Jemini
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The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of a man who was born from the gods, given every powerful tool at his disposal, and told he was to be the hero of humanity. He turns into a tyrant king and the worst villain the land has ever seen and the gods panic as they have to now contribute more of their resources in order to defeat and/or reform the very tyrant they created.
I don't see how any of these typical power fantasy isekai protagonists don't resemble Gilgamesh other than how the writer portrays their personality as being blandly incorruptible. Why don't we see more of these isekai protagonists being more like Gilgamesh and letting the power go to their heads? Well, I guess we kinda DO see that, but they are side villains who the protagonist has to deal with. How about casting one of these guys who let the power go to their heads as the MC of the story? Wouldn't that make for a rather interesting story you think?
So, let's see some ideas on how to get an OP protagonist favored by the gods and trusted to become the savior of the world completely go off the rails and become the villain of the story.
BTW: Do not go Arifruetta's route. Arifruetta actually features an OP MC who was inspired by the Hurcules story structure, someone who has his promised greatness denied to him and he has to go through hard work scraping about and demeaning himself in order to rise to power. This model of requiring serious effort to come into your power is actually the perfect picture of how to create an anti-Gilgamesh character. In fact, Hurcules was originally conceived of as an anti-Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh was an effort by the writers of the time to point out how corrupting power is. Hurcules was an effort by the writers of the time to be idealistic and put forward the idea that forcing someone to work for their power and coming to it through merit can at least blunt that edge of corruption (I say blunted, but the writers of the time were idealistic enough to think their Hurcules character was incorruptible due to him having to work for his power. No, power still corrupts, but I'm with them that at least the corruption would be softened by having to slave among the working man for a while and getting some sympathy and understanding for the real world as a result.) Even if the writers of The Labors of Hurcules were not aware of The Epic of Gilgamesh (doubtful as they should have been well read people,) they were still inspired into their writing after seeing the exact same problem that Gilgamesh's story was pointing out and they approached it from the exact opposite direction.
I don't see how any of these typical power fantasy isekai protagonists don't resemble Gilgamesh other than how the writer portrays their personality as being blandly incorruptible. Why don't we see more of these isekai protagonists being more like Gilgamesh and letting the power go to their heads? Well, I guess we kinda DO see that, but they are side villains who the protagonist has to deal with. How about casting one of these guys who let the power go to their heads as the MC of the story? Wouldn't that make for a rather interesting story you think?
So, let's see some ideas on how to get an OP protagonist favored by the gods and trusted to become the savior of the world completely go off the rails and become the villain of the story.
BTW: Do not go Arifruetta's route. Arifruetta actually features an OP MC who was inspired by the Hurcules story structure, someone who has his promised greatness denied to him and he has to go through hard work scraping about and demeaning himself in order to rise to power. This model of requiring serious effort to come into your power is actually the perfect picture of how to create an anti-Gilgamesh character. In fact, Hurcules was originally conceived of as an anti-Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh was an effort by the writers of the time to point out how corrupting power is. Hurcules was an effort by the writers of the time to be idealistic and put forward the idea that forcing someone to work for their power and coming to it through merit can at least blunt that edge of corruption (I say blunted, but the writers of the time were idealistic enough to think their Hurcules character was incorruptible due to him having to work for his power. No, power still corrupts, but I'm with them that at least the corruption would be softened by having to slave among the working man for a while and getting some sympathy and understanding for the real world as a result.) Even if the writers of The Labors of Hurcules were not aware of The Epic of Gilgamesh (doubtful as they should have been well read people,) they were still inspired into their writing after seeing the exact same problem that Gilgamesh's story was pointing out and they approached it from the exact opposite direction.
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