Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Fridge Brilliance: How Ed managed to successfully bring back Al and not lose his life in the process: besides the life of the person you're trying to revive and yourself, what COULD be an acceptable price to save them? THE ABILITY TO DO IT A SECOND TIME.
  • Also? For anyone else it would have cost their life. The only reason he could get back from the Gate was because his soul was connected to Al's. This is even mentioned by Mustang.
  • Why would Father manufacture a secret army if he was going to turn the country into a philosopher stone before it could be used? Why does said army look like him? Answer: He was creating a nest.
  • An omake shows Father getting a lifetime subscription to a newspaper. In the end of the series, we find out his intention for causing the entire plot.
  • In one chapter, Hohenheim gets shot by some bandits. Later on, his glasses are still shattered and his clothes still had bullet holes. Why didn't he just repair them with alchemy? Because he's a philosopher's stone. Every time he uses alchemy, it uses up part of the soul of one of the Xerxes people. So Hohenheim never uses alchemy for trivial things.
    • In a way, he represents a marked difference between the manga/Brotherhood and the first anime storyline. Unlike the first anime alchemists on both sides, Hohenheim and Father actually pay attention to the whole "conserve the draining of dead souls for actual important purposes" deal - Hohenheim heeds it, and Father outright deceives everyone into breaking it!
• Fridge Brilliance: Why Ed being accepted into the military when he was 12 is actually completely justified. In his exam, he used alchemy without a transmutation circle, and that was how Bradley was able to tell Ed had opened the Gate Lust knew that circle-less alchemy = the user has opened the Gate so it's reasonable to expect that Bradley would, too, and in any case he could have got the order from Father. As Ed remarked once, the actual purpose of the State Alchemist system is to collect candidates for human sacrifice and to keep in them in the military's, that is Father's, leash. Since Ed has already performed human transmutation, he was an ideal candidate and Father absolutely would want him under his control. Bradley, being the supreme leader of the military and the direct commander of the State Alchemists, only needed to say that Ed would pass. It wasn't necessarily about age or talent, but that way, a valuable piece in Father's plan came to his control, and of his free will on the top of that. Father must have laughed.
• Fridge Brilliance:It's stated in the first anime that our world's technology developed down the path of physics and machinery rather than alchemy. Can you think of a certain person who was obsessed with alchemy who also happened to be the pioneer of modern physics?
  • It comes full circle with Irene and Frederick Joliot-Curie: physicists who invented modern alchemy.
• In Brotherhood, why are the Elrics' old family photos in color? Color photography was already been invented by the start date of the events of the story, but you'd hardly expect ALL the photos, including Ed & Al as babies, to be in color, especially coming from a small town like Resembool...
  • The series has even huger examples of Schizo-Tech compared to the real world circa 1914 (such as the lack of aircraft but presence of super-advanced prosthetics); it's entirely probable that color photography was invented somewhat earlier in the FMA universe, or even uses a completely different process that came about much more intuitively because of the presence of the alchemy paradigm in place of the real-world hard science paradigm.
• I had one with the character of Ling in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. Being familiar with Vash of Trigun and Hei's Li persona in Darker than Black, the idea of a Big Eater character with Eyes Always Shut and Obfuscating Stupidity is kind of old. Then, I realized that his appetite, coupled with his desire for immortality and power, is clever foreshadowing to him becoming the new Greed. ---User:Jordan
  • Similarly, in one of the first episodes of both series, Ed sits in a church, announcing his disbelief, and explains that humans are made up of common elements which could be purchased "with a child's pocket money." At first thought, this seems to just be a declaration of how inexpensive it is, but the brilliant part was that he wasn't speaking metaphorically, he was speaking from experience. It was a stealth confession. I had thought I had seen someone else mention it on tvtropes but a quick search revealed nothing. -- User:Karpad
    • Seemingly nodded to again in the second ending of the second anime, which shows Ed and Al (who look to be the same age as they are in flashbacks to their human transmutation attempt) happily plunking down a fistul of change on the counter at a store and carrying home big paper bags... This, however falls firmly into Fridge Horror.--Scribling
      • Gah! Thank you, I hadn't put that together and have now experienced some serious Fridge Horror. -Yabumi
      • It could just be them buying the groceries. That's what they were doing before they found their mom dead. All though it's still a kind of Fridge Horror... -Mosquito Man
  • It took me until Hohenheim explaining Pride's appearance for me to have such an epiphany about Envy's powers; envy is coveting what someone else has. His powers correspond to this by easily allowing him to become that "someone else". I feel dumb for having taken so long to make this connection. -- Cee
  • Also, Envy's true form is green in color.
