Christian Ashley, Herbie Ramsey, and Alex Matthews dive deep into the intricate political landscape of the Fullmetal Alchemist universe in this episode of Systematic Geekology. They tackle the series' complex themes of power, sacrifice, and the moral implications of alchemy, all while keeping it light with some witty banter. Our hosts explore the darker side of politics, discussing figures like Father and the Homunculi, who manipulate events from behind the scenes, leading to devastating wars and sacrifices. As they navigate these heavy topics, they also consider the series' portrayal of real-world political dynamics, drawing parallels that resonate with today’s issues. With a mix of humor and insight, they aim to convince Alex—who’s only seen a couple of episodes—why she should buckle in for a full watch of this iconic series.

Takeaways:

• In this episode of Systematic Geekology, the hosts dive deep into the political undertones of Fullmetal Alchemist, exploring how its themes reflect real-world governance and moral dilemmas.
• They discuss the complex motivations of characters like Roy Mustang, who embodies the struggle between doing what is right and navigating a corrupt political system.
• The conversation highlights the tragic consequences of wars depicted in the series, especially the Ishvalan Civil War, which serves as a backdrop for character development and moral questions.
• Listeners are treated to a witty banter about the series’ portrayal of alchemy as a blend of science and magic, showcasing the ethical implications of using it to manipulate life and death.

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Politics of the world of Full Metal Alchemist.

We're going to be asking this question a lot more in today's episode of Systematic Ecology with the priestly geeks doing another primarily political episode today focusing on the politics of the world of Full Metal Alchemist, the manga and anime and plenty of other spin offs that they've done. But it's not just me. Christian Ashley, your main host for today. I am joined by two wonderful figures, both not corrupt as I know, Alex Matthews.

How's it going, Alex?

It's going good.

Hello, glad to hear it. I'm also joined by Herbie. How's it going, Herbie?

Life is tough, but life is good because God is enough.

Period.

I will take that.

All right, so lady and gentlemen, you know, instead of doing the geeking out section and as we normally do, we're going to be doing asking a question, who is a bad actor within politics that we can think of examples being like Lex luthor, brutus, spandam, etc. So take it away.

Well, the joke, aside from what we were starting with, I will have to say that the entirety of Soul Society and Bleach and how it was organized, kind of let's go with the King of Soul Society.

I'd say not such a good actor, if not a bad actor, just by the mere fact that he's the most powerful being and he does nothing except for sit there decapitated, holding all of the realms apart.

How about you, Alex?

Ah, that's a good question.

We only ask good questions.

I don't know, my first thought, My first thought was Thanos, but I don't know if I'm 100 set on that answer.

I mean, if we're going in comics continuity, he's infiltrated multiple places politically. He shouldn't have. Not what you expect, but yeah, I can see it there. I'd also call it a bad action.

You destroy 50% of, you know, all life in the universe. You know, that doesn't true. It doesn't magically solve problems, you know, makes 50% less people around. So there's that.

My choice is going to be Vicky Shesh.

Vicky Shesh is from the New Jedi Order where she is actively working as a quisling for the Yuuzhan Vong as they're trying to kill the Jedi and take over the galaxy. And she gets exactly what she deserves. And you know what?

It's very satisfying when it happens, but until that time, it's really hard to deal with her. So that's it for bad actors in politics.

We'll get to good actors later on after we've gone through our main discussion that of course, once again being Fullmetal Alchemist. So something you guys need to know.

Two thirds of our hosts here have watched and or read the entirety of Full Metal out because the third host has seen two episodes. So Alex was very gracious in allowing us to do this program together.

Hello.

Hello. So she will be our audience surrogate for the night and. And having things explained to you.

So don't be mad at her just because she hasn't read or watched everything.

She was once again gracious enough to come on here and be a little guinea pig for us because it's our job tonight, in an extra bonus part, to convince her to continue watching the show and. Or reading the manga.

So, Herbie, imagine if you will, there was someone in our panel tonight who had never watched the entirety of Fullmetal Alchemist. How would you explain to them, I won't say her for the sake of argument, what it's about and why she should watch it.

What is it about? What is it about? Okay, so broad level.

You've got two kids, you know, their dad is off doing whatever they don't know, and their mother gets sick and dies. But they're good at this basically magic that's called alchemy. And they decide to use it to bring their mom back from the dead.

And it cost one brother an arm and a leg, literally. And it cost the other brother his entire body. And he gets bound to this piece of armor.

And the premise that starts off is they are going after this thing called the Philosopher's Stone so that they can ignore the basic law of alchemy, that is equivalent exchange, and bring their brother's body back so that he's not attached to a piece of armor. In the course of this, they under. They uncover massive plots that are horrific that are Earth destroying and they have to save the planet.

All right, Alex, Any of that I.

Think I was able to get.

Ringing a bell. Anything you want further explain?

Yeah, yeah. Though I remember, see, like, you know, the brothers losing arm and leg, the other brother getting attached to us a suit of armor. And then.

I really wish you had watched episode four. I mean, if you'd seen episode four, I could bring up some of the first tiered word of it all.

Yeah, no, I didn't make it that far.

