Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood S2E33: “Lost Light”

Title suggests that the eclipse is going to happen this episode. Given that there are still...five, I think?...episodes to go, I'm going to assume that this will be a "villain's plan succeeds, but then the good guys turn it around on him after he's become allegedly allpowerful somehow" sort of finale. Say hi to Kefka, Jaffar, and Griffith from me Padre, you and they are going to be sharing a filing folder. Begin!


Mustang and Scar are at the mercy of Dr. Goldtooth and his rangries. Hawkeye is also at their mercy, as well as bleeding to death on the floor with her carotid artery cut open, which kinda sucks for her I guess. She's using her dying breaths to whisper at Mustang, urging him not to "save" her so that Father can eat all their souls five minutes later. At the end of the previous episode, Mustang had just - trembling and sweating and looking down at the floor - said the word "alright."

At the beginning of this one, he clarifies that he's talking to Hawkeye. As in "alright, Hawkeye, I'm not doing it."

I love the sort of meta aspect of this fakeout. The creators are fucking with the audience by cutting off Mustang's answer in the middle at the end of last episode, but Mustang is also pausing a moment there on purpose to fuck with Dr. Goldtooth as a small act of defiance. The look on the doctor's face is also kind of priceless.

It's an extremely minor act of spite. But just by having tricked the doctor for a moment in this small way and made him look slightly a fool, Mustang has cracked his aura of unflappability and made him suddenly look more human and defeatable. Likely for Scar's benefit as much as his own (I doubt Hawkeye can see it, sadly).

Dr. Goldtooth clumsily tries to guilt-trip Mustang into complying, asking if he'd really be so heartless as to let his friend and underling bleed out in front of him. That is in fact a nerve of Mustang's that he's poking at, but Mustang was expecting him to go there and affects nonchalance. He then turns it around on Dr. Goldtooth, and points out how liberally he's been sacrificing his own underlings. Dr. Goldtooth insists that that's just equivalent exchange; he took these boys in from parents who'd died or discarded them, raised them, fed them, gave them a world class education, etc. Their lives are exactly what they owe to him, and they all know it.

Hmm. Maybe they aren't actually the zombified bodies of the failed candidates, then? Just the very heavily brainwashed others who never got the stone injected in the first place?

I don't know. They don't really seem human. It also seems strange to me that they wouldn't use them for more than just Dr. Goldtooth's personal bodyguards, if they still had all the knowledge and skills they were taught besides just fighting. Maybe they were lobotomized (or the alchemical equivalent) after proving themselves unruly, or something?

Yeah, not sure if these are the ones who were killed by the attempted wrath infusion, or the ones who never got it but had some other fucked up thing done to them since. Could be either.

His speech is cut short by Mustang being suddenly yoinked up into that opening in the ceiling that the rangries earlier dropped from. A moment later, Dr. Goldtooth too is struck by a strand of adhesive slime and pulled off his feet and into the grasp of Bebop and Rocksteady.

Sounds like Dr. Goldtooth may have overseen the human chimaera project as well as raising the Wrath candidates and taking part in the protostone research. The chimaeras recognize him personally.

This guy really should have gotten more screentime. And, like, a name.

...hmm. He's starting to remind me a little bit of the Mouth of Sauron, from Lord of the Rings. Insanely loyal human disciple of the demigod main villain. Has "learned great sorcery" in his years of study under the dark lord, but in turn "his name is remembered in no tale, for he himself had forgotten it." I don't know if Dr. Goldtooth has literally forgotten his own name, but the story is treating his name and identity as completely unimportant. He has minime versions of Father's powers and pastimes (using the city-glyph, turning people into monsters, surrounding himself with abused "children" who he uses as minions, etc), just as the Mouth was implied to be sort of a human minime-Sauron. I don't know if there was direct inspiration there, but the parallels are pretty strong either way.

