The List

The Fascinating Mythology Behind Fate Babylonia's Characters

Outside some memorable quotes and the uniquely purple prose of the original visual novel's erotica, the Fate series is perhaps best known for its potpourri of characters picked from the entire length of human history and storytelling. That's not to say Fate is lazy and unoriginal in its approach to storytelling; quite the opposite, actually! Alliances form -- passions are shared -- and warriors from all schools of combat beat the crap out of each other. Some of these characters have persisted through multiple millennia. They didn't start out as sexy anime versions of themselves, and their presence in the collective consciousness of humanity certainly won't end here, so let's see where they came from. Before we break that down though, subscribe to our YouTube page and hit that notification Bell. Here we go!

Gilgamesh & Enkidu

Since this Singularity is called Babylonia, it's only right that we begin with the characters originating from this region. Mesopotamia was one of several cradles of civilization—a place where the foundations of society were first laid—and it's also responsible for one of humanity's oldest surviving stories, the Epic of Gilgamesh. The titular Gilgamesh is a character whose villainous presence (and particular manner of laughing) should already be familiar to fans of Fate/stay night or Fate/Zero. The Gilgamesh we encounter in Babylonia, however, is a markedly different character because Gilgamesh himself went through different phases of life in the original story. The Fate/Zero version is more like young, bratty Gilgamesh but the Babylonia version has learned some big life lessons thanks to his relationship with Enkidu. I lump them together in this section because it's impossible to tell one's story without the other.

Gilgamesh gets on the bad side of the gods but finds camaraderie with Enkidu who decides to help him continue trolling the divine. This gets Enkidu cursed and they die a slow and decidedly unheroic death. The weight of this death spurs Gilgamesh to go on a journey to discover the secret of immortality. He returns Uruk mortal, humbled, and ready to be a proper king. This is the Gilgamesh our heroes encounter with they crashland in Uruk. All it took was the death of his closest clayfriend and an epic journey to the ends of the earth in order to get him to chill.

Tiamat

Tiamat will probably be a familiar name to anybody who's played an RPG, and she has a very important role in the creation myths of ancient Mesopotamia. Essentially she's one of the first beings, but she doesn't play much of a role in Babylonian mythology outside of the creation story Enuma Elish...where she primarily serves the role of dying at the hands of another god, Marduk. My girl gets split in half to make heaven and earth! The axe that split her is one of the key items Ritsuka is searching for in Babylonia. The world is “borne” from Tiamat and Babylonia likes to make some pretty obvious references to her womanhood. The actual Tiamat looks like a gigantic feral woman leaking dark red “mud” into the sea that transforms all it touches into cackling grotesqueries. Yeesh.

Ishtar & Ereshkigal

In Babylonia, these two characters look an awful lot like a certain Rin from Fate lore with different hair color distinguishing them from one another. They occupy the same body in the anime but in the original story, the two are actually sisters. And they hate each other. Part of this comes from their opposing goals. Ishtar is associated with a lot of things—but two of the big ones are love and war. Consequently, she's a good fighter, and she even gets to weaponize Venus as a part of her Noble Phantasm, due to the ancient Babylonian belief that she was aligned with both the morning and evening star. Ereshkigal, on the other hand, is the queen of the dead and ruler of the underworld and it's not surprising that this gloomy older sister wouldn't be the biggest fan of her boisterous and popular little sister. In mythology this rivalry is taken to an extreme when Ishtar decides to take a stroll into the underworld but her sister won't let her through the gates without removing her clothing. When she's finally nude, Ereshkigal entraps or even murders Ishtar. Nothing like sisterly love!

Gorgon

The Fate series is rarely content to draw stories and characters from only one set of mythology. The Gorgons should be familiar figures to my fellow fans of the Greek myths. Medusa herself is probably one of the most famous monsters in the history of Western literature. In Fate's version, Athena banishes Medusa to the Shapeless Isle, and her two sisters tag along to keep her company. Not content with mere banishment, however, Athena also creates rumors about a monster named Medusa to lure witless heroes to their isle looking for glory. Medusa takes it upon herself to defend her sisters, but the ceaseless onslaught of deluded challengers gradually wears her down until she gives in, physically and mentally, to becoming a monster. It's not a huge surprise that she falls into the Avenger class in the Fate series. In original Greek mythology, Medusa could fly -- on top of having a head of snakes and a petrifying glare. Romans later added to Medusa's story -- she didn't originally have a monstrous appearance but was cursed by Athena and then later slain by Perseus with assistance from the gods. Like -- can someone cut this poor woman some slack. Damn, sorry Medusa.

Merlin

Ok, so we can't talk about Fate without going into some Arthurian mythology. Fate's version of Merlin probably doesn't match the white-bearded wizard you're used to imagining. He's a handsome, roguish troublemaker with a questionable moral compass, but if anything, he's more accurate to the primary legends than any Disney movie. Fate's Merlin is a half-human half-incubus, which is consistent with the origin written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the guy considered the father of Arthurian myth. Fate's Merlin also has no issue instigating disagreements between humans and messing with them for his own amusement. This might not jive with our popular perception of Merlin as the king's sage adviser, Arthurian canon itself is varied and full of contradictions, so there's little reason to argue that Merlin couldn't have been a jerk. And ultimately, Merlin is on humanity's side, even if he insists on maintaining distance from us.

This week's poll: If you were a Master in the Fate universe, which class of servant would you summon?

And Last week, we asked what anime YOU think everyone should bingewatch on Netflix! Here's your top five!

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
2. Madoka Magica
3. Violet Evergarden
4. Hunter x Hunter
5. Attack on Titan

See you guys next week!