#bg3 fandom discourse

[alwachart]

Some people seem to be confused about bg3 companions calling some "canon" and others "optional".

My dudes bg3 is a good crpg, all companions are optional. You can solo the game if you like, you can kill any of them, not recruit them or recruit them all.

I literally killed Shart at the beach once, took the artefact from her dead body and run the whole game without her existing at all. This was my durge having extra urges, it's called roleplay for a reason.

There is no such thing as optional and not optional companions

[cambion-companion]

So a good point was brought up on one of my Raphael poll posts.

What exactly has he accomplished?

The man is a cambion. The outcasts of devil society. Usually such half-breeds are canon fodder for Zariel's armies. Some of them escape that bleak outlook and make something for themselves. However they always remain under the dictatorship of a higher devil. Not Raphael. Who is he beholden to? Himself. That's very unique.

Raphael is the son of an arch devil. You'd think that gives him an advantage. Perhaps. I also think it is a severe detriment. Because he is, quintessentially, a bastard.

Raphael has been hustling and busting his devil ass to accumulate power and wealth all his own. He can even turn into an ascended fiend form which is literally unheard of in cambion circles (thanks Larian).

I mean hell, his own father had to send a personal incubus to spy on Raphael and prevent him from power grabbing so much. Did it work? NO!

As if his stats aren't enough of a giveaway, this guy isn't your normal half-fiend.

I'd also be remiss not to mention cambions do not increase in power the same way normal devils do. For all intents and purposes, they're stuck. They do not advance. Raphael has.

[bloodandtheweave]

The Fandom: Writes essays about why they like Astarion & Gale together. Including the parallels between them, the banter, and screenshots to back it up.

The Fandom: pEoPlE oNlY ShIp BlOoDwEaVe beCausE tHeY are TwO wHiTe mEn

No one is being forced to like Bloodweave, yet it’s exhausting to see the worst continually assumed about those who do. There’s a big difference between thoughtful critique and declaring that people must have bad motives for enjoying a particular pairing. Too often the line “Everyone can ship what they want” is immediately followed by “Well, not that one.”

What really rankles is the double standard. Astarion isn’t a perfect fit for Wyll, Halsin, or Karlach either—his arc is a rocky journey of redemption that naturally clashes with other personalities. He has minimal chemistry with Halsin (who is also white), and many of his exchanges with Wyll are quoted out of context, and these two ships are also pairing both characters with men while ignoring their relationships with the female characters. Yet these “problems” only seem to matter to people when he’s paired with Gale.

Critics rarely offer an alternative for Gale, either. The fandom is obsessed with sorting M/M ships into a hierarchy—especially those involving Astarion—without applying the same scrutiny across the board. You could just as easily claim that Wyllstarion fans are misogynistic fetishists for sidelining Karlach, or ignoring his clear parallels (and flirtation) with Shadowheart, simply because pairing two men feels more “progressive.” But that wouldn’t be fair, and neither is presuming ill intent from Bloodweave fans.

Constantly belittling Bloodweave and making sweeping generalisations about its shippers creates a hostile environment. Saying “it is boring” or “it is racist” as though those are objective truths—and not personal opinions—shuts down genuine discussion. Worse, it discourages people from sharing art and fiction, which ironically makes the fandom feel smaller and more monotonous.

That hostility also skews the tag landscape. Astarion is extremely popular, so naturally anything he’s in will dominate searches. If fans produced as much content for Wyll/Karlach, Gale/Halsin, Bladeweave, or other combinations, Bloodweave wouldn’t appear to be “clogging” the tags. Gale fans, for instance, enjoy Bloodweave as their enemies‑to‑lovers fix; not everyone wants the even harsher dynamic of Gale/Minthara. Everyone has their own reasons for favouring certain tropes, and they’re not automatically negative.

Instead of policing tastes, why not channel that energy into creating or boosting content for the pairings you love? Celebrate Wyllach, Bladeweave, Wyll/Shadowheart—anything you feel deserves more attention���rather than endlessly moaning about Bloodweave. We’re all here because we care about these characters; letting others enjoy their favourites without judgement can only make the fandom richer and more welcoming for everyone.

[muchtooold2]

I’ve recently discovered the part of the internet deeply devoted to defending Mystra in BG3 and I get she’s a long standing lore character but it feels like we played a wildly different game.

