When you play Baldur’s Gate 3, do yourself a favor when you get to the part with the giant leaking carcass, and have your character continue to lick it. This results in Gale Dekarios angrily saying, “Stop licking the damn thing,” which is one of the funniest moments in the role-playing video game.
Not only is this a fan favorite moment, but it’s also a favorite line of Gale’s voice actor Tim Downie. “There are moments where I was given a little bit more free rein,” Downie says during a panel at Florida Supercon. “So obviously, you can’t improvise because it’s so heavily scripted, but you can play around with tone, where you put commas, where you use pauses and things like that. The classic example of that, doing it one way and actually ending up with something completely different, is the line, ‘Stop licking the damn thing.’”
“In my head, it was like, I’ve got young children, and I imagine this was like an ice cream that had been dropped on the floor that a five-year-old is picking up, and you’ve said don’t do that. Stop licking the damn thing.”
The line has become so noteworthy that fans bring it up to Downie on a regular basis. “Now that will be chiseled on my grave,” Downie jokes.
It’s amazing how the stressful moments of fatherhood can inspire an iconic video game performance.