  • And in the first anime as well as some scenes in Brotherhood, Envy's humanoid-form hair is dark green dreadlocks.
  • When a lot of the Japanese voice cast was replaced for the new Brotherhood adaption, many fans were upset. But as the plot took off, the new voices made perfect sense... because they highlighted the differences between the versions of the characters. For example, Roy is less cynical and more earnest this time around, so his younger-sounding voice is perfect. Riza's voice is higher and sweeter, which fits her more empathetic portrayal. Envy's more sadistic and masculine sounding voice suits just how much he loves to Kick the Dog.
  • Another one just occurred to me regarding Bradley's sympathetic backstory and how it is recounted in the Brotherhood adaptation. When I read the manga, I mostly saw it as something of a Pet the Dog scene which made you pity Bradley, despite all of the awful things he had done and would do in the future. But then when I saw it on the anime, I noticed that Bradley, in keeping with being a somewhat literal That Man Is Dead example, is narrating his own life objectively and thus completely understands that he was turned into a monster by evil people, but yet he still follows them. By doing this, it shows that he's Not Brainwashed, but rather is doing evil willingly. I'd note that the most recent chapter kind of confirms this in that he's now lost his Philosopher's Stone/eye but remains loyal to the villains.
  • Did any of you notice one thing about Father? He's Greedy, and continues to be so even after he discards Greed from his body, meaning that, in a way, he embodies the sin of Greed more than his son.-Etheru
    • It goes way beyond that. This excerpt from the FMA Wiki sums up Father's hypocrisy quite nicely: Though it's stated numerous times that Father has expelled all of his sins, it's interesting to note he acts in a way similar to that of the sins: He seeks power at all costs (Greed); views humans as "ants" (Pride); devours souls with no self control (Gluttony); has a desire for a family like humans (Envy); prefers to let others do his bidding for him (Sloth); feels anger towards any opposition, principally Hohenheim (Wrath); and shows complete disregard and manipulation of human beings (Lust).
      • I noticed the opposite, actually. Minus his sins, Father is an empty shell of a personality in a way that made him rather pitiable to me. He briefly demonstrates a capacity for kindness during the time that he has his Greed in him (as Greed himself noted that the desire for friendship is a form of Greed), but apart from that, Father doesn't really do anything but continue mindlessly following his plan. Up until the climax, he's an object in motion, forever remaining in motion because there is no opposite force to act on him, but without any sense of conviction or desire to remain so.
  • I looked through Kimblee and Pride's interactions throughout the series and saw the brilliance today. First off, Kimblee essentially represents light with his white suit, specialization in alchemy based around bright explosives, and alchemical circles tattooed on his hands that involve the sun and moon, which are both symbols of light. On the other hand, Pride obviously represents darkness and shadow, which can easily see by looking at his powers. As such, Kimblee and Pride's interactions are light and darkness (or shadow) working together in tandem. And this makes Kimblee being devoured by Pride a moment where the shadows engulfed the light.
    • Good Lord. That makes Chapter 106 even more awesome. The light can always chase away the darkness in the end.
  • It took me a long time to realize how Ed transmuted himself into a philosopher's stone, invaded Pride's being and destroyed him from the inside out - he'd already pulled that trick once before, way back in episode 41 when he used his soul as a philosopher's stone to heal himself. -Slayer Of Fanfics
  • The humonculi are named after the seven deadly sins. In the manga, they were all created by Father. Therefore, they are Sins of the Father. - User:DC Horror
    • And are thus visited on the son(s).
  • When reading 107, it finally hit why despite having Father rid himself of his 'sins' in the form of the homunculi, he still seemed to posses enough greed to go after Godhood. The avarice he imparted on Greed wasn't absolute as the Ultimate Shield made us believe, no, the thing he wanted the most in the whole world were friends and companions like Ed has. Everything else he was after was missdirected greed on his part. - Lagunamov
  • It took me far too long to realize that the last opening theme of Brotherhood is from Hohopapa's perspective. ~User:Phoenix Fire
    • So Trisha reaching her hand out is Hoho's POV, and not Ed's? Makes sense, given what happens.
