Let's Watch FMA: Brotherhood

[Gnoman]

Oops, you'd better edit that. When I decided to use white text for inline spoilers, I didn't think about them showing up in quotes.

[Math_Mage]

Oh, right. Done.

[Randomguy]

I don't remember when this was clarified, but it's so minor that I don't thing it merits a spoiler tag. The leader's name is King Bradley, with the title of Führer. Not sure if you figured this out yet, but it makes references easier.

I'm kinda bad with names, and by the time I started this thread I knew he was Fuhrer King Bradley, but I couldn't remember it at the time I wrote most of those notes. (If I hadn't rewatched parts of the episode for this update then I'd still be calling Cornello "Evil Priest".

Episode 3: "City of Heresy"

No watch watchthrough thoughts today. In this episode, Father Cornello was using alchemy, assisted by a Philosopher’s Stone, to preform fake miracles to get an army of loyal followers. He was exposed by the Elric brothers, who mostly care just because of the stone. He overused the stone’s power, and it shattered, making Edward believe it was just a fake. It turned out that Evil Priest was part of Team Evil, along with the Freezing Alchemist and Mysterious Woman and Gluttony.

Plot Points and Ponderings

• Edward isn’t religious. Given his brief encounter with a deity, I don’t blame him. Wait, hang on. "His encounter with a deity". Let's go back to Edward's first conversation with Rose real quick:
  

  Alchemists are scientists. we don’t believe in unprovable concepts like creators or gods. We observe the physical laws that govern this world, to try to learn the truth.

  Now that I think of it, Edward probably never told Alfonse about his encounter with Mr. World, he just said "so you didn't see it..." in the last episode, when Al asked how he could do alchemy without circles. It's quite likely that he never told anyone about what he saw. What does he really believe? Perhaps he thinks that what happened was just some sort of hallucination? No, that can't be it. He can use alchemy without circles, he has proof that he was imparted knowledge in his attempt of human transmutation. If he doesn't think Mr. World is a deity that he should worship, or that he's the devil and not a god, then that STILL wouldn't explain that statement. Perhaps he believes Mr. World is a personification of the truth that he saw during the event and not an actual being? That also strikes me as unlikely.
• Knowledge of alchemy in this setting isn't that common. It's possible to have an entire town, and not that small a town, with only one person actually knows enough about alchemy to recognize it being done.
• Maybe the Philosopher’s Stone is less powerful than the legends say, or maybe this was just a Lesser Philosopher’s Stone, or perhaps Cornello just destroyed it with rebound. In either case, it’d still be useful to Edward. He probably should have thought to ask where Cornello got it from.
• Mysterious Woman With Gluttony As A Minion has a tattoo of ouroboros. More specifically, it's a dragon (or a winged snake I guess) biting its own tail, enclosing a six pointed star, which encloses hollow circle. Gluttony has the same tattoo on his tongue.
• Incidentally, I googled “ouroboros” to find out the spelling and a similar picture came up. Let’s click the link! Aaand… slight spoilers (just that it “indicates a tendency to consume” in the context of FMA)
• I did look up Ouroboros in wikipedia. It has, apparently, been used as a symbol in historical alchemy. Ouroboros is associated with immortality and infinity. Philosopher Carl Jung says: "The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow."
  

  Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites

  This is starting to sound a bit like Mr. World. Maybe Team Evil (which i’m going to start calling the Theosophical Society, after an organization which has a slightly similar symbol) is somehow connected to that? That's a very, very tenuous deduction, but I'll keep an eye out for any supporting evidence.
• The symbol is kind of reminiscent of the one on the back of Edward's cape, which is also found in several places on Al's suit of armour (and on Al's armour it's the same colour). The Elric symbol is a snake wrapped around a cross, and it's in the shape of a question mark. Perhaps it's a sort of family crest, and no the symbol for an entire organization? I'll need to keep an eye out for more appearances, both of the Elric symbol and of Ouroboros, and to see if other alchemists have symbols.

Things to add to my List Of Stuff That Will Become Important Later:

• I'm not sure about this one, but I think there's room for Rose to appear in a later episode.
• The lesser philosopher's stone. It's not perfect, it can break and run out of power, but it still amplifies alchemy.
• Edward's opinions on his encounter to Mr. World, given he doesn't believe in a deity?
• The Elric symbol and the ouroboros symbol associated with the Theosophical Society, as well as similar symbols.
• The weapon that MW used to kill Father Cornello. Did she transmute a prosthetic arm to do that? Or was that just a glove? Oh dear, are her entire arms drenched in blood, and she used THAT as a weapon? That's a terrifying thought. I think it's probably the gloves, though.

