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Gilgamesh
The main character. He's the king of Uruk.
- Boy of My Dreams: Before meeting Enkidu, he has a dream of him... sort of. (It's a meteor, but symbolically it's Enkidu.) Gilgamesh tells his mom about the dream, and she says, "Yep, this is the guy for you."Ninsun: This star of heaven which descended like a meteor from the sky; which you tried to lift, but found too heavy, when you tried to move it it would not budge, and so you brought it to my feet; I made it for you, a goad and spur, and you were drawn as though to a woman. This is the strong comrade, the one who brings help to his friend in his need. He is the strongest of wild creatures, the stuff of Anu; born in the grass-lands and the wild hills reared him; when you see him you will be glad; you will love him as a woman and he will never forsake you. This is the meaning of the dream.
- Character Development: He starts out as a terrible king, and becomes a good one.
- Extra Parent Conception: Gilgamesh is two-thirds divine but one-third man. There was an ancient belief that all of a woman's male sexual partners during pregnancy contribute to the resulting baby. His mother Ninsun is a goddess, and her usual consort Lugalbanda is a deified king, so most presume there was a second mortal father involved. At the same time, he's also described as being "created" more than born.
- Handsome Lech: Gilgamesh originally was a Hunk who sexually abuses young women in his kingdom.
- Hunk:When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash the glorious sun endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage, the great gods made his beauty perfect, surpassing all others, terrifying like a great wild bull.
- Immortality Seeker: The second half of the story is about his quest for immortality after he can't bring himself to accept the death of Enkidu.
- Manly Facial Hair: He's depicted with a beard and is a Hunk.
- Manly Tears: Justified. He cries over the death of his best friend, but unlike modern standards, it's considered an inherently masculine thing.
- Nominal Hero: He's self-centered, immature, shows little interest in his station, and the gods themselves look at him and think there's something wrong going on. Most of the poem focuses on how he grows out of it.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: The king, and also a badass to an almost ridiculous level.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He sexually abuses young women (and possibly men) in his kingdom, which angers his people and prompts their desperate prayers to the gods. Averted, however, in that according to the themes of the story,
this behavior is merely a sign of immaturity in the minds of ancient Sumerians. - Royal Brat: He started off as this, treating his divine birth and position of authority as a license to do whatever he wanted, which involves Droit du Seigneur of newly wedded wives and, depending on the translation, forced labor, drinking contests, and wrestling for the men. Thankfully, he gets better later on.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Gilgamesh leaves Uruk to go monster-hunting with Enkidu, and when the Bull of Heaven attacks, he personally goes into battle against it.
- Semi-Divine: Gilgamesh is two-thirds god and one-third human. He's also the king of Uruk, making him perhaps a Downplayed God-Emperor.
- Super-Strength: The Ur-Example. Thanks to his Semi-Divine heritage, Gilgamesh is blessed with superhuman strength that allows him to perform all sorts of deeds, such as building the walls of Uruk and traveling to meet Utnapishtim, a survivor of the Great Deluge.
- Uneven Hybrid: Gilgamesh is two-thirds god and one-third human. Justified due to the fact that he was described to be "created" more than "born".
Enkidu
The other main character, a wild man crafted by the gods.
- Friend to All Living Things: Before he is tamed by Shamhat, the antelopes and gazelles see Enkidu as one of their own. See You Can't Go Home Again for how he loses this quality.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: He is incredibly close with Gilgamesh, with whom he travels the Near East and defeats monsters. However, given the homoerotic subtexts of the original language, he might be Implied Love Interest instead.
- Horned Humanoid: He's a wild man with horns to prove it.
- The Lost Lenore: His death devastates Gilgamesh, who searches for immortality in response.
- Nature Hero: He begins life in the wilderness, living like an animal.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: Shamhat's two-week long sex session with Enkidu (with an interim educational conversation) is the first step in making him a civilized man.
- Super-Strength: As a result of being created by the Gods to subdue the Semi-Divine Gilgamesh, Enkidu is capable of great feats of strength.
