In Defense of Gale | Baldur's Gate 3 | Modern Redesign & Analysis

foreign this is calimara here and no it's not calamari welcome back to my Channel or if you're new to the pond go ahead and take a dive you might like it here so today we are once again talking about Baldur's Gate 3 because I'm addicted and it's a problem but also I have a lot of thoughts about this game and the characters in it so spoiler warning in case you haven't completed the companion quest lines or you just haven't picked up the game yet but are planning to in case you've missed it I've already made a video about Astorian where I talk about how to draw him and doing a little bit of a character analysis on his character so go check that out if you haven't seen it yet but today our topic is going to be Gale of waterdeep and the discourse that surrounds his character of which I have a lot to say so let's dive right into it fun fact his full name is Gail dicarios which you learn by meeting his stressim Tara in Act 3. now Gail is my runner-up for first place when it comes to my favorite romance option he's so dorky and silly and I'm all about the Smart Guys Gail kind of has a reputation for coming on a bit strong despite people not speaking to him at all allegedly but we'll talk about that later first let's talk about how to draw him the first thing I will say is that it was much harder to look up reference images for Gail than it was for a Starion because even when I searched specifically for him a Starion is the one that dominates the entire search page and yeah technically I could have just opened up Baldur's Gate 3 and checked there but if I open up Boulder's Gate 3 I'm just gonna play boulder skate 3. and then this video will never get finished and it'll be really sad for his modern design I wanted to put him in something smart and formal like a nice suit or a turtleneck I did both turtleneck with Fest and dress pants as an homage to his wizard robes I gave him a large coat that hangs on his shoulders and would flap majestically in the wind while he walks I picture him as an accomplished scholar who also teaches at a prestigious University and is very popular among the student body obviously he's young for a professor and pretty rugged and he's very charming and makes Squiddy jokes it's actually Canon that one of Gail's dreams is to become a teacher and have students to pass his knowledge onto I learned this in the little quiz you can do in the circus of last days with an NPC called zafino about the person you love unfortunately I imagine he is currently at risk of losing his job because he was dating one of the University's board members and they've just broken up on messy terms so if you want to draw Gail I find that it's really important that you pay attention to his head shape because he has a squarer head than a Starion so um his head is a bit wider and more chiseled he has a square or jaw and also a square chin um unlike Astorian as well he has thin eyebrows that are always furrowed in thought and his nose actually has a bit of a lump with wider nostrils than a Starion fun fact Gail also has hooded eyes which by the way was very difficult to capture because I I've first of all I'm drawing in a much more realistic style than I'm used to and second of all it just it's hard having hooded eyes man I would know because I have hooded eyes and of course you can't forget his beard and his hair is slicked back with a bit of a wave at the ends Gail also has a single earring on his left ear so obviously modern Gale also needs earrings preferably a single earring on his left ear which I ended up forgetting in his headshot so that's great now I know a lot of you guys put on my videos as background noise while you're drawing and I also know that a lot of people watching me come with a variety of different skill levels and mediums that they use to draw so this one is specifically for beginner artists who may not have a professional tablet yet and are using maybe their phones or tablets and drawing using their fingers like the Mad Lads that you are Yuji has recently sent me their q6 mobile drawing tablet and this tablet is specifically geared towards people who use their phones or mobile devices to make their artworks these tablets come in beige mint green and charcoal gray and as you can see here they sent me the mint green color very Miku coated so the q6 has a built-in cable which is very portable and convenient and it connects straight to your phone it also has a vertical design tailored for mobile drawing which is something I've never really seen in a drawing tablet before they also come with shortcut keys which make it way easier for you to switch between tools and the pen is also very lightweight and comfortable and Battery free as well plus the whole thing just looks adorable and you know if you're a beginner artist looking to step up your game and get used to drawing on a drawing tablet this is a really good start I think it's quite budget friendly enough and it gives you just what you need to get accustomed to digital drawing as someone who is used to more professional grid equipment this tablet felt a bit lackluster for me personally I think that pen pressure could definitely be a little bit better and I did notice some lag on the response of the tablet when using it on my phone but I think if you're just starting off this is a really really good I would say training wheel to get into more professional digital art so if this is something that you're interested in getting I have a link in my description that you can use to get a special promo for your purchase so Gale Gale Gale what's there to say about him other than he's so misunderstood funnily enough even more so than a Starion who is supposed to be the Misunderstood one I'm not sure if it's a general consensus or just a loud