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alwrath · 7 years

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FMA 2003 THEORY: Alphonse Elric’s Soul is Artificially Created

Details that are often discounted as plotholes have fascinated me in FMA 2003. This is primarily due to viewing some of Sho Aikawa’s (head writer on 03) other works. His stories tend to be multilayered and symbolically complex, but often suffer from a lack of time to tell them. This leads to intended subtle of ideas going completely under-the-radar for the sake of the narrative completing in the allotted time.

Through interpreting commonly labeled “plotholes” as intentional, interesting readings of the narrative can emerge.

LITERAL SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF FMA 2003 AHEAD.

Could Barry’s claims on the nature of Al’s soul have had a grain of truth? If the homonculi are artificially created souls, is it entirely out-of-the-question for Alphonse to be one as well?

(please take note I am working from the mechanics/logic of 03 solely in this post, not taking bh into account for the sake of clarity.)

1. The Nature of Memory and Created Souls in FMA 2003

Here, Barry claims that Alphonse never existed. After considering this possibly of being solely a creation of Ed, Al falls into an existential depression. He believes his brother his lying to him and that perhaps “Alphonse” didn’t exist in the first place.

Soon after, there is assurance that Ed did ‘invent’ Alphonse (to Ed’s own knowledge, at least). The conflict is ultimately resolved by Al finding purpose and meaning in helping the Ishvalans refugees. The FMA narrative never explicitly resolves this concern as whole, it simply assures us that a character called “Alphonse Elric” existed before the transmutation of their mother.

However Sloth’s death scene caused me to entertain the possibility of Al being an artificial soul once again. She describes the homonculi’s experience of having only memories implanted by their creator: thus, her only memories of herself prior to transmutation are as a mother to the Elrics.

Interesting enough Al’s first doubts of selfhood come previous to his confrontation with Barry, when he couldn’t remember a former neighbor of his in episode 17.

Furthermor a look at multiple flashbacks in the reveals that we never see Alphonse recount memories separate from Ed.

The one instance where a flashback is focused solely on Alphonse features him running off to sit by the riverbank. Using this memory, Ed is able to locate the current Alphonse exhibiting this same behavior. Al is surprised that his brother knew he would be there.

Although it becomes clear that if Alphonse were not a genuine soul, Ed is not aware of it... could Barry have been hinting at some aspect of the truth in hinting that Alphonse’s memories could have been created from those of Ed? Perhaps armor!Al is a living memory of the original Alphonse, through the eyes of 11-year-old Ed.

This point would not be so relevant if Ed was evidenced as the first-person narrator in the Elric’s portion of their story. However that is shown to be Alphonse, who begins telling their story to Rose at the end of episode 2, and recurring at the beginning of every episode until the 40s I believe.

While the last few episodes are replaced by Ed’s narration in dub, the original continues with a new script, but continues with Alphonse as narrator. This implies Al as a kind of narrator even as the events occur. Therefore every flashback (unless told by Ed) in the Elrics portion of the story are implied to be Alphonse’s memories. These never feature Alphonse as a solitary figure, or even the central figure in nearly every case.

One might now say that the difference between Alphonse and the homonculi is that their soul wasn’t present in the transmutation, wheras Ed retrieved Alphonse’s soul from the gate immediately.

Other characters whose souls were never ‘missing’ were the Lab 5 guards (Barry, Slicer brothers), whose souls were attached to pieces of armor. When we meet these characters in episode 19, their flat fixation on their murderer identities and pasts via villain monologue doesn’t appear to be out-of-the-ordinary, especially for a shounen action series. (which, by the Lab 5 episodes, the show hasn’t really departed from).

But after hearing the narratives of the homonculi I always come back to the question: Why are they so fixated on their identities as murderers? Could it be because those who attached them to armor only knew of their history as criminals?

Consistent with artificial souls and “artificially created” figures in FMA 2003 (chimeras, soul transfers, homonculi ect.) is a drive towards death. It works with the narrative’s focus on themes of man vs “god”, balance, ect. and ends up winning even over the drive to “become human” for most characters.

It is also interesting to reflect on Alphonse’s realization at the end of the show, especially in relation to the speeches of other “artificial” beings. He comes to a new realization of how he should have died long ago. Could Sloth’s death have confirmed the true nature of the feeling he had beginning in episode 17?

A counter to this could be that Alphonse has an artificial body. After all, a clear rule of FMA03 is that those with artificial souls cannot perform alchemy. Al can perform alchemy, thus his soul must be genuine.

The presence of Wrath counters this, as he is able to perform alchemy with Ed’s arm and leg. If alchemic ability were purely based on a “genuine” soul, we’d have to assume that Ed’s soul is somehow contained in his limbs that Wrath now has? As FMA speaks to a division between mind, body, and soul this is doubtful.

