FMA 3 - Mother
- From: "elsie" <lcubbison@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 02:31:14 GMT
Episode 3 - Mother
"Before rejecting this idea as monstrous, let the reader again consider the
actual relations between parents and children. We must distinguish between
the traditional standard of conduct, the filial piety expected in this
relation, and what daily observation shows us to be the fact. More than one
occasion for enmity lies hidden amidst the relations of parents and
children; conditions are present in the greatest abundance under which
wishes which cannot pass the censorship are bound to arise. Let us first
consider the relation between father and son. In my opinion the sanctity
with which we have endorsed the injunctions of the Decalogue dulls our
perception of the reality. Perhaps we hardly dare permit ourselves to
perceive that the greater part of humanity neglects to obey the fifth
commandment. In the lowest as well as in the highest strata of human
society, filial piety towards parents is wont to recede before other
interests. The obscure legends which have been handed down to us from the
primeval ages of human society in mythology and folklore give a deplorable
idea of the despotic power of the father, and the ruthlessness with which it
was exercised. Kronos devours his children, as the wild boar devours the
litter of the sow; Zeus emasculates his father * and takes his place as
ruler. The more tyrannically the father ruled in the ancient family, the
more surely must the son, as his appointed successor, have assumed the
position of an enemy, and the greater must have been his impatience to
attain to supremacy through the death of his father. Even in our own
middle-class families the father commonly fosters the growth of the germ of
hatred which is naturally inherent in the paternal relation, by refusing to
allow the son to be a free agent or by denying him the means of becoming so.
......
"In the case of psychoneurotics, analysis confirms this conjecture beyond
all doubt. For analysis tells us that the sexual wishes of the child- in so
far as they deserve this designation in their nascent state- awaken at a
very early age, and that the earliest affection of the girl-child is
lavished on the father, while the earliest infantile desires of the boy are
directed upon the mother. For the boy the father, and for the girl the
mother, becomes an obnoxious rival, and we have already shown, in the case
of brothers and sisters, how readily in children this feeling leads to the
death-wish. As a general rule, sexual selection soon makes its appearance in
the parents; it is a natural tendency for the father to spoil his little
daughters, and for the mother to take the part of the sons, while both, so
long as the glamour of sex does not prejudice their judgment, are strict in
training the children. The child is perfectly conscious of this partiality,
and offers resistance to the parent who opposes it. To find love in an adult
is for the child not merely the satisfaction of a special need; it means
also that the child's will is indulged in all other respects. Thus the child
is obeying its own sexual instinct, and at the same time reinforcing the
stimulus proceeding from the parents, when its choice between the parents
corresponds with their own."
-- from Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
http://www.psywww.com/books/interp/chap05d.htm
We open to Ed and Al searching in a library for books about the
Philosopher's Stone. A caption comes up that identifies the older brother as
aged 15 and the younger as aged 14. They aren't finding much of use. "I
can't believe Cornello's stone was a fake," Al sighs. "Now we're out of
leads again." But among the books they do find a copy of their first alchemy
textbook (apparently a role-playing game manual, going by the text). The
scene shifts back in time to a small house at the end of a long lane, where
we see the two boys, then six and five, drawing an alchemic circle on the
floor while a little girl named Winry watches, holding her puppy. The boys
drop sand onto the circle and then kneel to place their hands on it. A
yellow light flares from the circle, and lightning sparks as something forms
in the center of the circle, frightening the little girl. The something
looks like a rag doll. [Wouldn't fabric have been better material to place
in the circle than sand? Maybe it's actually a china doll.] Winry begins to
cry as the boys go to her side.
Coming back from the opening, we see the two little boys sitting outside the
house, as though waiting to be punished, while the puppy barks at them.
Inside the parents are trying to explain things to Winry. We hear a man's
voice say, "They weren't trying to scare you, Winry. They went to a lot of
trouble."
"That's right," Winry's mother says. "Edward and Alphonse were just trying
to do something special for you."
"I'm sorry about this," says the boys' mother. "It was a misunderstanding."
"But no mistake of talent," comments Winry's grandmother, Pinako, as she
enters the room carrying the doll. "You know I've found the most gifted
folks give up before they do anything of real merit. But your boys have one
heck of a start. Look at this work," she says, holding the doll up to their
mother's startled gaze.
"I know. It's stunning," she says. "But they shouldn't know anything about
alchemy."
"Well, they are his sons, after all."
On their way home, the mother asks the boys, "Okay, boys, no secrets -- when
did your dad teach you alchemy?"
