#fma 03 meta

[gayleviticus]

thinking about how edward elric's definition of humanity almost entirely depends on what makes more for a less painful truth. the slicer brothers have to be human, because otherwise that means ed basically killed his brother and replaced him with a fake.

but on the other hand, Sloth can't be human, because otherwise that means ed and al basically desecrated their mothers corpse and rebirthed her into the world as a monster who hates them

[disregardcanon]

i know that i’ve said this time and time again, but 03 sloth makes me so very sad. because there’s this being that comes into existence with this deep incurable hunger and longing not just in the “feed me, seymour” way that all homunculi have but also in the “i have these vague memories of these tiny little boys and these all consuming feelings of love and i don’t WANT THAT did not ask for it never asked to be born thank you very much, very tiring. you’re inconveniencing me” and the first person that she meets says that she’s not a person, and sloth takes that as way to unshackle herself from those memories that might or might not be hers but are very much causing her distress by making her feel things

and it’s so much easier not to feel things, right? it’s so much easier to let the lady tell you you’re not a person and just point you at things to kill and stop thinking about it. just stop thinking in general. you don’t want those golden haired boys that are out there suffering and you don’t want that man who left you and you don’t want that. it’s so much easier to just be sloth. just not care. just not matter. 

i think that version of sloth is so much more compelling than sir sleeps a lot. this is a person who should know better, really does in a lot ways, but still pushes her conscience away and lets her morals atrophy because it’s easier that way. sloth of morality is much more corrosive than just “i want a nap”. 

[weirdoldmanhoho]

how 03 manages to make the Nina arc even more tragic

ok so I never thought I’d be writing Shou Tucker / Nina arc meta in the year of our lord 2018, but here we are

I think the way that 03 handles the Nina arc is really great, and over all I’d say it’s a more successful adaptation than Brotherhood’s version, which rushed through it and the rest of the first part of the series pretty quickly (granted, the story hits at different points in the timeline and serves a different purpose in each, so there are things that work best for the respective series in each version)

two things really stick out to me with how 03 handles this arc: 

the way the tension slowly builds and Ed and the audience’s distrust of Tucker grows before the reveal

the way that the show visually characterizes Shou Tucker over the course of the two episodes through the use of light, shadows, and frames within frames

one of the biggest differences in the two versions is the pacing. Brotherhood moves fast - they have one 30 minute episode to get through the entire arc. there’s more focus on Nina’s relationship with the brothers (because the audience needs to connect before the conclusion) than there is of Tucker’s relationship with the brothers. Tucker also ends up appearing more ominous much more quickly in Brotherhood - the ominous and hair-raising reveal that his first chimera only said “I want to die” before killing itself is introduced before we even meet the man, already coloring our view of him. And even though he looks harmless when we do meet him, only minutes later we’re introduced to his terrifying lab of horrors

Brotherhood still makes Tucker look more trustworthy and harmless at the start of the episode, but it doesn’t take long for our view of him to start souring and for the show to suggest that there might be something scary or ominous about him

that’s not the case in 03, which gives us two full episodes with the Tuckers. stretching out the arc helps strengthen the relationship between the Elrics and Nina and ultimately make her death more distressing - but it also gives us an entire episode that makes Tucker look sympathetic and trustworthy. there is a lot of development of the mentoring relationship between Shou Tucker and Ed before the show even begins to suggest there might be something wrong

I think that’s what makes the Nina arc so much more painful and terrifying in 03 than in Brotherhood - we don’t just get more time to get attached to Nina, we also spend a lot of time trusting Shou Tucker, which makes his later actions all the more horrifying

it’s not until the second episode, after we’ve begun to trust Tucker as a mentor and an almost parental figure for Ed (YIKES) that the show starts revealing the red flags: 1) Tucker has not been sending Nina’s letters to his wife, 2) the first chimera only said “I want to die”, 3) Tucker lied, his wife is actually dead, and 4) his research can not be accessed without very high clearance

Brotherhood’s reveal of Tucker’s actions kind of clocks you in the jaw with no warning - there’s a little bit of time to wonder, a few clues that suggest something’s afoot, but for the most part it it unexpected for both the audience and Edward - and there is a power in how that hits, too. the shock is also effective

but 03′s take is more tragic, because 03′s take feels more like an oncoming train - we know it’s coming, we can see the warning signs, but we (through Ed) just can’t move fast enough to get out of the way in time. there’s this horrible sense in 03 that this could have been avoided IF ONLY Ed had figured it out sooner. the tragedy in 03 doesn’t just come from how terrible what happens is, but because Edward was just so close to stopping it in time

