So i was thinking about the dwarf in the glass and how he’s a homunculus and that he’s from Hohenheim, but what is he really? I mean, he looks like the truth beyond the Door (that eye and smokey/shadowness) and with that it came to me; like getting hit with a bag of bricks.
He is Truth. In a way. Not entirely. He’s knowledge/God/the universe—he’s part of everyone. Not all of truth, but part of it (Literally the Dwarf is pursuit of truth personified). After living in the dark, he sees this world full of possibilities and things to explore and discover and experiment and conquer and it’s only natural to yearn for it. And when it all fails and he’s before his own door of Truth, it all comes out. All he wanted was to seek knowledge, to seek truth. What’s wrong with that! What’s wrong with wanting to go beyond the limits of the world? Of Humanity? To reach for the higher power?
He doesn’t want to go back to the darkness. Beyond the door is Truth, there is no to be beyond the door. It’s pure Truth, but nothing to apply it to. It’s knowledge and truth of the universe, but no universe…
He calls beyond the Door God because to be God means to be all powerful, feared and adored. He’s not human, and he will never be no matter what skin he wears, but he also wants what humans have—the capability to love one another and form bonds.
Arakawa started off the entire freakin’ series with a false prophet, and possibly a false God, and here she ends it very symmetrically. Another false God/Prophet with a bigger Philosopher’s stone. The question is who is the false God: is it the dwarf (by claiming God, does he become God?)? Or is Truth? The Dwarf calls Beyond the Door, the Truth, God mainly because it acts as a higher power that everyone wants yet fears, but no one else claims it as a God. No else yearns for it as much as the Dwarf. Ed, Al, Izumi—yes they all faced the door with their own sins, but it wasn’t the pursuit of truth that sent them there. It was love.
To be honest, I would claim the Truth, the Door, as a genuine God (Not GOD but a God. A higher power. All knowing. All seeing) and the Dwarf was its false prophet. At first, he’s easily seen as a real prophet thanks to Hohenheim’s Xerses story along with preaching to Ed about how cruel Truth can be. But in the end, Dwarf isn’t the true prophet. Not even because he turned on Truth. He never was from the start. It’s Ed. Al. Izumi. Hohenheim. Even Mustang and Hawkeye are qualified. They are the ones who see the genuine truth of….Truth. Ed comes to understand so much that he is able to outsmart it (outsmarting may be the wrong word; he’s grown enough to understand what the true answer to all is. I think. That’s my belief anyway). And it’s not angry or bitter. It laughs. Not cruelly, but happily. “That is the correct answer!”
If I keep going on about the form Arakawa uses for her “God” then we’d be here all day.
But one more thing: after realizing all of this, I can’t help but think of Romanticism. It was sort of lash back at the Enlightenment, all the war and revolts occurring all over Europe. This sudden fear of God and the unknown or the supernatural. FMA fits in this movement like a glove.
and that’s it.
Favorite Fictional Family: The Elrics ( and Hohenheim )
i think I’ve tried to write edward elric meta like five times and every time i end up an incoherent mess and making no sense what so ever.
BUT I THINK I FINALLY GOT IT. I THINK I HAVE IT EXACTLY PINPOINTED WHY EDWARD ELRIC IS ONE OF MY TOP FIVE PROBABLY THREE FAVORITE CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME.
under spoiler tag for spoiler purposes