You know what? It's fine. Once again, it's our job to convince you to watch it tonight. And yeah, so there are multiple. I mean, of course there's the original manga.

I believe our mangaka's name is Hiromu Arakawa. If I get any of that wrong, correct me. And she is phenomenal. I mean, she does a really great job. She's also the artist as well as the plotter.

That doesn't always happen, depending on, you know, who's designing the series. Sometimes you have someone who's just a story, sometimes you just have someone who's drawing, and sometimes you have both in one.

And she once again does a great job with it. And there have been two anime. One is what happens when you're back in the old anime industry and when you overtake the manga.

Then, of course, they had a sequel series. Well, not really sequel series, more like a retelling of events that actually retell all of the manga.

So sorry to everyone out there who loves the original. You know, it's great. It got me into it in the first place. It also kind of fizzles out at the end. So that's my opinion on. What do you think, Herbie?

Do you think it fizzles out in the end? Okay.

It does not hit home as hard. It does not hit home nearly as hard. And I also read the manga before I saw the original. I didn't even really know the original was a thing.

And I was just on the manga at that point. So sorry.

I do like the first anime. And I also.

I recognize that it is a product of its time because back in the day when you overtook the manga, you just did filler or you made your own story. And that is, the industry has changed immensely because there's not as much profit in it in certain people's minds.

So they stop at certain places, which it could be good or could be bad. I think it prevents a lot of filler, which I'm very grateful for. And that's one reason why One Piece has stopped.

Essentially had its second season, as it were, in order to wait for even more manga to make so they can make more anime episodes. Because what they were doing is essentially adapting one chapter an episode.

And if you know anything about animation, that's not good because you need about five to six minutes in front of it to, like, explain what happened in the last episode, just so you have enough runtime to air the rest of the chapter. So, yeah, Fullmetal Alchemist is a great series with some really awesome characters in a very engaging world.

One that plays with, you know, the mix of science and magic, because, as Herbie mentioned, alchemy is kind of the magic of this series, but it's also scientifically based in the efforts of the series itself. Obviously, we don't have alchemy in the real world that. That we know of.

And what they will do is when Ed and Al are trying to resurrect their mother, they get all the ingredients that make up the human body to try and bring her back. Now, unfortunately, they don't have the power, and they don't know how much it takes to actually bring someone back, what it costs for that.

And what it actually costs is something they're not willing to take.

Not to mention, exactly what is the cost of the human soul?

That's one of the driving questions of this year. Can they make a philosopher's stone? Or if someone has, what did it cost them to do so? So I kind of went into my introduction to the show.

Herbie, you did too. But Alex, let's actually hear yours. Like, how are you introduced to your only two episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist?

Let's see. My friends in college, actually, they brought me back into anime because when I was younger, I wasn't alive.

But then I just stopped watching it for some reason.

And then meeting the friends in college, they were all really into anime, so they introduced me to that Full Metal Alchemist as well as, like, Fairy Tale and some other good ones. So. Yeah, but they said that brotherhood was better. Yes, they kept telling me to start with that first.

Brotherhood is so.

I don't know.

Yeah, the one that's actually adapting fully the manga, the original, which is good on its own merits. It's just not as good comparatively speaking, is telling its own original story. Because once again, they overtook the manga at one point in time. So.

Yeah. So do we have a favorite character in the series?

Go for it. Ooh, absolutely.

Solid choice, Roy, must say. What about Roy makes him your boy?

I don't know. Maybe it's just the hot headedness, the fact that he plays with fire. He also does become a political leader.

We shall get to that too.

All right.

Alex, do you Remember anyone that you like? Really like? Yeah. For what I saw, they were kind of my guy, my gal, I would say.

The brother that lost his body.

Yes.

I don't know. He just immediately I was like, yes, I like him. I don't know why.

Maybe because he had, like, the most traumatic experience so far that I've seen, at least. I don't know. But he was cute.

So he does lose his entire body, which means he paid a higher toll, but gets more out of it than his brother does. Yeah, you learn that later on in the series. Not to be a spoiler thing here, but we are talking about.

Our main character is Ed and Al are both brothers. Ed is the older brother, but people assume that he's not because he's so short, which is a huge trigger for him throughout the entire series.

But Alphonse is in a giant, hulking suit of armor, so people naturally assume that he's the older brother. And there's lots of comedy that's brought from that. So, yeah, a solid choice. Both of you, go ahead.

Also, his brother Edward gets the title Full Metal Alchemist, and, you know, he's called Full Metal. And everybody, when they meet the two brothers, they assume that Alphonse is full Metal because he has a full metal.

Suit of armor, which naturally causes even more moments of, you know, just jealousy and hilarity there. Now, me, I had a rough time with this one, actually narrowing it down because there's so many great characters to choose from.

I mean, I really love Winry, I love Reza. I enjoy Roy Mustang as well. Ed and Al are great for main characters, but Maze Hughes, I almost picked him.

He's our guy, our sacrificial goat, lion, as it were, early on in the series. Really loves his wife, really loves his daughter. And of course, we can't have a happy person that you know this early on. Something has to happen.