"How can we learn from someone who's never here?" asks Ed. So by this point,
at ages 6 and 5, Hohenheim has been gone for a while. It's not clear how
well the boys remember him, though one would guess that Ed's memories are
stronger than Al's. Certainly, Ed's feelings are quite a bit stronger.
"We learned it from his book," Al answers.
"You mean, you really understand it, on your own?"
"Yeah, more or less," they respond in unison.
"So, are you upset with us?" Ed asks.
"You mean for using alchemy? No, Ed, I'm proud! I think I'll brag to
everyone I know. No be sure to put the books back where you found them. And
when your dad gets back, make sure you thank him." The boys are given access
to their father's study, but with one door designated as off-limits. This
door must lead to his materials on human transmutation, as the main study
doesn't seem to have the suit of armor.
"Dad had left a long time ago," we hear Al say, but not to whom, "when Ed
and I were still boys. Mom stared off into the distance a lot, but she
carried on as if nothing were wrong." We see a montage of family life, but
with a picture of wounded soldiers marching by the house included. "We
started studying alchemy, like our father before us. The more we learned,
the more she smiled. She praised us. And we competed with each other. We
became absorbed in the science that made you feel like you were magic." So
in the two years between the time Ed was six and he turned 8, soldiers were
beginning to return from the Ishbal.
By age 8 and 7, the boys were doing more sophisticated transmutations. "You
two really are his kids, no doubt about it!"
"You think Dad'd be proud, too?" Al asks.
"Yes... once he comes home, he'll tell you so," she responds, after catching
her breath for a second. But Ed snatches his little creature and runs away,
saying, "I'm going to Winry's."
The boys sit on a hillside where Al asks, "Brother, why are you so angry at
Daddy all the time?"
"Come on.... Why do you think? He ditched us. I can't say I hate him--I
don't remember him enough." The shot shifts to the shadow of a man with a
beard standing in a doorway. "But when Mom thinks of him, she gets sad.
That's reason enough not to like him. Come on. Let's go show this to Winry."
But things are bad at the Rockbell home. Pinako is holding a letter crumpled
in her hand, while Winry sits at the table weeping. "What do you mean,
dead?" Al asks. So if we're constructing a timeline, Ed is 8 when the
Rockbells are killed.
"Don't be stupid, Al!" Winry sobs angrily. "They're plain dead-- My mom and
dad are dead!"
"But how? I thought they were just doctors..." Ed responds.
"They went to be surgeons for the war in Ishbal. There was a surprise
attack.."
"Winry," Al speaks, trying to be comforting and giving her the little
creature he made. "Our dad's gone too, you know... We make it okay."
"Shut up, you idiot!" she yells, sweeping the toy to the floor. "Your dad
just ran off--my parents are both dead! They can't ever come back!"
"That's not necessarily true," says Ed, picking up the toy. "I read it in a
book. There's this artificially made thing called a homunculus. It's sort of
a living doll, without a mind to begin with, but some scholars believe with
alchemy, if you're willing to give up enough..." Even at that young age, Ed
is already starting to think about the idea of conquering death. But there's
those seven words he's not thinking deeply enough about: "if you're willing
to give up enough...."
"Stop!" Pinako has heard enough. "There'll be no talking like that in this
house, you understand me! That's a forbidden science. Alchemy is not some
magic, end-all answer." [We get a shot of Den here, who already has his
automail leg by this time.] "That's why we automail engineers exist." How
much does Pinako know about human transmutation, and how does she know it?
One might think that kind of knowledge is limited to the alchemy community.
"Backwards old bat," Ed mutters, only to get himself and Al thrown out of
the house. "You know she's right... Winry's lost more than we ever will," Ed
says to Al on their way back home. [Just you wait, Ed. You'll lose all there
is to lose too.]
"Poor Winry," says Al. "Can you imagine how that'd be?" The boys look up the
hill to their own house and see their mother waiting. They run sobbing to
her arms, mystifying her. "Come on, Ed, even you?" she says. "My little man?
What could be so bad?" It's interesting that the dub anyway has her calling
Ed her little man.
We have another jump in time. Now Ed is 10, and Al is 9, and they are
running up the hill to their house. To their shock they find their mother
lying on the floor. In the next scene, the doctor is talking to Pinako as
the boys sit at their mother's bedside. "I can tell you," the doctor says,
"this isn't some sickness she contracted yesterday. She must have been
dealing with this for years, not telling anyone." In her delirium Trisha
Elric seems to call for her husband. The boys decide that they must contact
their father, and they gather all the letters he has sent them over the
years. "If we mail something to each of these addresses, explaining
everything," Ed tells Al.
