Enkidu and Gilgamesh - An eternal friendship

Ovid said: Fas est et ab hoste doceri; It translates into 'it is permissible to learn even from an enemy'. The relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is one that really fascinates me, not for its implicit sexual components, but for the diagram of perfect friendship that is built by this couple. Friendship is not concordance, it's also disagreement, because harmony doesn't inevitably lie in the agreement between the like but in the coexistence between the dissimilar. This ancient wisdom is passed on by these heroes of Babylonian mythology.
Gilgamesh, the hero who is one third human and two thirds divine, is what could be defined as an arrogant tyrant; he has the right to first deflower women, he must possess every treasure that has come from every part of the world, his word is law and no one can oppose him. And although he's the most perfect example of a despot, he is also a special being with incredible powers: he possesses all knowledge; in his dreams he can see the future; his body is perfect and his strength is unmatched. All of Gilgamesh's enemies are doomed to death, and all of the king's allies are protected by the walls he built.

by えいひ

But the people are unhappy. Ordinary people cannot bear this absolute domination by Gilgamesh and ask the gods for help and so Aruru, a goddess of creation, molds from clay a creature similar to the god Anu, the father of the gods, or Enkidu.
Enkidu is a wild being, without form and without identity, in the forests there is his den and he plays among the wild beasts. This creature does not know civilization, it ignores the city of Uruk and ignores the existence of a powerful king. Enkidu grazes with gazelles and hunts in the woods. One day a hunter is frightened by Enkidu and asks for help from King Gilgamesh who orders to send a prostitute named Shamhat will have to appease the beast.
Enkidu, this formless creature, will take the appearance of the same prostitute and will head to Uruk to face the tyrant and free the people.
Enkidu, despite having a human aspect, is far removed from civilization. His mind is stuck in the wilderness. He is not a misanthropic creature, he does not despise the human race, but in the city he feels like he's in a trap. Enkidu sees the world with naivety, he believes in total freedom, in kindness and does not try to know things, he accepts them as they are. In Uruk, Enkidu savors with his eyes the hard stone that establishes the rule and the limit; in Uruk there is the cold rationality of Gilgamesh, the man who knows everything and who fears nothing.
Enkidu knows he's destined to kill that tyrant and for this reason he is not afraid to go beyond the walls of Uruk with his head held high and to challenge Gilgamesh in front of his own palace. Heresy, at least, and madness, almost certainly. Gilgamesh had dreamed of the coming of a strong creature like him but seeing that being his soul calmed down.
Gilgamesh, he was the strongest and most athletic of men, he was the most intelligent and the most cunning; in front of him was an androgynous, indefinite, wild being, with a fragile appearance and with a gaze so calm that it seemed absent.
A king like Gilgamesh could not take a challenge seriously from such a being. He pushed him but was pushed in turn and fell to the ground leaving the soldiers speechless; the strength of that creature had overwhelmed him. The duel between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is the clash between civilization and nature; between rationality and irrationality; between old and young; between cold intelligence and warm ingenuity. The conclusion of this epic duel is not like the one between Achilles and Hector; the end of the fight is the beginning of a friendship as they both understand their opponent and learn that they have a lot to learn from each other.
With Enkidu's friendship, Gilgamesh learns kindness and becomes more kind to his people.
Fate pits the two friends against a demonic beast named Humbaba, also known as the Terrible. Ninsun, Gilgamesh's mother, fears for her son's life and meets Enkidu before his departure.

"Even if you are not a birth of my womb, I now consider you as one who was an oblate in Gilgamesh, in the same way as the priestesses, hierodules and consecrated women!".

The words of the mother to Enkidu are of strong impact and underline an interesting thing, which is that Ninsun assigns Enkidu a female role not a male which is quite curious, especially considering that Gilgamesh and Enkidu will walk in the Forest of Cedars (the lair of Humbaba). holding hands.
The king of Uruk is not a man immune to fear and during their journey he thinks several times to go back but Enkidu reassures him, protects him and promises that they will receive great glory by killing the demonic monster.

