On a tangent... why did Hohenheim have full suits of medieval armor conveniently stored in his lab? That always irked me a little.

I've NEVER seen medieval armor that looked like that.

Does it really need to be explained?

Some people do own suits of armor, odd as it is. Keep in mind that Hohenheim is centuries old, so he might've just kept stuff he acquired of time for some reason or another.

I don't think that's considered odd.
In many cultures, wheather it be Western, or Eastern, I see people displaying suit of armor from previous times.
(What I feel funny is the design of Al's arnor, in particular, the cloth. I don't know why, but it looks funny )

I thought that maybe she's part-Xingese. She looks like she could be. Hence the Asian name. (For those of you who haven't read the manga, Xing is equivalent to Asia, particularly China.)



I noticed that too. I think it's sort of symbolic, that he's talking to Ed as a friend rather than a colleague.



Omigosh you're right! That's creepy.

Ummmm, but, "Izumi" is a distinctively, and more or less solely, JAPANESE name, and do not sounds like Xingese/Chinese name.
Soooo, suppose she is part Xingese/Chinese, and that explaines she has Japanese name?
(Ok, my brain is not working again... someone please help me understand!!)

Xing is based more on China than anything else, but it also probably counts as Asia in general. So it would cover Japan, hence Izumi is Xingese and has a Japanese name.

So, does that mean Japan is a part of Xing dynasty/empire in the Hagaren world??
(I think that would be an interesting twist!!)
Or, by that, when saying Izumi is Xingese, that's more like saying Izumi is Asianese (Asian)?

You see, I always pictured Xing in manga was like real-life Chinese empires of the past, like Xing, Ming, etc. each having emcompassed various area and size of territory in the continent, but never included Japan, which was/is a separate island nation, as it's territory under control.

And, usually, when I heard Xing, Ming, etc., that was usually reffered to that particular empire, and not reffering to entire Asia.
(In a kind of same way I don't view my friend who lives in New Zealand, as an Australian. )

But, anything is possible in Hagaren world, so I'm open to new way of looking at Xing, or at Izumi as a Xingese with Japanese name.

Well, there doesn't seem to be a seperate equivalent to Japan, so it may as well be part of Xing. Assuming the islands exist in the Hagaren world, that is.

And Xing has ninja. Unless China also had ninja-or-equivalent at some point?

Yeah, makes sense!!

And, about Ninja...
I assume they did have Chinese version of them. I mean, those Emperors got to have had some sort of secret bunch of people who did CIA type of intel gethering or other dirty jobs, and possibly some secret bodygurding services for vips, I guess,, and I assume they were good at martial arts.
I think I had seen a Chinese movie depicting them, but can't remember the title.



(Sorry for the OT posts. )

This is where we decide whether some part of the anime is in fact a plot hole, or if it's just something that Bones decided to leave to the viewers' imaginations.
If you have anything like this to mention, do so here, and we'll dissect it. But please, don't start any flame wars over this. After all, it's just an anime.

Are you going to take your own advice this time?

There's several plot holes I've found. But I'm not sure if it was because I didn't see the full movie due to it being filmed on a camera by someone in the theatre or if the movie was just that way.

I'll make a list:

It seemed like Wrath and Izumi made peace with each other. When did this happend, how did it happen and what happened.

Alchemy in our world. As most here know people have been trying alchemy for thousands of years and never got the hang of it yet in the movie a bunch of scientists (for lack of better word) were able to open a gate to their world. How did they know to use Envy for it? How did they know what Envy was? Hoenheim could have told them but how did he know Envy was the dragon?

And what the hell happend to Envy anyway? I demand closure!

What happened with Roy and Riza? They seemed so happy at the end of the series.

Again, The female villian. What was her story? Where did she come from? Why exactly did they want to take over Ed's world to begin with? Flying blind into another world to take it over just seems like a dumb idea when you don't know what kind of heat the people you are attacking are packing.

All for now, I may add more later.

What's this? Another thread were you'll take another someone to insult and make him/her shut up??? Sorry, but this won't work out, those were being discussed in "Do you hate what BONES did to FMA"? I just hope you don't say that someone said that was a plothole when he didn't say it like in other threads

Just wait 'till a certain someone shows up

Yah, yah, I know I flew off the handle there. I blame lack of sleep.


Probably when they realized there was really nothing they could do about each other.


Paternal instinct?


Probably the same thing that happened to Gluttony... which I'm not sure about, either.


