You Ever Think About How The Epic Of Gilgamesh Is One Of The Oldest Stories We Still Remember, Even Incomplete,

You ever think about how the Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest stories we still remember, even incomplete, and it may be a deconstruction? The implications? Gilgamesh citing other stories, some of which we’ve lost, as to why he won’t accept Ishtar’s proposal. The whole concept of ‘this is Gilgamesh, he’s unbelievably arrogant and handsome and strong and he’s two-thirds god and a king– and now we’re gonna explore why he’s a complete asshole and his subjects dislike him, and how for all his greatness he too is just a human with very human faults and fears, and how he had to walk a VERY rocky road to become an ACTUALLY wise and benevolent king.’

Just like. One of the lessons of my theatre classes that always stuck with me is that every play is a point in an ongoing conversation about dozens of different things, and I think that applies to other mediums of art as well. You see enough of a specific trope or argument made, you make your own response by deconstructing or subverting or reconstructing or defying that trope. If the Epic of Gilgamesh was a counterargument, how many original arguments as stories existed, until someone went ‘you may all have a point. But listen to this.’ 

I’m familiar with a few other Mesopotamian myths that may have been earlier, fragmented as they are, but it just makes me feel So Many Things to consider if the Epic was a deconstruction and how that implies prior existing works– conversation!– and how long humans have just. Told stories. How many of those works we’ve lost were counterarguments? How long back does it go? Probably to the beginning, but man. To just someday die and look down at the world and see the conversation of humanity in its entirety… what I wouldn’t give…