Fullmetal Alchemist Analysis (part one)

I've seen a lot of culture critics describes FMA:B as "flawless," "perfect," and "the best anime ever made." While I strongly disagree with the first two of those assessments, I might just be sold on the third. I haven't seen enough series to call this one "the best" with any confidence, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't the best shonen series at the very least. When I first started liveblogging this series, I commented on how everyone's been gushing about it since it came out in the 2000's. After finishing it, I'm honestly wondering why I hadn't heard more about it.

That said, as much as I love this story, it's a flawed one. This may be too charitable of me, but I feel like at least most of FMA's biggest gaffs are a product of that "best in category" thing. Everything I've heard about the shonen manga publishing environment makes me both more forgiving of the mangakas, and more pessimistic about the potential of stories produced in that industry to ever escape its characteristic failings. The bizarre editorial pressures, the life-draining work hours and deadlines, the inability to stray away from a short list of tiresome tropes regardless of how poorly they fit the story, etc. I obviously don't know how much better FMA would have been without these outside pressures on the author, or how much slack I should cut Arakawa for them. My gut tells me that the answers to those questions are "significantly" and "a lot," respectively, but that's just a hunch.

I wonder what FMA could have been, if the author had more time and creative freedom. And also, how many really great works the world is being deprived of because of the pressures this artistic community is subjected to. Imagine a world where manga/anime wasn't trash by default. Just imagine.

As another bit of preamble before jumping in, Fullmetal Alchemist is a work that hit me close to home. Really close to home. At least part of the emotional effect it had on me is because of some personal life things of mine that the story was basically perfectly calibrated to strike at. Consequently, I'm afraid that at least some of what I got out of FMA:B is stuff I projected into the work in the first place, and that it won't make sense to anyone else. Still, while I've mostly avoided going into those aspects so far, I don't think I can do a proper wrap-up without addressing them. So, I expect my conclusion to be hit-or-miss for general audiences.

Anyway, I thought about doing this character arc by character arc, or subplot by subplot, but in the end I decided to break this analysis down by theme. Starting with what I see as the more minor ones, and leading up to what I believe the central thesis of FMA to be.


Knowledge, Wisdom, and Arrogance

Characters in Fullmetal Alchemist talk about knowledge a lot. There's even a character made of pure knowledge, and that character is acknowledged - by both itself and others - to be God. The search for knowledge is a major driving force behind most of the plot's setup. The unnamed Xerxian alchemist created the homunculus to be a source of knowledge. Hohenheim - or Slave 23 as he was known at that point - then used that source of knowledge to free himself. Edward and Alphonse's search for knowledge led to them stumbling into the central conflict. A conflict that is driven by Father's quest to expand the (already immense) arcane knowledge that he was created with.

The story never casts the search for knowledge as an inherently bad thing. After all, it ends with Edward and Alphonse casting off in search of even greater magical knowledge and understanding, and this is presented as a triumphant, optimistic ending for them. It seems more like it's saying that knowledge on its own isn't really good for much, and that seeking knowledge "for its own sake" is most often a mask over a lust for power.

"Knowledge is power." That phrase is literally true in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, from alchemists using their knowledge to cast spells all the way up to the being of ultimate power being composed of (paradoxically) tangible information.

But what do knowledge and power on their own get you?

God - the most knowledgeable character in the story - is a purely reactive entity, seemingly unable to use its power unless someone else initiates an interaction. To the point where a cunning demigod with the right plans can beat it up and take its lunch money, forcing it to rely on puny humans for rescue. The second most knowledgeable character - the aforementioned demigod - ended up having similar flaws as it grew closer to its objective. Edward, despite knowing everything he needed to realize what Shou Tucker really was, was unable to correlate and act on that information until it was too late.

Here's where my interpretation may contradict the author's intent. The final confrontations between Edward and Father and their respective archons sort of suggest a wise, benevolent god who wants what's best for everyone, but only if you're looking at those scenes in isolation and ignoring the preceding story. This is not a world with natural justice (the early episode "All Is One, One Is All" makes that clear to the point where any pro-theistic message coming after it would be too little too late). It's notable to me that God ultimately does the same thing that Father himself did; consuming his son who is also part of his soul, reabsorbing him back into his greater self, for his failures to do as desired. God was much more justified in absorbing Father than Father was in absorbing Greed, of course, and you could just call this a simple karmic punishment. But at the same time, you have to think about what this interaction says about God as well as about Father. And put that in context of Mustang losing his eyesight despite not actually transgressing, alongside several other things that defy any notion of divine benevolence even if the final scenes might be hinting at such. FMA's God is a flawed character, in both ability and in personality (to the extent to which it *has* a personality, rather than the archons just being reflections of the transgressing mystic with the main entity being a mindless Yog-Sothoth clone).

