Gale (Avatar Tuner)

Gale is a member of the Embryon tribe in the Digital Devil Saga duology. 
== Appearances ==
*Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner: Playable Character
*Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2: Playable Character
*Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
== Design ==
He heavily resembles the person he was based upon, though with light green hair instead of blond. He does not wear the glasses said person used to wear, though his habit of rubbing his nose is instead a sort of inherited memory, as if he did wear them and was trying to adjust them.
== Personality ==
He is shown to be a calm and collected person and prefers logical thinking over emotional actions, to the degree one of his catchphrases is a flat, atonal "I do not comprehend." However, certain acts of extreme emotional cost will affect him, and his emotional side grows with his interactions with Lupa, Fred and the leftover memories he still possesses of being David Gale.
Initially unable to comprehend the notion of "honor" and other feelings (and, ironically, a certain smugness in being the last of the Embryon to remain acting emotionlessly for the longest) he eventually realizes the importance of understanding others and opens his mind to the emotions. He is also emotionally confused by the flashbacks he has of Jenna Angel and initially attempts to suppress them.
In the novels, he has Serph's protection as his main priority. After seeing Heat turned into Shiva, he becomes furious and excommunicates him from the Embryon. His hate for Heat only gets further as he sees Heat near Serph crystallizing under the effects of Shin's attacks (Shin has only recently been killed by Heat, and Heat is in the same room). He later undergoes a "blue screen" after Serph's death, due to the absence of a "leader unit". Since his duty as a Bishop was to protect Serph, he feels his existence is completely pointless. 
== Profile ==
=== Digital Devil Saga ===
Gale, along with many of Embryon's key members, were first seen present at Ground Zero, where they encounter a large seed-like pod in their territory. Confounded, Gale transmits a message, demanding that the Vanguards move their object away from Embryon territory. However, the leader of the Vanguards, Harley, himself was fairly confused, and transmits a counter message, demanding that the Embryon remove the stasis object away from their territory or it will be taken as an act of war.
The pod later opens and sends streaks of light shooting everyone present in the battlefield, leaving tattoo-esque markings on their body parts, slowly transforming Gale and the others into demons. The members of the Embryon went berserk upon their transformations, lashing out and devouring any demon in their sight. While Serph, Argilla and Heat are investigating in Svadhisthana, Gale succumbs to his hunger, and starts attacking the members of the Embryon tribe. Sera stops Gale's berserk state with her singing. However, Sera's abnormal ability earns Gale's distrust. Through the visit to Sahashara and the meeting between the Tribes there, the leaders found out that the Karma Temple was overrun by a mystical being called Angel. The Karma Temple issues a new law: "Devour the other Tribes and bring the black-haired girl to Nirvana." deepening the hostility between the Tribes.
Returning to Muladhara, Gale devises a plan to forge an alliance with the Maribel to assault the Solids, and subsequently the Brutes, betraying them later.
Following the events of Jinana's (leader of the Maribel) death, Gale decides to join Serph in negotiating with the members of the Maribel. Gale tries to formulate a plan, however, Argilla, angered upon Jinana's death, lashes out on Gale. Returning to Muladhara, they realize that during their absence, the Embryon tribe was under attack by the Solids, who abducted Sera. Realizing that this was Bat's actions, Serph and company swore to bring Sera back. Eventually Sera was safely returned, while others began to feel the emotion of 'joy,' though Gale explains that he does not comprehend their happiness. However, while apparently repressing his emotions, he does not give away the fact he has been having visions of a weeping woman who he instinctively associates with the name Angel. He has a number of these visions, but is unable to divine their meaning.
Eventually Gale realized that since Bat was left alive, Sera's presence had been found. Knowing Bat sided with the Brutes, Gale proposes a plan, where they decide to trap the members of the Brutes inside a Deserted Ship while blowing the ship up with explosives. Their plan was a success, with Bat and a number of the Brutes being killed in the blast.
Upon returning, a member of the Embryon tells Serph that the leader of the Wolves tribe, Lupa, requests an alliance with the Embryon. Gale is reluctant to agree, but suggests that they should pay him a visit. Upon meeting Lupa, Gale questions his motives for working with the Embryon. Lupa explains that the Wolves tribe was, in fact, destroyed by the Brutes and particularly Varin Omega alone, with a large faction of his men now working under the Brutes. Not trusting them, Gale tries to provoke Lupa by asking what if the Embryon or Wolves betray them in return. Standing firm in his beliefs, Lupa tells them that he will not do such a dishonorable thing, and explains that in return he believes Gale will not betray them, as he sees honor in Gale's eyes.
Lupa tells the Embryon that in order to reach the Brute's homebase, they must pass through the Samsara Tunnels. Inside there, Lupa proposes to open a route for them while the Embryon goes to the Brutes homebase to personally engage Varin Omega in combat. Lupa also mentions that he saw a recurring dream of a child, and wishes to see him someday. The idea shocked everyone, and they all came to a realization that there are no children in Junkyard, but somehow they knew the meaning of the term. Feeling a sense of kinship with Lupa, Gale asked him whether he would come with the Embryon to Nirvana. Lupa smiled, and promptly walked away.