But really, at the end of the day, my actual choice is Alex Louise Armstrong.

You gotta love a guy who can, you know, know how strong he is, but it's also very kind and tender and at every opportunity will take a shirt off and show off his muscles because he's earned them, baby. And you're gonna know, but he's not, like, in your face about it. He's not like, oh, just look at me. Women. No, no, no, no.

It's more like, hey, look at me. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not in a haughty fashion, but like, hey, look at this. Like, you should look at this physique, because it's Been cultivated.

I mean, he's not in your face. And that, like, I can beat you. I'm stronger than you. It's that, look at me. Look how beautiful my muscles are.

And he is a great resource as well, once you actually meet his sister too. He was another great character in her own right.

I like his sister more than him.

Yeah. The dynamic the Armstrong siblings have with each other is extremely great.

All right, so moving on from there, let's actually get into the politics of Fullmetal Alchemist. Herbie, why don't you help me explain to Alex, like, what she's missing out on and just how deep things get from here. Like, let's start.

We have multiple nations involved here. Let's just start with the Maestris, which is like our home nation.

Okay. A Mistress is basically the central nation. It's kind of like Central Europe. I think it's modeled after Germany. Yes, very German in its culture.

But basically, that is the country that the Elric brothers live in. And it becomes the center point of the entire series. As the series develops and you learn what the plan is.

And I'm trying to avoid really spoiling all of the plot when I. When I'm talking here, but you realize how it is central to everything that's going on.

It being central also then involves all the countries that are bordering it and how the way alchemy works and where the country is and how everything functions around it. It being in the center of everything was very important to. What is the. The Han Monkey last name, or a Father, or whatever he's called.

But it's very central to his plan for where they're at. It's. It plays such a big part.

Does Father get a name besides Father? Am I forgetting something? No.

I was wondering if he was called Father or if he was just like the Homunculus.

Yeah, he's just called Father. And we'll get to the Homunculi in a bit, who are behind the strings of Amestris.

So basically, Amestris, like Herbie said, is also a very German influence in the fact that their leader is called Fuhrer King Bradley.

Now, I know that's going to make people think a certain way, but there are aspects of that shown, but it's not actually, you know, a military dictatorship at the beginning of the show.

There are certain things that change along the way that caused them to become such a thing and actually have people within their own military fighting back to take charge. That's where Mustang and his team come in to bring a more not democratic society, but still a society that's not as bad as the one that came before.

One that cares about his people.

Yes, a little more so.

Amestris has gotten involved with several wars with nations on their borders over hundreds of years, to the point where they've absorbed most of them into their sphere of influence. And those people think of themselves as a Mestrean now. And more recently, we've gotten. They have gotten into a war with a nation known as Ishval.

So, Herbie, explain. Ishval.

Ishval is a border. It's a people group as well as a country that borders a mistress. And there's been a ruse, false flag operation.

They intentionally went to war, and then they ordered the genocide of all the Ishvali people. Again. It plays a part in the end time, in the end game of what the plan is for the villain. And it involves having to have everybody killed.

There needs to be a lot of bloodshed on that border. And to induce that, they order the killing of every Ishvali man, woman, child. Everybody has to die there.

Yes.

And a lot of the repercussions from this series do occur because of the war that happened a couple of years before the events of, you know, the manga starting. We have, of course, Winry's parents being killed in the line of duty while they're trying to protect people. There.

We have Mustang starting off as a soldier meeting, you know, his group of, you know, military people, and also some terrible State Alchemists that are doing some incredibly reprehensible things along the way. All in the service. Yes. We also get Scar, who is another great character in that he is Ishbalan himself.

And his brother before, in the middle of the war, was learning about alchemy and was trying to figure out some things. And as he was dying, correct me if I'm wrong, Herbie, it's been a while.

He transferred his arm to Scar, who has an actual name, but I don't know if it's ever brought up, so that he can use alchemy to undo things.

And Scar uses that to get back at Adam Mistress and kill State alchemists and people in the military, because they were the ones who massacred and genocided his people.

I believe he took the information, I don't know about an army, and transferred. It's been a long time since I've seen it, but his brother was learning about alchemy, which is.

It involves the deconstruction and reconstruction so that you can.

You can tear like this Block of wood apart down to its fundamental atoms, essentially, and reconstruct it into something else, as long as it's an equivalent exchange of what was there before and what is there after. Now, Scar, he doesn't care about putting things back together. He just wants to avenge his brother's death.

So he takes the deconstructive side, and that is all he cares about. He wants to use this as a weapon. He wants vengeance. He does not want to rebuild. He just wants to tear down.

Yeah. So before we go any further, Alex, is there anything that's jumping out at you, something you want to add?

Yeah. I like how this is all really sciencey, and it, like, goes within, like, the laws of science, sort of.

I really, really wish you had gotten to, like, episode four, because you would have seen Spark Entry,.

And you want to traumatize this poor woman with the episode that he's speaking of. It's a flashback. It involves a young girl and a dog in chimeras and Edward and lots of terrible things, but it makes perfect sense in the show.

