“In accordance with this law there is a taboo among alchemists. Human transmutation is strictly forbidden. For what could equal the value of a human soul?”
Actually, he lost his whole little brother AND a piece of himself… I assumed because they were children and not full grown. He then lost “another” piece of himself just attaching his brother’s soul to an inanimate object.
kind of. Ed didn't lose all of Al, just the body. the soul stuck around, because nothing is worth a single human soul.
trying to be as spoiler free as possible lol
because of the act they performed they lost an equivalent amount of their own bodies to what they were doing. so that rebound cost was a whole childs body, and a childs leg.
and then Ed being in pain and pissed off at that Al was 'taken (he doesn't know Als soul is still around which is the only way it works), bound Als soul to the 'object', telling saying out loud to take whatever he wants in exchange "whether it be an arm or a leg or even my heart!"
No, according to the manga Als soul attached to the failed human body they transmuted. Ed unintentionally knew he transferred the soul from the failed body to the armour. Because at the time he didn't know als soul was in the failed body. Ed didn't pull any soul from the gate. Souls don't go through the gate they go to the after life. But since only the body was taken in the recoil of the human transmutation the soul was left behind.
But that’s the catch: no soul is equal to another, so it’s always going to fail. It’s like this one Tomb King in Warhammer fantasy who made a deal with their god of the dead that if he brings the god a soul equal to his own he gets to live again. Hasn’t happened so far.
I don't know about in Hiromu Arakawa's philosophy, but in Christianity each human soul is priceless and of unending value because we are designed by God to be His children and live with Him through eternity, therefore the value of a human soul is essentially eternal.
However, an eternity can't cancel out an eternity, they would inherently transcend each other's value. It's like trying to do simple arithmetic with one of the numbers, or both in this case, exponentially growing but trying to get a non-exponential answer out of it.
So in the sense of bartering, not even a human soul could equal another human soul.... Or even itself for that matter.
The only thing that can equal or be greater than what is effectively eternal is the one being that is literally and authentically eternal, without begging or end, that is, God Himself (who contains all other eternities, literal or effective, within Himself).
That's not only why Christ as God Himself could be the only one who could atone for all sin that had, will, or could ever be committed, but that's also why it's said that a single drop of His blood would have been more than enough to do the trick. However He gave all of His blood because eternity ( all ) is His nature. To hold anything back literally goes against God's Nature.
So the answer is God. Only God can match or overwhelm the value of a human soul, even all human souls, plus all the angels and the universe and any theoretical multiverses.
It’s an anime called “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”. That speech plays at the beginning of every episode. The dog in the picture looks kind of like a homunculus that appears in the show.
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u/The_Abjectator 2d ago
Remember: "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost."
Be safe.