#but so are qt myth adaptations as a whole so i'm letting myself have this :)

[artino-c]

In Thick as Thieves, Costis draws a parallel between Kamet + himself and Immakuk + Ennikar, but I’ve always wondered how Kamet would have related to the poems when he was young and had dreams of running the Mede empire from behind the scenes.

Kamet's scholarly description of the Immukuk and Ennikar tablets invites an obvious comparison to the real-world epic of Gilgamesh:

“You said you were reciting from the first tablet,” said the Attolian. “There are more than a hundred in the temple of Anet alone,” I said. “No one knows how many there are altogether. Scholars argue about it. Some of the tablets are retellings of other tablets, only differing in style. Sometimes parts of the story change.”

Thick as Thieves, Chapter 2

This could easily be a description of our reception of the Gilgamesh story, too, with significant differences between various ancient traditions, and the role of Enkidu (loosely, a model for Ennikar in QT) changing drastically between the Sumerian vs. Akkadian versions of the myth:

In the Sumerian tales … Enkidu is Gilgamesh’s servant, not his friend. […] Indeed, it seems that converting Enkidu into Gilgamesh’s friend was the seminal change by which the Akkadian author lent unity to the materials which he used in the epic. […] To enable Enkidu’s death to turn Gilgamesh from the pursuit of lasting fame to a literal quest for immortality, the Akkadian author seized upon the sporadic hints of friendship in the Sumerian tales and applied them across the board, consistently terming Enkidu Gilgamesh’s friend, brother, and equal, whom he loves and is to caress.

Jeffrey H. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic

In QT, following MWT's tendency to make her myths a little more hopeful and YA-friendly, Immakuk and Ennikar escape the land of the dead, although we don't know how because that part of the tablet is broken. (Another neat callout to the Gilgamesh epic, which survives mostly intact but with significant portions missing!) But in the real version, Gilgamesh's love for Enkidu becomes a springboard for the poem to explore the inevitability of death: in fact, depending on what you understand the 12th tablet to be doing, Gilgamesh loses Enkidu not once but twice.

The parallel/earlier tradition of Enkidu as Gilgamesh's servant begs the question whether there are similar traditions about Ennikar in any of those alternate tablets Kamet mentions. If there are, it would point to another obvious parallel that a younger Kamet might have made—between Ennikar and himself as Nahuseresh's (or Naheelid's) right hand man, guarding him faithfully between adventures and somewhat subject to his dangerous whims. Compare these two passages:

Gilgamesh went up to the top of the mountain, and offered sacred flour to its peak: “Bring me a dream, mountain! Show me a good omen.” Enkidu built him a house for the Dream God, with a windbreak against the storm. He had Gilgamesh lie in a circle of sacred flour, while Enkidu slept like a snare in the doorway.

Gilgamesh, trans. Sophus Helle

Nahuseresh was a light sleeper, a matter of necessity for him, and when he’d opened his eyes in the darkness of his room and seen a moving flicker of white, he had been instantly alert, slipping his hand under his pillow for the long knife he kept there before he’d rolled quickly to one side. He’d found a woman standing calmly by his bed looking down at him. […] He had wanted to ask where she’d come from and what had become of Kamet, who should have been sleeping in the anteroom….

Queen of Attolia, Chapter 17

And of course the comparison to the original myth (all about death!) wouldn't be complete without Gen's apology:

"I'm sorry," said the king. "I know you wanted your chance at the emperor's side, even if it meant your death would come with his." "We all die," I snapped.

Thick as Thieves, Chapter 13

None of this is to negate the primary (and frequent) parallels between Kamet and Costis's journey/friendship and Immakuk and Ennikar's adventures in the QT poems! I just think the secondary, potentially darker parallels are interesting too.