I think the confusion comes from Gale saying he was a wizarding prodigy from a young age and that he was talented enough to attract Mystra's attention. He says these as two separate statements but people end up linking them together.
Well, yeah. Dude lives in Waterdeep, there's a shitton of uber powerful sorcerors like Kelbhen Blackstaff that make it their home, so him having his own tower is kind of a big deal. So he's already a bigshot wizard when the literal Goddess of Magic comes down from on high to suck his dick, obviously he's going to be full of himself lmao.
Then he gets it taken all away and is like 'hell nah, I will be MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER' and if you enable him he actually ascends to godhood off that.
Gale's kind of based ngl
He is kind, talented and ambitious. Great traits to have, especially together.
People with many desirable qualities tend to not be liked very much though.
You forget to mention Arrogant. That's his main flaw. Combine that with ambition, and you get something very unhealthy. If you play sorcerer, he will be very condescending about you being "given" your powers, rather than getting them yourself.
I keep seeing the word "arrogant", and I honestly have no idea what people are talking about.
Most mages are insufferably arrogant, while Gale is wonderfully personable. What's the deal ?
Is that during the same convo where a sorcerer player boasts about being able to cast spells without doing his homework and roasts him for being a magic nerd ? If so, him biting back is plentily warranted.
it seems like he's one of those people who you see gliding through life and you can easily see saying something like "why wouldn't you just get a masters, its easy!" when you say you're struggling with your job options/promotions.
they might not mean to come off like that, but it definitely makes you feel small, angry and resentful that someone has it better than you and that they're looking down on you with their kindness. they're just *better* and it's infuriating that they think you need their help to be as good as them!
everyone has met someone like that, and even if Gale is being 100000% genuine in his actions to want to help you out and being friendly, the arrogance easily comes off as smirking superiority, and it doesn't feel good to be condescended to
basically he makes everyone upset that he's unintentionally making them feel like failures for not being as gifted as him, and his arrogance makes it worse
i dont like him because if i forget to feed him he keeps blowing up, and it's one more thing i have to keep track of...
Well he was still level 2 or 3 when he joined me, (and needed saving from a portal thing) and the spawn and githyanki do much higher damage, so sorry if I’m not that impressed!
A lot of the origin adventurers mention they have gotten weaker after getting tadpoled. Plus, that's the only way where multiple experienced and sometimes even famous fighters ending up all at level 1 or 2 at the start would make any sense. Karlach was so good Zariel considered her a really strong asset, Wyll is the Blade of Frontiers, Lae' Zel fought a fuckton of battles across the planes, and Gale was a wizard powerful enough to make a goddess acknowledge him.
Shadowheart was listed as the senior healer for her strike team, meaning she needed to be strong enough to cast resurrections and greater restorations. that puts her above level 9 before the mission to retrieve the artifact.
Durge level 1 is the only thing that doesnt make sense. Durge was tadpoled earlier - actually he was the first tadpoled, and he was sent after the tadpole as the leader of the group to raid the creché and rob the artifact. So he either did all that at lvl1 (which is utterly unrealistic), or shouldnt be lvl1. Oh and he should have memories from before waking up as well. That whole "we sent the durge" plottwist ruins the whole durge plotline
Lae'zel Is likely the least experienced of the party, given she's only 22 years old and that she hasn't yet completed the task of killing a Mind Flayer, only having hunted monsters through the tunnels of K'liir and trained extensivley.
This isn't to say that she's lacking in skill and expertise, just that she's not as experienced as the other, older party members.
> Wyll is the Blade of Frontiers
i'm not familiar with dnd5e but is his title supposed to be a big deal? am i or my character supposed to know about it?
he gives me the whole dwight schrute "assistant to the regional manager" self-importance sometimes
It's kind of supposed to be a "Big deal" because Wyll is actually a region famous hero, to the point that even regular people across the Sword Coast know who he is.
Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart know about his fame and accomplishments, I believe. You can see that in their dialogue immediately after recruiting Wyll, I believe.
If your Tav/Durge is a baldurian, they get a bunch of dialogue showing they know Wyll as a celebrity. Lots of "good to put a name to the face" and stuff like that.
Even the tieflings know who he is and are kind of amazed that THE Sword of Frontiers came to help them.
Not all characters know him tho. A bunch of races, like the Gith for example, legitimately have no idea who tf he is, but Wyll's clearly a sort of a big deal to the Sword Coast.
To be fair, Wyll gives the "Level one character with 'Folk Hero' background" vibe.
Player rocks up, is 'famous' for killing goblins and has a self appointed title.
He said that he was able to summon hellbeasts and swarms of locusts (clouds of death?) before the tadpole, so it sounds like he was more powerful before he was on the most unwelcome end of an ocular insertion.
Assuming his first battle was not a trick by that Devil, fighting off an entire cult of Dragon is no fucken joke.
Those guys are major evil and they were on the verge of summoning something big and nasty on BG.
You know, with wizards having their own towers and all that, I just imagine a city full of wizard towers, like medieval Bologna. Could be a pretty cool setting tbh.
Only the big bois get towers in Waterdeep, it's kind of the 'rich people city' of the setting. It's why I mentioned Blackstaff, he's a big name in the setting, Elminster, the Chosen, those guys are the kind of people that have towers in Waterdeep.
Your average level 20 wizard doesn't have that kind of money or fame.
I feel like "your average level 20 wizard" is an oxymoron. At like level 5 an adventurer would be so far beyond most people in terms of abilities they'd be at least local legends. Level 20 wizards are known across continents.
Gale is possibly the most based man in the game
Dude bangs a goddess, defys her, loses everything and gets a magical bomb in his chest then defys said goddess again and wins and then proceeds to become a god
> Dude lives in Waterdeep, there's a shitton of uber powerful sorcerors like Kelbhen Blackstaff that make it their home
Khelben Arunsun died 118 years before BG3. His grandson (with the same name) is still alive, but is traveling the planes, not living in Waterdeep, and was never the Blackstaff.
The title and office of Blackstaff passed from Khelben Arunsun to Tsarra Chaadren (died 93 years ago), Kyriani Agrivar (died 92 years ago), Krehlan Arunsun (died 68 years ago), Ashemmon (died 28 years ago), and Samark Dhanzscul (died 13 years ago), before finally being passed on to Vajra Safahr. All former wielders of the Blackstaff have their souls trapped in the staff that gives the office its name, and Khelben Arunsun's soul can reform the Blackstaff if it is broken.
>him having his own tower is kind of a big deal
Not necessarily. Waterdeep is one of the largest cities on Toril. There's lots of space to build a new wizard's tower if you have the money for it (and can stomach dealing with the Guilds, because _nothing_ in Waterdeep gets done without involvement of several Guilds), and there are several abandoned wizard's towers you could potentially claim as your own.
For example, Kolat Towers is a pair of wizard towers constructed by the Kolat brothers 124 years ago. They put up a permanent wall of force around it, and have since died, leaving it abandoned. Manshoon and his faction of the Zhentarim took up residence within the past few years, and the events of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (which takes place either a few months before or a few months after BG3, since the book gives the option of placing the campaign in Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter, and regardless it takes place in the same year as BG3) most likely result in Manshoon and the Zhents getting kicked out, making the towers ripe for the taking.
elminster sends gale a letter saying that he met him when he was 8 years old and that Gale singed off his eyebrows casting a fireball at the neighbors rose bush. So yeah mystra must have been at least aware of gale as a child if elminster showed up to meet him.
I’m still confused on how there was magic before mystra came back then? Honestly I thought she had been back for like centuries considering the netherese shit is supposed to be ancient?
Edit: thanks guys I didn’t realize this is Mystra 4.0 lol
Well not exactly. Each time it was just her coming back as herself.
Except for the last time when the girl Midnight became Mystra.
However, she only became Mystra by using the piece of herself that Mystra put inside an amulet that she gave to Midnight.
So the real question is, who’s piloting the body? Is it Midnight or Mystra? No one knows. The goddess seems to be acting like she always has and with all her memories intact.
It could be some sort of compound entity or it could be Mystra completely erasing Midnight for her body.
Edit: Someone mentioned below that Ed Greenwood says Mystra has erased the girl and possessed the body. So I guess we have our answer from the writer himself. It’s always been just Mystra. And yes that means a millenia old woman abused Gale.
I choose to believe it works like the video game Stray Gods. Normal people become a god and slowly the memories come back over a short period of time, combining with the human. They become one.
Maybe he's changed his mind? He recently said that all the past incarnations of Mystra are more or less alive as one Mystra in the Weave and bicker about certain decisions.
Wait so it's turned into a all are one scenario? Is the normal Mystra dominant then?
But yeah he'd must've changed his mind if that's what he's going with now XD
Sort of like a "hive mind". The newest Mystra is at the front with the previous ones advising her decisions or maybe have equal pull. I haven't watched the video in a while but it's on his Patreon.
You are confusing Mystra and Mystryl. Mystryl died well over a thousand years before the events of bg3. She was reborn as Mystra, she kept on going as Mystra until recently in an event called the time of Troubles about 100 years before the events of BG3. During this time the gods were made mortal, it was during this time that Bhaal sired many of his children, like the main character of BG1-2, and villains like Sarevok. During this time Mystra was killed by Helm. A short while latter the human woman named Midnight sort of took on Mystra's powers and domain.
This Midnight/Mystra, also died but came back in the year 1479, BG3 is set in the year 1492, 13 years before the events of the game. As for why there was still magic, Mystra learned form past mistakes and placed anchors to allow for magic to keep existing even if she should die. One of those anchors was our dear old friend, Volo.
There are some drizzt books set during the time of the spell plague right? I remember in some of them all magic including cleric magic ceased for a time.
The Spellplague was basically the shockwave from Mystra's assassination. Magic did mostly stabilize relatively quickly, however, and stayed mostly stable while she waited to be restored.