    • So is the first opening. --Lightflame
  • I've kind of become aware of an implied plot/characterization regarding Izumi. There's a scene in the episode where Greed's killed where Bradley seems to want her to become a State Alchemist, and she declines, and rightly doesn't trust him. Izumi is clearly talented enough to be one, and so the fact she isn't is significant, as is the related fact that she didn't fight in Ishvall. Coupled with things like the scene where she is able to lift up Sloth and throw him, I really get a sense that despite Izumi's Hair-Trigger Temper, she is really holding back and could kill quite easily. Although he probably already leaned in this direction, I can really see Ed following in her footsteps, because he's just as Hot-Blooded, but also refuses to kill.- User:Jordan
  • In the stinger for episode 28 of Brotherhood, Father finishes off Gluttony and reabsorbs his stone back into his body, promising to revive him with all of his memories intact. Now, you might ask yourself why he would do this, as it doesn't serve him any strategic purpore, and his 'love' for his 'children' is largely just a front. But near the end the series, Hohenheim suggests that Father created the homunculi so that he could have "family". Yes, as much as Father acts like an uncaring and manipulative bastard, his act of resurrecting Gluttony with his memories restored proved to be an act of fatherly love, however twisted it may have appeared to be. - User:Orpheum Zero
  • Regarding the deaths of the Homonculi:
    • Roy Mustang, who is known as a womanizer, is the one to kill Lust.
    • Armstrong, who's been constantly berated by his sister for not putting his full effort into the war, kills Sloth.
    • Selim kills Gluttony by EATING him.
    • Envy and Greed get themselves killed, both in manners that are almost paradoxically befitting of the sin they represent.
    • Wrath is killed by Scar, a man consumed by hatred for humanity because of his troubled past.
    • And finally, Edward, the one who was so confident in his abilities that he thought he could play God by bringing a human back to life, is the one to defeat Pride and send him back into his true form.
      • Which was foreshadowed in chapter 83: "Now that I think about it, the moment I decided to become a dog of the military, I gave up any pride I might have had anyway!"
• Episode 26 of the English Brotherhood dub has a beautiful piece of fridge brilliance that you really only notice after rewatching/rereading the series several times. To clarify, it isn't the fact that Ed punched open the Gate, but right before he performs that human transmutation. He apologizes to the souls of the Xerxians within Envy's Philosopher's stone, before he uses them. Later, when Hohenheim is using the souls of the Xerxians within him to create a counter to Father's Nationwide Transmutation Circle, he says the exact same thing. It becomes even more epic, when you realize that, in the fight against Pride, Ed turns himself into a one-soul philosopher's stone. And then, all of the comments about Ed being exactly like his father become even more epic. He is literally following his father's footsteps.
• Fridge Brilliance: How can the armored Alphonse talk to himself (the skinny, naked Alphonse) beyond the gate? Because the skinny, naked Alphonse is actually Truth, wearing his body the same way he wears Ed's arm and leg! This also explains why Truth comes off as a Jerkass God -- we usually only see Ed's version of Truth...
• Fridge Brilliance: The whole sequence where Mustang and his crew are staging a coup in Central? It's Operation Valkyrie! Or rather, it's Operation Valkyrie if Colonel von Stauffenberg had succeeded. The conspirators use an explosion to kill the Fuhrer, then systematically take control of the capital while pretending to be suppressing a (nonexistent) coup by those closest to the Fuhrer (the generals in FMA, the Schutzstaffel in Real Life). All signs suggest that they will succeed, but then comes an unforeseen complication: the Fuhrer comes onto the radio saying "Hi guys, I'm not dead. My, my, some people have been naughty."(In FMA, it's because Bradley is Wrath and in real life they didn't use a big enough bomb). Of course, throw alchemy, homunculi, and the Briggs Bears into the mix and the game changes entirely.
• Mrs. Bradely slapped her husband the first time they met. He promptly started hitting on her. Given that he's Wrath this makes so much sense.
