Part 80: He Who Saw The Deep - Gilgamesh - Part 2
Gilgamesh 2
Ah, the Immoral Biker Jacket, the first costume Gil was ever seen in in this series. Feels appropriate to use this when discussing his in-series resume. It's, um, extensive. The only prominent entry in all of FSN's sub-series's he's missed out on is Fate/apocrypha. Might as well start at the beginning.
In FSN's prologue, Gil is very briefly seen while Rin is on her way to school. Rin encounters the strange man (obviously she has no clue who this guy is) talking to Sakura, a friend of her's (and sister, but Rin doesn't know that). The man passes by Rin without speaking, and when asked about it, Sakura says he's a foreigner who was asking for directions or making small talk, a lie she tells. In actuality, he was telling her to commit suicide before the Holy Grail War begins, but I'll get back to that.
In the Fate route, Gilgamesh keeps a low profile until an encounter between Caster and Saber that he interrupts by nuking Caster with some of his Noble Phantasms. Saber recognizes his face and addresses him as "Archer", when she doesn't mean the Archer of the 5th Holy Grail War, but the 4th, which Saber was also a part of. Gilgamesh, who also remembers Saber, and asks her again to be his bride. Saber, obviously wanting no part of Gil's crap, turned him down and Gil left with a laugh, saying they'd meet again. Later in the route, Gil does fight Saber, and promptly kicks her ass, as she doesn't have the magical energy to spend on fighting such an opponent. Gil lets them off again, and next shows up in the basement of his priest-friend's church, where, as I mentioned in Cu's second update, he killed the Irish spearman. Gil's final appearance in the Fate route would be in a final duel to the death with his desired romantic conquest. This time, however, it was a fight to the death, and he ended up getting defeated by Saber after she used Avalon to block a blast from Ea and use the discombobulated Gilgamesh's surprise against him, by dashing forward and cutting him down.
In the Unlimited Blade Works route, he has a much more hands-on role in how the War played out. Due to Shinji Matou losing his Servant early in the war (Medusa getting her neck snapped), Gil's priest-friend offered Gilgamesh's services to him. Obviously the priest had no interest in Shinji's victory, believing him to be a hopeless case and instead lent him out as a means to give the ornery King of Heroes a job they both wanted to see accomplished: the actualization of the Holy Grail. Gilgamesh had decided upon a plan. Believing the modern world to be absolutely wretched and not worthy of his guidance and overlordship, he would create the Holy Grail, allow its curses to overflow, and any humans who survived that calamity would be worthy of surviving and being led by him. Toward this end, he ripped the heart out of the girl who was destined to be the vessel for the Grail's rebirth and killed her Servant Heracles. Later in the route, he would observe the fight between Nameless and Emiya Shirou, and after the battle had been decided in the latter's favor, "killed" Nameless with a bombardment of his weapons. At the conclusion of UBW, Emiya Shirou would go to confront Gilgamesh and defeat the King of Heroes while Saber dealt with the artificial Holy Grail Gilgamesh had started to create. Shirou, infused with magical energy, was able to invoke his own version of Nameless' Unlimited Blade Works, a Reality Marble (like Iskandar's Army of the King) where Shirou was able to copy instantly any weapons Gil drew forth from his treasury. Gilgamesh, overwhelmed and surpised by Shirou's ability, was unable to truly grasp the threat in time and only hesitantly brought out Ea, the one weapon Shirou couldn't copy even if he wanted to. For his hubris, Gil would lose an arm, and after having admitted defeat (naturally, after much reluctance), the Holy Grail, sabotaged by Rin's effort, began to try and use Gilgamesh himself as the core. As Gil was getting sucked into the void, he threw out the Chains of Heaven to try and use Shirou to escape, but before Shirou himself was dragged in, Nameless managed to hit him right in the forehead, killing him and causing his body to get dragged into the brink. As for what's in that Holy Grail? Unpleasant stuff, rest assured.
Phew, almost done with his initial appearance. In contrast to his appearance in UBW, his iteration in Heaven's Feel would not last long at all. Early in the story he had a nice little discussion with his priest-friend about the murderous goings on in Fuyuki prior to the beginning of the new War. While out investigating the mysterious Shadow, he was swallowed (much like Nameless was), but the Shadow, fearing a power as great as Gilgamesh's, broke him down into mana immediately. fearing for its life with Gilgamesh on the inside. And, the reason he was talking to Sakura about killing herself was because he knew what awful fate was in store for her, and wanted to spare her the agony in the only way he thought would do it for good.
Alright, now onto the spin-offs. In Fate/hollow ataraxia, instead of his perpetually moody older self, he drinks a Potion of Youth from the inside of his Gate and become Kid Gil for much of the story, just so he can avoid interacting with the other Servants and Masters as much as he can. He decides to help out late in the story when he brings out his adult form to help defeat some monsters that had been causing trouble for the ultimate goal of the protagonists, to stop the recurring day oddness from happening over and over.
