Light of Justice

hoyoverse you can't just do that to me on a random wednesday afternoon. what is happening. what spurred this on. i dont know but i love it and i need more

i feel the need to unpack the fact albedo (hypothetically) given the power to create anything with a brush to defeat monsters decides not to make himself something, not to make durin something, but instead his first move is giving his slightly unhinged travelling companion a giant fucking mech

i know its probably for the funnies but the lore implications of this clip go crazy on the fact that albedo/durin know scaramouche is able to pilot a mech. theyre also spending time together in nod krai. fighting together. i love them. oh my god. i cant believe gay people with a dragon son are real

7 pixel homosexuals

The glimpses of sparks and slashing beneath those thick purple cloud... That's Albedo & Wanderer fighting side by side (outside Durin's dream), running toward enemies while letting Durin asleep, obliterating enemies together & possibly guarding each other's back 🥵🥵

Aahhh I wanna see it😫😫 someone please blow those smokes away why Hoyo is such a tease with this pairing😭😭

Looking at my Stephanie Dalley, for example, gives* a very different impression:

So... I really need to study this more because that's a pretty big difference, no?

Bearing in mind of course that this is tablet XII which was incorporated later, having been derived from another story. So the Sophus Helle version is giving me major slashfic vibes here.

BUT, it's always been suspected among translators that Enkidu reported about his own body, because even on Sumerian version the word 'gis' being used, meaning penis. Woman doesn't have penis, so which penis that Gilgamesh enjoy to touch, being eaten by moth in Underworld, and can be observed closely by Enkidu? Thus brings us to the second factor, another possible translation discrepancy between 2 very ancient language (now I kinda feel sorry for those researchers). Sumerian's word gal.la is translated as 'vulva' but the word's counterparts in Akkadian are more gender neutral, 'vulva' and 'crotch'.

Sumerian dictionary :

Akkadian dictionary :

Now it can be noted that while Akkadian version (especially the Standard version which is the most concise and contains most frames of Epic of Gilgamesh) is fragmented, the Sumerian version is, practically, crumbles. So much so to the point ETCSL didn't translate the passage fully (The passage in Sumerian didn't have the word for 'wife' and 'son' like mentioned in Dalley's translation so with the question mark on those words I assume that they are Dalley's personal liberty/interpretation).

While Andrew George translate the much more complete Tablet 12 in neutral standpoint.

Arjuna is known as Indra's child. His most common epithets (related to familial lineage) largely come from his mother, but it is openly understood that he is Indra's child. Indra helps him out so many times and it's wholesome as hell.

Then you have Karna, who is not acknowledged as Surya's son, and Surya keeps Kunti's secret either out of duty or regret (for leaving a child with a baby, that is). So his help is next to nothing for most of Karna's life. And then the event comes when his brother is about to take away his son's armour, the only protection he has been able to offer this boy, and he knows Karna will give it away but he goes to dissuade him anyway. When he comes, in most versions, he says he comes to aid an ardent devotee. In BORI he says that there is a secret he cannot reveal, but he is here to warn Karna out of love.

And it stands out to me so much, that from Karna's perspective, he meets his father through years of devotion and prayer, because you can tell he thinks of Surya as his mentor and spiritual guide, and Adhiratha as his father. He has next to no qualms in claiming Radha as his mother even after he is told the truth, and his reaction to Kunti being his mother is not dissimilar.

And then this god shows up, does not even bother to reveal that he is his father (I imagine Karna must have been pretty peeved when he found out - in a "you could've just told me when you visited" way) and asks him to let go of the one thing he takes great pride in. Even there too, there is a great deal of respect for agency: Karna is firm and Surya compromises. If they'd had a few more chances to interact, I think they would work out pretty well.

And then you have Arjun and Indra, so beautifully entwined, so beloved and so dear. Indra helping Arjuna is seen as interference (and rightly so), but there is something so paternal about how Indra desperately tries to protect his child - depending on the version he (not necessarily chronologically):

a) mitigates the Urvashi curse,

b) sends out the Gandharvas to heckle the Kauravas

c) bestows divine counsel upon his son

d) gives him a great bow after getting thrashed

e) turns into an insect and gets Karna cursed.

And most importantly, he shows up at a MORTAL'S door, CLAIMING TO BE A BRAHMAN (which is, again depending on version, one of reasons why said mortal got cursed), declines offers of land and money and girls, and shamelessly demands the armour. A KING. REDUCED TO A BEGGAR.

Because remember, technically Brahman's are given state funding for their research, education, priesthood, or simply their birth. Indra does none of these. He knows this. Karna knows this. He knows that Karna knows this. But he demands it anyway.