Suspended from Rocksteady's mouth by the sticky mucus, the Gold Tooth of Father babbles that if they kill him, Hawkeye hasn't got a chance. Nobody pays him much mind though. Meanwhile, Bebop, May, and Simian (right, forgot she'd met up with the chimaeras after the big mannequin fight) drop down passed them and attack the rangries. Just a momentary distraction is all it takes for Mustang and Scar to free themselves, and most of the enemies are subsequently disintegrated in a matter of seconds.

The bottle of protostone that Dr. Goldtooth was carrying gets dropped, and accidentally kicked around in the course of the battle. May fixates on it and starts chasing it around, while looking agonizingly back and forth between it and Hawkeye. At first I thought this was suggesting she wanted to get the protostone and use it to heal Hawkeye, but then she gets all stressed and agonized and declares "this comes first!" while running toward the latter. So, I guess she thinks her alkahestric healing is good enough to save her even without the bottle, and she was just chasing the bottle as a replacement for the escaped Envy. I suspect she's being a bit overconfident, but we'll see.

She quickly scrawls a pentacle around the lieutenant, and...well, I guess she wasn't overconfident after all! Although, what she actually did is less ambitious than what I was imagining. She heals the major arteries shut and stops the bleeding, but she can't do anything about the very significant blood loss that Hawkeye's already suffered. She'll need a transfusion soon, and she certainly won't be able to fight for a long while. Given the nature of the wound and May's previously demonstrated healing powers, that's reasonable.

Mustang and Hawkeye have a touching moment, as best they can with the latter being barely conscious. Meanwhile, Scar and the chimaeras finish off the last couple of rangries. She's very glad that he was able to keep on the straight and narrow even with her being too unconscious with blood loss to knock sense into him; maybe he really is improving after all.

Speaking of ethics in people who have power over other people, May goes dashing off to find the bottle again so she can hand the mass of imprisoned souls to her dad the evil emperor. However, while everyone was distracted, the bottle was being picked up by a newcomer to the room.

Goddamnit, Leed.

The group murmur in surprise to one another at Wrath's apparent inability to regenerate like his siblings. Mustang tells him that he wishes he could say that he's looking good. Cue flashback of Wrath swimming out of the reservoir through an intake pipe.

God FUCKING damnit, Leed!

Wrath remarks that he was sure Mustang would do as he was told, if a valued underling were endangered in front of him. He's surprised to see that he hasn't done so. Damn, maybe he DOES have a healing factor, just a very limited one, if he's able to be this collected after all that. Still as good as ever at throwing people off balance and putting them on the defensive and controlling the course of conversations. I suppose he spent his entire child and young adulthood in authoritarian dictator boarding school, so this would be first rather than just second nature to him. Also, good reminder that it was Wrath's idea to try and turn Mustang into a sacrifice, back when Envy was asking why they didn't kill him to avenge Lust waaay back in the mid-series. This whole scenario may have actually been Wrath's invention, or at least the broad strokes of it were.

...

Okay, what IS the deal with Wrath's motivations? He seems totally committed to Father's plans now, but there were so many scenes that seemed to exist JUST to show that he had wavering loyalties. Those *are* going to have some kind of payoff eventually, right?

...

Anyway, Mustang tells him that he thought right, but fortunately he surrounded himself by people who he trusts to sanity-check him, and complying with his part in Father's plan would have been insane. Wrath seems legitimately impressed. Almost pleasantly surprised. He tells them that he thought humans would never be able to manage that kind of humility and self-awareness, and that he's glad to have been proven wrong.

Huh. Maybe he IS going to switch sides after all, now? Just, as a deathbed conversion thing rather than as part of a longterm plan?

Or...wait. Then he says THIS. But like, he's smiling while he does it:

That's a happy expression. The tone of voice as he claims to be upset, likewise.

Wrath. At this point, you simply baffle me.

...I mean, sure, "wrath." But that's not how the other Sins seemed to work.

Yeah. This man(-type thing) is now officially an enigma to me.

Before the conversation can continue or the fight can begin, whichever of the two was about to happen, May suddenly looks downward in alarm and warns the others that "he's right under us." Whelp. Guess Papi's patience has worn out, with the eclipse so near at hand. If a battle was about to happen, it's over before it begun.

