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mayfield_ooc2012-01-02 05:19 pm
mayfield_mods) wrote in mayfield_ooc2012-01-02 05:19 pm
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Applications
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Re: Gilgamesh | OC | Reserved 1/?
Character Age: Very, very old. Couple thousand years old. His original body lived to be 200, and the younger body he uses right now appears to be somewhere in his early twenties.
Background:
Gilgamesh is, unsurprisingly, the world’s first hero, as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, here, I will be fleshing out his backstory with tidbits seen in other stories of Gilgamesh and my own headcanon. In addition to his mythological origin, he also has information from my (yet unwritten) original fiction.
Gilgamesh comes from mythology. He lived in the city of Uruk in a mythological version of old Mesopotamia. While monsters lurked in the wilderness outside of the city, the inside of the city was an urban paradise. As a king, Gilgamesh lived a very decadent lifestyle and was surrounded by lush gardens, good food, fancy jewelry, and servants who answered to his every beck and call. Therefore, it was no surprise that he eventually grew into a spoiled brat with little sense of responsibility. He was the first hero and the world’s first memetic mutation, considered an invincible badass by both his people and the people of other nations.
As the first hero, Gilgamesh has claim to lots of the world’s firsts. Among them is the world’s first divine threesome, from which he was born. He has a mom, the goddess Ninsun, and two dads, the mortal king (later elevated to god status) Lugalbanda, and the god Ninurta. Another first he can claim is the divine baby shower, a theme often seen in later fairy tales. To specify, the gods threw a big party for Ninsun and took turns blessing her child, thus leaving Gilgamesh with a large variety of useful and not-so-useful abilities.
All three of his parents were delighted with his birth, but his grandfather, the then-King of Uruk, was not so happy with the fact that his son brought home a child that he claimed was born from him and a goddess. To make matters worse, the king consulted an oracle and found that his grandson was destined to kill him. The child was thrown off the tallest tower in the kingdom, but destiny would not be so easily subverted. An eagle rescued him and brought him to a gardener, where he was fostered to the age of five. When he was five, his foster father took him into the center of the city on an errand. There, he started playing with some other boys in a game of kicking pebbles. Desiring to show off to the other boys, Gilgamesh kicked his pebble with all his might. However, his shot went wide and he was unaware of his own super-strength. In an amazing coincidence, the king was passing by in his chariot at the time. Gilgamesh’s pebble sailed forward and struck him in the forehead, killing him instantly. Gilgamesh, shocked by this turn of events, could only stand there in mute horror as soldiers discovered him and were about to set upon him and kill him for his assassination of the king. However, before they could lay hand on him, his mother Ninsun revealed herself and shielded him. Then she told the awestruck crowd that Gilgamesh was her son. Not only that, but he was also the lost son of Lugalbanda and thus the prince of Uruk. The people were not about to dispute the word of a goddess, so within a day, Gilgamesh had gone from a gardener’s son to a prince. His father, happy about retrieving his lost son, coddled and spoiled him.
After the death of his father, Gilgamesh took over as the new king. Unfortunately, he was a spoiled brat with no sense of ruling. The power went to his head and he soon became a tyrant. He worked his men to the bone and insisted on sleeping with every woman in his kingdom (thus working them to the bone in another way). Wives were not left to their husbands, nor daughters to their mothers. It got so bad that people started complaining to the gods. The gods themselves, not known for their moderation, took one look down and decided that yes, it was bad. They decided that the reason he pulled all these antics was because he had no friend who could equal him. So they had Aruru, the mother goddess, create the wild man Enkidu, who would later become Gilgamesh’s faithful companion. On the eve of Enkidu’s coming, Gilgamesh had several dreams, which his mother interpreted as prophecies that Gilgamesh would soon meet a man who would become his first real friend. However, he failed to connect the dreams to a hunter’s request to deal with a wild man haunting the steppes. In true Gilgamesh fashion, he decided the best way to deal with the wild man was to send a harlot to civilize him. He thought no more on this until several days later, when he was trying to force himself on yet another girl. He was stopped by a man who was every bit his equal—Enkidu. The two wrestled through the streets of Uruk. In the end, the winner is disputed: some say Enkidu forced Gilgamesh to his knees; others say that Gilgamesh only knelt to catch Enkidu in a hold. However, what is agreed upon is that the two admired each other’s strength and agreed to become best friends. From then on, they were never apart.