This leads into a concept I talked about in my first Kill Six Billion Demons analysis post. Is "godliness" really a state of being one should seek out? Why would a "perfect" being want anything out of imperfect ones? FMA's god may not actually be a creator, so the question of why it would try to escape its placid perfection by creating or dividing itself into lesser beings might not be relevant here, but it definitely seems to need something that only mortals can provide. But, I'll get back to this point in the later sections.

The word "wisdom" is rarely - if ever - spoken aloud in the story, but increasingly over the course of the series it makes its importance known. Knowing what you need and what you need it for. Having a purpose for seeking knowledge, and knowing how to make effective, constructive use of it. The story also has it that in order to grow in wisdom, you need a combination of humility and life experience. Two things that Father desperately avoided developing, while Edward, Mustang, Scar, and Ling's arcs were all about developing them so that wisdom can be gained as well.

Mustang's arc is the clearest example. His machismo was a barrier to humility for him, and his unquestioned beliefs in power structures and hierarchy were a blind spot in his lived experience. He was (grudgingly) cured of his authoritarian biases by his revelations about the Amestrian government and by the experience of having to operate as a guerilla with only as much power as his "underlings" felt like giving him. His machismo likewise took repeated hits throughout the story, culminating with his ultimate triumph over it in the showdown with Envy. With Edward, the series of events including his failed resurrection of Trisha, his failure to protect Nina, and his humiliating midseries defeat by Father taught him that being cunning and knowing enough magic tricks wouldn't solve all his problems. His lack of life experience, of course, was simply due to his youth and relatively sheltered upbringing. While Scar's arc was less heavyhanded about it than Mustang's, his inability to humble himself was also linked to toxic masculinity of the "action for action's sake" and "hard men making hard decisions" sort. The scene in "Beasts of Dublith" where he rejected the abbot's sensible instructions to stop the killing spree for fear of provoking still more Amestrian reprisal was when it became clear that what he was doing had more to do with pride and ego than Ishvallan interests. Really, I was 100% on Scar's side until that scene. The life experiences that helped him learn better were...mishandled, in some cases, but fortunately not in all. Really, if you just pretend Miles doesn't exist and attribute his change of heart to Winry alone it works better, but you get my point. Ling's arc was a lot like Edward's in this regard, with his overconfidence and (in some ways) sheltered background blinding him to the hard truths about life and leadership, and him becoming a wiser and more likable character after ridding himself of those blinkers.

Knowledge without wisdom, meanwhile, is shown to lead to arrogance. Personally I think that ignorance without wisdom also does that, but that's beside the point. And arrogance is expressed in the form of power structures. Fullmetal Alchemist has a lot to say about power, political and otherwise.


Power and Authority

If there's one thing that Fullmetal Alchemist hates, it's authority. This is one of the most holistically anarchist stories I've ever seen.

It does feel like the show walks back that attitude in the finale, what with Ling's ascension to the Xingese throne, the Amestrian junta continuing under Grumman and (implicitly) later Mustang, etc. But if you look at the actual script and imagery, this might not be the work actually approving. Just change out the upbeat music for something more measured, and the same visuals gives the sense of the world being still flawed; just a little bit less bad than it was before. At the risk of being too charitable to Arakawa and too judgmental of Bones Studio, I feel like this was a case of Brotherhood botching the tone of the then-unfinished final manga pages. The world is still one where cute rabbits are eaten by cute foxes and both will happily eat the children who took pity on them once they die and turn to grass. The boot is still stomping on the face, just like it has been since the first microorganisms appeared in the primordial ooze. But in this corner of the world, it's stomping a little bit less hard on a few of the inhabitants, and in the future it might continue to get better. But this is turning into another premature tangent.