03 also does a great job of representing our growing mistrust of Tucker visually

at the start, we’re introduced to this harmless looking guy, and we have basically an entire episode visually assuring us that Tucker is harmless

the last shots of Tucker in the first episode, however, start to tell a different story

as Tucker’s review and the pressures that come with it approaches and Tucker starts to feel caged in, the show visually cages him with the window. and while he looks out at his daughter and the Elrics in the light, he himself is standing in a completely dark room. the sudden switch to harsh lighting makes Tucker appear ominous in a way he hasn’t yet in the series and starts to allude to the changing tone that’s coming in the next ep.

in the second episode, the show gradually changes the way Tucker is represented visually in time with Edward’s growing suspicion

there is a moment at dinner where we see Tucker as he has been represented - just a normal guy, nothing to see here - but when the growing pressure of the review is brought up, Tucker’s glasses are suddenly obscuring his eyes 

hiding or obscuring a character’s eyes is often used to suggest an uncertainty about a character’s intentions - after all, eyes are the window to the soul. this - and specifically hiding someone’s eyes with glasses that are reflecting the light - is a very common trope in anime. suddenly, this visual suggests that we don’t know Tucker’s intentions. visually, the show is starting to make Tucker look untrustworthy, suspicious, and ominous in a way we haven’t seen him

and these moments continue as the episode slowly works it’s way towards it’s tragic end

after the dinner, we cut to this:

once again, Tucker is caged in with a visual frame and surrounded by darkness. and once again, his eyes and his intentions are hidden, and the harsh lighting ominous

and later, we get our last look at Tucker before the reveal, sitting in a dark room, eyes obscured with shadow, his back literally to the light as he faces into the darkness

like earlier with the window, Nina is once again where the light is coming from, while Tucker is in the darkness - contrasting Nina’s innocence with Tucker’s sin.

and it all builds to this terrifying, ominous shot, where Tucker is the most frightening looking we’ve ever seen him.

Brotherhood’s adaptation of the Nina arc isn’t bad by any means, but the way the 03 version first makes us trust Tucker and then gradually breaks our trust of him and builds suspicion both through the clues revealed and the visuals is fascinating and incredible effective

and if 03′s intention was the find the way to make this arc even more tragic, it was certainly succesful

additional closing thoughts: shou tucker is despicable scum and I hate him 

[gayleviticus]

the way fma 03s female characters are such an interesting nuanced exploration of all kinds of gendered tropes like how sloth is a mother who feels forced into and constrained by that identity, lust is a sexy femme fatale but this identity is literally erasing her cultural roots and whitewashing her into dantes little pet, winry is the childhood friend on the sidelines who uses this as an opportunity to live her own life and build her own relationships and goals independent of the protagonists, izumis complicated relationship ,w motherhood and wrath and the elrics, dante as abusive matriarch/cult leader of the homunculi family who objectifies women of colour (rose, lust)

and I'm not even criticising mangahood itself here, but the subtlety and nuance does feel like a marked contrast to the kindve girl boss feminism a lot of fans spout when they talk about how fmabs female cast are some of the best in anime (because they're cool and beat people up and aren't fanservice fodder, which to be sure are good things but seriously feels like grading on a curve)

[gayleviticus]

it's easy for fantastical takes on genocide to cheapen the very real horror of mass murder by making the villains' motives too removed from reality, like they wiped out a whole people to summon the great demon Alshazzar Razer of Realms (esp if it's an actual irl genocide)

but I think fma 03s take manages to avoid that because the fantastical goal of genocide (the philosophers stone and extended life) doesn't replace realistic motives, but symbolises them. like, in the end the philosophers stone is a stand in for the ways in which empires build their own luxury through violent exploitation of other countries; hence as ed notes there's no such thing as a war we have nothing to do with.

it's not that fma 03 throws out realistic contexts that give birth to genocide and fascism in favour of dumbing it down into 'fantasy hitler wants a magic rock'; the quest for the stone represents those very real contexts.

