Something to keep in mind when reading about Gilgamesh. The notion that Heroes are meant to be noble, righeous and good is a very modern concept. Many classic and ancient Heroes were not neccesarily virtuous. Often they were motivated by the desire for fame, glory and riches. They were morally grey and flawed like all people. Most monsters from folklore were not inherently evil either. Many were merely misbegotten beasts that the hero would slay to prove themselves. Not because they wanted to do the right thing.
@@ericktellez7632 Exactly, often the monsters are just minding their own business and have the mentality of wild animals. Then a hero comes along and kills them for fame and glory.
We do need to keep in mind the cultures of where these heroes came from. And what values those cultures put into them; what were their idealised virtues, and what were the vices they punished? To them what did it mean to be a hero, or a villain? And what did those stories reflect, or show us about their culture?
The first recorded monster being an aspect of nature slain by man at what's basically considered the dawn of civilization is uh... it's a little heavy.
@@Dan_Kanerva maybe he was the force of nature known as human desire then? I mean even if we don't like to recognize, we are part of nature too and desire is a part of our nature, maybe the strongest part of our nature, it is like if everything else our morals, customs, behaviors and even our basic instincs were there just to hold down our desire to eat the world in one bite, like a monster chained in the deep of the earth which even just its breath can shatter it.
Okay, the "horns like x, claws like y" stuff is pretty standard monster fare, but the face is really creative and horrifying. Something Lovecraftian about it, you wouldn't expect from ancient myths
@Ian Yoder It was the circumstances that created them. Sure we can make something scary looking but it won't feel the same because of what we know and because it doesn't have the history to back it up
The classics means the Classical Antiquity, between the Persian Wars and the formation of the Roman Empire. The Epic of Gilghamesh is a Bronze Age story that predates the classics by several millennia.
It almost seems like a metaphor. Humbaba represents the natural challenges of life as a river civilization, Enkidu represents the old ways (while wild, in tune with the natural flow) and Gilgamesh is progression by any means. Progression killed the challenges of old, but in doing so destroyed that which was cherished and even protected by those very same checks and balances. Enkidu, tradition and old ways asks if it was worth it.
my thoughts exactly, it reads like humanity conquering the dangers of nature. Especially with how he uses a small knife to end it, a simple tool by itself but an incredibly important one for humanity's survival and triumph over nature.
I always understood it as a struggle against nature, and being bound by mortality, reaching for devine. It's fascinating that histories oldest (at least oldest known and written) story is so complex but to the point.
That's what I got from it too. The destruction of nature and the expense of progress. We survive the natural disaster by destroying the forest to protect ourselves.
If I'm not mistaken, a common sentiment in ancient times was that the wilderness was tremendously dangerous to humanity. As such, a vast, seemingly impenetrable forest could house countless threats that might wander out and devastate humanity or otherwise keep humans stuck in a handful of safe places. Furthermore, such dangers could impede humanity's attempts to find the sources of rivers, create dams, etc. to avoid and prevent ruinous floods and so on. As such, Gilgamesh defeating Humbaba could be seen as mankind's triumph over the threats of nature, thereby being able to navigate in safety and mitigate natural disasters. Perhaps the later tale was a reflection of mankind removing too much of the wilderness and losing some of the benefits of nature.
imagine going back in time and somehow telling this folks how in a few millennia humanity would be so advanced that we now struggle to protect the very nature we once feared/ respect so much
Yes, and the man who made this video outright IGNORES Enkidu was a forest creature before being "civilized" by a prostitute. So, that may be a blatant influence on Enkidu's personal biases.
@@samuraijackoff5354 sure people have already done it by make The Grimm Reaper or in the Bible The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse one of them being Death
@@DeltaDanner GM: *sigh* "the magical quest giver of the Forrest was not ready for the attack since he had punch in his hands for his party guests. His family watches as you barbarians brutally murder him..."
@@kyle18934 Gilgamesh: Nice! I loot his body- how much gold does he have on him? GM: He's a magical nature spirit, and he no need for gold, and doesn't carry any. Gilgamesh: This is bullshit. I burn down the forest, instead then.
I feel like there’s an untapped market making horror movies in a prehistoric setting… that’s literally where our inherited fears come from, our ancestors living in caves/camps trying to survive prehistoric super predators
There are way too few prehistoric films period. A quest for fire is still my personal favorite - but yeah prehistoric horror films..? Not sure there are any I know of.....would be awesome to see one that was done right
the epic of gilgamesh is all about humanities feud with the gods and nature and seperation from both in an effort to gain dominance and prosperity. humbaba in the story represents nature and its murder is a depiction of what humanity is willing to do in its advance towards the future.
@@uteriel282 and now, thousands of years later, we finally see that this battle to dominate over nature is bringing calamity to humanity. Will we be able to change course?
The overall theme of the Gilgamesh epic seems to be that Gilgamesh needs to learn humility and fulfill his duties as a king instead of harassing his subjects or trying in vain to become immortal. Him killing Humbaba fits into that narrative. Humbaba has been appointed by the gods to guard the cedar forest. Gilgamesh goes to kill him in order to gain personal glory (though his speech to the elders of Uruk also does imply that the people did consider Humbaba a dangerous being whose death would benefit the people, probably because he was preventing them from cutting trees for lumber), and in doing so goes against the will of the gods. As a punishment, Enkidu is doomed to die, which serves as a catalyst for Gilgamesh's quest for immortality and him eventually maturing and coming to terms with his mortality. Though there's quite a lot of variation in different versions of the story, some of which is highly contradictory. In some version the sun-god, who has been asked by Gilgamesh's divine mother to keep him safe, helps him defeat Humbaba, and in others Gilgamesh is willing to spare Humbaba's life until Enkidu tells him that if he does so Humbaba will just kill them when they're leaving the forest.
@@bbibidee8233 no, the OP is the original quote. People who have not read the book say Frankenstein is the monster (ignorance) and people who have read it know he (Dr Frankenstein) is not the monster (knowledge). Wisdom is knowing that he IS the monster (awful mad scientist).
Is it positive that the lion man statue was a monster? Early human tribes were known to practice shamanism and animism, so it may be a totem of a protective lion spirit rather than a feared beast man.
Yep, we only know it's a lion-man. Wether it's a spirit, a monster, a god, or simply a man with a mask on, and wether it's a protector, a calamity to ward off through the statue, a bit of both, or neither, it's all up for debate.
My interpretation of the video: Whether Humbaba or Gilgamesh is the oldest monster boils down to this: If “monster” is defined as an inhuman being, regardless of alignment, _Humbaba_ is the first literary monster. _However,_ if “monster” is defined as a being, whether human or inhuman, whose place on the moral compass falls between Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil, then _Gilgamesh_ is the first literary monster.
it was written by ancient humans. humans have not evolved any further physiologically in any significant way. ancient humans had the same bodies and brains that we do, complete with the same intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and imaginative capacities.
@@woogiebear That's an easy thing to think when you hear of absolute idiots every day but if we never evolved intellectually or emotionally there would still be "witches" being burned alive. As for imaginative capacities, monsters in ancient times were always just mixing animals together, creative people are more capable than that now. The intestine head was unique, but all the other ancient monsters I've heard of are basically "give the guy a bulls head, maybe a snake for a tail , maybe a goat head too because more random animal heads make it cooler right? whatever who cares"
@@geostar1610 i didn't say evolution stopped. Just that we have the same brains and bodies. Of course our ideas, technology, and social structures continue to change. My point is that ancient people had the capacity to think abstractly, to create rich and complex dramas, to engineer incredible structures, and accomplish extraordinary feats. Ancient humans were just as human as you or me because we are all the same animal.