His next major appearance would be in Fate/zero, written a few years after FSN. Gilgamesh was initially the Servant of Tokiomi Tohsaka, Rin's father, and was summoned as part of an elaborate scheme to have the Tohasaka be the inevitable victors of the Grail War: summon Gilgamesh, the strongest Servant, and have Tokiomi's student, Kotomine Kirei, summon Assassin and covertly work in cooperation with him. As it went, it was a well-thought out plan, including having Kotomine "sacrifice" his Servant to Gilgamesh to make the other Masters think Kotomine had been eliminated from the war. But Tokiomi never particularly thought about the character of his student, and Gilgamesh, having grown substantially bored with his actual Master, instead got to talking with the student. He found Kotomine an intriguing young man, because he had no wish for the Grail and seemingly no interest in anything, making him wonder how he became a Master in the first place. Gilgamesh encouraged Kotomine to use Assassin to observe the other Masters and find out why all of them were involved in the war.
Gilgamesh afterwards would respond to a very unusual invitation: Iskandar invited the War's other monarchs, Saber (Artoria Pendragon), and Archer (Gilgamesh), to a private banquet as kings. After they had explained or defended their personal monarchical philosophies, Iskandar took to mocking Artoria's ideals while Gilgamesh, surprisingly, stood up for her. But it needn't be said he wasn't doing it out of altruism or his own good nature. He wanted merely to break Artoria's willpower and eventually, basically get her to become his love slave. At various points in the story, Gilgamesh would witness both Iskandar's Army of the King and Artoria's Excalibur. To the former, he resolved he would be the one to defeat him, without question, and to the latter, only strengthened his resolve to break her will and remove any foolish ideals from her head.
A while later, Gilgamesh was explained the true purpose of the Holy Grail War, from the point of the magi family who created it. 7 Servants would be summoned, and one after another would need to be defeated and their magical energy poured into the Grail. Once only one Servant was standing, the final Master would use their last Command Spell to compel their victorious Servant to commit suicide, pouring the last magical energy into the Grail and allowing the surviving Master to witness the Akashic Record. Prideful as he was, Gilgamesh was definitely not down for that shit, and proposed an alternate deal: he would become Kirei's Servant instead and see a Holy Grail born into the world. Kotomine would end up murdering his teacher and completing the deal.
Near the climax of the war, as all remaining parties involved began to converge upon the place the Grail would be born into the world, Gilgamesh would finally defeat Iskandar (thanks primarily to Ea and the Chains of Heaven), and would proceed to meet Artoria, who had just finished her fight with Lancelot as a Berserker. Gilgamesh, announcing his desire to make Artoria his wife, explained they could both use the Grail to be born into the world and acquire a new life. Artoria had no interest in any of that, but their standoff was interrupted by Saber's Master appearing. Knowing the nature of the Grail, he ordered Artoria with two of his Command Spells to have her destroy the Grail, which would also destroy her and Gilgamesh with no Grail around to support them.
Artoria, unable to resist two Command Spells, used Excalibur on the Grail and destroyed it, spilling the Grail mud all over Gilgamesh and starting a huge fire that burned half of Fuyuki. Gilgamesh would later wake up, fully nude, and realized he had an actual, physical body, but with all the same powers as his Servant form. While Gilgamesh says the Grail mud was unable to taint an existence such as his, we only really have his word on that, and he takes a much more brutal tone in his FSN appearance than anywhere else in the series he's been found. Indeed, elsewhere he's been more or less an ally of humanity. Obviously putting himself first, but when it comes to conflicts between gods or divine beasts and humanity, he will always choose the latter.
As I've mentioned before, Gilgamesh was one of the playable Servants in CCC, and it seems canon from the point of view of this game's story, that he ended up helping out Hakunon while she was on the Far Side of the Moon, but he had to find his own way back to the Near Side after the events of that game. In Grand Order, he has two main appearances: his regular Archer form and a Caster form, utilizing the many magical staffs his has in the Gate of Babylon. While not naturally a mage himself, just the presence of those items allows him to wield powerful magic. As a Caster, his personality is much more laid-back and less murderous jerk, and he only demands a lot from the citizens of Uruk because he expects a lot. This is the form of Gilgamesh who returned from the journey of immortality a changed man, a finally responsible and diligent king. As for why he became a mage? As his Caster form explains, he considers it mockery or irony toward the Grand Caster, King Solomon. The joke, as far as Gilgamesh is concerned, is basically that he can match Solomon's magical abilities on a whim, which, to be fair, is a hell of a whim, given that he, Solomon, and freakin' Merlin are also Grand Caster candidates (considerable magical ability + ability to see truth and into the future).
