History Headscratchers / TheEpicOfGilgamesh

*** Don't forget {{Anime/Gilgamesh}}, which picks up the story in modern times.

** Yeah, an actual fairly straight Seinen anime adaptation (not an update like {{Anime/Gilgamesh}}) would be pretty great.

* Gilgamesh was ''2/3'' immortal. How does that work?0

* Gilgamesh was ''2/3'' immortal. How does that work?

** Don't forget that the story is basically a {{shonen}} anime in written form. I'm surprised they haven't ''made'' an anime from it!

** Yeah, an actual fairly straight Shonen anime adaptation (not an update like {{Anime/Gilgamesh}}) would be pretty great.
** You could make a game about an alternate reality where Ishtar makes good on her threat to cause a ZombieApocalypse. You play as Gilgamesh and Enkidu fighting hordes of zombies, and the final boss could be either Ishtar, Gugalanna or Zombie Humbaba.

*** [[Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Uh-Chuck-uh-NORR-ISSSSSSSS!!!!]]

*** But it was the norm that the kings were all considered to be like that. If my understanding of how these things worked is correct then it is much like with the ancient Pharaohs and it was something like the same fallacies behind the 3/5ths compromise. They were trying to have it both ways and not giving any thought to reason because...well, because they were people and [[TruthInTelevision most people just dont think very hard about anything]]. (Or if they did, then they wouldn't dare do so aloud about something like this. It might be physically dangerous for them given the circumstances.) You see, they were living in somewhat of a thearchy: the dude ''must'' be such a badass as to be godly if he's our king, but he's clearly not ''really'' a god because he's going to die and have a successor: experience teaches us that. And he'd been injured or sick before, in all likelihood. So...I've got it! He's sort of a demi-god! [[YouFailLogicForever That's it!]]

** Don't forget that the story is basically a Main/{{shonen}} anime in written form. I'm surprised they haven't ''made'' an anime from it!

*** This is the one I always believed, though just to clarify it wasn't Blood and Clay. The bodily fluid has a lot more spunk in it. [[Main/DontExplainTheJoke It is semen. The fluid is semen.]]

* When you think about it, how is it possible for the ''first'' "hero" [[Main/OlderThanDirt in the book]] to be Main/GenreSavvy? That would suggest Main/GenreBlindness and the fourth wall are the more post-modern way to go, and originally, characters were assumed to be aware that their lives were governed by tropes!
** OR, people had stories before the books/tablets were written. These stories had tropes in them and Gilgamesh was one of the first story to end up with Main/GenreSavvy characters. Since then it's just been people forgetting about this story or simply ignoring it as opposed to being really post-modern.
** Maybe it's not so much GenreSavvy as it is the ancient belief that everyday life was ruled by the hands of Fate. Things are going to happen because Destiny/The Writer Says So.

** In other words, he's GenreSavvy ''and'' subject to prehistoric AdaptationDecay.

** Gilgamesh explicitly mentions by name the previous people who suffered by their one-night-stand with the Goddess of Love/War. This logically demands that Gilgamesh, and by extension the people who recorded the Epic of Gilgamesh, would have known the stories and myths of said scorned lovers. That the other myths, that the entries within the genre that pre-date Gilgamesh, have yet to be discovered is incidental. The genre(s) necessarily existed before the Epic of Gilgamesh was written, and therefore Gilgamesh (the character) can easily be Genre Savvy.

** As Gilgamesh was essentially the Babylonian equivalent of Chuck Norris, the answer is that he's such a Main/{{Badass}} that he actually re-fertilized his own embryo.

** You could make a game about an alternate reality where Ishtar makes good on her threat to cause a ZombieApocalypse. You play as Gilgamesh and Enkidu fighting hordes of zombies, and the final boss could be either Ishtar, Gugalanna or Zombie Humbaba.
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*** But it was the norm that the kings were all considered to be like that. If my understanding of how these things worked is correct then it is much like with the ancient Pharaohs and it was something like the same fallacies behind the 3/5ths compromise. They were trying to have it both ways and not giving any thought to reason because...well, because [[ViewersAreMorons they were people]] and [[TruthInTelevision most people just dont think very hard about anything]]. (Or if they did, then they wouldn't dare do so aloud about something like this. It might be physically dangerous for them given the circumstances.) You see, they were living in somewhat of a thearchy: the dude ''must'' be such a badass as to be godly if he's our king, but he's clearly not ''really'' a god because he's going to die and have a successor: experience teaches us that. And he'd been injured or sick before, in all likelihood. So...I've got it! He's sort of a demi-god! [[YouFailLogicForever That's it!]]

** Except that no second father is ever mentioned. Another theory (stolen from Jens Braarvig, professor of the history of religion at the University of Oslo) is that since humans, in MesopotamianMythology, are made from an mixture of god's blood and clay all humans are part divine to begin with, and Gilgamesh by having a divine mother and a (then) human father has his divinity count ticked in at about 2/3.

*** They [[Anime/FateStayNight did]]. Sorta.

* How is it possible that nobody yet thought to make the most awesome video game ever about this story? I mean... This is just VideoGame/GodOfWar in written form. It's waiting to turn into a video game. Or at the very least a Sword and Sandal kind of movie with incredible CGI and stuff.

** Because it would probably suck, and definitely have [[VideoGame/GodOfWar little]] [[TooHuman to]] [[EnslavedOdysseyToTheWest do]] with the original story.

** Oh [[http://rpgmaker.net/games/3453/ You maen like this one?]]