And I just know in my heart of hearts that if Mystra were male and Gale were female I wouldn’t have to keep reading some variation of “well it’s fine she did nothing to stabilize a ticking time bomb in the chest that would have wiped out an entire city because it needs to feed on the weave despite no real evidence this actually hurts her at all” or “actually it’s Gale’s fault he tried to return what he thought was part of her to her because he was an grown adult who should have known better despite the fact she did not tell him and he did not know it would have hurt her and is horrified to learn this in act 3.” Like, this isn’t me woobifying him. I love Gale and know he can be self-absorbed, his ego is big, and if left unchecked his personality leads him to become the literal God of Ambition. But he’s not like a power hungry schemer. His ambition and desire for knowledge (things Mystra likes!) got the better of him and since he is also insecure he decided to try to do an ambitious thing and prove himself to a goddess. He knows and admits that’s on him! But he (and players) are still allowed to be mad at the fact he’s kicked to the curb to maybe blow up a city to learn a lesson Mystra does not bother explaining until she’s literally forced to because he did not kill himself on her command. And people are allowed to find their relationship wildly inappropriate and toxic and abusive because based on the game you play, it is.

I don’t think it’s bonkers to say that in this situation, Mystra—a literal goddess who met Gale when he was probably somewhere between 17-22 years old—was wrong to have a relationship with him, that it was a toxic and abusive one and that is on her as the entity with more power in every way, that she was petty for letting him languish for a year and being willing to potentially let him kill a whole city while he was trying not to die by eating magic shoes, and that telling him to kill himself is a dick move. And people are like “well according to DnD lore she’s just protecting herself and she was only resurrected after he was a teen” are doubly annoying because bg3 doesn’t give a shit about the canon timeline considering Durge would be like…10 if they cared.

And I know it sucks if you like love Mystra in DnD lore and this doesn’t align with her or whatever but bg3’s themes of “hurt people hurt people” and “power over others is something easily abused if you’re careless” also applies to Mystra. With the sort of exception of Selûne, the game also feels pretty clear on the idea that gods Do Not and Cannot Care About You. The game you play is showing a toxic relationship (and I will say she is not as bad as some people say she is, like she is a goddess operating with some blue-orange morality) and if the genders were flipped we would not be having this discourse.

[sisifroggy]

Every time an Astarion fan makes an angry post about Wyll and every time a Wyll fan makes an angry post about Astarion, I go back into the game and make them kiss

[queen-rhaenyras]

If you don't like the idea of Gale being a father in YOUR game with your Tav or just with any character in general, then, girly by all means don't headcanon it. But actively trying to gatekeep the character, by shaming those who do, well....why be an asshole?

So listen, Gale girlies who want Gale to be a dad, (if this doesn't apply to you then scroll). Gale absolutely has dad energy. I've seen a lot discussion about the "I'm not exactly father material" line he says during act 3 and I'm not the first to say this, but I'm here to remind you that you can't take everything the companions say at face value, because these are complex characters and it's not always black and white. As others have said before, Gale not only has the orb in his chest at the time, but the tadpole, and your situation with him is uncertain and unstable. Of course he's not going to think of himself as father material in that moment. Why? Because it's something so far out of his reach. Gale has a lot of self-esteem issues, and I can definitely see him wanting to be a dad in the future, but unsure if he would even be a good one, but once he is a father, being the absolute dad of dads. Also saying you're not "parent" material, does not automatically equate to "not wanting to be a parent." These feelings can exist separately.

If I do recall, I did see a scene where Tara mentions something about Gale starting a family? Gale finding normalcy and having the things he could never have with Mystra makes perfect sense for his character, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Gale can definitely be seen as a father and would make a great dad. The people who claim so boldly that he wouldn't want children with Tav, are just projecting and they don't see these characters with nuance, they just hear the character say something in the game, and just decide with a gold medal in mental gymnastics that (you're mistaking his "dad energy" for "mother energy" which is actually just "malewife" energy) and spew their own biases out in "hot take" posts with every intention of ruining things for others. It's mean spirited, and should be ignored.

I see you all with your cute little headcanons, naming your Tav and Gale's children, and some of you with amazing fan art. I've seen you draw your little Tav/Gale families. It's precious and it's sweet. Keeping doing what you're doing, and don't let the gatekeepers bring you down. Seeing Gale as a father is perfectly valid.

K. Bye.

[qwainte]

My absolute LEAST favorite trend among Astarion stans is that they'll bring up their own trauma/abuse in completely innocuous arguments with strangers online in an effort to guilt trip them. I'm truly sorry that you suffered such traumatic events in your life and I hope you're able to heal and live a healthy life, but that's really not going to stop me from finding Wyll and Minthara's hostile party banter towards Astarion funny.

[northlandcleric]

I’m going to finally go on a long ass rant that’s been building up for a while now:

I really fucking love how yall go and say “angry about Astarion kisses for whatever reason,” like yall don’t know.

And to add, these pics are literal datamined dialogue that has been floating around for a while.