"Someone is bound to know where he is, and can tell him to come home," Al
finishes.
"Damn it!" Ed cries out. "I don't want him here. But it's the only way. She
has to see him." Ed's Oedipus complex comes to the fore here, as if it
hadn't existed before. In Freudian terms, Ed's missing father is his rival
for his mother's love. While Ed rejects his father, because he loves his
mother and wants her to be happy, he must wish for the return of his rival.
In the kitchen various unknown neighbors, five men and four women are
holding vigil, while the boys, the doctor, Winry and her grandmother are
with Trisha, who is on her deathbed. "Your dad...he left us some money....
I've never touched it. I was saving it for you boys. Use it, and take care
of each other."
"Don't be silly," Ed says. "We'll use it with you."
"Edward, would you be a sweetheart, and transmute something for your mother?
Yes, I know... a ring of flowers would be nice. You see, your father...
always... used to make them for me." Trisha's eyes close, and we are shown
their three hands clasped together as her hand relaxes its hold in death.
Our next shot is of her grave.
"And that's what we finally understood," Al's voice over continues over
scenes from the funeral. "The reason why Mom had always smiled at our
alchemy. It had reminded her of Dad." Al is shown crouched in a fetal
position. Gradually, the other mourners leave the graveside, but Ed and Al
remain. "Brother...I'm hungry," young Al says. "And I'm cold, too. How are
we gonna do this? How are we gonna live without her?"
"We're not, Al..." Ed declares. "We're going to bring her back." Al looks up
at Ed with tears in his eyes. The scene shifts back to the tombstone as the
logo comes up for the break.
We return from the break to a pile of books tagged with bookmarks. "Look.
It's right here, in his notes. I don't understand it all, but he's written
something about human transmutations. If we can just decipher it."
"But Aunt Pinako says human alchemy's forbidden. This book says the same
thing..." Al protests.
"Forget about that. If scientists could bring people back to life, we all
know we'd be better off, right? Alchemists tried for centuries and couldn't
figure it out. Slapping a 'forbidden' label on it was just a way for them
not to feel bad about their failure." Centuries worth of alchemists failed,
but you can make it succeed, Ed? The hubris of an 10-year-old prodigy is
breath-taking.
"But..." Al cries out, "maybe we should ask Dad about it first."
"Don't start with that junk again, Al. Mom's life drained away waiting for
him--it's all his fault she's dead. He didn't even come to her funeral."
Ed's fist clenches. "No, this is something our dad couldn't do...But we
will... We have to." Ed is really railroading Al here, isn't he? No wonder
he felt so guilty later on. As the boys crouch there in the study, the suit
of armor Al would later inhabit stands against the wall beside a second
half-armor and a helmet on a bookcase.
We then have a short montage of Ed and Al's alchemy training, with a
silhouette of their teacher, a shot of the boys chasing a rabbit, and other
shots of the boys camping out on an island. Al's voice over continues: "We
used some of the money to find ourselves a teacher. And we learned alchemy
from page one. The serious kind. We were done making dolls and roses."
Their training finished, the boys take the train home to where dark storm
clouds loom over the landscape. As the camera nears the house and moves
inside, we hear Ed and then Al reciting the material components of the human
body. "Yeah, that's everything. The physical ingredients of a human body.
Now if we can just put together a soul, we should be able to call Mom back
from the other side."
Poor Al is still having doubts. "Edward, you sure we should do this?" he
says, his voice breaking.
"Of course," Ed replies. "Don't wimp out on me now."
"But no one's ever done this right," Al protests. "I mean alchemy is
equivalent exchange. The body content seems simple enough, but what about
the soul? What could we possibly offer?" Al keeps trying to restrain Ed, but
Ed is hellbent on going forward with the transmutation.
"Just hold out your finger, okay?" The boys use a knife to cut their fingers
and drip blood onto the circle. If only it took as little blood as that,
boys. "What's the soul, really?" Ed continues. "When you take out the myth,
it's just the spark that starts life. And this is our blood...from her
blood.... That's a fair trade."
Outside rain is pouring down, and a man stands on a hilltop overlooking the
area. The camera pans up to Mustang's face as he says, "There's something
foul in the air."
[This next section took a long time to write as I literally went frame by
frame on the DVD.]
