I finished watching the Unlimited Blade Works anime. While it does a lot of stuff worse than the visual novel one thing I really enjoy is the focus on how pathetic Gilgamesh is.
Like he only fights when he has an overwhelming advantage. The only reason he can beat Heracles is because he's distracted protecting Illya. Even then you can see how scared he is when Berserker snaps the chains in the end because he knows he could crush his skull without effort. He only picks up a sword to execute or when pushed into a corner. Even then he immediately resorts to using Ea because he knows the only way for him to win is through overwhelming advantage. It makes sense he gets paired with Shinji because while Gil's far better at keeping up appearances they both have a huge superiority complex despite only being able to kick people while they're down. Just as Shinji is rendered immediately worthless without a servant so is Gil without his treasures.
This is kind of a surface-level read of Gilgamesh that only works if you judge him by shōnen-protagonist standards instead of the standards the story actually assigns to him.
Gilgamesh doesn’t fight fair or seek equal ground because his worldview is that a king should never have to. He’s a king before he’s a warrior, and most opponents simply aren’t worthy of effort. Overwhelming advantage isn’t a crutch for him: it’s the point. To him, struggling equals inferiority. When he steamrolls someone instantly, that isn’t cowardice, it’s him expressing his philosophy.
Berserker momentarily exceeding his expectations doesn’t mean he thinks he’ll lose; it means something unusual happened. And he still wins that encounter while holding back destructive output.
Saying “he’s nothing without his treasures” also misunderstands what his treasury is. They aren’t external tools compensating for weakness, they’re his legend made manifest. Saying Gilgamesh without his treasury is nothing is like saying a storm without lightning is powerless. That is the storm. Even practically speaking, he’s still a mythic warrior, just not in the way Shirou defines it.
It's also just false because in his legend, before meeting Enkidu, Gilgamesh was known for never using his treasures.
Comparing him to Shinji flattens both characters. Shinji borrows power to feel important. Gilgamesh already sees himself as the measure of importance. One is insecure pretending to be superior; the other is so certain of his superiority that effort itself feels beneath him. Someone else brought up CCC which even shows this directly: reset to level one, he still carries himself as the absolute king. Even excited at the prospect of starting as the weakest to becoming the strongest again. It's not about power, it's who he is. He trips up against Shirou because he refuses to validate someone who uses borrowed ideals as a mask for selfhood.
He’s not written to be admirable in a typical heroic sense. He’s written as a thematic ceiling, the embodiment of absolute authority and pride. Across Fate media, he is typically the benchmark that other characters are measured against. Judging him for not fighting “honorably” is like judging a lion for not asking permission before hunting.
Don't really feel like getting too into it so I'm making this quick and poorly thought out.
1. My only claim in the post is that Gil is pathetic which he is. I am basing this on reading the original VN.
2. I don't get into other depictions of him because there is a very obvious retcon that happened to his character after he got massively popular. It is even acknowledged in the lore as him "being influenced by the era he is summoned to". His depiction in CCC and other media has no influence on his depiction is the original VN.
3. His philosophy does not make him any less pathetic. Just because he thinks he is cool doesn't mean he is. If he sees no merit in fighting fair it doesn't make him any less of a loser.
4. I agree about the borrowed ideals part and about him not being heroic being the point. He is very clearly described as being the king of heroes not because he himself is heroic but because he is simply above all other heroes.
5. Yes his treasury is his legend that's what every NP is. My point still stands that he is crippled without them more than other servants would be without their items and noble phantasms.
6. The lion comparison is just really funny to me because he spends most of his screen time calling others mongrels and here you are justifying his behaviour by saying he acts like an animal.
TL;DR What you say is true I'm not trying to say you're lying. Your thematic analysis of Gilgamesh is true but you just fail to comprehend that he is a loser. A pathetic loser. Him not fighting fair because he thinks it holds no merit and him not fighting fair because he's a pussy ass bitch that couldn't take anyone in a fair fight are both non contradictory statements. That is his character. He is both the best and the worst. He has everything but also nothing.
I think we’re actually talking past each other a bit, because you’re treating “pathetic” as a character verdict while I’m treating it as a textual claim that needs evidence from how the narrative frames him. You're presenting emotional venting as something supported by the text. That's why I even responded.
1) Saying “he’s pathetic because I think he is” isn’t really an argument, it’s just a conclusion. The question is whether the story frames him that way or whether it frames him as arrogant, cruel, excessive, etc. Those aren’t the same thing. A character can be morally awful without being narratively pathetic.
2) The “retcon” point doesn’t hold, because the VN itself already establishes that Servants are influenced by era and summoning conditions. Later works didn’t invent that; they’re extrapolating a rule that was already there. That’s expansion, not revision. You're making a claim that the character was originally made to be pathetic and that later works retconned that also doesn't hold since the VN never supports that.