With Enkidu at his side, Gilgamesh did many great deeds, like slaying Humbaba, ridding Ishtar’s tree of demons, and defeating Akka, the king of Kush. All these deeds eventually attracted the amorous attentions of Ishtar, who offered to become his lover. However, knowing the fates of her other paramours, Gilgamesh refused in harsh terms. As a result, she became angry and sicced the Bull of Heaven on him. While he originally didn’t care enough to go stop it, he was persuaded when his musician created a song spurring him to action. He and Enkidu easily killed the bull and butchered it as well, distributing its bones, meat, and skin to the people of Uruk. When Ishtar threw a tantrum over their deed, they mocked her. This eventually brought disaster upon the friends, as Ishtar complained to the rest of the gods over the heroes’ insult to her. Holding a council, the gods decided one of them needed to die. Gilgamesh’s three divine parents (Lugalbanda having now been elevated to god status) spoke up in defense. As a result, Gilgamesh was spared while Enkidu was chosen to die. Gilgamesh was distraught, but ultimately could do nothing as Enkidu wasted away and died. After his friend’s death, Gilgamesh refused to bury him, keeping Enkidu’s body by his side until a maggot dropped out of the corpse’s nose. Only then did he throw a lavish funeral for his friend. Shortly after the funeral, his grief temporarily drove him mad, causing him to run into the desert, living on the meat of animals while wearing their skins.
After recovering enough of his wits, Gilgamesh, traumatized by Enkidu’s death, decided that he never wanted to die. He set off on a quest for immortality, which eventually took him to the sage Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Great Flood. Throughout his journey, the barkeeper at the edge of the world, Siduri; the scorpion monsters who guarded the tunnel to Utnapishtim’s house; the ferryman who brought people to Utnapishtim; and even the sage himself tried to dissuade Gilgamesh from seeking immortality, telling him it is better for him to enjoy his mortal life instead of seeking things that he is not meant to have. He refused to listen to this advice and insisted, sometimes violently, upon getting his way. The sage charged him to prove that he deserved immortality by staying awake for seven days. However, as soon as he sat down, Gilgamesh was overcome by the fatigue of living in the desert and then making the long journey to Utnapishtim. He fell asleep for seven entire days and thus lost his chance. As a result, he threw a tantrum and then sat in a corner and cried. Utnapishtim’s wife, taking pity on him, told him about an alternate way to gain what he wanted—a thorny herb that grew deep within the ocean. With his abilities, Gilgamesh easily acquired the herb. However, it was later eaten by a snake when he was not looking. This caused another tantrum that eventually ended when he realized his quest really was futile. As a result, he resigned himself to being just a mortal man and the king of Uruk. He returned to the city, weary and at peace, determined to rule over his people and be a good, mature king at last…
Only it wasn’t that easy. He found out, through experience, that ruling a kingdom through ideals did not work. Even if rulers spoke of ideals like justice or honor, they were but empty words. In truth, a ruler is ruthless: they must be willing to lie, to cheat, to steal, to betray, and even to murder. It was especially traumatizing to him because beforehand, he had been more used to living the life of a hero than that of a king. He had truly believed in justice, honor, and glory. Now, not only was he constrained from going on those quests that he liked and forced to live a boring life of paperwork and administrative babble, but his naivety was also completely shattered. He learned that a hero and a king were two opposite things…and he had to be both. For Gilgamesh, a hero could be selfless—he could run off and sacrifice himself whenever he wished, but that was only because heroes ultimately belong to themselves. Kings, however, belong to their people, to their nation, to their throne. For the sake of his people, his kingdom, and his own power, he had to do many, many unsavory things. He fed his people by snatching bread from the mouths of others; enriched Uruk at the cost of other kingdoms. He initiated wars that expanded the power and territory of Uruk, but also left corpses strewn across both sides of the battlefield, broken families, and general devastation. As a hero, he would have saved all those who reached out to him; but as a king, he would take into consideration the political, economic, and human cost, and then choose to save all of them, some of them, or none of them. As a hero, he had a definite sense of right and wrong, but as a king, the lines became blurred. He would execute perfectly righteous officials while turning a blind eye to corrupt ones; he would start wars of aggression over meager causes; he would plunder, slaughter, and betray for the sake of his country. As a hero, he had friends, but as a king, he had only allies. A hero is pure, but a king is corrupted. A hero is selfless for selfish reasons: glory, loved ones, indulging his own ideas; but a king is selfish for selfless reasons: they must forever put their own desires and ideals after the good of their people and their nation. Even as the hero inside him raged and cried, the king continued on his ruthless path for many years. He understood that a hero sacrificed only his life, while a king must also sacrifice his honor and morality. Even if it hurt him greatly, as a hero, he could not allow himself to abandon his people while they still needed him.
