Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa (part six)

Edward completes the circle, all while saying, out loud, in as many words, that this is stupid and that he has no reason to be doing it. The fact that Edward pointed this out absolves the writers of having made him do something stupid that he had no reason to do, you see. It's a good scene now. Once he's completed it, he lays his hands on it, and does the mental processes necessary for transmutation. Because the writers need him to. The glyph lights up, startling Edward, who had been under the impression that these people with a known interest in creatures and names from his world somehow having a proper transmutation glyph in a world where alchemy doesn't normally exist didn't signify anything.

From the raised balcony around the pit, outside of Edward's sight, the restrained and wounded Envy speaks up to tell Edward what a fucking moron he is. They've got a point.

The glyph glows brighter, becoming the misty purple portal again. The camera pans up, revealing Director Ekhart standing up on the upper balcony and silently watching Edward fix the spell she did wrong. She's smart enough to not get in his way until his work is complete.

Then, a mass of armored corpses comes erupting out of the portal and spills itself out all over the floor before the portal closes. Okay, so apparently it was Edward who caused the bodies to get pulled back through the portal, then. The noise finally alerts the rest of the castle, bringing Haushofer, Hess, and a bunch of guards running over. They and Ekhart don't seem to have been in communication.

When it turns out that the bodies are all dead and horribly twisted and crushed, Hess accuses Edward of having killed them and starts punching him. Edward...doesn't even put up a fight this time, for some reason. Just glares at him and the other Thulites hatefully; either recognizing them as Noah's would-be captors, or just understanding that they must have sent these men through a portal as disposable guinea pigs before stepping through themselves. Fortunately for Edward, Ekhart finally speaks up and tells Hess to calm the fuck down, whatever happened to the men happened before Edward pulled them back through.

She quotes some occult text about Shamballa, including a description of it "being guarded by mountains high and snows deep." These snows and mountains have turned out to be metaphors for dimensional turbulence, just as Haushofer apparently suspected.

On the other hand, the passage she quotes also includes a bunch of lyricizing about how Shamballa is a godly kingdom, its people free of strife, hunger, or disease, and wise beyond any others. Which, heh. Even just the stuff before the point of divergence from Mangahood makes this very, very clearly not the case, lol.

Granted, if there are these two worlds that can be accessed through dimensional alchemy bullshit, and the descriptions of the "snows and mountains" around Shamballa led Haushofer to make correct inferences, then it's possible that the real Shamballa IS out there someplace. In some other dimension that they don't have the ZIP code for.

...actually, it could be that what the writer described as "Shamballa" doesn't exist anymore, given that time seems to flow at roughly equivalent rates in each dimension. This may have just been an exceptionally advanced and prosperous civilization that lasted a few centuries or millennia before falling. Heck, maybe Ekhart actually DOES have the right planet for this utopian civilization, but 800 years after its fall and on the wrong continent.

Anyway. Haushofer reluctantly introduces Edward to Ekhart. Probably hoping that she doesn't ask him why he didn't bring Edward into custody the night before. She recognizes Edward's name, and tells him that his father had an interest in joining the Thule Society once, some time ago.

Erm. What?

Edward doesn't ask her about that detail, for some reason. Instead, he decides that now would be an appropriate time to ask her why she and her followers are so obsessed with mythical places like Thule and Shamballa and such. Edward, is that really the most pressing mystery right now? Is it even in the top five? Ekhart replies that Edward is also interesting in legendary places, so he's in no place to judge. Erm...is he? Maybe this version of him is. I don't know. Edward just glares at her.

Then, Hess puts a gun to Edward's head and announces his intention to kill him. When Haushofer asks him why he wants to kill Edward, Hess explains that they're at a critical point in their project and can't afford to let Berlin learn about their plans.

Erm. Because Edward looks like a government spy, I guess?

And...unless they kill him right now, he's going to telepathically alert the Weimar government on the other side of the country?

What?

I mean, sure, the nazis weren't exactly famous for their clearheaded logic and grip on cause and effect. At the same time, I still feel like this is the wrong kind of crazy at the wrong point in Hess' career.

