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I hadn’t recalled this while watching Fullmetal Alchemist but now that our Western Civilization class has read Frankenstein, it finally dawned on me that Victor Frankenstein studied Alchemy was well. But, alchemy is viewed differently in Victor’s world than Edward’s world. It is out-dated and pale in comparison to modern science. In Edward’s world, alchemy is modern science, and it’s pretty powerful, used in the military in Amestris and for medical purposes in Xing. I read the book for the first time Junior year in high school and thought it was a pretty interesting book, but the second time around, I found it to be even more fascinating than the first because now I can compare and contrast Frankenstein with Fullmetal Achemist.

Both Victor and Edward were pretty absorbed in their studies on human life and the idea of creating life or restoring life. Victor Frankenstein’s mother died as well, but his objective to create a living being is different from the motives of the Elric brothers. He simply wanted to see if it was possible to create life without biological means (asexually). Edward wanted to bring his mother back to life to see her smile again, out of love for his mother.

Victor created a monster who was largely grotesque yet intelligent and compassionate. Edward, however created a monster that died right after its creation, but in return he lost his leg and arm. He lost his leg as a passing fee when he saw the gate and his arm when he tried transmuting his brother’s soul to a suit of armor. Alphonse had his body taken to the other side of the gate and almost lost his soul as well when it was somehow taken by the monster, but luckily was rejected because the soul is only compatible with certain media. In a way that suit of armor is like a time bomb because he will never know when and if that suit of armor will reject his soul.

Well, that was the manga version of human transmutation. The anime version somewhat flows better with Frankenstein’s monster since the monster or better known as homunculus created by Ed and Al did survive. But Ed and Al’s monster was not rejected by society because she was not grotesque and looked pretty human from the outside. Had people known she was a homunculus, however, like Ed and Al later, she would have been somewhat of an outcast, but still accepted by the other homunculi namely Wrath. But then again, she did resemble of a decayed body till after eating the Red Stones or incomplete Philosopher’s Stones.Yet Ed and Al’s homunculus had an evil conscience and Frankenstein’s monster was only driven by revenge after being shunned by society as well as his creator. I wonder if that would have been the case for Ed and Al’s homunculus had it not been fed Red Stones.

Now I’m wondering if Frankenstein’s monster can be considered a homunculus since it probably didn’t have a soul since there’s no way of creating one. Victor didn’t use a Philosopher’s Stone or Red Stones - at least not that I’m aware of. He did use various dead body parts and human sacrifices were also needed in alchemy to resurrect the dead. There was even mention of the Philosopher’s Stone, transmutation and chimeras. Perhaps Frankenstein’s monster can be more accurately defined as a chimera. According to the MSN Encarta Dictionary, “an organism, or part of one, with at least two genetically different tissues resulting from mutation, the grafting of plants, or the insertion of foreign cells into an embryo.” And homunculus in our world are classified as basically a “little person.” and Frankenstein is a giant compared to human.

As for themes, both Frankenstein and FMA have Dangerous Knowledge as a theme. With the knowledge in chemistry/anatomy/alchemy, both Victor and Edward go beyond accepted human limits and access the secret of life. Whereas Victor’s obsessive hatred of the monster drives him to his death, Edward has his brother’s support and they had no idea that they had created a homunculus till much later. They were both able to defeat their homunculus, but not without difficulty as she resembled their mother so much. It was especially hard for Al to see the homunculus die in the anime.

Monstrosity is another theme. Though both Frankenstein’s monster and Ed and Al’s Homunculus can be considered monsters, so too are Victor Ed and Al. Both Ed and Al were alluded to as monsters at some point or another because Al does not have a body and Ed doesn’t have an arm and a leg. One can argue that Victor himself is a kind of monster, as his ambition, secrecy, and selfishness alienate him from human society. Ordinary on the outside, he may be the true “monster” inside, as he is eventually consumed by an obsessive hatred of his creation.

