Saw you wanted more Gale questions from Galemancers so I have something that I’m a bit confused on: So we know Mystra abused Gale. Their power imbalance is gross and Gale could have never closed that despite his efforts to be equal. All that said, I’m a little confused (and likely uneducated!) on the grooming aspect. I have always heard of grooming being someone using tactics against a child to gain a sexual relationship from them, however in one of your posts you said grooming does not have to be sexual. So educate me! What exactly was Mystra grooming Gale for?
Thank you for asking and looking for insight. Most people are not informed or educated on abuse, power dynamics, and/or grooming unless it's their job to do so or they're at a point where they're unpacking their own abuse. You asking might end up in a post that helps a handful of folks!
Grooming is not inherently about age. I think in modern pop psychology, "grooming" has come to mean short hand for "age gap" sometimes and that's unfortunate. Grooming is any situation where a person finds another and seeks to influence, wear down, isolate, seduce, etc someone who is in some way vulnerable/submissive to them- or else create the circumstances where they would become vulnerable/submissive- so that they can in some way exploit/control that individual.
Here's my nuanced, medium thorough introduction to Gale, Mystra, Elminster, and how mentorship is too often a kind of framework for exploitation.
As far as Mystra's motivations, ultimately those don't matter. In the way that why anyone's abuser did what they did is ultimately irrelevant. IRL, closure is not real and abuse is not a thing you win. In the context of Baldur's Gate 3, Gale's story, characterization, obstacles, and flaws do not shift if Mystra's motivations change.
That being said, Mystra is functionally God, Pope, and clergy. Power begets corruption and corruption begets corruption, rinse and repeat. At this point, it's half habit, half desperate preservation of self I believe. Mystra is the Weave because blurring the line between her form and the Weave is the only reason she is "alive" in her umpteenth regeneration. She, like a potential God Gale, has decided that survival and control are utmost, even if she is less and less of human (even in the humanity sense that gods in DnD & most of our most accessible irl mythology take on). It's canon in the game and in some DnD lore that she is particularly fond of plucking up boys and young men. Whether this is because she desires them or because it makes them easier to control is ultimately irrelevant. Because here, regardless of any sensual enjoyment along the way, sex is not sex. Sex is power. Sex is coercion. Sex is harm.