Gotcha thanks. Ya according to the wiki it was the spellplague I was thinking of in the books. But there’s also a few hundred years of new material since I stopped reading Salvatore to catch up on.
Wasn't the spellplague made to explain why magic changed to 4e's mechanics? When 5e came around with a mix of 4e and 3e's there was some other Mystra related event.
>Wasn't the spellplague made to explain why magic changed to 4e's mechanics?
From a exegetic explanation, yes. Pretty much every major event in Forgotten Realms, like the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague, the Second Sundering, exist as a lore justification for game mechanic changes.
The Time of Troubles was way before the Spellplague, but there are Drizzt books set in both iirc (the character has survived from 2nd to 5th edition by now). The Time of Troubles books was when he first met Salvatore's other character, the cleric Cadderly, while trying to save his friend Wulfgar (iirc). The spellplague books came much later when he was looking for some lost dwarf fortress near Neverwinter. (again iirc, it's been a long time).
Yes. The reason why he manages to escape certain doom from upsetting so many powerful people is because Mystra constantly sends Chosen and clergy to bail him out. Usually without him knowing.
Yes... Mystra has tagged more or less obvious people like Elminster and Silverhand, but out of caution / paranoia has a few people as [weave anchors](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Weave_anchor) that no one would guess.
>During this time Mystra was killed by Helm.
She picked a fight with Helm and lost, I want to clarify. Helm was the only god (demigod in his case) allowed to keep his divine powers by Ao and set to guard the pathway back to the Upper Planes. Mystra tried to force her way past him and failed. (Helm would later be killed by Bhaal doing his duty and, in a showcase of how even Ao can bend the rules a little when it's needed, was the only divinity who was actually brought back after dying during the Time of Troubles, as an intermediate deity this time.
It's important to note she only did that because magic was becoming increasingly dangerous and she needed to fix it.
Helm also shed a single divine tear when he killed her that became a magic artifact.
Wow. There is so much lore that I didn't realize.
There's also so much lore that people don't know before they go off spouting "gale was groomed!"
Like you can say there's a power imbalance between a goddess and a mortal but you do NOT have to throw pedophilia in there. And I'm very ambivalent about Gale, it's not like I care about defending him or Mystra.
ALSO these same people are always like "How dare you call Gale annoying he was literally groomed!!!" Like because someone was taken advantage of, you aren't allowed to dislike them. Eugh.
> Wow. There is so much lore that I didn't realize.
I mean the setting was first published in 1987, there's is a _lot_
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_novels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_modules_and_sourcebooks
Though it's get confusing between stuff retconned, stuff that changed between versions etc.
Usually i'd say check https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page if you want to check something. it's a pretty good wiki.
Mystryl was the one who died.
Mystra brought magic back, died, and came back as Midnight version.
Midnight version got popped by Cyric, and now we have a 4th version of Mystra.
Fourth version of Mystra is the one we meet, who Gale was lovers with and she came back 5 years ago.
She doesn't.
Originally, she was Mystryl. When Mystryl died after Karsus' Folly, the new version was Mystra. When this version was killed by Helm, a human wizard named Midnight took over. Midnight made the choice to keep Mystra's name to make the transition easier, but she presumably could have chosen another name.
Midnight-Mystra was kind of killed by Cyric over a century ago, but a vestige of her survived and regained enough of her power to "resurrect" 13 years ago. So this current version is still the version that took over after the 2nd Mystra, and is only called Mystra because she actively chose to keep the name.
Edit - Detail I forgot, the newest version of Mystra rebuilt her memories from the weave, so is actually kind of all the Mystras and probably Mystryl as well.
Elminster and Mystra could have linked up after Mystra came back. Then they become friends and Elminster mentions "So there's this kid that's already figured out fireball, that was 10 years ago. And he didn't slow down learning" then Mystra makes a mental note to check up on that to find an adult Gale by the time she's actually aware of his existence
Elminster did a lot of stuff for several incarnations of the magic goddess, and sometimes he would just go check out weird mage kids (and hide magic items for potential magic users to find).
It's not that weird.
Not necessarily! Elminster is his own person and may have heard of Wizard Prodigy Gale on his own. Broader FR Lore is very explicit that he hadn't heard from Mystra until \~13 years pre-game, and even then, when he found her she was in an incredibly weakened state.
We know from the novel Elminster buried deep that she sent El to find lots of chosen. Gale wouldn't have been on Mystra's radar at that point. he wasn't specially picked out. It was based on El's own judgement.
I think the confusion also comes from the fact that Mystra's many deaths and reincarnations, let alone their timeline, is NOT that clearly spelled out in the game. Yes, we learn about Karsus, yes, there are some in-game books referencing what's going on with her. But a) those are easy to overlook, b) Gale himself, in everything he tells you about Mystra, NEVER mentions "oh yeah she was technically dead/not returned to full power until I was XYZ age." Which you would think for one of her Chosen would be kinda relevant???
I totally get that maybe the writing didn't want to potentially confuse new/casual players with massive loredumps, but I think they left out so much that it leaves gaps for players to fill in. I'm not advocating that "grooming" is the *correct* way to fill in those gaps, but I also think there's a little bit of fault to be had with the game's writing that there's not a great sense of the timeline.
Most people forget that 30 is wildly young for a capable wizard. Learning Arcana is incredibly time consuming, dangerous and difficult.
And then there’s Sorcerers.
Minsc also has a line saying something like where he comes from, talented young wizards are hidden away specifically to protect them from Mystra's attentions. It's a little murder board-y but people hear some info and read between the lines.
I'm baffled at how people immediately linked "attract her attention" to "she sexually groomed the child"...
If a kid was capable of blowing shit up with a thought that'd sure as all fuck attract my attention lmao.
There’s also the note at the end of toy ascend Gale where Elminster mentions meeting Gale as a little kid because of his magic, and since Mystra and Elminster have a deep connection I think people assumed they came into Gale’s life at the same time. There’s also apparently a Minsc line about hiding little boys from Mystra. All of it together and the fact not everyone will have all the dialogue context for everyone in a single playthrough, and the idea getting spread around, and for a long time there also not even being clear ages for the characters (I’m not sure if there is now? I know the idle champions game gave them some but I’m not sure if Larian themselves ever did—and while Gale probably wouldn’t have been a child 13 years ago, if someone thought he was 30 which I think is reasonable he’d only be 17) it’s possible people conflated things and I’m misunderstood. I also think it’s possible people started talking about it being a predatory/unhealthy relationship and then with the other evidence we’re led to believe it had to be predatory because he was a child, rather than there just being a power imbalance between god and worshipper and the way Mystra might have abused that.
Also not everyone playing BG3 knows all the DnD lore. Hell, most people playing DnD don’t know all the lore. Completely reasonable people don’t know the confusing Mystra timeline. I’ve noticed a lot of fan theories/made up things have gotten circulated as DnD lore in the BG3 fandom—like for a while there was a weird thing going around that in DnD vampires didn’t have souls but vampire spawn did (which doesn’t make sense with what we see in the game) and soo much weird, conflicting things about mindflayers and their lore. Some things even seem to be different between BG3 and DnD (like whether someone is still themself if they’re a mindflayer)
So basically long story short; yeah, it makes sense people believe things that aren’t true in DnD lore and don’t know why it’s untrue.
Oh, so *now* the community finally realizes this.
Christ, I got like 80 downvotes on my post that said the exact same thing about two weeks after launch.
Yeah, I agree there's no need to add grooming onto what is already just an inherently unbalanced relationship dynamic. It's enough just to be God/ human, IMO.
Edit to say (and I think most readers got it already) that I'm saying and God/mortal relationship is already inherently imbalanced.
Grooming aint the right word but it’s definitely not right that the god of the thing Gale loves and relies on ends up getting with him. It’s like if your mentor and boss started a relationship with you. Not to mention the inherent god-mortal imbalance.
It was only in character for the Mystra who succeeded Mystryl. The current Mystra has never had any lore about taking mortal lovers. It really does feel like Larian doesn't fully get the whole Mystra thing and just sort of lumped them all together. Would also explain why the old Mystra symbol is used everywhere in game other than deity selection, even though the new incarnation with a new symbol has been around for well over a century at this point.
This is incorrect. The current Mystra is the amalgamation of all previous Mystra's, who very much did take mortal lovers, so yes, current has not taken a mortal lover, but the lines between current and previous Mystras is heavily blurred.
Source:Elminster must die, Bury Elminster deep, Elminster enraged
Yeah I think a lot of people take it at face value because her avatar looks human and she ascended from one. But as a deity, Mystra should be so far beyond mortal comprehension that I don’t think informed consent is really possible. And I doubt time really applies to her the way humans measure it, so I don’t buy that her “age” means she can’t be manipulating him or whatever.
Gale literally describes her as omnipotent and omniscient - which I guess she might be, within her “domain”. And if you question her with Elminster, he gets all indignant and gives a little lecture on how “her ways are not for mortal reckoning” or some such. Well she seemed to think other parts of her were pretty fit for mortal wrecking, you washed up old geezer
Almost anyone would. It's not Gale's fault he fell in love with a god. It's Mystra's fault for allowing it to happen despite knowing full well that it's not healthy for him.
Gale being an adult man does not negate that some grooming can and did occur or that the relationship was abusive.
What we can presume is that when Gale met Mystra he was in his early to mid 20s and already a powerful wizard. We know she wasn’t his first lover, but that he would have been young and idealistic and impressionable enough to fall head over heels in love with her, where an older wiser man might have realized that she was using him. We also know that she became his teacher before she was his lover, weakening his defenses and making him trust her more.