And then idk if you’re being deliberately obtuse, but wtf kind of response is this? Yall are just feeding that delusions at this point.

Because yes! We do think Larian is only going to give something to one companion and not the others because that’s all they’ve been doing since release!!

For god’s sake, the company love child and thirst trap of the game has not only gotten extra content(that was confirmed by writer) to fit in perfectly with the Dark Urge origin, but they keep adding more shit for him! He already has a grand total of 9 scenes where 6 of them can be romance. The SENIOR NARRATIVE DESIGNER said they prioritized Astarion over the others.

Meanwhile, we have, on release:

Gale, who is so damned buggy that everybody knows him as the desperate, horny, still caught up on his ex, magical item consumer: 6 scenes with 3 that can be romance.

Wyll, whose romance and story is so fucking short it might as well not exist: 5 scenes with 2 that can be romance.

Karlach, whose story is not even damn finished properly: 4 scenes with 3 that can be romance.

Minthara romance has been bugged since the beginning.

All of these other companions that do in fact exist keep getting neglected, but yall have the audacity to freak out when his kisses are bugged? Heaven forbid.

And aside from the companion neglect, Act 3 is still bugged out. Content was cut in full release to the point there are too many loose ends and quests that go nowhere. And no epilogue.

I’m just tired at this point. Love the game, love most of the characters and even more of the side characters. And I really wish this was talked about further than Tumblr, but any other platform will get you mass attacked.

Anyway, doubt that this will get far, but hope I can at least help start some conversations.

[bg3-bitching]

Hot Take that's gonna get me sent to the gallows:

Of the male companions, Gale is actually the best example of a "messy, imperfect victim".

Astarion is a better example of "thinking they're above perpetuating the cycle of abuse".

[riza-hawks-eye]

There's a lot of talk in fandom spaces about "fangirls take Wyll's attributes on project them on to Astarion!"

And I understand the sentiment with things like putting Astarion's character model in Wyll's dance scene because yeah, it must be annoying to see Astarion get so much content and Wyll get so little and people are still replacing Wyll's romance scenes with Astarion.

But then there are people who'll find any fanon depiction of Astarion being nice to a person's oc and they'll be like: "you're putting Wyll's personailty onto Astarion! If you wanted a prince charming romance you should have romanced Wyll!"

And that, to me, feels like a misreading of both character's romances.

Astarion does have a soft, kinder side and if you romance him (especially in the Spawn ending) that's a side of him that will exclusively come out for your character. I feel like a lot of people who make these types of complaints straight up haven't done the romance themselves.

But for Wyll, it's a bit tiring seeing him get boiled down to uwu unproblematic prince charming. Especially when, like the blade of frontiers act, Wyll leans heavily into this prince charming persona as a way of covering up his perceived inadequacies. People forget just because Wyll isn't as outwardly angsty as Astarion, doesn't mean his character isn't battling with boatloads of trauma. All this talk of being Mr Prince Charming but really Wyll needs someone to take care of him just as much if not more than he'll take care of them.

[mywitchcultblr]

Can people stop doing this?

Look man I'm a person who wrote a ton of essay defending anders from dragon age and even during a heat of the moment when debating (once I debated someone for 5 hours) I never told someone to kill themselves. I get it that you might be feeling passionate about your blorbos but this attitude is cancerous... If you tell other people to kill themselves over a blorbo you need therapy

[bloodandtheweave]

Apologies for the earlier rant—this topic just gets under my skin. The way people talk about Bloodweave is wildly different from how they discuss other ships.

Some dislike Gale, others dislike Astarion, so naturally they’re not keen on pairing them. Others avoid Bloodweave simply because it’s popular or because those two characters don’t appeal to them—and that’s perfectly valid. What isn’t fair is treating popularity as proof the ship “has no substance.”

Which pairing you enjoy often boils down to which dynamic clicks with you—nothing deeper. I’d rather folks just say, “Not my cup of tea,” and move on. Some of us simply like Gale × Astarion; there’s no grand agenda behind it.

The “ship war” over who is best for Astarion is exhausting. Honestly, Gale and Wyll can both suit him, depending on how you read the characters—and not every Bloodweave fan is an Astarion‑centric player. Yet Bloodweave is constantly pitted against Wyllstarion, as if those are the only two valid choices. That ignores Astarion and Wyll's chemistry with other companions—especially the women—and can even slide into fetishisation when the debate fixates solely on M/M options.

Saying Gale and Astarion “hate each other” or “have zero chemistry” feels disingenuous. Critics often ignore or strip context from their banter, while supporters of other ships do the same cherry‑picking to bolster their favourites. In truth, Gale and Astarion parallel each other nicely, and much of their best dialogue only triggers when you’re romancing one of them—so it’s easy to miss if you haven’t played those routes.

