13th October 2005, 4:15 PM
Oh, well it really only makes sense if you've actually seen the shows. Okay, the guy on the left is Harry Potter. I've never read the books, or seen any of the movies, but I do know he's a wizard. As well, for some reason I actually know that the first book, in America, had a name change to the Sorcerer's stone, from Philosopher's stone in England. Yeesh... shelter then from a little mythology history why don't ya... Anyway, that stone is what all alchemists (prototypical chemists basically) have saught to create. The elixer, and so on. It was supposed to do pretty much everything according to what a lot of alchemists in old Europe used to think (and some current day alchemists who don't realize science has seen the flaws in alchemy and ditched everything that didn't work, turning it into chemistry). It could bring someone back to life, give eternal life, eternal youth, all knowledge in the universe, transmute any material into any other material instantly, all that stuff. Whether in that anime or in the real world, it was a legendary item with a misleading name because it referred to a theoretical substance someone might make one day. Of course in the real world we eventually found out the flaws and so on so...
Anyway, red coat guy is Edward. The suit of armor is Al (not a robot). As kids, they lost their mother to illness. They were expert alchemists though. They thought if they just knew what made up the body (salt, water, carbon, so on) they could bring their mother back to life. However, they screwed up, like everyone else ever has. Their mother was not returned, just a mutilated version of her body that died shortly afterwards. However, the recoil of the attempt transmuted all of Al's body into that form as well as Ed's leg. In an attempt to at least save his brother's life, Ed transmuted his arm into a seal between Al's mind and a suit of armor in the corner. With the seals and the ability to attach something like a "soul", the whole alchemy thing in that anime seems a lot more like magic than it is supposed to. Alchemy really is supposed to be a science in that world, but if they were going to make that world's physics operate like that, some consistancy would be nice. For example, perhaps he could have transmuted his arm into some sort of pulley system inside the armor, some way for the attached soul to actually CONTROL the armor perhaps?
Anyway, the guy with the X shaped scar on his face (and it seems to me in anime, artistically speaking, you can substitute tanned or untanned skin for actually drawing a scar any time you want) is a serial killer. I'm really not sure why he's there. I think another Harry Potter character talking with those two would have been more interesting. I mean, Scar already knows the deal with those two. Oh, he's a serial killer because alchemy is a sin against his god, and he is punishing the evil military for using it (they invaded his country years ago to free it, or something... actually the whole military vs middleeastern country with extremist ideologies seems to be some sort of allegory...). He basically stops at step 2 in alchemy where you break something down and... yeah it's a pathetic semantic way to avoid actually having to admit you are using the devil's arts but...
Well, now you know, more than you wanted to.
Anyway, red coat guy is Edward. The suit of armor is Al (not a robot). As kids, they lost their mother to illness. They were expert alchemists though. They thought if they just knew what made up the body (salt, water, carbon, so on) they could bring their mother back to life. However, they screwed up, like everyone else ever has. Their mother was not returned, just a mutilated version of her body that died shortly afterwards. However, the recoil of the attempt transmuted all of Al's body into that form as well as Ed's leg. In an attempt to at least save his brother's life, Ed transmuted his arm into a seal between Al's mind and a suit of armor in the corner. With the seals and the ability to attach something like a "soul", the whole alchemy thing in that anime seems a lot more like magic than it is supposed to. Alchemy really is supposed to be a science in that world, but if they were going to make that world's physics operate like that, some consistancy would be nice. For example, perhaps he could have transmuted his arm into some sort of pulley system inside the armor, some way for the attached soul to actually CONTROL the armor perhaps?
Anyway, the guy with the X shaped scar on his face (and it seems to me in anime, artistically speaking, you can substitute tanned or untanned skin for actually drawing a scar any time you want) is a serial killer. I'm really not sure why he's there. I think another Harry Potter character talking with those two would have been more interesting. I mean, Scar already knows the deal with those two. Oh, he's a serial killer because alchemy is a sin against his god, and he is punishing the evil military for using it (they invaded his country years ago to free it, or something... actually the whole military vs middleeastern country with extremist ideologies seems to be some sort of allegory...). He basically stops at step 2 in alchemy where you break something down and... yeah it's a pathetic semantic way to avoid actually having to admit you are using the devil's arts but...
Well, now you know, more than you wanted to.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)