The Epic of Gilgamesh's plot appears to have a major conflict between humanity and nature, however, this is just an illusion: humanity is only opposed to the termination of nature, death. Nature is the creator of life, and if they are striving for eternal life, they cannot be opposed to nature. "We will go to the forest and destroy the evil; for in the forest lives Humbabaa ferocious giant", Gilgamesh announces when he decides on impulse to establish his name and conquer death, "Then if I fall I leave behind me a name that enduresLong after the child has been born in my house, they will say it and remember" (The Epic 71). Even though during the epic, Humbaba has never done anything directly to cause such an attack from Gilgamesh, the mere idea that the nature-protecting giant could be a threat to the king's life makes it a target for termination. Gilgamesh realizes that if he kills Humbaba, he will be one step closer to immortality through the elimination of a potential cause of his death. Additionally, he also realizes that whether he kills the giant or he himself is killed, he will reach a level of immortality amongst his people from the stories that such an adventure will procure. What humanity fears and fights against is death, not nature.
Humanity during the Mesopotamian Era can not be opposed to nature if the gods they praise on a daily basis are personifications of different aspects of nature. The people of Uruk in the Epic of Gilgamesh worship Gods such as Ea, God of the sweet waters; Enlil, God of earth, wind, and the universal air; and Shamash, the God of the sun. "Gilgamesh took up a kid, white without spot, and a brown one with it;and he carried them into the presence of the sun. He took in his hand his silver sceptre and he said to glorious Shamash, Grant, I beseech, your protection, and let the omen be good" (The Epic 72). If they are begging such gods for protection, sacrificing their livestock, and centring their lives around them, they cannot be opposed to nature.