No one has to justify disliking Bloodweave, but fans shouldn’t have to defend liking it either. There are no canon pairings in the game; enjoy what resonates and let others do the same.

[messiahzzz]

You’re one of the most annoying people on this site. And that really says A LOT because WOW! Shut the Fuck up about Gale wanting to be a father or not. He never says that he doesn’t want to be one. You projecting things onto him doesn’t make it Canon.

on a serious note: i’m certainly not the one that continuously brings up this topic unprompted. i personally really don’t understand the entire controversy around the topic or why fandom feels the need to rehash this conversation almost weekly. i truly believe that there’s nothing more of value to learn from it, to address, or add to it… yet fandom won’t let it rest.

to once again clarify: what i mean by “gale wanting to be a father isn’t canon” is that there is no evidence/neither hints anywhere in any of the dialogue that support the contrary. characters like h*lsin, w*ll and la*’zel have entire adoption subplots. all of them mention their children explicitly during the epilogue:

narrator: *your soul warms thinking of lily aurora ravengard, your adopted daughter. a treasure of a girl, found at the entrance of the open hand temple - one grey eye, one brown.* w*ll: ah, the girl could melt the staunchest heart. she might even have brought a smile to old withers' face! w*ll: but tonight is for us - and lily's only four months of age, besides. i promise, the temple will keep her in good care.

player: and our little hatchling? is he safe? la*'zel: of course. i have complete trust in our newest allies. xan is in fine hands tonight. la*'zel: what a wonder he is. he will be a fine warrior, if he chooses. or a poet, or an explorer, or a scholar.

h*lsin: being away from it... i cannot help but worry how they will fare in our absence. player: we'll be back before they know it. h*lsin: i hope so. the children shall miss their bedtime tale tonight - though perhaps i can glean a few new stories from our friends here, to make up for it.

even shad*wh*art has a line where she briefly mentions that children might be a possibility for her in the future.

shad*wh*art: and i get to see my parents almost every day - i need to make every moment with them count, after so much was stolen from us. but they're doing well, [...] shad*wh*art: who knows? perhaps they'll have grandchildren before long.

gale in comparison? he has none of that. he remains childfree during the entirety of the game + epilogue. in fact, his line in the epilogue that addresses the topic of grandkids is this one:

tara: this is why mrs. dekarios and i will be waiting an eternity more for grandchildren. nodecontext: self-pitying gale: psst! shoo, tara. nodecontext: shooing away tara like one would a naughty cat.

i already wrote a post about this entire discourse here [x] but to repeat myself once more: all of the dialogue that vaguely addresses the topic of children in any way in regards to gale are these snippets

player: gale… how would you feel about having another person in our relationship? gale: what, like a child? i’m not quite sure i’d consider myself father material, plus our current lifestyle isn’t exactly what i’d call settled…

gale, upon spotting oliver during their game of hide and seek: ah, i have you! just a shame i don’t want you.

gale treating the children the group comes across with respect isn’t an indicator either. this is a courtesy gale extends to everyone he meets. he’s a character that approves of a protagonist who systematically commits good deeds. whether it’s sparing animals, helping without compensation in mind, or aiding children. wanting children to be cared for… and you know… for them not to die is common etiquette that every adult should extend to a child in need. those are not “dad goals!!!” it’s quite literally just basic human decency. gale is genuinely kind and caring to everyone he meets, there is no reason why this also wouldn’t apply to children.

i often see fandom mention his encounter with mol at last light and how excited he is to talk to her. which i think greatly misinterprets the context of the scenario since he didn’t have much of a reaction to mol before either — gale is ecstatic about lanceboard. again evident by his reaction to the party finding the life-sized board during the wyrmway trials, and how he immediately offers to give tav pointers. explaining different approaches to them in enthusiastic detail if they allow him to. the man just really likes lanceboard… as well as being the smartest person in the room.

gale: ah, lanceboard! why, this might just be the highlight of our misadventures to date.

gale: lanceboard happens to be a game with which i have more than a passing familiarity. might i offer a suggestion? nodecontext: gale's a badass lanceboard player, anticipating showing off

if you want to headcanon your tav and gale raising a big family together that is more than fine and no one is stopping you. whatever you want to happen to these two after the storyline of the game is up to your respective fantasies. no one is policing you on what you should do with your own character. go wild and create whatever fan content you wish, no justification required.

yet once again, as there is no mention in canon anywhere — neither in the main game nor the epilogue — that this is something gale would ever want (whether that may mean immediately or somewhere down the line) gale wanting to be a father remains a headcanon. while gale being childfree is explicitly shown in the game, in strict comparison to other companions that either have children by the end of the game or voice the desire to (eventually) have them.

my personal preferences are of no relevance here whatsoever. i care about accurate and correct characterization and will point out inconsistencies/false information no matter the topic. i, for one, want to appreciate these characters in the way they're written, not how i ideally want them to be.