3) His philosophy doesn’t have to make him admirable, that was never my claim. The point is that his behavior is internally consistent with his worldview. Calling him a loser because he doesn’t value fair fights is judging him by a standard the text never uses as a metric for him.
4) “King of Heroes because he’s above heroes” is actually exactly why he functions the way he does. He isn’t meant to embody heroism; he’s meant to stand outside it as something older and more absolute. That’s not praise, that’s role description.
5) Every Servant relies on their Noble Phantasms because those are their legends crystallized. Saying he’s uniquely crippled without his is like saying a Rider is crippled without their mount or a Caster without magecraft. That’s just how the system works. Even without his Noble Phantasm, on his own the text puts him as more or less equal to the likes of Hercules and Artoria.
6) That's a strawman. The lion comparison wasn’t me saying he’s literally animalistic, it was about standards of judgment. You don’t evaluate a lion by human etiquette, and you don’t evaluate a tyrant-king archetype by chivalric fairness.
TL;DR: you can absolutely dislike him or call him awful, but “pathetic” implies the story presents him as small or pitiable, and it really doesn’t. It presents him as excessive, monstrous, prideful, and tyrannical. Those are very different narrative categories.
I finished watching the Unlimited Blade Works anime. While it does a lot of stuff worse than the visual novel one thing I really enjoy is the focus on how pathetic Gilgamesh is.
Like he only fights when he has an overwhelming advantage. The only reason he can beat Heracles is because he's distracted protecting Illya. Even then you can see how scared he is when Berserker snaps the chains in the end because he knows he could crush his skull without effort. He only picks up a sword to execute or when pushed into a corner. Even then he immediately resorts to using Ea because he knows the only way for him to win is through overwhelming advantage. It makes sense he gets paired with Shinji because while Gil's far better at keeping up appearances they both have a huge superiority complex despite only being able to kick people while they're down. Just as Shinji is rendered immediately worthless without a servant so is Gil without his treasures.
This is kind of a surface-level read of Gilgamesh that only works if you judge him by shōnen-protagonist standards instead of the standards the story actually assigns to him.
Gilgamesh doesn’t fight fair or seek equal ground because his worldview is that a king should never have to. He’s a king before he’s a warrior, and most opponents simply aren’t worthy of effort. Overwhelming advantage isn’t a crutch for him: it’s the point. To him, struggling equals inferiority. When he steamrolls someone instantly, that isn’t cowardice, it’s him expressing his philosophy.
Berserker momentarily exceeding his expectations doesn’t mean he thinks he’ll lose; it means something unusual happened. And he still wins that encounter while holding back destructive output.
Saying “he’s nothing without his treasures” also misunderstands what his treasury is. They aren’t external tools compensating for weakness, they’re his legend made manifest. Saying Gilgamesh without his treasury is nothing is like saying a storm without lightning is powerless. That is the storm. Even practically speaking, he’s still a mythic warrior, just not in the way Shirou defines it.
It's also just false because in his legend, before meeting Enkidu, Gilgamesh was known for never using his treasures.
Comparing him to Shinji flattens both characters. Shinji borrows power to feel important. Gilgamesh already sees himself as the measure of importance. One is insecure pretending to be superior; the other is so certain of his superiority that effort itself feels beneath him. Someone else brought up CCC which even shows this directly: reset to level one, he still carries himself as the absolute king. Even excited at the prospect of starting as the weakest to becoming the strongest again. It's not about power, it's who he is. He trips up against Shirou because he refuses to validate someone who uses borrowed ideals as a mask for selfhood.
He’s not written to be admirable in a typical heroic sense. He’s written as a thematic ceiling, the embodiment of absolute authority and pride. Across Fate media, he is typically the benchmark that other characters are measured against. Judging him for not fighting “honorably” is like judging a lion for not asking permission before hunting.
It's always so sad to see such comments about Gilgamesh because people only saw him in Stay Night and Zero.
"But he's a rapist, and misogynist, and just a narcissistic asshole. How can anyone love him?"
Yes, he can be all that to you but to me he's a lonely and tragic hero that hides so much pain and problems under that thick armor of pride and arrogance. He's the person that would give away his treasures and his life for you because to him you became more precious than all of the above. He's the person that would show his care and support when you truly need it and so on. He's much more than a misogynist, rapist, stalker and an asshole.