(BTW I'm not making any comment here abt whether mangahood does or doesn't do the same; I don't care abt analysing mangahood, I am specifying 03 bc that's my field of expertise)

[gayleviticus]

the thing about 03 is that while it kindve gets defined by some of its massive weird changes (like the world on the other side of the gate thing), for the most part it is an adaptation that is very interested in playing with what it already has, not adding stuff wholesale. the two 03 original homunculi are closely tied to pre existing characters, for instance, and we see in 03 a tendency to keep bringing back certain characters who were one and done in the manga like sheska and tucker.

to some people this focus on stepping into the gaps in the original can feel fan ficcy and not like a work with its own integrity. but I think to 03 appreciators it helps give the series a kindve consistent concerted emphasis on its core themes. stuff from the original like als identity crisis and barry the chopper resonate with 03 original stuff like the resurrected homunculi and hoenheim and dantes own efforts to transcend humanity into an interesting interconnected web of ideas about what it means to be human and be embodied as one.

that's not to say mangahood doesn't have its own themes that are interconnected etc, but I think it also is very clearly interested in broadening its scope, whereas 03 is exclusively about deepening the ideas we get in the first couple volumes of the story. its innovations are ones that stem from identifying key ideas already present in the story - the guilt and horror of human transmutation merges w the concept of villains themed after the deadly sins into the homunculi as 'monsters' literally embodying their creators sins. even the parallel world thing is arguably just a case of making what's subtextual parallel to nazi germany in the original into overt text.

[gayleviticus]

might be repeating myself but I've been thinking for a while that fma 03 is kinda anti worldbuilding - not worldbuilding in the sense of fleshing out a setting, culture, society, magic systems etc, but specifically in the sense of treating a fictional world as if it were real. ed and al ending up in our world in shamballa symbolises exiting a fantastical world and entering the reality they rejected for so long trying to hold onto the past. the kind of worldbuilding that tries to make a living breathing world out of amestris would fit really awkwardly here; it would be strange to be asked to treat amestris w utmost literal seriousness and also as metaphorically something that ed and al end up moving beyond

and I think similarly, if this was a 'worldbuilding' story, we would see the reveal about the source of alchemys power handled differently. how do we amend this injustice? how can amestris ethically transition to a society not based around using human souls to fix radios and make things blow up? how do ed and al share this info w the masses and how do they respond?

but those kinds of questions, while possibly interesting, are not only skipped over, but imo just totally irrelevant to what 03 is doing here. dead souls power alchemy is the final blow that destroys the elrics world. equivalent exchange is a lie, and this entire world is built on death all the way to the bottom (but in a sense, is this not the lesson they should have learned all those years ago hunting to survive on York island?)

it's not about turning amestris as a worldbuilding setting upside down - it's about breaking this fantasy world for the elrics specifically, so there's nothing left but to fall out of it entirely

[gayleviticus]

something I find really interesting about fma 03 is the homunculi's names, because when I first watched it I was like 'hmm this is kindve awkward. they're just random names dante gave them i guess?' and chalked it up to having to awkwardly work around the source material. and I hindsight I feel like that stems from a specific approach to the text that's like... out to look for plot holes and patch up inconsistencies? The fact Homunculi names seemingly match up suspiciously well in some ways but are also on some level arbitrarily assigned by Dante is approached primarily as either an awkwardness to be solved (if you like the work) or a plot hole to be criticised (if you dislike it).

But looking at it now (and with the help of a lot of really good analyses and meta on here) my lens is very much 'why does this disconnect exist?' it's not trying to look for problems; it's taking the assumption the narrative DOES fit together and then thinking about what it means.

and so it seems obvious to me that the simple answer to this disconnect is that they are names dante imposed to dehumanise and isolate the homunculi. some of them are more accurate, some of them less, but ultimately they are Dante seeing a living being and reducing their entire life to a single Sin. Wrath's anger is not a response to complicated trauma and wanting a family, it is something he Is ontologically; Lust really shows no sexual desire in the series, but she is made into an object of fantasy, dressed up and sexualised like Dantes little doll.

And we see this at an extreme with Gluttony, who is reduced to nothing more than mindless, insatiable hunger by Dante when his human feelings for Lust get in the way of making the Stone. (in fact presumably the ways in which the Homunculi's powers seem to align with their assigned sin is Dante's work)

so I think this is emblematic of a lot of things in 03, where looking at it with a plot logic lens makes you miss the forest for the trees (and tbf this is a lens that is not great for most media in general because cinemasins tier obsession w plot holes is rarely helpful)