[gameguy20100]

BG3 Fandom logic.

Gale: So I've got a few issues with my ex. It's kind of complicated some would even say she abused or groomed me. I have mixed feelings about it.

Fandom: WOrst person ever! He should kill himself!

Wyll: I sold my soul to save the city I love. Now I struggle between my patrons desire and my devotion to the vow I swore to protect the innocent.

Fandom: Ugh, so boring and fake.

Astarion: So I sold several people into slavery including children. You might think I'd feel guilty about that but I don't, in fact I find slavery hilarious when it happens to other people. Oh also I was a slave myself, due to this I want to kill 7000 people, including children to complete a ritual so evil a literal devil says it's fucked up.

Fandom: Oh poor baby! If you have any issues with this you hate abuse victims and I hope you die!

[thedomesticanthropologist]

I love the sheer wealth of interpretations of Astarion in fandom

- What a cunt

- Useless man in his flop era

- Dominant kink daddy

- Whining sub who wants to be dominated even tho he just escaped that exact situation (this one I am ???? With but u do u)

- Soft gentle soul who heals super fast and suddenly has no bad qualities at all any more and if you bring them up GOD, HE HAD ✨TrAuMa✨ it's EXCUSEABLE (y'all really stretch that one dontcha 😂)

-I see no man just a crusty white dog that's less than 2 feet tall and bites everyone

- A complex and deep character with flaws both because of trauma and despite it, who didn't start out a good man and doesn't end up a Paragon of virtue, who is trying with the person he loves but is very obviously a selfish person at heart who has no experience with altruism and even blatantly resents it, who doesn't want anything taken from him ever again, who wants to survive, be safe, be free, and also be a bit of a shit

-A perfect husband who wants children and a home and to settle down and wear sweater vests (Please all of these are exaggerations don't @ me)

-a BDSM slut who heals his trauma only to go right back to sex 24/7 but it's fine because now he does ✨aftercare✨

-All of the above at once

-None of the above but a secret third thing that only TRUE fans who REALLY GET HIM understand, u wouldn't get it, ugh, it's fine tho ( tell me you haven't seen this, there's always someone like this out there)

- Whatever you add into the reblogs/ tags and replies here! Please make it funny or at least not antagonistic, this is all in jest and good humor, none of these reflect my opinion. Or do they. Who knows 🧐😂😂

[mumms-the-word]

Gale and Mystra (and Mystra, and Mystra...)

I did a rabbit hole deep dive into this a few days ago and I have Thoughts. Prepare for long/researched explanations (and by researched I mean I read a lot of wikis and scraps of lore books/novels)

So Mystra dies in the Forgotten Realms something like three times (the “official” number is wibbly because there are many writers messing with Forgotten Realms lore and they don’t always agree). She dies in -339 DR, and then again in 1358 DR, and then kind of again a few months later. Allegedly she stayed dead until 1479-1480, which is roughly 12 years prior to the events of Baldur's Gate 3, but didn't get her body back until 1487, which is 5 years before BG3, which takes place in 1492 (if we're going by the Baldur's Mouth Gazette year).

So...what do we do with that and the current popular theory that Gale was groomed as a child?

If it sounds complicated, don't worry, it's more complicated than you think. Welcome to my TEDTalk. More under the cut.

Mystryl, the first goddess of magic (like, ever) dies hundreds of years prior to the events of BG3 during the Karsus/Netheril debacle. Karsus tried to steal her deity/power and succeeded only to realize his mortal body/mind couldn’t contain or control that much power. Mystryl sacrificed herself (her essence, her power) to keep it out of Karsus’s incapable hands. The Weave went wonky for an indeterminate but brief amount of time, during which the floating cities of Netheril crashed to the ground. This happens in -339 DR, over ~1700 years before BG3. Gale tells us a brief version of this story in his standard dialogue. It's also established lore in campaign books.

Mystryl was reborn as Mystra (still in -339 DR), and this Mystra lasted for AGES. This Mystra is the mother of all magic, the Mystra we basically think of as BG3’s Mystra. This is the Mystra that met and claimed Elminster as one of her Chosen (later they became lovers, it's a whole thing).

But this is complicated. Because in 1358 DR…she dies too.

