomes what he hates.  

And a Gale who apologizes to Mystra? Does that mean he has faith in her again? I would say not. He sees her for what she is. His faith has become tempered by reality.

But Gale is a man that needs something to believe in. What does he believe in? The Weave. Now that he can separate Mystra from the Weave in his own mind, he can apologize for basically not doing his homework and unleashing something destructive on the world.

His apology is to the world and to the Weave that he almost destroyed not to Mystra. He agrees to give her the Crown because he knows firsthand that mortals playing with Karsus’ toys is a bad thing and not likely to end well.

I think by this point Gale has figured out who he is without Mystra. He is still a wizard. He can still command the Weave. Maybe he isn’t a Chosen anymore but he is fine with that. He has found faith in himself.

[tociminna]

Pondering the Orb - Leave It In or Take It Out?

I've seen a fair amount of meta in the last couple of weeks centered around Gale and Mystra, and particularly around the orb. I want to talk about his endings, and why I think keeping the orb is a bad idea.

The orb has a very clear role in the game besides adding an element of risk to the first act and giving Honor Mode players an easy out at endgame. It is a bright, literally glowing symbol of the cost of hubris and of chasing power without considering consequences. It is hunger for power - that is its only purpose.

The orb collects Weave, destroys it, condenses it, and transforms it into what's known as heavy weave or Karsite weave. If Gale becomes a god it's then Galerian weave. This is only mentioned in the Annals of Karsus and nowhere else, so that aspect is often ignored - but Mystra cannot touch or quell the orb herself. She has to have the crown as an intermediary in order to handle it.

This matters because of Gale's endings. If he doesn't ascend, he can either reforge the crown and return it to Mystra, or he can leave the crown in the Chionthar and keep the orb. This doesn't kill him because the orb has suddenly gone dormant, due to Gale's self-described contentment.

It doesn't make sense to keep it, unless he intends to use or study it later. I know many people enjoy the thematic resolution if he keeps it. (I have also seen many takes where he keeps it specifically to spite Mystra, or to not have to ask her to remove it, which seems a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face)

He says he is content, and the very clear and obvious symbol of his desire for power has been quieted. This is character growth slapping you in the face, right?

There are three problems with it, having to do with internal narrative consistency and Gale's character progression.

First, there is zero indication given in the game that the orb is tied to Gale's desires or lack thereof. It's easy to construct a quite reasonable headcanon where this is the case (I have done so) and it's also quite easy to forget it's a headcanon. This ending comes out of nowhere; it feels tacked-on and not properly thought out.

Secondly, even if we grant the above - that the orb is dormant or fully inert because Gale is content with his lot - it is quite a stretch to believe he would continue to be so for the rest of his life. I have a difficult time imagining him toodling along for the next several decades completely untroubled by the stirrings of ambition, completely satisfied by himself and his surroundings. That's just not who he is, even if he's experienced significant growth by the end of the game. No one is content for their entire adult life.

Third, and probably the most significant: it would be incredibly, stunningly foolish to run around Faerûn with a priceless Netherese artifact embedded in his body. Especially when its matching crown is sitting quietly underneath one of the busiest trade routes on the continent.

Why would Raphael not come after it immediately, or if he's dead why wouldn't Mephistopheles send someone to recover his treasure? Gale would never be able to rest. He would be hunted. He is uniquely positioned to take care of himself as an extremely badass wizard, but he would perpetually be fending off adventurers and devils and other wizards who wanted the gigantic power bank in his chest.

So let's say, after all that, he did want to keep it. It doesn't make sense to trust in perpetual contentment, but there's an alternative:

The Netherstones.

As far as we know they drop into the river with the rest of the crown. We don't see them again after they're used by whoever your illithid happens to be. What if he recovered them? What if he was the only one who could really use them properly, since he has their power source in his body?

What if he could use the stones to control the orb, and keep it dormant that way? To me, this is much more in character for Gale: it uses his intellect and abilities to solve a problem, and it keeps the priceless artifacts nearby for study. He's given up godhood and tempered his ambition, but he hasn't abandoned foolhardy curiosity or scholarship. He's still a wizard.

In my mind this makes for a much more satisfying post-canon landscape.

[emberstormrage]

What happened to netherese magic and Karsus's Weave?