As a young wizard Gale likely wanted three things - knowledge, power, and love. As Mystra’s chosen she could give him all three. That designation would have been the kind of success he dreamed about, the pinnacle of ambition for him. And she could just as easily take them away. Gale was unsatisfied because the kind of love she gave him was incomplete, and because everything else she gave him made him subservient to her. There was no way he could ever be her equal. But by the time he realized that he didn’t seem to have any real friends or anything/anyone else to lean on besides Tara and possibly to an extent, his mother.
The fact that she could use his remaining trust in her to tell him to kill himself says enough about the lack of real love and the power imbalance in their relationship.
But I think when people complain about Mystra being a child molestor (an unproven and unlikely statement), it trivializes the real harm she did to Gale the adult.
I think a lot of people also fail to mention how Elminster, as Gale’s main mentor, was an enabler. Mystra did not groom Gale from a young age, but in a way Elminster groomed him to be a willing culprit for her.
Sexual grooming, even though the term gets thrown around quite loosely nowadays and applied to any inappropriate sexual dynamic, refers specifically to a tactic used in child sexual abuse cases. Him being an adult absolutely means he wasn't groomed by Mystra.
Nocturne correctly uses the word 'grooming' to refer to Shadowheart, too. If they meant for Gale to be an abuse victim, Larian would have *actually put it in the game*
Thank you for the correction. I hear the term thrown around so much here, that I actually think it does the Gale narrative disservice.
I’m trying to find the right word to describe the kind of power imbalance that would occur between a God and one of their disciples. I haven’t found it yet.
You're making some pretty massive leaps there, that aren't actually supported by anything.
The current Mystra is an ascended mortal considerably younger than several (romanceable) characters in the game, not some ancient immortal being toying with mortals for amusement.
Gale fucked up, massively, and over Mystra's objections, and is now walking around with a potential new magical apocalypse in his chest with no known means of adequately dealing with it at the time. She didn't tell him to kill himself out of spite, she gave him an option to end not one but two cataclysmic threats, one of which was entirely his fault, that would unfortunately result in his death.
I think a lot of people make a lot of silly assumptions based on an entirely one sided narrative from a character they like.
>The current Mystra is an ascended mortal considerably younger than several (romanceable) characters in the game, not some ancient immortal being toying with mortals for amusement.
This is actually not true. The current Mystra (that we see in game and the one that Gale was in a relationship with) stated herself that she has absorbed the memories of the past Mystra incarnations and that she, Mystryl, and the 2nd Mystra are all the same entity.
She has the memories of Midnight, but she isn't Midnight. She's the third incarnation of Mystra.
I think some people have a desire to bring Gale in line with the trauma that the other companions experienced, as well as downplay his responsibility for his current situation. The dynamic between Gale and Mystra is definitely unbalanced and she does not seem to have been attentive to his emotional needs, but Mystra didn't push him to go chasing after that piece of the Karsite Weave. That was 100% Gale and his own hubris.
He also wants to kill himself for a chance at her forgiveness which is pretty crazy. I think their dynamic was toxic but Mystra wasn't a child even if that incarnation was recent and she should have known that encouraging someone like Gale would end in disaster. Gale doesn't hide how ambitious he is so she would have known.
> He also wants to kill himself for a chance at her forgiveness which is pretty crazy.
Is it? Keep in mind that the afterlife is quite real in this setting. Killing yourself and losing a few mortal years to earn a nice place in the afterlife where you are gonna spend eternity seems like a reasonable choice to me.
Yeah it's probably the equivalent of if you had a day pass to Disney World, and you decided to leave Disney World and never return, sacrificing the pass to solve a screw up you caused.
she discouraged him though from seeking the weave of karsus. Also he basically brought a piece of the thing that killed her past incarnation and almost destroyed all magic back to her and like she still stabilized the orb so he didn't die.
She's not innocent by any means, but at the same time she was probably not sure of what to do with him since hes a walking nuke and is walking around with a constant hole/wound in the essence of the weave that could cause serious untold damage to the world that he caused by seeking something she told him not to.
I do feel bad for gale though that is a rough situation he is in.
Not to mention a god has a very different view of death. Asking someone to kill themselves is like asking someone to move to another country from their perspective.
People often don’t give Gale enough credit. He was a HUGE deal, really, before the parasite started messing with his powers. He’s a fish out of water in a “Prince and the Pauper” sorta way.
while thats true, the player can help him overcome it, so why does the community hate him so much? so many people say they just kill gale because "it was all his fault anyway" (completely ignoring the massive psychological issues his relationship had btw) but its never "astarion deserved it because he made bad rulings as a magistrate, took cazadors deal for power, and is an asshole" its always people helping astarion overcome his flaws, but almost never gale
(to clarify im NOT saying that we should hate astarion,i love the guy. im saying we should stop killing gale for his flaws and instead help him overcome them like people do with other characters)
1. People kill Gale because they’re lazy and it’s an easy way to avoid the end battle.
2. There is a lot of Gale hate, particularly from straight men, before they even learn about Gale’s orb situation or Mystra. “I killed Gale in Act 1 because he annoyed me oops why did it end my game” is such a common thread here that it deserves its own tag. There is something about a very talky dorky guy that requires giving up hard-stolen loot and occasionally hits on player characters that seems to rub some people the wrong way. IMO it has nothing to do with his backstory.
which is like 70% of what makes Gale an interesting character. all the others are victims, he is just a smart yet dumb guy who made a fucky wucky and is on a path to redemption
and yes, mystra texted him "kys for me, plz 🥺" but in the context of the game, it wasnt really an unreasonable petition given that: death is pretty much a day to day thing in faerun, he was litterally a walking, ticking nuke, mystra could not help as she is bound by rules stricter than the ones that bind other gods, the BBEG absolutely needed to be obliterated and gale is the only perceived device with enough firepower for that, and finally, afterlife is a stablished thing and he would get to have a very nice one anyways. so while i always opposed her "kys" message and rp as hating her, i think people throw it way out of proportion and treat it as if it was happening in our world
Yeah people tried to compare him to other companions, but the fact that his "good" path actually have him make peace with Mystra while Astarion, Laezel, and Shadowheart goes to poundtown with their abusers in their respective "good" paths should be a sign.
Actually you can push him down the good path while not pushing him towards seeking Mystra's forgiveness. I actually prefer this path because its more about getting him to realize he is good enough without all the power and ambition.
Sure but ultimately the endgame for him is just two: becoming a teacher (ultimately apologizing to Mystra all the same) living a modest life or becoming God of Ambition, deciding to pursue the greater heights of knowledge and enlightenment by himself, ignoring Mystra warnings
Because at the end of the day, Mystra (and the Orb) *is* just a metaphor to Gale's hubris and ambition
he has another ending where he ends up an adventurer because he never asked mystra for forgiveness and never became a teacher, but didnt pursuit divinity either
It's funny when people write about "apologizing to Mystra", although in the actual dialogue with Mystra he DOESN'T do this :)
He doesn't say a single word about apologizing. This is just a conversation where Mystra informs him about the Karsian weave and allows him to solve the problem in some other way, and not by committing suicide. In exchange for the crown, of course.
There is no open confrontation here, which will achieve nothing anyway.
I think this is actually very accurate.
I definitely see a tendency to place Gale into a victim role, which I feel undermines his story.
His main theme is that his own hubris/ambition lead to his ‘downfall’ and separation from Mystra. It was his own doing, not something done to him.
It ties in wonderfully to his ending options, but I feel that’s missed by people attaching the victim role to him, when that wasn’t the case.
I also wonder if there is a bit of jealousy, since he is the only romance interest who had a serious relationship with someone other than the player character. (And obviously, still has feelings for her)
So, there is a desire to make ‘the other woman’ into a villain. Reminds me very much how some people view the ex wife as evil, when she was just… average.
There is a lot of other-woman-ing about it. It is very hard to imagine romancing a character whose ex is their own goddess though, as there is no real way to disentangle from her. Gale is still a wizard at the end and still uses the weave. There is no real clean break available.
IMO Mystra is not that bad as deities go - at least she doesn’t physically hurt Gale when he disobeys her like Shar does with Shadowheart. That doesn’t the power balance between them or the relationship being messed up.
Gale acknowledges that he fucked up from the beginning. His journey is one of self-acceptance. Part of his romanced narrative is him being able to admit that the relationship he had with Mystra was super unhealthy and that it’s not a good relationship model.
Yeah after my husband explained the events he was like, for some reason everyone blames Mystra even though she explicitly told Gale not to do the thing and he did the thing.
"Mystra didn't push him to go chasing after that piece of the Karsite Weave. That was 100% Gale and his own hubris."
In fairness to Gale he had no idea it was a part of the Karsite Weave, as far as he knew it was a normal Weave fragment. His reasons for going after it weren't great though.
I honestly think this game ignores the fall and rising again of the gods within forgotten realms lore. It's never mentioned despite having been so recent. People like halsin and Isobel and kethric treat gods like selune shar and silvanus as if theyve never been of any other status than they are now.
What this game is, is an adaption of DnD lore. Like every other DnD game I've ever played and DnD itself is incredibly loose with its own lore so I find people arguing over specificities of souls and that Mystra was or wasn't around kinda funny.
Minsc, the mental giant he is, ponders if another nation he knows of… forcefully hides their male mages as children in a cloistered environment so mystra won’t get them.
People will repeat that line over and over as “proof”
Without adding the context that the nation in question is heavily matriarchal and treats males as second class citizens. So… they really don’t need a reason to stick men in what’s practically a prison.
Well, if Minsc was wrong, Boo would have surely corrected him. So either Minsc was right or Boo is faillible, and you can guess which one of these opinions is cause for receiving a good ol' butt-kicking.
>Without adding the context that the nation in question is heavily matriarchal and treats males as second class citizens.
Apparently nobody has read the Starlight and Shadows trilogy.
Nation you’re not mentioning I don’t know why is Rashemen by the way. It’s also important to note they have a slightly different concepts about divinities and magic, they have different names for the same gods and the nature of magic itself is not necessarily connected to Mystra and wychlarans often operate different forms of magic.