Like, it is something people remember because it's a horrific event, but it plays into why things happen in the world. It's not just there for the sake of shock value. It's done very effectively.

It also represents the main characters really just losing the innocence of childhood. Even though they've done something horrific, they are still children at the beginning. And then this episode comes and there is no going back. They.

They have passed into adulthood. They have seen trauma that they can't undo. They can't go back.

Yeah, it's one of those things. Yeah. They had a noble goal in trying to bring their mother back. Unfortunately, they did it through means that aren't the best and that cost them.

And you could say they lost their innocence there, but they didn't fully lose it until the moment that happens. And what Herpes talking about? Because they see what other alchemists do with the power they have, and they say, no, we're never crossing that line.

And that's a huge point of contention across the series, especially when they learn more about how alchemy actually works and the people who are willing to do what they're not wanting to do and how they can fight against people like that. So, yeah, a very pivotal episode that unfortunately you haven't seen. But you know what? Maybe you don't need to be traumatized tonight.

Maybe later on when you're in the.

Mood, we need to do a watch party and just screen your reaction to that episode, and you can just Cry.

Yourself to sleep afterward. It's fine.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So moving on, we also have the country of Jing. Herbie, what do you remember of Jing or Zing? How would I pronounce it? I think it's Jing.

This is the one that is on the other side of the massive desert. Correct. And yeah, we get two characters there. There's. It's believe modeled after China, like the ancient Chinese culture and.

Or Far east, probably a more accurate way of putting it. Their alchemy is different. They focus a lot more on healing with their. With their alchemy, but it's very different.

There's this massive desert that it's almost impossible to cross because it come to find out it was the first round of what you're seeing round two of in the current storyline. So the destruction that they're trying to prevent has already been done on a smaller scale.

And that created this desert that separates Zing, or however that's pronounced, it separates that from the Mistress. So it's very far away. And it's kind of meant to be foreign. It's meant to be this people that you can't really get to you.

You meet some of them, but you don't really interact directly with that culture.

Yeah. They're led by an emperor who has had multiple wives in his hair and multiple children as a result of that.

And some characters that we meet along the way are children of this emperor who has given them the task. Hey. I've heard ancient legends of how someone could become immortal, and I think they've figured out how to do that in the Mistress.

So you got to go that if you want to become my heir, which would defeat the purpose because he's immortal. But you know what? They don't think about that. You got to go and figure that information out for me.

Which is their prime motivator for why they end up in the story.

So Xing is kind of like we never actually go there, but there are some flashbacks that kind of tell some of our character stories at their time there.

That is where Hohenheim is at the beginning of the series.

Right. I think he came back from there, and that's when he shows up again.

It's been a while at the beginning of the series. I think that's where he was going to study alchemy because he had learned everything he could in their current thing.

So their father has gone away to study alchemy, and he's gone when the mother dies. Well, that's where he's at. He's There trying to learn more about alchemy.

Yeah, because their alchemy is what they call Alka history.

And in the rules of this world, Alka history is like pure alchemy, like, the actual true way to do it, because it's moving, you know, with the earth, with nature itself, rather than, like, you still kind of enforce your will upon it. But it's not as brutal as Amestrian alchemy is, which is way more take than give.

Even though they call it Equivalent Exchange, they take a little more than they should be, based on the power that they use. So next up, we have the Homunculi, who are seemingly this rogue group working throughout Amestris. Hervey, explain the Homunculi.

So you have Father, who is.

It is a homunculus that starts off way back in the, like, far, you know, distant past, but he basically cast off parts of his self to become more perfect, and these become the Homunculi, and they're all named after the seven deadly sins. You've got greed, you have envy, you have pride. And they all fill a role in imposing Father's will on a mistress. They all have special powers.

They.

They don't have to follow equivalent exchange, and you find out why later, but they. They can just do things without any. Without any alchemy circles, without. They could just do it at will.

And their motivations are not known for a long time in the series.

They're seemingly causing all this chaos with, like, you know, beginning with Father Cornello trying to create a faux philosopher's Stone with him and have him use that magic there as well.

They are killing a lot of people, like, who are investigating the conspiracy, that there are people in Amestris who are like the man behind the man, and they're working with the men behind the men, kind of also his men behind the men. And that causes, of course, the death of Mace Hughes. Sorry.

Spoilers for something that happened 20 years ago where he was so close to the truth and almost letting it come out to his trusted people. But unfortunately, he got got. And that's a huge motivator for the boys, too, is that he was someone they were very friendly with.

He brought them into their home, show them what a loving family looks like after they lost everything. And now they go, okay, we're going to take these people down, whoever they are.

We're going to figure out who they are and get rid of them, because we can't let this happen to anyone else.

And you mentioned he is, like, the perfect character. He has the Perfect morals.

He.

He's basically. If you ever watched the Walking Dead, you know who's gonna die. He's that guy that's like the voice of reason.

The great guy that you just know is gonna die. Except for in this one, you don't know he's gonna die until it happens.

It was also one of those gut punches early on in the show where you go, man, I really like him. And once again, it's not done for shock value. It's not done to just make you feel bad.