Both Victor and the Elric Brothers carry an unforgivable sin. For Frankenstein, however, he had lost more of his family and friends and was driven with revenge and the want to kill his monster. His ending was a tragic one whereas the Elric Brothers - in the anime - were able resolve their problem and kill their homunculus. According to the movie, they ended up living together, Al with his body back, though they lived in our world, where alchemy is devoid of its powers found in Amestris in their world.

I created a site map plugin for Wordpress that simply lists all the pages you have on your site. It also comes with an optional category listing. You can edit the plugin to your liking. It was easy to create since it only has two main functions. The first function sitemap lists the pages using the wordpress generated tag wp_list_pages. I’ve also commented out a categories listing. You can add other listings if you’d like. The second major function generate_sitemap creates a shortcut you can use on any page you create when you go to Write –>Page. All you need to do is insert <– sitemap –> anywhere on that page and hit Publish.

Copy and paste the code below into a text editor such as notepad, and save it as sitemap.php. Then upload it to your site’s plugins folder. Activate the plugin in the Dashboard and create your site map page. To see a working site map, click here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Site Map
Plugin Author: Sue
Plugin Description: Generates a site map based on pages but is customizable via plugin editor. You can get to that by clicking on the title of this plugin. Use &amp;lt;!&amp;ndash;&amp;ndash; sitemap &amp;ndash;&amp;ndash;&amp;gt; on any page in code view to display the site map.
Plugin Author URI: http://endless-sonata.net
Plugin URI: /wp-admin/plugin-editor.php?file=sitemap.php
*/
function sitemap() {
echo "<ul>";
wp_list_pages('title_li=');
echo "</ul>";
/*
// optional list categories
echo "<ul>";
wp_list_categories('title_li=');
echo "</ul>";
// you may add any other list options you'd like
*/
}
function generate_sitemap($content) {
if (strpos($content, "<!-- sitemap -->") !== FALSE) {
$content = preg_replace('/<p>\s*<!--(.*)-->\s*<\/p>/i', "<!--$1-->", $content);
$content = str_replace('<!-- sitemap -->', sitemap(), $content);
}
return $content;
}

add_filter('the_content', 'generate_sitemap');
?>

For those of you who love anime and haven’t already watched Fullmetal Alchemist, I highly recommend it. Even those who are not interested in anime may become impressed by it. In addition, I recommend the manga, which is still being published. The storyline is more well developed and both the storyline as well as some characters are way different in the manga than in the anime.

You may be thinking 51 episodes is a lot and that animes with this many episodes usually lose interest appeal half way through, but there wasn’t a single episode or moment when I was bored with this series. Even little incidences you find trivial at first becomes an important part of the plot.

Upon first impression of the first episode, you may think this show is just about two boys on their journey to regaining their original bodies and atoning for their sin of committing the ultimate taboo in alchemy, human transmutation, which is apparently more magical than scientific. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is a fantasy after all. But this story covers many different genres including action, adventure, comedy, and drama. Also, issues involving religion, politics, history, science and technology, philosophy, and psychology are also taken into account.

The characters are well developed and have distinct physical and personality characteristics. Edward Elric, the main protagonist, appears angsty, uncaring, and rude at times, yet he also has morals. There are times when fear can overpower his sense of rationality and intellect, and his mind freezes. There are also moments when you realize he’s just not the kind of person who would kill others even as a means of self defense when his life is in danger. He also has silly traits such as, if anyone calls him the “s” word in regards to his height, he automatically blows up and attacks him/her without mercy. Alphonse Elric, the second protagonist, is a foil to Ed. He towers over his older brother, has a caring and kind personality, but is at times too trusting of others, to the point of letting others brainwash him. Both Ed and Al are talented alchemists who are intelligent and strong willed, and overall mature for their age. Most importantly, the love and strong bond between them is phenomenal. Read the rest of this entry »