Full Metal Alchemist General

Basically he teamed with them to get revenge on the Elric Brothers.

Yeah, it never happens.

Did he think getting the philosopher stone would help with that?

I don't think that ever cross his mind.

I really like how Al and Ed showing mercy it the chimeras actually cause them to have face heel turns, giving weight to their don't -kill philosophy

Also remind me why scar, Marcoh, may and yoki fled north? I think those notes they were researching belonged to Scar's brother right? So why did they head north?

edited 13th Jul '14 6:11:44 PM by Xopher001

Apparently Scar hid them there some time ago, if I recall correctly?

Yes. They were going to where Scar hid the notes.

As for why Yoki is with them in the first place, Yoki was slumming it with the Ishvalans after losing Youswell. He discovered Scar and tried to turn him in for the reward, but Scar killed the bounty hunters sent to collect him and left the camp. Yoki left with Scar and basically became Scar's slave from there.

edited 13th Jul '14 6:49:48 PM by TobiasDrake

Didn't he also get beaten up by the people in the Camp in the Manga?

Why are everyone's parents dead? Winery's parents, The Elric's mom, Mustang was apprently adopted (thought I don't know at what age Madame Christmas became his foster mother ) , Hawkeye, even King Bradley

That's just an anime thing.

They tend to do it a lot really.

Are King Bradley's parents dead? He certainly doesn't know; he never knew them. For all he knows, they abandoned him or offered him to the President Program as an infant.

As noted, it's a anime thing. Dead parents are an easy method of justifying children being able to go off and have wacky adventures and/or spend their entire lives studying/training in their respective art on their own initiative.

Having nothing keeping them from just wandering off to slay dragons, or spending 20 hours per day training, every day, helps to explain why anime characters are frequently unusually young, yet skilled far beyond their years, to the extent of regularly humiliating the adults they encounter. Anime likes to have Kid Heroes; getting the parents out of the way somehow is a prerequisite for that.

For instance, Fullmetal Alchemist With Parents is a two minute story in which Ed and Al's dad gives them both a firm spanking for even CONSIDERING human transmutation, shocks and horrifies them with stories of what awful things it does, and then they never perform it. The end.

edited 14th Jul '14 7:49:17 AM by TobiasDrake

They then go on to form a father-son superhero team to oppose the Homunculi.

edited 14th Jul '14 8:11:36 AM by Nikkolas

To be fiar, it is an old cliche in anime however that is not say that Father/Son teams don't exist. Even in the story's universe, I highly doubt Father and The Homuculi are not going to attack Hohenheim just because he has kids.

Bluh, how long until the next season of brotherhood is on Netflix ?

edited 14th Jul '14 2:52:11 PM by Xopher001

Father and the homunculi didn't attack Hohenheim. He went after them, traveling Amestris to put his plan to undermine The Promised Day in action.

Come to think of it, if he'd just stayed home with his kids, Father would have failed miserably. They were already desperately reaching just to come up with a fifth Sacrifice. If Ed and Al had never performed the human transmutation to try and bring back their mom, Father would have two Sacrifices of the required five, and the transmutation to attain the power of God would have been a dismal failure.

Evidently people willing to commit the taboo are few and far between.

edited 15th Jul '14 8:38:53 AM by TobiasDrake

I don't know.

There was bound to be someone arrogant enough to think they could do it.

Remember, up until Ed dug up the remains of the body they created, it's possible he still believed that it could be done. No-one knew it was totally impossible, and as long as it wasn't totally impossible, they was always a chance others would have tried.

I would say that the only reason they ended up cutting it so close was because a large group of people within the military many months prior to when things went down, meaning the other side had time to form their own counter.

....By the way, what was the point of Father Cornello? I can't really recall how he fit into things.

While it is certainly possible for others to perform human transmutation, the point is that nobody did. After combing the nation for sacrifices, the homunculi only turned up three plus Hohenheim, who didn't technically perform human transmutation, but was still viable as a sacrifice due to what Father had done to him long ago. Pride literally had to manufacture a fifth sacrifice at the last possible moment, and it left him so wrecked that it's unlikely he could do it again. Without Ed and Al, Father would be screwed.

As for Cornello, his purpose was to militarize the people of Lior and start a holy war against the Amestrian government, in order to provide Wrath with a justification to sent the military in and massacre them. It was a necessary step to make one of the blood crests, like Ishval, Briggs and various other skirmishes in key locations around the nation.

That's also why Ed's actions there were fruitless; the reason Envy returned to Lior as Cornello to continue his work and incite a civil war was to get that damn crest. Ed's first adventure mildly inconvenienced Father without his ever realizing how deep the rabbit hole ran; although it can also be argued that while a blood crest was still signed in the form of a rebel-crushing military battle, by disrupting the Leto religion, Ed may have saved Lior from the kind of utter genocide that Ishval suffered.

edited 15th Jul '14 9:27:23 AM by TobiasDrake

Ironic since Dante would've gotten to Ed and Al sooner if Hohenheim didn't leave.

While I doubt Pride could have forced someone into human transmutation twice, it's possible that each of the Homunculi could have done the same thing. So, worst comes to worst, Father could have gotten Wrath and Sloth to manufacture some sacrifices, too.

But isn't Pride the only one who can absorb the knowledge that a person has in their mind?

And at that point only Manga!Pride, Manga!Wrath, and Manga!Greed were still alive,so Sloth being dead counts him out. And Manga!Greed wouldn't help in hells chance on that.

But maybe Manga!Wrath, not sure.

I highly doubt Wrath even could; he has none of the regenerative properties the other homunculi have. He wouldn't survive the attempt.

edited 15th Jul '14 2:12:28 PM by TobiasDrake

I'm not sure the Manga! appellation is necessary when one is talking specifically about a manga plot point. We can understand who you man.

People use the Anime! appellation for Anime exclusive plot points despite how redundant that is,I in turn do the opposite since I do not default to the Manga/Brotherhood.

It's more for me to get the difference between Selim/Pride-the-Arrogant (Manga) and Selim-the-murdered-by-Pride-the-Arrogant (Anime), the difference between Sloth-the-almost-nonexistent(Manga) and Sloth-the-Trisha (Anime), etc.,etc.

But anyway, if Van Hohenheim hadn't left, how would a counter transmutation circle have been produced? It wasn't for sure that Ed and Al sped things up, it just happened that way. Is there anyone that really could've directly taken out Father or countered other than Van Hohenheim

EDIT: Whoops had the wrong the trope for Sloth. Coulda sworn it meant something else

edited 15th Jul '14 7:51:45 PM by terlwyth

Sloth died while trying to kill General Armstrong. In an alternate timeline where Ed and Al never go adventuring, they never meet Armstrong, so she never learns about Father's plans and doesn't become a Homunculi target.

edited 15th Jul '14 9:14:00 PM by RavenWilder