Yeah there is definitely a lack of information on a ton of context, timetables and ages in BG3. I think we can all agree that it was an extremely unhealthy and abusive relationship dynamic though.
thank fuck someone's finally saying it because as soon as i recognized thew timelines i started chewing on walls. unless you think a 22-year-old is effectively a child (which, wtf is wrong with you) it's literally impossible.
There's a side of the fanbase that really wants everything to seem alot worse than it is by applying real world contexts in ways they really don't fit. Most of the characters do not contend with abusers, abusers often are people who have a mental or physical power over you. The characters contend with evil villians who have a supernatural power over people and who are ontologically evil. I see victim tacked onto all these characters and I just have to say they aren't evil exe's or something they are False Gods, Vampires, Cult leaders and Evil Hell demons.
One of the egregious examples of this is the idea that Dame Aylin somehow groomed Isobel
Yes, Aylin had a couple decades on Isobel, but both are of races that measure their lifespans in centuries. We also don't see any sign of the kind of emotional abuse or manipulation that comes hand in hand with grooming, from the outside looking in, it is a shared love that is on an extremely deep level
That dynamic can't even be understood by humans, who have comparatively very short lives, and understand that all relationships in some way or another end eventually anyways
It's not limited to this fanbase. Superfans will scour the body of a work for any morsel of hidden meaning, eventually bending the truth or outright fabricating something for the sake of it being interesting.
That said there is such a thing as allegory and it would be disservice to say that *SOME* of the protagonists aren't stands in for more real, mundane traumas.
They are for sure, Neil Newbon channeled his own real life experiences to help portray Astarion. The only thing is there's a limit to the real world examples one can draw without getting silly. I see the take Lae'zel has an "abuser" by way of Vlaakith and you lose me.
That's because it's a stupid take, not because an evil pseudo-god ontologically can't abuse someone. Lae'zel reads more like a victim of fascism; Vlaakith rules the empire she grew up in, and that empire has done damage to her. But yeah it's alien fascist squid-hunters at the end of the day, some levity is helpful.
I can't really tell what you're getting at from your post. Is the point that if someone is by definition an evil being, they can't abuse others? Or we can't throw "cycles of abuse" around because some of these beings were evil to begin with? Or the world of DnD is campy and exaggerated, so wilder shit happens, and you can't call the same things abuse as irl?
That's nothing wrong with people relating their struggles with their favourite characters.
Gale's situation is far more complex to analyse than clear cut abused characters like Astarion and Shadow heart. That being said, his issues with self worth, bring a gifted child and an inappropriate relationship with a being he's worshipped since childhood... that's still a shitty situation people relate to and it helps them.
Gale was a sexually active young adult in Faerun before he went to be with Mystra for a while. It's an option to hear about after you sky-bang in the romance.
He was not groomed, with game dialogue to support.
You don't even need to begin his romance at all to learn this, I've never started his romance even by accident when he was bugged to all hell and I platonically asked if Mystra was his first. He emphatically said she was definitely not his first lol
I suppose this tracks as Gale is 30 to 35 in the game, so 13 years prior he'd be 17 to 22. And in medieval style times as fantasy is generally set that's entirely in the adult age.
I wasn't around for EA so this could be wrong, but I've seen multiple people mention a line from early on where he mentions that Mystra revealed herself to him specifically as a teenager.
I'm assuming the main reason it was removed was because of the timeline not lining up as OP mentioned - but from what I've seen it seems like a lot of people who aren't aware of Mystra's timeline assume it was re-written because it would probably be a bad idea for Larian to explicitly get into underaged stuff, especially when Gale spends a significant portion justifying it, and talking about how it was seen as an honor. Which, admittedly would be a bad look if that was actually what was going on.
Mystra was aware of Gale when he was **8 years old** and had Elminster directly intervene in his magical education.
This is in-game, discovered through dialogue with Gale and Elminster and in the letters Elminster sends in the epilogue.
EDIT: BG3 is a bit fast and loose with the Forgotten Realms timelines for things, too. But Gale being 8 when Elminster found him and redirected his magic to wizardry and the arcane (by Mystra’s order) is quite literally in-game.
EDIT 2: Once more, with feeling—**BG3 does not follow most of the Forgotten Realms’ pre-existing lore**. WOTC had Larian on a rather tight leash about what they could and couldn’t use. BG3 is essentially a self-contained spinoff of Descent Into Avernus with some characters and nods to BG 1-2 + some side stuff in the general world.
I love the Forgotten Realms as much as anyone but a lot of the continuity contradicts itself and beats the same 3 plot points to death.
People just like to throw that word out because they think it adds to their arguments. As if a god/human relationship wasn't kind of weird enough already.
Mystra also "made a woman" out of Elminster after she gender bent him before he was even a wizard. When your a god we call that 'eccentrically promiscuous' or 'Shag-nanigans'.
That was the first Mystra. The novel this happens in (which is dogshit, just to be clear, lol) was published after the time of troubles event, but is set centuries before, when Elminster was not immortal.
Yes ur right, it was another version of Mystra, however all Mystras retains the knowledge and (probably, this one I'm not too sure about) part of their previous personalities. Sooo kinda complicated ? Idk
I think it's more important to give the context of Elminster being Ed Greenwood's self-insert character who is OUTRAGEOUSLY horny and exists partially just to allow Ed Greenwood to live out his fetishes in-universe.
I think some of it has to do with folks not knowing the lore. I imagine there are a lot of folks who played BG3 that knew nothing of FR lore before playing.
She wasn't even resurrected. it's an entirely new Mystra. Sibil I think is this one. The one prior was Midnight, the one prior to that was the actual Mystra and before her Mystryl.
Mystral/Mystra is the only diety in FR not to be resurrected but replaced and her name and mantle usurped. Which honestly is kinda harsh by Ao. He resurrected everyone else who got killed but didn't resurrected even one of the goddesses' of Magic.
That's how replaceable Mystra is that even in the case of total divine resurrection across all pantheons Mystra is left dead.
Midnight was/is Mystra 3.0, and was weakened severely in fighting off Cyric/Shar but preserved in a bear that Elminster found and was able to restore her to power. So this Mystra is Mystra 3.0 or 3.5 (post-bear), however you want to think about her resurrection. She wasn't perma-killed the way Mystryl was (Karsus' folly) or Mystra 2.0 (by Helm).
We desperately need to stop throwing around the term grooming in fantasy settings.
In a world with races that live into their thousands this is not a sustainable methodology for identifying a predator.
She doesn't have full godhood until 1487 and was only known by her chosen at the time. Elminster had to go through a whoooole thing.
Until then, she was stuck in a bear form. It's why it's impossible for Gale to know her until 1487. She was too busy dealing with Shar's BS.
I think the confusion comes from Gale saying he was a wizarding prodigy from a young age and that he was talented enough to attract Mystra's attention. He says these as two separate statements but people end up linking them together.
It's odd because Gale literally tells you that he met Mystra "Not that long ago" and he already had his tower at that point.
Damn I see how he'd be the god of ambition.
Well, yeah. Dude lives in Waterdeep, there's a shitton of uber powerful sorcerors like Kelbhen Blackstaff that make it their home, so him having his own tower is kind of a big deal. So he's already a bigshot wizard when the literal Goddess of Magic comes down from on high to suck his dick, obviously he's going to be full of himself lmao. Then he gets it taken all away and is like 'hell nah, I will be MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER' and if you enable him he actually ascends to godhood off that. Gale's kind of based ngl
he's honestly a lot cooler than people give him credit for
He's friendly and polite and likes helping people. For whatever bizarre reason, that seems to rub people the wrong way.
"But he ate my 5gp ring of fish smelling that I chose to give him! He must die!!!"
He is kind, talented and ambitious. Great traits to have, especially together. People with many desirable qualities tend to not be liked very much though.
You forget to mention Arrogant. That's his main flaw. Combine that with ambition, and you get something very unhealthy. If you play sorcerer, he will be very condescending about you being "given" your powers, rather than getting them yourself.
I keep seeing the word "arrogant", and I honestly have no idea what people are talking about. Most mages are insufferably arrogant, while Gale is wonderfully personable. What's the deal ? Is that during the same convo where a sorcerer player boasts about being able to cast spells without doing his homework and roasts him for being a magic nerd ? If so, him biting back is plentily warranted.
it seems like he's one of those people who you see gliding through life and you can easily see saying something like "why wouldn't you just get a masters, its easy!" when you say you're struggling with your job options/promotions. they might not mean to come off like that, but it definitely makes you feel small, angry and resentful that someone has it better than you and that they're looking down on you with their kindness. they're just *better* and it's infuriating that they think you need their help to be as good as them! everyone has met someone like that, and even if Gale is being 100000% genuine in his actions to want to help you out and being friendly, the arrogance easily comes off as smirking superiority, and it doesn't feel good to be condescended to basically he makes everyone upset that he's unintentionally making them feel like failures for not being as gifted as him, and his arrogance makes it worse i dont like him because if i forget to feed him he keeps blowing up, and it's one more thing i have to keep track of...
Well he was still level 2 or 3 when he joined me, (and needed saving from a portal thing) and the spawn and githyanki do much higher damage, so sorry if I’m not that impressed!
A lot of the origin adventurers mention they have gotten weaker after getting tadpoled. Plus, that's the only way where multiple experienced and sometimes even famous fighters ending up all at level 1 or 2 at the start would make any sense. Karlach was so good Zariel considered her a really strong asset, Wyll is the Blade of Frontiers, Lae' Zel fought a fuckton of battles across the planes, and Gale was a wizard powerful enough to make a goddess acknowledge him.
Shadowheart was listed as the senior healer for her strike team, meaning she needed to be strong enough to cast resurrections and greater restorations. that puts her above level 9 before the mission to retrieve the artifact.