Haushofen and Ekhart ask Hess what the fuck he thinks he's doing. Hess explains by babbling incoherently and tightening his finger around the trigger. Edward reasonably decides that he's not going to risk his life on the whims of this lunatic, and uses his surprising speed and strength to knock the gun aside and leap away to take refuge in the pile of dead militiamen. Like a cat being provoked into greater aggression when the ball it nudged starts rolling away, Hess freaks the fuck out and starts firing a wild spray of bullets into said corpse pile. Good thing there's so much armor in that heap. While hiding in the pile of corpses, Edward happens to come face to face with one of the dead men's helmets. Only, this helmet has a pair of glowing white lights behind its visor, and after a moment it whispers Edward's name in Alphonse's voice.

...what.

Golem Alphonse is here, now?

So...IS Golem Alphonse actually just an entity Edward created, with no actual connection to the real Alphonse who was stuck in the Antechamber of Truth at the time and is currently walking around back in Amestris? Barry really was correct, in this version?

Or...Alphonse still had a piece of his soul in one of the armored zombies when it got sucked back through the portal, and now he's controlling it remotely? Maybe?

What is even anything?

The Alphonse golem embraces Edward, calling out his name in relief. While also standing up and hauling him upright with enough force to send the dead bodies flying all across the ritual room and knocking Thule militiamen over left and right.

They don't have any time to ask each other what the fuck, though, because after this development it isn't just Hess who's shooting. Several of the unnamed nazis pull out their guns and start unloading as well, becoming increasingly alarmed when they realize that this suit is hollow (somehow? Where DID this suit come from, if it doesn't have a dead nazi inside of it?) and likely being animated by the devil or something. So, with Edward clinging to his torso and a dead body held up to shield him with, Alphonse charges out of the room and away through the castle hoping to find a way out. It's pretty much a repeat of their first battle with Father Cornello's goons way back at the beginning of all versions of FMA.

Hmm. Alphonse's hollow suit body can still move and speak even far away from the portal-glyph. I wonder why Envy's regeneration wasn't working, then? The Sins *did* display that ability before the point of departure. Hmm.

A gaggle of militia chase the brothers as they flee through the halls. Back in the ritual room, Ekhart kneels by the pile of corpses and frowns. Hess comes up behind her and says that he recognizes Edward from his initial meeting with Alphonse's rocket engineering team. Hmm. They talked to Hohenheim (DO they actually have him in captivity in a little cell under this room? It was hard to tell if he was there physically, or having a psychic conversation with Envy from a prison cell elsewhere), and he told them about Edward, apparently, but he never mentioned Alphonse? Or, if he did, they're not putting that together with the boy named Alphonse who Edward is currently working for/with? Weird. Anyway, Ekhart thinks that Edward and/or Alphonse can help them greatly (Edward already did, out of pure idiocy, lol), but after this she doesn't think she'll be able to secure their cooperation.

Way to go, Hess. You sure handled that situation.

She mentions that Hohenheim also refused to assist them (which may or may not have resulted in him becoming their prisoner). Sounds like she was misrepresenting her history with Hohenheim to coax Edward into compliance, a minute ago.

Hess says that that's fine, they can still use the Roma girl (he doesn't use the word "Roma" obviously). Lmao, that's ANOTHER thing that he fucked up in the recent past, isn't it? Was he also the one who fucked up the diplomacy with Hohenheim? Lmao I'll bet he was. Well, lucky for his future prospects within the organization, Hess tells Ekhart that Noah has turned up again. A party member reported a girl matching her description being in the company of Alphonse the rocket scientist and his brother, who he's been less than thrilled to have in his apartment building where his stupid libtard wife is going to let her steal all their jewelry sooner or later. So, here's his chance to make up for that one fuckup of his, if not the others.

All these coincidences around Edward and Alphonse make Ekhart confident that providence favors their cause.

You call it God. I call it bad writing.

...

Once again, you could connect all of these dots to make the plot work with at least 80% less contrived coincidences. It would just take slightly more work.

Maybe there really is supposed to be some Yog-Sothoth shenanigans manipulating fate toward a certain outcome. If so though, I feel like he could have done this a lot more elegantly.

...