- Wild Child: Wild Man in his case, before becoming "civilized" by Shamhat.
- You Can't Go Home Again: After sleeping with Shamhat, Enkidu cannot return to his carefree life in the wilderness because the other animals flee from him.
Ishtar
A goddess who tries to woo Gilgamesh.
- Femme Fatale: She promises Gilgamesh good fortune if he becomes her lover. As Gilgamesh points out, her previous lovers came to horrific ends.
- Jerkass Gods: She unleashes the Bull of Heaven, knowing full well that it will destroy and disrupt life on Earth, solely because Gilgamesh bruised her ego.
- Mirror Character: Beautiful and powerful, but arrogant, entitled, and deeply immature — Ishtar is essentially Gilgamesh writ large.
- Ms. Fanservice: Her in-universe job description, and a highly respected job at that.
- Noodle Incident: Gilgamesh lists a number of Ishtar's former lovers and the tragedies that befell them, but in most cases, he gives us little more than a few vague clues as to what happened. Presumably, these were references to even older stories that are now lost. Apparently, Ishtar had sex with a lion one time?
- Woman Scorned: After Gilgamesh insults her, she unleashes the Bull of Heaven, which devastates the land until Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill it.
Shamhat
A harimtu who plays a significant role in bringing Enkidu into contact with civilization.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: She is probably the Ur-Example, although this is a modern oversimplification of her job. She is a harimtu, a priestess associated with Ishtar. Ishtar is the goddess of, among other things, sex. Harimtu were definitely seen as sexy. Some scholars have argued that harimtu were temple prostitutes, but the evidence for this is inconclusive.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: Her two-week long sex session with Enkidu (with an interim educational conversation) is the first step in making him a civilized man.
- Slut-Shaming: On his deathbed, Enkidu — mad at Shamhat for making him human, and therefore, mortal — rages against her, wishing her a future of poverty and shame. However, the sun god Shamash reminds him that she was good to him and that, without her, he would never have met Gilgamesh, and Enkidu retracts his curses, wishing her instead a life of fulfilment and wealth.
Humbaba
A giant who protects the cedar forests of Lebanon.
- Ambiguously Evil: Gilgamesh treats Humbaba as an Always Chaotic Evil monster that exists to be killed, but there are some indications that Humbaba is at worst Necessarily Evil, since he's only doing what Enlil put him there to do
- Beast Man: He has the head of a lion, and — according to some sources — a snake for a penis.
- Large and in Charge: He's a fearsome giant.
- Nature Hero: A very recently discovered tablet presents him as one of these, chilling out in the cedar forest and happily listening to the sounds of the animals.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: See above.
- Phrase Catcher: In some versions of the text, characters constantly remind each other than Humbaba is the forest's guardian, and that Enlil put him there to terrify men.
- Protectorate: He protects the cedar forests.
The Bull of Heaven
A divine bull that Ishtar unleashes on Earth after Gilgamesh offends her.
- Ambiguously Related: The Bull of Heaven may or may not be the same being as Ereshkigal's husband Gugalanna from Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld.
- Character Death: Gilgamesh kills the bull, then dismembers it and throws its flesh at Ishtar.
- Weapon of Mass Destruction: Ishtar's father warns her that unleashing the bull will cause drought and devastation.
Aga of Kish
The last king in the first dynasty of Kish, he is listed in the sumerian king list. Aga is mentioned in the epic as having besieged Uruk. He appears also in the earlier Sumerian text of Gilgamesh and Akka, where he is referred to as Akka instead.
Utnapishtim
An elderly man that lives with his wife at the mortal world's edge. He's the survivor of the Great Flood that was used by the Mesopotamian deities in destroying the previous world (the exact reason is left ambiguous, however some versions claim it was because humans were annoying them) and was granted immortality.
- Cool Old Guy: He survived a catastrophic flood along with his wife and countless animals, received immortality, and put an upstart king in his place.