One final note before we begin is that while Gilgamesh despises the modern world, he does occasionally find things he likes, and he likes this outfit, basically. That's about all there is to it. Using this outfit through the entirety of Unlimited Blade Works is what allowed Shirou to slice his right arm off.
Gilgamesh's next outing is based on Dawn 5, the one with Regalia Nero and a time limit.
Gilgamesh stage 2
It's Archimedes. SE.RA.PH's personal security administrator... If he didn't care about the risk, he could have fronted a digital attack on my Stone Room as well.
Archimedes...? I've never heard of him. What kind of man is he? You don't know of Archimedes? A Hero like you? ...Hm. Very well, Archimedes is...*fade for history lesson*
I see. I get the idea. I suppose anyone who CARED to know would know his name. He may have left his mark on history, but...you notice he's never sided with humans, not since becoming a Hero. What he feels toward humanity must be pure, unadulterated... No, never mind. His nature will leak from his mouth when we come face to face with him. First we have to take care of the matter at hand. I was careless to let this happen. Allow me to undo the damage. Let me know how the battle goes, Altera. This kind of trap? Pfft, I could buy and sell it.*cutscene with the time limit, Archimedes, and Nero takes place...*
We'll have to leave Gil to grumble to himself for a bit, as fighting Nero at the same time you're fighting Nameless or something is a very silly thing to do.
Hm, allow me to show you my power! Here I come, King of Heroes! I'll start with you!After she arrives...
Such a hopelessly golden man... Don't you find it hard to see with all those sparkles in your eyes? ...So it's only your faces that are similar. No... Your cores are similar as well...I'm not sure that's how it works, Nero. In any case, leave Nero to her fun in this Sector while you attend to more pressing business. We'll settle things with her soon enough.
Taking out Nameless is a pretty crucial aspect of victory, because even if he won't rampage around like his Emperor, his Sector has a lot of keys attached to it. I'm pretty sure you have to beat him eventually, anyway, because there's not enough unconquered Sectors to achieve territorial victory without defeating him.
And you have to do it quickly. If Nero conquers her Sector, then joins Nameless to fight, it's gonna get really rough. The only thing worse than fighting a Super enemy is fighting them and an underling at the same time. Two normal Servants is already enough of a hassle.
No time to spare.
The aftermath of a Sector Trap. He's so nice. The best thing to do is get Nero to fight Jeanne or Iskandar, because that'll make sure she doesn't interrupt the elimination of the only enemy Plant on the field at the start of the mission.
Hanging out near the spawn point, again. This is becoming a thing with you, Nero.
Yes, we'll be fighting her, as the King of Heroes knows not retreat. Gil's big advantage here is his ranged attacks, so he doesn't have to risk getting close to Nero to do a not insubstantial amount of damage to her.
Once your Moon Drive ends, you'll just want to hassle her from range. Preferably with the S S T attack, since anything else is too slow and Nero will smack your face in as she takes the damage and gets close to you.
Gil's aerial attack (where he shoots swords downwards), is surprisingly effective. If you have enough height, you can attack with impunity as Nero goes nuts attacking on the ground.
Hmph, very well, I shall retreat! But, let me say, though you are my enemy, you are a splendid performer! ...You're strong, King of Heroes.It was more "well-fought" than strong, but point taken. Let's just skip ahead to Gawain...
Holy Sword of the Sun, give me strength. Your pitiful plan is disrespectful to a King like me. Your death will be your apology, mongrel!
Gawain is a really easy enemy vs. Gilgamesh, since Gawain's biggest problem is his lack of ranged attacks, whereas Gil is peerless in that department. As long as you don't get sloppy in during his Moon Drive, you shouldn't have any problems whatsoever subduing him.
It should be noted that enemy Servants are fast enough to interrupt a Gate of Babylon blast. It's not really suited to a dogfight between Heroic Spirits.
Gilgamesh's parry attack is him firing a few weapons out and knocking an enemy away. A suitably sloppy way for another enemy to fall.
A trifle.
We may have lost the battle, but we have won this wa- "Won the war"? That's what you were going to say, right? Enough of that. I'm tired of hearing that phrase. Besides, I knew you had something like this planned. You've been playing into OUR trap all this time. What are you...talking about? Do you mean to suggest...that the scholar has deceived us? Hah. So you suspected your plan might be going too well then. Well observed, Knight of the Round Table, or whoever you are. That little hack went far too smoothly. This is not the first time Archimedes has touched the Zero Dark. Far from it. Are you starting to put the pieces together yet? I must say, I did appreciate that speech about justice. It moved me to tears, really. Ugh... I cannot believe...that I... Hmm, it seems I've been strung along as well. I won't forget this, Archimedes. I've prepared a painful gift for you as thanks.