It's done because it fits the story and it motivates characters to get where they need to be. That's what I really love about Arakawa's writing is, is that she knows, hey, I've got to kill my darlings every now and then.

Not to just be cruel, but because it actually works to have this happen, which, you know, as opposed to certain other writers who do it for the fact of, well, it'll be shocking if this person dies. Right? Okay, sure. But, like, what do you get from that?

Well, he also had to die, like, because of what he found out, because he was known. He really had to die because the story dictated it. The way things were going in the story.

There's no way you could save him in the story work because he knew too much too soon, and he was too open. It's just his character finding out what he knew could not realistically survive. What did he find out?

He found out the secret is that the homunculus were working with the bad guys, and we're going to get to why they were doing that in a little bit. So, yeah, we are spoiling parts of this. But, like, this is set out of context. You're not going to understand everything.

So you got to actually watch it to actually know what all these pronouns.

Mean, making you want to watch. Do you want to watch it at this point?

I mean. Yeah, yeah. I am getting curious. This is because this is, like, getting deeper than I thought it was.

Oh, it gets deep.

It's a very good story. No.

Yeah.

Herby also mentioned something earlier about Father in that he is the first Homunculus, and he was created by the nation known as Xerxes, which is the desert area mentioned earlier. Back in the day, he messed with things, and that caused the deaths of everyone there.

Made a barren wasteland for the sake of him ascending essentially into his own personal godhood.

You meet when Ed and Al lose their bodies or lose parts of their bodies, depending on who you're talking about, they meet with a figure known as Truth, who's essentially like the God figure of the story and the gate between him and the afterlife. And that's what gives Ed the ability to use alchemy without a circle is meeting with him.

And that's one of the things Father wants, is to gain more knowledge for himself and to be the perfect being.

And.

And that all started back in the day when the leader of Xerxes wanted the same thing for himself. And that's where certain other events happen. I'll leave a little bit for you. Leave a little one.

A little bit more as far as certain characters involved with that. So moving on from there, how is the alchemist system aligned with governmental control in the series?

How are alchemists, in a way, not politicians themselves, but serving the interests of the politicians of Amestris?

There is a nickname for State Alchemist. Aren't they the dogs of the military?

Dogs of the military? The.

The military. Well, the State funds alchemy for the purpose of weaponizing it. That is like the entire goal of State Alchemy.

And that's where we get a lot of the conflict here is, you know, Roy Mustang and his group of people who join with him because they align more with his values, but are still in a system that is broken and has caused un. Cold death and many countries over hundreds of years. And we'll get into why in a little bit. But how do you work in a system like that?

Do you just leave? Or you try and reform things from within? Can you? When there's a conspiracy as big as this one that kills people who learn.

About it, Even if you do leave, do you really get away? Can you go far enough away to get away?

Yeah. And for our two boys here, they by nature have to be part of the system. Because State Alchemists get more rights than everyone else.

They get to go explore places normal civilians can't.

So in order to get the research, they want to actually learn how to make a philosopher's stone and actually bring their mother back to life and regain their bodies. They have to join the military, as it were. Even though they're not sitting on the front lines, they could always be called there.

Which is exactly what happened in the Ishvalan Civil War. And speaking of part of the military. Yeah, speaking of.

The invasion of Ishbal, as Herbie mentioned earlier, was caused by an Amestrian soldier who was actually Envy.

One of the Homunculi, who can change their shape into anything, killed an Ishbalan child, and this incited the war because the Ishbalans thought this was an unjust thing to happen. The Amestrian military was like, no, we would never do something like that. And this ended up being the.

The casus belli, which I have misspelled my entire life until actually researching this. Over the years, I thought it was cassus, as in casus. That is incorrect. So how does this itself relate to real world, like, cases? Belli. Belli.

How the heck you want to pronounce it? It's Latin. I studied that forever ago in college. It's been over a decade to wars and as well, false flag operations.

So I am not. I am not as up to date on my history of false flag operations.

I don't even know what that is.

My. My first thought is actually less false flag.

And I think of the start of World War I, where this group of kids kills Arch Duke Ferdinand and starts World War I.

Every point said, that would be not a false flag. That would be the casus bella being, hey, you murdered this man. We have a treaty with this nation.

We also have a treaty with this nation, who you're opposing now. So now we're going to have to join in. That's an excellent example there.

Now, a false flag operation, Alex, is when you engineer a situation that makes it look like another nation or group attacked you, so now you have a justification to attack them. Two possible American scenarios here, because there's still doubt on both cases. I think one of them less so in the Gulf of Tonkin.

And we ended up in a war with them. Now there's ambiguity. Did it actually happen that way or was there a boiler explosion or a sabotage or. No one knows.

Research shows that it was spontaneous combustion in the coal bunkers that caused the whole thing to go belly up. And even at the time, there were people who did not believe that it was actually attacked.

But the first thing that got to press was Spaniards attacked our ship and then, remember the main into hell. To Spain.

Yep. And Spain did not win. No, it didn't handily beat them multiple times over and took their overseas territories.

We took all of the Philippines from them. We sent their entire fleet at Manila. Their entire Pacific fleet got sank at the entry to Manila Bay Harbor. Yes.

