#FMA meta

[spaceraptor]

@andtheladyknight

Actually the more you think about her the funnier Olivier Armstrong's character gets.

'Am I a huge social darwinist aristocrat who actively enjoys living in a fascist military dictatorship? Yes. Do I think racism is valid? No. Am I willing to tolerate betrayal of the public good for personal advantage? Absolutely not. Die.

'Do I think it's okay for a government to engage in genocide in the name of political stability? Unclear.'

She literally just never has an opinion on that except in passing, when she's being performatively evil to infiltrate Father's group of top-level patsies, so she's not to be taken at her word. Miles is right there! And Olivier just. Her statement on the issue of Ishbal consists of: Miles is there.

Which is not nothing! But it's pretty inconclusive on like, a theoretical level.

[fantastic-nonsense]

infuriating that it's been 15+ years and so many people still get Roy killing Lust wrong

"it's ironic that Lust was killed by a womanizer" "Lust was killed by a man who lusted after power" NO! Lust was killed by a man who did it because of love.

It's ironic that she was killed by a man who uses his (false!) public reputation as a womanizer to conceal the fact that he is one of the most steadfastly loyal people in Amestris. It's ironic she was killed by someone whose entire motivation revolved around gaining the power to help others. It's ironic that he killed her for threatening his people.

Lust was killed because Roy refused to let Havoc die, because he refused to let Riza throw away her life. He killed her because he refused to die without making sure the people he loved were safe. Lust was killed because of love. That was the point.

[weirdoldmanhoho]

I know it's kind of exaggerated as a joke to say that FMA ends with Ed "punching God" but it's actually really thematically important that Father is not, actually, a God

for all his power, for all of the souls he sacrifices to create Philosopher's Stones, he can never actually achieve Godhood and that's the point

in fact one of the BIGGEST themes in FMA is how ultimately impossible and also disastrous it is for mortal beings to play God, whether that comes in the form of trying to reverse death, using alchemy to experiment with and twist human beings, or seeking immortality

Ed and Al trying to reverse the natural process of death, Father Cornello making himself a god in the eyes of his followers, Shou Tucker playing with his daughter's life in the name of creating a new creature, the attempt to create life leads to the main villains of the series, the king of Xerxes's search for immortality leading to the destruction of his nation, Father's plan to create more Philsopher's stones leading to constant bloodshed, the implication that the emperor of Xing's search for immortality could do the same to Xing, etc. etc. etc.

every single character that tries to play God faces consequences - either for themselves or for others - and Ed is only able to reverse his and Al's consequences because he finally recognizes that alchemy can't ever make him more than human. "Well done, Edward Elric," Truth says after he expresses this - as a direct opposition to his introduction in the Cornello arc, in which he claims that alchemists are the closest thing there is to God

and Father goes through the exact opposite. Father ultimately doesn't fall to Ed but to Truth, because he NEVER gives up his arrogance, and Truth punishes him for it.

[mayhaps-a-blog]

You know I do think it's interesting how strongly Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) makes the point that bringing someone back from the dead is inherently selfish.

I've seen it elsewhere but not nearly as unequivocally and plainly put. First, we have Majhal in episode 4 - an alchemist so obsessed with bringing back his dead love, he completely fails to notice that she survived and returned to him. And even once the truth is revealed... he rejects her, since she's not the ~perfect girl~ from his memories, but an old woman - an actual person, with an actual life.

And if you missed it there, we then meet Tucker, so obsessed with keeping his lifestyle and success as a State Alchemist he does, you know, that. And then he goes on to become obsessed with bringing her back - but not her, not really, as he straight-up tells Ed in the 5th laboratory - he wants the girl from his memories, the perfect, unchanging doll.

Both times, we see that those obsessed with bringing someone back from the dead aren't interested in bringing back a person, with thoughts and feelings and their own independent life to live - no, they want their idea of that person, the glowing angel who could never change, never grow, and never go wrong. And that also goes for Ed and Izumi too - Ed was so obsessed with bringing his mother back that he ignored Pinako, ignored the family that took him in, and selfishly put his brother's life at risk... for which he paid the price. Izumi lost her ability to have future children, any of them, stuck on a dream on the child she could have had. Both didn't want that mother/child - they wanted their loved ones, the ones they dreamed of, not the ones that were actually there.