by 生川

Nihil inimicius quam sibi ipse. These are the words of Horace and mean 'There is nothing more enemy than oneself'.
In the battle against Humbaba and in his killing the two heroes commit an incredible act, saving the people of Uruk but at the same time defying the divine will.
Before his death, Humbaba had predicted the death of Enkidu but the latter doesn't listen to the words of a monster. Gilgamesh, however, is concerned. The friendship of the two heroes becomes increasingly dangerous, especially for the deities who see, in these two, a threat to their authority. But how come?
The two most powerful creatures in the world complement each other and collaborate, their friendship is the bearer of immense security and pride that leads them to ignore divine commands and to live as they wish. Gilgamesh no longer finds joy in serving the deities but only in the company of Enkidu, this is bad. The king of Uruk is an example of power but also of law. He's the symbol of the city and he's the one that everyone emulates. If the king of Uruk despises the deities then the people of Uruk will do the same.
Ishtar arrives.
Ishtar cannot be considered as the Aphrodite of Ancient Greece or as the Venus of Ancient Rome, Ishtar was a deity of love but also of war, which is very special. This is a spoiled and self-confident goddess; she loves to lie with different men and different animals and then hurt them by cursing them in very… original ways. In other words with Ishtar it's just sex and pain.
Gilgamesh knows Ishtar, he knows above all the fate of her lovers and for this he refuses to lie with her and marry her. Angry Ishtar asks for help from Anu, her father, and forces him to give her the Bull of Heaven (which could be called Gugalanna or not, since this name could belong to Ereshkigal's husband). The Bull of Heaven was a divine beast with incredible destructive powers; its arrival coincided with famines and the death of thousands of people.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu manage to defeat the beast and Ishtar, even more enraged, condemns Enkidu for turning Gilgamesh against her. Enkidu's answer is quite famous: he tears a thigh from the carcass of the Bull of Heaven and throws it in Ishtar's face. Funny, yes, but also fatal.
With this sacrilegious act, Enkidu inevitably condemns himself and is cursed by the choice of Anu, Ea and Shamash. Enkidu's arrogance plays against him and in the end he dies.
Gilgamesh is severely traumatized by the death of his best friend. According to one version of the mythology, he placed a veil over Enkidu's face as was customary between lovers.
What does this story teach us? That friendship is important? That it's not gay if it's clay? No.
What this story teaches is that differences, oppositions, do not necessarily have to be the cause of eternal wars.
The whole matter could be summed up with the philosophical concept of Yin and Yang. Gilgamesh and Enkidu complement each other not because they are the same but because they are opposites and the line of harmony lies in the opposition. There is always a little irrationality in rationality; in irrationality there is always a bit of rationality. Civilization is always a bit wild; and nature always has a bit of civilization. So things are and so they must be.
By working together, Enkidu and Gilgamesh managed to improve each other. Together they faced the forces of fate, killed the terrible beast Humbaba, saved the people from a terrible famine and drove away the capricious goddess Ishtar.
Verae amicitiae sempiternae sunt means 'True friendships are eternal'. Cicero is right and we know that no matter what happens, Gilgamesh and Enkidu will always be friends and will always be ready to improve each other.

Shirou Emiya - The hero and the weapon

If you had the power to save people would you do it in exchange for a sacrifice such as your humanity? This question is raised in the confrontation between Shirou and Archer. Their battle, their final confrontation, is a fascinating moment in Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, and even if I don't like Shirou as the protagonist I can't deny that that battle was very beautiful, certainly better than the one against Gilgamesh, because here there was a real ideological clash, there it was a battle between two ways of conceiving heroism.

Shirou is the modern Artoria, in a nutshell, he believes in heroism, he wishes to become a hero himself, following in the footsteps (or rather the influence) of his father, he embodies his desire to be a hero and to this is obsessed with that path. Like Artoria, Shirou renounces emotions (mainly because of his trauma), he prefers to be an object that saves everyone and sacrifices himself for others rather than being a simple human being who cannot save anyone, this idea of his, this his way of seeing heroism, as we have said many other times, is represented by the Unlimited Blade Works where you can see the presence of gears that symbolize Shirou's machine nature, this nature without humanity, practically empty. Shirou, in this ideological battle is a puer, let's say so, he's a naive boy, a young man who aspires to become a hero like those of legends: a hero of justice. The senex, the elder, is Archer who represents the destiny of Shirou's ideologies, even if he comes from another reality, we can consider him as the "elder Shirou". He knows that ideal and hates it because it has led him to an abyss: he has become a weapon used by others to commit atrocities. He's a mercenary, in that sense, no ... perhaps worse ... he's literally an object used to do harm. He has killed a lot and he knows it, he knows he has killed and he knows that it's all the fault of that ideal of wanting to save everyone. Archer knows, from his experience, that you cannot save every life, you must always make sacrifices, such is the course of things and so it must be.

In Unlimited Blade Works, the swords in the desert represent the lives that Archer has taken, all those weapons are his sins are the result of his wanting to be a machine that saves others. The question here is very simple: who is right? Who is wrong? Establishing this can be difficult.