So if You've ever visited Guam for lunch or. Or Puerto Rico as an American. Well, congratulations. You can thank the Maine for exploding.

Yikes.

Of course, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, that's not. I'm just not familiar with there. I think there's more evidence here to suggest it may have been an actual fault flag operation.

From the last I researched it, it's been a while where supposedly North Vietnam messed with one of our ships up there.

And that of course then went into the Vietnam War, something we wanted to do, but now became more popular initially until it was ruined by the media for a reason to attack North Vietnam and protect South Vietnam. Now in this series here, there is. It's not a false flag operation on the Ishbalan side.

It is definitely done, not even technically by the Amestrian side.

It's done by the people behind the powers that be in Amestris to cause envy, to shapeshift into the form of the Amestrian soldier and kill Nishval and child, which sparks the war into being. Imagine if the American Revolution had started after the Boston Massacre, which by the way, we weren't the ones in the right on that one. Oh,.

I got into an argument with the person the other day about that.

So yeah, yeah. Let's just say what happened to bring us into the actual Revolutionary War was a much better reason than that if we had started there.

So you guys have anything else you want to add?

If you're wondering, the reason you can say we were not in the right is the crowd was throwing stones into the group of soldiers.

You were literally throwing lethal weapons inside of them.

Oh, so those soldiers actually were fearing for their lives when they fired into the crowd.

They had a reason to defend themselves.

Okay, I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Wow. You learn something new every day.

And let's not get into how the Boston Tea Party is actually a terrorist action in and of itself. Moving on.

But I'm not going to claim that one because that there'd be too many people who date me for that.

And I said it as a proud red blooded American actually looking into what happened there. We're not the good guy in that scenario either. But what actually started the war? The invasion with Power of Yours Ride.

And they're like, yeah, Lexington, Concord, that is an actual reason to start a war and be on the right side of history. So moving on from those hot button topics, everyone's talking about the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party these days.

We get to Winry's parents. Winry is of Course, in the present, Ed's main engineer with his automail. That's like his new metal arm and leg that she had made for him.

And their technology is better than ours because it's actually functional. Her parents, unfortunately, during the Ishvalan Civil War, were murdered by Kimberly, if I remember.

No, no, it was by a Scar, who had just gotten his alchemical abilities. And he lashed out in, like, a bit of panic and took their lives because Kimberly did other terrible things. He's.

He was a State Alchemist, Alex, who is very bombastic, crazy and. And crazy and funny, but also a very terrible person.

Oh, man.

Bloodthirsty is a way to put it, too.

Yes. Okay, so they were that.

You want to have a philosopher's Stone.

Yes. They were effectively acting in, like, the places, more modern organizations you have, like Doctors Without Borders, Salvation Army.

So, like, Herbie, can you tell us, like, a little bit more of the story than what I mentioned? Like, how it affects and relates even to our present world?

I mean, in a way, it does have an effect on who Winry became, but I actually don't remember a whole lot about this part of the story.

Okay.

It's a major part. Also a very short part.

Yes.

Because we do get a flashback, a couple sequences here, where we see what Roy Mustang and his group were up to during the war, what Scar was up to in his brother. And we see Winry's parents as a result of this. And they had taken Scar in because they were working effectively as people.

Was like, doesn't matter which side you're on. Our Hippocratic oath is we take care of people. So they were doing their job.

And unfortunately, Scar, after what had happened with him and his brother, lashed out, was panicky, and killed the wrong people, which is something that can happen in this present age. But there's also people have been accused multiple times over of aiding and abetting people they shouldn't in certain parts of the world.

And your mileage may vary on how that goes, because the idea of having a group like a Doctors Without Borders and the Salvation army present your Red Cross as well, is to make sure that everyone gets treated. But then that becomes, do you treat everyone and then give intelligence to certain people? Is that your job?

That's not what they were doing, but I just kind of thought about that in the midst of thinking about putting this as a question to get your takes on that.

I mean, they definitely were very neutral in how they were acting. I. It's kind of hard to really relate that to the Modern day. Because we don't tend to think about that in the context of a war.

Like, generally speaking, war is about tearing things apart, not about putting them back together again. Scar really understands war better than any character in the series, especially at the start.

And so, yeah, I have a hard time really explaining anything more than what you've said.

That's fair. Alex, any thoughts before I move on?

Now, just again, like this. Like, there's so many layers. So many layers to this.

Like an ogre.

Oh, it's great. Once again, Arakawa Sensei knows what she's doing. This is smart gal. She can plot a story extremely well.

And what helped that is that this was a monthly series, so she could draw a little more than other people, but also had a lot more time in which to develop story and characters and the like. So I think that helped.

It was an amazing manga. Amazing manga.

All right, so moving on, we have one of the big reveals we've been hinting at this entire time. Here we go. Spoil a little bit of it, but we'll get there. It's time to spoil it all.

The big reveal is that all the multiple wars that were fought in Amestrian history weren't just done for the sake of conquest or for resources. You know, that was like byproducts.

