My dealer: just got in some straight gas 😜🐌 it's called brain worm and it'll unlock your illithid potential 📈
Me: whatever man I don't feel shit
(20 minutes later)
Me: dude I swear as the symbol glows, power pulses through me. Authority.
My buddy Shadowheart pacing: the dream visitor is lying to us
OP this post has undone me.
I've seen this a million times irl. Haha 💀💀
Emperor can you stop talking about the tadpole's potential. FOR TWO MINUTES. (Version without text under the cut)
Emperor can you stop talking about the tadpole's potential. FOR TWO MINUTES. (Version without text under the cut)
The worst part about the "mansplainer Gale truthers" is that it comes with a fundamental misunderstanding of what mansplaining is. To mansplain is to have a subconscious bias against women or queer people that makes a (cishet, white) man assume he knows better than someone else without evidence (or despite evidence to the contrary), and as such condescendingly over-explain common or industry-standard information to them. One of the formative essays on the topic, published in 'Men Explain Things To Me' by Rebecca Solnit, is about an anecdote wherein the author introduced herself as a writer to a man who then explained her own essay to her, while bulldozing any attempt by her and a female friend to reveal that she'd in fact written the book that he was pretending to be an expert on. The man listened to her introduce herself as a writer on a particular topic, and had so little respect for her intelligence that he thought he would explain the subject to someone that had just told him she was an expert, while he himself admitted to only ever reading the blurb of her book.
While Gale being condescending is to some degree a matter of interpretation, it is objectively true that he knows more than the player, regardless of class choice. He was an archmage and Mystra's chosen, if the player was anywhere near his level of expertise he would've known about them already, especially if they're a wizard (which is the only magic class that goes through formal educational institutions and could be expected to know the things he lore-dumps about). Beyond that, in most of his lore-dump scenes he is addressing the entire party, the only magic user of which (Shadowheart) is also an amnesiac. It's safe to say his assumption that he knows more about magic/magic history than the rest of you is both valid and accurate.
It isn't mainsplaining when literally one of the top 10 experts in a given field explains something to you, and misusing the term just invalidates people who actually experience and try to call out mansplaining. Mansplaining originated in a guy who knew nothing believing he had the right to explain a subject to a woman he knew to be an expert. Literally all Gale's done his entire life is study magic, let the man infodump.
One thing that is so endearing about Gale is how much he likes to take care of people. He likes to cook for others and curate magical experiences for them. This theme of wanting to help comes up with him all the time once you start looking for it. He mentions during his teifling party conversation that one of the things he regrets is being unable to help Tara in the way she has helped him. He also asks if Tav is alright and assures them that they can "Always unburden themselves with him" when romanced in act 3. The tragedy of his dynamic with Mystra is that he identifies so much as someone who is useful, and her ultimate solution for him is that he is most useful dead. He is so much more solid and nuanced than people give him credit for.
I love how each and every Baldur's Gate 3 companion (including even a secondary camp ally), one after another, almost verbatim, has a moment like : "Man, our companion got their revenge on the person that ruined their life but it wasn't nearly as fulfilling as they'd hoped and they feel mostly just numb about it. Even though it was definitely necessary and they're glad to have done it, it still really highlights everything they went through. Not mine though. Mine will be nothing but satisfying and won't unlock a torrent of grief I'd been putting off processing because I had to focus on defeating them. My revenge quest completion is going to be awesome." *One companion questline completion later* "By the nine hells this can't be happening"
Thinking about Gale's spellbook.
Not the old one, the one he carried when he was Gale, the Wizard of Waterdeep - a gorgeous, leather-and-silver bound thing that bulged with a lifetime's worth of accumulated knowledge. There were spells in there penned over wine and cheese with Elminster; in a flow state that bordered on the spiritual after a night with Mystra, remembering her instruction, the feel of her soul against his. That spellbook was the testament to his success, the proof that he had excelled beyond the excellent -
And then Mystra cut him off from the Weave, and it all become meaningless.
His own runes, rendered incomprehensible; beautiful spell-glyphs that turned from condensed power and knowledge to worthless pieces of art. He has to start anew, from the ground up - reforging his connection to the Weave without Mystra's guidance (without her, without), relearning schoolboy spells. Humiliatingly easy magic, the kind he used to do like it was breathing, except this time he has to study and work and try and try, Tara urging him on with firm but gentle words.
He learns different spells, now. Mage Armour, Shield, Magic Missile. Not the kind of spells that he'll ever need on a day-to-day basis; spells that'll keep him alive long enough when he makes an exodus to the depths of the Underdark, or the centre of some desert wastes, and goes supernova.
Just remembered how, when I was first levelling up Gale, I thought, 'huh, he's got fairly decent Consitution for a wizard. Useful for gameplay purposes, of course, but I wonder if there's a narrative explanation?'