Throughout their venture in the Waterway, the Embryon discovers that Lupa did not kill or devour any of his men. However, as they venture deeper, they witness more and more of the soldiers brutally slain and devoured. Eventually reaching the exit, they discover Lupa has already succumbed to his hunger. Argilla urges Sera to stop his hunger, but Lupa's Atma overtakes him and he engages the party in battle. After the battle, Gale, knowing that Lupa is going to die, asks Lupa: should he meet the child Lupa was talking about, what should he tell the child? Lupa asks Gale to tell the child to be an honorable man, and tells Gale that the child will be holding an olive leaf. At this point Gale's "emotions" awaken, and he curses Angel for giving them the Atma powers.
The Embryon eventually reach the Brutes' base, however, not only Serph, but also Heat, Argilla and Cielo feel something familiar in their surroundings. After defeating the guards, the five are ambushed by Varin Omega. He insists on being called Colonel Beck and angrily stammers at Serph. While the others attempt to attack him, he fends them off one by one, while angrily questioning why they did not remember being killed by Serph, confusing the party. However, in an omission Gale notes, he is not included in the colonel's accusations.
After Varin's death and his revelations, Gale followed his leader into the bowels of the Karma Temple and studied some of its workings. Particularly, he was interested in the Sea of Milk, a device designed to harvest the data from the slain soldiers and recycle it to create new, fully grown humans. With this in place, he also worked out the nature of the immense waterways crisscrossing the Junkyard and the endless rain; a cycle of continuous improvement upon the created soldiers.
Throughout their search for Sera, however, they were stopped by fiends and guards under the orders of Sera, prohibiting them from advancing. Eventually Gale would find Sera in the highest plane of Sahashara, alongside a woman. Unlike others, Gale is able to address the woman as 'Angel' immediately, confusing even himself. Eventually it is revealed that Jenna Angel was the one responsible of implanting the viruses in the citizens of the Junkyard, turning them into fiends and the one triggering the deletion of the Junkyard.
After Jenna Angel was defeated, Serph, in his Atma form, tries to strike Jenna down. However, Serph's attack backfires; destroying Jenna Angel's control sphere. The Karma Temple began to fall apart and Gale urged the others to reach the central tower. As the others try to reach the central tower, Gale instinctively reaches his hand out to Angel, asking her to come with him. Jenna Angel, dumbfounded, briefly saw a hallucination of a person from her memories resembling Gale and took Gale's hand.
=== Digital Devil Saga 2 ===
Following the events of Digital Devil Saga, Gale returns as a playable character. Gale is first seen in the opening credits, where he encounters guards that have not been seen in the Junkyard. Sensing hostility, Gale transforms into his Atma form, and engages the guards in battle. Gale, after the events of Lupa's death, has become a somewhat more honorable and loyal character, believing in Lupa's words that betrayal is an act that should not be practiced.
Gale is eventually regrouped with two members of the Embryon Tribe, Serph and Argilla. Argilla introduces Gale to Fred, a young child she met earlier. Gale then asks Fred where they could seek help, as they're being hunted by the guards. Fred explains that the guards the trio met earlier are the soldiers of the Karma Society. All of them are capable of transforming into demons; in other words, accessing Atma Avatars. Fred suggests they meet up with Roland, the leader of a resistance group named Lokapala. Throughout their venture, Serph and company have been identified as "Tuners." Fred would later request that Serph free the captives of the Karma Society, held in the Occupied Sector.
Eventually Serph and company reach Lokapala, however, due to their ability to shift into demons, the people of Lokapala are reluctant to trust them. It is here that it is revealed that Cielo was held captive by the Lokapala as well. Fred later tells Serph to meet up with Roland. Serph and the other citizens of the Junkyard are later revealed by Roland: they are AI created by the Cyber Shaman known as Sera; it is a program planned to raise the strongest army in the Junkyard, then download it into microchips to upgrade the soldiers of Nirvana (the real world). Holding Cielo as a captive, Roland requests Serph to bring back the Cyber Shaman, and in return, they would provide them a route and necessary items.
Gale, however, is reluctant to accept the deal, and asks Roland to release Cielo. As Roland mentioned that a member of the resistance was capable of accessing the Atma Form, Gale requests to bring the member as well, seeing that Cielo won't be freed that easily. It is later revealed that fearing the member's insatiable hunger, he was killed. Losing his temper and reminiscing over Lupa's death, Gale threatens Roland to take good care of Cielo while searching for Sera, and exclaims that they are doing this for Sera; not for Roland.
Reaching to the underground passageway to reach the Karma Building, Roland later joins the group as an atonement for his sins and releases Cielo. Roland then requests Serph to assist him in freeing the members of Lokapala in the Interment Facility. Before entering, Fred requests to help a friend of his being held in the Interment Facility, named Timmy. In there, it is revealed that the human captives serve as manufactured food for the Karma Soldiers. After defeating the prison warden, Kumbhanda, they realized that they were too late; Timmy was long killed and devoured by the Karma Soldiers.
