#ishval

[inkeaters]

Self-explanatory

[yay-kimblee]

[dr-fancy-pants]

Am I starting a series ? 🤔

I'm just having a lot of fun with this angle and it fits very well in my tiny sketchbook... And it's so quick to paint...

Still working on commissions, this is several days old actually 😅😂

[eternalera]

honestly i think one of the most interesting things about fmab (and one of the best things) is that they dont act like death is the only way to atone for your sins. in fact to some degrees it makes it seems like death isnt a proper way to atone for your sins. something thats so common in movies is that a character does something really bad and in the end they pay for it by ending their life. but with fmab the characters pay for it with their life. roy, riza, marcoh, knox, alex armstrong and im probably forgetting some but they pay for what they did in ishaval by devoting their entire lives to making sure that what they did in ishval will never happen again. they pay for what they did by helping an entire country, by making sure no one else will ever cause another ishval ever again. and the best part is that despite all of this they admit that its still not enough, it'll never be enough. what they did in ishval has no excuse. they knew it was wrong and they still carried it out. the only way that they can atone is making sure it doesnt happen again.

and even after they save the country they still work on trying to atone but they dont take their lives despite wanting to, because theyre going to die anyways, immortality is not something that they have. if they end their lives early then theyre taking away the time that they could be using to help others and try and right the wrongs they did before, even if it'll never be enough. they still have to try and right the wrongs and they cant do that simply by dying and the way fmab explores that is beautiful

[sassydefendorflower]

Something I don't see discussed often is the absolute genius dichotomy between dialogue and background scene during the conversation between Roy and Hughes in Ishval.

No, not that one.

I mean the one where they talk about the letter Hughes got from Garcia - one of the only "comedic" moments in all of episode 30 (and issue 15 of the manga).

Because it's horrendous.

In the anime (which unfortunately cut most of the juiciest and most fucked up stuff out of the chapters about the Ishvalen genocide) the scene begins with an establishing shot of Roy in which we see this:

Blood on the ground, covering an Ishvalen garment (and probably a body just out of frame) with a smiling Roy in front of it, since Hughes just got mail and Roy probably knows what his best friend is about to talk about. The conversation continues, the camera focused on their faces as if to make us forget just where we're at, and then, as their banter comes to a close we get this:

A wide shot of Roy and Hughes next to each other, now from the other side of the camera. Where before, we could only see their faces, alight with a rare smile, talking about the love of Hughes' life and joking around, we now see what scenery this is happening in front of. One of destruction. One of death.

Just as they ignored the dead body on the floor as they started talking about Hughes having to defend his girl back home, neither of them are really looking at Ishval in the end either. Hughes and Roy are still looking at the letter in Hughes hand - not the buildings Roy himself probably burned down only hours earlier.

It's framed a bit differently in the manga, though not by much. If anything the implications are only much darker.

(please excuse the German text, I only have the manga in German and Japanese)

But in the manga, this scene is not framed by a destroyed Ishvalen town, but by literal mountains of dead people. The speech bubbles in the left corner reference Hughes asking Roy when he'll get a girl to write home about.

I think it is very telling that Arakawa focused on the dead bodies in the foreground. I think it is incredibly clever and smart to show us Hughes and Roy only as dark shadows, as we see arms and faces stick out of the dirt.

Because as much as this moment of levity both in the manga and anime is a human one (people adapt to all kind of horrors, and most soldiers are known for a rather dark sense of humor), it is also a reminder that Hughes and Roy get to go home.

They both survive the war (even if Hughes dies later on), unlike the people over whose dead bodies they are sharing jokes.

It is a haunting imagery, but an effective one.

It's not overly aggressive, and it's easy to miss the bloody garment, especially in the anime version, but I do think it is a deliberate part of storytelling.

Because no matter how much Hughes claims he fights to survive (and i believe him, I really do), there is a difference between the Amestrians fighting and the Ishvalens they are killing.

And it's probably the fact that only one side is getting letters from back home, promising them a family and a future once they get back. Because the other side is lying dead on the floor, their blood a backdrop for two people to reminisce about humanity.

[bliegmeister]

It just hit me that that scene when Ed and Roy finally cross paths again in the tunnels, when Roy immolated that army, not only is that the first time Ed's seen the true destructive power of Flame Alchemy (there's a difference between what are essentially incredibly precise bombs and *turning at least two dozen half-homunculi into ash*), but it's the first time Ed's really seen the Hero of Ishval. The first time he's seen the man who will shut everything off to complete the mission.

There was the briefest glimmer of it at the end of their spar, when Ed was trying to get info from Roy (and get rid of a cat), but not for long.

There's a shadow of it when Roy took care of Ross. "You obey orders. That's what it means to be a soldier." Standing over the charbroiled body of what had been Ed's friend. That's probably the closest.

Al got a great glimpse with Lust. She loved how cold and focused Roy's eyes were. But Al isn't Ed.

But here? Surrounded by light so bright it hurt, smoke drifting in the air, the scent of burned flesh and blood and *bone*, the heavy sensation of melted fat settling on skin? Maybe this was the closest Ed got to seeing what his CO had been.

[thelandswemadeofpaper]

I used to think Naruto was the perfect plot, but then I watched Fullmetal Alchemist:

Corrupt Millitary Goverment begin actually acknowledged as evil, not glorified

A genocide not begin brushed off and begin treated with respect and not just 'for the good of the country uwu'

The vengeful genocide victim begin validated, not just deemed entitled and mad

Evil Villains allowed to remain evil even if they had a sad death or past or are hot

Good Kunoichi portrayal

Kishimoto burried the bar undergroud for me in anime, Hiromu Arakawa yeeted it the the sky

Edit:

Protagonist lost his powers for real and didn’t became a King/Lord/President/Captain in the end

I weirdly like Hohenheim begin a slave, not like...the prince of Xerxes or even the King's alchemist. Maybe its because I am tired of 'commoner begin secretly noble' or 'important bloodlines as the hero' stuff

[yay-fullmetal]

Once again thinking about the human experimentation that happened in ishval