Most times resurrection is brought up in media, it's with the lesson that "oh, the cost is too high", "oh, you're disturbing their rest", "oh, they don't come back right." It's rare to see it put so clearly, so obviously, so horrifically that actually, no, even the fact that you attempt it - even the fact that you want to - is an inherently selfish act, that turns your back on life and the living to chase a dream that may not have ever existed.

It's an interesting take on the whole idea, of death and life and memory and obsession. For all that 2003 dropped the ball on the ending, I do love the development they gave to the characters!

[temsiik]

Yeah, I agree with this. As far as legacy names go, I'm at least slightly more forgiving of Maes, because it's someone that was close to both Ed and Winry (even if not close enough to name a kid after like you said), and took kind of a familial role. The one I really can't get behind even a little bit is Nina. Like, to Ed that'd be super traumatizing. Would he really want to relive that every time he calls his daughter for dinner? If he did because of a guilt complex or something, would it be fair to the kid? And would the people close to him not see that and try to talk him out of it? Someone like, say, Winry, to whom the name would also have no signifficance because she's never even met the girl? But I'm not a big fan of legacy names - for Ed and Winry specifically it doesn't seem fitting - but also in general. Just seems a bit unoriginal from an out-of-universe perspective, especially when all of the previous characters' children have reused names. Also is it me, or does this pop up in fiction pretty much only for previous characters' children, and even then mostly in fanfics? (No offense to fanfics, I read and even write them myself, but this feels very specifically fanficcy to me). Like, has there ever been a time that an established character, whose parents aren't important characters, just happened to be named after a dead friend of theirs, and that whole backstory is entirely off-screen to the audience? (Actually that sounds very funny to me, someone should write that) THAT SAID - I have a weird soft spot for Sara. I don't know, it's just a pretty name, and the Rockbells feel a bit overshadowed by the Elrics as far as dead parents go, so the idea of honoring them feels nice to me. Also subverts the whole protagonist-centrality trope, like how people sometimes name all the kids only after people important to Ed, or make all of them a copy of only him in personality and interests. Like, they're not just the children of Ed -the protagonist - guys, they're Winry's too - she's important! Would still prefer an original name, but I do kinda like this one.

I'm gonna say it y'all... I don't think Edward Elric was close enough with Maes Hughes to name his own kid after the guy. Like, yeah, for sure, he liked Maes and was horrified when he died and promised to keep such things from happening in the future, but i really don't think he is close enough to the guy to name his kid after him.

And if they were close enough... how fucked up would it be to call your kid by the name of someone you once loved but lost? What a burden to put onto a child.

[qs63]

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but all of team Mustang's codenames are borrowed from girls working at Madame Christmas' bar.

This is Vanessa, the girl whose name was assigned to Falman.

That means there's an actual Elizabeth — with whom Roy would talk to over the phone, and go on "dates" with — who is not Riza. That's exactly what makes the codenames effective. At any point Roy can just go on that fishing trip with the real Elizabeth to throw off anyone suspicious.

Also, all the selected girls' names share one or more of the Japanese syllables (kana character) with the person they have been assigned to:

Name (Japanese spelling)

Riza (ri-za) = Elizabeth (e-ri-za-be-su)

Jean (jya-n) = Jacqueline (jya-ku-ri-i-n)

Breda (bu-re-da) = Braidykins (bu-re-i-di-ki-n-su)

Vato (va-to) = Vanessa (va-ne-s-sa)

Kain (ke-i-n) = Kate (ke-i-to)

Poor Breda is the only one whose codename is related to his last name instead of his first name.

[guardianspirits13]

As an avid fan of Fullmetal Alchemist for nearly twelve years, I am intrigued by how differently the story hits me as an adult.

As a kid, it was a story about alchemy and homunculi and defeating the literal, physical evil of false humans named after the seven deadly sins.

Looking back as an adult, I am cognizant of the overt fascism present in the government of Amestris.

The fictional Ishvalan war was awful from any angle, but as a kid I saw it mainly as a backstory for character development. In the modern day, with all of the daily horrors shared from Gaza, I am striken by the reality of those scenes.

This show was one of the ways I processed my understanding of the world as a kid, and it is deeply engrained into my personality.

I say this to preface the horror I feel looking back on these scenes which were drawn from the author's culture, and the history of the Ainu Genocide.

I think of that panel of Major Armstrong crying and holding the body of a child, the panels showing piles of bodies barely covered by white sheets. And I see those same images in photos and videos from now.

In the same vein, I remember the discomfort I felt as a kid discovering that in the context of our world Maes Hughes, a lovable and popular character, would have been a Nazi, as depicted in the Conqueror of Shamballa.