My guess is Roy went into self-imposed exile after his recouperation period. Actually, it's pretty much stated that way.


I'd like to know this, too.

First off, thank you for strating this thread!!
I know some of the stuff had already been brought up in other existing threads, but I like the idea of having all the anime/movie plot discussions in specific one thread.

I, too have many questions regarding the plot, for which everyone's insights are highly appreciated, and since Envy's lil' miniskirt has already posted some of the same questions, I'd like to join in on those.

About the femail Thule Society leader. I also am very puzzled about her. Partly because not much of her charactor is explained in the movie.
Also, unlike Mabuze, the movie director, or Karl Haushofer, there is no exact counterpart replica of her in real-life, from which we might have learned some hints to what her charactor might supposed to be.
(As you know, the leader of Thule Society in real-life was a man, and he didn't run off to the Hagaren world. )

At one point in the movie, towards the end, Ed asks her why she was invading the Hagaren world, then she goes off rumnbling about her being so scared of Hagaren world going to attack her world, and ever since she learned of the existance of the Hagaren world she has been consumed by her fear of possible attack, therefore she had to get rid of the Hagaren world, or something like that.
(I can post more exact quotes when I can re-watch the movie later.)
At that point, my mind went "huh?" and I have been in a fog about her ever since.
So, what really was the reason behind the invasion??

Part of me wants to simply dismiss her as a nutjob, kind of like Dante, but that's not so easy to do, since we have much less background on her. I think with her last speech, the writers wanted to moralize about how we shouldn't make war based on petty differences, and whatnot, but it had much less impact than they intended, because a ) It's already been said SOOOO many times, and b ) Having a particularly poorly developed character to make that point makes it much more difficult to appreciate.

Good points!!
I'm gonna try to digest the points you posted while I'm away and off board this afternoon. Thanks!!

tis is the 5th thread talking about plot holes or bones sucks

I kind of figured she was a nutjob as well but since there appears to be part of the film missing on the version I saw I'm waiting unitl I see it on DVD before I make my final judgement.

a) noone here is saying 'bones sucks'
b) the other threads all got derailed, and didn't fulfill their purpose.

Yeah, some people cannot stop insulting people who don't what other people think and sa, so the threads went crazy...

and yes, I'm looking at someone in particular.

Let's stay on-topic people so this thread doesn't suffer the same fate.

I was a little confused by the black crud that got all over everything that passed through the gate. If I understood correctly, the first wave of armor-troops were crushed to death within the gate, but continued moving around because of the gate goo. Later on, that woman (forgot her name) got it all over her and the ships were covered with it. She could suddenly perform alchemy without even clapping or anything too, but I don't know if that had anything to do with it. And I guess the armor guys were alive the second time, since Hawkeye was able to stop them by shooting through the helmets? I don't know, just thought it was odd.

Perhaps the black goop is what those weird creatures inside the gate turn into when they pass through? Or perhaps it's their residue?
As for why the bitch could suddenly perform alchemy, she said that she'd devoted her life to the study of 'magic', so maybe she knew all the formulae and methods, but the powers didn't exist on our side, but when she passed through, she possessed them because of the flow of energy from our world?

Hmm, that makes sense. Good theory.

I'm still not sure if the armor troops made it through alive the second time. They seemed to be getting attacked on the way through, and they got back up after jumping from the airships like it was nothing. Walking armored corpses....creepy.

Oh yeah,

What was the deal with Ed's arm and the lawnmower action in the begining?

I am surprised no one has mentioned the most obvious one, Al's blood seal getting wet. In episode 3 is Al is kicked in the water by his brother. In episode 28 Al himself goes in the water to fish on Yolk Island. Then in episode 43/44 (I can't remember which one) Al jumps in the water. Ed freaks out because Al's blood seal will get wet and he might disappear. However Al is fine because he is now the Philosopher Stone. However how on Earth was Al able to go in the water in these earlier episodes? It seems a ridiculous thing to mention the blood seal getting wet and disappearing at such a late episode. To me this seems like lazy writing on the FMA anime staff's part.


The other one that I am sure people will mention is Envy at one point saying he doesn't remember what he originally looked like (I believe in ep 14) and then in episode 50 revealing he looks like a younger version of Hohenheim since he was originally Hohenheim's son. Most people consider this a plot hole because why would Envy say he can't remember his true form when clearly he does. However I don't think this is necessarily a plot hole. It could be that Envy was saying he doesn't remember his true form because he doesn't want to remember it since he hates Hohenheim so much. Another possibility is that was really not his true form but he just wanted to goad Ed by showing him that he is also Hohenheim's son . It's kind of soapoperish but not necessarily a plot hole.