"Gilgamesh slays Humbaba with a single dagger - an unusual end for a supposedly all-powerful and murderous monster." Hmmmm, where have we seen this? *_cough_* The Night King *_cough_*
@@draoidh6479 he's mentioning an anime series called fate where gilgamesh was summoned to win his master the holy grail only to be slain by the King of knights Arthur pendragon and her master.
@@thunderboy3273 no, he is not.... i'ts a Game of Thrones reference. The Night King, the supposedly big bad of the series is killed in a ant-climatic way by a single dagger strike.
There is a cave in France, painted with animals and people, the creatures are drawn in excellent detail, to the point where scientists have used them for reference learning the cave lions didn't have a main, mammoths had humps and the cows of the time have dark spots on their backs. Things archaeology all proved later to be true. However, next to all these real creatures stantheman twice as tall the other humans with massive branching antlers. Wile it is doubtful if they ever met such a creature, it was clearly very real in their minds; the question remains as to whether it was a god or a monster.
I'm actually amazed at how complex morality this tale displays - in European civilization the concern with our balance with nature came at a much later age.
Depending on the version, The epic of gilgamesh actually goes into A LOT weirdly cool ideas. Like Gilgamesh himself , since the start of the story, is basically a Nimrod type figure (it is believed that he actually WAS Nimrod) and the kingdom he rules actually wants him to go away. The whole story is (spoilers) Gilgamesh pursuing his self-aggrandizing desires until the end where he calms the fk down and accepts a bit of humbling reality. Edit: oh and also interestingly enough, some people believe that not only was Humbaba representative of nature, he was also representative of the Gods of pagan"ish" religions. Which hits heavy if you start thinking about it.
I think you left out that Gilgamesh needed the wood from the cedar forest to build his kingdom but Humbaba was killing the lumberjacks. It was still an aggressive action on Gilgamesh's part but not purely for glory. He was trying to learn to be a good king and provide for his people. Had it not been the need for wood, Gilgamesh would've just hung out in his palace providing all the wood needed to his harem. He was definitely a jerk, but not a monster. Humbaba was the monster to remind humans of their place in the world, which in this case, was a literal place, the grasslands and plains of Uruk, and not the forests. Humans had not conquered nature yet and the idea of going into the woods was like going into outer space. It's no surprise that Uruk's "space" had a nasty alien.
@@ExtremeMadnessX we live anywhere we want, nature no longer dictates our limits, its conquered perhaps to our own detriment, but conquered nonetheless
@@Endymion766 There is no end to nature. We are but a piece of it's workings. Everything we do, no matter how vast and seemingly significant, is no more unnatural than ants burrowing out tunnels in the soil. Imagine the absurdity of an ant claiming it's conquered nature.
Pretty sure the Sumerians loved this piece of literature so much is that they can incorporate it in their debates on morality and philosophy. If only the tablets and chapters are found to be complete, imagine how much modern humanity can learn
I guess, but first written monster is a lot less interesting when its clear that monsters are older than written language. Sure it makes the question a lot harder to answer, but you can make some informed guesses. I'd say the oldest monster is the original version of the rainbow serpent. The concept is ubiquitous throughout aboriginal people in Australia which means the original story must be at least as old as Australia's first people, and that migration seams to have occurred somewhere between 40 to 50 thousand years ago, making it even older than the statue in the video. Another possibility is that the first monsters were simply ghosts, as burial and ancestor worship is some of the earliest forms of superstition humans adopted according to what evidence we have left now. ...or maybe the first monster was a giant stick with googly eyes, idunno.
Probably the first monsters where enormous and terrible versions of already feared animals, like lions, crocodiles, snakes, hippos or bears. Or a combination of certain animals like the Wendigo. To find out what was the first written will be quite tricky too.
It was impressive back then because we were the first animals to actually give thought toward our potential for death and destruction, and even lament it, even though we were just as much a part of nature as every other beast. Nowadays, it's common sense that humans suck. All one needs is to fucking look outside, and it's obvious.
@@keithklassen5320 I don't think so actually. The more I study mythology and anthropology in general the more i get the sense that our way of thinking... Hasn't really changed that much. Of course, we have different societal norms, not to mention relatively advanced technology and interconnected world. But the human psyche, ego, conscience, i think, is pretty much exactly what it has been several thousands of years ago.
Inanna's Descent to the Underworld contains the oldest written reference to the undead. They don't actually appear, but she threatens to break down the gate to the Underworld and "let the dead go up to eat the living", if the gatekeeper doesn't let her through. Maybe something like that could be included.
The fact that the dichotomy of whether man is the true monster or not originated with the very inception of monsters is wild. That always seemed like a deconstruction that later myths and stories came up with in response to the concept of monsters.
Fate has Gilgamesh as a very notable character. He is the single most powerful Heroic Spirit. Every Heroic Spirit has things called a "Noble Phantasm". These are the pinnacles of their legend. For example, Siegfried has two. The sword Balmung, which slew the evil dragon Fafnir, and the Armor of Fafnir he gained after bathing in its blood. Gilgamesh has two Noble Phantasms as well. His first is "Sha Naqba Imuru: The Omnipotent Omniscient Star". It is the mentality of the King of Heroes. It basically gives him knowledge on whatever he wants at any one time. He can even see the future with it. Though, normally he suppresses this because it makes things too easy and not fun. His second is "Gate of Babylon". It is his treasury, which contains all the treasures of the world. Every other Heroic Spirits' Noble Phantasms are contained within the Gate of Babylon. The Heroic Spirits whose Noble Pgantasms are not weapons or armor, but instead spells or techniques, he has things in his treasury that do the same thing. His treasury even contains "The Source of All Human Ingenuity" which means if humans once owned or made something, he has it. If humans do own or make something, he has it. If humans will own or make something, he has it. And the treasury retroactively updates itself. Hell, in Fate/Extra CCC Gilgamesh pulled out a faster than light spaceship. It's just in his treasury because in the future humans will have that tech, meaning he has it now. And, everything within his treasury is the first and original version of everything. His version is the superior one. Plus, he has something the "Sword of Rupture" which he has named "Ea". It is the first sword, before the concept of swords existed. It was the sword used to cleave Tiamat's body in two to form the Earth and the Heavens. His strongest attack is using Ea to shoot winds that literally cut away reality. That attack is named "Enuma Elish". Enkidu is also a Heroic Spirit, and is one of tge very few Heroic Spirits who can fight Gilgamesh head on and cone out the victor without handicaps or circumstances helping him. One of Enkidu's Noble Phantasms is a lso called "Enuma Elish", though his os different. Oh, and Humbaba is mentioned in Fate lore. Though Humbaba is different to real mythology. Humbaba is female in Fate, and was Enkidu's first friend, though Enkidu helped Gilgamesh slay her because she was putting the people of Uruk in danger. I recommend you watch the anime, or at least check it out, "Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia"... Or just "Fate Babylonia". I think Gilgamesh is fucking amazing in that. He is such a bro, and if wanted to be king of Earth, fuck yes I'd support him. Though, this is also the Gilgamesh from after he returned from his journey for the Herb of Immortality, so he's not as much of an ass as his younger self.
Fate/Strange Fake and FGO - Babylonia covers a lot of Mesopotamian myth and history. Heck, even Enkidu, Ishtar, and Humbaba appears in the Strange Fake to fight Gilgamesh
It seems almost fitting that humanity's first known story is about a mad king recklessly destroying a guardian of nature... Still quite relevant to this day in fact...
It's kill or let nature kill you. Most people fail to understand the dilemma ancient people faced back then of having to overcome the odds of survival, wouldn't you want to live as well if you were in that similar situation? But nowadays, people have become so accustomed to living in a modern civilization that they will never know the fears of living in those times. So often you will hear people bemoan the evils of man for killing animals and such because they think nature is above them and should be when in reality nature is cruel and uncertain, so why try to appease it if it can be so unpredictable? The history of human cultures is weird sometimes, they will worship some animals/nature-born beings as deities and other times depict them as evil and slay them. Humans even back then tried to rationalize what they didn't understand with moral reasons. Either way, it motivated them to continue living and because of that we've gotten thus far in our modern civilization. For any other species, that should be viewed as an achievement instead of a reason to be misanthropic.