Long story short, for a brief moment, the Overgod Ao forced all gods to walk Faerûn in their mortal avatar forms and denied them entry into heavens (this was called the Times of Troubles, very complicated, the point is, gods were walking the earth as mortals). Mystra decided to fight Helm, the god guarding the stairway into the heavens, and got promptly smote.

Smitten? Smited? Whatever. Helm DESTROYED her. Death #2.

This time, Ao chose a mortal girl named Midnight to replace Mystra. He imbued Midnight, a wizard girl who worshipped Mystra, with Mystra's powers (Mystra conveniently left an amulet behind with some of her power contained within). Incidentally, the Weave didn't die this time like it did the first time. Convenient!

Midnight-Mystra lasts less than a year before Shar and Cyric (god of trickery) kill her and the Spellplague happens. The Spellplague is basically 10 years of magic going haywire and the Weave kind of ceasing to exist. Again. It's complicated.

Ignoring that some Forgotten Realms writers insist the Spellplague didn't happen, BG3 says it DID. One book in BG3 states:

In the infamous, calamitous year of 1385 DR, a conspiracy between the goddess of darkness, Shar, and the god of trickery, Cyric, sought to end Mystra's control over the Weave and influence over the realms by cravenly assassinating her. But instead of merely breaking the goddess of magic's dominance, her death threw the Weave into utter chaos and collapse. Magic spells faltered, or failed entirely. Countless spellcasters were killed or driven insane... Toril would face nearly a hundred years of upheaval before Mystra could return once again, reinstated as goddess of magic in 1480 DR, thanks to the efforts of the legendary wizard, Elminster Aumar and the events of the Second Sundering...

(Curiously Gale’s Countermeasure Abberation at the Netherbrain fight is called Spellplague so...do with that whatever you want. I mean, I know that’s the Countermeasure for ANY wizard in the party but it feels particularly interesting for Gale. Also we're going to ignore the Second Sundering in this post because that's a whole different rant, just know that the Second Sundering means the state of the world and the pantheon of gods basically got soft reset and then locked into place. Which is why it was important for Mystra to return before that happened, or else she would have gotten locked out of returning at all.)

As far as I can tell, between 1385 and 1479, Mystra was silent. Maybe dead, maybe not. There's some suggestion that she existed in the Weave, because other than the Spellplague period, the Weave still existed. The fact that the Weave exists separately from Mystra is important mostly because Shar wants to turn it into the Shadow Weave, which she can't do if Mystra is alive and maintaining control over the Weave. And if Shar can't control the Weave even while Mystra is silent for 100ish years, then...well. Mystra must not be dead-dead.

More importantly than Shar Politics, her being maybe-dead for almost 100 years means she wasn't whispering in the minds of her Chosen the way gods like her normally do. The wikis mention a comic ("Lord of the Darkways") where Mystra spoke directly to Elminster's mind, but that's the only instance before 1479. Mystra was SILENT before 1479...or at least, very, very, very quiet.

So what happens in 1479? Well, long story short, according to the novel Bury Elminster Deep, Elminster travels to a cave where there is a bear carrying some Mystra's remaining essence/power. Why a bear? I have no idea. Point is, she speaks directly to Elminster and confirms that she is, indeed, Mystra. Specifically, she's pre-Midnight Mystra and also...changed into a newish Mystra.

This is some of what Elminster thinks/says when he's speaking with her and notices she's guarding some artifacts:

“Ye collected these things when ye were Midnight?” El blurted, trembling in a sudden chaos of wanting to know so much, yet not knowing what he dared ask. Her love—or at least fondness—was in his head and all around him, but something was subtly different in it, a distance that had not been there once, or rather one that had grown since Midnight had ascended to replace the Mystra his far younger self had first touched and tasted. Gone was the Mystra whose mind would long ago have merged with his to let them converse wordlessly, thoughts flashing.

Bear!Mystra has been guarding things that Midnight!Mystra collected, things that were important to Mystra!Mystra. Confusing, I know. So who is this current Mystra, speaking to Elminster as a bear? This is the Mystra that would then go on to become lovers with Gale.

Now, I'd argue it's basically all the same Mystra. There was Mystryl and then there was Mystra in her many forms. The Mystra that become lovers with Elminster when she selected him as her Chosen 1300 years ago is the same Mystra that took Gale as a lover too—even if she's died and transformed a couple of times.

It’s worth noting that the novels also sort of mingle all the Mystras into one. In the next novel, Elminster Enraged, when another character called the Simbul (another Chosen of Mystra who is also Mystra’s daughter) is speaking with Mystra, they talk about how Mystra has memories both of previous Mystras and of several Chosen. When the Simbul asks if Mystra can sense her current Chosen, Mystra confirms that she can sense her daughters and Elminster.

