In the manga and Brotherhood, Barry the
Chopper serves as a guard for Laboratory 5, and we hear about his past exploits as a
deranged serial killer later on. He does end up carrying some importance
to the plot and, surprisingly, ends up helping Roy Mustang in particular
in pretty serious ways. In 2003, however, Barry is introduced earlier and his place within
the story is very different and HE’S introduced in an entirely different manner. In fact, he has
a huge impact on Ed's character development. One central part of this is that Brotherhood and
the manga’s versions of Barry rarely, if ever, comes across as scary. Actually, he's much more
likely to be treated as comedic relief and, at his most sinister, convinces Al that he may not
be a real person at all. 2003 instead makes him as horrifying and demented as one might expect a
serial killer to be, at least in his introduction. Even before the Nina incident, Ed saw one of
Barry's victims bodies and it gave him flashbacks to his and Al's failed human transmutation. But
things are going to get more extreme because, here, Barry kidnaps Winry and, when Ed
goes to rescue her, Ed is nearly killed. In my opinion, this is Ed at his most vulnerable.
He is stripped of his automail arm and tied to a chair as Barry monologues about all the women
he's killed and how he's going to carve up Winry. It's totally deranged and shockingly visceral.
Once again, the atmosphere of 2003 excels when it comes to Ed's most desperate moments. The art
direction and the soundtrack - they're perfect for this sort of thing. My belief is that, after
the Nina incident, this is meant to make it clear that alchemy isn't the evil thing - it's just that
some people are evil; some people do evil things, regardless of if they're an alchemist or not. Of
course, this has a massive impact on Ed and Al. Al’s dialogue makes it clear that their journey
is going to be even more difficult than they may have originally imagined. He says that they
will get their bodies back, even if it means going against the flow of the world. I take this
to mean that Ed and Al will need to fight against the laws of the world, just as they did when
they tried to bring their mother back. However, I also think that this has to do with the
sheer cruelty of the world that they have been exposed to in the last two episodes. Sure, Shou
Tucker was a monster and did something horrible, but at least there was some way to rationale.
We could say that he wanted to protect himself or that his mind broke under the pressure of
his job or that he wanted to advance science so badly that he was willing to sacrifice his
daughter or that he was simply curious and wanted to see if he could do it. Obviously, none
of these are excuses, but they are reasons. Yeah, twisted reasons, but still reasons why
someone might do what Shou Tucker did. But what reason would Barry have to do
this? It's hard to think of one and the show doesn't provide us with an answer. We
don't see any pressure he's under. We don't see past trauma. We don't even see that
he's always been like this since he was a child. We just see this insane man who wants
to kill Ed and Winry and Ed sees the exact same thing. Just as the world can sometimes seem
senselessly cruel and violent, so is Barry. Then there's the idea that, from here on, Ed and
Al are going to isolate themselves even further, as a commentor named Latemluff pointed out on
my old video series. While this angle is much more present in the English dub of the anime than
it is in the original Japanese audio, I believe that it's still relevant. Ed’s childhood friend
was nearly killed and, in some part, how wouldn't he feel that this was because of her association
with him? It's not hard to imagine that he would need to distance himself from her and from so many
things from his old life. Yes, he announced that before when they burned down their childhood home,
but here if they do it again. Their worldview has once again been dramatically altered. Where
before was their own choices that led them to such a horrible fate, here their control was nearly
ripped away from them by a homicidal maniac. The world was bigger than them and they didn't even
mean to put themselves in harm's way. The world is just cruel, perhaps even in a way that goes
against equivalent exchange, and they're going to have to go against that cruelty if they want
to get their bodies back. That's powerful stuff. While I've already discussed the mining town
chapter in the Fullemtal Alchemist manga, I haven't yet gotten to 2003's version of
it. That's because 2003 moves this episode later into the narrative, as it fulfills a
different structural purpose than it does in the manga. As I mentioned in the first part
of this video series, the structure of the manga establishes Ed as a wish-fulfillment
type protagonist through its early chapters, only to tear him down with the Nina incident.
