He kept wanting to eat my magic items. Those are MY magic items, Gale, they're supposed to go in the team stash forever and never get used

Before the patches, Gale's romance meter would fill up really really fast and off of non-flirty, friendly interactions. "Sure Gale, I'd like to hear more about magic some time but I'm busy now" would basically be enough for him to become aggressively interested in you, fuelling a lot of Nice Guy type jokes about him

I never really understood all the Gale hate, the entire cast is incredibly horny i dont get it

karlachs whole thing is literally being so pent up shes about to burst

the first comment shadowheart makes about karlach is "she looks like she could pick me up and carry me around"

If you don’t get why people find Gale annoying you might be the Gale of your group

I heard he was more obnoxious before patches. Do tell.

Everyone was hornier before patches, but especially him

I’m around the same point in BG3 right now and was feeling the exact same way about Gale and most of the companions. Most of them are awful and I don’t understand the hate Gale gets!

We have fascist frog, christofascist, fascist with goblin characteristics, and the creep who assaults you in your sleep, and the most hated one is the guy that thinks you’re pretty cool?

I still haven’t met Halsin, Jaheira, or Minsc but so far my list of “not-shitty-companions” is Karlach, Wyll, Gale, [Large gap], Astarion, Shadowheart, Minthara, Laezel.

If Lae’zel has haters I’m among them, if she has one hater it’s me, if she has no haters I’m dead.

He's both incredibly horny and also incredibly up his own ass

i dunno, i fed him an enchanted stick or something and then he wanted to spoon and develop a meaningful long term love or some shit

this was like 3 hours in, i completely ADHD'd out on this game even though I know it's elite. I think I also fucked the vampire but he didn't turn me and lae'zel was into me.

also, everyone seems to like some evil purple woman but she was trying to kill a bunch of people with goblins? apparently she can be in your party but i literally pushed her down the convenient chasm into the earth she was standing next to

So... spoiler-free answer...

I'm a big fan of the setting.

I was, at first, super into Gale! I was playing a rogue elf so he didn't seem condescending. We were getting along fine. Then he told me about his past.

I went from Gale fan to hell fuckin no so goddamned fast! It was infuriating because none of my friends had any experience with the setting, so it took them longer to see the... toxic mentality that put him in the position he's in. I almost threw my controller! So glad we hadn't been screwing at that point or I would have wanted to kill him! I remember launching into a rant where I said that Gale was either the most arrogant fucking man alive, or he was by far and away the dumbest, and trying to explain just what it would mean if he could do what he was trying to do...

I'm still mad about it! You did what? What a fucking asshole! And to pretend that any of that was for anything beyond greed, beyond sheer arrogance! He had everything but it wasn't enough! Godforfuckingbid this man just accept his place!

Massive green flag from the fiance though. He was playing it behind me, and without any knowledge of the universe, he got to the same scene and said he also hated Gale was too greedy to be happy.

...is the spoiler-free version of that. (That situation) wasn't good enough? He had to risk the (positive situation) for something so childish and selfish?

Correct answer. Good litmus test.

Shadow Fart

please, it's Shart.

But also that's my goth wife and I will have satisfaction, owl

He's fine. People on the internet are addicted to rageahol.

His backstory does make him out to be kind of a jerk, but I don't think you learn the details until Act 2 or maybe 3.

no spoilers

Gale is the cracker normie

i quite like gale and never got the hate either

im convinced at least part of the hate was, prior to some patches, he was basically guaranteed to hit on you, which probably made straight men uncomfortable

considering the other party members consist of an angry green fascist, a goblin racist

named Tav

I've never played the game and don't know who this is, but assume it is because they are all envious of his magnificent head of hair.

Aside from the romance issue, the problem is that Gale is a whiny douchebag who basically trips his way into higher power, ascribing many of your achievements to himself (even if you do not bring him along on quests) and thus thinking himself worthy of praise and other things that I will not reveal because of spoilers.

My friends and I were pissed that even after we made the choice to deny him one of these 'really bad ideas' he has, we were forced to see him achieve it in the post-game, and then were not allowed to kill him for doing something explicitly against our wishes, which we were entitled to make since we were the ones who actually saved the city, which he then seemingly forgot that we were opposed to because the BG3 writers aren't always to maintain coherent character emotional arcs and memory after Act 1 ( omg I love Act 1 though, so good), which can lead to some very funny story moments.

Perhaps he is better if you take him along (though he was already an annoying wizard to begin with) but if you are playing multiplayer and simply wish to save him by not dismissing him from your party, the story devs will still try to force him and his frankly absurd OC level goals down your throat because he is clearly one of their favorites.

Edit: That said, I am honestly not a huge fan of any of the NPCs especially compared to the interesting people you met in Divinity 2, which is the superior Larian game imo because it isn't tied to the exploitation strategies that plague D&D 5E as a system, so much so that bosses have to randomly lose status effects to maintain any level of difficulty.

That isn't to say BG3 is bad, just that, having played hundreds of hours of both, D2 is the more compelling game, in large part due to its much more difficult, and intricate combat system, which allows you to actually use status effects on bosses though they were a pain to get to stick, and encouraged you to really combo powers, rather than just have a couple one-trick pony styles.

Anyways, my point is that most of the characters are pretty meh, but Gale is absolutely the most annoying if you play the game not really interacting with him.

Edit the 2nd: Basically none of the characters are that great unless you want to have sex with them. Karlach was my favorite though, story-wise, because at least she has a character reason to be a dumbass.

Stop licking the damn thing