Gilgamesh is Better than You

Question: I read somewhere that Gilgamesh is two-thirds divine instead of half. Since you guys have obviously done some amazingly thorough research I figured I would run this by you. Is this Gilgamesh thing true or false, and if true how is it possible? (Sorry, I don't remember where I got this information.)

Gilgamesh is indeed frequently referred to in his myths as "two-thirds divine", a repeated phrase that highlights his badassery for those listening to the tale. It's mathematically improbable, as you note, but it's likely that it isn't intended to be literal; it's a poetic device to describe how Gilgamesh is not just more divine than a human, but more divine than the average demigod as well. He's not just a demigod, he's more demigod than he is man. The Babylonians were very keen to make sure people understood that Gilgamesh was a super warrior pimp.

As far as his actual parentage goes, his mother, Ninsun or Ninsuna, is definitely a goddess, and a fairly important one at that as the daughter of almighty Anu. His father Lugalbanda frequently appears to be merely a mortal soldier and later a mortal king, which would make Gilgamesh a standard Scion, but Lugalbanda also ends up getting deified later in Babylonian religion, so you could easily take the stance that he was actually a Scion. Which would make Gilgamesh three-fourths divine, not two-thirds, but it's still an option!

We like to play Gilgamesh as a Scion of Anu, his grandfather, which explains why he's so awesome and why he gets so much special treatment throughout his stories (there's a lot of people not being allowed to murder him, gods helping him when he asks, and the eventual decision by Anu to let him help judge the dead in the Underworld as a near-equal instead of just being sent there like everybody else when he dies). In that case, you could also decide that being "two-thirds divine" just refers to his eminently powerful patron - sort of the same way an uppity Scion of Zeus might refer to himself as more divine than your garden-variety Scion of Hermes.