Ani-Me #28: FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD & The Solace of a Teenage Heart (Patreon)

While writing the Ani-Me series I’ve felt a certain sense of added responsibility, one that perhaps goes beyond the normal duties of essay writing. That’s because I am journeying into a world that many of you are deeply familiar with. These are works that you love, that are often a part of your coming of age, and maybe even your legacy. As such, I never want to waltz in and be like dum dee dum dum, oh, what’s this? Huh! I don’t get it! Whatevs!! *FART NOISE* No, I want to be careful, thoughtful, and above all else, curious. Because that very curiosity has exposed me to so, so, so many great works so far. And I think it is particularly true right now because when I finished FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood I felt the weight of all that perhaps more than any other project I’ve watched before. Usually I dive right in after watch, my thoughts aflame with purpose… but instead I sat around for weeks thinking before even writing a word. All because I knew my reaction to the show was complex.

And it is going to be part of an ongoing process.

Because I’m not only going to need your input, I’ve already begun a process, too. To illustrate, I did something I don’t often do, which is dive into existing criticism online. I usually avoid this completely because I want to keep it as close to a 1:1 dialogue with the text itself, not the cultural dialogue surrounding it. But the problem is that I genuinely couldn’t find anything that really hit on the pacing and thematic issues I was wrestling with. Maybe it’s just that google’s become a hell-site for actually looking things up that have a more academic bent? But it seemed like every analytical piece or video essay or message board I encountered was all about comparison. As in whether or not they liked the 2003 series or the manga better. Everything felt like it was an argument about translation or debate about how much “time was spent” on a given storyline (we’ll come back to this). And any of the thematic readings were largely surface-level stuff along the lines of “the themes are the seven deadly sins… end of thought.” I’m only slightly exaggerating, and I have to imagine there’s great stuff out there, but it’s just I could not find a criticism that went deep into something that gave me an alternative reading on what I was wrestling with. I was even asking Landon about the lack of that kind of thing for Brotherhood and he laughed and said, “welcome to the unfortunate state of a lot of anime criticism.” Which is honestly something I can’t speak to. I just don’t know enough about it. But I suppose this all brings us back to the mission statement of this whole column series. Which is to take the silly things I’ve been doing for over a decade (talking about semiotics and storytelling) and try to apply them to the arena of cinema that 1) you adore and 2) I have the least experience with, but 3) mostly results in *me* learning a lot in the process.

Again, it’s been a joy. Like I can’t remember the last time I felt this excited about an ongoing critical project. And I hope that it’s been a successful one in terms of really honoring and upholding so much great work. For example, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a show that is daring, terrifying, and full of deeply-thoughtful examinations of depression and existential thought. Likewise, I discovered Hosoda’s work through the unhinged glee of Summer Wars, which helped turn him into one of my favorite directors, full-stop. And I watched the gut-wrenching noir trappings of Cowboy Bebop come alive in the last arc of the series. Heck, there’s so many works I’ve come to adore, from Only Yesterday, to A Place Further Than The Universe, to FLCL, and so much more. And in all that while, one of the shows that you’ve been asking me to watch from minute one is FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It felt such a critical staple for many of you and, as such, felt important to cover. Even at 64 episodes, I knew I would have to dig into it properly and do it justice. And now, here at the end, after so much note-taking and digging…

I don’t know if I can do what you want? At least not in the way that you may want? Because I’m honestly having trouble with my complicated read on it. So, essentially, I need your help in understanding the divide of my reaction. And more importantly, I need for you to probably take that opinion apart and allow me to understand yours in turn. Because I genuinely feel like I’m missing something there… But I’ll do my best to explain.

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So now then, a little over halfway through the series I wrote a big breakdown of how the watch was going and to summarize those thoughts quickly: I thought the first 13 or so episodes were capital G Great. There was so much thoughtful table setting and getting to understand the central characters, along with shocking moments that really punctuated the stories within stories (like Nina and Mae Hughes). But pretty soon after I started to feel the strains of the “the endless fight scene,” where so much of the plot was just characters running from location to location, always being chased, and not really any nestled stories within stories anymore. It was like they were all pieces on a big board, feeling like they were getting arranged in a game of magnetball, which greatly lessened the show’s dramatic effect on me. Even though I got to Fort Briggs and the new Major Armstrong provided a desperately needed injection of new energy, I was hoping things would start clicking back into the bigger story. And on the theme front, they presented a lot of likable, flawed characters, but I was a little concerned that the rebellious teenage streak I saw within it would not really get addressed in a way that felt like meaningful growth or analysis…

So what do I think of what came after? And the show on the whole?

To be honest, it was a lot more of the same exact problems? The “endless fight scene” dynamic just got even more pronounced. After the cool cosmic stuff of the first 15 episodes, I falsely expected some cosmic finale in the vein of Evangelion, but really there were just moments that had great little touches of that stuff (which I really liked, don’t get me wrong). But really the final battle was just like 10 straight episodes of fighting without much that really divides them up in my mind. However, to its credit, the last two episodes of resolution in FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are genuinely nice-feeling. Which is perhaps a testament to the show’s good characterization, which was always the strongest element. Put simply: I like these people. I like seeing them have relief. I like seeing Scar rebuild. I like seeing Mustang be humbled. I like seeing Alphonse sacrifice himself to give back Elric’s arm, but most of all, I like seeing Alphonse back and alive. I like seeing Winry tackle-hug them. It is an undeniable joy to see these characters have a well-earned sense of peace (though I’d argue there could have been MORE moments of that peace along the way, it could have even helped give us ammo for the final bits of catharsis). But so much of my concern is about the path in getting to that sense of peace, along with the specificity of what it’s saying in all of these ending moments. Keep in mind, I really don’t want to frame any of this as “stuff that is wrong,” I’m just trying to say that these are the things I bumped against. Of which, I’m going to divide them into two parts. The first part will be “plotting and drama” and the second part will be “theme and meaning.”

And I’ll be going to go subject by subject.

PART I - PLOT AND DRAMA

On “Battle Shōnen” - I’m pretty sure I had heard this phrase before in my life, but when Landon re-mentioned it as I was watching the last 2/3 of this show, it really helped click as to what it means. Because, you know, the battling is pretty dang omni-present. Which leads to a tough place for me because I think what I want out of it is largely antithetical to what the audience wants? I’m like “oh no, the entire thing is nothing but fighting!” But I imagine some of the audience is like “Fuck yeah, the entire thing is nothing but fighting!” I smile as I write this because, well, it’s a funny dynamic. And the thing I really want to emphasize is that I love fighting. And I find so much of the animation to be cool as hell in this show. But the thing I’m actually bouncing off is the methodology and dramatic tricks it uses in creating these fights. For comparison, a show like Avatar: The Last Airbender knew when to get small and big with its action theatrics and keep them so aligned to the goals of the characters. They felt like punctuation marks in stories that were so character-driven. Same goes for the ending angel battles of Evangelion, or even the fun and games of Cowboy Bebop. But I know this is a slightly dynamic, more in line with “constant fighting” of shows I’ve bumped up against before like Dragonball Z. The fighting feels like extensions of character, but not quite explorations. But even with the work of something like Lone Wolf and Cub, the constant fighting feels like little short stories of wit and how to outsmart opponents. But in Brotherhood? Honestly, episodes all run together in my head and I bounce off a constant difference when it comes to…