Inside the house, the alchemic circle flares greenish-yellow and then starts
to swirl like a tornado. The shot shifts overhead, looking down at the
center of the circle, the two boys kneeling at the perimeter. The light
shines on the metal of the armor in the room. Ed is grinning with
excitement, but the light turns purple, and his eyes widen with fear, grin
fading. A flash appears to go past him, and he turns his head to follow it.
The tornado is now purple, shading into indigo. The globes of a lamp
shatter, and a wind flips the pages of a book. We see the backs of the boys'
heads as Al says, "Brother...something's going wrong here," and then lets
out a whimpering wail. Ed turns his head to see a red lightning engulf his
brother's arm as Al cries out in pain.
"Al!" Ed cries out, reaching for his brother, only to feel and see black
cables attach themselves to his leg.
"Edward!" A scream refocuses Ed on his brother who is being pulled into the
purple light by the black cables. Al reaches first one hand and then another
toward Ed as the first is pulled by the cables. "Brother!" he shrieks.
"Brother! Brother, please!"
Now we see the scene from the side, Al being pulled in as Ed pulls himself
closer, reaching for him. "No, Al!!" We hear Al scream as his body seems to
break down. They reach for each other, but their hands do not meet. "And
that's the last thing I remember," says the calm tone of Al's voice over.
"Him reaching for me, his leg already broken down by the forces of alchemy."
The scene shifts outside to a grim-faced Mustang watching the house engulfed
in the purple alchemic light.
Fade to black, and then fade up to the helmet of the suit of armor. The
armor pulls itself upright. "Huh? What is this," it asks in Al's voice,
seeming to look at itself. Nearby on the floor, Ed is sobbing, clutching a
bloody shoulder where no arm hangs.
"I'm sorry...Al...," he gasps.
"Brother? What happened to you? The armor gets to its feet and goes to kneel
beside Ed. "And me.... What happened to me?" [Damn! And to think that Aaron
Dismuke is only 12 years old. To be that young, and to be able to project
the level of emotion required by this episode. And that line reading. It was
the first time, but not the last, my heart broke while watching this
series.]
"There wasn't much time," Ed gasps. "I used my right arm as material in a
transmutation. All I could manage was to attach your spirit to the armor in
the corner...."
"Oh, no," Al says. "But ... What about Mom?" Al is holding Ed in his arm,
and turns to look for her.
"You shouldn't look... It wasn't human." In the tray at the center of the
circle we see smears of blood and what seems to be bones sticking up.
"I don't understand, Ed! What happened? Your theorems and equations-- they
all seemed right." We hear liquid, and the mass seems to expand, as if
taking a breath.
"The theorems weren't the problem, Al. It wasn't the math." We see a
close-up of Ed. "It was us."
We cut to the shocked expressions of Pinako and Winry in their house, Al's
voice saying, "Please... help him...." We then see the pair from the
Rockbells' perspective: the suit of armor kneeling in the doorway, Ed's
bloody body in its arms. "He's gonna bleed to death!"
"Al?" Winry gasps. "Is that you?"
Ed lays in bed, his shoulder bound but bleeding through the bandage. "We
didn't even know you were back from training," Winry says. "How did all this
happen, Al?"
"Well, clearly... it's a product of mischief...," Pinako says. "You were
trying to bring back your mother, weren't you?"
The door opens, and an adult male voice is heard. "Well, that explains a few
things...," Mustang says. "A human transmutation. I've never seen such a
furious reaction before. Pardon me," he says, displaying his pocket watch.
"A State Alchemist?" Al says uncertainly.
"What are you doing here?" Pinako says. "I have no time to entertain dogs.
Can't you see these boys are hurt?"
"Take it easy, ma'am," he says, holding up an envelope written by Ed and
addressed to a Mr. James Herbert at the military headquarters in Central.
"I'm just checking the mail." [Who is James Herbert?]
"One of our letters! Then you know where my dad is?" Al asks.
"I only wish, kid. We've been looking for Hohenheim for a long time, and
we're still only kicking up dirt." How long has the military been looking
for him, and why?
"Well, if you didn't have any information, why did you come?" Pinoko asks.
"You sure as heck aren't going to find their dad here."
"Let's call it nostalgia [nostalgia for what, I wonder], or misplaced
curiosity. Whatever it was, I'm happy I came. If these boys can try human
alchemy and survive, their dad just dropped a wrung on my priority list,"
Mustang says, looking down at Ed.
