Imperial Privilege

I'm actually making some headway on the Seven Samurai (with magi) pitch I've made both in the Fanfic Idea Thread and an earlier blog. The working title is Magnificence, both as a play on The Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai with cowboys) and a MacGuffin hidden in the bowels of a magi's workshop. Just an outline right now, sketching out the general content of chapters and the placement of some scenes that have already come to me

But it also got me thinking about another old idea of mine, born out of a notion that crops up in Hollow Ataraxia (which I haven't read; I heard something about a mostly-completed patch leaking, though). Nasu explains Gilgamesh's age between they two Grail Wars as having taken a potion of youth, right? (Need to read HA to confirm at some point) So I got to thinking Kid Gilgamesh's Globetrotting Adventures could make for a fun story.

Gilgamesh doesn't strike me as the type to sit around in the church's basement for ten years. He loathes boredom almost as much as thieves and pretenders to his throne. This idea supposes that Gilgamesh spent some time traveling the world, observing how humans have so poorly handled his garden.

The fresher idea revolves around a cabal of magi becoming aware of Gilgamesh and hatching a plan to capture and eventually dissect him, having mistaken him for something like a Phantasmal Beast rather than the King of Heroes. They're in the right ballpark in assuming he's a throwback to the Age of the Gods, but they are woefully unequipped to deal with a Gilgamesh-level clusterfuck. Things quickly degenerate to a very dark version of a Wile E. Coyote short as plan after plan falls apart. The conspirators splinter under the stress, factions form, sub-plots develop. Gilgamesh allows the display on the ground that it amuses him, and he has some sliver of--well, respect is pushing it--interest in those who are willing to go so far in pursuit of a goal. He likes their gumption.

Of course, the story must end with Gilgamesh growing tired of the mongrels and swording them all to death. As I sketched it out in my mind, I realized it was less a Gilgamesh story than the story of these doomed magi. Nasu's spellslingers have always intrigued me, particularly that bit where magic is growing weaker, and they want to get back to a time of the Gods. So I imagine this kind of suicidal gambit is just the sort of thing a bunch of low-born, disgraced and/or elderly magi would embark upon for fear that this is their one and only chance to make something of themselves.

Then Apocrypha came out, and I realized I could write this cabal of fading magi as the Yggdramillennia guild. It would explain why they're not around in the mainstream Nasuverse.

The original globetrotting Gilgamesh idea is pure fanwank. I'm a massive Lovecraft nerd.

No points for guessing it's all about Gilgamesh putting the screws to a generic Lovecraftian doomsday cult

I put that one on the back burner because it's hard to write about living and dying in an uncaring cosmos when Gilgamesh is far from the hapless protagonist. But then, as I thought about it, it doesn't have to be Lovecraftian from the enemy's point of view. Gilgamesh himself is the horror. And that thought eventually inspired the image of a bunch of magi getting themselves killed for dicking with a force beyond their comprehension.

I've also entertained notions of a one-shot from the point of view of a prostitute whom Gilgamesh patronizes in an effort to understand Enkidu's devotion to Shamhat. Taking a page from Nasu's book, I would have to take some liberties with the Epic, namely playing up Shamhat's importance to Enkidu. More appropriately, Gilgamesh's perception of her importance. He bitterly laments that she was the first to put an indelible mark upon him. So he begins seeing a prostitute who reminds him of Shamhat in an effort to get in Enkidu's head.

Which would be fucking horrifying for the prostitute as it dawns on her what a lunatic she's bedding

So that's three separate threads that could conceivably come together, be it as a cohesive whole or separate vignettes over the course of Gilgamesh's journeys.

1. Gilgamesh vs. The Guild.
2. Gilgamesh vs. The Cult.
3. Gilgamesh vs. The Prostitute.

There's nothing to say I couldn't wed all three. Gilgamesh goes to prostitute. Prostitute gets captured by whacked out bunch of cultists. Gilgamesh talks much smack about their stupid gods trying to trespass in his garden and forecasts a 100% chance of sword rain. Magi become aware of the extermination and move against the "creature" they have summoned, coming to the same ruinous end. Along the way, Gilgamesh monologues at length about the nature of power and authority.

So Gilgamesh becomes less and less of a protagonist and more and more the unstoppable, inhuman creature operating on its own alien logic.

Or maybe I would cut the cultist angle altogether. It's the least developed and the most self-indulgent thread, but I've had this image burning in my mind of a teenaged Gilgamesh surrounded by bodies and lecturing a cowering cultist about how foolish they were to extend an invitation to something like Azathoth without consulting the king of the realm. There's also the delicious irony of drown-the-world-in-Grail-mud Gilgamesh saving the world.

But this is something that won't really bear fruit until I'm done with Magnificence and maybe even that UBW Bad End continuation (Doom and Gloom) I've been kicking around for a while. Doom and Gloom isn't particularly pressing, but I'm sure it will suddenly move up in my queue as I start watching UBW TV.