It’s not reckless in the eyes of the people of the time. Humanity was constantly, and still is, at war with nature. The vast majority of people now could not comprehend just how u habitable and inhospitable the forests of the past were. The dense ancient forests of the past cannot be compared to most modern woodland, especially with all the forest management done for reducing forest fire spread, and improving the general safety to humans of being in the forest.
This channel deserves more subscribers. Really high quality! Btw, some say the Epic appears to have been rewritten many times into many versions. Retellings of the myth if y'will
Maybe Gilgamesh was the monster but told the story in the way the roles reversed to make him the hero all while exaggerating. However the part about his breath like fire could also represent humbaba's warnings he gave in a threatening manner.
Makes sense only humanity exists in reality and humanity were the ones that created the concept of monsters where do you think they derived inspiration then ? when monsters are fictional , the answer they used the actions of other humans as basis there would be no reason to personify natural disasters as humanoid beings unless one could draw a parallel
Yeah, this is kinda of the same thing when we demonize other animals like bears, sharks, snakes, etc because they defend themselves from us or defend their territory, so we create our own monsters. The problem is not the animals, it's us. If we treat the creature a monsters then the creature become one.
You do know humanity really has only screwed up the ecosystem in the past 200 years, right? Maybe 300 if counting certain colonial trips. For about the first million years or two (depending on when humanity began) humans and other animals more or less were in a tug of war.
It's very hard to figure out the motivations and thoughts of ancient people. We very often map modern thinking on to them, it's hard not to do. I wonder if a better perspective than good vs. evil or their understanding of shades of grey in between these, is to think of it as pre-modern narrative tropes, so character motivations and the message of the story is likely lost forever because we can't think the way they did/or understand it in full context.
Read some of the stories in the _1001 Nights_ or Slavic legends or even _The Mabinogion._ You won't find much regard for realism in them. Their reasons for telling these stories were not the same as ours.
Sounds like Gilgamesh is the real first monster of this mythology, Killing an endangered creature that was doing his job of protecting the forest.Basically in our modern world Gilgamesh would be the one that Captain Planet gonna fight him and throw into prison.
you must remember Gilgamesh was a smug prince in his 20's with demi-god superpowers... of course he was an ass . That's why his kingdom hated him , and why he decided to travel solving problems from other kingdoms to gain his people respect again . At the end of the tale 10 years have passed and he is a more mature man... is super interesting how nice the story is for being 6000 years old . People have been good writters since the start i guess
imagine a ep of captain planet where they have to protect a giant monster with intestines for a head from a normal looking dude that seems like he's the good guy.
Author: "Gilgamesh is described less as a hero and more as a tresspasser messing with forces he doesn't understand." Me: "Don't know about you but that describes every media protag I've ever seen and several PCs I've DMed over the years!" XD
"his voice is deluge, his speech is fire, his breath is death" Humbaba: "DAMN IT GILGAMESH!! I forget to brush my teeth one time! when are you gonna let it go!"
0:49 is it really that hard to decide what this is? I think it’s pretty obvious this is some caveman’s fursona. Gunk traded two rocks to pay for that furry art commission.
In the version I heard Gilgamesh kills the monster of the forest because he is on a quest to attain wood to better his peoples lives and that particular forest is his only available location to get wood. So if this translation is correct then it's safe to say that the story frames Gilgamesh firmly as the hero who made it possible for his society to grow despite nature. (source-Myths and Legends podcast)
I am convinced humbaba was the first depiction of a dragon, a creature that is extremely big, scaly, "it's breath was death" with an elongated tail and the face of a lion could be like some snakes that makes that "crown" around their heads that can compare to a lion's mane. And could only be slayed because they had bound it first Humbaba was the first story of dragonslaying. I know it's the epic of Gilgamesh but I am referring to the Humbaba hunt. Still terrifying visage, almost eldritch to it.
I just love stories about mythological monsters so much. It’s so amazing that they’ve made so much carvings about a hero slaying a monster and tablets in which they tell stories about these monsters.
The battle between Gilgamesh and Umbaba can serve as a metaphor. Man is powerful enough to overpower nature and her power for progress, but often at the cost of Nature herself, as represented by the destroyed forest.
I like that the story had a villain protagonist, which suggests that they had long since gone through their own periods of more "generic" hero vs villain stories that were lost to time.
Its interesting how one of the first stories written by mankind is of us destroying a guardian of nature (and nature itself) amd some 5,000 years later we have all but dominated and ravaged the planet in it's entirety. The epic of gilgamesh kind of seems like foreshadowing...
Historian here, just a few words about that whole "who is the real monster" bit at the end: Ancient Sumerians and Akkadians didn't have the same sense of morality as we do; written around five thousand years ago, the epic of Gilgamesh represents what that culture viewed as qualities to strive for in a king. The concept of the warrior king, that seeks greatness and glory, even while disregarding what he did to others is something that they saw in a positive light (a good example of this is how they saw Sargon of Akkad, as the great conqueror and warrior king who every king after strived to emulate) On the other hand, the latter text that CA described seemed to equate Gilgamesh more with (the historically inaccurate) historiographical version of Naram-Sim, as a warrioir king who disregarded the gods, and as such created harm to his subjects. (Sorry for any typos or badly translated words, English is not my first language)
The most interesting thing about the original Sumerian gods (who were worshipped by later contemporary and later cultures [Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans] under different names, under the umbrella term Mesopotamian) is that they were morally ambiguous: they were capable of doing either good or evil, to greater and lesser extents.
Maybe Gilgamesh wasn't the bad guy, but the Mesopotamians were actually just based and realised that this world is ours, and anyone or anything that claims otherwise is an enemy to us who must be destroyed?
I think you missed the entire point of the story when Enkidu asks Gilgamesh if he understands the damage he's done. There is no "ours", there is no "them" threatening to take anything away, since we are animals, a part of nature. Humbaba wasn't an enemy, it was nature embodied, so all Gilgamesh did was a form of suicide, seeing we're part of Humbaba and vice versa. It is especially arrogant to believe this world is "ours" when we are merely it's latest residents who have only been around for maybe 2 million years, and likely less than 200,000 years of that actually being able to talk. We continue the suicide Gilgamesh had a part of, so we'll likely kill ourselves off within a few thousand years and another life-form will inherit this world. Ignorant arrogance is what must be destroyed, along with the pathetically weak human craving to own things.
@@rorycallaghan5719 "there is no 'them' threatening to take anything away, " Literally every other living creature on this planet would kill and eat us if they were capable of doing so. Some of them do, from time to time. We don't live in the garden of eden any longer, we are subject to the rules of Darwinian evolution, and must either find ways to bend this world to our will, or be subject to its many predators and diseases. "all Gilgamesh did was a form of suicide" And yet, Humbaba was only the first in a long line of monsters that Gilgamesh slew. You overestimate us and our capacity for harm. Nature is a self-correcting system, and we are nowhere close to doing catastrophic damage to our eco-system. The worst ecological disasters, all mistakes rather than deliberate actions, I might add, have been little more than a drop in the ocean. The area surrounding chernobyl is teeming with wildlife after humans moved out. There have been any number of oil-spills and the oceans are still plenty habitable. We've even driven a few species to extinction and yet there is no ecology that has collapsed. "arrogant" It's not arrogance if you've earned it, and we clearly have. "the pathetically weak human craving to own things." Ok, watermelon. The right to own private property is a natural right. Human beings were granted consciousness by nature, and that consciousness being inextricably linked to our physical bodies provides us with the quality of self-ownership. As we have evolved to own ourselves, then it follows that nature has granted us the [natural] right to own private property. Ownership of things (aka: wealth) is a measure of fitness within our economy, which is the ecology of human beings. (there's plenty wrong with that ecology just at the moment, but that's fundamentally what it is) The assertion that it's pathetic to seek to increase one's fitness within an ecology betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of our relationship with nature.