Possible finale idiosyncrasies aside, this show had pretty much nothing good to say about anyone in a position of power. The King of Xerxes was a monster. The ruling cabal of Amestris, human and otherwise, were monsters. The Emperor of Xing is only talked about by third parties, but everything we hear about him suggests that he's a monster. Two early adventures involve unmasking a corrupt religious authority, and a corrupt secular authority. The critique of power structures and those at the top of them even goes down to the family unit; another very early adventure involves the memetic best dad in history, Shou Tucker.

The archvillain of the story is all three of these corrupt authority figures in one; Father is a parent who sacrifices his children, a civic autocrat who exploits his citizens, and a self-styled god who is misleading his worshippers.

Even the authority figures who are legitimately well meaning - people like Izumi in her role as teacher, Alex Armstrong as a military officer, and Hohenheim as a parent - often cause grave misfortune to those under their care, with ripple effects that cause even more suffering for others. More morally gray characters like Mustang and Ling get most of their darker shades from proximity to unquestioned power and their temptation to rely on it. Their redemptive arcs are all about giving up rulership as a position of authority, and instead providing administrative services at the behest of the administered (Ling's political theory debate with Wrath and its aftermath is particularly illustrative).

The only exceptions to this that I can think of are the Ishvallan leadership; Scar's abbot, and the high priest who was executed by Wrath. We never learn enough about Ishvallan society to know how authoritarian their leadership was prior to Amestrian conquest, though going by the history of real life theocracies I'm not sure how optimistic I should be. That said, I do find it significant that Scar's abbot never actually gives him an order as far as we can see. He offers his wise advice, and tells Scar what he thinks he should do and why, but he never does the monastic equivalent of pulling rank. If Izumi had done that with Edward and Alphonse - explained why the rules are the way they are and advised them on that basis to follow them - a tragedy could have been averted. Neither Scar nor the Elric brothers heeded their teachers' warnings at first, but the consequences of this were much worse for the Elrics.

Still, to analyze the overall Ishvallan power dynamics outside of the monasteries, I'd need more information.

Hohenheim as a father occupies an interesting position when looked at through this lens. In some ways, he's very much the authoritarian paternal archetype, with his aloofness, pride and ego, and reluctance to share information with those beneath him. On the other, he's not at all an overbearing or exploitative father, but an absent one. I guess you could say that the potential for abdication of responsibility is another argument against heirarchies. If the autocrat can do whatever they want, then "nothing" can be as destructive a misuse of their power as almost any active malice.

Thinking about it more, I wonder if Father actually had some good intentions for his "children" when he first started creating them, even if his motives for doing so were as selfish and exploitative as it gets. His own father neglected him for as long as he could, and then abandoned him outright when he couldn't. Maybe in his own damaged mind, Father decided that he'd never, ever do that; that it would be kinder to execute and reabsorb rebellious children rather than casting them out as he was cast out; that he should always make sure he's the center of his children's lives, instead of leaving them out in the cold. It would definitely go hand in hand with him taking on Hohenheim's appearance and making his creations call him "Father." I doubt any such nobility remained in him by the time of the series, but it may have when he was first putting the system in place. In either case, it's important to note that Father didn't actually do the opposite of what Hohenheim did. He never thought to challenge the idea of the father/king/master as unaccountable, unquestionable overlord who can oppress or neglect at his whims. His only alternative to the Hohenheim model was that of the Xerxian wizard and king, the latter of which he literally put his faux-Hohenheim body in the clothes of.

The incremental improvements suggested by the end of the show, with Amestris and Xing just taking the first baby steps in the right direction while still being fundamentally tyrannical states, is mirrored by what the plot does with the philosophers' stones. The creation of the stones was an atrocity. The continuation of the souls' existence in that state is an ongoing evil. But, given that starting point, it's better for the stones to be held by someone like Hohenheim or Alphonse, who only sacrifices their constituent souls with their (probable, at least; Alphonse couldn't communicate with the Ishvallans in that protostone, but I think we can rest assured that "kicking Solf J. Kimblee's ass" is something they'd be eager to participate in) consent and toward purposes that they actively want to see worked toward. No one in their right mind would say that this is a good state of affairs. But it's better. Edward and Alphonse's research at the end was said to be geared toward finding more holistic healing and restoration methods, so that victims of alchemy can have a less bad solution than the current best. Similarly, the governments of the setting are still terrible, but they're at least starting to work toward something better.

That's going to be a recurring motif for the rest of this analysis.