It also shows two important things about Ed's character: First, Ed's time in the mining
town shows how intelligent he is and how he can come up with and enact a plan that is
quite brilliant. Second, it makes it clear that Ed still puts the needs of the common
person above the needs of the government and that he is even willing to go against
the government if it means helping others. In 2003, these two things remain the same.
However, instead of these events being used to build Ed up before he's torn down, here
these events build Ed up again after he's been traumatized. Because of this, a few of the
meanings in the episode that were already there are accentuated. First off, Ed is reminded
that he can go against the government and stop bad things from happening. Nothing much has
changed as far as this is specifically concerned, but the context makes the episode
a bit more powerful. After all, Ed was just helpless to stop the Iron
Blood Alchemist, who knew about Shou Tucker's experiments. One might then think, as
it seems Ed does at this point in the series, that he has no control at all as far as
the government is concerned. However, he manages to stop Yoki from harming the people
who live in this mining town, showing that he isn't destined to fail whenever he tries to stop
the government from doing something terrible. As the title of the episode, “ Be Thou for the
People,” reminds us, Ed can be an alchemist of the people while still working for the government.
These two things aren't mutually exclusive, even if certain challenges are presented to Ed
because of his association with the government. Second, the mining town shows how alchemy can
be used for good and bad purposes. Of course, this idea has already been explored in
2003, but I don't think it's redundant here, as this moment is meant for Ed more than it is
for the audience. What I mean by this is that Ed, after seeing what Shou Tucker did to Nina
and after learning about the Iron Blood Alchmist’s involvement, might need a reminder
that he can still use alchemy to help others, even if the audience doesn't need that reminder.
Basically, in this episode, Ed takes the power of alchemy - and its meaning too - into his own
hands, redefining it as something within his mind that can still be good, even if he's
seen so much of how it can hurt people. Lyra, a character who only exists in the 2003
anime, serves to give this idea - the idea that alchemy is good - more power. See, she became
an alchemist so that she could do everything she could to help the state. But, by the end
of the episode, after seeing Ed's actions, she wants to become a stronger alchemist so
that she can help the people. In this way, Ed's alchemy becomes something that can inspire
others to be better and do the right thing. Overall, this is a great episode that shows Ed's
perseverance, intelligence, and kindness. Through all of these things, Ed is able to redefine his
existence as a state alchemist and to maintain agency and control over his alchemy. It's a
powerful moment of a broken character reforming himself, and one that has a major impact as the
series goes on, but I'll get to that more later. Well, we've now hit a run of four episodes in
2003 that have no equivalent in Brotherhood, so it's going to be a while until we talk about that anime or the manga again. But
we'll get back to that soon enough. The first of these episodes is “The Phantom
Thief,” which chronologically takes place after episode two. In this episode, Ed and Al encounter
an alchemist named Psiren, who uses her alchemy to help her steal a variety of things. When Ed and
Al discover who she is, the motivation she gives them for her actions is that she wants to save
the hospital she works at from being demolished. An important part of this episode is that it
shows us how similar or different Ed and Al are from their past selves, from the people
we've watched from episode 3 through 9 of 2003. One crucial thing to note here is that Ed
still has very human weaknesses. For example, he gets food poisoning, and he has this
fear of getting shots. However, we also see, once again, that he is well-known and that he
is treated differently as a state alchemist. Ed also feels very strongly about what alchemy
should and should not be used for. In fact, he may even feel more strongly about this
now, and that makes sense based on how much of his identity is defined by alchemy and
the harm that alchemy can cause or the good it can do in the world. Meanwhile, Al is still
more forgiving and sympathetic than Ed is, especially when it comes to what they
believe is Psiren’s ultimate goal: to save this city from abandonment by causing
a ruckus in the media with all of her thievery. Ed might understand this and he seems far
less annoyed with her when he learns that this may be why she is stealing, but his pride