The picture of the man fighting what looks like a griffin, the man has a watch on his wrist. I’m sure it’s not of course but I’m having an ancient aliens vibe from it.
I mean yeah. Hell for being the "first story" it was remarkable how complex the tale was for it's time. Gilgamesh is the first to embarks on a classic "hero's journey". So he has to start out as a cocky *sshole, bit like MCU Thor tbh, so that later at the end his character growth is more noticeable.
Humbaba is the personification of all of humanity's evil and destructive tendencies, which in the end won at the cost of the ecosystem as Enkidu mourns and Gilgamesh doesn't care fue to hubris.
If humbaba's speech is fire I gotta hear his mixtape
Hahaha! You f**king guy, you.
He doesn’t actually speak,he actually use fire breath.
@@Lemuel928 r/Woooosh
Eminem afraid to diss him
@@DialingDock2 Eminem's gonna burn dude 😂 😂
Something to keep in mind when reading about Gilgamesh. The notion that Heroes are meant to be noble, righeous and good is a very modern concept. Many classic and ancient Heroes were not neccesarily virtuous. Often they were motivated by the desire for fame, glory and riches. They were morally grey and flawed like all people.
Most monsters from folklore were not inherently evil either. Many were merely misbegotten beasts that the hero would slay to prove themselves. Not because they wanted to do the right thing.
The minotaur wasn’t evil he was born as a monster and people ostracized him for it
@@ericktellez7632 Exactly, often the monsters are just minding their own business and have the mentality of wild animals. Then a hero comes along and kills them for fame and glory.
We do need to keep in mind the cultures of where these heroes came from. And what values those cultures put into them; what were their idealised virtues, and what were the vices they punished? To them what did it mean to be a hero, or a villain? And what did those stories reflect, or show us about their culture?
@@thescholarlychronicler1805 the answers to this will be revealed by time
So what you're saying is that the chaotic neutral players are just roleplaying historically accurate heroes
*Gilgamesh slays Humbaba*
Enkidu: "Gilgamesh what the fuck?"
Gilgamesh just laughs
That moment you realize Gilgamesh shank'd the fairy from Fern Gully, embellished over wine after, and Enkidu kept filling his goblet.
I gigglesnorted at this.....!
@@StefanTonioSampson I guess you could say you Gilgasnorted at this
@@jakubpociecha8819 Fuck yes, perfect, you slid it right in there. I live for that shit, it's my cocaine and you just gave me my fix
The first recorded monster being an aspect of nature slain by man at what's basically considered the dawn of civilization is uh... it's a little heavy.
Gilgamesh was more like a demi-god than a man, he was a force of nature by himself.
@@animeturnMMD humanity be projecting basically since ever
@@matheussanthiago9685 we really desired to be more than man since the first city
@@Dan_Kanerva maybe he was the force of nature known as human desire then?
I mean even if we don't like to recognize, we are part of nature too and desire is a part of our nature, maybe the strongest part of our nature, it is like if everything else our morals, customs, behaviors and even our basic instincs were there just to hold down our desire to eat the world in one bite, like a monster chained in the deep of the earth which even just its breath can shatter it.
@@animeturnMMD damn dude , last part of your comment sounded like a line Alfred would say in the Dark Knight . It was very profound
Okay, the "horns like x, claws like y" stuff is pretty standard monster fare, but the face is really creative and horrifying. Something Lovecraftian about it, you wouldn't expect from ancient myths
Right that was my favorite its like junji ito the spiral but a living thing
cthulhu face
Or you would, since Lovecraft took a lot of elements and references from ancient mythologies, including of course sumerian, for his Mythos.
1st monster, remember
@Ian Yoder It was the circumstances that created them. Sure we can make something scary looking but it won't feel the same because of what we know and because it doesn't have the history to back it up
The line about his breath being death reminds me of Smaug. Tolkien really was a fan of the classics
He was the hugest literature/linguistics nerd alive so you might get somewhat his personality and knowledge fields.
I think that was more of an allusion to fafnir of the ring cycle
"The classics" doesn't include Gilgamesh.
@@kavky True, this is beyond thr greco-roman focused stuff they feed people
The classics means the Classical Antiquity, between the Persian Wars and the formation of the Roman Empire. The Epic of Gilghamesh is a Bronze Age story that predates the classics by several millennia.
It almost seems like a metaphor. Humbaba represents the natural challenges of life as a river civilization, Enkidu represents the old ways (while wild, in tune with the natural flow) and Gilgamesh is progression by any means.
Progression killed the challenges of old, but in doing so destroyed that which was cherished and even protected by those very same checks and balances. Enkidu, tradition and old ways asks if it was worth it.
my thoughts exactly, it reads like humanity conquering the dangers of nature. Especially with how he uses a small knife to end it, a simple tool by itself but an incredibly important one for humanity's survival and triumph over nature.
I liked this so much dude
I always understood it as a struggle against nature, and being bound by mortality, reaching for devine.
It's fascinating that histories oldest (at least oldest known and written) story is so complex but to the point.
That's what I got from it too. The destruction of nature and the expense of progress. We survive the natural disaster by destroying the forest to protect ourselves.
@@alcoholandfun243 And it still holds up to this day, legit sounds like the plot to a Ghibli movie
If I'm not mistaken, a common sentiment in ancient times was that the wilderness was tremendously dangerous to humanity. As such, a vast, seemingly impenetrable forest could house countless threats that might wander out and devastate humanity or otherwise keep humans stuck in a handful of safe places. Furthermore, such dangers could impede humanity's attempts to find the sources of rivers, create dams, etc. to avoid and prevent ruinous floods and so on. As such, Gilgamesh defeating Humbaba could be seen as mankind's triumph over the threats of nature, thereby being able to navigate in safety and mitigate natural disasters. Perhaps the later tale was a reflection of mankind removing too much of the wilderness and losing some of the benefits of nature.
It's probably a bit of both. Unless we're reading too much into with our modern-day minds again.
imagine going back in time and somehow telling this folks how in a few millennia humanity would be so advanced that we now struggle to protect the very nature we once feared/ respect so much
@@matheussanthiago9685 Both ways of thinking is arrogant...
Yes, and the man who made this video outright IGNORES Enkidu was a forest creature before being "civilized" by a prostitute. So, that may be a blatant influence on Enkidu's personal biases.
@@dubuyajay9964 So she was the first recorded whitch who ride the wood?
“Monster is a relative term, to a canary a cat is a monster, we’re just used to being the cat.” -Dr. Henry Wu
MY MAN😁👍
well if by a witcher or D&D understanding. a monster is outside "normal" creatures
@@eldiablo2418 indeed but human categorize anything we don’t understand as a monster so how can we decide the borderline of monster and animal
@@taylorjohnson1223
Can a concept like death be a monster?
@@samuraijackoff5354 sure people have already done it by make The Grimm Reaper or in the Bible The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse one of them being Death
Humbaba: GM's magic forest NPC Quest giver.
Enkidu: TTRPG player.
Gilgamesh: TTRPG player who is not being invited back next session.
Isn’t it the opposite, given Enkidu dies?
GM: You meet a scary forest guardian
Gilgamesh: I destroy his home and cut his head off *rolls a 20*
@@DeltaDanner GM: *sigh* "the magical quest giver of the Forrest was not ready for the attack since he had punch in his hands for his party guests. His family watches as you barbarians brutally murder him..."
*[GATE OF BABYLON]*
@@kyle18934 Gilgamesh: Nice! I loot his body- how much gold does he have on him?