“Wasn’t that the Mystra before you?” The Simbul dared to ask. Echoes in the Weave, my daughter, echoes in the Weave…we see and feel so much that happened before us, in the Weave; it becomes part of us, the memories of the Mystra who birthed you becoming part of me, so I become that Mystra…

Anyway. Mystra is Mystra. Basically the same Mystra she's been since the fall of Netheril. Why does that matter? Well.

When Elminster is talking to bear-Mystra, she gives him a command: “I charge you to preserve magic wherever and whenever you can” and also; “Recruit new Chosen and gather them here for me to confer with. I need many, and they must be different from my daughters and from each other…and above all, I must have those I can trust.”

Okay, granted, this specific command probably doesn't apply to Gale. Gale never talks about being gathered as Chosen to help usher in Mystra's return. Remember, she's gathering Chosens so she can restore herself to godhood before Ao clicks the "Save" function on his universe post-Second Sundering. That's what this command is referring to.

Elminster does end up choosing several potential Chosen for Mystra (plus he goes on to steal a whole bunch of magic and gives it to Mystra to restore her back to godhood; this happens at the end of Elminster Enraged). Elminster spends part of Bury Elminster Deep, Elminster Enraged, and The Herald (three back-to-back novels) gathering Chosen or...well, killing corrupt Chosen and stealing their power to give back to Mystra. Mystra begins speaking into the minds of those who worship her in Elminster Enraged (around 1480) and the end of that novel has her appearing as a very grand spirit type of lady, but she's only seen restored to her actual corporeal goddess body at the end of The Herald, which is set in 1487.

So what does this have to do with Gale??

Simple. I have two theories.

Theory 1: Larian just ignores timelines and maybe wanted to create a new grooming narrative for Gale

Listen, Larian has a ton of writers and not every writer can be expected to maintain ALL of the lore Ed Greenwood and other writers wrote for the campaign books and novels. The Forgotten Realms is like 40+ years old. It's been through every iteration of D&D rules. Mystra dies every time the Wizards of the Coast revamps their magic rules, to the point where Ed Greenwood literally had Elminster say, in one of his novels, “I think Mystra’s fall was part of a cycle fated to happen again and again, as the Weave—as all magic of this world—needs renewal.” Elminster fourth-wall calls out a "fated cycle" that is just WOTC remixing magic rules.

Hell, maybe Larian knew that and wanted Gale to be part of the next cycle of Mystra-death-and-rebirth. Raphael certainly suggests something similar if Gale ascends to godhood and plans to usurp Mystra. That's a rant for a different post.

Anyway. Point is, it's a lot of lore, and a lot of it contradicted itself before Larian ever got their hands on it. The writers knew enough to know that Mystra picks Chosens all the time and that she's been known to be lovers with her Chosens. They probably took that and ran with it. Gale was chosen by Mystra and become lovers with her and the timelines don't matter, and maybe there are hints that Mystra groomed him as a kid. Maybe Larian just ignored Ed Greenwood's lore that Mystra didn't speak to any of her followers until like 12 years before the game. That's fine!

But if that theory doesn't seem to vibe, consider theory 2 (which for the purposes of this analysis suggests Gale is a cool 35 for convenient math):

Theory 2: Gale didn't actually hear or meet a corporeal Mystra until he was a consenting adult (NOTE: this does not necessarily mean he wasn't groomed)

Brief timeline, again.

1385, Mystra and Midnight both die and anything resembling a goddess of magic goes silent for nearly 100 years. Early 1400s? Elminster hears Mystra's voice but she's otherwise silent for everyone else 1479, Elminster meets Bear!Mystra, begins finding other Chosen of Mystra and gathering power for Mystra 1480ish, Elminster restores power to Bear!Mystra and she Officially Returns (but like, quietly and we still haven't seen her body, she seems to be just spirit and stardust) 1487, Mystra now has a body because she does this Big Reveal at the end of The Herald by entering a room where five of her Chosen are

If Gale is 35 in 1492, then he was 30 when she "officially" had a body again, and 23 when she begins speaking to her Chosen (or those who worship her more broadly) after a century of silence.

Obviously this theory breaks the current ongoing theory that Mystra revealed herself to Gale when he was 8, or at least a young child. However, does the game really support that theory either? Elminster's letter to an ascended God!Gale only says:

Do you recall the day we first met, m’boy? You could have been no more than eight summers’ old, clutching your mother’s apron…

He doesn't say anything about telling Gale that he is a Chosen at the age of 8 or that Mystra personally has an interest in him. Maybe Elminster was just wandering around and met Gale, or perhaps someone wrote to Elminster to tell him there's an exceptionally talented mage boy that he should meet. Elminster doesn't tell us the circumstances of the meeting, so we'll never know. The one thing we do know is that Elminster has known about Gale since Gale's childhood. There's just nothing in his letter proves that Mystra was actively speaking to Gale when he was 8, or even telling Elminster to choose Gale that young.