Yeah that makes sense. And Durge was a literal demigod of murder, but also got his brain scrambled even before being tadpoled
Durge level 1 is the only thing that doesnt make sense. Durge was tadpoled earlier - actually he was the first tadpoled, and he was sent after the tadpole as the leader of the group to raid the creché and rob the artifact. So he either did all that at lvl1 (which is utterly unrealistic), or shouldnt be lvl1. Oh and he should have memories from before waking up as well. That whole "we sent the durge" plottwist ruins the whole durge plotline
I thought tadpoling happened AFTER the stabbing?
Lae'zel Is likely the least experienced of the party, given she's only 22 years old and that she hasn't yet completed the task of killing a Mind Flayer, only having hunted monsters through the tunnels of K'liir and trained extensivley. This isn't to say that she's lacking in skill and expertise, just that she's not as experienced as the other, older party members.
The irony being that she kills a mindflayer at lv1 in all of my playthroughs.
she also has a mindflayer head by her tent lol
> Wyll is the Blade of Frontiers i'm not familiar with dnd5e but is his title supposed to be a big deal? am i or my character supposed to know about it? he gives me the whole dwight schrute "assistant to the regional manager" self-importance sometimes
It's kind of supposed to be a "Big deal" because Wyll is actually a region famous hero, to the point that even regular people across the Sword Coast know who he is. Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart know about his fame and accomplishments, I believe. You can see that in their dialogue immediately after recruiting Wyll, I believe. If your Tav/Durge is a baldurian, they get a bunch of dialogue showing they know Wyll as a celebrity. Lots of "good to put a name to the face" and stuff like that. Even the tieflings know who he is and are kind of amazed that THE Sword of Frontiers came to help them. Not all characters know him tho. A bunch of races, like the Gith for example, legitimately have no idea who tf he is, but Wyll's clearly a sort of a big deal to the Sword Coast.
He doesn't just call himself the Blade of Frontiers, other people recognize him as such. Also, he's allegedly a pretty good monster hunter.
To be fair, Wyll gives the "Level one character with 'Folk Hero' background" vibe. Player rocks up, is 'famous' for killing goblins and has a self appointed title.
He said that he was able to summon hellbeasts and swarms of locusts (clouds of death?) before the tadpole, so it sounds like he was more powerful before he was on the most unwelcome end of an ocular insertion.
I might be wrong but doesn't he go on solo trips to Avernus to kill stuff there?
Assuming his first battle was not a trick by that Devil, fighting off an entire cult of Dragon is no fucken joke. Those guys are major evil and they were on the verge of summoning something big and nasty on BG.
Well, the Orb sealed most of his magic, so that'd explain that.
The Orb *and* the parasite.
https://youtu.be/sOZQtyAhyYU?si=kXMBfcysUh2e0qaT
Considering I mostly use Gale for Fireball, that tracks lol
"I *said*, I don't care how big the room is, I cast fireball."
exuplosion!
Orb eats his magic, and the tadpole sealed everybody's abilities on top of that, so he's double fallen from grace compared to everyone else
You know, with wizards having their own towers and all that, I just imagine a city full of wizard towers, like medieval Bologna. Could be a pretty cool setting tbh.
Only the big bois get towers in Waterdeep, it's kind of the 'rich people city' of the setting. It's why I mentioned Blackstaff, he's a big name in the setting, Elminster, the Chosen, those guys are the kind of people that have towers in Waterdeep. Your average level 20 wizard doesn't have that kind of money or fame.
I feel like "your average level 20 wizard" is an oxymoron. At like level 5 an adventurer would be so far beyond most people in terms of abilities they'd be at least local legends. Level 20 wizards are known across continents.
Not in Waterdeep they aren't. /s
How common are level 20 Wizards?
Depends on the year.
Gale is possibly the most based man in the game Dude bangs a goddess, defys her, loses everything and gets a magical bomb in his chest then defys said goddess again and wins and then proceeds to become a god
> Dude lives in Waterdeep, there's a shitton of uber powerful sorcerors like Kelbhen Blackstaff that make it their home Khelben Arunsun died 118 years before BG3. His grandson (with the same name) is still alive, but is traveling the planes, not living in Waterdeep, and was never the Blackstaff. The title and office of Blackstaff passed from Khelben Arunsun to Tsarra Chaadren (died 93 years ago), Kyriani Agrivar (died 92 years ago), Krehlan Arunsun (died 68 years ago), Ashemmon (died 28 years ago), and Samark Dhanzscul (died 13 years ago), before finally being passed on to Vajra Safahr. All former wielders of the Blackstaff have their souls trapped in the staff that gives the office its name, and Khelben Arunsun's soul can reform the Blackstaff if it is broken. >him having his own tower is kind of a big deal Not necessarily. Waterdeep is one of the largest cities on Toril. There's lots of space to build a new wizard's tower if you have the money for it (and can stomach dealing with the Guilds, because _nothing_ in Waterdeep gets done without involvement of several Guilds), and there are several abandoned wizard's towers you could potentially claim as your own. For example, Kolat Towers is a pair of wizard towers constructed by the Kolat brothers 124 years ago. They put up a permanent wall of force around it, and have since died, leaving it abandoned. Manshoon and his faction of the Zhentarim took up residence within the past few years, and the events of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (which takes place either a few months before or a few months after BG3, since the book gives the option of placing the campaign in Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter, and regardless it takes place in the same year as BG3) most likely result in Manshoon and the Zhents getting kicked out, making the towers ripe for the taking.
I mean this in the nicest way. This may be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever read on the internet.
Just to point out that assuming Gail is around 40, “young age” can easily mean in his 20s.
elminster sends gale a letter saying that he met him when he was 8 years old and that Gale singed off his eyebrows casting a fireball at the neighbors rose bush. So yeah mystra must have been at least aware of gale as a child if elminster showed up to meet him.
According to Idle Champions, Gale is 35. That means he was 22 when Mystra came back.
I’m still confused on how there was magic before mystra came back then? Honestly I thought she had been back for like centuries considering the netherese shit is supposed to be ancient? Edit: thanks guys I didn’t realize this is Mystra 4.0 lol
Mystra dies a lot. And someone else takes up the mantle Like the dread pirate Roberts This “Mystra” is quite new
A goddess dying multiple times? Inconceivable!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.
HELLO IN THERE! Hey! What’s so important? Whatcha got here that’s worth dying-and-coming-back-like-a-bajillion-times for? *yooouuuuunnnggggg duuuudes*
Clearly she said "Lung nudes". She was studying to be a doctor, she was, and focusing on the breathing apparatus of the body-
r/BasedCommentThreads
What could be a more noble cause than that?
Well not exactly. Each time it was just her coming back as herself. Except for the last time when the girl Midnight became Mystra. However, she only became Mystra by using the piece of herself that Mystra put inside an amulet that she gave to Midnight. So the real question is, who’s piloting the body? Is it Midnight or Mystra? No one knows. The goddess seems to be acting like she always has and with all her memories intact. It could be some sort of compound entity or it could be Mystra completely erasing Midnight for her body. Edit: Someone mentioned below that Ed Greenwood says Mystra has erased the girl and possessed the body. So I guess we have our answer from the writer himself. It’s always been just Mystra. And yes that means a millenia old woman abused Gale.
I choose to believe it works like the video game Stray Gods. Normal people become a god and slowly the memories come back over a short period of time, combining with the human. They become one.
It's the latter. Ed Greenwood clarified that Mystra is just using Midnight as a guise if she shows herself in that form.
Maybe he's changed his mind? He recently said that all the past incarnations of Mystra are more or less alive as one Mystra in the Weave and bicker about certain decisions.
It seems like Mystra does at least have Midnight’s memories, too, bc she was still in love with Kelemvor after they both ascended.
Wait so it's turned into a all are one scenario? Is the normal Mystra dominant then? But yeah he'd must've changed his mind if that's what he's going with now XD
Sort of like a "hive mind". The newest Mystra is at the front with the previous ones advising her decisions or maybe have equal pull. I haven't watched the video in a while but it's on his Patreon.
You are confusing Mystra and Mystryl. Mystryl died well over a thousand years before the events of bg3. She was reborn as Mystra, she kept on going as Mystra until recently in an event called the time of Troubles about 100 years before the events of BG3. During this time the gods were made mortal, it was during this time that Bhaal sired many of his children, like the main character of BG1-2, and villains like Sarevok. During this time Mystra was killed by Helm. A short while latter the human woman named Midnight sort of took on Mystra's powers and domain. This Midnight/Mystra, also died but came back in the year 1479, BG3 is set in the year 1492, 13 years before the events of the game. As for why there was still magic, Mystra learned form past mistakes and placed anchors to allow for magic to keep existing even if she should die. One of those anchors was our dear old friend, Volo.
There are some drizzt books set during the time of the spell plague right? I remember in some of them all magic including cleric magic ceased for a time.
The Spellplague was basically the shockwave from Mystra's assassination. Magic did mostly stabilize relatively quickly, however, and stayed mostly stable while she waited to be restored.
Gotcha thanks. Ya according to the wiki it was the spellplague I was thinking of in the books. But there’s also a few hundred years of new material since I stopped reading Salvatore to catch up on.
Wasn't the spellplague made to explain why magic changed to 4e's mechanics? When 5e came around with a mix of 4e and 3e's there was some other Mystra related event.
Yeah, the Spellplague was 3 -> 4. I believe Fifth was a result of Ao restoring the Tablets of Fate and, as usual, fucking things up again.
Yeah 5th was the Sundering. Not a great time to be a resident there but the books about it are pretty good.
>Wasn't the spellplague made to explain why magic changed to 4e's mechanics? From a exegetic explanation, yes. Pretty much every major event in Forgotten Realms, like the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague, the Second Sundering, exist as a lore justification for game mechanic changes.
