Just wanted your opinion on something. Roy's Gate of Truth has the circle for fire alchemy on it. So does this mean that Roy was always meant to have learnt fire alchemy, or his gate has fire alchemy because he learnt it?
Oooooooooooo this is REALLY interesting. I’d never thought through a person’s Gate of Truth and whether it’s about who they innately are (or are fated to be), versus who they have created themselves to be.
I haven’t followed to see if there’s fandom discussion on the topic, so everything I’m going to postulate below about these doors is going to be my novel ideas.
Hopefully everything makes sense… I wrote this between 1 and 4 AM.
I think the key to answering this question lies in Father’s Gate of Truth. I’ll get to that… later. Bear with me.
For readers who didn’t notice this before, every character has a different door design when they open the Portal of Truth. That’s a fascinating detail and one Arakawa wouldn’t have drawn without attention or intent. She’s filled FMA with tiny details, down to naming the country “Amestris” after the wife of Xerxes, or giving essentially all military characters names based off WWII vehicles. She’s plopped in interesting details regarding the Seven Deadly Sins, according to other analyses I’ve seen. From what I know, the punishment for Wrath is supposed to be dismemberment, Lust being smothered in fire… sound familiar? So Arakawa wouldn’t have drawn separate, intricate gates for every character without meaning to for good reason.
So here are three doors for our alchemists, each one of them different:
All of them are detailed but very different. Ed’s and Al’s are more similar to each other than Roy’s is to either of them. Both Ed and Al have designs that roughly look like trees (or plants) stretching to the sky, with roots growing beneath them.
Ed’s door is covered in Latin and Hebrew words like “Elohim Sabaoth” and “Adonai” - names of G-d, linked together by branches labeled “Sephiroth”…
…as well as, from what admittedly VERY little I know of the Kabbalah, the angels of the Tree of Life.
(Please don’t quote me as an expert for this stuff. I’m trying my best with this information I’m reading up on, but I’ll freely admit I’m imperfect and with limited knowledge myself. You’re free to nicely educated me if I say something inaccurate; I will be appreciative of learning more and adjusting appropriately).
It’s to note that even in the 2003 book “Fullmetal Alchemist Profiles,” it contains a section on the Kabbalah. To quote the book:
Some time in the 16th century, the Kabbalah became known throughout the whole of Europe. It seems unlikely that it has any prior connection to alchemy, which developed on its own individual course, but there is one thing that the Kabbalah shares with alchemy: both teach that the world came out of G-d (=one) who created it, and that the human beings (=all) who inhabit the physical world can become closer to G-d through study.
The Sephiroth tree diagram shows the Kabbalah’s Arcana. The Sephiroth tree is comprised of ten spheres (Sephira), three pillars, and 22 paths (channels). Each number has a very specific meaning but we will abbreviate it here.
The tree is essentially a map that shows how the things that came from G-d’s world - a nebulous, untouchable domain - become connected to the physical world of the four basic elements.
What’s interesting is that this book specifically brings up the Kaballah and connects it with the “One is all, all is one” phrase. That’s a phrase central to Amestrian alchemy… at least, to a certain few people who practice Amestrian alchemy. The concept of “One is all, all is one” is a powerful epiphany to Izumi Curtis when she’s struggling through her month of trial in the Briggs mountain wilderness. She passes it onto her students, Ed and Al, and it becomes important to them.
(It’s also a concept that Truth describes itself with… saying it is “perhaps truth, or perhaps all, or perhaps one”).
And this concept, more or less, makes its appearance onto Edward Elric’s door.
But why all the names of G-d?
And why this tree with its roots at all?
Does this have something to do with how Ed is like an Icarus, reaching beyond his power to get too close to the sun, a scientist acting too much like God himself? Is this Gate a reflection of that life-influential action in Edward’s life, or a fate set in stone carved in the face of the door?
Well. I want to contrast this with Father’s door.
I think that this door, paired with Father’s conversation with Truth, might give some insight for what’s going on.