Dramatic Methodology - So one of the hard things about this show is how much it uses the tactic of “retroactive explanation” in moments of dramatic exchange. You know, it’s the moment in a story where a character suddenly does something surprising and then justifies it by saying, “see, I was able to do this because [explanation]… ” and sometimes it’s even done with a flashback. If you’ve watched Brotherhood, you probably know what I’m talking about. But this trope is hard for me because it’s one that is often antithetical to my frequent conversations about drama. Because drama is based on the notion of set-ups and payoffs. The idea being that you layer something in that people don’t even realize is a set-up and then pay it off with beautiful acumen in the action itself. Better yet, the set-up is precisely what allows for tension. Because when you understand the conflict and imminent danger, you get to lean in with anticipation and dread what will happen next. As for surprises? Well, they’re meant to be these great little great moments that throw off the balance. That helps keep the audience on edge. That stops complacency. But they have to be used sparingly and with great purpose. They have to be part of a secret set-up that makes us go “oh, of course!” Not “whoa, what the heck?” Because when surprise is just constant? It utterly removes the fun effect of said surprise. It constantly puts the audience on their heels. Which is why it necessitates the use of constant retroactive explanation, which is “logical” but often dramatically boring, precisely because it stops the momentum in the moment itself.

But Brotherhood uses the device constantly, often multiple times in an episode. As a result, it’s always on its own heels. Always playing catch-up with itself. As if it’s constantly trying to outsmart itself in a game that that audience can’t even play alongside them. We must wait. We must be told what’s really happening. We must defer to the action. There’s no leaning in. Only absorbing and trusting it at its word as it runs away with its constant tease. For me, the cumulative effect of this numbing. As the old adage goes, if everything is a fight, then nothing is a fight. Which means that a lot of these episodes felt like one long hum. And no matter how much the compelling cinematics leaned into the intensity or the violence, I constantly asked myself, “what’s actually distinct about this moment? How many times is Gluttony or Envy or another going to “die” before coming back?” Nothing ever felt final, or part of a larger story, or point, just all part of the dance of hiding the REAL endgame story from the audience, while doling out the familiar cryptic teases. All the advantages characters got in these fights felt so damn ethereal. And the “therefore / buts” never felt like a crucial part of the story, just what allowed for this constant stream of “and then” as the story goes on.

As always, my question is “why?”

The “More Time” Myth - Before I get into it, I want to tackle a misconception I see again and again and again when talking about characters in storytelling. Because there is this tendency to treat storytelling like it’s simple math where “the more time” you spend with characters, the more emotionally affecting it is. But correlation doesn’t mean cause. Usually, we come to like characters over time because we’re spending long periods of actual, real-life time with them living in our heads. But the real work of great characterization and writing can happen at any length. You likely love those TV characters because they’re well written. Likewise, 90 minute movies can absolutely wreck me. And some scenes can do it in minutes. If you’ve never watched some of the infamous Thai commercials, well, sorry to do this to you but here you go. Talk about whatever you want, this actor’s face has been burned into my brain for nearly a decade and it’s a three minute commercial. The point is it’s not the amount of time spent, it’s how you use it.

And I bring it up because I saw the notion pop up again and again when talking about Brotherhood, specifically the infamous storyline involving Nina and her heartbreaking Chimera-ing with the family dog. For me, who knew absolutely nothing about this story? It was a devastating episode that moved at the exact right clip. It’s perfect sequencing. A contained episode that start-to-end told a complete, haunting story. But the criticism I saw again and again, whether informed by the manga or the 2003 series, was “NO. IT NEEDED MORE TIME” because they’re recounting their previous experience. And I don’t know what to say, really? Because I don’t know how much the feeling may have to do with encountering one of those pieces before the other, but so unanimous was the belief that I actually felt compelled to go back and watch those Nina episodes of the 2003 series to see what I was missing. But my feelings hit in the exact opposite way. I was looking for something that showed a greater depth or dramatic coherence, but it was largely the same treatment, just with some beats repeated. And knowing what’s coming, it actually feels more belabored, whereas Brotherhood’s containing it all in episode allows for no escape once the feeling of dread starts seeping in before the sudden, shocking turn. But maybe it’s relative.

The real point is that we have to alleviate ourselves from the “more time” belief because it gets to the essential truth that I liked all these characters less by the end of the show than I did after the first 15 episodes. If anything, I actually feel like I lost “time” with them because there was so much action and so little actual “hanging out” as people love to say. And sure, we’d get brief moments like Alphonse helping to grab lumber, but you feel the real inability to nestle stories within stories. Gone were the episodes of meeting someone from the past, or having Alphonse or Elric learn a lesson on an island. Instead, the plot is just always running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But worst of all? It knew where it wanted to go for the ending, it just had to spin its wheels for as much time as it could before getting there. And why is that? Well…

Two Wrinkles - So before I get to the next criticism I want to first acknowledge that Brotherhood is a work of adaptation. And in any adaptation, there are people who love the original work and want it to be reflected in the new medium as faithfully as possible, often down to word, image, and beat. Does this allow for an understanding of how mediums have different story requirements / advantages / disadvantages? No, but I can’t really fight that instinct in people. I just know that in their core, what they really want is to have the project make them feel the same way the original did, they’re often just getting too literal about the “how.” At the same time, this comes with the understanding that you also have to make your adaptation work for people who have absolutely no idea what the property is (people like me). Pleasing both audiences is no easy feat, but it’s also the core goal of adaptation. Quite frankly, it’s THE JOB.

And the second wrinkle of this conversation is that I understand that manga / shows operate under the constraints of capitalism and demand. When something becomes popular and successful? Hoo boy, you better be ready for the system that is going to want it to go on forever and milk the project dry. Because “there’s always more show” as is said in BoJack Horseman. Now, I don’t understand how this impacted the FullMetal Alchemist sagas in the specifics (though I imagine you do know), I just know it probably impacted in the process. And I accept that. But in looking at this final result here? There are things that I think really need to be addressed in order to make the promise of those first 15 episodes really deliver on the backend. So while I have a real human understanding for the complex adaptation situations they found themselves in having to make a really long show, I’d also argue that’s precisely when the following skill-set becomes CRITICAL…

Determining How “Much” Story Exists - Eyeballing story one of the hardest things to do in writing... It’s also probably the most important. Because it’s what allows you to use your time as well as possible. To not fall into the traps and cliffhangers and delays that come with treading water. It keeps you focused. And it makes me think about how shows like The Wire entered final negotiations for the last season and could tell them how much they genuinely need down to the minute. You have to understand how to get from point A to point B and keep the story actually moving, with changing arcs and character development and all that good stuff. Last column I talked about how we essentially got to our “endgame” in the first 15 episodes where they finally meet “father,” but then dreaded how they immediately went into a devil’s bargain of delay. One which kept the show going on ad nauseam, all Elric and company could do was return back to fight.

