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these_balls) wrote2010-04-27 11:40 pm
these_balls) wrote2010-04-27 11:40 pm
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Understand the secrets and have some fun
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Gilgamesh | Fate/Zero | Reserved
Name: Sue
Personal Journal:
E-mail: vaguelysane@gmail.com
AIM: soodonimsue
Timezone: CST
Current Characters in Route: none
Character
Name: Gilgamesh
Series: Fate/Zero
Timeline: post episode 15, "Golden Radiance"
Canon Resource Links:
Gilgamesh at the Type Moon wiki: http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Gilgamesh
Fate/Zero at the Type Moon wiki: http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Fate/Zero
Epic of Gilgamesh at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh (Fate/Zero acknowledges the Epic of Gilgamesh as the foundational history and events of Gilgamesh-as-Archer. With that in mind, I treat it as secondary source material.)
Personality:
In each Grail War, Servants are summoned, and each and every one of them is acknowledged as a hero. To have Gilgamesh then be addressed and acknowledged as the King of Heroes is a telling detail to begin with when exploring his character. He is prideful to the extreme, outspoken and shamelessly arrogant in the face of ally and enemy alike. He is summoned with the explicit goal of being the strongest Servant of the war, and lives up to expectations, presenting himself as the first king of humanity to whom all lands and all treasures truly belong. The scope of his boasting is grandiose enough to appear deluded, but it bears noting that he is never unable to stand behind his claims. He is accustomed to wielding great amounts of power, both in his own lifetime as the demigod king of Uruk and during his existence as a Servant wielding immense magical power. His interests lie first in keeping that power within his grasp - and after that, doing whatever he pleases to fill up what time remains.
Being confident in his own abilities and standing, Gilgamesh attends mostly to upkeep. He warns those who he deems unworthy against addressing him without proper respect, and make no mistake, all of the world is unworthy to some degree or another. In his first battle, he takes offense to the very idea of standing on the same ground as the other combatants, and while in the course of the war he proves himself capable of recognizing a worthy foe, that honor is hard-won and should never be confused for recognition of an equal. Even among his weapons, of which he owns many, he refuses to use his choicest on any but a few select and deserving foes. His only interest in the Grail itself is in its standing as a treasure: as all treasures by right belong to him, any person who would seek to take the item is a thief, and must be punished as such. The Grail for its own sake holds no allure to him. For it to do so, he would need a wish. But the King of Heroes, he would maintain, wishes for nothing.
That assertion is as good a time as any, probably, to bring up Enkidu. Created to be a complementary “other half” to Gilgamesh’s overbearing, tempestuous nature, Enkidu was a complete antithesis to the king. Where Gilgamesh was a tyrant, taking everything he pleased from his people, Enkidu was created from earth, left to wander the wilds with the beasts, and only came to Uruk to challenge Gilgamesh’s rule. But what begins as a struggle for dominance becomes a deep friendship, beginning and abiding in a mutual recognition between the two as equals. With Enkidu, Gilgamesh slays the monster Humbaba, appointed by the gods as the guardian of the Cedar Forest. With Enkidu, he slays the Bull of Heaven, a divine creature, sent down to ravage Uruk as punishment after Gilgamesh spurns the advances of the goddess Ishtar. And it is Enkidu’s death, in revenge for the slaying of the bull, that irreversibly changes Gilgamesh. In grieving his friend, seeking immortality, and ultimately failing in his quest, Gilgamesh learns that no man lives forever. But in the context of Fate/Zero, Enkidu remains an influence on Gilgamesh’s life. Most tellingly, Gilgamesh claims outright that he has only had one companion, and that is all he shall ever have. At the end of the day, he is entirely alone, by choice and even, it seems, contentedly. However closely he allies himself with any individual, they are not his companion - they are a means to an end, be that end as dark as fulfilling his own desires regardless of means, or as benign as simply remaining with them to satisfy his own curiosity.
Indeed, within Fate/Zero (and even progressing into Fate/Stay Night), Gilgamesh demonstrates that without a grounding influence he readily descends into tyranny and amoral pleasure-seeking. He considers the pursuit of pleasure to be a worthy goal in and of itself, and a large portion of the character Kirei’s development occurs with Gilgamesh’s insistence that he will not know himself until he knows his desires. Gilgamesh himself lives seemingly to satisfy his own desires for adulation and amusement, the latter of which he finds just as often in ruin. As in the myth, he is a creature of superlatives and extremes, in love with his own greatness. However, Fate/Zero offers him no companions, no trials, and no lessons - and thus, he does not emerge the better for it. As of Episode 15, he has seen the Servant Saber’s self-sacrificing idealism, and happily anticipates how it will - or perhaps did - destroy her. Still, he admires her, as someone who reached for something so far beyond themselves. The Gilgamesh of Fate/Zero is one who has been produced from his legend and been summoned as a component of a sacrificial ritual, and thus takes a form capable of the darkest sides of his own myth, as well as the boldest.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Strengths:
(+) knowledgeable/analytical: Gilgamesh demonstrates - in conversation, strategy, and battle itself - that he is both intelligent and puts thought into his actions. He not only possesses treasures, but understands why they are classified as such, and turns that same attitude toward his trajectory and surroundings.
(+) manipulative: Though a highly-powered Servant, Gilgamesh accomplishes many of his aims through subtler means, both finding suitable vessels and turning them toward mutually beneficial goals.
(+) strong-willed/determined: Such a characteristic accompanies his ego and skill - Gilgamesh in unshakable in his belief in his greatness, and follows what he wants at the expense of anything else. He is also notably independent-minded, proving one of the most difficult to control of all the Servants of the Grail War.
