I am so so obsessed with Gale’s romance because God it’s so clear he worships your Tav through it and it’s absolutely horrifying.
His love through so much of the game is in *spite* of himself. Is in abject hatred of himself. He is holding guilt and shame and self loathing so bad he’d rather unmake himself into something that the Tav never loved in the name of some notion of “deserving” because Gale is *so* broken by Mystra even still that he thinks he must earn Tav’s love. That he must make himself *worthy* of all that Tav has to offer.
Do you know how horrifying that is? To realise the person you love would destroy themselves for you, in some desperate attempt to please you, and with it take away everything you loved about them and they ask you to be happy with it?
Gale lays at Tav’s feet a love that is built on worship, on looking at the Tav as divine. And it’s not until the VERY end and you being really patient and stubborn does he begin to see Tav as a person. And that’s horrific. He loves you so much he’d destroy himself.
He has placed you in the same spot as Mystra, but you are no all powerful Goddess, you do not spin magic along with a wave of your hand and seeking to mould him. You are a person. A person who is flawed and human (in the personhood sense of the word). A person who he does not have to prove himself for. Unmake himself for. At that point, he doesn’t love Tav, he loves the idea he’s made of Tav. And this idea, it’s been built at his own expense. He’s hurting, he blames himself, so even in the love that requires no proving oneself, no supplication, no means to *earn* it he takes it upon himself to make himself “deserving” and maybe he’ll finally be content with himself if he just gets enough power, makes himself better, makes himself someone who is not him.
Because he hates himself.
And that is so heartbreaking to watch, because it’s so very clear he has had zero time to heal. You are in love with a deeply suicidal depressed man, who would rather watch himself burn than accept your love for him as it is. Whole and human, with no notion of “deserving”. The foundations of the love he has for Tav are so so unhealthy. And I love it. I love him. I want him to get better. It’s so sad we don’t get to see more Gale Dekarios in the game. He’s so interesting in comparison to “Gale of Waterdeep” and I’m glad he has a chance to go back to it.
Plot: Coming off a string of work failures, Y/n has a chance meeting and is offered a job doing public relations for AFC Richmond. Though she tries to maintain professional and personal boundaries, she finds herself dragged into the world of a sport she never cared about and a family she never asked for.
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.
When I think about Gale and Mystra, I’m reminded of the Greek myth of the moon goddess who fell in love with a shepherd and asked Zeus to place him in an enchanted sleep, so that he would never change. So he would be beautiful and hers forever.
There are different versions of the myth, but this is the one I knew as a kid - and it always made me so fucking sad. And now I see why, because Selene loves Endymion - and her love takes his life from him. A god could not love Endymion as a mortal loves a mortal; she wants his presence to gaze on, to soak in, his body to hold. Perhaps he’s a balm to her immortal existence; perhaps his beauty is an inspiration to her - but she does not want him, not all of him, not really. She doesn’t want his sheep flock, the evenings where his fingers burn from the cold. She doesn’t want his voice, or the lines and experience he’ll gather as he ages. She doesn’t want to live a life alongisde his.
Selene would say she loves Endymion, and perhaps, yes, Mystra would say she loved Gale. But how can a god love a mortal in a way that a mortal can recognise as love? You soak up his company, you laugh with him, you value his mind and his talent and his deftness with words. His presence is a spot of bright difference in your endless existence. But will you change with him? Will you be vulnerable with him? Will you look him in the eye, as an equal? Will you stroke his cat and put a blanket over his shoulder when he falls asleep reading, make soup for him when he’s sick? Would you love him as a person, not a treasure? You can’t.
Gale wanted to be loved with a devotion to match his own. Mystra wanted him to live in the enchanted sleep of being hers, something to smile at and hold but never, never to live beside. And she knew - she must have known - how unequal their desires were. She kept him anyway, until she didn’t. Until he woke up.