At the time it was almost a joke, to say to friends who loved him "hey he's a Nazi in this movie!" and laugh at their surprise.

But as an adult, I understand why. The adults in this story are members of a fascist, militant government. They are lied to and manipulated, yes, but they also uphold the system. The important part though is that they come to realize this.

They look at Ed and Al, these young hopeful teenagers who are one bad day away from being coerced into enacting war crimes, and they do their research. They realize that the government is fucked up, and stage a coup.

Aside from all of the fantastical alchemic elements, it is a wonderfully grounded story that is painfully reflective of both historical and modern systems of corrupt power.

[carnirat]

Re-reading the Envy fight scene in Gluttony's portal made me realize how much Edward cherishes life: How deeply the death of Nina affects him, how he tries to keep up his moral to never kill (this is especially emphasized in fma '03), how he sees 48 and 66 as human even if they don't consider themselves as such, how taken aback and upset he is when he realizes the talking faces on Envy used to be people and how difficult it was for him to use Envy's philosopher's stone to escape Gluttony's portal, how in awe he was when the baby was born in Rush Valley, his rants about how alchemy has never been able to create life but humans can do it within their own bodies. He blurs the line of human and not human and even considers those with little humanity left as human beings even if they themselves find it ridiculous. I don’t think anyone sees humanity the way he does.

[ruushinynerve]

Some of headcanon thoughts

I think after all these adventures (horrors) Ed might have joint problems. Look, did he get a automail when he was ten or eleven years old? He had constant stress and nightmares. He was skipping meals and feeling hungry because of all this traveling and running around after the Philosopher's Stone and Homunculi. He was twelve years old when he took this path (even earlier, when he was undergoing automail rehabilitation). He was carrying heavy pieces of metal bolted to his bones and ran into the ground. There's no way that his body (a child's still-developing body) wouldn't be affected by this. When such a load pulls the body, pain in the back and joints and further complications arise.

Al always corrected Ed that they would get their bodies back, meaning the leg and arm, not just his body. And I'm sure Al would be eager to help his brother since Ed has apparently forgotten about himself after Al's body was returned. So that's why he studies alkahestry. For big brother. Everything Ed did he always did for Al, now it was Al's turn to do something.

[havemercyonmercury]

FMA and Restorative Justice

One thing I’ve been obessed with thinking about is how the concept of “equivalent exchange” pertains to Roy and Riza’s character arcs.

Riza mentions how her and Roy are working towards dismanteling the power structure of the Amestrian government and reconfiguring it into a democracy, part of which includes her and Roy facing punishment for the war crimes that comittted in Ishval. This new government, because it is a “just” government, will see them as murders. And what’s not included but implied is that Riza believes she and Roy deserve the death sentence for their crimes. We even see this implication mulitple times in Riza’s arc- when Lust shows up and Riza cries to Alphonse to leave her because she believes in a world without Roy, she deserves death. In “Beyond the Inferno” she echos this sentiment. 

Part of me believes that this is not just simply because of their bond. Yes, Riza doesn’t want to live without Roy. But she also doesn’t see her life as one that is worth living (at least for the most part), and her main objective, the main reason she hasn’t ended things, is because she justice to be sereved to her and Roy.

I’ve seen and heard people argue that Roy and Riza do deserve the death penatly for their crimes. But is that really what Hiromu Arakawa is trying to tell us? The story starts with equivalent exchange, but does it end with equivalent exchange?

No, it doesn’t. Alphonse mentions the new concept that him and Ed are trying to impliment- the “equivalent plus one” type of exchange. And really, what value would Roy and Riza’s deaths add? It would be equivalent exhange, but it wouldn’t be the “equivalent plus one” type of exchange.

The truth is that Roy and Riza have expressed the desire to recostruct Ishval, which is what the series ends with them doing. While they have comitted atrocities, while they have killed, if they die, there is nothing they can put back into the world. There is no more good they can do, and their world is in desperate need of the good that each of them provide. 

Even when Roy is injured after his fight with Lust, even when Riza says she’ll end her life without him, Roy never wants to see that happen to Riza. He chides her and enforces the belief that Riza can’t ever give into that sort of despair. The sort of despair that maintains the philosphy of “dying for someone”. Because what narrative does Arakawa really push? She pushes the narrative that living for someone is more powerful of the two.

