Will the real goddess please stand up?

Ishtar [ish-tahr] (n.)

1. the innocent and helpless daughter of Sin who decided to take a roadtrip to the underworld (as featured in "The Descent of Ishtar")
2. the lustful and crazed goddess powered by rejection (appearing The Epic of Gilgamesh)
3. goddess of love, sexuality, and war
4. patron of Uruk

So apparently this Ishtar chick has a pretty impressive resume with experience all across the board. Traveling to the underworld, wreaking havok upon an entire city, and some hefty titles: the works. The only problem is that these definitions contradict each other. How can someone be so powerless in one story and immeasurably limitless in another? Which one is she?

In "The Descent of Ishtar," Ishtar is almost perceivable as innocent as she travels through the seven gates of the underworld, losing a small part of her divinity with each barrier. She questions the gatekeeper like a small child when her items and adornments are taken, curious as to why they're going bye-bye. When she is stripped of all her material possessions she is left naked, defenseless, and undoubtedly human. 

So now Ishtar is dead. How lovely (not really). Now the earth has a huge problem on its hands: what happens when the goddess of love, sexuality, and war dies? Frankly, the answer is that no one is making sexy time upstairs on mortal earth. Thus, the Queen of the Underworld, Ershkigal, is forced to dispatch Ishtar to stir things up again on earth. So what is the symbolism of the story? Sure, it must have been an emotional roller coaster for little Ishie, but I think this is a pure example of why Ishtar is the goddess of war and fertility (war and fertility are total opposites: war takes lives, fertility makes them).

Going to the underworld and back is fundamentally death and rebirth, but Ishtar's journey was much more than a jolt with a defribulator. Ishtar stepped down from her godly pedestal and died just like any other mortal, letting go of her status and revealing her true self. She gave up all her possessions that apparently made her a goddess, reducing her to a human like everyone else. 

This idea can also be related to human life. Sometimes there are some experiences that are well... humanizing. For example, the death of a loved one. These experiences can sometimes leave us weak and hopeless just as Ishtar was, but when those situations lower our defenses and take away our falsehoods, we see our inner selves. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh perspective portrays Ishtar much differently. As Ishtar proposes to Gilgamesh, we see her lack of dignity in doing so as she throws herself in front of him, using unworthiness to lure him in. Ishtar shows selfishness with her lust for more men despite the countless she has already toyed with, contrary to the selflessness of her descent. 

So these Ishtars are polar opposites, kind of like definition number three: "goddess of love, sexuality, and war." But does this make Ishtar the goddess of love and sexuality, or the goddess of war? Maybe the answer is not that she has multiple personality disorder, but that she, like Gilgamesh and Enkidu, is the equal and opposing side of herself.