Aaand next up is episode 4. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to writing that post. Hopefully I'll manage to do it earlier in the day, because I enjoy actually being able to sleep at night.

[CWater]

Nice, it's quite fun reading the comments of someone who is not familiar with the show at all.

FMA (Brotherhood) is probably my favourite series, of both all manga and anime, so I'll probably be following this thread.

[Helanna]

Aww this thread is great timing for me! I was considering doing a Let's Watch of this just a couple weeks ago, but decided not to. But I did watch Brotherhood, and loved it a lot, and now I just really want to talk about it. So I'll definitely be hanging around.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Ed's symbol doesn't really have any spoilerishness attached to it, IIRC.

Spoiler: RE: Ed's Symbol IRL

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It's a flamel, a symbol designed by Nicholas Flamel, and was based on the Rod of Asclepius, a common symbol for the medical professions. Nicholas Flamel was rumored to have been an alchemist after his death; reportedly, he created the Philosopher's Stone.

[Dragonus45]

I'd figured that The Fandom already had a name for him, but one of the advantages of doing your own Let's Watch removed from the fandom is getting to pick your own names for all the characters whose names haven't been revealed yet. I'm going to keep calling him Mr. World, though, because I think that name suits him a bit better, and because I'll take the reference over the pun.



Thank you for saving me from a spoiler. Have a cookie.

Personally I'm liking the name Mr. World quite a bit anyways. Although I would personally refer to it as an it before anything else when it comes it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I always just thought of it as God.

I started watching the 2003 series. Yeah, lot more stuff. I'm not sure why Ed doesn't know how he can transmute without a circle, or just doesn't remember any scene with God at all really, or why the state certification scene is different, but that just means that you should watch Brotherhood from the start after watching the first because there are differences.

I might watch all of it because I did see Conquerers of Shamballa on Toonami.

[Calemyr]

I always just thought of it as God.

I started watching the 2003 series. Yeah, lot more stuff. I'm not sure why Ed doesn't know how he can transmute without a circle, or just doesn't remember any scene with God at all really, or why the state certification scene is different, but that just means that you should watch Brotherhood from the start after watching the first because there are differences.

I might watch all of it because I did see Conquerers of Shamballa on Toonami.

A great deal of the fundamentals of the setting are different between Brotherhood and FMA. The story predates a lot of the aspects that were revealed later in the manga. Brotherhood knew what Mr. World was and the story used him properly. FMA had no clue and took him a very different route. Pretty much every bit of secret knowledge from Brotherhood is invalid in FMA, and vice versa.

The story (at least the first half) is pretty much the same, but it's built on a completely different ruleset.

[Dragonus45]

A great deal of the fundamentals of the setting are different between Brotherhood and FMA. The story predates a lot of the aspects that were revealed later in the manga. Brotherhood knew what Mr. World was and the story used him properly. FMA had no clue and took him a very different route. Pretty much every bit of secret knowledge from Brotherhood is invalid in FMA, and vice versa.

The story (at least the first half) is pretty much the same, but it's built on a completely different ruleset.

Really that's the reason why FMA was so good.

[Gnoman]

[*]Mysterious Woman With Gluttony As A Minion has a tattoo of ouroboros. More specifically, it's a dragon (or a winged snake I guess) biting its own tail, enclosing a six pointed star, which encloses hollow circle. Gluttony has the same tattoo on his tongue.

Gluttony addresses her by name in this episode, although it's very very quick. Just in case, the line is (if you're watching the dub, not sure how they subbed it):

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I'm hungry, Lust. Can I eat him?

[Randomguy]

Episode 4: "An Alchemists Anguish"

Watchthrough Thoughts

• The episode starts with by illustrating the main differences between Ed and Al:
  Al: You would do this for us?
  Ed: Alright, what’s the catch, what’s your motive?
• Woah, woah, woah: Civil war? That's new.
• Oh god…
• I shouldn’t have watched that before bed…

And that's when I spent the next 6 hours trying to find my happy place before falling asleep at 4:00 am, which was followed by a full week of me not watching FMA.