minority but people seem to label Gail as an entitled incel who can't take no for an answer and will threaten to off himself if you ever dared to leave him which is such a huge shame because Gail is such a treasure I'll be honest the first time I booted up Baldur's Gate 3 Gale was my top romance candidate I pulled that funny wizard man out of a rock and thought yep that's the one and then I end up doing a no romance Rock because people having romantic interest towards me frightens me every time someone shows romantic interest I have to roll a D20 save against frightened but Gill is and always will be my precious golden retriever boy and I blame him behaving any other way on the player's choices and how they decide to treat him he's genuinely such a sweet guy and one of if not the most sincere characters in Baldur's Gate 3. not to mention the most forthcoming with his issues unlike characters like Shadow heart he literally lays out everything wrong with him at the start so I don't know how people are still being blindsided by him all the man does is crack jokes and has low wisdom how can you not love him well first things first the whole I don't know why Gail is coming on to me I looked at him once breathed in his Direction have never spoken to this man and suddenly he's all over me what's up with that well this is due to several aspects the first thing and something that larion themselves have come out to address is that Gill's romance progressing quickly without player contribution is a glitch he's not supposed to suddenly act like you two are dating despite not getting any of his heart events and yes I play Harvest Moon so I call the romance scenes heart events and it's not just Gail that had this problem yet he's the only one getting any backlash for it but what's funny is that though larion apologized because it must not have made sense to the players to a lot of the female players it made perfect sense because there are lots of guys who are like that who behave that way and it unfortunately painted the picture of Gail being one of them and of course through Word of Mouth that interpretation gets spread around on Tick Tock and now people just have the most unchairable interpretation of him especially since most of those people are not trying to learn his backstory and don't really know his character or there are people who knew him from Early Access that's another point of contention because from what I've seen of people's experience with Early Access Baldur's Gate 3 Gale is pretty insufferable apparently Early Access Gail is much more arrogant and egoistical and overall insufferable to be around and listened to but his personality was changed a lot between Early Access and full release I imagine the writers must have taken people's feedback about his character and rewrote him to better match their intentions for him according to his character sheet in the official Baldur's Gate 3 concept book Gil is meant to be confident charismatic and a wizard who aspires to Greatness with visuals to reflect this hearkening to the classic heroes of film archetypal good guys with thoughtful eyes and a disarming furrowed brow this later evolved to a sage in cloth robes a Devourer of wine and poetry while still retaining all the visual Hallmarks of a classic hero but someone in the writer's room must have messed up spectacularly because instead he's been interpreted as this arrogant dude who mansplains and talks down to you even though in my opinion that's the farthest thing from my experience with him personally he never read as arrogant he's just not shy about who he is what he knows and the wild experiences he's been through no different from any of the other characters who Regale stories of their lives prior to the campaign like will or even Carlock she doesn't mansplain or talk down to you at least in the launch version he tells you what he knows if you ask him nay he info dumps this is my personal head Cannon but a lot of people seem to have come to this conclusion as well but Gail might just have a touch of the tism like there have been several instances in the game where the other party members have made jokes or tried to snark him and it just flies completely over his head he really doesn't know how social interactions go aside from how he's been taught to behave it's all a very learned experience for him that he has no Natural Instincts or intuition for he also has special interests and as I've mentioned previously loves to info dump and that's kind of why he's so endearing to me and just like any other person with autism if you tell him that you also have an interest in his special interest or have a good good amount of knowledge about it he'll be very pleased and happy with you he doesn't gatekeep or talk down your abilities unless he's being petty about being left at Camp the only thing he is arrogant about is when it comes to the other schools of magic but even that I've never really seen as a malicious thing more like it's the same kind of rivalry between people from different universities Gail isn't perfect of course the man has his Follies like his ego and Ambitions but just like a Starion how he turns out heavily depends on how you treat him and how you guide him Gail will get dangerous ideas about the nethery's crown just like a Starion is tempted to take cazador's place in the Ascension right but for me at least because my relationship with him was exceptional when I got to this Scene It took very little for me to convince him to back down from those dangerous ideas the thing with Gail is that he is very easy to win approval with especially for the average player doing a typical hero run as previously mentioned in his character concept being inspired by typical protagonist characters in media means that he approves of pretty much every good