In all that time, when I think about what was accomplished for all the characters we already established? Well, If I’m eyeballing how much story we actually have, we could have gotten to the same exact ending with probably another 3 episodes in between. This is not an exaggeration. I’m looking at what things were critical to set-up and pay-off and how little was established in between. Even emotionally. To wit, I think it’s telling that when they got to the moments of the finale where they were invoking the losses along the way, everything they referenced was from the first 15 episodes, like Nina and Hughes, etc. But even when you account for the gaining of additional characters like Major Armstrong and the Fort Briggs folks? I’d say another 13 episodes would get you there with PLENTY of time… But instead there’s another 50 episodes.

As such, the show was really, really hard for me to reckon with while watching. Just every time I saw them wheel spinning, it felt like a grinding action. Perhaps I’m just not built for it. Particularly because I can’t turn the “story math” part of my brain off when watching literally anything. It’s my job and a natural part of how I watch stuff. And since I was grinding on that so hard, I had to meet the material on its own terms. Which meant I essentially had to “let go” and sometimes put on the dub and kind of let my mind go blank, or else the dramatic evasiveness and repetition would drive me nuts. I had to just let the show wash over me… And there’s some deep, fearful part of me that worries that this is the way the show wants to be watched. Like, there’s a kind of surrender where the glorious stylization can just hypnotize you as you wait patiently on your heels. But I don’t think that’s fair, entirely. I just wish that if they knew they had 64 episodes, they found the ways to storify so much that we saw within the first 15 episodes. I wish they gave it the same sense of intelligence and treatment of character they showed there. I wish they helped it feel less like an endless shell game and more like a pointed game of clear story intentions. But to pull that off, you have to have clarity of intention. And that’s where we come to…

The Lack of Pay-Off Specificity - To reiterate, there is a lot of emotional resolution in this show that I felt quite nice. But as I said above, drama is about setups and payoffs. And they require a kind of specificity that helps things go from merely “feeling nice” to meaningful dramatic catharsis. There are so many stories that exemplify this. From Citizen Kane’s reveal of Rosebud, to Rick’s sudden act of selflessness in Casablanca, to the modern Pixar pay-offs like the final song in Coco. Even for long running shows, Breaking Bad gives us the much needed reversal of the “I did it for my family” mantra that plagued his dark journey. There’s a specificity to these moments that show the grand purpose of it all. And as I watched Brotherhood for months and became invested, I was finally looking for the pay-offs for that which had clearly been set-up. For example, one of the most effective things in the series was the episode where we learn all about Alphonse’s horrible sleepless nights. I was DESTROYED by this insight. I thought about it every time I looked at him or heard his sad voice. And in the back of my mind, I just knew the catharsis lay in store. I couldn’t wait for the cathartic episode that would finally show him falling asleep and finding that peace and… they don’t do it. Sure, I can assume he slept or whatever in that final time. But they don’t give the moment pay-off, which is ultimately the difference between meaningful catharsis and mere relief.

Likewise, there are these seemingly huge moments of key plot integration that feel like they pass by so quickly. For nearly fifty episodes we’re told Elric is needed and the final reveal that he needs people who’ve “seen the gate of truth” goes by so quickly. Sure, it’s logical - but if I play the logic game I could get tripped on why the dwarf just didn’t expose slaves to light of truth or something and speed it along? Why bring in the one of your blood who can best hurt the homunculi? Look, I’m not going to get tripped up on those logic games, because they don’t matter that much. But I think there’s a reason the show wants to move quickly by it, too. Same goes for how Edward suddenly beat up Dwarf / Father after so many others are stopped by his shield and capacity devastation. For all the pretense, it’s allowed because it's the climax and thus time for Edward to whatever machinations are finally allowed. Even if you feel the swelling emotion of everyone cheering, I’m still asking what really changed here? Especially on a character level? What is this an extension of in terms of growth? We call these things inflection points, but the show has been muddy on these kinds of interactions for a long time now…

Inflection Points and the Goal of Conflict - So moments of dramatic impasse or “inflection points,” are the parts where two characters are in a state of conflict and have to “fight” whether literally or dialogue, to create a new stasis. It’s at the root of every pulpy story, whether it’s a martial arts saga or a legal chamber drama. They are key dramatic hinges where the set-ups hit their pay-offs and then change the conflict itself. But they rely so much on tension and understanding where the line is to make them work. But watching this show? I always felt like I never knew where the line was. I never knew what could actually kill a Homonculus or why one giant flame burst would work and not the hundreds before. Heck, I never even really figured out how the philosopher stones worked, what powers they leant, and how or why they changed much of anything when absorbed. Often because it changed. And the more I tried to understand (by googling and trying to make sense of wiki entries), the more it often slipped away. Characters would even suddenly “become” philosopher stones and it’s never mentioned again, or they’d get in a fight and say: “impossible, how can he move with those injuries?” And I never knew what made those injuries different than any other? I would even totally be fine with this if the choices ended up being metaphors, but even that was cryptic. They just trusted that everything could only become clear through our good old friend, “retroactive explanation.” It forces you to accept what is said instead of believing what you are seeing.

This not only affects the tension, it reveals a weird dramatic intention for the inflection points of the series. Because the chief goal of all these moments in Brotherhood is not actually about impasse or catharsis or change of the character’s status quote, but constant one-ups-manship. Every single big inflection point is a surprise “I’M SECRETLY SMARTER THAN YOU AND HAVE THE ADVANTAGE, AND SECRETLY HAVE BEEN THE WHOLE TIME.” The obvious one being the sudden reveal that Hohenheim had been secretly planning the whole time to nullify the alchemy spell and save everyone’s lives. This should be one of those amazing, climactic reversals, but it’s so hell-bent on the surprise of this that set-up feels like a purposefully obfuscated thing instead of a misdirect. Worse, there were better (and worse) versions of this done so many times beforehand. Again, surprises have to be sparing. And this one leaves that sticky logic question, was this always what was going to happen? I know people love to bring up the Raiders ending of “they were going to open the ark anyway so what’s it matter,” But in that film you’re still WITH the heroes in the journey of that same discovery. It would be weird if Indiana Jones had known the whole time this was going to happen and had been…  planning it I guess? Again, it’s all part of the constant feeling of putting the audience on their heels. It feels like watching an arm wrestling match that oscillates back and forth, but with no actual pins or rounds. But through these declarations of outsmarting, it still creates a constant feeling of “obtaining” the power grab. Which, don’t get me wrong, as an interested viewer it makes you feel cool and powerful in the same vein. But it’s not about the kinds of drama and character weaknesses that normally fuel big story moments, it’s about being “better than.” And this is precisely where the theme stuff starts to come up, but I want to take one last second to highlight the point of me talking about this dramatic stuff…

Okay, So What’s The Big Deal? - I mostly went into all this detail because I like talking about story mechanics themselves. And the truth is that all my criticisms of the storytelling don’t matter that much, especially to some of you. You liked this show. And given the popularity of it, along with so much Battle Shōnen, there is a way that it clearly works. There is zero part of me that denies this. Nor any part of me that begrudges anyone liking it. There is just the part of me that worries about a cumulative effect on the ecosystem of storytelling expectations. Again, I understand the appeal of using a lot of these writing techniques. Retroactive explanations? Being vague with your setups? Settling for relief over catharsis? They exist for every writer because they get you out of jams. But when a property feels like it’s not using them merely out of momentary need, but instead ingraining them into the modus operandi? It feels like it justifies the path of dramatic laziness. It feels like it teaches bad habits. It feels like it teaches a viewer to blindly take a story for what it says it is, versus what it is actually doing. And given how much I throw myself into all this crap, I admit, it’s hard for me to get behind. But I know that it hits me more personally than others. I truly know that. All of this essay so far is just meant to highlight an opposing dramatic approach that I think has value. And more importantly, in the end, I know it’s not the most important thing about storytelling. It more matters what you’re after thematically. What you’re evoking about being human. And what you’re trying to make the audience feel. It’s about how these choices ultimately resonate. And why.