After 200 years as king, it came even time for Gilgamesh to die. His first reaction was to, again, throw a tantrum. However, Shamash allowed him to see the blessings he had received in this life and offered him a place as the judge of the underworld after death, essentially elevating him to divine status. Satisfied with Shamash’s offer, Gilgamesh planned out a great tomb for himself, laid down in there, and died as the gods had ordained. The waters of the Euphrates were diverted to bury his tomb under the river forever.
However, this was not the end for him. In the underworld, he found out that being judge…entailed lots and lots of paperwork. As a result, he balked at this and decided that he didn’t want the job after all. Then, he decided that he owed it to himself and everyone who considered him a memetic badass to punch Death in the face. So he did just that. Vigorously. To a bad seventies soundtrack. And he punched Death until Death had to let him escape the underworld in his new, young, and quasi-immortal body. However, in exchange, Gilgamesh had to give up his sense of direction and his kingship of Uruk. Still, it was fine with him, since now he was free to do what he liked again. While this would normally have never happened, Gilgamesh’s three divine parents pressured Death to let it slide.
Without a sense of direction to guide him, Gilgamesh found himself travelling the world, often ending up in the wrong location. Now left to his own devices, he developed a taste for collecting weird things as souvenirs of his journeys. In his newfound immortality, he also found that he was now easily bored and constantly seeks entertainment, usually through eccentric antics such as giving Hercules a wedgie. He has met plenty of the other epic heroes during his long existence, and has formed his own opinions of them, sometimes different from the world at large. His “collection” ranges from mementos from these other heroes to souvenirs bought at the gift shop. At the same time, it ranges from things he can actually use (weapons) to things that are useless (stuffed animals), to things that are just weird or disgusting (Sir Bedevere’s severed hand). Nevertheless, he is reluctant to part with even the useless items.
At some point in his travels, he stumbled upon the island of Avalon, home to Morgan Le Fay, her husband Holger Danske, and a bunch of sleeping heroes. Avalon is usually under Morgan’s spells, causing it to constantly shift locations, sometimes even to a pocket universe that she herself has created. Under normal circumstance, nobody would ever find Avalon unless Morgan wished for them to do so. However, Gilgamesh, with his amazing ability to get lost, managed to lose himself to the point that he wandered onto Avalon. Because of its mystical properties, the features of Avalon are constantly shifting. As a result, Gilgamesh was unable to find a way off of it. It was no problem for him, though, and he settled down to a life of freeloading off Morgan. In addition, though life on the island was usually peaceful, it was far from boring. Due to increased urbanization among humans, the pantheons of the world have taken up dumping their sleeping heroes in Morgan’s house to rest until the day that they are needed again. Fortunately, her house, the Fata Morgana, contains infinite rooms. At the same time, they also took up dumping their unused, unneeded artifacts on her. Gilgamesh found it great fun to play with these artifacts, though sometimes, he would use them in the wrong way, create a mess, and get yelled at by Morgan. One such case was when he tried to resurrect Enkidu using Morgan’s spell books. The spell was unsuccessful and Enkidu was brought back as a completely bestial version of himself, now bound to Gilgamesh as a familiar. Needless to say, Morgan was not happy with how the new “pet” messed up her living room.
The three heroes originally intended to stay on the island until Doomsday, but then decided that the time had come for them to reappear in the human world when a sentient monster made of chaos magic attacked the world. The sleeping heroes were roused and set up a resistance beginning with London. In the ensuing battle, Avalon was wrecked and Morgan, Holger, Enkidu, Gilgamesh, and Morgan’s brother Arthur were forced to temporarily relocate to suburban London. There, they settled down to an almost sitcom-ish modern life. Gilgamesh took it upon himself to instruct his housemates in modern technology and bring excitement to the normally static community consisting mostly of retired folks. His housemates often attempt to curtail his madness, but to no avail.