act you choose and he gives you lots of approval if you agree to give him Enchanted items to consume so if you are are doing a do-gooder run have him in your party and are giving him your magical accessories you're already doing very well with Gail because giving him magical objects wins you a lot of approval points which automatically gets you more scenes with him when you sleep at camp and about giving him your magical items because I've seen people complain about how he's always asking for magical items you don't have to give him the good ones give him the useless items like the lockets that only cast Dancing Lights or a ring of color spray or an enchanted weapon that only has a shitty plus one that you probably won't ever use anyway don't give him your Enchanted armor with Buffs for sleight of hand and stealth Gill is perfectly happy with Lunchables you don't need to feed him a gourmet meal plus he only asks for three items throughout the entire game I'll be honest I was a little bit worried that I might keep needing to feed this man a magical item tribute if I wanted to keep him in my party but that was not the case at all so yeah unless you flat out reject him from the start because he starts to try and woo you at the start of act 2. this count says progressing his hard events and I don't think people realize that so they get blindsided when Gail acts like you've led him on even though you haven't been intentionally Romancing him and I may be a bit biased on this because I didn't get the game at launch and so I never encountered that glitch with Gail so my opinion of him has always been pretty neutral bordering on positive because I am absolutely smitten with his dorky personality so I never understood the hate in fact I found that Gail took way more time to romance than a Starion because if you don't propose him during the tiefling party his first romance scene happens when you arrive in Moonrise Tower is in act two although he will drop little hints to show he's interested in you when you first arrive in the shadow cursed lands astarian actually comes onto you much faster because he's actively trying to seduce you to get you on his side whereas Gail takes his time yes there are moments where he drops these little comments about possibly being attracted to you but in act 1 at least he's always said but I'm waiting for the right time I can't indulge on this right now and that's why it was so conflicting when I ended up getting a starion's confession first I was purposefully long resting as much as I could to trigger his first romance scene sooner but it just didn't work and by the time I got to act two it was too late and yeah the plan for that particular playthrough was to romance a Starion anyway so I accepted but it was still a really tough call because I just find Gail so unintentionally charming and funny he always makes me laugh one of my favorite things he does is when I switch to him and he goes yes or how he stresses out whenever I make the entire party go into stealth one of his lines is literally oh not again and it's so funny and you know what he's one of the few companions who actually laughs at my very witty remarks I get it now I get why guys always fall for the girls who laugh at all their jokes and ladies just in case you didn't know Gail is also a cat dad and designated cook of the camp canonically Gail is the one party member that does all the cooking every time you full rest so but okay let's talk about the other elephant in the room that turns people off from Gail and it's the fact that he still hung up on his ex mistra the goddess of magic and like how do you follow up the goddess of magic right but here's the thing that would be the equivalent of saying a Starion is hung up on Cazador because that relationship with mystra is just as toxic and abusive but Gail being the low wisdom wizard he is doesn't even realize it at least at the start eventually he does come to realize that he had been in an extremely toxic relationship with an extremely abusive power imbalance in which he had been groomed isolated from any other humanoid contact and probably had no say in either because putting aside the fact that he knew mistra since he was a young boy who wouldn't have known any better and it's unknown how old he was when their relationship even became sexual she's a goddess consider how Petty gods have historically been over the most manile things what do you think would have happened if he said no hint he would have very likely been smited on site or at the very least banned from ever having magic again because oh yeah she's the goddess of magic and he's a wizard that's like dating and then breaking up with the CEO of a company that you work at losing your job because you are no longer dating said CEO and when you try to make things right with them even though you shouldn't be and try to get your job back they tell you to analyze yourself so of course she's been on his mind she is literally someone who has the power to decide his fate forever more just like casador to a Starion and here's the thing Gail isn't even unique in this circumstance he is not the first wizard that mistra has done this to when you meet Minsk in act 3 he literally mentions that they would hide young boys with magical Talent from mystra for this very reason it's a pattern of behavior with her and yet some people still perpetuate that somehow Gale is the abuser in this situation there is no world where Gail could ever be the abuser in this relationship when misra could literally will him out of existence at any point if she wanted to once you progress His companion quest line he'll even even tell you that he is genuinely scared of mistra as he should be because you know she's an all-knowing and all-powerful God and yeah Gill isn't exactly blameless for the