So let’s get into…

PART II - THEME AND MEANING

God Complexes - At the center of FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the ultimate plot-line involving “Father” and his grand designs, which is the closest thing the show comes to putting forth a compelling complex metaphor. To be honest, I don’t know if it’s a wholly cogent one, but it comes close enough to get at some really interesting stuff. But part of the dramatic trouble is that, as a villain, this “Dwarf in a Glass,” is good at representing various forms of malicious will, but kind of too broad for the audience to recognize as a distinct human personality. I mean, there’s an operatic grandness to his villainy, even a purity. But when The Universe questions the Father / Dwarf’s motives, he tells us: “I only wanted to obtain perfection. I wanted this world's knowledge for my own. Why should I be punished for that? What's wrong with craving knowledge? What's wrong with seeking perfection?”

It’s this kind of thing that sounds really nice, but gets muddled when you start trying to put it together, particularly the combination of knowledge and perfection. Namely, I’m trying to get what human instinct it’s actually criticizing? On one side, there’s the Icarus myth at play in his arc, where’s making a worldly pursuit to “fly” and ignores the danger. But perhaps it also overlaps more directly with the Prometheus myth of obtaining knowledge, of which the punishment has always been something that’s a bit confusing. Because why was Prometheus punished anyway? Why did the gods not want humans to have the power of fire? At its most radical reading, the myth evokes a notion of jealousy from the gods on high. Along with a need for humans to be subservient, thankful, and not challenging of their power. Honestly, I feel like it’s a damning characterization of the gods and the nature of power. They might as well be the 1% keeping power to themselves. But the aims of this story when it comes to Father / Dwarf feel radically split between the two. Because what he’s challenging is less a stand in for “power,” and more just the order of the universe. But is the punishment more for the crime of his innate (and mixed up) goal or the for the overreach itself?

To be clear, the portrayal of “the universe” is still the most compelling, electric moment in that last string of episodes. To repeat: I LOVE THE CHARACTERIZATION OF THIS. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. You really feel that sense of fear and wonder as it stands before the Dwarf and calmly pronounces, “I am what you call the world… I am also you.” The visceral emotion of this is undeniable. But then it then starts getting at the Dwarf’s failures, saying “it’s because you didn’t believe in yourself” and then “you yourself haven’t grown” and again, it sounds like the right idea, but I’m having trouble putting it together. There’s a clear sentiment I think it’s aiming for. The Dwarf never longed to change himself from his inhuman trapping, rendering him a jealous object of want. But the problem is twofold in that the story had SO much delay with his grand plan and motivations, that it really had scenes to dramatize this struggle. Secondly, he talks all about wanting to see the world and I get how it relates to that Dwarf stuck in the flask, but I really have trouble connecting it to “father” and the grand plan that’s been in motion? Like wasn’t that character capable of doing just that? The best I can DO in making sense of it is with, you guessed it, more retroactive thoughts.

For which, I will argue the most interesting part of Father / Dwarf’s villainy is how he pursued that sense of holier than thou purity, which is the origin of the creation of the other homunculi (who are more compelling characters anyway). The universe asks plainly: “did you think that by detaching yourself from your seven desires, you would be able to surpass humans?” What I like about this is that it gets us closer to the psychology of real world villainy. Because there’s this idea that in separating himself from the baser notions of humanity, he is inherently better, which is just textbook Nazi / Fascist shit. The fuckers pushed themselves to be viewed as the most civilized, cultured, polite, and demure, all while brushing aside the inhumanity at the core of themselves and doing horrendous things. Everything they did to people didn’t matter because they were “lower status.” Which means their “wrath” existed as a systematic horror outside of themselves, even though they were completely responsible. The whole point is there's no way to really put it outside of yourself. Which is part of why the sins are absolutely the more interesting villains worth examining in their own right…

The Seven Deadly Sins - I’ve been pretty vocal in my love of their various characterizations, but I think the Homunculi represent the show at its most pulpy, fun, and thematically clear. But like most thematic journeys, we don’t get a full picture of how the show truly feels about these “sins” until we witness each Sins’ ending.  Within which, I feel like there’s a range of overall effectiveness and insight. Let’s start at the bottom…

Lust - I didn’t talk much about her last time, but duh, this is all about the power of sexuality, though it’s a pretty classic femme fatale figure aimed at masculinity. Which is why it’s not an accident she gives Big Dom Vibes (and likely why it was an awakening for a WHOLE lot of people, at least from what social media says). But like most femme fatales, the resentment from men comes from the fact that her sexuality has power OVER them. As such, I wanted her arc to have some kind of insightful idea beyond that, but unfortunately her death is not really even about her at all. For Mustang, it’s more an enacted fantasy of subjugating her power and exerting his own. He says plainly and crassly: “you finally got down on your knees” (yikes). Even her rebuttal speaks to a kind of fantasy for him: “it’s a shame, but it doesn’t feel too bad to be killed by a man like you. With honest eyes and no hesitation.” The show’s catharsis is de-powering her and empowering him. And there’s just such a clear resentment and motive here and the whole thing honestly felt gross? Like there was no larger awareness of this dynamic being offered from the narrative, the story itself is just aligned with Mustang and all his anger with her. Which stinks because there are so many more interesting (and less regressive) places it could have gone.

Sloth - I really liked his cadence and the way he spoke, but I’ll admit I don’t really get the decision as to why he’s suddenly fast? Other than how it made the fighting more interesting? But I still got a mild kick out of his parting words of “it’s too much of a drag to think” and “even living is a drag,” because I realized then and there that Sloth is a 90’s slacker icon. All in all, he’s sort of the lightest “sin” in terms of text and ideas, but I still really liked it.

Gluttony - He remains an early favorite for his often terrifying characterization, but his character essentially suffers from having his presence linger on for far too long without any real change. Pride even asks him in the end, “how many times have they killed you?” before deciding to absorb him. In terms of an ending, there is a clear irony of having Gluttony be “eaten,” along with a way of looking at the way sins effectively turn on each other within us, but I still can’t help but have wanted one extra moment of deeper insight with it? I feel like the whole plotline of them being inside the abyss of his stomach was a much better place to end and make a point. Instead, after all that time, it went out with a whimper. Which feels pointed, but a part of too much whimpering in the last chunk of episodes to stand out.