Dr. Goldtooth, still hanging from Rocksteady's mouth, starts kicking and squirming, urging them that they must stop displeasing the Good Gentleman at once. Is he afraid of punishment, or just legitimately emotionally committed to pleasing Senpai at all costs? Probably the latter. Something comes shooting out of the darkness and wounds Rocksteady, dropping him to the floor and making him release Goldtooth. A rushing sound comes from the pipes that line the walls and lead up into the opening in the ceiling. Then, a mass of oozing darkness and eyeballs descends on them. But it's not Father.

Oh, hey there Pride. You should have arrived an episode or two ago, when your presence would have made the sequence of events make more sense, but better late than never. Hope you were doing something important.

As soon as Pride appears, Wrath charges. Either he'd been waiting for the right moment, he and Pride had met up earlier and coordinated this, or he had actually been about to say or do something Father wouldn't approve of before Pride showed up. In any case, despite his extensive injuries, Wrath leaps over the fireball Mustang shoots his way, slams Mustang to the ground, and pins his hands to the floor the same way he did to Greed 1.0 earlier.

Only, Mustang is human, so it hurts a lot more and won't heal nearly as readily.

Ruined the gloves of firestorm too, I'm sure.

Dr. Goldtooth gets up and cleans the mucus off of himself, cackling. He congratulates Wrath on the good job, literally says the words "that's my boy" to him. Hmm. I wonder if they've ever actually had Dr. Goldtooth pose as Koala Kola Kong's biological father, if this is how he typically acts around him? Or maybe Dr. Goldtooth just prefers to not exist at all as far as the public is concerned. Hmm. At any rate, the "well done son" speech is cut short by a razor-tipped tentacle of darkness impaling him through the midsection.

Pride is not impressed with the doctor's handling of this situation. Can't reeeeally say I blame him...​

So much for the Gold Tooth of Father. You were fairly interesting, if underutilized, while you lasted.

As everyone watches in a mix of horror and confusion, Pride and Wrath do a...thing...involving the subdued and impaled Mustang and Goldtooth.

I guess Pride has spent enough time wrapping his tendrils around the inside of the macroglyph that he can form them into a transmutation array in his sleep at this point. And with Mustang and Goldtooth, hmm. The glyph is very similar to the philostone-maker, but not *exactly* the same.

If just passing through the Gates of Truth and seeing Wog-Sothoth up close is what gives you the spontaneous casting ability, then maybe Mustang doesn't need to perform human transmutation. Maybe they just need to force him through a teleportation. So, using Goldtooth as the "toll" in punishment for his failure, they're going to send Mustang through the Gates and then back to the same spot, now a suitable sacrifice?

Although if that was all it took, you'd think they'd have done this to begin with. Seems like a lot less trouble than trying to pressure someone into breaking the taboo.

Yeah, not sure what's going on here. It's notable that this is the first time that we're seeing the Sins use anything like conventional alchemy, rather than just their built-in powers. Pride is an actual alchemist, then, as well as a haemunculus. Or else, he actually is somehow keeping Kimblee alive inside of himself and using his knowledge. Or...if that's something he can do, maybe he's extracting the information from Goldtooth, rather than Kimblee?

Hmm. Then again, if he can do that, I see no reason why he wouldn't have BEEN doing it with convenient alchemists all along, so.

Pride and/or Wrath cast the spell. Notably, there's blue rather than red lightning, so they're not violating equivalent exchange. Maybe Dr. Goldtooth is in fact being sacrificed, then.

...you know, it seems like Goldtooth would probably be willing to *volunteer* as a sacrifice, if Father patted his head and told him he loved him. I'd be very surprised if he isn't already a spontaneous caster himself, given his career.

Meanwhile, outside in Central, some civilians are wondering what has the dogs barking like crazy again. Dude, there's smoke still rising from the skirmishes and explosions that have been going on all over the city, why would you assume it isn't just something to do with that lol. The man with the dogs looks up, and sees that the eclipse is now beginning.