Another thing that never made sense to me was how can Wrath do alchemy with just Ed's limbs. I understand athe Homonculus can dan't do alchemy because they aren't human, however just giving human limbs shouldn't change this. True humans can do alchemy but not all humans are actually able to alchemy in the FMA world. It is the knowledge that lets humans do alchemy. And I know Wrath was in the gate so maybe he saw the "knowledge" but before he turned "evil" Wrath had no memory of the gate so how was he able to do alchemy at that point? If someone who went through the gate could do alchemy with no memory of it then Al should have been able to peform alchemy without a circle too.

Movie Spoiler Plot Hole


[SPOILER]In the movie I also didn't understand how Al could transmute his soul onto the armour. Even if Al is an awesome alchemist there is no way that can be explained logically. What on earth was Al giving up in that exchange?[/spoiler]

This always struck me as something of an animation error, rather than a real plot hole... maybe negligence on the part of the animators. In the first instance, you could argue that the water is barely ankle-deep, if that, and with the way the seal is positioned, there's no concern that the seal will get washed off. In the second instance, I think they just had a brain-fart when it came to fluid dynamics. It makes them look bad, but it's not necessarily a plot hole.


I think it's pretty obvious that he's lying when he says he doesn't remember.


Latent memories, I guess. Like the way people with amnesia can still know how to play the piano... it becomes second nature. As for why he can do alchemy at all... I think it's the same reason the villian of the movie can. The 'soul' of a homunculus comes from within the gate, and carries with it all the knowledge that's held inside. But since their bodies are created artificially, they can't use alchemy, because they don't possess life in the same way humans do. Recall what Izumi said about alchemy being tied with the whole 'circle of life'. Wrath's arm and leg do possess life, in a strange sense, so with them, he can use alchemy.



Well, the transmutation isn't permanent, so I'm guessing he temporarily gives up part of his own life force to do it. It's kind of video game-ish, and far-fetched, but nobody ever claimed that the FMA world was realistic.

hes lying
he hates honeheim (sp).
he doesnt want anything to do with him, much less remind him that he is his father

That Envy was lying was symbolic of how he really didn't trust his fellow homunculi brethren. And in the end, Lust diverged from the group as well.

Yup. Envy was a loose cannon... probably because he was coo-coo with the syphillis.

The anime freaks started saying that about the ones that said they didn't like the second half.

and weren't you the one going to "do you hate what bones did to fma" saying how all Ed/Win fans were wrong because you said so?. Wasn't Reika the one telling you to be more objective and you automatically told her she was the subjective one???? Don't give us classes at how someone should act by opening another thread

Using an excuse by saying something isn’t realistic and it is a fantasy world doesn’t work. True when reading/watching a fantasy you are supposed to suspend your disbelief. However this suspension of disbelief can only go so far. What is happening might be fantasy but it still needs to fit into the rules and context of the fantasy world. An example is if there is a purple sky in your fantasy world than the sea should also be purple. JRR Tolkien wrote a wonderful essay on this and in my opinion it is what separates good fantasy from not so good fantasy. In most cases the FMA anime does do a good job of making their world seem realistic but there are some cases in the second half of the anime and the movie where this isn’t the case.

If you can attach a soul to armor using alchemy, I don't think controlling armor using part of your soul is much of a stretch .

My theory is that Envy had been shifting shapes for so long that he really did forget, also he hadn't seen Hoenheim in a long time. Then when he saw Ed it all came flooding back to him thus he was able to shift into his real form at the end of the series. Either that or he hated Hoho so much that he refused to acknowledge his true form.

I don't think that not showing his real form had anything to do with not trusting his fellow homonculi. After all, he was pretty high on the food chain as far as the sins were concerned.


Bacon
Do you have some fetish with cross dressing shape shifters who have syphillis?
You're really into that theory.





Can we keep this on topic please and not have another BS arguement break out in a movie discussion thread?

Actually yes it is. In the case of Ed attaching Al’s soul to the suit of the armor he attached it was the blood seal. Since blood is made up of iron it made perfect logical sense in the context of the FMA world. Al just putting his soul on the armor by touching it doesn’t really make sense. In the FMA world, alchemy is a science not some magic trick so in the very least in should resemble science in some way (I am not saying it has to be real science.)