Pride - Last we talked, I loved the reveal of Selim Pride, what with his little adorable face and devilish appetite for murder, but I feel like he ended up getting a little muddied, specifically with the way he overlapped with Envy’s own absorbing power? I think the real problem is that his ultimate demise is a really sweaty and complex exchange that deals with his inner battle with Kimlee in relationship to Edward? Like whatever is interesting about his wanting to take over a human body, or whatever is interesting about his fear just gets side-swiped so fast that I can’t really dig into it (even though I love the Colossus / Ico vibes of him getting turned into a baby). Same goes for Pride’s aftermath and whether or not the nature / nurture is the issue with a Homunculus? Sure, he seems playful and kind, but the show can’t help hovering the threat of “we’ll see” over everything. They had a chance to make a genuine statement, but they couldn’t help but shy away from saying one thing or the other, which is why I keep talking about the muddying of thematic points in this show. There are so many things you can say about pride, particularly the toxic forms of male pride and it just lets so much go by the wayside.

Envy - The death of Envy is the probably the most direct characterization in death that the show offers, but it’s also a loaded one. Because our little tadpole creature is revealed to be in such a hateful relationship with their own pathetic-ness, along with a central “jealousy of humans,” especially after a lifetime of being trampled on and humiliated by them. To which, Edward rubs it plainly, saying what makes humans different is that we have “loved ones always there to pick us back up” and Envy doesn’t have anyone and… well… Okay there’s something it’s trying to get at in the way that feeling low-status can cause us to resent and lash out, which is a familiar characterization that all the “lone wolf” violent homegrown terrorists love to use as a justification for their behavior. But this fails to realize how much Envy and resentment is REALLY about entitlement. Moreover, I was really struck by the complete lack of empathy in how Edward and our heroes deal with this? Like they just echo the same callousness. And it’s something that’s quadrupled down on when Envy kills themselves and the heroes invoke that old tired notion that suicide is cowardice and “he took the easy way out and killed himself” (and there are very few sentiments that make me angry as that one). For all the chastising of Envy’s rabid jealousy, there’s so little display of the “loving humanity” they hold as an alternative. To be clear, I’m NOT saying that Envy is deserving of grace, or forgiveness, or anything else. I’m saying it instead feels like an act of lording over him and relishes in pointing out their patheticness (which is so weird that we’ll come back to this).

Wrath - It’s one of my favorite characterizations of the sins, because it shows how often anger is something bottled up and often hardened into a cold, swift, nihilistic, and merciless behavior that does such horrific damage. It also shows a kind of complex anger that is connected to control issues. To that, I like that at his death, we see Wrath at his most unhinged / lacking in control. At first it may seem odd that this would tie into his relationship with the universe / god, but that’s part of the control issue thing. And there’s a poetic roundness to the idea that he’s undone by “the light of the sun” i.e. the truth of the universe bouncing off his own sword. I mean, I love a good metaphor and even Wrath has to laugh at the idea that “the heavens are not on his side” As he lies there, armless and dying, Lan Fan pokes and prods him for answers. But he dismisses her questions of family as trifling topics, as if invoking the old MacBethian line that life is a tale “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” But then, as he suddenly grays and ages, we finally get to that about face. He says “thanks to you humans, I feel like my life was somewhat worthwhile.” It invokes that notion of a deathbed regret, but I admit I just wanted one last little trigger that helps enforce the why and how of that about face. But overall, I think it’s one of the most pointed depictions of the sins, full of great little thematic things to hold onto. Good job and I wanted more like this!

Greed - So Greed was one of the homunculi that was interesting in that I was initially really digging his relationship with Ling and the idea that there would be some examination of the battling within. But, like a lot of the show, it sort of devolves into the endless back and forth for a while before getting to the endgame. But there’s still a kind of purity to Greed that strikes me as always being true, especially at the end. It’s the way he abandons Ling, then goes against Father / Dwarf by trying to turn him to fragile carbon, but he is then punished by being thrown out of him and “returning to nothing.” Like Wrath, Greed evokes some of the same thoughts about how, now at the end, he will miss them, but it’s specifically the use of a phrase that I think provides a real piece of catharsis. He realizes: “they gave me everything I could want.” Which is a full realization that in his quest of more, more, more, he was actually being given things and sated in those moments. He could just never hold onto the satisfying notion of the now. For that, even though I may have liked other homunculi more, I feel like Greed is the one character whose ending completely functions with dead-aimed purpose.

But the question still remains…

What Does All The Villainy Add Up To? - When watching Evangelion, the exciting thing was how succinctly you could track the extended metaphor through the ending. No matter how abstract, it all felt of a piece. It all lined up with semiotic intent… And it’s harder for me to do with this Brotherhood. For one, it ends up in this weird middle ground of execution where it is at once being very clear about its thematic ideas with certain lines (like the Homunculi mentioned above), yet vague as to how they ultimately incorporate together. It makes for an odd methodology. Because you can be like Evangelion and rely heavily on abstraction OR you can be very direct, but either way you have to nail the coherency. Instead I feel like I was constantly searching for that coherency as the show offered a grab bag of ideas, thoughts, feelings, many of which ended up feeling contradictory, but often not even in a way that’s really examined. Admittedly, some of this is the plotting problems I’ve mentioned because it required that all these bad guys fit into the constant see-saw of action all before the finale. And I feel like it could have been so much more pointed if we had these action arcs with each sin / their death, stories within stories (like Gluttony ending at the abyss moment). But even with the lack of specificity, I still do get a sentiment of what the “sin” plots are really about… Unfortunately, it’s just one that gives me pause.

Yes, I get that these creatures are inhuman evil embodiments of literal sins who do a great, many terrible thing and deserve their fates. This is not an attempt to debate that. But the whole idea of these endings is to strip away the pretense and get at the wounded core beneath those characterizations. To get to the motives, and the “why,” and specifically how to undo the malice behind them and stop the cycle. Because in the end? They’re just metaphors for how and why us real people sin. The story knows this implicitly, so at the center of all these catharsis points should be some notion of empathy. I’m not saying they have to be healed through some Paddington-like dramatization, fuck no. I’m saying that you just have to get that feeling of the heroes’ humane viewpoint. What is it that makes these humans different, other than the literal difference? And what’s weird is how starkly the show goes in the opposite direction. There isn’t even really any pity on display. Instead, it’s like this constant admonishment of the homunculi for being less than them.