Father: Why won’t you become mine, God?Truth: Because you never believed in yourself. You thought you could make God’s power your own. Don’t make me laugh. You think stealing something powerful makes you great? You’re nothing but a cunning thief. You should have stayed satisfied inside the flask where you belong. All you’ve ever done is use the strength of others to grab at godhood. You haven’t grown at all. Father: I wanted to become a perfect being! I wanted to understand God! I wanted to know everything about this world! So, why do you oppose me? Who are you?!Truth: I am what humans call the world… or the universe… or truth… or all… or one. And… I am you. You called Truth “the arbiter of order” that “keeps men in their place.” That’s what you said, wasn’t it? And so, just as you said… I’m going to show you your proper place.Father: Stop! I don’t want to go back. No… I don’t want to be imprisoned there again! Truth: The Truth brings despair to those who dare reach above their station. This is the end you wished for.
What strikes me about this conversation is several things.
Truth has power over the homunculus, the dwarf in the flask, the character we’ve known as Father. Despite the fact Father is a man-made creature and not “directly” from God’s fingertips or God’s typical order of life business (birth, the circle of life, what have you), Truth has control over Father, too. Truth is the one who can arbitrate Father’s punishment. Truth is the one who can put Father in his place. This means that, if we wanted to talk about whether or not Father was Meant or Fated to take his path… whether his actions were part of predestination or design… then Truth’s got just as much power over Father, and just as much power to influence Father’s door… as someone like Mustang, Izumi Curtis, or the Elrics. So Truth conceivably could have given Father his door’s decoration (or lack thereof).
Truth says that Father’s problem is he is a thief who took others’ strengths. Father never gave anything or contributed anything. Furthermore, according to Truth, Father “[hasn’t] grown at all.”If you want to think about people in a tabula rasa-esque respect, then we all allegedly start out as clean slates, with nothing predisposing our minds. It’s through our lives and experiences that we become who we are. When I see Father’s blankass doorway and hear it combined with Truth saying Father never gave anything and never grew… the thought crossed my mind that, “Father’s nothing, then, just like his doorway.”
Truth chastises Father for not believing in himself or growing himself. This suggests that Father has the free will to have made choices otherwise. Let’s not get deep into the rabbit hole of determinism, free will, and compatibilism… but if Truth is punishing Father for his own actions, and Truth is admonishing Father for never believing himself (with the implication he COULD have believed in himself), then I’d say we have a direction we can interpret the doorways. It’s not Truth creating a blank doorway for Father to fulfill, but Father’s actions influencing what his doorway looks like.
At least, this is insofar as we want to speculate the Gates of Truth are relevantly connected to the life of the person who opens them. I’m saying this since we could maybe find other ways to interpret this imagery that don’t involve “my choice made this doorway’s design.”
But let’s go with the idea that Father’s actions have “made” his door blank. Then Ed’s door, and Al’s door, and Roy’s door, would come because of what they’ve done.
Considering as Ed made the choice to march beyond God and reach for the sun, and Ed lives in an alchemy-centered philosophy where “One is all, all is one,” his door isn’t too out of line for what we might expect to see, given his life’s biggest decisions and focuses.
So here we’ve got a screencap of Roy’s gate. Well, part of it. You can see the interlocked triangle pattern and what could be two basilisks weaving through the geometry. There’s a sun-like icon in the bottom center. We also have a circle in the very center of the two triangles.
It’s not exactly the same as the transmutation circle Roy wears on his gloves, nor is it the same as what Berthold Hawkeye tattooed on his daughter’s back.
However, I’d say it’s evocative enough. There’s a sun, the same-ish geometric pattern, and the same use of basilisks or snakes in each pattern.
So, a reference to Flame Alchemy, as you say.
But it’s not just the act of “oh snap snap spark spark” being represented here.
The inclusion of our snakey snakey friends in the door - which is present in Riza’s tat but not Roy’s glove - harks back to Roy’s origins with Flame Alchemy. How he learned it. How he grew with it. How it changed his life. How these experiences fueled his own motivations and intentional self-aggrandizement.
How he made himself (in contrast to Father, who never grew at all).
How he made… his Gate of Truth.
This is how (going back to the Kabbalah idea) he connects the things from his world and life with God’s/Truth’s realm and judgment.