• Fridge Brilliance: When Al is punched in the side by Number 66, he falls to his knees as if winded. Later, we learn that his metal body is connected to his physical body beyond the Gate, so it probably felt the attack, and responded appropriately, making this a case of foreshadowing as well.
• Fridge Brilliance: In Brotherhood, Father's voice seems incredibly strained like he's struggling to say or pronounce certain words. Then he takes off his "skin", which has his talking become much more fluent, because the body is holding him back.
• Fridge Brilliance / Fridge Horror: Dr. Marcoh refers to the Philosopher's Stone as "the Devil's research", and anyone with a conscience who at first wants to use it but then actually discovers what needs to be done to create one quickly goes through Heroic BSOD and agrees with him. This seems like it's just a commentary on how evil it is to wipe out large swaths of people for a powerful artifact. But consider these three things: the fact that the cost of the stone is specifically taking people's SOULS, the fact that anyone who would go ahead and do this anyway is probably the kind of person that would be described as having no soul, and the obvious Lucifer-analogue that is the Big Bad of the series and the driving force behind the creation of the likely very first Philosopher's Stones, and it should hit you at some point. The true underlying reason why the Stone is called the Devil's research is a clear Lampshade Hanging on Father being the Satan-analogue, and the reason most people know about the Stone first and then have to look around to learn the price for making one is by design because the Stone is used as a tool to draw people into Father's personal Illuminati.
  • Makes even more sense when you realize the Homunculi were the ones giving Marcoh's research team their marching orders to create the stones they did, so he would probably know this.
    • Makes even more sense than that if you take into account that the first one to actually know how to make a Philosopher's Stone was a homunculus, a creature often described in the series as an empty shell or a soulless body.
• Fridge Brilliance: Kimblee's motives for screwing over Pride and helping Ed. It wasn't a Heel Face Turn or a last ditch effort at revenge. No, it was actually true to Kimblee's moral code. He made it clear when he earlier tried to recruit Ed to help him hunt Scar that the reason why he sided with the Homonculi was to egg on the war between them and the humans. He wanted to see which species was truly superior. By Pride deciding to attempt to take a human container, he ironically answered Kimblee's question.
• Fridge Brilliance: In Brotherhood, Pride, being the most powerful homunculus, has powers of all the other homonculi:
  • His shadows can pierce anything (Lust/Wrath).
  • He can eat things much larger than his entire body (Gluttony).
  • He can hide inconspicuously amongst the public (Envy, although Pride is much more limited in this regard).
  • He can lift heavy objects with no effort, as seen when lifting Al (Sloth)
  • The only homunculus he doesn't share a skill with is Greed, who is the only one to abandon Father. Pride would not dare to relate to anyone as insolent as that now, would he? -Mogotoo
    • The above makes sense, but at least visually, Pride's shadows, Lust's spears, and Greed's armor seem to be made out of similar "indestructinium".
    • Moreover, if you watch when Heinkel is trying to kill him, even though his clothes are repeatedly torn by lion's claws, he never once bleeds. Heinkel was explicitly not holding back. Pride has Greed's Ultimate Shield on constantly, without ever looking less than human. --Lady Sandry
• Fridge Brilliance: In episode 61 of Brotherhood, Pride attempts to take over Ed's body to replace his own, which is slowly crumbling. Given that he thinks rather lowly of humans, this seems rather unhonourable for someone named Pride, and it is. But that's the thing; he represents the sin of pride, not the virtue. -Mogotoo
  • I thought that was kind of obvious, personally, since the other Homunculus were named after the Seven Deadly Sins. Hohenheim even points this out to Pride himself when they first meet, knowing that he and the others came from the darkness of Father.
• If Ed supplies Al's body with nutrition, which is why he sleeps so often, it begs the question, "Why does Al still look so weak when he comes back from the other side?" Other than the obvious reasons. Ed still has plenty of physical strength and appears healthy, so maybe he just received most of the benefits. But look at Al once he returns to his body and can barely walk without Ed's help or the use of crutches. Are his muscles unused and thus lacking in strength? Are his bones weak and brittle? ... Maybe Winry was right. Maybe Ed should have drank his milk.
• Come to think of it, since Ed is constantly supplying Al's body with requirements for survival... Do we ever see Ed fight in peak condition?