as an alchemist stops him from letting this go. More importantly, however, it expands on the
events of the previous episode to show that Ed's ideals - his ideal that alchemy should
be used to help people - can leave him open to manipulation. After all, while he's not okay
with alchemy being used for common thievery, when Psiren lies to him and tells him that she's using
it to help people, he even goes so far as to help her escape being captured by the police. Al’s past
experience also leaves him open to manipulation, as is made clear through the way that he compares
Psiren to his mother and preemptively comes up with excuses for her crimes for her. Overall,
this is a decent episode that explores some of that Ed and Al’s characteristics in a fairly
comedic circumstance. However, it does have some problems, but all the problems I have with
that are repeated later on in the series as well, so I'll return to this episode in a future section
of this video series to provide some examples of problems I have with the show. For now, that’s
all I have to say about “The Phantom Thief.” “The Other Brothers Elric” is a two-part
episode that adapts the events of the first Fullmetal Alchemist Alchemist light novel:
Fullmetal Alchemist - The Land of Sand. Whilel I could go into how it adapts that
novel for the purposes of this analysis, I'm going to focus on discussing how the
episode factors into 2003’s story overall, as I want to keep this analysis focused
on 2003, Brotherhood, and the manga. In this episode, Ed and Al are, as usual, on the
hunt for the philosopher's stone, and they end up in a town that was once prosperous, but is
now encountering some problems. See, the town's primary resource was gold, but now there isn't
much left, and the town has turned to alchemy to help them regain some wealth and economic
stability. More specifically, they want the philosopher's stone, which a man named Mugear is
researching. Unfortunately for Ed and Al, however, two other boys have taken their identities and
are assisting this Mugear man with his research. This episode is important in that it shows Ed in
a situation we've never seen him in before. Here, he's going to need to work against
the interest of the common people to abide by his moral code. This is a central
aspect of his character. No matter what, he is not willing to do what he sees as the wrong
thing. His moral code is exceptionally strong and, as the show was going to force Ed into situations
where he may need to do something very contrary to his moral code, the more emphasis placed
on this aspect of his character the better. As for Al, his interactions with the younger of
the two fake Elrics, whose real name is Fletcher, reveals a lot about his character’s fears and
a sense of guilt over his and his brother’s failed human transmutation. After all, he tells
Fletcher that if he feels his brother is doing something wrong and he's the only one who can stop
him. Al also says that, if Fletcher doesn't stop his brother, he thinks Fletcher's brother will be
deeply hurt. This also highlights Al's empathetic nature - he wants to stop Fletcher from making a
similar mistake to the one he made. He wants to take his suffering, learn from it, and use it to
help others. He doesn't want someone else to live with the feeling that they let something horrible
happen. Connected to this is the fact that, even as this episode progresses, both Al and
Fletcher have to stop their brothers from doing stupid things. So Al is still taking
responsibility for his brother's actions. We also get deeper insight into what 2003 sees
as making alchemy moral or immoral. Overall, its morality seems to be largely situational and
based on the reasoning one is using performing alchemy. Specifically, this episode makes it clear
that it's incorrect to use alchemy to preserve one's way of life, to stop the regular change
of the world from happening. We've already seen that with Shou Tucker, of course, but now we're
seeing that with this town, from people who are far less self-serving than Shou Tucker is. As
this character says, “The town is completely on the decline. I think we should stop relying
on gold for our way of life.” If people had only listened to this idea, if they had been willing
to alter their way of living, then people in the town wouldn't have gotten sick and pregnant
women's babies wouldn't have been used to fuel the creation of the philosopher's stone. The death
of babies also reflects this theme of change, as new lives that will eventually replace old lives
are snuffed out before they can properly begin. Additionally, this has a clear connection to Ed
and Al’s failed human transmutation, to their attempt to hold onto their mother's life, to their
old way of living. In fact, at the end of the episode, the older of the two fake Elric brothers,
Russel, says that they're going to accept whatever comes to them, and this is portrayed as a