 
The first thing to say concerns the renunciation of humanity: Shirou's sacrifice is the one made by Artoria but there is a difference that may be difficult to notice ... Artoria is not a hero in the same way that Shirou wants to be. You see: Artoria just wanted to protect all the people of her nation, but she was still a queen, she didn't have time to protect everyone, she wasn't some sort of Spiderman, let's face it, her job was to defend the homeland not to save the world and this is a fundamental difference that must be kept in mind.

Leviathan

Shirou sacrifices his humanity for humanity but Artoria sacrificed her humanity for the homeland, in other words she has become something like the king on the cover of Leviathan (T. Hobbes) ... she has become the representation of the supreme will of the people, she's became the absolute leader of the kingdom. The ideal king in both peace and war, but nothing comparable to the hero that Shirou dreams to be. Perhaps Artoria is more like a saint like Joan of Arc but certainly calling her a "hero" is a bit of a stretch since she doesn't actually respect the definition of heroism that her own Master wants to pursue.

Shirou wants to sacrifice himself, his own humanity to become a true hero, but doing this means becoming a weapon. He wants to become a weapon that can be available to everyone, even to higher forces. Does it remind you of anyone?

Enkidu and Shirou have a lot in common, much more than Artoria and Shirou. What do Enkidu and Shirou have in common, in your opinion? Isn't it obvious? Being weapons. But they aren't weapons for the good of a group of people but for the good of anyone, they're objects and coincidentally both have a characteristic: they have been used by superior forces in an inappropriate way. Let us remember that Archer was used to kill people, and Enkidu was used by the Gods to kill Gilgamesh. It's not all. The Noble Phantasms of Enkidu and Shirou are linked to their being, to their very essence, they are not separate weapons, like a sword or a bow or a magic, they are a part of them, of their being: the chain is a part of Enkidu and emphasizes the fact that he's not a human being since he can even take on any appearance, after all he's made of clay and like clay can be shaped.

The Unlimited Blade Works is a part of Shirou, a metaphor of his existence; and here's a curious thing ... although there are several magical formulas with which Shirou activates the Noble Phantasm there are parts, in different formulas that are interesting:

1. "I am the bone of my sword, steel is my body and fire is my blood" 
2. "My body is made out of swords, my blood is of iron and my heart of glass"
3. "This body is made out of infinite swords."

The theme is always the same: Shirou is not human, he's a weapon just like Enkidu. And let us remember that Enkidu can take the form of any object and therefore technically also of any weapon, so even Enkidu could say of himself that he's made of infinite swords. Here we have two weapons that have had a completely different fate. In fact Enkidu was saved, absurdly, by Shirou's rival and this is the sweet irony that takes me away. 

Enkidu was saved by Gilgamesh who as his opposite and perfect rival completed him and made him more human. The explanation for this lies in Enkidu's lack of that victimhood that instead characterizes Shirou, in fact, Enkidu is a weapon, yes, but still he feels a form of exaltation when he fights against Gilgamesh, he doesn't start from the assumption that he will lose but wishes to face Gilgamesh and winning him; he's driven by competition and this leads him to join Gil, and to be with him. A friendship is forged between the two but also a rivalry.

While Shirou got nothing from Gilgamesh and even less from Artoria or Rin and practically learned nothing from Archer, in other words, he stayed true to his path. Which can be praised or not. But the fact is that a recurring element in Shirou's magic formulas is his victimization and perhaps pessimism which for some can be slightly annoying. When Shirou fights he assumes that he will lose but still gives his all. I don't know whether to call it modesty or imbecility.

 

Enkidu, as a weapon, taught one thing: being objects doesn't make you free, on the contrary, it's a renunciation of all freedom in the vain hope of being used in the right way. This self-objectification is a key point in Shirou's philosophy and is the reason that leads him against Archer, who wants to kill him to avoid committing those atrocities. Here the question is: can a hero who has no feelings really be a hero?

Artoria lost her kingdom due to her lack of humanity, because the people thought of her to be too perfect, too machine-like, but why would this be a negative side? I do not understand. The perfect hero, or the perfect king, is the one who feels no emotion, right? And anyone would like to have a perfect king or hero, right? No, wrong. In reality there's no perfect king or hero, it's an illusion, but the existence of competent kings and heroes is not. A competent king, as opposed to Artoria, is one who doesn't represent perfect justice but knows how to communicate to the people because he knows that the people must be happy in order for the kingdom to continue. The people are not interested in justice, but in happiness; this was understood by the Roman emperors, by the way.