• When you first meet Selim for the first time pay attention to the conversation he has with Ed and Al, about how he calls Xing's alchemy the alchemy of a inferior country and how he wants to be useful to his father. This isn't anything out of the ordinary seeing how he is the son of the Furer and would be taught this mindset. However later it makes sense when you think about it when he is revealed to be Pride: of course he would call another country's alchemy inferior as Amestris was founded by Father by using their own alchemy fitting with the pride theme, and being useful to his father, not the country, not Bradley, but Father.
• During the hilarious scene where Ed and co. walk in on Winry changing and chaos follows, throughout the scene, part of the chaos is provided by Den constantly barking in the background. Note that the whole time, Greed is holding onto Den, which is probably why the dog is barking- animals go crazy when in the presence of homunculi.
• The Amestrian flag has a chimera on it- talk about hiding in plain sight.
• From the first episode of Brotherhood, Isaac McDougal brought about some very deep foreshadowing, especially with the phrase "Do you know what shape this country is in?!" About a dozen episode later into the anime, we find that Amestris isn't as what we originally believed, especially being the main base of operations for Father, his homunculi, and his soldiers that are devoted to his twisted cause, and we were assumed he meant that. THEN Ed pieces together all the outbreaks that happened over the years of the country's following with help of Valman listing them, and when he connected the dots... it showed the pattern of a transmutation circle. All within the round country. Ed realizes this in-universe too when he flashes back to what McDougal was ranting about.
• Fridge Brilliance from Brotherhood: Remember Selim's essay? The one he read to his mom and Bradley about how much he loved his dad? Cross that with his actions in chapter 106 (especially when Ed points out that Father doesn't care for his well-being) and it's entirely plausible that his essay about his wonderful Dad was actually about his Father.
• Why did King Bradley loose the ability to regenerate when he was turned into a Homunculus, and Ling didn't? Because Ling didn't really "fight back".
• Ed and Al have a lot in common with Scar and his brother. Ed sacrificed his right arm to bring his brother back. Scar's older brother sacrificed his right arm to save Scar.
• Fridge Brilliance: During a recent binge of FMA’s first series, I noticed that Dante and Edward’s relationship is far deeper than it seems to be, and that Dante is one hell of a Shadow Archetype to Edward. I noticed this on several levels:
  • Firstly, both Dante and Edward had an opportunity to restore a loved one using the Philosopher’s Stone. Edward, after learning the true nature of the stone, refused to sacrifice society’s undesireables (convicted criminals) to restore his brother, even though he was clearly tempted. He, like Alphonse, decides that they don’t want to be restored if a single person needs to die. Dante, like Edward, sacrificed undesireables (persecuted “witches” and those dying of the plague, who were more innocent than the criminals), but she didn’t hesitate for a moment. When Hohenheim nearly died as a result of the transmutation, she also didn’t hesitate to sacrifice their butler to restore her loved one to a new body, showing that she came to the opposite conclusion.
  • Continuing from the first point, Dante shows what Edward could have become if he had compromised his morals for Alphonse. Both Edward and Dante are exceptionally gifted alchemists, but Dante, unlike Edward, allowed her natural talent to feed her ego. Edward connects with non-alchemists like Winry and develops meaningful relationships with the less gifted. Dante, on the other hand, separates herself from the rest of humanity. As Izumi pointed out, she looks down on the masses from her hilltop, seeing them as nothing more than “petty, egotistical things” who didn’t deserve her help. Dante’s Grand Theft Me plot is a twisted reflection of Ed and Al’s journey to restore themselves: if tens of millions of lives need to be sacrificed so she can live for another year, so be it. Contrast this with Edward, who frequently uses his alchemy to help others. If Edward didn’t have Winry, Alphonse, and Izumi to keep him in check, he could have easily gone down this route.
  • Both Edward and Dante demonstrate atheistic beliefs, but their convictions lead them to different conclusions about reality. Edward is clearly suspicious of gods and religion, but believes in a meaningful world governed by Equivalent Exchange. He has a strong appreciation for human life. Dante, however, believes the world is innately meaningless. She demonstrates a clear disdain for humanity, which is reflected through her belief that her homunculi should be purged of human emotions. Edward’s beliefs make him a humanist, while Dante’s lead her down the path of nihilism.