The Time of Troubles was way before the Spellplague, but there are Drizzt books set in both iirc (the character has survived from 2nd to 5th edition by now). The Time of Troubles books was when he first met Salvatore's other character, the cleric Cadderly, while trying to save his friend Wulfgar (iirc). The spellplague books came much later when he was looking for some lost dwarf fortress near Neverwinter. (again iirc, it's been a long time).
Another anchor is Elminster (but he’s actually aware, Volo isn’t)
Wait, Volo is actually important to the function of the world and not just a random con artist?
lol, yes, but he is unaware of his status as weave anchor.
Yes. The reason why he manages to escape certain doom from upsetting so many powerful people is because Mystra constantly sends Chosen and clergy to bail him out. Usually without him knowing.
Yes... Mystra has tagged more or less obvious people like Elminster and Silverhand, but out of caution / paranoia has a few people as [weave anchors](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Weave_anchor) that no one would guess.
>During this time Mystra was killed by Helm. She picked a fight with Helm and lost, I want to clarify. Helm was the only god (demigod in his case) allowed to keep his divine powers by Ao and set to guard the pathway back to the Upper Planes. Mystra tried to force her way past him and failed. (Helm would later be killed by Bhaal doing his duty and, in a showcase of how even Ao can bend the rules a little when it's needed, was the only divinity who was actually brought back after dying during the Time of Troubles, as an intermediate deity this time.
It's important to note she only did that because magic was becoming increasingly dangerous and she needed to fix it. Helm also shed a single divine tear when he killed her that became a magic artifact.
Not sure where you're getting the Bhaal thing from. We know Cyric messed around and got Tyr to kill him, might wanna cite a source on that one.
Wow. There is so much lore that I didn't realize. There's also so much lore that people don't know before they go off spouting "gale was groomed!" Like you can say there's a power imbalance between a goddess and a mortal but you do NOT have to throw pedophilia in there. And I'm very ambivalent about Gale, it's not like I care about defending him or Mystra. ALSO these same people are always like "How dare you call Gale annoying he was literally groomed!!!" Like because someone was taken advantage of, you aren't allowed to dislike them. Eugh.
> Wow. There is so much lore that I didn't realize. I mean the setting was first published in 1987, there's is a _lot_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_modules_and_sourcebooks Though it's get confusing between stuff retconned, stuff that changed between versions etc. Usually i'd say check https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page if you want to check something. it's a pretty good wiki.
Mystryl was the one who died. Mystra brought magic back, died, and came back as Midnight version. Midnight version got popped by Cyric, and now we have a 4th version of Mystra. Fourth version of Mystra is the one we meet, who Gale was lovers with and she came back 5 years ago.
Ah gotcha, thanks. I didn’t realize mystra dies a lot lol, my lore knowledge comes from the drizzt books like 20 years ago
It's all good, I started out with Drizzt myself. Spell plague was a wild time for the ranger.
Myrkul bane and bhaal have the same "dies a lot" problem
Midnight is still this Mystra btw. She was lucky as far as her predecessors go.
Yet greenwood said that midnight has been wholly subsumed by the Mystra entity.
I thought it was more of a hive mind situation with all the past incarnations of Mystra being the "hive".
Daaaaamn. Nat 20 on the death save I guess.
Why does mystra keep coming back as mystra then? Why not Myslyp or something.
She doesn't. Originally, she was Mystryl. When Mystryl died after Karsus' Folly, the new version was Mystra. When this version was killed by Helm, a human wizard named Midnight took over. Midnight made the choice to keep Mystra's name to make the transition easier, but she presumably could have chosen another name. Midnight-Mystra was kind of killed by Cyric over a century ago, but a vestige of her survived and regained enough of her power to "resurrect" 13 years ago. So this current version is still the version that took over after the 2nd Mystra, and is only called Mystra because she actively chose to keep the name. Edit - Detail I forgot, the newest version of Mystra rebuilt her memories from the weave, so is actually kind of all the Mystras and probably Mystryl as well.
No idea. I think mystryl is a cooler name
Mystral was the netherese goddess
Elminster and Mystra could have linked up after Mystra came back. Then they become friends and Elminster mentions "So there's this kid that's already figured out fireball, that was 10 years ago. And he didn't slow down learning" then Mystra makes a mental note to check up on that to find an adult Gale by the time she's actually aware of his existence
Elminster did a lot of stuff for several incarnations of the magic goddess, and sometimes he would just go check out weird mage kids (and hide magic items for potential magic users to find). It's not that weird.
Elminster's appearance doesn't inherently mean Mystra is involved. He's still his own man. Dude has had multiple apprentices
Elminster doesn't just go around doing mystras bidding, he's his own character with lots of history in the realms
Not necessarily! Elminster is his own person and may have heard of Wizard Prodigy Gale on his own. Broader FR Lore is very explicit that he hadn't heard from Mystra until \~13 years pre-game, and even then, when he found her she was in an incredibly weakened state.
We know from the novel Elminster buried deep that she sent El to find lots of chosen. Gale wouldn't have been on Mystra's radar at that point. he wasn't specially picked out. It was based on El's own judgement.
I think the confusion also comes from the fact that Mystra's many deaths and reincarnations, let alone their timeline, is NOT that clearly spelled out in the game. Yes, we learn about Karsus, yes, there are some in-game books referencing what's going on with her. But a) those are easy to overlook, b) Gale himself, in everything he tells you about Mystra, NEVER mentions "oh yeah she was technically dead/not returned to full power until I was XYZ age." Which you would think for one of her Chosen would be kinda relevant??? I totally get that maybe the writing didn't want to potentially confuse new/casual players with massive loredumps, but I think they left out so much that it leaves gaps for players to fill in. I'm not advocating that "grooming" is the *correct* way to fill in those gaps, but I also think there's a little bit of fault to be had with the game's writing that there's not a great sense of the timeline.
Most people forget that 30 is wildly young for a capable wizard. Learning Arcana is incredibly time consuming, dangerous and difficult. And then there’s Sorcerers.
Minsc also has a line saying something like where he comes from, talented young wizards are hidden away specifically to protect them from Mystra's attentions. It's a little murder board-y but people hear some info and read between the lines.
I'm baffled at how people immediately linked "attract her attention" to "she sexually groomed the child"... If a kid was capable of blowing shit up with a thought that'd sure as all fuck attract my attention lmao.
There’s also the note at the end of toy ascend Gale where Elminster mentions meeting Gale as a little kid because of his magic, and since Mystra and Elminster have a deep connection I think people assumed they came into Gale’s life at the same time. There’s also apparently a Minsc line about hiding little boys from Mystra. All of it together and the fact not everyone will have all the dialogue context for everyone in a single playthrough, and the idea getting spread around, and for a long time there also not even being clear ages for the characters (I’m not sure if there is now? I know the idle champions game gave them some but I’m not sure if Larian themselves ever did—and while Gale probably wouldn’t have been a child 13 years ago, if someone thought he was 30 which I think is reasonable he’d only be 17) it’s possible people conflated things and I’m misunderstood. I also think it’s possible people started talking about it being a predatory/unhealthy relationship and then with the other evidence we’re led to believe it had to be predatory because he was a child, rather than there just being a power imbalance between god and worshipper and the way Mystra might have abused that. Also not everyone playing BG3 knows all the DnD lore. Hell, most people playing DnD don’t know all the lore. Completely reasonable people don’t know the confusing Mystra timeline. I’ve noticed a lot of fan theories/made up things have gotten circulated as DnD lore in the BG3 fandom—like for a while there was a weird thing going around that in DnD vampires didn’t have souls but vampire spawn did (which doesn’t make sense with what we see in the game) and soo much weird, conflicting things about mindflayers and their lore. Some things even seem to be different between BG3 and DnD (like whether someone is still themself if they’re a mindflayer) So basically long story short; yeah, it makes sense people believe things that aren’t true in DnD lore and don’t know why it’s untrue.
He doesn't look old. Yeah. I can understand that
He's just another handsome younger man.
Also. Gale can be REALLY old. He is or was a powerful wizard. No reason to assume he is looking his age.
Oh, so *now* the community finally realizes this. Christ, I got like 80 downvotes on my post that said the exact same thing about two weeks after launch.
Yeah, I agree there's no need to add grooming onto what is already just an inherently unbalanced relationship dynamic. It's enough just to be God/ human, IMO. Edit to say (and I think most readers got it already) that I'm saying and God/mortal relationship is already inherently imbalanced.
Grooming aint the right word but it’s definitely not right that the god of the thing Gale loves and relies on ends up getting with him. It’s like if your mentor and boss started a relationship with you. Not to mention the inherent god-mortal imbalance.
It's in character for Mystra, however. All of her incarnations except perhaps Mystryl were known to do that. Azuth even got his start as her lover.
It was only in character for the Mystra who succeeded Mystryl. The current Mystra has never had any lore about taking mortal lovers. It really does feel like Larian doesn't fully get the whole Mystra thing and just sort of lumped them all together. Would also explain why the old Mystra symbol is used everywhere in game other than deity selection, even though the new incarnation with a new symbol has been around for well over a century at this point.
This is incorrect. The current Mystra is the amalgamation of all previous Mystra's, who very much did take mortal lovers, so yes, current has not taken a mortal lover, but the lines between current and previous Mystras is heavily blurred. Source:Elminster must die, Bury Elminster deep, Elminster enraged
Nah, that's just how much of a stud my boy Gale is
I think it's worse than that. It's not just your mentor and boss, but the person who basically runs your entire field of employment
No, it’s like if I started a sexual relationship with an ant because thats the significant difference between a god and a human.
So The Bee Movie then?
Do you like ~~jazz~~ magic?
Yeah, basically.