♪ Prick your fingers, it is done, the moon has now eclipsed the sun. The angel has spread his wings, the time has come for bitter things. ♪

Palms rather than thumbs for Mustang, but still close enough.

Back in the summoning chamber, Pride tells Mustang that he didn't want to have to resort to what he's about to do, but with Dr. Goldtooth's failure he has no other choice left. The eclipse is beginning. They need the sacrifices now. There's just no time. Then Wrath explains that...um...wait, what?

They're going to...that's a thing you can do?

Weeeeeird.

Many, many questions raised, here.

Wrath clarifies that Pride can *indeed* pull information from the minds of people he engulfs. Okay, that's one question answered. I still wonder how often he's used this ability in the past, and whether or not he remembers any of it after he kills or releases them. Does he know any alchemy on his own, at this point? I guess if he did he'd probably have used it to escape that prison Hohenheim and Alphonse put him in earlier, unless he just couldn't make a transmutation circle in the darkness. Anyway, Pride instructs Wrath to leave the circle, taking over the holding-Mustang-down duties with more of his own tendrils as the glyph formed by his mass continues flashing blue lightning.

As he withdraws, Wrath coughs and clutches his chest. Injuries maybe slowly catching up with him again after all. He muses on what body part Mustang will end up losing. Meanwhile, Scar, May, Hawkeye, and the others just watch helplessly from the sidelines. Knowing there's not much they can do against Pride, let alone Pride and Wrath together even if the latter is injured. Too bad no one has one of those flashbang grenades on them.

...

The smartest, most pragmatic thing to do right here would be to kill Mustag. They've got plenty of ranged attackers, including some that even Pride would have trouble deflecting.

I understand them not doing it. I'm not sure if I'd be able to, in their place. But yeah, that would be the objectively best course of action in this situation. I doubt Roy himself would think otherwise.

...

The lightning dies down, and the smoke clears. Dr. Goldtooth has been Cronenberged.

I'm guessing they just transmuted himself into another copy of himself, but didn't bother to get the details right. Or else Mustang's struggling caused it to get all garbled, since they were casting through Mustang, apparently? Somehow? I really don't understand what Pride just did.

...

Envy's true form is a parasite that can attach itself to other bodies (philostone or flesh based) and take control of them. I wonder if perhaps Pride can do the same thing, but with souls instead of physical bodies? Maybe?

Dunno, just a possible explanation for at least part of what's going on here that occurred to me.

...

Mustang himself has just vanished. Wrath nods approvingly at this detail. The "teleport all spontaneous casters within range into Father's office" effect on the city-glyph is still active, so as soon as Mustang became one he was beamed straight there like the previous four. No telling what he's missing, but he's missing something.

...with these double-entendre titles, "lost light," makes me think maybe his eyes? I'm thinking either eyes, or hands. Not sure why hands, just feels right. Probably eyes though, it just matches the episode title too well.

...

Wrath completely ignores the wriggling, dying thing that used to be Goldtooth, meanwhile. However little regard the doctor had for his "sons," there was clearly even less given in return.

...

With the sacrifice situation resolved, Wrath raises his swords, turns to the others, and informs them that he's badly injured and can probably be killed in battle. Who wants to be the one who takes him out?

I can't decide which is harder for me to parse right now; Pride's powerset, or Wrath's motivations.

The chimaeras look back and forth, trying to decide what baffles them more; the fact that Wrath is doing this, or the fact that they're not sure they could beat him even if they all ganged up on him, with all his injuries, while Pride just stood back and waved pom-poms. However, Scar and May are whispering a much more productive conversation back and forth while this is going on. Pride attacked them from above a few minutes ago, and May was sure she felt a truly massive ki-signature shifting and surging directly below them the moment before. That means that Pride's timing may have been coincidental, and Father is directly below their feet right now.