  • Dante and Edward are forced to see the valid points in each other’s philosophies at the end of the series, and Dante is defeated because, unlike Edward, she fails to re-evaluate her beliefs. Edward accepts that the principle of Equivalent Exchange is flawed, but sticks to his humanist principles and doesn’t embrace Dante’s doctrine of a “beautifully chaotic world.” Dante’s moment of clarity is much more sutble than Edward’s – when Gluttony comes in and breaks down over Lust’s death, she stares at him for a moment and looks visibly uncomfortable. In this brief moment, she sees the strength of humanity and realizes that people may have dignity after all. Instead of changing her beliefs like Edward, however, she remains closed-minded and purges Gluttony of his humanity. What she doesn’t realize is that his humanity allowed Gluttony to fear and respect her, and without that, Dante becomes just another meal to him.
  • Ultimately, Fullmetal Alchemist focuses on Edward and Alphonse’s coming of age. They’re thrust into an ugly world, but instead of abandoning their principles and becoming like Dante, they find a middle ground. They realize their philosophy on life isn’t perfect and there’s always room for growth. In a story where growing up is the central theme, Dante is the ideal antagonist because she flat-out refuses to grow and learn from the world around her.
• In the first anime, Shou Tucker is a Shadow Archetype to Ed as well. Like Ed, he is a gifted "scientist" who falls victim to hubris and breaks a grave taboo out of a combination of desperation and - as Ed absolutely flips out when this is pointed out to him - curiosity. Like Ed, his recklessness ruins his life, robs him of his only family and leaves him horribly deformed. And like Ed, he regrets his choice and becomes utterly obsessed with trying to undo it, seeking the Philosopher's Stone to this end. He's Ed's twisted shadow all along. Like Dante, the ultimate difference between them is Ed's moral inclination that ultimately inspires him to abandon his arrogance and self-centeredness and change his ways.
• The first series really does not get enough credit for how drastically - and subtly - Ed matures over the course of the story. Between the snarky, arrogant boy in the first episodes and the composed, selfless young man by the end of The Movie, there is a painstakingly gradual and vast transformation that can be traced down to individual turning points over the course of literally the entire series. It's really one of the most impressive instances of character development in anime, and describing it in detail would take up an entire essay's worth of material (perhaps to be filled in here at a later time).
• Did nobody else find it brilliant that Father narrates Brotherhood?

Fridge Horror

• Fridge Horror: In Episode 1, the ice alchemist is trying to kill Bradley for what he did to Ishval. He's trying to protect the world from him. When we learn about the conspiracy and the homunculi, his actions suddenly make perfect sense.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, the cycloptic flesh golems which eat people are pretty gruesome, but if you take a good look you will notice that they have all flat teeth. Ow.
  • In the first anime, alchemy is fueled by the souls of the dead from our world. That means every bit of lazy, trivial alchemy Ed does during the series is using up souls of the dead. Repairing that radio? Fixing a toy horse? Repeatedly repairing his coat? Dead people. Worst is that people kept using alchemy after the fact was stated. This explains why Izumi says to only use alchemy if you need it, not if you can fix it without using it. She knew all along.
    • Also, let's think about what time period it was in our world while Ed and Al were on their journey. That's right - shortly before and during WWI. It is heavily implied that the victims of the war fuel alchemy.
      • Even worse, the Spanish flu pandemic that followed the war killed at least another 50 million people. It's almost as if the war wasn't enough and something else had to balance the books for the sake of alchemy.
  • The chimeras are regular animals alchemically combined. Some chimeras talk. A talking chimera indicates one of the 'animals' used to make the chimera was a human.
  • What Tucker did gets even worse when you realize it was not only completely avoidable, it was pointless. The military had already made talking chimeras, better talking chimeras, that were in fact basically still the human but with animal form and enhanced instincts. Nina only suffered because the military didn't trust Tucker enough to get him involved.
  • Also, it is implied that the souls inside the Philosopher's Stone suffer from incredible pain; this is worse once you consider that the souls inside of Father and Hohenheim have been Philosopher's Stones for more than 400 years.
  • It is shown in the manga and in the second anime that Marco has found a way to destroy the Philosopher's Stone and that one's soul could act as a stone as is shown later; that means he would be able to destroy your soul.