It is never confirmed if Wrath can perform alchemy once losing his “human” limbs. (He only fights physically in CoS.) Furthermore, Shou Tucker is able to bring Nina back to “life” at some level using the stone but it is doubtful she can even speak. Are there different levels of skill in transmuting souls?

Nevertheless, there is clearly a dialogue beyond genuine soul -> alchemic ability.

(Could this apparent lack of alchemic ability in fake souls be engineered by Dante herself as a means of control? That’s a post for another day.)

2. Equivalent Exchange and Human Transmutation

The finale of the show is important to discuss when approaching this topic. It serves to deconstruct the rule of “equivalent exchange” touted (yet challenged) by the series up until this point. It is ultimately countered by the presence of a philosophers stone, which essentially vetos personal responsibility in order to commit alchemic taboos (in exchange for thousands of human lives.)

At this point, Al himself has become the philosopher’s stone. When Ed is killed, he uses the power of the stone to bring him back. During that exchange we see something interesting.

As so much of Al’s character in FMA focuses on the dissonance between his form and his soul, why would Alphonse appear in the gate in this form? (Envy appears right Alphonse, but in his preferred form(s)). The Ed he brings back is presumed to be the “original”, including his original body parts. We are able to see his “complete” (two arm, two leg, non-stabbed form) here.

But when Ed brings Al back, we meet a very different Alphonse — one with only the memories of his fully human life, before transmuting their mother.

Unlike in BH, he hasn’t aged nor is there any mention of recovering from his time in the gate. We first see him healthy and playing with Den, standing a few inches taller than his pre-transmutation self.

Could the Al that Ed brings back in episode 51 not be the Alphonse we knew during the majority of the show? I personally have understood that the young Alphonse we see in episode 51 is pre-mother transmutation Alphonse, with no relation to the armor!Alphonse we met in the show.

CoS constantly mentions his inability to “remember” those days, but I wonder if those memories belonged to this him in the first place.

It seems to be that the power of the stone is what allowed a “perfect” transmutation to occur, in the cases of Ed and Al in 51. One may wonder why Shou Tucker’s stone of Nina transmutation failed in comparison.

Well, he doesn’t have a great rep for doing things correctly. Furthermore, 03 operates on a more symbolic plane which likely contributed to Tucker vs the Elric’s results. Will expand on this in future post.

What’s very interesting to me is the stark shift in personality, especially exhibited in CoS. He is more of a risk-taker, and much less cautious. This may be purely circumstantial — to someone whose identity is so closely dependent on his brother, waking up in a world without him would certainly have an effect.

But sans any effects that the lack of his brother brought on him, could this show hints of parts of Al’s personality that were subconsciously omitted or toned by Ed when he attached him to the armor?

3. Al’s Soul and Character Depth Within the Narrative

Hopefully it has become clear that I am not arguing for Barry’s stance (”Alphonse Elric never existed in the first place”) but rather an idea that armor!Alphonse, like the homonculi, was created from the memories of the one who created him.

In a character-driven series, where even the most minor characters seem to have a level of depth and agency, why does Alphonse often seem so “supporting”? It seems he should have many more layers, especially acting as the central main character following Ed.

But for his narrative prominence, he seems reduced to a set of character traits that (while not stereotypical or flat) are much less dynamic and developed than many characters that are far less prominent.

I don’t doubt that the Elric’s relationship was codependent before the transmutation (and such is evidenced in how Al turns out come CoS). However if Ed (inadvertently) created Al’s soul, the strongest ideas of Al in relation to Ed (as our memories of anyone other than us are). This may explain the odd discrepancy between supposed main character armor!Alphonse as a fully-rounded character and the plethora of dynamic side characters.

4. But what about the other Conqueror of Shamballa details?

A good question! The Alphonse that appears in CoS is able to transfer his soul to other bodies. And in the end he regains his memories and ages.

These facts could stand in opposition to this theory, but in order to fully explain my perspective (which is highly entangled in this theory as well) I would have to go into an even longer post on my interpretation of CoS in general. lmk if anyone wants that!

(tl;dr i guess?) by interpreting the ‘plot holes’ as intentional, one may come to the conclusion that armor!alphonse has an artificial soul and the alphonse brought back in ep 51/cos is the original Alphonse that died in their transmutation of their mother.

#fullmetal alchemist #fma #fma 2003 #fma03 #alphonse elric #spoilers #fma meta #my writing #LOL i have had this theory since like 2011 i finally wrote it #thank you calangkoh #for making me do this #also thank you afgunst for fact checking and thank you derlingdarlest for proofreading my 6am writing

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