What really happened is that all the human lives that were lost were used to fuel and create a philosopher's stone, which is how you create them is through the loss of human life and bonding their materials and soul into this gem, essentially is what they make. And the entire nation of Amestris is one giant transmutation circle.

And part of the transmutation circle requires blood. Blood on certain points of it.

And all of the bloodshed, all of the wars were fought at the points of this circular country that's in the middle of everything.

And the wars were engineered specifically to put blood where it needed to be so that this massive country could be turned into a transmutation circle, just like Xerxes was in the past, so that all of the life that is in there, the souls, can be harvested from that entire country and put into a philosopher's stone. And you get an image of what will happen to this country by seeing that desert that separates the east and the West.

One thing we failed to explain earlier is why people seek out philosopher's stones is because they cheat. They don't follow the rules of alchemy. You don't need a circle.

You just have to.

Yes, you just have to hold it. And that can get things Done in ways that regular alchemy can't. And there are still limitations on it.

It's not a super powerful, you know, get everything done kind of, you know, MacGuffin, but there's.

What it does is still enough to be, like, very wary if someone gets their hands on it or causes the deaths of, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of people.

But the. The actual tool of the Philosopher's Stone is. We talked about the rule of equivalent exchange.

The Philosopher's Stone uses the souls that have been harvested to construct it. They become that exchange for equivalent exchange.

Instead of using material as the input to get the output you desire, you use human soul as the input in the equivalent exchange. So people hunt after the Philosopher's Stone because they feel like they can ignore equivalent exchange. Well, you do, until you run out of souls.

And once you do that, then you break the rules. And then you're going through the same thing you saw at the very beginning with Ed and Alphonse, because you.

You basically have broken a fundamental rule of alchemy, or you just died.

Yes. For those of you not watching this on YouTube, you're missing a great reaction face, bruh.

So let me get.

Hold on.

Let me. Let me get this straight.

Go for it.

All right, so.

Oh, is it a worst spoiler ever? Say, they were successful at the start, and they do harvest all the souls of everybody that you meet, but there's more to come.

Okay, hold on. I need a second. Okay.

Okay.

I don't even know which question to ask first. Okay, so what you're saying is a mestrus is a transfiguration circle.

Transmutation.

Huh?

Transmutation. Yes, transmutation circle to make a philosopher's Stone.

Huh?

Not just a philosopher's stone, but one that is powerful enough to make father, like God.

Okay, so just like. Okay, now I have more questions.

Well, you know, you're gonna have to actually watch this to really understand everything. We can answer your questions, but you've got about 60 episodes that you need to watch to really understand this.

Oh, yeah.

While you're thinking, this is really making me wish we had episodes where like.

Like convincing you to watch or something like that, where we have, like, a total noob and like, the person who's watched it to be like, okay, here's why you need to watch this.

Yeah, because my mind is blown. That is cra. What do you mean? They perfectly did all that? That's insane.

I said AR was a smart lady. She knows how to know.

Yeah, Now I have to watch this.

Did we tell you the. We told you about how their father, Hom, had gone to study alchemy. He plays an important part in saving everybody.

Yes.

And he skirts around the moral usage of using a philosopher's stone because he's half of the philosopher's stone that Xerxes was turned into. And he understands the moral implications of using a philosopher's stone because he essentially is one.

He gets around the moral situation by dividing the philosopher's stone from thousands of voices down into each individual soul. And he's able to communicate with them and actually gets their permission to use them as the philosopher's stone in order to save the country.

What?

And he plays a big part in undoing all of what the Homunculus do and the father does in order to save them.

I'm not going to get into details on how they do it and everything, but he is able to unwrap things before everything's permanent and can't be untucked.

Hohenheim is a really interesting character because you see things from Ed and Al's point of view, and all they see is a deadbeat dad who left him and hasn't come back after mom died.

Doesn't even know mom died. That's how far away he is.

And then when he comes back, you learn a little more about him and go, well, maybe he's not a complete jerk. Maybe he has a reason. You find out, oh, why'd you. Daddy had a good reason to abandon you for a time, and now Daddy's back.

Complicated, complicated characters and situations and plots. It's like, say, you can't go wrong watching this show or just reading the manga. Either one's fine.

So do you want to have your mind blown again? Oh, another spoiler. What was not their mom. It was something completely different. So they pay that cost, and they never even had their mom back.

You remember how in the very beginning, they did all this thing, and it cost the little brother the body, and it cost him an arm and a leg. What they brought back was never their mom.

So they lost all that, not for nothing in the grand scheme of things, but for their intended goal for nothing.

They paid all of that price, and they never had a chance. What they brought back was not their mom in any way, shape or form. Not even the body was that of their mom.

So then what was it? Who was it?

That's a good question.

Do they say maybe she found out? Ah, okay. Okay. Yeah.

So I don't think I need to ask this question, Alex, but what do you say, are you convinced? Should you 100% be watching this right now?

Yes.

Leave the recording right now and go watch it.

Yeah. Let me just hop off this real quick. I'll see you guys.

Very unhappy.

I'm sorry. With your mind being blown that much, I had to give you more spoilers. And without context.

Yeah. What in the world?

Also, when they find that out, it's actually a really important part of their development, and it gives them resolve in a time they really need resolve to keep going.

