>>536138402
Yes, we all know Mystra likes to fuck dudes with great magic talent, see Elminster. But in my opinion, it's also clear that Mystra deliberately manipulated him: first by selecting him as her Chosen, then abandoning him, then repudiating him after Gale absorbed the Netherese Orb in an attempt to win her back, only to reject him once again as Chosen; the arrival of Elminster as a messenger illustrates how, despite her seething ass, Mystra has always closely monitored the Orb’s movements, since it threatens her supremacy over the Magic Weave. And Elminster’s message in Act 2 reveals that Mystra is capable of suspending the Orb’s ailments and can even, conveniently, turn it into a bomb that kills two birds with one stone: destroying the remnants of Karsus’s magic, the sphere and the crown.
One can be a “sleeper agent,” as I called it, without even knowing it, and this is personally how I believe Mystra treated Gale after he got orb'd.
The timeline is kinda messy but her actions seem pretty clear to me.