GM: He's a magical nature spirit, and he no need for gold, and doesn't carry any.
Gilgamesh: This is bullshit. I burn down the forest, instead then.
I feel like there’s an untapped market making horror movies in a prehistoric setting… that’s literally where our inherited fears come from, our ancestors living in caves/camps trying to survive prehistoric super predators
Something like apocalypto did a good job of this but it wasn't horror , pre historic time must have been a nightmare
@@metalheadblues Pretty much any time pre-1960's was a nightmare.
There are way too few prehistoric films period. A quest for fire is still my personal favorite - but yeah prehistoric horror films..? Not sure there are any I know of.....would be awesome to see one that was done right
@@BuckeyeExpat I'd even say there's not enough prehistoric media
Especially one that doesn't involve dinosaurs
@@RedLemon69 what da actual fuck are u blabbling about?!
Humbaba represents the possible destruction of humanity. Through a conscious being
the epic of gilgamesh is all about humanities feud with the gods and nature and seperation from both in an effort to gain dominance and prosperity.
humbaba in the story represents nature and its murder is a depiction of what humanity is willing to do in its advance towards the future.
@@uteriel282 and now, thousands of years later, we finally see that this battle to dominate over nature is bringing calamity to humanity. Will we be able to change course?
humanity is the conscious being that's going to destroy itself
He need to hurry tf up
@@mishael1339 Arrogance of Man...
I believe Humbaba let Gilgamesh win. He didn't want to see
the forest be harmed further
I agree
That is a possibility that I didn’t even think about, but I’m all for it.
Or the destruction of the forest drive him mad and made him reckless
so much for THAT plan.
well I guess you know the story better than the ancient Sumerians
“His speech is fire”
Humbaba spittin some real shit 😭🤧🙌👏
Meanwhile humbaba: fortnite balls im gay i like fortnite
Btw im not gay its humbaba not me ok
@@raindoset5408 You're not gay? That's disappointing 🙁
@@raindoset5408 sussy balls
@@veemie8148 i kidnapp autistic kids i am gay
@@Dan_Kanerva lil mosey is white
Maybe the real monsters were the friends we made along the way.
My man.
Bro... 🥺🥺🥺
Damn
🖤 it
Even with all those monsters from friends we made, the ones who will never become monsters are *FAMILY*
humbaba: my voice is the deluge, my speech is fire, my breath is death!
gilgamesh: mongrel
Proceed to unleash his noble phantasm
@@KilyanNigaut Enuma Elish!
Zashuu!
i was waiting for the fate jokes XD
@Hunterkage Joestar yeah he has *all* noble phantasms
The overall theme of the Gilgamesh epic seems to be that Gilgamesh needs to learn humility and fulfill his duties as a king instead of harassing his subjects or trying in vain to become immortal. Him killing Humbaba fits into that narrative. Humbaba has been appointed by the gods to guard the cedar forest. Gilgamesh goes to kill him in order to gain personal glory (though his speech to the elders of Uruk also does imply that the people did consider Humbaba a dangerous being whose death would benefit the people, probably because he was preventing them from cutting trees for lumber), and in doing so goes against the will of the gods. As a punishment, Enkidu is doomed to die, which serves as a catalyst for Gilgamesh's quest for immortality and him eventually maturing and coming to terms with his mortality.
Though there's quite a lot of variation in different versions of the story, some of which is highly contradictory. In some version the sun-god, who has been asked by Gilgamesh's divine mother to keep him safe, helps him defeat Humbaba, and in others Gilgamesh is willing to spare Humbaba's life until Enkidu tells him that if he does so Humbaba will just kill them when they're leaving the forest.
Slight correction, Enkidu is cursed with death for the killing of the Bull of Heaven, not Humbaba.
Interesting. I am sure there were different authors recording different versions, maybe unintentionally, putting their biases in their work.
“Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein is not the monster. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is.”
woah dude
Brilliant.
“Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein's monster is not the monster. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is.” *
@@bbibidee8233 no, the OP is the original quote. People who have not read the book say Frankenstein is the monster (ignorance) and people who have read it know he (Dr Frankenstein) is not the monster (knowledge). Wisdom is knowing that he IS the monster (awful mad scientist).
@@chavaspada yes because for the longest time people were calling the monster "Frankenstein" and those were the people that never read the book
".... His speech is fire, his breath is death." Oh no.... There goes Tokyo. Go go GODZILLA.
Yeaaah
".... His speech is fire, his breath is death."
I guess that could also describe a really skilled rapper with halitosis.
@@someoneelse4939 This is truth 😂
This comment rules the internet
Godzilla is a great example of a monster created to represent society's fears. (The fear of a nuclear attack/disaster.)
Is it positive that the lion man statue was a monster? Early human tribes were known to practice shamanism and animism, so it may be a totem of a protective lion spirit rather than a feared beast man.
The narrator said that what the sculpture depicts isn't known for certain
Yep, we only know it's a lion-man. Wether it's a spirit, a monster, a god, or simply a man with a mask on, and wether it's a protector, a calamity to ward off through the statue, a bit of both, or neither, it's all up for debate.
Both true. I also should add it may be possible that it's just a simple child's toy rather than a significant item.
Looks kind of like a bear to me. With being capable of standing on two legs and whatnot.
are we positive the lion man is not a lion woman? or even not a lion at all? there is not lion's mane so how can we be even sure of that much?
My interpretation of the video:
Whether Humbaba or Gilgamesh is the oldest monster boils down to this:
If “monster” is defined as an inhuman being, regardless of alignment, _Humbaba_ is the first literary monster.
_However,_ if “monster” is defined as a being, whether human or inhuman, whose place on the moral compass falls between Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil, then _Gilgamesh_ is the first literary monster.
Not really, read the story. Or even look at the comments, people practically tell you how to story goes.
Imagine using DnD alignments for anything beyond DnD
The Epic of Gilgamesh is so dang good. It's so morally and thematically mature and complex. I'd say it's ahead of it's time but, yah know...
Have you read it yet?
it was written by ancient humans. humans have not evolved any further physiologically in any significant way. ancient humans had the same bodies and brains that we do, complete with the same intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and imaginative capacities.
@@woogiebear That's an easy thing to think when you hear of absolute idiots every day but if we never evolved intellectually or emotionally there would still be "witches" being burned alive. As for imaginative capacities, monsters in ancient times were always just mixing animals together, creative people are more capable than that now. The intestine head was unique, but all the other ancient monsters I've heard of are basically "give the guy a bulls head, maybe a snake for a tail , maybe a goat head too because more random animal heads make it cooler right? whatever who cares"
@@geostar1610 i didn't say evolution stopped. Just that we have the same brains and bodies. Of course our ideas, technology, and social structures continue to change. My point is that ancient people had the capacity to think abstractly, to create rich and complex dramas, to engineer incredible structures, and accomplish extraordinary feats. Ancient humans were just as human as you or me because we are all the same animal.
@@woogiebear I see what you mean
"Gilgamesh slays Humbaba with a single dagger - an unusual end for a supposedly all-powerful and murderous monster."
Hmmmm, where have we seen this?
*_cough_* The Night King *_cough_*
Looking for the clay tablets of angry fans ripping into the final seasons of Gilgamesh.
don't cough, you're gonna choke
Ugh, That George Martin ain't that creative right? looks like a rip off of the witch king from LOTR.
@@draoidh6479 he's mentioning an anime series called fate where gilgamesh was summoned to win his master the holy grail only to be slain by the King of knights Arthur pendragon and her master.
@@thunderboy3273 no, he is not.... i'ts a Game of Thrones reference. The Night King, the supposedly big bad of the series is killed in a ant-climatic way by a single dagger strike.