Obviously, Karna's devotion to the Sun God, and the fact the said god is his father is a narrative device meant to represent his arc of reaching for the sun and getting burned (in most cases, at least), while Arjuna's relation to Indra and his rain motifs is because narratively he peaks at terminal velocity and then freefalls to the earth as soon as Krishna dies.

But I love thinking of what their respective relations to their fathers must have been, and how it mirrors/contrasts Kunti's relationship with the gods. Kunti calls Indra and he does what she wants (for him to give her a baby), and is able to support their child in most cases. Surya is called and he does not do what Kunti wants (for him to leave immediately), and his relationship with their son is one of distance and endurance. But they are good fathers still, as good as god can be. (Except Surya with Shani. Idk what's going on there).

The punchline of "I am your father, Luke" side plot of Karna is the fact that he was son of Kunti a.k.a Pandava's elder brother, which, technically not his secret to tell since it's not his reputation is on the line. That's why only when Kunti confessed to Karna Surya also practically said "yeah son that's all true so please please listen to your mother". The problem is that Karna is rebellious son of a bitch (no offense to Kunti) whom really only do what elders were asked NOT TO DO. And Surya is not the type of parent to bail his child when the problem is the child's own mistake like he allowed Indra to bite Karna's thigh because all in all it's wrong to lie to your guru but interfered when Indra asked his armor unprompted.

I really love how the first hero epic in history is not all about glory and conquest, but about love and mortality. And also one other gem from that essay

Little linguistic observation, here's the cuneiform for heart (libbu : 𒊮), and here's the cuneiform for love (ramu):

Notice the anatomically wrong placement of the "heart"? Some theorized that the creator of that alphabet didn't put the "heart" on the true placement in human body, but the side where they felt their own heart beating when seeing someone they loved. That's right, the word for "love" is supposed to be created with the existence of a match.

Just like Enkidu was created to be "a match for the storm of Gilgamesh's heart" (libbi suluu mehru).

Whom Gilgamesh dreamt that he will love and caress like a wife (aramsuma kima assatim habubu elsu) before their meeting

And whom Gilgamesh loved greatly (arammusu dannis) after his death

ü-tu-lu-ma etlütu (gurus) [sa i] - [na ma] -a-a-al mu-si sal-lu 

Professional Assyriologist (Andrew George) translated that passage as :

The men were lying down, that were asleep on beds for the night

From the Akkadian dictionary we can identify some words

Utulu : [itulu] lay down

Etlutu (gurus) : Young men

Mu-si : at night

Sal-lu : sleep

Other words are too fragmentary for the admittedly amateur me to decipher, but I can't find any usual word for bed in that passage either "bitu" (bedroom), "erim", "gisnu", "huralbu", "i'lum", "marsu", or any other possible words for bed that you can find on the dictionary, let alone the proof that the word is plural. The closest I can find is, perhaps, that [na ma] there is a fragmentary word for "namallu" which in dictionary means "plank bed", double-sided bed. And also I can't find plural form on that line, so perhaps you can help me? Not necessary about the bed/beds, but more about how will you translate that line?

Hi! The fragment you mention is from the SB Epic of Gilgamesh, VI.180. Here is the score for that line (a comparison of various manuscripts):

Although the second line is a little different, we can use it in combination with the other versions to reassemble the likely original line: "ú-tu-lu-ma GURUŠ.MEŠ šá i-na ma-a-a-l mu-ši ṣal-lu." Whenever you see a double "-a-", as in "ma-a-a-l," it's generally transliterating a y/j sound, so it's listed in the dictionary as either "majālu" or "mayālu" (depending on how German your dictionary is!). "Majālu" is a relatively common Akkadian word for a bed or sleeping place. It's rendered in version 1 as "majāl" (no case ending) because "ina" will often occur with the bound (i.e. stripped-down) form of. noun.

So the word-for-word literal translation is "and-they-lay-down, the-young-men, in bed, at-night, sleeping."

It is a bit odd for a phonetic sign to represent multiple syllables, but not unheard of. Hittite scribes, for example, wrote the word a-na ("to" in Akkadian) so often that they started to combine the a and the na together, turning them into a single sign with the reading aná:

Also very amusing for me that even writer from thousands years ago combined very commonly used alphabets/words together for practicality, laziness is truly a concept beyond time XD

Silim! So both of the examples you have here are (non-standard) transliterations - the ETCSL's in particular is used for search strings only, because there's no single English letter that corresponds to the Sumerian "ng" sound, so they chose the (unrelated) letter "j" to make searching their site easier.

The cuneiform for this word is 𒆠𒉘 or 𒆠𒉘𒂷, pronounced kiang or kianga respectively. The "ng" is pronounced like the sound in English "singing", not with a hard "g" like in "finger". So it'd be approximately "kee-awng(-uh)" (if that's helpful!)