Annotations and Anguish and Alliteration
The start of the episode made me think about Edward and Alfonse's personalities. Edward is cynical. Even when he was a kid, his reaction to someone trying to help him or offer him advice was to throw it back in their face or otherwise be ungrateful. (This was in the cemetery scene in episode 2). He also seems to have a bit of a spiteful nature. No matter how bad things get for him, he's going to keep going, but in part it's because he doesn't want to give the world the satisfaction of seeing him give up.
The difference shown between Alfonse and Edward during that exchange wasn't exactly that Alfonse is more optimistic. After all, last episode he said that he knew there was a risk of him and Edward dying in the attempt to get their bodies back. No, what was shown is that Alfonse is much more willing to trust other people than Edward is.


The fact that the war mentioned several times earlier in the show was a civil war is significant. This means that either Fuhrer King Bradley had a low enough approval rating that a significant part of the country started a revolution, or that King Bradley lead a revolution, overthrew the previous leader and then crowned himself king. Wait. Does it? Bradley was already king when Edward became a state alchemist. The war was recent enough that the Freezing Alchemist, the guy in jail and the guy that recruited Edward all fought part in it (And they all look like they're in their mid or late twenties), but not so recent that Edward did.
So I guess this means the war happened sometime during Edward's childhood. So I guess the reason Edward's dad wasn't around is that he was off fighting in the war. Now that I think back, I'm pretty sure the brief flashback of Edward's dad in this episode showed him in the uniform of a state alchemist, but I'm not sure.

It kinda looks like the state alchemists were around before the war, with the same uniforms, which would imply that King Bradley was in power when the civil war started. But given that King Bradley is directly in charge of the military, it would make sense that this is the type of conflict where the leader of the military uses his power to overthrow the head of state and take his place. Although now that I think of it, this situation would mean that the military uniforms would stay the same.

There are also a bunch of possible causes to a civil war that don't involve King Bradley at all. It could have been about religion, or some group might have been fighting for independence. I don't think I have enough information to draw any conclusions yet.

The alchemist that's hunting down state alchemists shows that not all alchemists are non-religious. He also shows that not everyone's okay with alchemists being part of the military. And of course, given Edward's history it's basically guaranteed that the two of them come into conflict. I'm assuming that this guy is part of the Theosophical Society, mostly since all the villains up until now have been. If he is, then that'd tell us something about the Theosophical Society's goals, too. So far we just know that they oppose King Bradley.

I'll just finish off with a quick rant on the stitching life alchemist: COME ON! You have the power to manipulate reality and you can't think of ANY other way to earn money? For crying out loud, there are entire cities without any alchemists at all! You could make a fortune from just teaching! And another thing: Edward's attempt at human transmutation is COMPLETELY different from his actions. Edward honestly expected to bring his mother back, he thought it would work and had no idea what it would cost him but this guy knew EXACTLY what he was doing.

Things to add to my List Of Stuff That Will Become Important Later:

• Alfonse is more trusting then Edward, which may lead to him being betrayed at some point.
• There's a religious alchemist hunting down people who try to play god (exclusively state alchemists)
• The war earlier in this history was a civil war.

[TheSummoner]

Someone got to the Nina episode I see.

A quick bit of clarification. In this instance, "King" is not a title. It is the man's first name. He is "The Fuhrer, King Bradley" not "The Fuhrer-King, Bradley."

Anyways, carry on. I'm enjoying your theories and predictions knowing full well exactly what happens down the line.

[CWater]

Someone got to the Nina episode I see.

Ouch.. That one really is a punch to the stomach. And I don't think it's even at its worst in Brotherhood. While similiar, it's somehow more sad in the manga (at least in my opinion), and while I don't particularly like the first anime, I cried when watching the equivalent episode. They really rub it in there.

[Dragonus45]

Ouch.. That one really is a punch to the stomach. And I don't think it's even at its worst in Brotherhood. While similiar, it's somehow more sad in the manga (at least in my opinion), and while I don't particularly like the first anime, I cried when watching the equivalent episode. They really rub it in there.

The first anime took that knife Brotherhood stabbed you with and decided to give it a good few twists then after pulling it out salted the wound.

Spoiler: Major Spoilers

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I also think they did the funeral later on better as well.

[Grif]

Ouch.. That one really is a punch to the stomach. And I don't think it's even at its worst in Brotherhood. While similiar, it's somehow more sad in the manga (at least in my opinion), and while I don't particularly like the first anime, I cried when watching the equivalent episode. They really rub it in there.

The first anime took that knife Brotherhood stabbed you with and decided to give it a good few twists then after pulling it out salted the wound.

Spoiler: Major Spoilers

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I also think they did the funeral later on better as well.