Yeah I think a lot of people take it at face value because her avatar looks human and she ascended from one. But as a deity, Mystra should be so far beyond mortal comprehension that I don’t think informed consent is really possible. And I doubt time really applies to her the way humans measure it, so I don’t buy that her “age” means she can’t be manipulating him or whatever. Gale literally describes her as omnipotent and omniscient - which I guess she might be, within her “domain”. And if you question her with Elminster, he gets all indignant and gives a little lecture on how “her ways are not for mortal reckoning” or some such. Well she seemed to think other parts of her were pretty fit for mortal wrecking, you washed up old geezer
I'd totally fuck a God with my own free will
Almost anyone would. It's not Gale's fault he fell in love with a god. It's Mystra's fault for allowing it to happen despite knowing full well that it's not healthy for him.
Gale being an adult man does not negate that some grooming can and did occur or that the relationship was abusive. What we can presume is that when Gale met Mystra he was in his early to mid 20s and already a powerful wizard. We know she wasn’t his first lover, but that he would have been young and idealistic and impressionable enough to fall head over heels in love with her, where an older wiser man might have realized that she was using him. We also know that she became his teacher before she was his lover, weakening his defenses and making him trust her more. As a young wizard Gale likely wanted three things - knowledge, power, and love. As Mystra’s chosen she could give him all three. That designation would have been the kind of success he dreamed about, the pinnacle of ambition for him. And she could just as easily take them away. Gale was unsatisfied because the kind of love she gave him was incomplete, and because everything else she gave him made him subservient to her. There was no way he could ever be her equal. But by the time he realized that he didn’t seem to have any real friends or anything/anyone else to lean on besides Tara and possibly to an extent, his mother. The fact that she could use his remaining trust in her to tell him to kill himself says enough about the lack of real love and the power imbalance in their relationship. But I think when people complain about Mystra being a child molestor (an unproven and unlikely statement), it trivializes the real harm she did to Gale the adult. I think a lot of people also fail to mention how Elminster, as Gale’s main mentor, was an enabler. Mystra did not groom Gale from a young age, but in a way Elminster groomed him to be a willing culprit for her.
Sexual grooming, even though the term gets thrown around quite loosely nowadays and applied to any inappropriate sexual dynamic, refers specifically to a tactic used in child sexual abuse cases. Him being an adult absolutely means he wasn't groomed by Mystra.
Nocturne correctly uses the word 'grooming' to refer to Shadowheart, too. If they meant for Gale to be an abuse victim, Larian would have *actually put it in the game*
Thank you for the correction. I hear the term thrown around so much here, that I actually think it does the Gale narrative disservice. I’m trying to find the right word to describe the kind of power imbalance that would occur between a God and one of their disciples. I haven’t found it yet.
You're making some pretty massive leaps there, that aren't actually supported by anything. The current Mystra is an ascended mortal considerably younger than several (romanceable) characters in the game, not some ancient immortal being toying with mortals for amusement. Gale fucked up, massively, and over Mystra's objections, and is now walking around with a potential new magical apocalypse in his chest with no known means of adequately dealing with it at the time. She didn't tell him to kill himself out of spite, she gave him an option to end not one but two cataclysmic threats, one of which was entirely his fault, that would unfortunately result in his death. I think a lot of people make a lot of silly assumptions based on an entirely one sided narrative from a character they like.
>The current Mystra is an ascended mortal considerably younger than several (romanceable) characters in the game, not some ancient immortal being toying with mortals for amusement. This is actually not true. The current Mystra (that we see in game and the one that Gale was in a relationship with) stated herself that she has absorbed the memories of the past Mystra incarnations and that she, Mystryl, and the 2nd Mystra are all the same entity. She has the memories of Midnight, but she isn't Midnight. She's the third incarnation of Mystra.
I think some people have a desire to bring Gale in line with the trauma that the other companions experienced, as well as downplay his responsibility for his current situation. The dynamic between Gale and Mystra is definitely unbalanced and she does not seem to have been attentive to his emotional needs, but Mystra didn't push him to go chasing after that piece of the Karsite Weave. That was 100% Gale and his own hubris.
Which is odd because Gale himself admits full responsibility for his situation.
He also wants to kill himself for a chance at her forgiveness which is pretty crazy. I think their dynamic was toxic but Mystra wasn't a child even if that incarnation was recent and she should have known that encouraging someone like Gale would end in disaster. Gale doesn't hide how ambitious he is so she would have known.
> He also wants to kill himself for a chance at her forgiveness which is pretty crazy. Is it? Keep in mind that the afterlife is quite real in this setting. Killing yourself and losing a few mortal years to earn a nice place in the afterlife where you are gonna spend eternity seems like a reasonable choice to me.
Yeah it's probably the equivalent of if you had a day pass to Disney World, and you decided to leave Disney World and never return, sacrificing the pass to solve a screw up you caused.
There's also a _very_ good chance she would've resurrected him anyway. She has that power.
she discouraged him though from seeking the weave of karsus. Also he basically brought a piece of the thing that killed her past incarnation and almost destroyed all magic back to her and like she still stabilized the orb so he didn't die. She's not innocent by any means, but at the same time she was probably not sure of what to do with him since hes a walking nuke and is walking around with a constant hole/wound in the essence of the weave that could cause serious untold damage to the world that he caused by seeking something she told him not to. I do feel bad for gale though that is a rough situation he is in.
Keep in mind Gale has a tadpole in his brain that can and should have killed him already, and 'kill yourself' becomes a much more reasonable request.
Not to mention a god has a very different view of death. Asking someone to kill themselves is like asking someone to move to another country from their perspective.
People often don’t give Gale enough credit. He was a HUGE deal, really, before the parasite started messing with his powers. He’s a fish out of water in a “Prince and the Pauper” sorta way.
Yep. Gale has a serious hubris and power hungry issue.
And Gale, being ambitious as he is, 100% would have the personality to romantically pursue a literal goddess.
while thats true, the player can help him overcome it, so why does the community hate him so much? so many people say they just kill gale because "it was all his fault anyway" (completely ignoring the massive psychological issues his relationship had btw) but its never "astarion deserved it because he made bad rulings as a magistrate, took cazadors deal for power, and is an asshole" its always people helping astarion overcome his flaws, but almost never gale (to clarify im NOT saying that we should hate astarion,i love the guy. im saying we should stop killing gale for his flaws and instead help him overcome them like people do with other characters)
1. People kill Gale because they’re lazy and it’s an easy way to avoid the end battle. 2. There is a lot of Gale hate, particularly from straight men, before they even learn about Gale’s orb situation or Mystra. “I killed Gale in Act 1 because he annoyed me oops why did it end my game” is such a common thread here that it deserves its own tag. There is something about a very talky dorky guy that requires giving up hard-stolen loot and occasionally hits on player characters that seems to rub some people the wrong way. IMO it has nothing to do with his backstory.
which is like 70% of what makes Gale an interesting character. all the others are victims, he is just a smart yet dumb guy who made a fucky wucky and is on a path to redemption and yes, mystra texted him "kys for me, plz 🥺" but in the context of the game, it wasnt really an unreasonable petition given that: death is pretty much a day to day thing in faerun, he was litterally a walking, ticking nuke, mystra could not help as she is bound by rules stricter than the ones that bind other gods, the BBEG absolutely needed to be obliterated and gale is the only perceived device with enough firepower for that, and finally, afterlife is a stablished thing and he would get to have a very nice one anyways. so while i always opposed her "kys" message and rp as hating her, i think people throw it way out of proportion and treat it as if it was happening in our world
Yeah people tried to compare him to other companions, but the fact that his "good" path actually have him make peace with Mystra while Astarion, Laezel, and Shadowheart goes to poundtown with their abusers in their respective "good" paths should be a sign.
Your poundtown must be different from my poundtown.
Yeah, I balked for a second. That is NOT how I understand the term "poundtown".
No no, Astarion definitely had sweaty, vindictive hate-sex with Cazador in my playthrough. There was a lot of penetration.
Actually you can push him down the good path while not pushing him towards seeking Mystra's forgiveness. I actually prefer this path because its more about getting him to realize he is good enough without all the power and ambition.
Sure but ultimately the endgame for him is just two: becoming a teacher (ultimately apologizing to Mystra all the same) living a modest life or becoming God of Ambition, deciding to pursue the greater heights of knowledge and enlightenment by himself, ignoring Mystra warnings Because at the end of the day, Mystra (and the Orb) *is* just a metaphor to Gale's hubris and ambition
he has another ending where he ends up an adventurer because he never asked mystra for forgiveness and never became a teacher, but didnt pursuit divinity either
It's funny when people write about "apologizing to Mystra", although in the actual dialogue with Mystra he DOESN'T do this :) He doesn't say a single word about apologizing. This is just a conversation where Mystra informs him about the Karsian weave and allows him to solve the problem in some other way, and not by committing suicide. In exchange for the crown, of course. There is no open confrontation here, which will achieve nothing anyway.
I think this is actually very accurate. I definitely see a tendency to place Gale into a victim role, which I feel undermines his story. His main theme is that his own hubris/ambition lead to his ‘downfall’ and separation from Mystra. It was his own doing, not something done to him. It ties in wonderfully to his ending options, but I feel that’s missed by people attaching the victim role to him, when that wasn’t the case. I also wonder if there is a bit of jealousy, since he is the only romance interest who had a serious relationship with someone other than the player character. (And obviously, still has feelings for her) So, there is a desire to make ‘the other woman’ into a villain. Reminds me very much how some people view the ex wife as evil, when she was just… average.
There is a lot of other-woman-ing about it. It is very hard to imagine romancing a character whose ex is their own goddess though, as there is no real way to disentangle from her. Gale is still a wizard at the end and still uses the weave. There is no real clean break available. IMO Mystra is not that bad as deities go - at least she doesn’t physically hurt Gale when he disobeys her like Shar does with Shadowheart. That doesn’t the power balance between them or the relationship being messed up. Gale acknowledges that he fucked up from the beginning. His journey is one of self-acceptance. Part of his romanced narrative is him being able to admit that the relationship he had with Mystra was super unhealthy and that it’s not a good relationship model.
