User blog comment:MilenHD/Gilgamesh vs Odysseus/@comment-422690-20151206194711/@comment-4661256-20151208181341

All right, that's true. I hadn't thought of Gilgamesh in that way. I guess he just doesn't have a reputation for being "smart" like Odysseus. Still, while choosing to forgo immortality or a goddess' proposal demonstrate intelligence, Odysseus was "smart" in a cunning and tactical sense.

Regardless of whether or not taunting Polyphemus was a good idea (it wasn't), he still thought ahead far enough to use the "Noman" trick and blind the cyclops rather than kill him (since that boulder blocked the cave entrance and would have trapped them inside otherwise). Also, he was obviously a very decorated general during the Trojan War. This shows that he is a talented and intelligent warrior--Gilgamesh fought Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven, but those were small-scale incidents compared to the 10-year siege of Troy and Odysseus' subsequent 10-year journey home. I still think that, with regards to combat, Odysseus is much more intelligent than Gilgamesh, whose primary battlefield strategy is "overwhelm them with brute force."