I can't say much because I don't really spend my time in fate community that much, but on the surface I have seen people slandering her or any other fate character like they do with Gilgamesh, which makes me feel unfair sometimes because there're other characters that are just as bad as Gilgamesh, like Cu or Medea, but still people mostly dog pile on him because of the first impression he gave them in the VN which I agree wasn't really good and they really did a great job to make Gil look as terrible as possible that even after 20 years he still has quite infamous reputation in the company, yet, it doesn't stop fans from loving and being in top places among most grailed or whatever servants in fgo.
Also, even if all he had was the version of himself in Fate/Stay Night, some people just like villainous characters. He is a fantastic antagonist in the earlier installments and there’s nothing wrong with people appreciating him in that capacity.
To compare to another franchise, Disney has made their villains into a whole marketing brand. There are plenty of people who have favorite Disney Villains and a decent chunk of them list Claude Frollo as their favorite, and he’s also a stalker who wants to be rape the female protagonist. And nobody bats an eye at that because Frollo is an interestingly written character and his fans appreciate that. It’s the same for us villainous Gilgamesh enjoyers
I also love villainous Gilgamesh. I love how sly and cunning he is in Zero and how he just gets completely loose and just willing to start a genocide of humanity in UBW, I really love that.
But I also appreciate that depth in him that make you feel empathetic towards him ( sorry I always get like that with my faves😅).
And such variety and the fact that his moral compass is all over the place make him such good and interesting character.
I think the issue is people are trying to judge mythic figures like Gilgamesh by modern vibes. On top of that, unlike a lot of the characters who are just as bad as Gilgamesh, Fate is honest about his cruelty. I remember one reactor who thought Iskandar was a really cool dude, then looked into his history & learned about all the monstrous things he did. This didn't stop them from liking Iskandar but it was a reminder that just because their legends call them great, doesn't mean they were necessarily good people. They are products of a different value system. Just like, the example with Nero that was shared above. Even Artoria isn't exempt from this.
Fate isn't all to blame for this since the actual real life stories have been romanticised as the years pass. Gilgamesh just didn't get the same treatment.
let me get this straight (i’ve only watched UBW) but the reason gilgamesh is called a jobber is because he’s one of the strongest people in the room most of the time but his refusal to use Ea because of his hubris and arrogance keeps getting him fucked up…is that right?
Gilgamesh doesn't lose because he "forgets" to use Ea or because he's incompetent. He loses because he treats Ea as mythic validation, not a panic button. Using it on someone he deems unworthy would cheapen his own legend, which he values more than winning or even living.
That's why his losses are always hyper-specific, circumstantial, & require the plot to bend around his mindset. Jobber gets thrown around a lot & it's always used incorrectly, especially when it comes to Gilgamesh. A jobber exists to make others look strong. Gilgamesh exists as a ceiling the story has to write around. If he fought pragmatically, most stories just end.
Besides that:
Most fights don't require Ea. People act like the Gate of Babylon is a dud & that Ea is the only way to win, even though the text literally says otherwise. Part of that is because Gilgamesh hasn't properly shown off the versatility of his Gate so it's often an underestimated ability which is crazy because the creator has repeatedly stated that "you can pretty much find anything in there." This isn't hyperbole either. With his eyes, he can see through magic, see all possible timelines & outcomes, see the future, look at a servant & know everything about them from power levels, true names, abilities, weaknesses, etc. All he has to do is look at what a servant is weak to, & overwhelm them with the exact thing they're weak to. That & mainly Gate of Babylon is why he's officially known as the Servant Killer. Not Ea.
As for why he doesn't rely on his clairvoyance more often is due to his philosophy & values. A king who rules by omniscience isn't judging the world, he's just following a script. Gilgamesh refuses to be that.
People can call that dumb or "not optimal" if you want, but that criticism misses the point. He's not trying to play perfectly, he's trying to rule meaningfully.
Basically, the people who falsely label Gilgamesh a jobber are being contrarians or engage in irony poisoning. It's bad faith in reaction to his hype (intentional or unintentional). Especially when his number of victories dwarf his losses. But you'd think otherwise because the internet rewards bad faith.