Roy’s life does circle around Flame Alchemy, but it’s because of his most influential memories and the greatest decisions he’s made. It’s because of Flame Alchemy that he met Riza and learned how to use this force. It’s because Mustang decided to take this dangerous alchemy to the military that he became a State Alchemist. It’s because he became a State Alchemist that, when he obeyed Amestrian military orders, he became a major (haha, get the pun) player in the Ishvalan War. It’s because he participated in ethnic genocide and became so conscious-stricken about it that he decided to become Führer. And ever since then, Roy’s life and decisions and motivations and morality and choices and determination have all centered around this goal: become Führer, change his country for the better.
Father didn’t make himself anything. Father only tried to steal from others. Father tried to purge himself of the Seven Deadly Sins and leave himself with nothing - literally make himself an empty door with emptiness. Father’s door is as empty as what he made himself. Roy Mustang’s been trying to grow himself into a responsible leader who can scale up the ranks of the military and assume control of his nation. Roy’s door is a summation of his motivations: the causes which have made him this way, and what he’s using as an inspirational launching point to make himself better.
So I’d say there’s a case to be made that, as you said, Mustang’s “gate has fire alchemy because he learnt it.” But more than that, it’s what he’s used to craft himself as a moral person.
We have the choice to try to better ourselves. Roy’s decisions and actions to try to better himself have stemmed from his experiences surrounding Flame Alchemy.
The Message of Choice in Fullmetal Alchemist
This idea fits with the messages emanating across Fullmetal Alchemist. FMA isn’t about fate. It’s about the power of your choice.
I mean… even in the first titular opening, YUI is singing:
I still have too long a life ahead just to give up and drop off all these dreams. I just want to try and fix all the things that I’ve left undone. I thought that I could reach something carried over I saw within my dreams, and yet I stumble on all my actions on this road that’s in front of me. It’s not like I want things to go back to the way before. All I want is to open my eyes and feel the sun.
You can’t let every single sin end with tears; wear them proudly on your sleeve along with your fears. It’s like you’re waiting for someone to draw near. In a maze of emotion, there comes a day where you find a way to escape - a blank page, now I’m writing out my own fate; I’ve grown tired of running away from a thing called reality.
FMA’s story and its themes are very much hinged on choice.
Scar doesn’t have to be a serial killer terrifying State Alchemists. He can choose to help his people not through terrorism and revenge, but through rebuilding and support. He can unite his people together to save Amestris. He can act as a religious authority in Ishval once the land gets reopened, helping to preserve the cultural and religious identity of his people. Through Scar’s choices, he moves through a powerful redemption arc that shows that, while we can’t always control other peoples’ horrendous acts, we don’t have to commit horrendous acts in turn to make a meaningful difference. The character arc works because of his choices. He will listen to his God and see what his God’s will is. God’s authority and power isn’t irrelevant. But Scar is the one who must enact that choice himself. He is not fated to one path and his people don’t have to be fated to die.
Ed and Al didn’t have to bring Trisha back to life, but because they tried, they reaped the consequences. Truth took away their bodies. It’s their choices that put them in this unpleasant state, and it’s their choices and determination that lead them to recovering Ed’s arm and Al’s body.
Roy and Riza live a life of guilt due to Ishval. There’s no way that they can undo the damage they’ve done. There will forever be consequences because of their sins. But they can choose to do whatever is in their power to take responsibility for their wrongs, to provide relief for victims of the past, and to try to prevent future tragedies.
It’s about their choice, too.
And thus it makes sense for us to read the Gates as “everyone made their gates the way they are” rather than “the gates made them the way they are.” It’s because FMA resonates with the understanding of our choices, good or bad, and what comes of them.
Roy Mustang’s gate by this reading then says that it’s through his choices that his gate has Flame Alchemy. It’s about his choice to follow orders in Ishval that led to his guilt. It’s about his choice to become Führer to take better responsibility for Ishval’s tragedy. It’s about how Roy uses Flame Alchemy, yeah. Because Flame Alchemy is connected to his greatest experiences, tragedies, dreams, and self-directed growth.