And that’s exactly I think she tries to push with Roy and Riza. Dying for their crimes is less powerful than living for the people they killed. Restorative justice enforces this concept. It provides emphasis on accountability- punishment can only go so far when it comes to healing. True healing comes from empathy, community building efforts, supporting the victims, and cultural competence. And I really believe that’s what Roy and Riza ultimately end up doing.

[zetalial]

Okay I was watching FMA 03's 4th ending, I Will, and naturally the comments pointed out something cool.

In this final part, Ed and Al are standing in a seemingly random room. (It's a Church.)

And as you can see they're on different sides of a gate. It's foreshadowing the ending.

--

It zooms in on Ed's face and you can see he's looking up at something as his expression changes.

Then we focus on Al, who has a pair of birds on his armour. (And there's Ed on the other side of the gate).

Then the birds fly off Al, and cross through the gate. We see the green one actually crossing through.

As it does so, Ed finally turns to look back towards Al, smiling brightly. Though we don't get another shot at Al.

And finally, both birds fly up towards the light.

Well, those Birds represent Ed and Al. The birds flying off Al, represent him finally leaving his armour and getting his body back from the other side of the gate.

When Ed turns back to smile at him, he's smiling in joy at bringing his brother back, the birds flying up to the light represent them chasing their happy ending, and its hopeful to see them flying together although Ed and Al might be on separate sides of a gate.

[sassydefendorflower]

No, but you don't understand! It is so important that (one of) the last pictures we see of Ed is him holding his son with the biggest fucking smile in the entire world on his face!

Because Ed is Hohenheim's mirror!

Ed's narrative parallel is his own father (oh, how he would hate knowing that - how he fights against that realization) - Ed is the one who leaves Winry behind, just as Hohenheim left Trisha and the kids. Ed is the one who burns their childhood home down, just as Xerxes is destroyed in the wake of Hohenheim's naiveté. Ed is the one who commits an unforgivable sin and seeks atonement following his own shortcomings, just as Hohenheim unknowingly helps the Dwarf in a Flask destroy an entire civilization and carries that responsibility with him for the rest of his (long, long) life.

Hell, Hohenheim telling Ed that him burning the house down because he is running away from his past - while horribly cruel - is really just Hohenheim talking to himself. He wasn't lying when he said that Ed reminded him an awful lot of himself at that age!

And in every choice Ed makes throughout the show, he's always trying to be unlike his father, while unwillingly playing into the same pattern. Ed's complete disregard for Hohenheim, his hurt in the face of the father that left, is what ultimately pushes Ed to make similar choices - he doesn't want to see himself in his father, so he doesn't see the similarities of leaving Winry behind to Hohenheim walking out the door without ever looking back. There's a reason Winry has a thing about "backs in the distance" - and there's a reason why the Openings and Endings of fma Brotherhood often position the boys as walking away, only showing the audience their backs as they walk off.

But in the end?

Ed mirrors Hohenheim. Hell, they even stand in the same spot in the two family pictures. Hohenheim and Ed, both on the left side, both holding the oldest of their two kids, both- well, Hohenheim is crying, while Ed is the happiest he's ever been.

And that's only because Ed stopped running from his past - Ed found happiness in the end, and part of that was accepting Hohenheim as his father. It's not a story about forgiveness, but acknowledgement. Just Edward calling Hohenheim "his rotten father" in the end is enough for him to move past his refusal to engage with the realities of Hohenheim. The realities of his own father leaving in relation to him growing up.

By the end of the story, Ed dresses more conservatively and still travels - he looks more like Hohenheim than ever. But unlike before in the story, when Ed was fighting this relation, he is now happier than ever before. Happier than Hohenheim ever was. Because with Ed accepting all the qualities he shares with the man, he can also embrace all the differences between them.

Ed managed to grow alongside his guilt. He found happiness in his family, a loving wife, children, research and travel, philosophy and friendship. Edward gets to be happy. He gets to learn from his mistakes (from Hohenheim's mistakes) and return home.

And that's where the mirror breaks.

As all mirrors are wont to do.

[cuchufletapl]

Thinking thoughts, I've said before that Ed and Al should've gotten to cry into each other's arms when they got Al's body back, and I've just remembered a half-baked Twitter thread I wrote over a year ago that illustrates some of my reasoning, so I'm just gonna copy-paste it here:

FMA: On the Elric Brothers and Crying

Al can't cry and Ed won't. Ed tells Winry that he can't afford himself to cry until they get their bodies back, but I think a better way to put this is: Ed will refuse to cry until Al is able to.

