all is one, one is all

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this google doc includes a list of petitions to sign, resources to help educate yourself and others, organizations to donate to, and contacts of law officials to get in touch with to express your support for the george floyd and black lives matter movements. this includes ways to help even if you don’t live in america. please read it and support the movement. 

use your voice. use every platform you have, no matter how big or how small. nothing will change if you just sit there and watch. if you think you’re the exception, you’re not. remaining indifferent will only support the oppressor. do something.

write to your legal representatives. express your support for legislation that would bring justice to the unarmed civilians who’ve been murdered by law enforcement officers. demand for justice. 

call 612-324-4499 ㅡ this is a hotline that will coach you on how to get connected with the people who can arrest the officers that murdered george floyd. 

create serious conversation. stop demeaning people who disagree with your philosophies on how to overcome. it is useless and no better than the practices of the oppressor to silence. we need to listen to each other with respect and really consider how we can combine our perspectives to create practical change. 

disclaimer: i am not smart im a freshman college student who thinks he knows things and likes sounding like he knows things

long post ahead!

i feel like FMA’s core philosophy is about hubris! i tend to look at stories on the detail and character level, but i think this applies to the core worldbuilding as well.

blind ambition with horrible consequences is essentially a running theme through the entire show, from character actions, to symbolism, to broader themes.

the inciting incident of the series is two young boys who thought all the knowledge in the world could save them from the consequences of committing alchemy’s greatest sin. despite the warnings, ed and alphonse assumed they could knowledge their way out of this and “correctly” revive their mother. they were immediately proven wrong, and ended up losing everything.

they continue on, believing, AGAIN, they can knowledge their way out of things to get al’s body back and restore ed’s limbs. they join the military to gain access to alchemical knowledge. they spend years chasing solutions and stake their beliefs on one thing: alchemy is the answer.

then, several events occur that show them the consequences of alchemy: the nina tucker situation, dr. marcoh’s experiments, the creation of the homunculi, how philosopher’s stones are created, and ultimately, the Ishvalan Civil War and Promised Day. notice a theme here? all are acts committed by people who expected they could make things go right, because they’re smart and capable enough to pull it off. all of them ended up costing human life, with the Ishvalan civil war being the most prominent.

these discoveries are what leads edward to renounce his alchemy in the end, because alchemy (our hubris allegory), was never the solution to begin with. Father, as a parallel, clung to his belief that he could fight his way out of this AND had the right to do so, and relies hard on alchemy to do everything for him. he’s the one that fails and dies.

i think the point arakawa was trying to make with all of this, and especially tying it to war and genocide, is that blind ambition and arrogance have dire consequences. war is often the result of the leaders of two different countries believing in their right to someone else’s resources, their might to crush them, and their ability to somehow know how to use those resources better. when it comes to colonialism, that then becomes a one-sided conflict and the consequences are much worse and far-reaching. arakawa herself grew up in the hokkaido prefecture, where the effects of the ainu extermination are deeply felt and she wrote from that point of view. she interviewed war veterans. so, i don’t think the themes of war and the themes of hubris are separate or a coincidence.

and, i mean, the two strongest antagonists that aren’t Father are “pride” and “wrath” so…

sidenote: this is also played pretty straight when it comes to Roy Mustang’s case as well! he caused a LOT of harm because he believed that not only were there no consequences, but that he was doing what was right. when he was sobered to the consequences of his actions, he immediately devoted himself to doing whag was right, BUT also clung to his blind ambition- that being, that he could fix everything. this is why Truth took away his eyesight. when it comes to riza, i think her pain was one of the consequences of another person’s ambition, namely her father. riza’s father believed so much in flame alchemy that he tattooed his notes on his own daughter’s back and forced her to carry his research because he believed so much that it should never be destroyed. flame alchemy ends up causing a lot of harm (and riza isn’t innocent either, i want to stress that she was almost just as complicit as roy is), and she has to physically destroy a part of herself to start to reverse the damage.

As for what I mean - let’s try and break down the meanings first, shall we?

Existentialism tries to explore the concept of existence by placing an emphasis on human actions, and the emotions we experience and feel. We are responsible for our actions, and resultant consequences - a pretty important concept in FMA,all things considered. The characters commit varying ‘mistakes’ - many serious - and reap the consequences. They are solely responsible for what they did, and will bear the weight of the result.

The Elric brothers commit the ultimate taboo - Ed loses his arm and leg, and Al his body. This was the result of what they did, not because of divine intervention or all that bs that most other works seem to pull.