Artoria didn't understand this because, recalling the famous words of Alexander the Great, she had clung to an illusion, a fable, an ideal of a king which in reality is completely useless and ineffective.

And what about the hero?
The competent hero is not the one who saves everyone, but is the one who knows how to cultivate a myth of himself. The reality of things is that no one can save every single person, one cannot be a perfect hero. But one can turn one's heroic acts into stories to be told for ... what purpose? The purpose is to teach the future generation, the purpose is to cultivate new heroes who will one day follow the same path. You have to become legends, not perfect beings. 

The irony is that the King Arthur myth is a beautiful lie born for the sole purpose of teaching kings to be perfect for the people. But the real Arthur, probably, was a Roman leader who killed barbarians, or the natives of Britain, and therefore, technically, he was on the side of the oppressor and not the oppressed, so yeah... not really a heroic figure.

 

In addition, the absence of humanity makes the hero a figure of dubious morals. Saving a person automatically is like drinking a glass of water, it's not right or wrong, it's amoral, that is, it cannot be subjected to a moral judgment. And one might say: "No, because the important thing is the gesture." And I say ... no, the important thing is also the intent and this is also told by Kant in the Critique of Practical Reason: there are visible actions and invisible intentions. The latter are subjected to a moral judgment. If you save someone for money, you're immoral, if you save them because you have to save them, then you're moral, but if you save them because you can't do otherwise, then what are you?

Let me be clear, the matter here is very complicated. Kant likes to keep us in these philosophical dilemmas but we have to put up with it. So ... in the Critique of Practical Reason two types of imperatives (i.e. commands) are introduced:

• Hypothetical imperative
• Categorical imperative

The hypothetical imperative is presented in the formula "if ... you must ..." to give a simple example: "If you want to do well in school you must study".

The categorical imperative is presented in the formula of "you must" pure and simple. It's a duty for duty. You have to help that person because you have to help that person, okay? Fine. The categorical imperative has formulas that it must respect to be considered as such:

1. The first formula (or basic formula) tells us that this imperative must respect a universalizability test, that is, if your maxim is applicable by all human beings without affecting their relationships and their freedom then it's a categorical imperative;
2. The second formula tells us that the categorical imperative must respect human dignity and must not reduce your neighbor or yourself to a means of selfishness;
3. The third formula tells us that the categorical imperative must be the result of a rational and autonomous will and must not start from the outside, or from a enslaving will.

So our Shirou acts in a moral way or not? I could say, "Yes, he's moral because Shirou saves people." The problem is that he wants to save them because he wants to be a hero, and therefore there's an ulterior motive and therefore the saved person is reduced to a means that Shirou uses to achieve his goal, which is heroism. But the question is not that simple: we must take a step back and understand Shirou's maxim ... what command did he impose on himself? To be a hero. I could say, forcing Kant into this discussion, that Shirou reasons this way: "I have to be a hero because I have to be a hero". Okay, so this is his maxim, his command. But is it a valid categorical imperative? We need to determine if it exceeds the three formulas:

1. If this imperative were followed by everyone we would probably all have a better life, there is no doubt about that, but then I stop and ask myself: what does it mean to be a hero? The idea of ​​heroism, unfortunately, is quite subjective. Let us take Artoria's idea of ​​heroism which coincides with the idea of ​​sanctity which for Kant is impossible in life, since sanctity is the perfect conformity to the moral law, a perfection that no rational being can reach at any moment of life of one's existence, because to be holy one must not be influenced by human needs (emotions, instincts, desires and so on ...) but the human being, at least once in his life (and perhaps even more than once) will act by following his own needs and not the moral law and therefore the sanctity of Artoria is impossible ... unless you give up your humanity as she did and as Shirou wants to do. So heroism, for them, equals the renunciation of humanity and such a thing if applied by all human beings would deprive any person of the emotions, empathy and desires that are a part of humanity anyway, a necessary part of the human being. So this maxim would ruin human relationships and make them impossible;
2. Does this imperative follow the second formula? Well, technically not, because the question we have to ask is: can a person deprived of his humanity have a conception of human dignity? I don't think so and Archer proves it to us because following that imperative he ended up killing people and therefore did not respect human life and the dignity of other lives. So it doesn't follow the second formula;
3. This imperative does not even follow the third formula because Shirou did not conceive this imperative completely by himself but was influenced by his father, so it's not a fruit of his autonomous will.

