hi i hate to ask about something that i think you've talked about a lot already but i looked through the tags i thought it would be in and couldn't find it SO if you don't mind could you please talk about/link me to a post discussing the ideals that gĂĄe bolg represents? it was just a passing curiosity at first but after trying and failing to find the post(s) where you mention it the curiosity is biting at me so if you do decide to then thank you very much đââď¸đââď¸đââď¸đââď¸ if you don't then. trying not to sound like it especially matters for you but no worries đââď¸đââď¸
I definitely talked about it a few times but I don't really have a dedicated post about it so I guess this will be that post
gae bolg when thrown is the ultimate display of cu chulainn's heroic glory. the one time we really see that move in action in a story (rather than just as gameplay mechanic in extella) is when he uses it versus archer in ubw, in response to archer taunting him about heroic glory being meaningless. it's an attack powerful enough to tear through six layers of rho aias when archer had never before seen anything that could break so much as the first layer, stronger than even gungnir according to archer. this is the attack that gae bolg was famous for, and accordingly the attack that cu chulainn was famous for, and therefore that's the attack he has to use to prove to archer that heroic pride is not meaningless.
the thrust gae bolg meanwhile is representative of cu's heroic fate. the reversal of causality is not an original function of the weapon but a feature cu added himself, because it's essentially his own life condensed into an attack. from the moment he accepted cathbad's prophecy he had died a hero and only after that did he live the life that would lead to that heroic and untimely death, therefore gae bolg pierces the heart first and only then is thrust towards the heart. he didn't become a hero because he performed great feats, he performed great feats because he became a hero. it's an inescapable fate of death, it even gets literally described as such a few times. gae bolg represents his fate to die a heroic death, therefore as long as he wields it he is fated to die a heroic death. the only time he survived to the end of a holy grail war was when he didn't have it on him.
gae bolg doesn't only seal his own fate though, it also connects his fate to others. across both myths and fate the only times gae bolg actually scored its kill are against people cu cares about. in a way it's a red string of fate, a fated connection to the hearts of his loved ones, but because it has the form of a weapon it instead leaves him fated to kill them. scathach gave it to him in the first place because she hoped he'd be able to kill her with it, so its very conception is "a weapon meant to kill someone cu chulainn loves." scathach's own gae bolg doesn't reverse causality but rather guarantees its kill by sealing the space around the target to prevent escape, representing her own fixed state as an immortal. cu's gae bolg can't kill scathach because she no longer has a fate of death that it can bring forth, but cu alter becomes capable of killing her by covering himself in the same bones of curruid that gae bolg was originally made of. curruid coinchenn isn't a weapon forged with a purpose, it's the weapon returned to its purest components as "something that kills" without any fate imposed on it and thus is capable of uprooting scathach's immortality.
the thrown version is his heroic glory and the thrust version is his heroic tragedy. that duality of glory and tragedy comes back in a lot of things about cu down to his name being the first thing he killed but granted to honor his compassion in offering to take its place. both aspects are equally representative of the hero cu chulainn to the point where according to setanta's profile it's outright impossible for a version of cu chulainn to be summoned without either gae bolg or the skill that's essentially "gae bolg user in training" on him. it's impossible for cu chulainn to not hold his pride as a hero. cu alter claims to have discarded his pride but the very fact that he still has gae bolg proves he's lying about that, and emiya alter says as much in his myroom line for him. the servant cu chulainn and the noble phantasm gae bolg are just different manifestations of the exact same story.
that's kind of why it's this unbeatable cheat of a noble phantasm too, all noble phantasms embody their wielder's ideals but 90% of the time if you try to clash your ideal with cu's he just goes "hm good for you but consider this: I got everything I wanted out of life and the very fact that I'm here means I've already won I'm just flexing at this point" and then he retroactively has already killed you because unlike you fools he harbors no regrets. the natural counter to it is fragarach because both noble phantasms have the premise of their own wielder's death but where gae bolg seals fate fragarach severs it. so the number one counter to "I'm proud of what I achieved in spite of everything" is "even so, you're allowed to wish things had been different" (and the number one counter to "i wish things had been different" is "even so you can take pride in what you achieved in spite of everything", it's a mutual kill between otherwise unbeatable techniques)
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