The same philosophy also lays out the fact that we are - in the end - human. Not something otherworldly. We have our flaws, our Achilles’ Heel - and it’s alright. It’s a part of existing. So are our mistakes. I feel like FMA teaches us this - we are responsible for our mistakes, but it’s natural, and should be considered as thus.

You might want to look into Fredrich Nietzsche - if you’re interested in existentialism.

Nihilism in essence- is the polar opposite of existentialism. Well, not so much, but we’ll get to that. It details the fact that ‘nothing is worth it’ - or that ‘everything we do reaps the same result - the in between does not matter’. That is to say - we are all fated to die. With that, our consciousness is no more, so the actions we perform have no true cause.

If anything, FMA emphasizes metaphysical nihilism - that is, nothing ever exists, may not have existed, and will never exist after. In this sense, the physical body and the mind as we know it. Our memories may fade - but our ideas never really die. In a way, this is immortality of the consciousness of an individual.

But, FMA proceeds to invert this as the plot progresses. We don’t really understand what ‘Truth’ is - but this being pretty much shows us that our conscious mind is actually rather limited. There are things well beyond the doors of perception we cannot dare to process, because too much knowledge is never good. This leads to something called cosmicism.

H.P. Lovecraft endorsed himself with this particular thought, in his works: “there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence.“

Truth is the embodiment of the fact that there is no God in the FMA world, and it is pretty apparent that they are much more significant in sense of the universe’s result being affected than humans. This isn’t to say that humans aren’t complex, either  - who are small, but pretty complex. Again, this can be viewed if we were to give each character’s personality’s a careful study.

Another important fact - “Equivalent Exchange” pretty much embodies the simple concept of existing, giving and taking - which is exactly how life is.

disclaimer: i am not smart im a freshman college student who thinks he knows things and likes sounding like he knows things

long post ahead!

i feel like FMA’s core philosophy is about hubris! i tend to look at stories on the detail and character level, but i think this applies to the core worldbuilding as well.

blind ambition with horrible consequences is essentially a running theme through the entire show, from character actions, to symbolism, to broader themes.

the inciting incident of the series is two young boys who thought all the knowledge in the world could save them from the consequences of committing alchemy’s greatest sin. despite the warnings, ed and alphonse assumed they could knowledge their way out of this and “correctly” revive their mother. they were immediately proven wrong, and ended up losing everything.

they continue on, believing, AGAIN, they can knowledge their way out of things to get al’s body back and restore ed’s limbs. they join the military to gain access to alchemical knowledge. they spend years chasing solutions and stake their beliefs on one thing: alchemy is the answer.

then, several events occur that show them the consequences of alchemy: the nina tucker situation, dr. marcoh’s experiments, the creation of the homunculi, how philosopher’s stones are created, and ultimately, the Ishvalan Civil War and Promised Day. notice a theme here? all are acts committed by people who expected they could make things go right, because they’re smart and capable enough to pull it off. all of them ended up costing human life, with the Ishvalan civil war being the most prominent.

these discoveries are what leads edward to renounce his alchemy in the end, because alchemy (our hubris allegory), was never the solution to begin with. Father, as a parallel, clung to his belief that he could fight his way out of this AND had the right to do so, and relies hard on alchemy to do everything for him. he’s the one that fails and dies.

i think the point arakawa was trying to make with all of this, and especially tying it to war and genocide, is that blind ambition and arrogance have dire consequences. war is often the result of the leaders of two different countries believing in their right to someone else’s resources, their might to crush them, and their ability to somehow know how to use those resources better. when it comes to colonialism, that then becomes a one-sided conflict and the consequences are much worse and far-reaching. arakawa herself grew up in the hokkaido prefecture, where the effects of the ainu extermination are deeply felt and she wrote from that point of view. she interviewed war veterans. so, i don’t think the themes of war and the themes of hubris are separate or a coincidence.

and, i mean, the two strongest antagonists that aren’t Father are “pride” and “wrath” so...

sidenote: this is also played pretty straight when it comes to Roy Mustang’s case as well! he caused a LOT of harm because he believed that not only were there no consequences, but that he was doing what was right. when he was sobered to the consequences of his actions, he immediately devoted himself to doing whag was right, BUT also clung to his blind ambition- that being, that he could fix everything. this is why Truth took away his eyesight. when it comes to riza, i think her pain was one of the consequences of another person’s ambition, namely her father. riza’s father believed so much in flame alchemy that he tattooed his notes on his own daughter’s back and forced her to carry his research because he believed so much that it should never be destroyed. flame alchemy ends up causing a lot of harm (and riza isn’t innocent either, i want to stress that she was almost just as complicit as roy is), and she has to physically destroy a part of herself to start to reverse the damage.