Scar catches her drift, and goes for the floor. Wrath charges, but with his injuries slowing him down Scar is just a hair's breadth faster.

Guess the Sin Inc executive office party is about to have a few more guests drop in. Through the ceiling.

Meanwhile, we switch over to our spontaneous-caster-to-be. Roy Mustang has certainly been told what to expect from the Antechamber of Truth at this point, but it's not really something you can prepare for. He sees his Wogdat grinning at him and hears it chuckle, but unfortunately we don't hear anything it says to him. I didn't mind when it rushed passed that with Izumi, Alphonse, etc, but in this case it feels like we're missing out.

Mustang didn't perform human transmutation, after all. Pride performed it through him, sort of, somehow. When Edward faced the Gates, Wogdat told him about how he was a "foolish alchemist" who had crossed the threshold, talked about how much he can show him for the price he's paid, etc. What I want to know is if Mustang got a similar speech. If so, it would indicate that for all that they're linked to the nexus of all knowledge, the wogdats really don't know everything if they aren't privy to the details of how a person ends up facing them. It would be a wrench in my earlier theory, of the wogdats become more limited and humanlike as they take on more of their lower souls' body parts, since Roy's should still be totally unbound until this transaction is complete. If Mustang's wogdat DOES recognize the involuntary nature of this human transmutation, then I'd have liked to hear its opinions on the subject.

Oh well.

Notably, when Mustang appears in the throne room where Father is waiting with the other sacrifices, Pride appears with him. Looking sort of beat up and ragged, moreso than he was a minute ago. So, it wasn't just Mustang who was sent through the portal; Pride also was. The framing in the previous sequence didn't make it clear if Pride was still in the room or not when Wrath turned to the others and made his challenge, so I assumed he still was, but I guess not!

Father is pleased at this timely arrival, but a little worried that Alphonse has "still not arrived." So Alphonse can't be a sacrifice while he's in one of his death-comas. That makes sense, since it's pretty clearly the souls of five spontaneous casters he needs rather than simply their bodies. Of course, with the golem research that Father's underlings have been doing for quite some time (Chopper, Slicer, presumably the experiments that led to the mannequin project, etc) he probably knows about the necrolepsy problem that they start to have after a few years and has a temporary fix for it.

Meanwhile, Edward asks the seemingly very disoriented Mustang if he's alright. His hands seem to be moving fine, despite Wrath having impaled them a few minutes ago, so that's good at least. The gloves probably aren't functional anymore, but if Mustang is a spontaneous caster now that should no longer be an issue. Mustang asks where the hell they are, and explains that he was made to pass the gate and be grappled and mindfucked by the Outer God behind it. Edward declares that Mustang's body appears to still be intact from the outside, at least. Mustang marvels at how Edward can tell, when it's too dark in this place to see anything at all.

Well, I was almost right before. He's still got his eyeballs, but they no longer appear to have pupils.

He tries to get up, and promptly trips on a pipe that everyone but him can see. Izumi and Edward hurry to help him up, as he realizes what's happened to him. Observing this, Pride remarks that he and Father are kind of lucky that Mustang lost his vision to Truth. His pyrokinesis is more dangerous to them than most other combat alchemy, so him not being able to aim it anymore makes handling him a hell of a lot easier.

As Pride speaks, though, a bit of his cheek flakes and falls of, like crumbling wall plaster. It comes off in a grid pattern, like the texturing we've consistently seen on hastily transmuted surfaces.

He quickly covers it up with his hand, but at least a few of the sacrifices had to have already seen it.

I guess that's why Pride was reluctant to use his poorly explained forced-alchemy until they were really out of time. It's not just Mustang who paid a toll at the Gates, but Pride as well. Possibly a pricier one. Leed earlier said that Pride's humanoid body is actually a "container," which I assume means it's got a detachable outer layer similar to Father's. Maybe Truth (Mustang's Truth, or Pride's own. Do the Sins even have Higher Souls?) took whatever it is that lets Pride keep the outer shell glued to his shadowy core?

...