Keep in mind, if Gale is 35 in 1492, then he was 8 in 1465, well before Elminster had gotten the charge to maintain the Weave and select new Chosens for Mystra.

Then of course we have Minsc's comment that:

While the girl-folk go on to rule as wychlaran, Weave-touched boys were hidden away. Trained to work their craft in silence and secrecy. It is an old custom, not well-observed. In truth I thought it born of caution, after some catastrophe wrought by wizardly men-folk of old. Now I wonder if it was not done to hide them from Mystra, and the snares she sets for young and prideful boys, hm?

I want to point out that this idea that the Rashemi people hide Weave-touched boys from Mystra's sight is completely new lore. Ed Greenwood explained a bit of how he views vremyonni boys/men being secluded in a series of tweets from 2020. Basically, because a wychlaran (female witch) is also a kind of ruling/religious class in the Rashemi culture, male spellcasters create a power imbalance, especially because they have access to more powerful spells than the female spellcasters. To combat this, male spellcasters are hidden away to avoid political imbalance and end up serving as enchanters/weaponsmiths for the wychlarans. Or they leave and become wizards elsewhere.

The idea that the Rashemi hide the boys away to either a) protect them from Mystra's icky amorous tactics or b) protect their communities from Mystra encouraging grand, destructive ambition in their menfolk, is probably unique to BG3 alone...and that's if we can take what Minsc says at face value.

Can we?

Minsc proves time and again he doesn't think much of wizards. The only thing he likes about Gale is that he can explode. I think he mistrusts male spellcasters in general because of his culture. So his comment could just be Minsc taking a jab at Gale while also not accurately representing his culture (possibly by offering an explanation that he just hasn't thought through all that thoroughly).

The fact that he says "young and prideful boys" is curious, regardless. Does he view Gale as a boy, because Gale is technically younger than Minsc by several decades thanks to Minsc being a statue for a while? Is it derogatory? Is it a remark to say that Gale's ambition is a bit juvenile, as wizard ambitions tend to be? Who knows. Minsc's dialogue isn't always as surface-level as it appears.

So...was Gale groomed?

I guess that depends on your definition of grooming. Adult-to-adult grooming is absolutely a thing. It's a cycle of manipulation, isolation, and gaslighting that leaves one person, the victim, in a twisted, unequal relationship with their abuser. So, yeah, Gale absolutely was groomed by his goddess. Point blank. Period. She rewarded his magical talent with sexual/emotional intimacy. He responded with love, intimacy, adoration, etc., that she was incapable of reciprocating as his equal, because of her power of authority over him (over all wizards) yet she used it to her advantage, and then tossed him aside when it became inconvenient for her. Absolutely she groomed him, and she's an abuser.

But if we're merging Forgotten Realms lore and timelines with BG3 timelines, then our understanding of Gale's perspective of all this shifts a little. Instead of a child chasing after a goddess who is stringing him along, it becomes Gale, the child prodigy, desperately trying to understand magic in a world where the goddess of magic is silent, possibly dead, and the Weave is trying to repair itself after a devastating Spellplague a few decades earlier. It becomes Gale in his teens, not understanding why the others think he's so odd for burying himself in his studies to impress a goddess who might not even care, if she's even alive. It becomes a young adult Gale overwhelmed with awe at the first rumors that Mystra might finally, finally be back, and hearing her voice for the very first time. It becomes Gale, in his late twenties, finally staring into the face of his goddess, someone he's had blind faith in before he even knew for certain she was capable of hearing his prayers. It becomes mid-thirties Gale, who has grown up with a patchwork Weave and a missing goddess, plotting to restore even more power to her by finding an elusive bit of errant Weave and making the biggest mistake of his life. It becomes a story of Gale who probably looked forward to the return of Mystra with so much awe and longing, only to be used and cast aside by her within a dozen years of her return to godhood.

No wonder he felt that godhood was not only well within his grasp, but that he could be a more deserving kind of god.

It's not a perfect theory, and a lot of Gale's dialogue suggests he was a young man, probably early 20s, when he began an intimate relationship with Mystra. He also implies that she spoke to him for some time before they ever became intimate. He describes her first as the Mother of Magic, and then his teacher, and then his muse, and then his lover. So what are we to believe?

Well...that's the frustrating beauty of D&D and Forgotten Realms and Baldur's Gate I guess. The lore is wibbly wobby and malleable. You do what you want with it.