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fumifooms · 4 months

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The core of Fullmetal Alchemist: All is one and Dwarf in the flask

Dwarf in a bottle is in my top 5 favorite FMA characters. No, not Father, that emotionless bland white bread empty husk, Dwarf, the whole. The sort of ball of void, the existential anomaly, so inhumanely human full with sins and individuality.

Fullmetal Alchemist is about willpower. About determination, about pursuing your goals without relenting. It is also about humility and about knowledge.

That is reflected in both the protagonist and the villain, though it is a theme common in most characters. Both Edward and Dwarf in a bottle pursue their goals with great determination and will. Then, what is good with the manner of one and wrong with the other’s?

I believe a lot of it is about the very concept Dwarf symbolizes. Dwarf in the flask is artificiality.

An alchemy-made life. An artificial family. An artificial pursuit of knowledge and power, without caring about the journey of self-betterment that comes along with it, without caring to understand alchemy and its place in the world. Not only an artifical physical being, but also artificial emotionally; ripping apart his feelings and personality traits deemed negative to make himself into a “superior” being.

I think it’s also worth noting that yes, purging sins out of himself makes him lose those traits, even feelings. Then, if not greed, if not it all, what is pushing Father to pursue power? Greed said it himself: greed isn’t inherently bad, it’s the act of wanting. Father isn’t spiraling into a mad passion for alchemy, a pursuit of knowledge for innovation, or anything, he pursued his plan because he went through the motions, simply. As his feelings left him, all that stayed was the conviction without reasoning that since it was his plan before, he should see it to the end. Or perhaps it’s the course of action he logically came to. Perhaps alchemical enlightenment was deemed the obvious ultimate goal to have, without being interested in why it is or why it should be. Regardless, he lacks the passion and emotional intelligence to actually see the value in what he is doing, in alchemy, and ultimately that is what is punished.

I want to do a full dissection of the whole homunculus family, but I’m going to touch on some aspects of it here because it’s such an interesting topic to me. Disregarding Lust’s claim that homunculi are all individuals with a full range of emotions for a moment, I want to analyze what their traits mean in the angle that they fundamentally formed a whole all together as Father, or Dwarf in the flask. The homunculus that is shown to be the most attached to his family members is Gluttony. The homunculus that is shown to be the most attached to relationships, in general, is Greed. Greed and Gluttony are then the homunculi, the traits, that care about people the most. And that makes sense, no? You don’t want to lose things you care about, you want to bathe in their love and their presence, and you want to keep having them for as long as you want, greed and gluttony aren’t unsimilar. Greed is interested in friendship and having companions, in possessing people’s hearts and loyalties, in making new connections and bonding with new faces. Gluttony is more interested in getting more of what he already has, more love in that way he already likes by the person he already loves, like wanting more of the familiar taste of its favorite meal. Other similar traits are pride and envy, the traits that affect your self-image. The feeling that you are remarkable and great and the feeling of wanting what others have or are, valuing yourself vs comparing yourself to others. By detaching parts of a whole, things get lost; Pride feels wholly superior but is ready to do anything to preserve himself including lowering himself to inferior beings going against his own code, while Envy only covers up his self-hatred and jealousy but would rather end himself before accepting to sully himself with the compassion of someone he looks down upon. Pride makes one value self-preservation, while envy is self-destructive by nature, perhaps. It is interesting that both feel prideful, yet Pride doesn’t reflect the fact that as part of a whole it also felt shame and low self-esteem, otherized, and Envy doesn’t reflect that Dwarf actually feels pride over traits they possess, as well. The truth is that these things coexisted in the one being that was Dwarf. Fragmented as they are, they only tell an uncomplete and incoherent story, like a puzzle. It’s ironic that maybe together, all these sins balance each other out to become healthier, less dysfunctional. Like a family, they can offer counterbalance to a trait when it becomes too central to the individual, offer support through their grounding presence. Someone slothful may feel unmotivated without greed to give them goals, pride without envy will make you stop striving to better yourself and envy without pride will give you self-loathing.

An analysis of Dwarf isn’t complicated to do: it was a being brought about by scholars and complex alchemy, enslaved, and it wished to get the power to free itself and become an individual equal/superior to everyone else. Unable to become physically and fundamentally human, he attempted to become a proxy, close enough to it; making a family, gaining a human form, etc. It ultimately wished to pursue superiority through alchemical power and knowledge when he found the result lacking, when it still didn’t feel human, couldn’t connect with others, still felt fundamentally different, like his place in the universe was somewhere else, like striving for that higher calling would solve it. Blinded by lust to find belonging, wether it be in a place or in a role, it pushed itself to extremes of alchemy in the hope it will all make sense once he gets there. Ultimately futile, as he will end up feeling betrayed and abandoned by Truth itself, not able to rise up to its own expectations once more: because there’s no magic able to make one feel whole. He seeked to sculpt himself into a perfect being, one that could be anything and do anything, one that couldn’t be reproached, if not by humans, then the world itself would confirm and showcase his objective superiority for all to see.

Much like with Shou Tucker, this pursuit for knowledge and power is all for external factors, there is no inner fuel for it besides pride, shame, desperate want that was displaced onto alchemy instead of the self-introspection that alchemy promotes and necessitates. Dwarf ended up missing what was right under his nose, and subsequently failed the test of Truth and lost everything. What he was working towards ultimately meant nothing, not to anyone and not even to himself.

Edward was able to face Truth right because he took the time to understand, learned to not abuse it, reflected on what it all meant, on the place of things in the universe. That is terrifying for Dwarf, who is terrified he may simply have no place in it, but it is nonetheless essential. The other homunculi are proof enough: Greed had friends, was accepted in the friend group of our heroes as a trustworthy and dependable person, Ling would have preferred him to stay with him forever instead of leaving. Selim gets a second chance at life with someone who has loved him with all her heart… Which is the most confusing part of FMA I have no idea how he didn’t die ngl but I’m glad for the precious lil guy~ Even Lust and Gluttony found companionship and care in being together.

Dwarf has always had a place. He simply refused to philosophizes, and alchemists are ultimately philosophers. Not thinking power through, not analyzing it, is what leads to corrupt military states. Dwarf wanted to be recognized and accepted by god and the world itself, by showing himself worthy of it and demanding it, but he was the one who rejected the nature of the world first:

One is all, all is one.

He is the very embodiment of refusing that. Dwarf always had a place in the world, artificial anomaly as he was. Perhaps Dwarf wasn’t meant to be part of this all or this one initially, not created by the world, but. Dwarf seeked to become both all and none at once. He was born artificial, but never cared to learn the rules of nature and accept the limits of the world, seeking to destroy and warp them; he was the one that desired to make himself even more distinct from the world and label himself as a perfect, artificial being. Rejecting individuality to become some empty looking glass was the mistake Edward Elric didn’t make, growing to find the value in every type of life and finding the strength to keep going through every horror of the world. Dwarf’s folly was thinking that he was separate from the rest of existence.

The philosophical dimension to the value of gold or philosopher’s stones are the important part of alchemy, power isn’t what you achieve enlightenment through. May your pursuit of knowledge be wise and your resolve aim true.

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I recommend this analysis by another tumblr user as complementary reading!! It goes over way more than I did and encompasses more of fma than this post, I just wanted to focus on a fraction of the themes and narrative that I found summed up the story’s key points well… Idk idk I’m a humble Dwarf enjoyer I don’t want to come across as pretentious 🙇 I can only hope this was a nice read. If you don’t remember the ending of the manga/brotherhood well I imagine this being very confusing, I should do something about that