When Father's true form was revealed, I speculated that Pride - as his first creation - might have originally been an attempt to see if he could get a woggish body to survive without a completely sealed container. It was a successful attempt, as evidenced by Pride's ability to extend his wog tentacles outside of the humanoid shell, and this presumably led Father to experiment further with that until he could make himself able to survive without being inside a shell at all. Probably still reliant on philosopher's stone, to some extent, but free nonetheless. His decision to keep wearing that outer skin even after he no longer needed it, of course, just begs for psychoanalysis, but that's besides the point right now. Anyway. This would mean that Pride is built similarly to Envy; he has a fake body around his true body, with his philosophers' stone battery presumably being inside of that in turn.

The more relevant question at the moment is whether or not Father also upgraded Pride to not strictly need a shell, since then. If he has, then the loss of his skin isn't going to be much of an issue. If he hasn't, Pride might be having to expend considerable energy to keep regenerating the skin as it falls off. If he were to lose it entirely, he might just have his woggish flesh keep getting evaporated as soon as his philostone nucleus can regenerate it, stunlocking and eventually killing him much like Mustang's fire did to Lust.

Maybe. Not sure. Just an educated guess for now. In any case, Pride has been weakened or injured in some way because of the forced transmutation trick, and he knew (or at least feared) this would happen before he used it, hence his only doing so in an act of desperation. No wonder he was so pissed at Dr. Goldtooth.

...

Edward asks why the hell Mustang would have tried to perform human transmutation, what with all that they know at this point. He replies truthfully that he didn't, and Pride explains that he forced him. Somehow. Some...yeah I really don't know how that ability of his works. Anyway, this is where Father himself speaks up and explains the cruel ironies that the entity known as Truth inflicts on those who behold it. Edward, he says, thought to stand on his own feet and take charge of the life his father had abandoned him to, by bringing his mother back. Hence, he lost a foot. Alphonse simply sought his mother's warm embrace once again, and now he can no longer feel any tangible sensation.

I think Father is working on incomplete information there. Alphonse's entire body was taken at least in large part because he was the (accidental) object rather than the subject of the transmutation attempt.

Although...hmm. Actually, he also says that Edward paid two prices, one of them being the only living family member he had left in ironic punishment for his attempt to bring another one back. So...I guess that's why Alphonse's empty body was sent to his own Truth instead of just remaining inert on the ground? Maybe? He lost his whole body due to a combination of his own AND Edward's prices being paid?

Then again, Father also doesn't mention Edward's arm at all. I'm guessing the logic there is that Edward was desperately reaching out for all he had left at that point? Either way, Father's glossing over of this suggests that he doesn't know nearly as much about their case as he's pretending to, so his theory about Alphonse's body might not be exactly right.

He says that Izumi lost her womb because she wanted to bring back her baby, obviously. And then that Mustang's pupils are because he was looking forward to a brighter future for Amestris.

Um...if you say so? Wouldn't it make just as much sense to take Mustang's foot, because of his desire to march onward to that future? Or his tongue, because he seeks to improve the country through his leadership?

...you could make up a justification for almost any of Mustang's body parts being linked to that motivation, and it would sound just as plausible.

I'm starting to think that Father is just completely talking out of his ass in this scene, lol.

He concludes, then, that Truth takes whatever will give the alchemist the greatest despair, in order to prevent humans from becoming proud and boastful. And this, he cackles, is what humans call "God." What they look up to and worship and try to seek attention from. How hilarious.

Edward takes issue with this, especially the part where Truth would penalize from someone who didn't even meet him voluntarily like Mustang, but, well...Father isn't really the one to argue with about it, even if he might not be 100% trustworthy on the details he's assessing.

You'll have to take that up with his father, Ed. No, not Hohenheim. Not the no-name Xerxian wizard banging on the inside of his eardrum trying to get out either. His third one.

That's progress for Edward. He spent the first third or so of the series in denial about God, clinging desperately, performatively onto atheism. Since then, he's just been avoiding the philosophical implications of the problem he and Alphonse were trying to solve with their bodies, thinking of Wogdat as just "an entity that needs dealing with to get what I want." Now, he's getting it. He's becoming a misotheist.