So what have we just shown? That Shirou is not following the moral law however, beware, as I said before, he's not immoral because in any case it must be considered that he doesn't harm others; his deeds are good but his intent cannot be subjected to a moral judgment, just like that of an object. Obviously Archer sees all of this as bad because it would mean risking becoming a vulgar killer, nothing more, nothing less.

Archer possesses the material experience of the fruits of that suicidal ideal of Shirou, an ideal that brings with it only death and loneliness. However, Shirou's response to Archer's ideology is basically, "Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right". For Shirou, being a hero is a matter of justice. Of justice to whom? Towards others? Towards himself? Towards his father? What does it mean to be right for Shirou when Archer reveals to him that the fate of his ideal is black as coal?
Shirou is aware of the sacrifice he's making, he says it himself, he knows that he's walking in hell but he still wants to walk that path. He wants to fulfill his father's wish, he is an object that contains his father's obsession, a weapon forged by the desires of a man whose morality can easily be questioned, let's say so. This is right for Shirou. The righteous is in that sacrifice. Sacrificing his life, his humanity for an ideal of heroism which, as we know, is suicidal by definition.

 

But so that means Archer is right, right? Archer was supposed to kill Shirou to put an end to this madness. The renunciation of humanity, Artoria herself is aware, is a serious mistake whose consequences can ruin many innocent lives. So Archer is really right while Shirou is wrong. The matter could end here ... but there is one more thing we need to highlight.

 

Archer versus Shirou. This ideological clash recalls the experience of Gilgamesh against Enkidu however it is deprived of a real alternative that can resolve the situation definitively for both characters. Archer sees in Shirou the source of his mistakes and wants to kill him in this way he will never kill again and will never be a weapon again. Shirou sees in Archer a man who has lost his values, who has lost the right path, a man who must deny at all costs because he no longer knows what is really right.
Their battle could have ended either with the death of one or with the death of the other because there are no real points of contact.
Psychologist Sheldon B. Kopp had seen in Gilgamesh and Enkidu the representation of the conscious and the unconscious, what we call with the Latin terms senex and puer. The senex, the elderly, is: wise, rational, perhaps arrogant, human, cold and logical; the puer, the child, is: instinctive, irrational, emotional, animalistic and empathic.

In the battle between Gilgamesh and Enkidu there is an ideological opposition, yes, there is a deadly battle, yes, but there is a bond like that between Yin and Yang that leads the two to understand their weaknesses and strengths . Enkidu knows that Gilgamesh is his opposite and can improve him and Gilgamesh knows that Enkidu is his opposite and equal and can also make him a better person. Thus their friendship was born.

But Archer and Shirou do not present the same opposition for several reasons:

1. They are the same person and therefore they really have nothing to learn from each other, they simply oppose each other;
2. Neither actually teaches the other, they simply stay close to their ideologies; 
3. The desire to kill Shirou manifested by Archer is moved by the last bit of humanity that probably remains in his soul;

This third point is my philosophical device by which I affirm that: Archer, in killing Shirou, is committing suicide for the good of humanity itself, and therefore shows a human side in preventing himself from becoming a machine of death and nothing more.
But what was Kinoko Nasu's mistake?
Here we don't have Gilgamesh / Enkidu, no, here we have the killer who wants to kill himself before he can become the killer. The attempt fails because Shirou triumphs, but in the end the two become allies which is a fundamentally wrong choice. Shirou has all the credentials to be an antagonist yet he is treated like a hero even when technically he shouldn't be.

The ideological clash between Archer and Shirou immediately makes one thing clear: the two can never get along, they can never be allies, because the ideological clash between the two characters is based on a definitive repulsion where only one of the two can emerge victorious and any compromise would be for each of the two as a betrayal of their cause.
Obviously Archer is the one following Shirou.

Nasu's mistake therefore was to conclude the ideological clash between these two as a battle between Goku and Vegeta, where the difference between the two characters is useless, it is superficial.
But please don't make the mistake of the average user who looks at Fate and says that the "battle between Shirou and Gilgamesh is an ideological battle" because I know it and you know that there is little ideology and more battle between protagonist and antagonist. The ideology of Gilgamesh is not even treated by the anime, it is simply hinted at and abandoned in the basement as the typical B-series antagonist ideology; during the battle against Shirou, Gilgamesh does not philosophize, he simply teases him and acts like a bitch and then ... well there's very little ideology and in fact our dear Gilgamesh also dies badly. Very badly.

The real ideological battle, the only time Shirou's ideas are challenged, is when he confronts Archer and for me the conclusion of their confrontation was unsatisfactory.

 

But that's just my opinion.