There is a cave in France, painted with animals and people, the creatures are drawn in excellent detail, to the point where scientists have used them for reference learning the cave lions didn't have a main, mammoths had humps and the cows of the time have dark spots on their backs. Things archaeology all proved later to be true.
However, next to all these real creatures stantheman twice as tall the other humans with massive branching antlers. Wile it is doubtful if they ever met such a creature, it was clearly very real in their minds; the question remains as to whether it was a god or a monster.
You can't just throw that out here and not say what the name of that cave is
@@emPIEror I don't remember, give me a minute.
@@emPIEror Cave of the Trois-Frères, and the horned man is called "The Sorceror" by the scientists.
@@josephlongbone4255 maybe he was someone’s oc /j
I would say that the taller humanoid was likely in the foreground, wearing a headress. A revered person, not a monster.
I'm actually amazed at how complex morality this tale displays - in European civilization the concern with our balance with nature came at a much later age.
Call it more a rediscovery like neoclassicism rather than "we only found it out some years ago".
Depending on the version, The epic of gilgamesh actually goes into A LOT weirdly cool ideas. Like Gilgamesh himself , since the start of the story, is basically a Nimrod type figure (it is believed that he actually WAS Nimrod) and the kingdom he rules actually wants him to go away. The whole story is (spoilers) Gilgamesh pursuing his self-aggrandizing desires until the end where he calms the fk down and accepts a bit of humbling reality.
Edit: oh and also interestingly enough, some people believe that not only was Humbaba representative of nature, he was also representative of the Gods of pagan"ish" religions. Which hits heavy if you start thinking about it.
Not at all, nature was very important in pre cristian times
@@Trollamollex Gilgamesh predates Genesis. Gilgamesh isn't a Nimrod type figure, Nimrod is a Gilgamesh type figure.
You should research before you type. Europeans have always had a concern with balance in nature.
I think you left out that Gilgamesh needed the wood from the cedar forest to build his kingdom but Humbaba was killing the lumberjacks. It was still an aggressive action on Gilgamesh's part but not purely for glory. He was trying to learn to be a good king and provide for his people. Had it not been the need for wood, Gilgamesh would've just hung out in his palace providing all the wood needed to his harem. He was definitely a jerk, but not a monster. Humbaba was the monster to remind humans of their place in the world, which in this case, was a literal place, the grasslands and plains of Uruk, and not the forests. Humans had not conquered nature yet and the idea of going into the woods was like going into outer space. It's no surprise that Uruk's "space" had a nasty alien.
We never conquer nature, every time we tried it's backfired.
@@ExtremeMadnessX we live anywhere we want, nature no longer dictates our limits, its conquered perhaps to our own detriment, but conquered nonetheless
not sure if you're a fan of history or a fate fan but seeing this pit a smile on my face
@@Endymion766 There is no end to nature. We are but a piece of it's workings. Everything we do, no matter how vast and seemingly significant, is no more unnatural than ants burrowing out tunnels in the soil. Imagine the absurdity of an ant claiming it's conquered nature.
Pretty sure the Sumerians loved this piece of literature so much is that they can incorporate it in their debates on morality and philosophy. If only the tablets and chapters are found to be complete, imagine how much modern humanity can learn
I guess, but first written monster is a lot less interesting when its clear that monsters are older than written language. Sure it makes the question a lot harder to answer, but you can make some informed guesses. I'd say the oldest monster is the original version of the rainbow serpent. The concept is ubiquitous throughout aboriginal people in Australia which means the original story must be at least as old as Australia's first people, and that migration seams to have occurred somewhere between 40 to 50 thousand years ago, making it even older than the statue in the video. Another possibility is that the first monsters were simply ghosts, as burial and ancestor worship is some of the earliest forms of superstition humans adopted according to what evidence we have left now.
...or maybe the first monster was a giant stick with googly eyes, idunno.
You’d think that the aboriginals would have jotted that down
Probably the first monsters where enormous and terrible versions of already feared animals, like lions, crocodiles, snakes, hippos or bears. Or a combination of certain animals like the Wendigo.
To find out what was the first written will be quite tricky too.
@@obambagaming1467 This.
But he wasn't talking about the first monster ever conceptualised, just the first monster in surviving written text
The first monster is me
damn you mean to tell me "MAN is the REAL MONSTER" is genuinely so cliche and old it has its origins in the first known monster we have writing about
I doubt that the people who lived at the time would have seen it that way.
It was impressive back then because we were the first animals to actually give thought toward our potential for death and destruction, and even lament it, even though we were just as much a part of nature as every other beast.
Nowadays, it's common sense that humans suck. All one needs is to fucking look outside, and it's obvious.
@@keithklassen5320 I think you undervalue the wisdom of our ancestors.
@@keithklassen5320 I don't think so actually. The more I study mythology and anthropology in general the more i get the sense that our way of thinking... Hasn't really changed that much. Of course, we have different societal norms, not to mention relatively advanced technology and interconnected world. But the human psyche, ego, conscience, i think, is pretty much exactly what it has been several thousands of years ago.
Humbaba: chilling out, protecting the forest, being an all out nice guy
Gilgamesh: and I took that personally
What a Hero
3:01 "His speech was fire"
Humbaba: "Coming at you with supersonic speed...."
The Epic of Gilgamesh: a story that was the true definition of “Bros before Hoes”
Wasn't Gilgamesh all about bros AND hos? And bro-hos?
@@BJGvideos hosbros
@@BJGvideos Hey, it's not gay if it's clay
Gilgamesh was gay with Enkidu.
I wish somebody made a fantasy game based on Mesopotamian mythology
Holy shit that sounds so cool
I want an FPS based on the Bosnian war lol
@@scottydu81 To be fair Bosanska Artiljerija is more fire than Humbaba's voice
@@pandapops5428 This guy gets it
Inanna's Descent to the Underworld contains the oldest written reference to the undead. They don't actually appear, but she threatens to break down the gate to the Underworld and "let the dead go up to eat the living", if the gatekeeper doesn't let her through. Maybe something like that could be included.
Gilgamesh met Enkidu when Gilgamesh was the “monster “ and Enkidu was the reluctant hero sent to bring him to heel.
The fact that the dichotomy of whether man is the true monster or not originated with the very inception of monsters is wild.
That always seemed like a deconstruction that later myths and stories came up with in response to the concept of monsters.
If we could get like an anime adaption of gilgamesh then all this would be common knowledge
Fate has Gilgamesh as a very notable character. He is the single most powerful Heroic Spirit.
Every Heroic Spirit has things called a "Noble Phantasm". These are the pinnacles of their legend.
For example, Siegfried has two. The sword Balmung, which slew the evil dragon Fafnir, and the Armor of Fafnir he gained after bathing in its blood.
Gilgamesh has two Noble Phantasms as well.
His first is "Sha Naqba Imuru: The Omnipotent Omniscient Star". It is the mentality of the King of Heroes. It basically gives him knowledge on whatever he wants at any one time. He can even see the future with it. Though, normally he suppresses this because it makes things too easy and not fun.
His second is "Gate of Babylon". It is his treasury, which contains all the treasures of the world.
Every other Heroic Spirits' Noble Phantasms are contained within the Gate of Babylon. The Heroic Spirits whose Noble Pgantasms are not weapons or armor, but instead spells or techniques, he has things in his treasury that do the same thing.
His treasury even contains "The Source of All Human Ingenuity" which means if humans once owned or made something, he has it. If humans do own or make something, he has it. If humans will own or make something, he has it. And the treasury retroactively updates itself.
Hell, in Fate/Extra CCC Gilgamesh pulled out a faster than light spaceship. It's just in his treasury because in the future humans will have that tech, meaning he has it now.
And, everything within his treasury is the first and original version of everything. His version is the superior one.