I read an very interesting post by @bladesingerlily, but I don't agree with everything. I'll add something. Maybe someone will be interested in this :)

Let's begin.

Gale says that the magic hidden in the Sphere is dangerous. He senses it, but does not fully understand it. But Mystra explains it much better. She says that the magic of the Sphere is literally raw magic (which is what Karsus was working with), that it is an unstructured weave, and therefore extremely UNSTABLE and consumes everything it can reach.

Yes, raw magic gives great power, but it also affects its bearer, destroying them. It is dangerous and unpredictable, which is why most wizards prefer Mystra's stable weave.

About Netheril. There is another version of events, from the author of Jergal (I won't go into detail, you can read about it in the book)*.

Jergal is essentially the founder of Netheril; he brought magic to the first settlers of the villages from which Netheril grew. His own magic. He is a deity of death, and his magic has a strong necrotic basis; it is literally destructive. This is precisely why many of Netheril's magicians simply went mad.

Spellweaver

And we remember that Jergal is not a deity of this universe at all. He is a spellweaver, an alien, the last of his people who was able to obtain a spark of divinity by sacrificing the rest of his kin. And now his task is to bring back his people by destroying human civilization.

He was probably also behind the scrolls of Nether, which gave a powerful boost to the development of all Netheril Arcanists. It was a standard spellweavers tactic to give slave races (which they considered dangerous) powerful magical artifacts or knowledge that served to destroy them.

Jergal is the main villain of this universe (no, don't even remind me about BG3, we have a separate, funny version of Jergal there). Why would he give people something that would elevate them? He gave them something that would destroy them.

Note: By the way, the Absolute crisis is most likely the work of Jergal, and not the Dead Trio or Durge at all. It wasn't fatigue that made him hand over power over his domains to some idiots. He foresaw their potential as new evil gods.

His magic made the Netheril turn away from the gods, fueling their ambitions against the backdrop of universally accessible magic. It caused a literal stratification of society and slavery. And later, because of this same magic, a war with the Phaerimms began. And that same magic became their end.

Thus, Netheril magic is magic based on necromancy, enhanced by Mythallars and mixed with raw magic (especially during Karsus' lifetime). But it is still magic controlled by Mystra. And as with shadow weaving, Mystra wants to have complete control over it. And not without reason.

In the game, Mystra has no aversion to Netheril magic as a whole; it exists in some form even now (Halruaa). She has no tolerant of what lives in Gale—the remnants of Karsus's experiment, which threatens the integrity of her weave and is a dangerous entity that can be transformed into something even more harmful. Her main goal is to protect the Weave. And she fulfills it.

Karsus tried to create his own weave by usurping Mystryl's domain. But he didn't succeed. He found a way to take control of the weave, but he had no idea how to manage it. He was talented, but he lacked fundamental knowledge and relied too much on chance. (And these aren't my words, Greenwood said this.) That's not to mention that by the time Mystryl was overthrown, Karsus was practically insane from experimenting with heavy magic.

Note: Gale the God is essentially weaker than Gale the Chosen because he doesn't have access to Mystra's Weave, only his own divine power. And the Weave of Karsus never existed.

Yes, there are the beginnings of Karsus's weave, in the form of the entity that settled in Gale. But they are just the beginnings, not a full-fledged weave. Perhaps Karsus would have failed completely if he had had more time. Аnd Faerûn's magic would have become uncontrollable, causing a powerful cataclysm across the entire planet.

Ascending. "But canon Gale, without player intervention, ascends." I wouldn't say that Gale must ascend. That's a strange stereotype. And there is no such thing as a “canonical Gale.” In any case, he interacts with the player—that's how the game is designed. And his storyline ALWAYS includes two paths. Examples of this are here (scroll to the very bottom).

Moreover, Gale KNOWS that the path of the Karsus is destructive, and he says so himself. Several times throughout the game.

In addition, as the chosen one, Gale should know perfectly well WHY mortals (!) cannot access magic above level 9. But alas, Larian made so many mistakes in the lore that it is impossible to piece this story together into something logical. Otherwise, Gale, with all his talents, would not have such shameful gaps in his memory.

Summary. Of course, you can disagree with all of this and come up with your own theories. But it is in this version of events that I see a connection and at least some meaning in this whole epic. And explanations for what the game itself could not explain.

* Eric L. Boyd “Jergal: Lord of the End of Everything.”