Fullmetal Alchemist

I’ve been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood recently, and it’s exactly like the other anime except this one is apparently more “true” to the manga then the former.  I always get somewhat scared of the overall idea to Fullmetal Alchemist mainly because of the idea of human transmutation.

Brief Summary (not of the story but of their idea of alchemy):

Alchemy is basically chemistry (chemistry was basically considered alchemy in the medieval times).  In Fullmetal Alchemist, humans are able to use “transmutation circles” (drawings of a circle with different designs; looks like people with no art skills will never make it, EH?) to change the shape and forms (solid, gas, liquid) of things through manipulating the elements.  The idea behind it is equivalent exchange, one can not make something out of nothing.

So the idea that creeps me out like I said is trying this with humans.  One part of both series (episode 4 in Brotherhood) makes me the most sad and disgusted.  This episode is based on Shou Tucker, known "The Sewing-Life Alchemist."  He specializes with live subjects (animals; not with humans because that is an alchemy taboo) and we find out that to become a “State Alchemist” (a person who is apart of the military [this is a military dictatorship type government]; therefore allowed to do research on alchemy) he was able to create a chimera (a fusion between two or more living things) that was able to talk, however the only thing it said was, “I want to die” (shortly it died because it starved itself). 

So the main protagonists, Edward and Al, visit this guy to gather research and while there, they got close to his daughter, Nina Tucker and her dog , Alexander (they were SOOO CUTEEE) and find out Nina’s mother left two years before.  So Shou was close to his assessment date (basically the state come and collect his info; if nothing is good they fire him) and he didn’t have anything good.  However, on one of the protagonists visit, they find out he made another successful chimera that could talk.  When they see it, Shou tells the chimera to pronounce Edward’s name, and it did, but afterward it also said “onii-chan” (Japanese for older brother) and in an instant Edward was able to figure out how this happened.  Shou fused his own daughter and dog together (also revealing that two years before, to get into the military, he fused his own wife with another animal).  Strangely this idea creeps me out more than the idea that Edward and Al tried to revive their dead mother and Al ended up losing his body, Edward his right arm and left leg…

Although that is an extreme example, it somewhat reflects the craziness scientists have in their search for knowledge (bringing ToK in).  What is the limit?  When a human life is something you are fooling around with… but then again, if we can do this to animals, why are we any different?

- FriendlyFIRE

PS, I’m sorry if it offended anyone ;P