Gilkidu

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Pairing
Pairing: Gilkidu
Alternative name(s): Gilgamesh x Enkidu, Gilgamesh/Enkidu
Gender category: Slash or other
Fandom: Fate/ (franchise)
Canonical?: No
Prevalence: Medium
Archives: Works on AO3
Other:
Made by darkn2ght.
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Gilkidu is the portmanteau ship name for the ship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu from the Fate/ franchise. The fandoms of the romantic and platonic ship have a lot of overlap and it can be difficult to tell when people are making works of it intended as a romance or a bromance.

Canon

Enkidu is first mentioned in the Fate franchise as the name of Gilgamesh's most treasured weapon, Enkidu the Chain of Heaven. Even if stolen from him like in Fate/kaleid liner, the chain refuses to turn against Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh talks to the chain as if it was his friend. Enkidu later gets to appear as a person in Gilgamesh's memories in Fate/Zero, as Excalibur's light makes Gilgamesh remember the sight of Enkidu's death. In Fate/Extra CCC, Enkidu appears in Gilgamesh's dreams, telling the backstory of the two to the player, recounting a story that mostly follows that of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Enkidu finally gets his real appearance in Fate/strange fake when both him and Gilgamesh get summoned in a Holy Grail War, and both immediatelly go meet each other in the form of a friendly duel. The relationship of the two is further explored in Fate/Grand Order, although again without Enkidu himself present most of the time.

Fanon

Gilkidu is a later arrival in the field of Fate ships as Enkidu didn't get a design until his Fate/strange fake appearance. The original design is from 2009 but the story of Fate/strange fake didn't start until 2015—way later compared to Gilgamesh's 2004 appearance. Up until that point, the few Gilkidu works that existed could only rely on fan interpretations of his appearance and personality. However, as Enkidu's appearances increased, so did grow the fandom for the ship, and by the Babylonia chapter of Fate/Grand Order in 2016, there was already a dedicated following for it.

The rise of Gilkidu has been relatively rapid considering the short age of its fandom. It has been welcomed warmly by many who find it to be an "unproblematic" Gilgamesh ship. Some people dislike other Gilgamesh ships such as shipping Gilgamesh with Saber due to Gilgamesh's harassing behaviour towards her in Fate/stay night, or seeing Gilgamesh/Kotomine Kirei as unappealing for being quite dark as a ship. In contrast to this, Gilgamesh and Enkidu have a canon history of friendship and mutual respect, and a possibility for fluffy takes as well as angsty ones. The rise of the ship has also gone hand-in-hand with the increasing popularity of Gilgamesh as a character in the fandom, as the time when Enkidu started making a stronger presence in the story aligns well with the time that Gilgamesh was started to be portrayed more positively in the franchise as opposed to being only a villain.

Gilkidu is usually treated as a slash ship, even though Enkidu is technically not a human and has no physical sex. This is because the appearance he usually takes has a feminine face but a masculine body, as explained in Fate/strange fake. Gilgamesh also uses the kare (彼) pronoun for Enkidu, which typically translates to "he" specifically, and this is how Enkidu is called in English fan translations of Fate works. Regardless of this, due to Enkidu's shapeshifting abilities, fans can also imagine him taking a female form or something else entirely.

In the English-speaking fandom, the ship is usually called Gilkidu regardless of the ship "dynamic". In the Japanese-speaking fandom, the ship is called ギルエル (Girueru) or エルギル (Erugiru) depending on the shipper's preference for the dynamic. On Pixiv, it is also known as メソポタミア最強夫婦 (Mesopotamia's strongest couple) and メソポタミア最強コンビ (Mesopotamia's strongest duo).

Tropes

Gilkidu fanwork is as angsty as the source material: by the time of the events of Fate, both characters have died a long time ago, and it is known that Enkidu died a dramatic death in Gilgamesh's arms, which Gilgamesh was heartbroken over. This is a common source of sadfic and arts about them, as well as the distance they have to suffer over the millenia of being separated by death. Gilgamesh also famously never agrees to have any other friends but Enkidu, regardless of timeline. On the other hand, this gives the fans the opportunity to portray a happy reunion between the two wherever they have been summoned.

There is still a lot of happy and fluffy stories about their adventures together, either during their lives or later as servants, as the rules of the Fate universe allow them to be summoned in the future together to any time the author wants. Fate/Grand Order illustrations have also prompted plenty of art of the two chilling on a beach or otherwise having fun.

One and Only Friend

The statement that "Enkidu is Gilgamesh's One and Only Friend" is very important and often repeated by fans of both the romantic ship as well as the platonic one. Gilgamesh himself said in canon that he will only ever have one friend (Enkidu), and this is a part of their relationship (as well as a part of the tragedy of it) that is held in high value among the fans of the ship as a sign that Enkidu will always be the person that Gilgamesh values the most. The fact that Gilgamesh, who always looks down on people, also declared Enkidu to be his equal, has similar importance for the fans.

"It's not gay if it's clay"

"It's not gay if it's clay" is a meme regarding either Gilgamesh's relationship with Enkidu, or the feelings of attraction that fans have towards Enkidu. "Clay" or "Clae" are both fan nicknames given to Enkidu as he is not a human but literally a clay doll. This is why he also doesn't have a sex, which has prompted male fans to use this meme sentence as a defence for their attraction towards the character: because he is not a human but a clay doll, it's actually not gay to be attracted to him (although he is typically portrayed as male by fans). People also use this for the Gilkidu ship, arguing that it's not gay for Gilgamesh to be in love with Enkidu for the same reason.

The meme has gained some opposition for not only having been repeated to Enkidu fans to the point of getting stale really fast, but people have also accused it of being homophobic, arguing that even if it was gay, there is nothing wrong with that. Some people have turned the sentence around, saying "it's more gay if it's clay".

Criticism

Some people have grown annoyed at the Gilkidu ship due to it being treated as "basically canon" by many people, even individuals who don't particularly ship it but find it funny from a memetic perspective. Some are only fans of Gilgamesh and don't want to see him constantly brought up together with Enkidu, and some wish Enkidu had more explored relations with other characters than only Gilgamesh. The argumentation on whether the ship is canon or not is heavily tied to the argument on whether the actual book The Epic of Gilgamesh portrays a gay relationship or not, a question which is debated in academia by Assyriologists. Some defend the ship by saying that it must be canon on at least some level because the characters in the source material are involved romantically, a belief which is held by many Assyriologists, but this view is opposed by people who either don't agree that the original epic portrays a gay relationship (a view which also has its professional supporters), or by people who believe that that doesn't matter when discussing the Fate versions specifically.

Prevalence

One sign of Gilkidu's quickly increased recent popularity is that it has become the third most popular ship in AO3's "Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms" tag. The Pixiv tags have also multiplied in size in a few years. However, in the bigger picture, it still doesn't have as big a collection of fanworks as, for example, some other Gilgamesh ships.

Some fandom spaces have held informal polls about people's favourite Gilgamesh ships, which usually earn between 50 to 100 responses. In a poll held on Reddit in December 2018, as well as in a poll on the Fate/stay Night Amino community in January 2020, Gilkidu emerged as the winner.

Example Fanworks

Fanarts

Fanfiction

Fanvids

Archives and Communities

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