It parallels his relationship with the world at large, honestly. From acting like he's the best thing ever and can do whatever he wants, to acknowledging his limitations both practical and political and taking the problems one step at a time, to finally realizing that the culture and society he was born into was innately flawed and has been leading him astray from within his own thoughts and perspectives.

Father doesn't respond to Edward's declaration of defiance against Wog-Sothoth. Just sort of grins with his primary mouth. Either amused at Edward's naivete in still expecting some kind of natural justice to exist after all he's seen, or sharing a brief moment of camaraderie with one of his victims in their shared discontent with the management. Maybe both; it's hard to read that kind of nuance in Father's current "face."

Back up a level above now! It turns out that the floor separating this junction room from Father's office beneath it is a lot thicker than Scar accounted for. He's blasted an impressive crater in the floor, easily deeper than a person is tall, but it hasn't quite reached the ceiling of the Gigeresque palace below. And Wrath isn't going to let him repeat the process. The haemunculus finishes closing the distance, and there's a rapid flurry of blows and dodges before Scar pushes himself off the flat of Wrath's blade and leaps back across the room from him.

As the chimaeras, Hawkeye, and May hide inside the crater, Wrath and Scar face one another from across the room. Wrath asks Scar for his real name. Scar simply repeats that he no longer has one. Wrath tells him that he doesn't know his own real name either. So, that's fitting. The nameless ones shall duel, and perhaps kill each other, now.

Wrath, once again, seems happy. Content in a way he historically hasn't been. Not wrathful, but...it's hard to put my finger on it, exactly. What IS his actual deal?

Also, it's interesting that Wrath says that he doesn't know his own *real* name. As in, he considers the one that his human body originally had before it was sent to the agoge to be more truly his than "Wrath." Or, perhaps, the name of whichever Xerxian soul ended up bubbling to the surface when he survived the transformation. Either way. Curious. Not sure what it means, though. I've become reluctant to say anything about how his mind works with any confidence, at this point.

Then both their faces are contorted into battle fury, and the butcher of Ishval and the Ishvalan avenger fly at one another. This time, Scar manages to hit Wrath's blades with a disintegrate when he blocks him.

He's probably got more swords stashed away, but still, good start.

With Wrath preoccupied, May finishes extending the crater downwards, and finally breaches Father's sanctum. She drops down from the ceiling like kawaii Spiderman, Pandarat in tow.

Not sure where the chimaeras are. Maybe decided to just get Hawkeye to safety. Or they were all killed offscreen by debris from Scar's initial blast. Yeah, it's probably that one. They're all dead, by accident. Hawkeye too. That is what must have happened.

Father is mildly irritated to see that little girl whose alchemy he can't turn off blowing yet another hole in his inner sanctum. May is surprisingly unperturbed at Father's new appearance. She does report that he has the same ki-signature as he did in their last meeting though, so that's confirmation that even his wog-based body is still being powered by philosopher's stone. I assumed so, but the confirmation is nice.

Hmm. I wonder if May could also shed any light on how much of him is actually in "him" versus how much is in the pipes on the walls all around them? Well, she has more pressing things on her mind right now, I suppose.

She sees Alphonse's armor laying motionless on the ground, and seemingly forgets about Father to worry over that. Then, cut to Alphonse in the Antechamber of Truth, where his soul (represented by a copy of the armor, I guess? It's hard to say what's literal/physical and what isn't in this realm) is standing before his body in front of the Gate.

It looks like the necrolepsy might have finally reached its terminus. Alphonse's parts are reuniting for realsies now. I'm not sure if that'll kill him, or if he'll be able to just wait here in his (malnourished, but alive) organic body until Edward can get him out again.

Well, it might actually be Father who yoinks him out of here and back into the physical world, come to think of it. Saving Alphonse serves the villain's interests more than the heroes' right now, ironically enough.