Plus, he has something the "Sword of Rupture" which he has named "Ea". It is the first sword, before the concept of swords existed. It was the sword used to cleave Tiamat's body in two to form the Earth and the Heavens. His strongest attack is using Ea to shoot winds that literally cut away reality. That attack is named "Enuma Elish".
Enkidu is also a Heroic Spirit, and is one of tge very few Heroic Spirits who can fight Gilgamesh head on and cone out the victor without handicaps or circumstances helping him. One of Enkidu's Noble Phantasms is a lso called "Enuma Elish", though his os different.
Oh, and Humbaba is mentioned in Fate lore. Though Humbaba is different to real mythology. Humbaba is female in Fate, and was Enkidu's first friend, though Enkidu helped Gilgamesh slay her because she was putting the people of Uruk in danger.
I recommend you watch the anime, or at least check it out, "Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia"...
Or just "Fate Babylonia".
I think Gilgamesh is fucking amazing in that. He is such a bro, and if wanted to be king of Earth, fuck yes I'd support him. Though, this is also the Gilgamesh from after he returned from his journey for the Herb of Immortality, so he's not as much of an ass as his younger self.
Maybe Fate Series Version of Gilgamesh in his actual life.
I suggest playing Smite.
Fate Gilgamesh-gaiden when
Fate/Strange Fake and FGO - Babylonia covers a lot of Mesopotamian myth and history. Heck, even Enkidu, Ishtar, and Humbaba appears in the Strange Fake to fight Gilgamesh
"Maybe the real monsters were the friends we made along the way."
-Enkidu
It seems almost fitting that humanity's first known story is about a mad king recklessly destroying a guardian of nature...
Still quite relevant to this day in fact...
there's older known stories than this, like the one of the shipwrecked sailor from ancient Egypt.
It's kill or let nature kill you. Most people fail to understand the dilemma ancient people faced back then of having to overcome the odds of survival, wouldn't you want to live as well if you were in that similar situation?
But nowadays, people have become so accustomed to living in a modern civilization that they will never know the fears of living in those times. So often you will hear people bemoan the evils of man for killing animals and such because they think nature is above them and should be when in reality nature is cruel and uncertain, so why try to appease it if it can be so unpredictable?
The history of human cultures is weird sometimes, they will worship some animals/nature-born beings as deities and other times depict them as evil and slay them. Humans even back then tried to rationalize what they didn't understand with moral reasons. Either way, it motivated them to continue living and because of that we've gotten thus far in our modern civilization. For any other species, that should be viewed as an achievement instead of a reason to be misanthropic.
It’s not reckless in the eyes of the people of the time. Humanity was constantly, and still is, at war with nature. The vast majority of people now could not comprehend just how u habitable and inhospitable the forests of the past were. The dense ancient forests of the past cannot be compared to most modern woodland, especially with all the forest management done for reducing forest fire spread, and improving the general safety to humans of being in the forest.
@@RANDOMNAME-kj1zv This guy gets it. Not as naive of a response as everyone else.
This channel deserves more subscribers. Really high quality!
Btw, some say the Epic appears to have been rewritten many times into many versions. Retellings of the myth if y'will
Wow underrated channel hope you will succeed! :D
Maybe Gilgamesh was the monster but told the story in the way the roles reversed to make him the hero all while exaggerating. However the part about his breath like fire could also represent humbaba's warnings he gave in a threatening manner.
Gilgamesh:
oh no, anyways *(whip out EA)*
Maybe the oldest monster in human myth are ourselves.
Humbaba: protector of nature.
Gilgamesh: humanity, slays Humbaba and destroys nature.
deep.
Makes sense only humanity exists in reality and humanity were the ones that created the concept of monsters where do you think they derived inspiration then ? when monsters are fictional , the answer they used the actions of other humans as basis there would be no reason to personify natural disasters as humanoid beings unless one could draw a parallel
Yeah, this is kinda of the same thing when we demonize other animals like bears, sharks, snakes, etc because they defend themselves from us or defend their territory, so we create our own monsters.
The problem is not the animals, it's us.
If we treat the creature a monsters then the creature become one.
@@redd-qh4xn Gilgamesh: *murders ancient protector of a forest and burns it to the ground*
Also Gilgamesh: "I AM THE VIRTUOUS VICTOR!"
You do know humanity really has only screwed up the ecosystem in the past 200 years, right? Maybe 300 if counting certain colonial trips.
For about the first million years or two (depending on when humanity began) humans and other animals more or less were in a tug of war.
Humbaba is like an Asassin's Creed boss.
Big entry, big intimidation and just killed off with a dagger.
sometimes I can't comprehend how ancient people got the inspirations for these stories
it's so detailed, full of symbols, and meanings and ideas
They were every bit as intelligent as we are, and had thousands of years practice at storytelling, lawmaking, religion, and philosophy.
Sounds like Fate's depiction of Gilgamesh is pretty accurate then.
It's very hard to figure out the motivations and thoughts of ancient people. We very often map modern thinking on to them, it's hard not to do. I wonder if a better perspective than good vs. evil or their understanding of shades of grey in between these, is to think of it as pre-modern narrative tropes, so character motivations and the message of the story is likely lost forever because we can't think the way they did/or understand it in full context.
Read some of the stories in the _1001 Nights_ or Slavic legends or even _The Mabinogion._ You won't find much regard for realism in them. Their reasons for telling these stories were not the same as ours.
"one you've likely never heard of"
Fate fans: allow us to introduce ourselves
It shows up in Final Fantasy as well
AARP member who read about these myths before you were born says hello.
so when is Humbaba's album dropping?
Sounds like Gilgamesh is the real first monster of this mythology, Killing an endangered creature that was doing his job of protecting the forest.Basically in our modern world Gilgamesh would be the one that Captain Planet gonna fight him and throw into prison.
you must remember Gilgamesh was a smug prince in his 20's with demi-god superpowers... of course he was an ass . That's why his kingdom hated him , and why he decided to travel solving problems from other kingdoms to gain his people respect again . At the end of the tale 10 years have passed and he is a more mature man... is super interesting how nice the story is for being 6000 years old . People have been good writters since the start i guess
Gilgamesh: try to arrest me mongrel.
@@Dan_Kanerva but kinda still wrong to beat up a guardian spirit minding his own business tho lol
imagine a ep of captain planet where they have to protect a giant monster with intestines for a head from a normal looking dude that seems like he's the good guy.
@Me Dicen Mordred a lot of my people are complete fucking imbeciles, it is very unfortunate
3:00 Wow so that's where J.R.R. Tolkien got the inspiration for Smaug's speech in the Hobbit.
Author: "Gilgamesh is described less as a hero and more as a tresspasser messing with forces he doesn't understand."
Me: "Don't know about you but that describes every media protag I've ever seen and several PCs I've DMed over the years!" XD
Lmao, seems like your channel has exploded in like the past few hours. Glad to be here from the start :)
i think so, i started following him yesteray at 1.2 subs and now hes on his way to 1.5. brilliant
now he's nearly at 5K. I've been with him since 1.2K. 2 days ago.
Gilgamesh is THE First. True Monster of Monsters
Great discussions on a very important issues. Enjoyed this much ! Regards
"his voice is deluge, his speech is fire, his breath is death"
Humbaba: "DAMN IT GILGAMESH!! I forget to brush my teeth one time! when are you gonna let it go!"
0:49 is it really that hard to decide what this is? I think it’s pretty obvious this is some caveman’s fursona. Gunk traded two rocks to pay for that furry art commission.
But where's the grotesque hyper penis!
@@AreGeeBee what? Wtf is wrong with you? What on earth are you even talking about?
That’s disgusting dude.