relationship ending he pushed her boundaries and as a result he got dumped that should be the end of the story right except it would never end because he can never truly get away from her unless he decides to stop being a wizard entirely and what's worse is that mystra has decided the only way he'll ever be able to move past his mistake is by blowing himself up do I really disagree with the notion that you're just a rebound because it's not really a an equal loving relationship you know and it is canon in the game if you give his romance a try he realizes that he's much happier and fulfilled with you than he ever felt with mistra he even comes to view you more highly than her someone who is a literal goddess and this must be a pretty big point of contention or at least an important one to the devs because they even added a new line of questioning for him after you've started dating to ask if he still has feelings for mistra and his answer he does but they're all complicated feelings and the longer he spends with you the more he realizes that those feelings were only regret regret for ever being with Mr in the first place for not realizing sooner that he's just a toy to her and devoting himself as much as he did to her another bit of misinformation I see about Gail is that if you reject him he'll threaten to blow himself up but that's just factually incorrect because he had always intended to do that whether or not you choose to be with him romantically if you don't talk him down from it he's still gonna do it anyway as soon as he was told by elminster that he needed to unalive he literally just accepts it he doesn't question it he doesn't try to consider any other alternative he just blindly trusts mistra and takes her message in good faith that this is truly the best and only outcome for him and no one ever talks about that how he was so willing to unalive just because mystra told him to that'd be like if Cazador told astarian he's just meant to be a sacrifice a Starion was just like yeah okay you know and given the circumstances in the game yeah it would be a very easy solution to our problem while giving mistra her petty little revenge and if you feel bad imagine how Gail must be feeling and despite his attempts to justify it to see the bright side of things and act like that's also what he wants how painful must it be to be so disposable so I don't think it's fair to compare him to guys who would do that kind of stuff IRL to keep you in a relationship with them because Gail never once mentions his nethery's orb in a threatening way when you enter a relationship with him and he never brings it up even when you ask to break up with him or reject him for a different romance option he just starts crying and yeah you're totally valid for not wanting to take on that kind of baggage but you gotta admit that blaming him for his circumstances and his relationship with mystra feels very victim blamey yeah I admit that Gail can be a bit guilt-trippy when you reject him he doesn't take rejection as well as the others but knowing his backstory and how he's literally been used and discarded by someone he cared deeply about without them ever returning his feelings it makes sense why he would take rejection harder than others it's his personal trauma but it's also an experience so viscerally personal and realistic that I don't doubt it turns a lot of people away but if you do decide to give Gail a chance he's such a wonderful and adoring partner romance with him despite how it has gone for some people is slow and sweet it's a journey to help him discover his own self-worth apart from mystra and helping him learn that he is loved and valued as a person and not just for his abilities and once you're finally together he worships the ground you walk on waxes lyrical about his love for you and will genuinely do anything you ask of him without question he'll try to give you the world and be awkward and dorky all the while he's ambitious and driven intelligent always willing to help and do what's right even at his own peril I think the Gale romance would suit someone who still wants the broken guy but I can fix him fantasy and have a much more Earnest and sincere relationship that is more solid and secure I think he also offers the rich CEO slash mafia boss fantasy where he can literally give you anything you dream of and spirit you away to unimaginable wonders beyond your means I feel like he'd also be really good for an introvert relationship you could stay in and read books or play board games with him eat some snacks drink some wine in front of a nice cozy fire while his pet cat curls up on your lap I personally really like him but I feel like he's more attached than a Starion is and that's what scares me that's why I'm Romancing a Starion first and doing him later once I'm more comfortable with how they do romance in the game but I think a relationship with Gail would also fall under an ideal relationship for me anyway here is his final look let me know what you think of his modern look in the comments below and where you stand in the Gale debate you so much for hanging out with me in the pond for a while I hope your skin didn't get too pruney hey big shout out to my lovely Pond dwellers if you want to become a pond dweller and get early access to my content join my patreon if you want to see more from me then please follow me on all my social media if you want to submit fan art or chat with me join my Discord server and if you want more of my stories check out my wild word series here on YouTube because that will make me really happy all the links are in my description and I will see you all in the next video goodbye

Channel: callimara

Views: 8,726

Keywords: callimara

Id: rjq6sDEeAxA

Length: 27min 50sec (1670 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023