And not an hour or two of play later, learned that the orb - if left untreated too long - causes him constant pain, muscle spasms and disorientation. Gale and Tara did not immediately figure out how to treat his condition, which meant that he likely spent weeks or months in that state - and of course, whenever the orb acts up, he goes through it again. He probably endures it constantly through the end of act 1, after his treatment stops working.
Constitution, of course, is that the stat that represents ability to focus while being hurt. Endurance even after physical distress. Pain tolerance.
Yeah. I think there's a narrative explanation.
seeing a post that basically confirmed the obvious disparity in content made me think more about a scene i would have liked to see with gale and that i've been thinking about for a while now.
i always felt a bit sad that his condition is so often treated as a joke by the fandom and to a lesser extent by the game itself. i always thought that this is partially down to the fact that we don't truly get so see gale actively be in pain due to his condition, other than brief glimpses and hints:
we do hear the urgency in his voice when he explains when and why he needs an artefact and the relief in his voice when the protag chooses to help him.
we see it, too, when he is afflicted by the arcane hunger condition:
we get glimpses of it when he consumes an artefact:
he mentions it, too, in his dialogues, but it's very much downplayed by gale or phrased in such a way that is meant to overplay it with humour, or perhaps even to distance himself from it by using metaphors:
that is until we actually get to see it through his eyes, if only for the briefest of moments:
*Its teeth, its claws, it's unstoppable as it digs through and becomes part of you. And gods, it is ever-hungry...*
gale also has an idle animation where he--quite often--reaches up to touch the orb, perhaps because it flares with pain, like an old wound is wont to do:
(gif by @bladeofavernus)
from the last conversation we have with gale, and after catching all of these little moments of things he says or does with how the orb affects him, we learn that consuming the magic from artefacts no longer has any effect at all. the only solution that tara and he were able to find no longer works:
it would scare him and imbalance him, and it would finally destabilise the orb, make it more volatile.
but what happens in the game after that? the orb becoming volatile enough for the artefacts to no longer have an effect has no consequences at all: you are able to do the tiefling party, all quests in the underdark, the entirety of the grymforge, and, should you choose to do so, the entirety of the mountain pass and rosymorn monastery without an incident at all or any mention of the condition itself/any discomfort or fear it might cause.
there's no urgency here, no follow-up, to what the narrative set up... and then we meet deus ex elminster and the orb is stabilised, and the urgency that came before literally is handwaved out of existence.
what i would have liked instead to happen--or at least to bridge the gap between the artefacts no longer working and elminster stabilising it to be used on mystra's behalf--is the following:
i think it would have been nice to have a scene with gale where we do get to see--on a much smaller scale--him losing control over the orb, have the protag and the companions see what he is trying desperately to keep contained within himself, what gnaws at him, what continues to haunt him.
it could happen perhaps after a particular gruelling and intense fight--and there are enough of that in the underdark and at the mountain pass. it could have been a ! conversation, providing both friendship and romance content.
have the orb act up after expending so much energy to manipulate the weave to the fullest of his abilities, have gale manage to reign it in, but barely, show that it takes a lot of power and effort for him to do so.
that it hurts, with none of gale's metaphors to hide behind or jokes to play it off.
have the audience truly see the gravity of what he is going through.
learn & practice!
I am once again screaming inside because at his core Halsin is a deeply PLAYFUL person!
His playful, sarcastic "I AM?!" when you say he's big for an elf! He has banters where he teasingly roasts Shadowheart AND Gale at different times! He teases that you might be a lunatic for freeing a bear without knowing if it would attack you, he indulges the Drow twins by changing into a bear and letting the player ride him around, he loves bear puns (or really animal jokes in general), the way he flexes his muscles if the player mentions him moving things three grown men couldn't...
He wants to PLAY!!! The reason he's so serious for most of the story isn't because he's just the "sage wise archdruid" but because all the trauma he's faced FORCED him to be. Given the slightest bit of a chance to be himself (like traveling with a camp full of weirdos), he instantly shows his playful side, and it only comes out more in his epilogue.
He just wants to play!!
For anyone worried about missing anything in BG3 or replaying the game and wanting to find something they missed there’s a ton of checklists available online and I’m just gonna post the ones I’ve been using for all the acts in case anybody else wants to reference them!
bro is NOT listening to Gale's dissertation on the mechanics of the underdark tunnel system
I feel we as a society need to draw Wyll in more crop tops he didn't wear that thottie little camp outfit for nothing
i do love a sad little wizard with nothing to lose it must be said
The image of Astarion as flamboyant Dracula was too much to ignore. So have this.
Audio from the Dracula: a Comedy of Terrors play