So, yes, Skin lady knows how to play drama well, too,.

All right?

Especially with the little girl and her pet dog.

You're supposed to be out about this little girl pet dog. You're stressing me out.

You may hate. You may hate a certain character's name after that. You know, it's fine. It's worth it. It's worth it all in the end, all right?

The suffering means something. It will make you a better person.

I'll take the word for it.

Or you're just going to throw something at tv, break the TV and never come back to the series.

Or we're going to get an angry text in a couple minutes. Like, what did you make me watch? Where do you live? Where's your address? I'll find you. I'll kill you.

Yeah, I'll say.

Herbie lives close to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Not there right now, but close enough.

You can find the greatest position there as far as Friday.

Yeah.

By the time you get here, I'll be living on the campus again.

All right, so to wrap things up after all that, do you guys have anything else you'd like to add before we get to the rating, reviewing, ending the show?

My mind is still blown.

All right, all right. So, Alex, without having watched the show besides those two episodes, what do you think? Rating and reviewing? What do you think?

What would you give it based on hype alone?

The hype. I mean, y' all really did. You guys did a good job convincing me to watch this. It seems like a good show that has lots of good layers.

Every detail is, like, thought out, which I really like, because, like, everything, like, goes back to another thing. And it's like, you really got to be in it to know it. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to hopping back on this after we get off of this.

I think we need, like, a side episode for a debrief when you finish.

Especially after you finish, like, the first few episodes, when really, like, you start actually getting into the story, and there is a lot of trauma that happens. To get this story going.

Oh, man.

Yeah, I'm down.

Yeah, let's do it.

But it's 64 episodes. We can split that up somehow. We could do it.

Oh, yeah.

Alex comes back to report on what she watched.

Oh, that's exciting.

I think this would be like a good Instagram reels thing. That would be.

Yeah.

All right, Herbie, out of 10, what are you ranking this one?

This is a an 11 out of 10. Like it. It's very well written. The artwork is amazing. Story is amazing. Voice acting, even in English, is really good. It's just good.

Yeah. To anyone years ago who used to follow me on Twitter, they'd be not surprised by this. This is in my top 10. This is a 10 out of 10 for me.

I think it used to be six. It may be seventh now.

It's been a while since I've updated the list, but once again, my introduction was the old show west ending is not the best, but it still convinced it was still good enough for me to read the manga. And very rarely does a show make me do that unless it's good. And this was good.

So I watched the manga and had caught up to it by the point where the anime actually ended around the same time as the manga. And so I got to watch, you know, the chapter I had read, like a month beforehand, like, on screen. I was like, oh, man, this is so much fun.

If I could wipe my memory of this show and rewatch it again, it'd definitely be on the list of things I'd choose to do that on. I love this immensely. And 64 episodes is nothing in anime. Like, to finish a series. Go for it. All right, so we started with a bad political actor.

Can you guys think of a positive political actor? Real, imaginary, what have you? And I can start us off first,.

Or y' all go first, because I still have to think.

Like, me too.

I'll give you time to think. I'm actually going to use Duncan Idaho from Dune and the many sequels of Dune where he becomes, well, you say Christian.

What happens to him in the original Dune? Well, he comes back as spoilers for the movie that's supposed to come out in a little bit. He comes back as a golo. What is a golo?

Well, I guess you'll have to watch the movie and or read the book to find out, but Duncan Idaho works really well as someone who is very loyal to the right people and make sure those right people stay in power. And you need someone like that.

I'm going to take this As a chance to bring up another one of my favorite anime, which is Nausicaa from Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. She is the best leader the Valley of the Wind could have. She sacrificed her life to save the Valley of the Wind and comes back and then dies again.

I'm not sure if she's live or.

Dead at the end.

I think she's dead because it shows like a little cross cross with like her hat. But she not only does the right thing, but she's about doing the right thing in the right way.

Not in a preachy manner. Not I'm just superior to you morally. But like, no, this is the right thing to do. So that's what has to get done. Great choice.

And you have to do it in the correct way because if you don't do it right, you're doing the wrong thing.

Yes. All right, Alex, end us off.

Oh, man. Well, okay. I had to, like, really rack my brain.

I think of, like, recent things I've seen and I would say I really hope I'm pronouncing her name right, but Qui. Ramonda from Wakanda the second.

Yes. T' Challa's mother.

Yes. I think she was a good. She did. She did her heard a big one. Rest in peace.

Solid choice.

Yeah.

All right, so that's all for this episode, guys. Thanks for sticking around. Please get a chance. Leave a five star review on your podcasting platform of choice.

If you're on YouTube like us, subscribe to the show so you get more content like this. Leave a comment down below if you have something you want to say about Full Metal Alchemist or another series we should be checking out.

Like, convince us to watch it too. Just like we did today for Alex. It was successful for us, we'll be successful. You for you. Not going to know unless you comment.

Shout out some supporters. Thank you very much to Russell Gentry, Justin Vaughn, Annette Noel and Jeannie Mattingly. You guys are the best.

But remember, we are all the chosen people. A geekdom of priests.