#but ishtar? absolutely the worst possible match-up

[magerywrites]

Ladies. Gentlemen. Enbies. Nascent Armoured Core Six puppygirls. We have a tragedy on our hands. A category five code red containment breach.

It has come to my attention that there are people in the notes of this poll trying to use the Epic of Gilgamesh to justify Enkidu out-heading Ishtar.

The Epic of Gilgamesh. The story about, among other things, how arrogance and hubris against the gods will only lead to disaster and true wisdom is found in accepting that humans can never aspire to the domain of the divine. The story that literally uses Enkidu’s death to support that message.

We need to nip this in the bud. It’s kind of like citing Fate/Stay Night to justify saying that being a hero is lame and you shouldn’t want to save anyone. Neither Archer nor Gil are meant to be right. It’s pretty foundational to the entire story.

Furthermore, using the Epic itself as a reference point for understanding anything about Ishtar is fraught with flaws. The version Fate/Grand Order and Fate/Strange Fake rely on—the Standard Babylonian Version—presents a view of Ishtar so dissimilar to any other representation across any part of her mythology that scholarship has suggested the Epic's compilers were reflecting the existence of "anti-Ištar sentiment at that time" (Beaulieu, 2003). In fact, the original Sumerian version of Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven has nothing to do with romance, but is instead Inanna's attempt to stop Gilgamesh rampaging as he pleased through her temple in Uruk.

Beyond this, it's one piece of mythology out of dozens that feature her. I wrote an entire essay on the subject of Ishtar's sexual skills as attested to in her mythology for this tournament and feel obligated to note that in it I referenced twenty-nine different texts from the relevant time periods, including myths, prayers, kingship inscriptions, and the like... and I could have cited more if I'd had the time.

The Epic is a good story—it's a great story!—but it is exactly that: a story. Pull open the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) and read through the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi (did you know there's a section in it called the Song of the Lettuce where Inanna refers to Dumuzi as her "well-watered lettuce" among a whole series of funky pet names?), or myths like Inanna and Enki or Inanna and Ebiḫ to get a sense of what she is actually like in stories that aren't, arguably, deliberately biased against her.

If you do, you might come to understand how I managed to put down five thousand words about Ishtar's immaculate head game and why I am so normal about her to begin with.

(I would like to be clear that I don't write this to deny Enkidu's sexual skills; as you may already know, a recent discovery revealed that Enkidu actually joins Ereshkigal in the "fourteen days and nights of sex in one myth" club. Rather, I seek, as always, to correct some significant misconceptions about Ishtar that propagate throughout the fandom due to Fate's take on her and the fame of the Epic itself.)

Side D, Round 4 (Match 2)