All the time I watched the Brotherhood's equivalent episode, I could only think of the 2003 version. And that made me sad all over again.

[Kato]

Eh... Nina's story is definitely sad but it along with "that other tragic event" still feels a bit overhyped to me. Oh, don't get me wrong, they are great, really well done with a strong emotional impact, but if you browse the net/fandom you could get the impression it's the worst thing that even happened in fiction.

Still, yeah, not a good thing to watch before going to bed.

And now for the other heartless bastards like me: Link contains major spoiler for the future. Also, may make you want to kill me. You were warned.

edit: I forgot certain words in links cause problems to the site...

[ryuplaneswalker]

I think it is so hyped because it set the tone for the story.

"You know that little child character who survives unharmed despite the world almost ending in most anime?

Yeah, she isn't immune to the horrible events of the plot here so everyone is fair game"

[Helanna]

And now for the other heartless bastards like me: Link contains major spoiler for the future. Also, may make you want to kill me. You were warned.

I feel like an awful person but I can't stop laughing

But really, Nina's situation gets harsher with hindsight:

Spoiler: Spoilers for later in the series

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The government already knows how to make viable human chimeras. So Tucker wasn't even accomplishing anything with any of his research, in fact, he was way worse at it than the government.

Also, one thing I liked when I watched this series is that Nina is never forgotten. Her situation clearly impacts the Elrics a lot, and she gets brought up a lot even later in the series, even at the very end.

[Prime32]

I feel like an awful person but I can't stop laughing

But really, Nina's situation gets harsher with hindsight:

Spoiler: Spoilers for later in the series

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The government already knows how to make viable human chimeras. So Tucker wasn't even accomplishing anything with any of his research, in fact, he was way worse at it than the government.

Also, one thing I liked when I watched this series is that Nina is never forgotten. Her situation clearly impacts the Elrics a lot, and she gets brought up a lot even later in the series, even at the very end.

Spoiler

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Tucker wasn't supposed to be making human chimeras. He was supposed to be improving the intelligence of animal chimeras, but faked it so he could keep getting funding.

[Helanna]

Spoiler

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Tucker wasn't supposed to be making human chimeras. He was supposed to be improving the intelligence of animal chimeras, but faked it so he could keep getting funding.

Spoiler

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Ahhh, that makes more sense. I thought he was going to use the human chimera as his big 'breakthrough', which in hindsight doesn't make sense given that he also did it to his wife. Still, the government seems way ahead of him.

[Randomguy]

Episode 5: "Rain of Sorrows"

Watchthrough Thoughts

• Oh dear it starts with a recap of the last episode I’m tearing up
• Oh god that was a terrifying dream sequence
• I would have guessed the new guy was wrath, because he riling up the crowd, it turns out to be Envy. He’s also got an ouroboros tattoo.
• "Did he have to strip?" Hawkeye suddenly became my favourite character.

Thoughts and Theories
The Seven Deadly Sins aren’t actually human. What is their deal? They aren’t chimeras, so they probably weren’t created by bioalchemy. Maybe some other type of alchemy created them? Maybe they weren’t created by alchemy at all? It doesn’t sound like they’re anyone’s lackeys. We know they don’t use alchemy, but they’ve got their own powers, like Envy’s shapeshifting and Lust’s spear-glove thing. Maybe they’re just supernatural beings, like demons or something? I don’t have much to go on yet.
We do know a bit about their goals: They need Edward alive to sacrifice him, and they plan bringing the country to ruin. We also know that they don’t like Scar. I suppose deadly sins and holy warriors don’t get along well.
How did they convince the townspeople to follow Father Cornello again after what happened in episode 3? It might have been “That earlier radio broadcast was a test of your faith!” or something like that.

Oh geez. I just realized that with a shapeshifter in the plot then any character can turn out to be Envy in disguise. Kidnapping Edward when they need to sacrifice him will be easy: Envy can just disguise himself as one of Edward's superiors and tell him he needs to go somewhere.

Another important quote from Edward: "Unfortunately, there isn't any god I'd like to pray to." So I guess he does believe that Mr. World is a deity, just not one he wants to worship. That makes more sense.
One thing that struck me in this scene is how good Alfonse is at expressing emotion, despite literally not having any expressions.