To wit, it’s weird how much they bring up projections of jealousy in these deaths. It shows up again and again and again. And please think about every time you hear the phrase ‘you’re just jealous!’ in the real world and what it represents from the person saying it. It’s the most radically defensive, solipsistic, denialist, and lacking in empathy line of thought. Something that puts our own human awesomeness above the inhumanity in question. Even when Pride is fearing that Edward’s going to kill him, Kimlee shouts “then you don’t know Edward Elric!” But there’s no real empathy in that moment. Edward stands proudly with the badassery that feels more akin to “I SAVED YOUR PATHETIC LIFE, LOOK HOW MORAL I AM.” In a similar vein, go back to the dramatic mechanisms of every inflection point and note how much the “I’M SMARTER / MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU” reveals fuel the emotional drive of even the human characters. For all the pretense of them having humanity, for all the demonization of the homunculi seeing us as lower status, it really sees them as lower status in turn. And once you see the seams of that, it all really starts feeling gross. Seriously, go back and look at the “holier than thou” way the human characters behave in all these death scenes. Isn’t the whole point that humanity is inherently flawed? Shouldn’t there be a lack of distinction in who is defining what as “human?” Just what the hell is with this superior streak? And most of all, aren’t these sins just human traits that should get us to reflect on ourselves?

Which brings us two things. The first is the realization that all these explorations of sins are just a one way street with little self reflection back on our human characters. Think of how we don’t really address any of Edward’s own wrath, nor even his god complex. The homunculi should be this radical opportunity for the character to see their own sins, to reflect, to have growth and change come in turn - but instead, their behavior is virtually NO different than the Dwarf in the Flask. They are separating themselves from these lowly sins. And it all feels like the excuse to admonish, to lord jealousy, and placate the ignorance of the self. And gah, it’s so hard because there’s something so youthful and traditionally masculine about the psychology of this. But if I’m going to talk about the traditional gender roles of thought systems, it brings me to a complication that I need help with before I dive into more…

The Hiromu Arakawa of it All - So she is the one who wrote the original manga and I don’t know what to do with this notion. I admit this is largely about ignorance. I don’t want to assume I know anything about gender roles in Japanese society, nor how she feels about them as an arists - and thus realize I’m probably ignorant of a million ways this affected the story at hand. Just as I don’t know if this show radically perverted her ideas or something. I realize that the immediate solution would be “oh just read the manga” but I don’t have time, and as I’ve said I don’t want to get trapped in that game of comparison that always seems to happen when discussing anime. Because when you get so caught up in how a thing differs, you miss what it is. So I just want to ask plainly: does her take effect anything that I’m getting at in this essay? I mean, what am I not seeing? Because I have these takes on the document of the show itself, which, in a way, is the only thing that exists - and it’s okay to analyze it as such - but it bears mentioning because from the final show I have seen, it ends up backing up a whole lot of traditional masculine things that give me pause. To wit, let’s start with…

The Numbing of Violence - Early in Brotherhood’s run I found the fighting to be visceral and sometimes shocking. This is the intended effect, of course. There’s so much stark imagery that abounds. But when I think of the last thing that really hit me? It was probably Gluttony’s re-design or Envy’s big form reveal. But after that? Really not much at all phased me. The fighting, even though it was technically just as violent at times, but it felt so much less emphasized because everything had become part of the non-stop battle. It was 40 plus episodes of a numbing effect. But more than that, there was so much less of an emphasis on the “horror” of things and more the subtle change to emphasizing the “cool” of the constant cat and mouse game. I know I keep comparing things to Evangelion a lot, but I’m doing so to make a point. And that show was so good at picking and choosing its moments and finding dramatic mechanisms to emphasize the story contexts. It felt like a build to an even WORSE existential horror. And meanwhile, the violence of Brotherhood got trapped in the dramatic cheats, the never knowing where the conflict is, the hiding, and the one-ups-manship. It all added to the numbing effect. I mean, when people getting limbs torn doesn’t have a real effect on the characters anymore, how can it have a real effect on us? But even the numbing is part of what seems to be an emotional want of the story in question…

“Don’t Cry” - Last column I remarked that I worried that Brotherhood was going to become “teenage emotional repression: the show.” But I think I was largely reacting to the Winry scenes that come after the death of Mae Hughes. These were the ones where his grieving widow invoked the “don’t cry” mantra because “it makes them sad in the next world, too.” And I think we can all say a proper “fuck off” with that scene? Okay, good. But the problem with the show beyond that is kind of two fold in that 1) it doesn’t really ever go anywhere that vulnerable again and 2) it definitely doubles down on the anti-crying sentiment, just in more belittling ways.

Sometimes it’s just them casually tossing around lines like, “you can’t die a heroic death crying like a coward.” And just like with the treatment of the Sin characters, you feel that superiority and judgment. And it makes me think of a lot of things, particularly its similarities with a lot of hyper-masculine Western media. But sometimes there was at least this real understanding of it. I mean, when I was a young kid who loved action movies, T2: Judgment Day came along and it was everything my budding brain wanted. But that “I now know why you cry,” scene is so instrumental not just to the movie, but as a counterpoint to everything being offered here. It’s just such a massive part of understanding our emotions and physical selves and the needs of release. Again, I have zero expertise in the subject, but when I read about the rise in popularity in Japan of “crying therapy” and in other stoic cultures (like here), I think it speaks to the inherent nature of this humane need. And if this were just one element of the show it would be one thing, but it’s sort of an indicator of how much this sentiment impacts the larger philosophy behind the show. Like with Edward’s relationship with…

Winry, The Devoted - Okay, first off I have a question: does kissing happen in Shōnen? Is that even a thing??? Because it got to that ending and he goes off and my brain was like “what the heck, no kiss!?!?!?” Is the audience considered too young for A KISS???? I mean, he basically gives a quasi marriage proposal, so what gives? Okay, I’m kind of being silly about this, I know, but it actually gets into an interesting thing about the philosophy behind their relationship. Again, there’s this cultural layer of things I probably missing, but there’s some elements of youthful psychology that have real overlap with what younger teenage boys “want,” specifically, what it's really a fantasy for. But at first, the show seems really good at portraying those budding feelings of teenage-dom and liking someone and the mortal embarrassment that comes with it, right? A film like Summer Wars gets more at the paralyzed innocence of that dynamic for boys, but here there’s something more angsty and angry. Which ultimately makes it feel like something that’s much less in awe of Winry and more weirdly resentful? It goes back and forth, but there’s one aspect to that which lingers.

Last column I talked about how much Winry’s character was tied to the fantasy of having people understand you without actually learning how to be good at communication. And even in their final interaction, we see the huge degree to which they are both still repressed. But Edward finally forces out this weird proposal of a relationship / marriage / whathaveyou - and with his trademark anger, he invokes the idea of equivalent exchange, but it quickly goes to an interesting place, because Winry talks about wanting to give all of herself, while Elric makes no such offer. All of this paints the idea of what this is really about. Edward and Winry never really become a “real relationship” because a real relationship is not part of the youthful fantasy. That’s too vulnerable and adult. Instead, I worry it’s the fantasy of having a girl you like / resent then say she’ll give you everything. It’s all part of the same fantasy that you don’t have to actually communicate. Even the fantasy that after declarations of devotion, you get to go off and be alone because she doesn’t actually need you hanging around? Which all leaves the weird anger and resentment and closed-off lonerism within Elric still utterly unresolved when it comes to their relationship. I mean, what is he even really exchanging here? But I worry all that is part of the grand angsty fantasy.

Which gets into the whole question about the arcs of our characters at large. I once argued that good characterization was the strongest part of the show in terms of getting you to buy in. But now we ask, where did they end up going?