  • Since Father was made of Hohenheim's blood, that Ed and Al are related to the homunculi, since the homunculi are parts of Father. The horror fades, though, when you imagine them having a family reunion, and since Ed, Al and Father are of the same generation, that means Ed and Al are the homunculi's UNCLES! One of the bonus comics acknowledges this. The Homunculi ask their uncles for money.
  • At one moment, Lust and Greed have a kind of flirtatious (in a threatening way) conversation. If you think about it, that's an odd combination of Brother-Sister Incest and Selfcest.
  • Episode 48's second commercial card depicts Gluttony looking panicked. At first you might think it references the fact that he has just been getting his chubby butt handed to him by Lan Fan, then about five minutes later Pride, his older brother, devours him. May also double as Fridge Brilliance.
• Why are there so many people in Rush Valley with Mechanical limbs? Are they all accident prone or do they chop off limbs to get automail?
• So Hohenheim has about 536,329 souls in his body (not including his own, obviously), that are all conscious and fairly aware of what's going on around Hohenheim, meaning they probably see and hear most if not all of what he hears, so there's a good chance that 500,000+ people were there in his head, even during intimate moments with Trisha. Of all the things in the universe that I would want 500,000+ people to see, THAT is not one of them.
  • Also bathing and changing clothes with that many people in your head might have been a bit weird... no wonder Hohenheim is such a Cloudcuckoolander.
• A small one for shippers. Ling mentions that the Emperor has 50 wives and that they bear all his children. At the end, when Ling becomes Emperor, he gets 50 wives and none of them are Lan Fan.
• Trisha died of an illness which would appear to be nobody's fault, and it isn't anyone's really, but... Hohenheim's got awesome enough medical alchemy even to cure Izumi Curtis' Incurable Cough of Death. He could totally have saved her. That's got to hurt even against the background of massive, massive Survivor Guilt he already had!
  • Except for the fact that Izumi's cough is caused is caused by losing a vast section of her intestinal tract from her attempt at human transmutation and Trisha's illness seems to be of unknown origin.

Fridge Logic

• If Father's grand plan is to consume all the souls of Amestris in preparation for... um...wrenching open the sky and eating God, then why did he bother creating the puppet army? It doesn't seem to factor into his strategy at all.
  • They're still useful for using against the countries he didn't eat yet.
    • That and like the Xerxes array, the points on the Amestrisian array need a lot of bloodshed to set it up. What better thing to use for massacres than a fully-equipped army?
    • It could also be seen as another way to convince the higher-ups into the plan. There's an entire army of undead, mindless soldiers that will (supposedly) obey your every command and never attempt to steal your position; what more could a corrupt officer want next to immortality? Job security and more power.
• In episode 26 both Ling and Ed go through the Gate and come out the other side with their clothes on. While standing in front of the Gate, Ed has all his clothes. So why, in episode two, did Alphonse leave his clothes behind?
  • Truth-kun is actually a nudist?
  • In all seriousness, I think this is because Ed paid their toll for going through the gate with Envy's philosopher's stone. In episode 2 Al's body was his toll.
  • When Al's whole body was taken, he left his clothes on the ground as symbolism, so he wouldn't have spontaneously generated clothes.
• In the last two chapters of the manga when Ed gets his arm back and it's just as strong as his other arm, but when Al gets his whole body back it's really weak.
  • Actually it isn't; the arm is shown to be less muscular, and while Ed fights with his right arm just as well, he delivered his most powerful attacks with his left. Consistently.
  • Ed's a lefty. He always was. watch the scene from the exam episode. He mentions that his wrist hurts from all the writing, and is rubbing his left arm.
    • It's very possible that Ed is a natural lefty in the first anime (from which that scene comes, and, if I remember correctly, is already after the transmutation), not in the manga. Proof; in the last panel, Ed is writing out the formula with his right hand. https://web.archive.org/web/20090417183226/http://www.mangafox.com/manga/fullmetal_alchemist/v006/c023/18.html
    • Ed is a natural righty in both anime series and the manga. (Just watch Episode 3 of the 2003 series, and Episode 2 of Brotherhood, where there are multiple examples of young Ed drawing/writing/using a knife right-handed.) This would explain why his left wrist is tired after taking the exam (it takes more effort to use it because it is not natural to him). It also explains why Mustang is always complaining about how illegible Ed's handwritten reports are--Ed is either having to use his non-dominant (left) hand, or he doesn't have fine motor control of the automail on his dominant (right) side.