In the version I heard Gilgamesh kills the monster of the forest because he is on a quest to attain wood to better his peoples lives and that particular forest is his only available location to get wood. So if this translation is correct then it's safe to say that the story frames Gilgamesh firmly as the hero who made it possible for his society to grow despite nature. (source-Myths and Legends podcast)
that sounds straight up like objectivist propoganda
I am convinced humbaba was the first depiction of a dragon,
a creature that is extremely big, scaly, "it's breath was death" with an elongated tail and the face of a lion could be like some snakes that makes that "crown" around their heads that can compare to a lion's mane. And could only be slayed because they had bound it first
Humbaba was the first story of dragonslaying. I know it's the epic of Gilgamesh but I am referring to the Humbaba hunt.
Still terrifying visage, almost eldritch to it.
>This statue of a lion man
Ah yes, the Proto-furries
The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving literary works, has complex themes which still resonate today.
1:11 *The creature is likely one you've never heard of.*
Final Fantasy nerds: *My time has come.*
Thank you for taking the time to share this knowledge.
I can almost hear him calling Humbaba a mongrel as he severs its head.
I just want to say your channel logo is Flippin brilliant
What a beautiful story. Even to this the it's themes remain relevant
Gilgamesh sounding like the real monster here
"Speech is fire"
Gilgamesh lost the Rap battle,so he throw hands
LOL! I was thinking the same thing.
What a great moral and message! If this was made into a book I would read it.
I'd say the first monster is just humanity itself
Or nature. Paws/claws/intestines/speechfire/breathdeath
I just love stories about mythological monsters so much. It’s so amazing that they’ve made so much carvings about a hero slaying a monster and tablets in which they tell stories about these monsters.
The battle between Gilgamesh and Umbaba can serve as a metaphor. Man is powerful enough to overpower nature and her power for progress, but often at the cost of Nature herself, as represented by the destroyed forest.
0:49 "What this anthropomorphic lion statue represents is debated."
Me: "Thundercats, Ho!"
lion -o,panthro and I can't remember the rest
"His voice is the deluge": is called a disastrous call like the end of the world
Me when i try to sing: are u sure about that???
Right now you're at 35k subs
Let's see in a couple months... This channel it's going to explode!! Excellent content!!
So,the oldest monster was the human ambition,interesting
I love this channel. Thank you!
The description seems to me that they are describing a dragon
But those stone figures of hambaba weren't like dragon at all
"Monsters do bad things to people, humans do bad things to everybody."
I like that the story had a villain protagonist, which suggests that they had long since gone through their own periods of more "generic" hero vs villain stories that were lost to time.
Yup. The first tablet is from 3000 bc and the latter from 2000-1000 bc.
Or maybe these rigid black and white hero and villain tropes were never a thing until recently to begin with.
Its interesting how one of the first stories written by mankind is of us destroying a guardian of nature (and nature itself) amd some 5,000 years later we have all but dominated and ravaged the planet in it's entirety. The epic of gilgamesh kind of seems like foreshadowing...
Gilgamesh sounds like the average chad
2:18 I would have preferred if you asked for my permission to use my depiction of Humbaba, but thanks for crediting me nonetheless !
Monsters legends were invented to keep people from dangerous places, animals, and phenomena.
Extremely Unique, fascinating and educational. I love videos like this, great work :) Thank you.
Historian here, just a few words about that whole "who is the real monster" bit at the end:
Ancient Sumerians and Akkadians didn't have the same sense of morality as we do; written around five thousand years ago, the epic of Gilgamesh represents what that culture viewed as qualities to strive for in a king. The concept of the warrior king, that seeks greatness and glory, even while disregarding what he did to others is something that they saw in a positive light (a good example of this is how they saw Sargon of Akkad, as the great conqueror and warrior king who every king after strived to emulate)
On the other hand, the latter text that CA described seemed to equate Gilgamesh more with (the historically inaccurate) historiographical version of Naram-Sim, as a warrioir king who disregarded the gods, and as such created harm to his subjects.
(Sorry for any typos or badly translated words, English is not my first language)
I don't know if someone already commented this but Humbaba sounds like a Titan from the Monsterverse as he is described as a force of nature.
don't know man the oldest monster I know is joe
who is joe
@@altaytsoi ligma balls
“Before there was anything, before time itself, there was nothing. And before there was nothing, there where monster.”
-The Lich, adventure time
The world's first fursona? I bet this statue was a commission too.
This confirmed humans were the first monsters.
Sick lil video, SUBSCRIBED!
Humbaba did nothing wrong
The most interesting thing about the original Sumerian gods (who were worshipped by later contemporary and later cultures [Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans] under different names, under the umbrella term Mesopotamian) is that they were morally ambiguous: they were capable of doing either good or evil, to greater and lesser extents.
Maybe Gilgamesh wasn't the bad guy, but the Mesopotamians were actually just based and realised that this world is ours, and anyone or anything that claims otherwise is an enemy to us who must be destroyed?
I think you missed the entire point of the story when Enkidu asks Gilgamesh if he understands the damage he's done. There is no "ours", there is no "them" threatening to take anything away, since we are animals, a part of nature. Humbaba wasn't an enemy, it was nature embodied, so all Gilgamesh did was a form of suicide, seeing we're part of Humbaba and vice versa.
It is especially arrogant to believe this world is "ours" when we are merely it's latest residents who have only been around for maybe 2 million years, and likely less than 200,000 years of that actually being able to talk. We continue the suicide Gilgamesh had a part of, so we'll likely kill ourselves off within a few thousand years and another life-form will inherit this world. Ignorant arrogance is what must be destroyed, along with the pathetically weak human craving to own things.
@@rorycallaghan5719
"there is no 'them' threatening to take anything away, "
Literally every other living creature on this planet would kill and eat us if they were capable of doing so. Some of them do, from time to time. We don't live in the garden of eden any longer, we are subject to the rules of Darwinian evolution, and must either find ways to bend this world to our will, or be subject to its many predators and diseases.
"all Gilgamesh did was a form of suicide"
And yet, Humbaba was only the first in a long line of monsters that Gilgamesh slew. You overestimate us and our capacity for harm. Nature is a self-correcting system, and we are nowhere close to doing catastrophic damage to our eco-system. The worst ecological disasters, all mistakes rather than deliberate actions, I might add, have been little more than a drop in the ocean. The area surrounding chernobyl is teeming with wildlife after humans moved out. There have been any number of oil-spills and the oceans are still plenty habitable. We've even driven a few species to extinction and yet there is no ecology that has collapsed.
"arrogant"
It's not arrogance if you've earned it, and we clearly have.
"the pathetically weak human craving to own things."
Ok, watermelon. The right to own private property is a natural right. Human beings were granted consciousness by nature, and that consciousness being inextricably linked to our physical bodies provides us with the quality of self-ownership. As we have evolved to own ourselves, then it follows that nature has granted us the [natural] right to own private property. Ownership of things (aka: wealth) is a measure of fitness within our economy, which is the ecology of human beings. (there's plenty wrong with that ecology just at the moment, but that's fundamentally what it is) The assertion that it's pathetic to seek to increase one's fitness within an ecology betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of our relationship with nature.
@@bombkangaroo I hope you're 15.
The picture of the man fighting what looks like a griffin, the man has a watch on his wrist. I’m sure it’s not of course but I’m having an ancient aliens vibe from it.
I mean yeah. Hell for being the "first story" it was remarkable how complex the tale was for it's time.
Gilgamesh is the first to embarks on a classic "hero's journey". So he has to start out as a cocky *sshole, bit like MCU Thor tbh, so that later at the end his character growth is more noticeable.
3:46 damn Humbaba bouta spit some bars 🔥🔥🔥💯💯
Emmmm kinda not a lot of stuff in comments here
We shall change that
This is a cool video. I know very little of Gilgamesh so its always nice when i end up in one of these rabbit holes.
Humbaba is the personification of all of humanity's evil and destructive tendencies, which in the end won at the cost of the ecosystem as Enkidu mourns and Gilgamesh doesn't care fue to hubris.