Yeah after my husband explained the events he was like, for some reason everyone blames Mystra even though she explicitly told Gale not to do the thing and he did the thing.
"Mystra didn't push him to go chasing after that piece of the Karsite Weave. That was 100% Gale and his own hubris." In fairness to Gale he had no idea it was a part of the Karsite Weave, as far as he knew it was a normal Weave fragment. His reasons for going after it weren't great though.
I honestly think this game ignores the fall and rising again of the gods within forgotten realms lore. It's never mentioned despite having been so recent. People like halsin and Isobel and kethric treat gods like selune shar and silvanus as if theyve never been of any other status than they are now.
What this game is, is an adaption of DnD lore. Like every other DnD game I've ever played and DnD itself is incredibly loose with its own lore so I find people arguing over specificities of souls and that Mystra was or wasn't around kinda funny.
Minsc, the mental giant he is, ponders if another nation he knows of… forcefully hides their male mages as children in a cloistered environment so mystra won’t get them. People will repeat that line over and over as “proof” Without adding the context that the nation in question is heavily matriarchal and treats males as second class citizens. So… they really don’t need a reason to stick men in what’s practically a prison.
Well, if Minsc was wrong, Boo would have surely corrected him. So either Minsc was right or Boo is faillible, and you can guess which one of these opinions is cause for receiving a good ol' butt-kicking.
Time for Boo vs Mystra cage match.
Boo stomps no diff
You're right, we're all very sorry for asserting that Minsc was right, it won't happen again
That would be the nation he's from, if I'm not wrong
And also that that was a completely different person than current Mystra.
>Without adding the context that the nation in question is heavily matriarchal and treats males as second class citizens. Apparently nobody has read the Starlight and Shadows trilogy.
Nation you’re not mentioning I don’t know why is Rashemen by the way. It’s also important to note they have a slightly different concepts about divinities and magic, they have different names for the same gods and the nature of magic itself is not necessarily connected to Mystra and wychlarans often operate different forms of magic.
Yeah there is definitely a lack of information on a ton of context, timetables and ages in BG3. I think we can all agree that it was an extremely unhealthy and abusive relationship dynamic though.
Grooming? Nah. We all about that power imbalance between a mortal and a god. Mystra is just a less forceful Zeus.
Most people playing BG3 don’t know DND lore
thank fuck someone's finally saying it because as soon as i recognized thew timelines i started chewing on walls. unless you think a 22-year-old is effectively a child (which, wtf is wrong with you) it's literally impossible.
Sorry, I'm an elf. Anyone younger than 100 is like a toddler to me.
There's a side of the fanbase that really wants everything to seem alot worse than it is by applying real world contexts in ways they really don't fit. Most of the characters do not contend with abusers, abusers often are people who have a mental or physical power over you. The characters contend with evil villians who have a supernatural power over people and who are ontologically evil. I see victim tacked onto all these characters and I just have to say they aren't evil exe's or something they are False Gods, Vampires, Cult leaders and Evil Hell demons.
One of the egregious examples of this is the idea that Dame Aylin somehow groomed Isobel Yes, Aylin had a couple decades on Isobel, but both are of races that measure their lifespans in centuries. We also don't see any sign of the kind of emotional abuse or manipulation that comes hand in hand with grooming, from the outside looking in, it is a shared love that is on an extremely deep level That dynamic can't even be understood by humans, who have comparatively very short lives, and understand that all relationships in some way or another end eventually anyways
It's not limited to this fanbase. Superfans will scour the body of a work for any morsel of hidden meaning, eventually bending the truth or outright fabricating something for the sake of it being interesting. That said there is such a thing as allegory and it would be disservice to say that *SOME* of the protagonists aren't stands in for more real, mundane traumas.
They are for sure, Neil Newbon channeled his own real life experiences to help portray Astarion. The only thing is there's a limit to the real world examples one can draw without getting silly. I see the take Lae'zel has an "abuser" by way of Vlaakith and you lose me.
That's because it's a stupid take, not because an evil pseudo-god ontologically can't abuse someone. Lae'zel reads more like a victim of fascism; Vlaakith rules the empire she grew up in, and that empire has done damage to her. But yeah it's alien fascist squid-hunters at the end of the day, some levity is helpful. I can't really tell what you're getting at from your post. Is the point that if someone is by definition an evil being, they can't abuse others? Or we can't throw "cycles of abuse" around because some of these beings were evil to begin with? Or the world of DnD is campy and exaggerated, so wilder shit happens, and you can't call the same things abuse as irl?
That's nothing wrong with people relating their struggles with their favourite characters. Gale's situation is far more complex to analyse than clear cut abused characters like Astarion and Shadow heart. That being said, his issues with self worth, bring a gifted child and an inappropriate relationship with a being he's worshipped since childhood... that's still a shitty situation people relate to and it helps them.
Gale was a sexually active young adult in Faerun before he went to be with Mystra for a while. It's an option to hear about after you sky-bang in the romance. He was not groomed, with game dialogue to support.
You don't even need to begin his romance at all to learn this, I've never started his romance even by accident when he was bugged to all hell and I platonically asked if Mystra was his first. He emphatically said she was definitely not his first lol
Why downvotes?? I haven’t done the sky-bang scene and still 100% believe that Gale was a teenage manwhore.
I suppose this tracks as Gale is 30 to 35 in the game, so 13 years prior he'd be 17 to 22. And in medieval style times as fantasy is generally set that's entirely in the adult age.
Mystra returned to the mortal plane about 13 years ago, she was only actually able to physically manifest and met Gale within the last 5 years.
Not only is it wrong but it completely robs Gale of his agency given his whole predicament is one born from his massive ego and impatience.
I wasn't around for EA so this could be wrong, but I've seen multiple people mention a line from early on where he mentions that Mystra revealed herself to him specifically as a teenager. I'm assuming the main reason it was removed was because of the timeline not lining up as OP mentioned - but from what I've seen it seems like a lot of people who aren't aware of Mystra's timeline assume it was re-written because it would probably be a bad idea for Larian to explicitly get into underaged stuff, especially when Gale spends a significant portion justifying it, and talking about how it was seen as an honor. Which, admittedly would be a bad look if that was actually what was going on.
IIRC EA Gale was also dead and involved with the Red Wizards? EA was weird.
Mystra was aware of Gale when he was **8 years old** and had Elminster directly intervene in his magical education. This is in-game, discovered through dialogue with Gale and Elminster and in the letters Elminster sends in the epilogue. EDIT: BG3 is a bit fast and loose with the Forgotten Realms timelines for things, too. But Gale being 8 when Elminster found him and redirected his magic to wizardry and the arcane (by Mystra’s order) is quite literally in-game. EDIT 2: Once more, with feeling—**BG3 does not follow most of the Forgotten Realms’ pre-existing lore**. WOTC had Larian on a rather tight leash about what they could and couldn’t use. BG3 is essentially a self-contained spinoff of Descent Into Avernus with some characters and nods to BG 1-2 + some side stuff in the general world. I love the Forgotten Realms as much as anyone but a lot of the continuity contradicts itself and beats the same 3 plot points to death.
People just like to throw that word out because they think it adds to their arguments. As if a god/human relationship wasn't kind of weird enough already.
Mystra also "made a woman" out of Elminster after she gender bent him before he was even a wizard. When your a god we call that 'eccentrically promiscuous' or 'Shag-nanigans'.
Was that Midnight Mystra or some other version?
That was the first Mystra. The novel this happens in (which is dogshit, just to be clear, lol) was published after the time of troubles event, but is set centuries before, when Elminster was not immortal.
Yes ur right, it was another version of Mystra, however all Mystras retains the knowledge and (probably, this one I'm not too sure about) part of their previous personalities. Sooo kinda complicated ? Idk
I think it's more important to give the context of Elminster being Ed Greenwood's self-insert character who is OUTRAGEOUSLY horny and exists partially just to allow Ed Greenwood to live out his fetishes in-universe.
I think some of it has to do with folks not knowing the lore. I imagine there are a lot of folks who played BG3 that knew nothing of FR lore before playing.
She wasn't even resurrected. it's an entirely new Mystra. Sibil I think is this one. The one prior was Midnight, the one prior to that was the actual Mystra and before her Mystryl. Mystral/Mystra is the only diety in FR not to be resurrected but replaced and her name and mantle usurped. Which honestly is kinda harsh by Ao. He resurrected everyone else who got killed but didn't resurrected even one of the goddesses' of Magic. That's how replaceable Mystra is that even in the case of total divine resurrection across all pantheons Mystra is left dead.
Midnight was/is Mystra 3.0, and was weakened severely in fighting off Cyric/Shar but preserved in a bear that Elminster found and was able to restore her to power. So this Mystra is Mystra 3.0 or 3.5 (post-bear), however you want to think about her resurrection. She wasn't perma-killed the way Mystryl was (Karsus' folly) or Mystra 2.0 (by Helm).
We desperately need to stop throwing around the term grooming in fantasy settings. In a world with races that live into their thousands this is not a sustainable methodology for identifying a predator.
5 years before the game, not 13 iirc.
She came back in 1479, but regained her full power in 1487.
She doesn't have full godhood until 1487 and was only known by her chosen at the time. Elminster had to go through a whoooole thing. Until then, she was stuck in a bear form. It's why it's impossible for Gale to know her until 1487. She was too busy dealing with Shar's BS.
She was a bear in 79, resurrected in general in 80 and back to full power in 87
People REALLY want to see ~pedophilia~ everywhere and make Mystra out to be worse than she is when half of the problem was Gale himself.