Hey look a map! It looks like the surrounding countries are Drachma to the north, Creta to the southwest, Desert Are*** (Desert Area? Maybe not actually a country?) to the east and something that starts with an A to the south. Now we know the setting isn’t in the real world, geography wise, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Drachmas are ancient greek currency, which may or may not be completely irrelevant.
The war started when a soldier “accidentally” killed an Ishvalan child. Yeah, that’s probably the story. Note how it almost makes the government sound like the good guys. “Suddenly Franz Ferdinand died and then they started attacking us so we had no choice but to wipe them out!” I wonder what really happened. Wait: Maybe Lust or one of the other Sins killed kid, blamed it on a soldier, and then Envy riled up the people to start the genocide civil war.
This also gives us a time period! The civil war started 13 years ago. This is shortly before the death of Edward’s mom, who died of the flu, just like the spanish flu killed many people towards the end of WW1.

I’ve kept an eye out for other symbols like the flamel cross and Ouroboros. The Strongarm alchemist had some transmutation circles on his gauntlets and Scar had a cross on his jacket, but that was it.

Hey, it looks like we're due for a reappearance of their childhood friend! I didn't expect that to happen so soon. I also didn't really expect the backstory about the civil war to be revealed so soon either, but there you have it.

Things to add to my List Of Stuff That Will Become Important Later:

• Envy is a shapeshifter. Look out for anyone acting suspicious.
• The seven deadly sins need to sacrifice Edward for some reason.
• The civil war probably didn't start from the stated reasons.

And hey, look, I actually posted the Friday update on a Friday! I think I'll take a break for the weekend though. Tune in on Monday!

[Ravian]

Spoiler

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Tucker wasn't supposed to be making human chimeras. He was supposed to be improving the intelligence of animal chimeras, but faked it so he could keep getting funding.

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That was something that never quite clicked for me, I suppose I forgot that the military had assumed he really was making animal chimeras that could talk. Thinking into their mindset it would be useful even when they have human chimeras. Animals can be used in the open without repercussions for breaking taboos (and the ones Tucker had supposedly been making looked to be at just the right level of intelligence to understand orders without questioning them.)

Though truth be told the military probably could have made human chimeras disguised as intelligent animals, but it probably wasn't a huge priority and from their perspective Tucker's work would be more efficient. (No need to sacrifice humans just to make some smart chimeras, especially given that they'd probably have to use children (An adult being aware enough to understand what had happened and kill themselves like Tucker's wife did))

Ugghh... that was more time analyzing Tucker's experiments than I'm comfortable with.

[MLai]

The Nina episode sucked in FMAB. It passed by so fast you basically registered it as Meh, another Naruto 'tragic character' pfft.

Throughout the entire time I watched it in FMAB, I could only think of how inadequate it was compared to the true gut-punch that it was, in FMA 2003. If you think it's sad in FMAB and a highlight of good grimdark, then basically you've missed out on the actual masterpiece and settled for a low res scan. And you've already spoiled/ruined it for yourself forever so it's too late to go back now to FMA 2003.

It's exactly why I became very disinterested in this thread as soon as the OP said he's not going to watch the FMA episodes for the "first half" of the epic, and will just stick to FMAB from beginning to end. GL HF with mediocrity for the 1st 10-15 episodes, peace.

[banthesun]

I feel like an awful person but I can't stop laughing

Let me join you horrible people.

Spoiler: Cosplay, not spoilers

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[MLai]

Let me join you horrible people.

Spoiler: Cosplay, not spoilers

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That thing is ****ing scary. If I walked into somebody's apartment and I saw that I would ****ing freak.

[Ravian]

Let me join you horrible people.

Spoiler: Cosplay, not spoilers

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God in heaven almighty that's terrifying.

[smuchmuch]

And now for the other heartless bastards like me: Link contains major spoiler for the future. Also, may make you want to kill me. You were warned.

Link is broken to me

edit: figured it out. Okay it is pretty amusing

Let me join you horrible people.

Spoiler: Cosplay, not spoilers

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....
Uh
... Bwahahahahahahaha (I'm probably a terrible person a well but I can't stop laughing.)

[Pokonic]

Let me join you horrible people.

Spoiler: Cosplay, not spoilers

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[sobbing intensifies]

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The Nina episode sucked in FMAB. It passed by so fast you basically registered it as Meh, another Naruto 'tragic character' pfft.

It's not that bad...

(And if you think that's something, I know people who think the Nina arc was handled better in Brotherhood. And I can see their point, even if I'm undecided on whether that was true. It has to do with the role that you think that whole situation plays in the grand scope of things. Ultimately, the first show is much more small-scale.)

RE: the cosplay--this is how we cope.