#vs. ling's community oriented motivation and ends justify the means approach: fight

[clonerightsagenda]

It still fascinates me that at the end of FMA Ling Yao just.... walks off with a philosopher's stone.

It's in-character for him, certainly. His willingness to be cutthroat, including cutting his own, is what makes him one of the more interesting characters to me. But the plot turns on the philospher's stone and dismantling its bloody hold on the country. The 'good' characters who use one typically agonize over it or provide justifications beforehand. Ed just finished having a crying breakdown about refusing to do so. And Ling's like 'k bye!' and everyone goes 'great! nice knowing you!'. It doesn't even trigger an infamous Edward Morality Monologue. And while the people within the other stones have been major plot points, we have no idea who's in this one.

Ling wants to rule an empire, and empires are built on people's lives. If FMA is a 'are we the baddies' story, some people look at the system they're in and go, ok, fine, I can work with that. It's true, it's interesting, but I'm not sure the narrative means for it to be taken that way?

Like, is this an uncomplicated happy ending being handed out because it's the finale? Is it choosing to use unethically obtained power in the hopes of making improvements within a wretched system? Is it a Bad End? I don't require stories to provide me with pre-packaged moral judgments and the lack of one here is why I like turning it over in my brain, but it's also weird to me because the story takes such a strong stance on this issue everywhere else! Ling Yao's personal brand of morality is so powerful it warps the entire narrative around it apparently.