Crabs-with-sticks - I Am A Stick

Happy holidays everyone! I started this drawing as a study of Leyendecker, but it became a cozy Gale reading in his tower ❤️

. Print available in my shop! Link in bio ✨

I should get hazard pay for two men at the library mansplaining what scientific theory is (and being utterly wrong) to me, young woman in science who is just trying to scan her books about local oral histories.

Please tell me no one actually bought Gales line about getting the Netherese Orb by trying to return a gift to Mystra with no ulterior motive

The entire point is he's lying/deceiving himself

He convinced HIMSELF he was trying to impress Mystra to prove he was worthy. But he wanted power. He wanted access to the Weave, he wanted more than she was giving him and more than any mortal had access to.

It is NO COINCIDENCE that if he ascends in the end he becomes the God of Ambition, because Ambition has ALWAYS BEEN his biggest flaw/Achilles heel/hubris/crux of issue

Gale sought ULTIMATE power, always. He was always too curious, too certain that HE above anyone else was MOST deserving of power because he would use it the best.

This is a big part of his character

It is what makes him multidimensional, flawed, human - it informs his thoughts on Raphael, the Crown of Karsus, etc. This is the joy who couldn't be told no to a kitten so he summoned a Tressym. This is a student who broke every rule in school just to prove he could do it better. It's huge chunks of his personality

Don't set it aside to make him innocent and perfect. Add it to all that he is as flavor. A little bit of

🌶✨️spice

~Girl Math~

Fun fact about Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: The Coppermind lists their ages as 21 years old even though the book itself says they're 19. That's because the curators of the Coppermind took into account that the book is being told to a Rosharan with Hoid mentioning he's deliberately converted the ages for them and the wiki converted the ages back accordingly.