Holding Timmy's hat as a memento, Fred exclaims that he knew that there was a large chance that Timmy would die, but still doesn't understand why Timmy has to die. Angered and sad, Fred opens his small notebook, revealing an olive leaf. Picking up the leaf, Fred tries to throw the leaf away, stating that since he knew nothing as a child, he'd rather forget all the memories of his childhood to stop being one. However, Gale stopped Fred's action, remembering what Lupa said prior to his death. Gale anxiously asks where Fred obtained the olive leaf. Fred explains that it was a memento of his father, the ex-leader of the Lokapala. Knowing that Fred is the child Lupa was talking about, Gale passes down Lupa's message. He told Fred that he knew Fred's father, and tells Fred that his father would want him to be honest to his feelings, and comforts Fred that it's okay to be a child.
He later confronts Jenna Angel at the airport to buy the others enough time to get to a plane. He speaks to her as David, telling her that she is misguided in her hatred and that David wanted her to help people. Unable to bear the truth, Angel stabs Gale through the chest; a blow he willingly takes. He then stabs her back, and they both die in each other's arms. His data ascends to the sun where he joins Seraph in the final battle. Because he never reached enlightenment, he is reincarnated.
===Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner===
In the novels, Gale is revealed to be a Bishop, a newborn within the Junkyard created specifically as a strategist. His hood is described as a necessity for the augmentations made specifically to make him suitable for the role. However, he is noted to be much more physically fit than others that perform this role in other tribes. He was taken into the Embryon after his original tribe was defeated.
After Serph is dragged into Nirvana, Gale is taken to the Karma Society, where he has a conversation with Angel. He is placed under a firewall that makes him unable to feel anything, but soon deduces Serph is alive by noticing Angel is acting strangely. When Serph is called to the Karma Society so that Cuvier would convince him to join her, Gale regroups with Serph and attempts to hold his own against Heat's new Atma Shiva. Later, he helps Serph escape. 
Gale busts through the glass ceiling of the EGG room and finds that Serph is dying from Shin's crystallization power. Blaming Heat (Shin has already been killed by Heat), Gale explodes with rage, attacking his former companion, and is hit by a wall of fire. He later recovers Sera and the dying Serph from the EGG. He can't heal Serph due to the structure of his cells being damaged irreparably. When Sera asks him about what happened, he blames Heat, having developed an irrational hatred for him. Serph's last words tell Gale that Heat didn't do anything, but the Bishop does not believe him and strikes.
Gale is suffering through intense rage and hatred as he starts destroying Karma Society, screaming for Heat to show himself so that he can kill him. His bishop cells have gone haywire as he thinks of himself as pointless for being unable to protect Serph. 
The person he was based upon doesn't exist in the book continuity, as Bishops are created in a different facility and aren't based on real humans.
==Quotes==
===Digital Devil Saga 2===
*"If one's sacrifice is built on the sacrifices of others then those who survive must prove their lives were worth the sacrifice." (In the Underground City, after the first encounter with Jenna Angel)
*"Tortillas!? What is that? Flauros, Flautas, Tortillas... What kind of demons are these? No... He's trying to distract me. I won't be caught off guard. I am the brain of the Embryon. Serph is depending on me." (During the interrogation regarding the location of the Herald optional bosses)
== Gallery ==
File:Gale (DDS Art).png|Gale as he appears in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
File:Gale Back (DDS Art).png|Gale as he appears in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
File:Gale Head (DDS Art).png|Gale as he appears in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
DDS2Gale.jpg|Gale and Vayu as they appear in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
05.jpg|Gale and Vayu as they appear in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
Gale.jpg|Gale as he appears in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
Digital Devil Saga 2 Berserk Gale.jpg|Gale's berserk form as it appears in Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner
== Trivia ==
* Gale was not originally planned by the story writer Yū Godai, but was included by Tadashi Satomi when the work shifted to the latter due to Godai's health issues. Since then, Gale was retroactively included by Godai in her independent novels for the game.
** The Book Serph's personality has been rewritten specifically to contrast with Gale.
* It is more obvious in the second game that Gale is actually designed to fill in the dialogues which should be spoken by Serph, the protagonist, but cannot do that due to the tradition of the Megami Tensei series that the protagonist must be silent. Most lines spoken by Gale in the game are said by Serph in the book.
** Due to his nature as a "decomposition" of the personality traits Yu Godai had planned for Serph, David Gale never appears in the novel series, which retells the original draft of the plot, as nothing was planned for him. Instead, Bishops are mentioned to be more similar to organic supercomputers than to other Asura, aren't based on humans and are created in a different production facility.
**Possibly, the reason why Serph and Gale spend most of the fourth and fifth books apart from each other is that Serph no longer needs Gale to fill in dialogue. 
* Gale and the original character, David, that he is based on is probably an allusion to the real mathematician or actor , maybe both.
* Gale's Berserk Mode is the only one that does not feature his Avatar's arm; his leg is transformed instead as Vayu uses these to attack rather than his arms.
*Like the most of the other playable Embryon members, his name is related to his Avatar's elemental affinity.
Category:Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner Characters
Category:Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2 Characters
Category:Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner Allies