Haushofer says that at this point, he really doesn't think that the world on the other side of the portal is Shamballa. Before they try and open the gate again, he wants them to do some much more extended research to see if they could have gotten something wrong, and if so what that other world actually is and if they can change their formula to reach the actual target. However, Hess and Ekhart remind him that the critical date of November 8th is less than two weeks away. Hitler has already gotten impatient with the Thule Society's lack of tangible results; he's more likely to just go ahead and launch the coup without them and hope for the best than he is to postpone it for them yet again. If the coup is successful, the Thule Society will have been sufficiently discredited that they can kiss their promised place in the new regime goodbye. So, no, they NEED to reach Shamballa by then. If this world isn't it, then they've failed anyway given that timeframe. They need to proceed as if this is it, and hope that they're right.

-___-

Okay. I can see someone like Hess being this unimaginative and myopic. But, is there really no one else in the Thule Society leadership who realizes the implications of what they've already accomplished?

The hell with Hitler and the other non-esoteric fascists. Who the fuck cares about taking over the German government when they have a goddamned multiverse to explore and potentially exploit?

They want to harness the power and wisdom of Shamballa for the damned Beer Hall Putsch? Really? If Shamballa is really as amazing and important as they think, then everything the Party has planned for November is irrelevant in light of it. If they get the power of Shamballa, they can bypass the whole "Bavarian regional government" thing and just go straight to world domination, no?

They're simultaneously thinking much too big, and much too small. And not in a way that I feel makes sense even for a bunch of drug-addled nazis. To draw an obvious analogy in recent history, there were definitely participants in the attempted January 6th coup who thought that there were gods and demons and the fate of worlds somehow tangled up in their stupid national election outcome, sure. But I feel like if those guys discovered actual magic that actually worked and let them peer into other worlds two weeks earlier, at least most of them would probably forget about their Jan 6 plans and start aiming a little higher.

...

Back to Amestris. Winry, Alphonse, and the girl who I think is 03verse Wrath are in Resembool, which means that at least a little bit of time must have passed. Alphonse is asleep. Winry is annoyed at him for being so sleepy all the time. Alphonse stirs in his sleep and mutters "Ed."

Has he been unconscious while his mind pilots the golem body on Earth ever since the Liore event?

If so, is Winry really reacting to this multi-day fit of narcolepsy with "omg Al stop being so lazy teehee?"

I hope it's not that.

Also, when did Alphonse pass out, exactly? Or, if it hasn't been a continuous fugue ever since then, when did the fainting spells start? Last we saw, he was still conscious when Rose pulled him off of that dead nazi. Did he suddenly pass out and start manifesting his old golem body on Earth (out of nowhere) a minute later, offscreen? If so, why didn't we see that? If not, what the hell IS supposed to have happened?

Back to Munich. Edward and Golem!Alphonse are sitting outside on a bench overlooking the city. Alphonse asks if this is really what was behind the Gates of Truth this entire time. Edward corrects him, saying that no, as best he can tell this is just another world that the Gates can open onto. There are likely others.

Heh, I do like that Alphonse basically made the same mistake that Ekhart is making. He sees some pretty city lights and nothing else, and assumes that what he's looking at is some kind of divine realm. Just like Ekhart catching glimpses of Liore's rooftops through the portal and assuming it was the holy city of Shamballa. A tiny bit more investigation would gravely disappoint them. The difference, of course, is that Alphonse believes Edward when he explains this to him, whereas Ekhart and Co are refusing to believe any evidence or testimony to the contrary no matter how much of it accumulates. That is a solid thematic thing, and a good takedown of the anti-empiricist, anti-intellectual tendencies that underly fascisms pretentions of cold rationality. This movie hasn't done much right, but it has done a few things right, and this is one of those things.

This version of Alphonse has no memories of his time with Edward as the Fullmetal Alchemist. In fact, he's confused when Edward asks him why he's "back" in this metal body after he saw him getting his organic one restored. Alphonse doesn't ever remember having piloted this golem before. For him, he remembers being disintegrated when they tried to revive Trisha, and then he remembers waking up again in Central with someone named Rose telling him his brother saved him from being an armor suit somehow.

...the lack of anything like dysmorphia etc as he adjusts to this state of being fresh is a failure of the story's, I think. Maybe he has subconscious memories that are helping him readjust to it again? IDK. If not, then that means that the "Alphonse" from the 03 series itself really was just a simulacrum created by Edward, and died when Edward "restored" him.