• Kimblee's last-second betrayal of Pride for trying to take Edward's body as a host. While the given explanation is that he's disgusted by Pride's hypocrisy, why did he think nothing of it any time before, since Pride's host is still a human body? He just decided randomly to at first ignore it and then, witnessing the act, act out against Pride? Of course, this is Kimblee, so he might just have done it outright For the Evulz.
  • Most likely he was unaware that Pride was using a human host rather than being his natural body shape. After all, most homunculi are at least vaguely humanoid in their natural forms.
  • Also, we still don't know how human Pride's body was, or if it was just a container created by Father. It disintegrated after all, which normal people (including Homunculi hosts like Bradley) don't do.
  • It's made pretty clear that Wrath was Father's first attempt at making a human-based homunculus. Pride's container was artificial just like the bodies of the other homunculi that were engineered before King Bradley. What isn't clear is how similar was Pride's "container" to the bodies of his siblings? The others say that aside from their philosopher's stone core, their bodies are made nearly identical to the bodies of human beings. Yet Pride doesn't bleed and it seems that he's hollow on the inside, judging from how he looked when he was breaking apart.
• Fridge Logic from the first anime series. It was established that the gate leads to our world and that Ed lost his limbs from the freaky black children in the gate, but this troper can't figure out WHERE DID AL'S BODY GO?
• Fridge Logic in the first series, it was revealed that failed human transmutations create humunculi. Ed and Al almost kill themselves making one, Scar's brother almost kills himself making another, Izumi almost kills herself making another. How did Dante survive making the other four?
  • Well, obviously you are forgetting Envy is Hohenheim's. But here's an interesting thought. Gluttony is comically grotesque and misshapen. A complete {Gonk}. Could this be because he personified this sin in real life, and was as mentally disabled? Could a loved one have seen him dying due to his weight and attempted to resuscitate him before he fully expired? All other homunculi appear normal, so what could be the reason he looks so strange? Perhaps he wasn't really dead at the time but someone attempted a full-on human transmutation anyway. Evidence supporting this idea could be his unerring child-like love of Lust. It seems a lot like Wrath and Sloth doesn't it? Lust is his Replacement Goldfish for whomever his humanity left behind. However he is far more infatuated than a simple child/mother relationship. He wants her as a friend, mother, possibly even lover. He is GLUTTONOUS for LUST. And Pride? He embodies the sin of Pride because he TRANSMUTED HIMSELF. I believe it was mentioned somewhere he was Dante's 'first,' she may have convinced him he could gain immortality this way, same as her, playing upon his PRIDE. Furthermore King being his first 'name' could be another hint as well as his regal bearing. It isn't just a pun! Greed is a bit iffy but based upon his nakama, perhaps he was a Robin Hood-esque thief who 'died too soon' and one of his number was an experienced alchemist, then attempted to bring him back. How did he die? Probably from keeping more than he was giving away, leading to a deadly betrayal, followed by a remorseful transmutation.
  • Actually I was asking why she didn't get all of her limbs/body parts torn out by creating them.
    • Either she did lose some part of herself, and just "jumped" to a different body, or Hohenheim performed the transmutation.
• When Ed regained his arm, the socket of his automail was still there. Shouldn't the socket have prevented the fleshy arm from regrowing or something? Why does it basically disappear?
  • The arm didn't regrow, it sprung into existence fully-formed where it should have been. As I recall, Ed still has chunks of the automail socket embedded in his shoulder during that scene, which probably hurt like hell and would have had to have been surgically or alchemically removed after the battle.
• During Chapter 21 of the manga, on the train ride to Dublith, Sig and Izumi talk about why she accepted the Elrics as apprentices. Then Sig states that there's no room for them, to which Izumi replies that it's not needed yet. The reason Izumi deserts the boys on Yock Island for a month was not only to train their minds and bodies, but also to give her time to make room for them, because she could innately tell that they would succeed in figuring out her riddle.