(+) physically strong: In Route 29, Gilgamesh’s powers as a Servant will not work. However, the myth states him to be capable of great feats of physical strength, hefting enormous weapons and slaying huge monsters, and as a Servant he also possesses a strength many times that of a normal human. Though greatly reduced, his strength, endurance, and traveling speed would still be formidable.
Weaknesses:
(-) self-absorbed: Gilgamesh treats himself as the center of the universe, and treats his own desires as paramount. What he wants - be that possessions, experiences, or people - he will take, by whatever means he pleases. The further he is from a grounding influence, the more prominent this trait becomes.
(-) hard-headed: When Gilgamesh it tripped up, it is usually through the defiance of his own assumptions or expectations. Beyond a certain point, Gilgamesh becomes convinced he is right, and does not always gracefully recover from seeing those beliefs proved wrong.
(-) amoral: Gilgamesh does not have much of a moral compass to speak of. What is good is what pleases him, whether through proving itself worthy or simply providing entertainment. What opposes or disrespects him is unworthy of existence, a crime for which he readily metes out punishment.
(-) bloodthirsty: The world is Gilgamesh’s garden, but it’s easy to see that he enjoys the weeding and pruning very well. He takes pleasure in battle, enjoying the destruction of his enemies, physically and otherwise. By the end of the series, he seems willing to torture the Servant Saber until she agrees to be his bride, showing only determined good cheer through the ordeal. Cruelty and bloodshed have lost much of their unpleasantness for him - they are simply another tool, and one he enjoys using.
Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Meowth
Password:
Rules: Raspberry
FAQ: Lemonade
Samples
First Person Sample:
[That Servants are summoned with knowledge of the modern world never ceases to be useful. In this instance, it means that Gilgamesh loses very little time in exploring his PokéGear and tending to the essentials. Most apparently, he has found the radio and called up music that is slightly less offensive, even if it reminds him quite a lot of the late-twentieth-century ugliness he has left behind him. That seen to, he has explored the map, and just about every other piece of information on the device besides, before finally returning to the video functionality. He’s long since escaped the squalid farce of the house he awoke in, electing to do his explorations in the open air. A little tch of amusement escapes him as he smirks at the screen, taking in the novelty of people looking upon him when he cannot possibly see them.]
Behold, mongrels, your-
[The smug, blonde visage is replaced by the looming head of a meowth, charm glinting in the sun, nosing at the PokéGear as well as a creature without a proper nose really can. It’s almost immediately scruffed and lifted off the device with an indignant yowl, only to be met with a red-eyed glare from its master. Gilgamesh shakes it lightly, then tosses it to the ground alongside his knee with a dismissive, soft tch of a sound. His smile returns when he looks back down at the little machine.]
Well. A new game, is it? A warning to whoever has summoned me to this aimlessness - I won’t forgive this insult lightly.
[The view rocks as he stands, holding out the device and moving his thumb sightlessly to flip it shut. There is a soft whup-whup of his hand, patting the leg of his snakeskin pants as he beckons his ruffled starter to follow him.]
Come, Sua.
[The transmission ends.]
Third Person Sample:
Gilgamesh walked.
He walked, and the bones of his feet moved in their cradles of tendon and muscle, slid within the tough gloving of skin and nail and hair. They moved him across the ground in accordance with his will, but his will moved not in mana, but in the bright simplicity of nerves twisting through flesh. His will became electricity and chemicals, things he had not even known existed, the last time they had moved in him. But they raced swift and perfect, if anything but godlike, and he felt himself smile as he slowed and stopped at the outskirts of the town, turning to face it. Whoever had achieved the feat of displacing him, they had made a fine offering to him, this enduring bond to space and substance. Their reward would be magnificent. He reached - as unsuited a concept as reach was, to an effort beyond physical forms - opened, called-
Nothing returned.
The world expanded into buzzing, overheated blackness.
Nothing met the insubstantial grasp, there was nothing to open to, nothing- something moved, and Gilgamesh’s hand lifted to it, curled and grasped at strange softness until he understood he was holding the air-thrilling, blood-thrumming bulk of his own throat. Gritting his teeth, he tried again, fighting past the hammering insistence of his own heartbeat. He could see it, the miserable and illusory hamlet shredded into splinters, gleaming with polished metal-
Nothing returned.
The bones of his feet shifted, his ankles and knees and hips carried him back without his full permission, and he reached out to press his hand to the bark of a tree. The air moved dry and stinging between his mouth and lungs, too quickly, and he snarled frustration as he clenched at the tree - the tree that should have yielded like rotten meat against his effort. The tree that held form, even when he tried a second and a third time to peel it open, eyed wide and shoulders trembling with - with fury, yes, fury -
A beige blur jumped in at his feet, and he looked down, stopping and staring in disoriented quiet. The creature that had been with him all morning stared back up, blinking in its curious but unworried feline way. It reared up onto its hind legs, sharpening its claws against the tree, hesitating in silent question. Gilgamesh looked at his own hands - hooked against the tree, one nail broken to the bed and bleeding sluggishly. Something moved in his head that was not blood, and was not prana, but prickled as hotly as either. It was a feeling he remembered, almost, a sensation from-
He turned, will to body to motion, air against his face and motion spinning indistinctly in the very corners of his eyes. Will to breath to voice, beckoning the animal with a sharp “Sua” interrupting the unwelcome memory as imperiously as he had ever interrupted an underling’s voice. The distraction was incomplete, but it sufficed, enough to move him from a place he had seen enough of. So he walked, and only after hours smiled thinly, to see he was in a wilderness.
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