The Question of Arcs - To be clear from the top, a story doesn’t inherently NEED an arc where a character learns something through the drama of the journey. Tragedies get at their points by watching characters fail to learn. A film like Nightcrawler shows us a character unchanging, while showing the arc of how the world ends up supporting their monstrosity. But all these different approaches have a point, along with a method of functioning… For its own aims, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood really seems to need traditional arcs. You’re watching these characters, particularly Elric with his clear teenage angst, and almost immediately you’re asking, “okay, where are you going with this? What is he going to learn to overcome this situation? How does the funny little alchemist with the Napoleon complex become a grown adult?” We’ll get to the final denouement that Edward offers in the next little section, but when it comes to the characters of this show across the board? I can’t help but notice how few of them actually experienced some kind of meaningful arc (or at least one that wasn’t muddled).

Again, there are displays of genuinely nice sentiment. You get to watch a character like Scar, once war-torn and merciless, find solace and peace in the quest to rebuild. But it feels like the happenstance of having no more war left to fight, less a consummation of changes in philosophy articulated in his growth (much of his character change was just about getting the people REALLY responsible). Similarly, Mustang seems a little bit humbled, but the decision of getting his sight with the Philospher's Stone seems like… a wonky bargain that I really feel weird about? Same goes for Ling’s actions. We learn he is not going to go to war with rival clans, but after all the hubbub, it’s weird that he’s taking a philosopher’s stone, too? After all the death and dire warnings about the cost of these damn things it’s just like “well, still may as well. Better us than someone else! Because it’s okay when we do it!” (we’ll also come back to this). Even for the non-expressly-flawed characters like Major Armstrong from Fort Briggs? She kinda just fights and is cool then goes back home. And I talked about the lack of pay-off with Alphonse’s sleeping thing. But even when we get to the whole characterization of Hohenheim and this idea he was secretly good all along, along with his wanting moments of sacrifice for his absence? It’s here we hit the big million dollar issue.

Because it’s all about Edward’s final decision. Because Hohenheim’s potential sacrifice makes so much sense on paper, an act of atonement for years of neglect. But Edward won’t allow his father to sacrifice his life for Alphonse’s body. He won’t let anyone else suffer. Just him! But what’s odd is how little this conversation clues into the fact Hohenheim is literally going to literally melt away and die anyway in his next scene, but 1) it needs to ignore that jaw droppingly crucial detail because 2) the show is desperately trying to give Edward an arc of heroism. Because, you know, he’s the main character. So he goes to The Universe and in exchange for Alphonse’s body, he offers to give up alchemy. Now, there’s a logic to this that seems like it makes sense. I mean, the tool he was always using to look for answers is the very thing he needs to give up. And it’s thumbing around ideas of control and learning how to give it up said control. But it hits two distinct roadblocks.

First is how much the show characterizes alchemy itself as a tool, not particularly a vice (or at least trying to have it both ways). Second, it ignores the fact that giving alchemy up IS kind of using it in a way. I mean, Edward can give it up because it precisely gives him the very thing he wants from the beginning of the show. So even though the roundness of it sounds nice, it’s not really a sacrifice at all, more just the final step of an intended (and much delayed) transaction. It doesn’t even feel like a sacrifice because I can’t fully pinpoint what the show, nor Edward really, really thinks about his alchemy beyond its given use at the moment. Moreover, how it reflects in any kind of grand eternal change within him. All the sequence really reveals is his own complexes.

Because Edward CAN’T let it be his father be the one to sacrifice because that puts him in the backseat of heroism. It’s too vulnerable. It’s too weak. Moreover, he deeply resents his father and it means giving him a high-status victory. Worse, it would give Edward a reason to feel indebted to him. And he can’t be that owing. He can’t perceive his wants as being a burden to ANYONE else. And he can’t be a “hero” if he learns to let go and let his dad complete his arc. It all ties so deeply to the stubborn resoluteness of his character. Which just reveals how, at the end of the day, Edward’s sacrifice is kind of performative because it’s just about his own ego and needs. Again, It’s not about empathy or saving Hohenheim. I mean there’s a reason they have ZERO interactions afterwards, nor do the boys even mention him again! He just fades away and they don't care. Really, it just NEEDS to uphold the hero complex, the stubbornness, the aggrieved fantasy of Edward being the put upon hero. But most of all? It emboldens the fantasy that Edward Elric’s greatest victory is that he doesn’t really have to change at all.

I realize this may seem an ungenerous reading, especially given all the contradictory lip service that gets put up by the show itself. But I’ve gone over it again and again and rewatched it and it’s just there. Sitting like a rock. It actually reminds of that internet challenge where we have to badly describe books in a sentence and someone wrote of Harry Potter: “Rich legacy jock thinks rules don’t apply to him. Is right.” Yeah, they’re about a lot of other crap, but that sentiment sure is in there. And this is in here, too. What’s odd is that, deep down, the show understands that Edward HAS to give up his own god complex, which is why they chose alchemy and de-powering him. But it just so happens to be a surface-level signifier of power, one seemingly divorced from the genuine psychological and behavioral changes that would have to go along with it. Again, what kills so much of this show is that very lack of reflection. I look at the arcs and behavior of all these characters, the way they admonish the Sins, while often ignoring their own, and it all feels like it adds up to the hypocritical notion of: “well, it’s okay when I do it.” Just like the use of the philosopher stones. And what feels like the damning truth is that this sentiment is largely a feature of Brotherhood, not a bug. For it kind of comes back to the eventual thematic point of the show…

The Trauma Plot & The Solace of a Teenage Heart - Going into the final episode, I was sort of at a loss over how I was going to talk about the grand intention, but then the show ended with a quote from Edward that literally outlines it perfectly…

“There’s no point to lessons that don’t bring with them pain, people can’t gain anything without sacrificing something, after all. But once you’ve successfully endured that pain, you gain a heart that is stout enough not to be overcome by anything. Yeah, a heart made full metal.”

Deep breath… So… One of the problems with crossing the therapy threshold is that you learn that basically everything outlined here (some of which borders on conventional wisdom) is, quite frankly, deeply wrong. On the whole, it’s something that was beautifully explained in this article on The Trauma Plot, but this quote is sort of the gravest version of it. It starts with the errant insistence that pain is not just a teacher, but our only teacher. But the simple truth is that often it’s not a teacher, but a thing that curses, that wounds, and that secretly haunts us. Worse, it tends to normalize that pain, whether violent or psychological, and thus keeps getting passed on as normalcy. In reality, it just creates a problem we HAVE to overcome. Moreover, the quote believes that the solution is “enduring” it, growing “stout,” and turning a heart to “metal” to protect your heart. Notice the key words. Especially how it defines strength in “not being overcome.” We recognize it as the resolute strength that so defines Edward, but it’s really just about icing your heart over, or turning it to stone, or pick your metaphor. NONE of this is about emotional strength, but closing yourself off. It’s about preserving that emotionless, invulnerable feeling. You know, except for rage and anger! Men gotta have those! Sure, they love to accuse women of being emotional, but as the adage goes, it’s like they don’t even count their anger as an emotion (just a natural and obligatory consequence for those who slight them). We all hopefully understand the epidemic of this thinking. Just as we all understand the scores of closed off, emotionless adults that have turned the world around us into an uncaring pile of poop. But like many of us, I spent YEARS buying into that same toxic shit.