"If they have explicit sex in the woods it will make Enkidu's death more tragic for Gilgamesh and the story, like Romeo-Juliet and Titanic"

Enkidu's death is the peak tragedy for Gilgamesh? Am I the only one who almost break down in tears when reading the "May the sacred River Ulày mourn you, along whose banks we would walk so lusty!" line? Like, these two friends who just love each other so much so they treasured everything they did together, even just a mere strolling around in the banks of river? But they will never ever walk together again? So the one who got left behind deeply mourned that and wish the nature itself who accompany them on their private time together mourned it too?

Oh sorry what am I thinking, surely 2 dumb teenagers who killed themselves over misunderstanding and a one-day couple whose their relationship based on one naked painting are more tragic because they had ~SEX~

"They embrace and caress each other but they don't elope"

Stop confusing The Epic of Gilgamesh with modern queer stories whose their primary focus is about the forbidden/oppression of it. Those stories have their points but they definitely have different message than a story from 4000+ years ancient civilization.

"Gilgamesh is a very macho man"

So is Enkidu! Them loving each other doesn't diminish either of that!

"Why doesn't they omitted the word 'friend' and exclusively using 'lover'"

and i wanted to talk with an expert

Sir What happened to my mesopotamian furry?

from my understanding their interpretation of it is that Enkidu basically took on the appearance of the women who stayed with them for the week more closely than in the original, so Enkidu looks almost identical to her.

here’s enkidu pre-humanifization

and this is the woman and enkidu, so you can really see the similarities (this is the best quality panels i could grab)

They very much lean into the nature aspect of Enkdiu’s story so there’s still that strong connection. Oh and also Fate made them canonically nonbinary because of the fact that Enkidu was originally clay.

U'RE COMPLETELY RIGHT

(still amazed that a very acclaimed scholar just casually said "it's up to you to think that Enkidu has vagina or not. He surely has penis tho, duh" in his academic paper)

So yeah, that's why I don't mind Fate's non-binary Enkidu too much. The twinkification is absolutely terrible but they already twinkified Gilgamesh decades earlier so perhaps it can't be helped, since the Epic itself, which in legend is written my Gilgamesh, used many feminine words to describe Enkidu like wife, bride, etc.

Source : FGO ala Carte X

Epic version

The fortuitously lines missing between Enkidu's first display of anger and when he went to Uruk to beat some sense on Gilgamesh for me looks like a censorship on whatever continuation display of anger that Enkidu had.

Hello! For "precious" I'd most often use the word kal 𒆗 "valuable, excellent, rare" (prior post here). Another term is sag 𒅆𒂟 "rare, high quality," which I'd use for objects (or land - "most arable") but probably not for people. And there's dugud 𒂂 "weighty, important", which is also my tumblr badge!

Sumerian sentence (I can't find the cuneiform form on internet 😅):

Andrew George translation :

The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature translation :

Also I tried to study that Sumerian translation word-to-word, based on this Sumerian Lexicon, please correct me if I am wrong

za : precious stone, jewel, own one(?)

a : nominalizing suffix for noun, equivalent to 'the'

zu : second-person pronoun (your)

mu.si.du : will come to you, I don't know the elaboration but I found in lexicon that 'du' means come

I did some googling but other than Israel currency, shekel is only appeared as measurement for weight like silver, and 30 shekels are more n less equal to 340 gr. But I don't think that measurement is ever used in liquid object like oil? (CMIIW) Also isn't 340 gr oil too much to be used only to wake up someone (but to be fair, Gilgamesh's chest was explicitly noted to be massive)? Or is that the weight of oil + cloth that Enkidu used? Or did that mean something different entirely?

Hello! The term "shekel" is a translation of the Sumerian unit ging 𒂆, which was 1/60 of a mina, and could be used for weight of any object (though silver is most common). The exact weight of a ging could vary, anywhere between about 8 and 12 grams. The phrasing in the original text is tug 30 ging ia "a cloth (of) 30 ging of oil," which means the amount of oil would convert to around 300 ml, between a cup and a cup and a half. To me that doesn't seem unreasonable for attempting to fully smother a demigod's chest in oil, not just to wake him up but to prepare him for his day - oiling of the body was a common practice, and, for example, is a key part of the "humanization" of Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

So like, I know that Gilgamesh is quite explicitly described as very buff and massive but when I imagine his chest was like 3-4 times frying pan wide so to think Enkidu used oil equal to usage on family meal for a month for one time Gilgamesh chest-smoother use is so surprising for me haha. But the alternative is Enkidu drowned Gilgamesh with 2,378 gallons of oil 🤣🤣

Letting him die like a sick animal, not as a honorable human