Alphonse walks toward his body. It tells him it's been waiting a long time, and smiles. They raise their hands toward each other, and the lights in the helmet's eyes start to go out...but then they light up again, and instead of taking his body's hand in a symbolic "accepting death" gesture Alphonse grabs its wrist.

He declares, frustrated, that right now he needs a platform he can fight in, and this undergrown, malnourished scarecrow of a body is not suitable to the task.

Well someone's finally gotten pragmatic!

His body (or...his Wogdat animating the body? If that really is what's going on with that) asks him if he really doesn't want to merge with him again. Alphonse assures it that he really does, he's wanted nothing more than that for years, but right now everyone else is fighting for the fate of Amestris at least and possibly the fate of the entire universe at most, and that's more important than his personal desires.

The body looks sad about this, but says that it understands. If Alphonse wants to go back to animating that armor for a little while longer, it won't try to stop him. As it speaks, the Gate begins opening behind it, just as Edward's did as his own Wogdat made pronouncements to him.

I'll take that to mean that yeah, this is Alphonse's Higher Soul keeping the body warm for when his lower one can take it back. Said body causing it to become more humanlike in personality as well as appearance, and not a detached, cackling asshole like normal.

The Gate opens, and Wog-Sothoth reaches its tentacles out to take hold of Alphonse's lower soul and return it to the golem body. He assures his other self, just as Edward did previously, that he'll be back for it.

He then wakes up on the floor of Father's office, and realizes that he just done goofed.

On one hand, Alphonse couldn't have realized that this last and potentially final necrolepsy fit was triggered by Father teleport-yoinking him for use in the ritual. So, he wouldn't have known that this was the exact wrong moment to come back.

On the other, he had been warned. Pride told him about this, back when they were in the dome together. The sacrifices were picked both for ability, and for character. They had to be people who wouldn't run away and leave their friends and loved ones to fight a hopeless battle, even knowing that returning to help them would play into the enemy's hands. This was Alphonse's last chance to not do as Pride smugly predicted that he would do. Oh well.

As Alphonse gets to his feet and realizes where he is and what must have happened, a voiceover from his body/wogdat begins. Alphonse is such a noble soul, it says, such a heroic spirit, it is proud to serve as his vessel and counterpart self. However, in acting on his selfless and indefatigable nature, he may have doomed the entire world.

His body knows the situation here, then. And it didn't tell him before agreeing to let him go back.'

Okay yeah that's DEFINITELY a Wogdat wearing his body. Even reshaped into a personality likeness of Alphonse's lower self, it can't help but be a total dick.

Its voiceover finishes, and Father happily declares that he finally has all five, just in the nick of time; the eclipse is halfway there, and he has only a scant few minutes to get this show started.

End episode.


A lot happened in this episode. All of it dramatic and exciting, but some of it also really begging for further explanation. Early FMA:B kind of had issues with explaining things too hamfistedly right before the things became plot critical. Late FMA:B has the opposite problem. The stuff about Father's state and distribution regarding the pipes and the derpy looking eyeball-man, what Hohenheim's soul-infection actually did to him, and just everything about what Pride can do, how he does it, and why he doesn't do it more often.

Mustang being blinded is a development I did not see coming (no pun intended) before Wrath raised the subject of his body being mutilated in this episode. This could go any number of places. He's definitely no longer a combat powerhouse, though I suppose Father isn't something you can deal with using direct firepower anyway, so it might not be all that relevant here. Still, you've got to feel for him.

The thematic center of this episode was good, all else aside. Edward finally realizing that the system is broken. Not just part of the system. All of it. The world. Reality. What solution he'll end up arriving at for the Hard Truth in the next five episodes, I don't know. But now he's consciously considering the problem, as opposed to just grasping at its peripheral subjects. Right now, Father's successful tactics are making a pretty strong argument for the "be a conscientious objector to reality and see yourself out" position, given the consequences of Alphonse not doing that. The narrative and philosophical stakes are both at their absolute highest right now.