But bad verbiage aside, I understand, of course, that Brotherhood is also trying to get at a deeper notion of how we often learn important things. For one, a lot of our learning comes from positive examples, role modeling, learning to care and foster empathy. But what it’s trying to say is that, yes, a lot also does come from the trials and tribulations of difficult life. But there is a stunning difference between those lessons being about the “pain” and those lessons coming from our mistakes and consequences. Where pain often just haunts and leaves scars, it’s mistakes, and more importantly, facing our mistakes that force our hand. The act of learning is so internal and so radically different from what Edward characterizes here. And in order to grow and come to a therapeutic understanding of the pain, it takes a complete inversion of understanding what “strength” even is. It’s not turning your heart into metal. It’s learning to open it up. To be vulnerable. To cry. To be weak. To let it be raw and wounded as it was when first hurt. For really, it’s about willing to be hurt again as horrible as it sounds. This is where you understand the whys of it all. And the strength comes in knowing you can process it / deal with it in a much more loving way. It’s all the forms of maturity and self-confidence that come from experience and understanding the real architecture of yourself. Strength comes in knowing you are a human being. So it’s honestly hard for me to embrace Edward and his proclamation of victory in giving up metal alchemy, when the real victory would be in finally giving up the metal heart. I mean, shouldn’t that be the point of his final act of giving up the alchemy? Shouldn’t this be where the detail and the theme meet, beautifully?

But instead, they seem to directly contradict.

It’s easy for me to say all this. It’s easy to act as if I'm talking down to this beloved property for not getting what amounts to a lot of very modern sensibilities. I know this deeply. But it’s part of the conversation of art and evolving themes in popular works that cuts across the board. To wit, a few years ago I was talking to an old friend who created a massively popular and beloved thing, and he looked back on the themes of it with this deep sense of fear, “I was 27 year old telling a bunch of 20 year olds what to think.” It’s not like the property was didactic, but he knew it helped shape a world view in some small way. Or that it reinforced that which its younger audience (along with he) wanted instead of probably needed. Believe it or not, the point is that this is all part of a human instinct. It is our nature to start by looking back at our teenage years and try to see all the things that made us strong. But often, it’s not until later that we truly see the thing that gave us scars, weaknesses, and complexes. I look back and I see all the aspects of a deluded self, the one that told me to put up fronts, to put everything on my back, to disappear into work, to lie, and to be what I perceived others to need, to never to be truly vulnerable, and never to truly reflect in a way that saw my own ugliness. But it’s all hard to accept that, isn’t it? Instead, we want to believe we survived things and that they taught us all these important lessons that made us resolute. There’s this incredible episode of BoJack that speaks to this and it’s called “Good Damage,” echoing the idea that there HAD to be a point to all of it. That we need to storify it and lend meaning, when so often it’s just something we had to bear and deal with in pure survival terms. And that there are so many healthier ways of dealing with that pain and damage other than trying to call it “good.” Just as there are so many other kinds of love and openness that give us strength. Because healing rarely looks like what we think.

I know that this all seems grandiose, but I couldn’t help but think about all of this as I watched Brotherhood. Because those internal warning klaxxons were just going off all the time. Particularly in how much it constantly doubles down on the fantasy of remaining resolute in the angst. To be clear, I don’t think it does so out of malice. I think the show does it out of fear.  From the onset, the show clearly knows how scary “the truth” of the universe really is. The horrible nothingness. The stark consequences. The idea that it could all just end at any moment. This scares the crap out of teenagers all the time, which is often why they so resolutely act out in defiance. They have to prove the fear wrong. They have to act rashly and dangerously. They have to callous their skin. They have to deny it and run from it. And it’s here that you realize that what Brotherhood is offering us is actually common, but no less powerful. For it is a very specific kind of power fantasy. Because there’s so much to seemingly gain in the false promise of turning your heart to full metal. It’s the thing that we, in our own teenage hearts, desperately want to avail ourselves to. It is the grandest solace imaginable. But as I’ve come to understand more about that particular “want” these days…

And it’s not what our adult selves will really need.

The Last Lingering Thought - Please understand, I’m desperately looking for a way to be wrong about all this. And I understand that there is a way to go back through all that I have written here and probably have more generous reading on a lot of things individually. But it’s the way they all stack that keeps reinforcing my worries. For it all coalesces into this picture of teenage psychology and bargaining that feels so damn familiar. Which is why I keep coming back to that essential question:

“What if I watched this when I was thirteen?”

Hell, forget thirteen, maybe I would have had a different reaction even ten years ago? I don’t know. And as much as I linger on these complex thoughts, I want to reinforce the reasons people so clearly gravitate to Brotherhood, too. Because there’s things the show just does so well, often through this uncanny power of characterization and fun design. There’s a reason you meet characters in this show and instantly like or hate them, always with intended purpose. Moreover, it captures that rarest and most indefinable thing of “coolness.” Which is impossible to chase or produce, but few things hold as much power over the teenage mind. For all my worries about the show being an embodiment of angst instead of being an authorial reflection of it, I recognize the audience can still (hopefully) reflect in that embodiment. And even if they don’t reflect, there is always value in seeing yourself anyway. Because being a teenager is one of the scariest times in your life. We’re so desperate not to feel alone that anything that captures those feelings will feel like a damn balm of comfort. Why wouldn’t one cling to a show that so readily reflects that horror and makes you feel better? Solace is so powerful for us.

And that solace is something that no opinion, no point, or no essay can take away. If you felt it, then it was an experience intrinsic to your very soul. And I can imagine it’s been an experience that has opened all sorts of personal doorways and notions of thought that go far beyond my own limited, recent experience with the show. For this, I ask with the utmost curiosity… What is it about FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood that spoke to you? What is it that still speaks to you? What am I perhaps missing? Possibly in the Hiromu Arakawa of it all? Again, I don’t want to fall into the anime-manga dialogue trap of constant comparison. I want to understand what it is.  And what you think it is. Because ultimately, this is only about the verbiage of personal connection. Because that’s all that art really is. It’s not about the evaluation of good or bad. I only talk about this stuff in detail as an excuse to talk about storytelling tactics, like I did retroactive explanation here, or the construction of how to read themes. It’s not about the specifics. It’s never about the specifics. It’s about the process, which is what helps teach us most of all. As such, every damn thing I’ve ever written is just a starting point of a constantly evolving dialogue. A space for us to speak about our own connections and disconnect alike. In that, believe me when I say I’ve never looked more forward to a comment section. I want to know why it matters to you. Because it’s the only thing that really matters in turn. I just hope in the years since you’ve come to realize the thing that so many of us eventually learn: a heart made fullmetal does not make you strong. No, hearts are fleshy, gushy, often scarred, and easily re-wounded.

But that’s exactly what makes them strong.

<3HULK