The new MV does use Inertia but I'm reluctant to believe it's the new opening just because 1. it has the same style as the rest of the MVs and 2. it has no 3D at all, which is... strange for the opening to lack
It's the TOP 1 personal MV but bilibili also has it listed as an OP. And I don't think it's odd for a lack of 3D. The ED doesn't have any 3D and this is a new version of Inertia featuring SennaRin. It'd be weird if this wasn't the OP with what they showed in it
remembered this thing that's been bothering me for a while
that being, is the infinity sign in the background of this frame from the long trailer really just an infinity sign? (perhaps other people might've noticed it too but eh i'll say it myself too since i haven't personally seen it yet)
On first instinct it does look just like a regular infinity sign but I think it's actually a Möbius strip. It's just that all the colors plus there being sort of 4 sides plus X standing in front of where it twists makes it hard to tell
so I finally decided to cave and try to figure it out. I traced over it and then edited it a little to remove the extra sides (the parts colored in solid purple). Of course, it's still hard to tell since it's a non euclidean shape that I'm trying to draw in 2D 😅
anyways, with the Möbius strip which is an object that has two sides joined into one combined with the coin imagery, the idea that there's not two opposing sides (like trust vs fear; 2D world and 3D world; X himself; etc.) but instead quite literally "two sides of the same coin" seems pretty obvious even without the recent episodes delving into the origins of fear/trust. I mean, considering fear has been essential for making heroes since the beginning and whatnot, like with Nice needing a villain to fight to the point Treeman made him a fake one...After all, who needs heroes when there's nothing to be saved from--nothing to fear? (additionally, I find it to be an interesting contradiction about "perfect" or "godlike" heroes--that being that if they really were perfect and omnipotent, shouldn't they have already solved everything and therefore become unnecessary?).
At risk of oversimplifying the actual concept, it does feel really Machiavellian, as I've sorta mentioned in a previous post. Better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both and all that. And now, considering our "perfect" hero character's persona is apparently thanks to fear...I'm very excited to see where this goes
X as a reflection of Zero: the dawn of a new system /thoughts
The more I think about X and Zero, the more they feel like two sides of the same coin, similar in some ways, yet complete opposites. Even their color palettes reflect that.
Zero’s palette feels more unsettling, it’s almost like a negative, with vibrant reds and blues clashing against black. It gives off this intense, chaotic energy, like a void filled with madness.
X’s world, on the other hand, isn’t just colorful, it’s vibrant against white. That contrast makes everything feel lighter, more hopeful, almost playful by comparison.
They have a lot in common, both are insanely powerful, both shook the world just by existing. But while Zero came from within the system and grew too strong for it to handle, X shows up out of nowhere, completely separate from all of that, and already beyond anything the system can control.
Zero's power was built on belief, trust from the public, from himself, from the system that created him. That trust is exactly what led to the system putting limits on every hero that followed. But X? Probably doesn’t rely on trust at all and, if he does, it's not as we know it. He’s not sponsored, not managed, not even explained. He just exists, fully formed, and impossibly powerful.
That’s what makes him so compelling.
If Zero was a god created by the system, X is a god that exists outside of it.
Zero was the reason they built walls.
X is the reason those walls might not hold.
Zero's story warned us of what happens when someone becomes too powerful to control.
X isn't a warning. He’s a disruption. He doesn’t ask for power. He is the power everyone else has to learn how to respond to.
This makes even more sense when we think about these words:
That explains X's role in the story. Establishing new systems involves pushing boundaries or disrupting the status quo. Someone has to break or bend previous rules to expose their flaws if change is ever to be considered.
So yeah, X is like mirror (quite literally) held up to everything the system was trying to avoid. A glitch in the design. A reflection of Zero and a reminder that even the best-laid rules can fall apart.
The word "reflection" isn't used only to imply that they share the same impact or power, even if the intentions and outcomes are different. It symbolizes how X's identity is shaped in opposition or response. He defies the system as he was made possible because of it's flaws. And in relation to the line:
A reflection can expose hidden truths or contradictions, showing how the past still defines the present, and that now he came to challenge the ideals or limits of, not only the System, but Zero's as well. By ultimately setting everyone free from the illusion, the shackles of Trust/Fear that binds them. Showing people how it is possible to become the New Type of hero.
What would this "New Type of Hero" even be?
We’re so used to hero stories being about a "normal" person gaining powers, becoming a hero, and learning to navigate this new reality. But what if TBHX is showing us the exact opposite? What if it’s a metaphor telling us that you can be just… human, and that’s what makes you an even greater hero? That our very idea of what it means to be a hero is inherently "twisted"? We, as people, can make anything come true as long as we put our mind and effort into it. The power of creation is our greatest weapon. In other words, TBHX is, through X, redefining what it means to be a hero.
The very trailer that shows X as the acting force behind every hero, literally in the spotlight, contains the lines:
Where "Born in ashes" can allude to something, or someone, emerging as a consequence of the past, such as The Dawnfall incident, being shaped from the ashes of what came before or as a product of the new system that arose from it. But it can also mean "I was born a commoner", since "from ashes" can mean "from nothing". In fact, this trailer was translated into other languages with exactly that connotation, hinting that X most likely is, or at least was, just a commoner. After all:
The mirror, reflection and disruption symbolisms are cleverly translated visually in this same trailer and others:
Zero is the past they tried to lock away.
X is the future they can’t predict.
What we are witnessing now is the dawn of new system. In a snap, one chapter ends and another one starts.
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