"I want you out of this house, immediately. I've had enough lives wrecked by
the state." [How deep does Pinako's hostility go here? Does she know that a
state alchemist was directly responsible for the deaths of Winry's parents?
Does she know which one? Probably not, or else she would have reacted even
more strongly when Mustang identified himself in the next line.]
"The name's Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang, State Alchemist," he says,
walking toward the door. "Pay me a visit at Central sometime."
Later Pinako is changing Ed's bandages when he says, "There's some money in
the house--in a closet."
"I'm sure it's safe," she replies. "There are more important things to worry
about right now."
"That's not what I'm saying. I want you to take it as payment. For
automail." Pinako grits her teeth as she hears his words. "I can't go
through with my plan, lugging around a couple of stumps. I'm gonna visit
that man, Mustang, and become a State Alchemist."
"I was hoping you weren't conscious to hear that talk."
"He's not the only one I've heard from.... The teacher we had told us about
state alchemists. They've got access to the federal library in Central, with
books on alchemy no one else has. They'll pay you, and fund your research,
and those pocket watches amplify alchemic reactions."
"Please tell me that's not all your teacher said. What about state
alchemists being the military's attack dogs, called into war to mow down the
lives of people the state tells you are bad. Did your teacher mention that?
In the attacks that took the lives of my sons, there were alchemists
involved. When war comes again, are you ready to do the same?"
"I don't wanna be chained to the state any more than you, but I'll do
whatever it takes to fix things."
"Fix you, or the world? Make sure you ask yourself that."
Pinako and Winry begin the painful automail process. "This pain's
nothing...compared to what he's given up," Ed says, as Al sits crouched on
the ground outside the door like the small child he really is.
When Ed recovers from the surgery, he and Al test their new bodies. As they
spar, Ed and Al talk about their plans. "Brother," Al asks, "are you serious
about being a state alchemist?"
"I'm serious about trying. I'm gonna see this Mustang guy and find out if I
have a shot."
"I don't want you to join."
"I've made up my mind."
"Then I will too."
"You can't." Here they are, trying to protect each other from the taint of
the pocket watch. I think that Al sees that Ed is so ambitious in his desire
for knowledge (albeit for a positive, though possibly misguided goal) that
he can be seduced by the corrupting power of the military. Meanwhile Ed sees
Al as too innocent and too gentle to do what must be done to gain the
necessary power to put their bodies right. [Incidently, Dave, you said Al
reminds you of St. Peter. I find that he reminds me of my dad, who is also a
very gentle man, but one whose gentleness can keep him from putting his foot
down when it needs to go down hard.]
"Brother? Are you going to try to bring back Mom again? I mean, we agreed
it was a mistake, right? All the bad things that happened.... I'll become
the state alchemist, and I'll find a way to get you back to normal, with a
real arm and leg again. Then you can forget about all these other things you
say you have to do." Poor Al. He really is worried about Ed's goals and what
he might do in pursuit of them.
"It's not your burden to carry, Al."
"Well, why shouldn't it be? I wanted you to stop, but I went along with it
anyway. I'm the one who had the feeling--I should have acted on it, and then
you gave up your arm to save me...." [You tried, Al. You tried. Ed just
wouldn't listen, and he won't listen now.]
"You've got no place feeling sorry for me, Al, okay?"
"But Brother...."
"I'm serious. I'm the one who has to fix things, and get your body back."
"Then you won't try with Mom again?"
"Well...chances are there isn't anything in this world we could trade for
mom's soul, and besides all that... well...I don't want to risk losing you
again, Al."
"Good. I'll have to come with you, though."
"And why's that?"
"You're no good without me. You just turn into a jerk." [You're right there,
Al!]
"Thanks for the endorsement."
"But seriously... We're all we've got. From now on, we can't do anything
that could pull us apart."
Before they leave Resembool, they set fire to their childhood home. "Even
though we were trying to restore our own bodies," Al says in his voice over,
"it was still human transmutation we were after-- a forbidden science. If
we failed the next time, there would probably be nothing left of us. We had
no idea what the future would hold, but we knew there was no turning back.
So, on the day we left, we burned down the family home and all the familiar
things inside." The caption again comes up to give their ages, Ed -11, Al -
10. "Because some memories aren't meant to leave traces."
Next episode: A Forger's Love. ( I don't think I'm going to do a recap for
episode 4. At least not until I get others done first. While two significant
things happen -- Lust noticing Ed and Al and Ed accidently killing
Majhal--the episode itself bores me.)
.
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