So human transmutation isn’t just immoral, it’s illegal as fuck. It makes sense it would be, of course- imagine if bending humans into other humans was legal- but the wording of it interests me.
“What could possibly compare to the value of a human soul?”
That’s kind of a rhetorical question, isn’t it? Because the value of a human depends from person to person. It can’t be made concrete. Transmuting a stranger’s soul must be a different equivalent than transmuting your little brother, right? And what of animals? They have souls. What would it cost a human to transmute an animal soul?
And, if we’re talking equivalent exchanges here, what did the Elric brothers get from their failed attempt? Things were taken. Something else should be in its place, right? But all we have is two brothers who were left in literal pieces trying to survive in a world where they’ve basically damned themselves straight to hell, and the world that found them, bloody and duct-taped together, and sent them to be in the military.