Oh, yeah, this makes sense.

Maybe treating the soul as some sort of energy, and attaching it to metal magnetically??

Well, you also have to keep in mind that Al is much more experienced as an alchemist when we see him in the feature-length than he and Ed were at the beginning of the anime. Perhaps he picked up a technique that allows him to bypass the blood seal somewhere along the way.

.. day... three of not being able... to log in... due to stupid validation email....

My inquiry about scene in teh moobie in contrast to series:

[spoiler]In the last episode, it was mentioned that Al gave up his four years of memory to give Ed back his limbs... yet, in the movie he gained back his memory? The scene where the two brothers transmute the roof to get to the airship... Al mentions something of ' You've gotten better... You're still good ' or something like that... how would he had known that if he had lost all his memories of Ed ' The Fullmetal Alchemist '? Before the time Al lost his physical body, Ed wasn't doing many miraculous feats with his Alchemy compared to when he became state certified.... That scene confused me... (As well as many other aspects of named movie).[/spoiler]

You are both coming up with possible explanations but not logical explanations. Al being able to attach his soul to the armor with no cost does not logically fit with what we know about alchemy in the FMA world.

Everyone should also keep in mind the definition of a plot hole:

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Plot_hole

Also check out the article on "suspension of disbelief"

Again, the transmutation is temporary, so Al doesn't have to give anything up in EE that would be permanent. So like I speculated, he may be giving up part of his soul.

that makes a lotta sense

I tried thinking of this....and the thing I concluded is maybe it has something to do with the fact that Al himself had his own soul separated from his body so long, that it was easier for him. It would make sense to me anyway.

Yeah, I know. Al himself in the movie said that "somehow" his soul comes off easily, and he can attach part of it to other object.
And I think that "somehow" part is implying "that's because Al's soul used to be separated from his body and attatdhed to the suit of armor," AND in a round-about way, implyimg also that Al's memory about that period is still not with him.

But, I'm still curious about the "mechanics" of how someone can perform such alchemy.

Well, I don't have a subbed version, and I don't know Japanese....so I'm just guessing after watching it and reading the summery .

But yea...I would like to know the mechanics too....but it's an interesting idea I think

Well, isn't Alchemy largely based on using the soul to power the transmutations?? So, I believe that he being able to defuse his soul from his body like that is possible... I guess??

Yes, there is a chinese version of something like a ninja. They are called the "Black-clothed ones", but they didn't use those... star... thingies. Also, they didn't work for the government. They're usually the ones who work against the government to get important information, items, etc. Anyone can be one if they have black clothes and good fighting skills.
How do I know that? Because I was one of them. No, just kidding.

About the Japan in the Hagaren world thing... Does it have to exist? Maybe it's just a completely different world with different countries and languages. But then, why would the people with the same faces live in the same place?

Thanks for the info on Chinese Ninja.
I agree that Koga/Iga "shuriken", the throwing star thingy, along with "makibishi", are uniquely their own, though Chinese version has throwing knives, along with other arms of their own, I think.

The reason we have been discussing the existance of Japan in Hagaren world was because Izumi's name, and someone posted why only Izumi has Japanese name in Fma, and there the curiosity has expanded. I'm fine with either way.

I can think of some other Japanese sounding names. There was General Hakuro, although I've seen that spelled as Halcrow before. Yoki, Pinako and Black Hayate sound pretty Japanese, too!

Good thinking!!

Hayate is sooo totally Japanese, and I love Black Hayate.
Also, it goes along with other WWII war plane names author has been using in Fma (so I heard), like Mustang, etc.
Hakuro could be a Japanese name, though not distinctly Japanese. Rather, it is a Chinese name in origin Japanized.
To add the confusion, in the begining of anime he was Haruko, and that was strange that they changed names.
Yoki can be a Japanese word, but rather unlikely as a Japanese name, or very uncommon, if any.
Pinako is not a Japanese name, or if any then rather strangely sunding, and very uncommon Japanese name because of "p" sound.

The General was always "Hakuro" in the Jpanese version. "Haruko" was a mistake in translation.
(It should be romanised as Hacrow (Hackrow?), not Halcrow, though. Although I've seen it elsewhere as Halcrow too.)

Yoki could also be part-Xingese. He looks like he could be.