Are we going to acknowledge that possibility and treat it with its due weight? This is exactly the sort of moral anxiety that Edward should be haunted by, yeah? Wasn't the whole point of the Shou Tucker thing and the effect it had on him afterward to establish this about Edward?

Well. After some heart-to-heart about their dreams of being together again for real that completely dances around that bioethics elephant in the room, the topic turns back to what the Thule Society pulled off and whether they can repurpose it to get themselves back home.

Alphonse suspects that if they had two alchemists working from either side of the gate, they might be able to stabilize it and make it much safer for both interdimensional travellers and the surrounding landscape. Okay, that's a rare intuitive detail in this story.

Suddenly, Alphonse starts malfunctioning. He warns Edward that he can feel his mind returning to Amestris again, and that he's not sure if he'll be able to manifest on Earth again until another portal incident happens. How the fuck does he know so much about how this works? Edward has a little breakdown when he loses his own version of Alphonse again after such a brief reunion, but at least he's left with more hope than he had before when the lights in the visor black out and the armor goes limp.

The armor is still here, though. It doesn't disappear.

Where did it come from?

Is it just a total coincidence that it looks so much like the suits the Thule expedition were wearing? It would make so much more sense if that suit had a dead nazi in it, but it explicitly doesn't.

Hmm. My besssst guess is that Alphonse's armor got sucked into the Gate when Alphonse came out, but it's just been sitting there and he can remotely control it when the gates are open and...wait. Hold on. If he actually was remotely controlling the armor this whole time, and it wasn't a personality copy or whatever, and Alphonse just doesn't retain any memories of that afterward, then does that mean he's going to forget *this* conversation too?

There are problems no matter which angle I try to look at this from.

Back in Amestris, Alphonse wakes up on the bed in front of Winry and remembers everything that just happened in Germany.

Or maybe he thinks it was a dream? I don't know.

Back to Munich. Edward returns to the apartment he's sharing with Earth!Alphonse and, for the moment, Noah. Man, Earth!Alphonse. Does Alphonse have a spirit link with him as well? I swear to god these writers might have accidentally turned their version of Alphonse into a recreation of Father, what with the ruthlessness, the personality swings, and the being in a million bodies at once. Anyway, Earth!Alphonse asks him where he was all night and morning, and Edward tells him that he had a surprise meeting with his actual brother from his actual homeworld and he might be able to get home again soon.

Earth!Alphonse reacts to the news like this:

Feeling betrayed and abandoned because Edward doesn't actually see him as his brother.

...Oh my god FMA03 Alphonse actually IS Father.

The phone rings. Edward picks it up, and...it's Mabuse. How the fuck did he even get their number? Well. He tells Edward that he learned that he's been investigating Professor Haushofer and his pals. Edward suspiciously asks him if he's one of said pals himself, even though he literally saw Haushofer coldly shrug him off and let his thugs beat him unconscious. Mabuse tells Edward that no, it's not like that at all, and he'd like to coordinate his efforts with Edward to deal with some mutual troubles. He invites him to come to Berlin, and meet him at a place called Ufa.

Okay. "Ufa" and "Mabuse" in conjunction got me some google hits. Ufa is a very old German film studio, going all the way back to 1917. Its early years are best remembered for having produced the watershed movie "Metropolis" in 1927, but earlier in that decade it was famous for a horror film called "Doctor Mabuse."

And, the man calling himself "Mabuse" was trying to film the monster said to inhabit that castle. And knew his way around contemporary video cameras. And was, in his own words, a wealthy Jew. And he's partially blind in one eye.

...

Okay. Movie. The fact that you made Hess and Haushofer look fairly close to their real life selves is just making this part even more WTF than it would have been on its own.

This is a photo of Fritz Lang taken the same year that this movie is set in:

If you were to imagine a live action version of King Bradley, would it look even remotely like this man?

I looked through a bunch of his photos, from both before and after 1921. I cannot find a single one in which he had a mustache of any kind, let alone Bradley's big old Dictator Stache.

In fact, the only real physical resemblance I can see is that they both had some kind of issue with their left eyes. And Lang's eye didn't even get bad enough for him to go from monocle to eyepatch until much later in life.

Why did they do this?


I think I'm done for tonight.