Their mutual emotional constipation stems from their unwillingness to share their pain with each other. Their sense of self is wrapped around the results of the human transmutation. And I think a very neat way to illustrate this is through their respective relationships to crying.

Al can't physically cry and he can't show expression. His pain runs deep and scathing and isolating, and yet his very condition renders him unable to express it in any way that is not through his voice. In a way, he is like a robot with a soul. Fully aware of that which he cannot do that is so integral to the essence of humanity. It's no surprise that he would question his realness so easily when confronted by Barry. To some extent, he probably doesn't feel human anymore. To be clear, I'm not saying that expressing emotions in a conventional way is what makes us human. Al's dettachment from his sense of self also has to do with the fact that he's been put through five years of massive sense deprivation. He can't sleep, eat, smell, or feel touch. His physical inability to cry is just another fucked up thing in the list of fucked up things that being literally disembodied entails.

But here's the kicker: Al won't say any of this, he won't complain, because he understands that Ed already knows. He doesn't know the extent to which his brother feels guilty but he knows enough not to want to burden him further. And so he can't physicially cry and he won't express his pain in any other way either. It's his own to bear. Nobody would be able to fully understand it either.

Now Ed on the other hand: he carries the weight of the consequences of his idea on his flesh and he walks beside the hollow body that he had to force his little brother into. Where Al isolates his emotions as his own to carry, Ed considers himself the bearer for both of them. It's not that he's deluded himself into thinking that if he feels bad enough about it he can spare Al some suffering, but guilt shapes Ed's very self.

He's the older brother. Bringing mom back was his idea. Their pain is his to carry. The right to heal from that pain is his to earn too.

So he won't cry for as long as Al isn't able to let out his pain that way, too.

[mademoisellesarcasme]

the Shou Tucker chapter never gets any easier to read. It's still painful; still horrifying; still terrifying to think that a man would so mutilate the people he allegedly loves most in the world just to keep his state license.

And it's not like there's nothing for non-state alchemists to do in-universe! he could get another job! he could do something else! But for that he'd have to sacrifice the very cushy funding provided by the state (we establish somewhat later in the series that it is in fact a LOT of money). But if you look at the details, it's pretty clear he's not ready to give up his livelihood. He's got a nice house and a big yard; lots of space in a city. But also only one kid and a dog, and even that he's willing to sacrifice to continue having the status and research funds provided by the state. He's a man with his priorities deeply wrong, and his family suffers for it.

[mayhaps-a-blog]

I can't stop thinking about Hohenheim (2003). Man murders thousands of "witches and plague victims" to create the first philosopher's stone, nearly dies and has his soul bonded to another alchemist - effectively killing that guy, who was probably a colleague - by his assistant/girlfriend. Is apparently fine with this, and goes on to live for another 400 years with this woman, occasionally either killing thousands of people or inducing others to kill thousands of people to create more stones and keep body-hopping. He also has at least one child, who dies, which he then tries to bring back to life and creates a homunculus instead. Eventually decides/realizes that this can't last forever and, instead of trying to like, do something about it, promptly abandons his girlfriend and homunculus son, fucks off to the middle of nowhere, marries some random farmgirl, has 2 children, and promptly fucks off again before they can see his body start to literally decompose.

He then wanders around doing nothing for several years, apparently completely misses his wife's illness and death despite his sons sending letters to literally everyone he corresponded with, wanders back into town and starts flirting with the first cute girl he sees (Lieutenant Ross). Realizing his old girlfriend is up to their old tricks and is harassing his kids, he goes to tell her that he doesn't really care as long as she leaves his kids alone, gets distracted by the homunculus of his dead wife and immediately banished to another dimension, where he resumes just kind of wandering around until his son shows up and he has to help him find a way back.

None of this is ever addressed again. What are these man's morals? Does he care about the thousands of people he personally killed? Does he feel bad about abandoning not only his two biological kids but also his homunculus kid? When did he suddenly decide that murder is wrong, actually? Did he decide that murder is wrong, or is it only if his sons are threatened?

What is his deal?

[qs63]

A fan's guide to the Fullmetal Alchemist Military

After so much research I've decided to compile all the information I have gathered about the amestrian military into 4 in-depth posts about its: 

Structure and organization 

Uniform

Real world influence

Possible training regime

Brace yourself, this is going to be a series of long posts filled with nerdy facts, sources, and images.