victorious moment for the fake Elric brothers. While I enjoy all this thematic stuff, there
are some problems in this episode as far as plot is concerned. The most obvious and largest
of these is when Ed and Al break into Mugear’s home to look for their imposters. Here, they get
caught, and then they're just out of the house, lazing around. I mean, wouldn’t they go to jail,
or at least get in some sort of trouble? To be fair, the show glosses over what happens to them
after they're caught. In fact, they might not have been caught. It’s hard to say. But, either way,
that's something that 2003 should have shown us, as these sorts of plot issues can take away
from the episodes overall strong thematic focus. Still, I enjoy this episode a lot. I've heard
people talk about it as though it's useless or that it at least would have been better to cut
it out, but I disagree entirely. In my mind, the thematic ideas and character traits I
discussed here give this episode more than enough justification to exist. Additionally,
having Ed and Al roam around and go to different towns gives the story a sense
of scale and adventure that I really like, and which I actually think could have fed
into Brotherhood or the manga well too. So we've reached the 13th episode
of 2003. For whatever reason, it was on this episode that I realized
just how special this show was for me, that I first thought that it could become one
of my favourite television shows. I'm not sure if that's because of the strong episodes in the
show so far, or because of this one in particular, or a mixture of both, but either
way I really love this episode. It’s based on some bonus chapters of the manga.
Of course, since they're bonus in the manga, that means that they're relatively unimportant
there, that they're purely supplementary. But here in 2003, they’re worked into the story in
such a way that they're actually quite integral. In this episode, we learn quite a bit about
Mustang. Despite his emphasis in the story up until now, he's been a pretty distant figure,
who occasionally appears and does some important stuff but never in such a way that I felt
his personality was being explored all that deeply - except his coldness, of course. We
really just don't know much about his overall goals or ideals, and it's here that we get a
better glimpse into that part of his character. This episode pretty much opens with Ed describing
how obnoxious Mustang’s welcome will be for him. Since this is after 2003’s timeskip, it's
important to see that Ed and Mustang’s relationship hasn't changed all that much. This
gives us the sense that Mustang is some judgmental figure who looms over the brothers’ heads. Of
course, this is confirmed when Ed meets Mustang and Mustang goes over all of Ed’s exploits,
which are things he really shouldn't know, given that Ed's been all over the place.
He’s keeping a pretty short leash on Ed. He's watching and he's in control, and this is his
way of making that clear. The power dynamic here is incredibly obvious. Mustang is on top. Ed is
on the bottom. This is yet another relationship that adds to the idea that opposition
lies waiting around every corner for Ed. In Brotherhood and the manga, Mustang
really isn't this sort of character. I mean, there's implied power in those versions - of
course Mustang is above Ed in both skill and rank - but Mustang rarely seems to hold that
over Ed's head in any way that goes beyond a joke. In fact, he actually helps the brothers
out on their quest to find their bodies, as he takes them to Tucker's house, so they can
research more about that. Overall, he's just a fair and just figure who wants the boys to succeed
in their quest, and who recognizes how useful they can be to him. Regardless of anything else we
might think about Mustang, it's pretty clear that he's on Ed and Al’s side if at all possible,
and that he'll do what he can to help them. In 2003, Mustang is far less supportive of
the brothers’ goal. He even goes so far as to tell Ed to settle down and reminds Ed that
they haven't found the philosopher's stone in three years. Then, when Ed asks Mustang about
Marcoh, Mustang simply says that he'll “look into it.” While it’s pretty understandable
that Mustang wouldn't necessarily want to just hand out Marcoh's whereabouts, it's odd
that he would both dissuade the brothers from going after the philosopher's stone and
not tell them about Marcoh. Of course, there are multiple reasons why he may act this
way, ranging from wanting to use them as tools, to wanting to keep a closer eye on them, to being
genuinely worried about their safety. Either way, he's attempting to exert his control over
the brothers, and putting his will above their own. Thus, Ed views Mustang isn't
necessary obstacle in his and Al's quest. All of this leads to Ed challenging
Mustang to a battle. If Ed wins, Mustang needs to tell him Marcoh’s location.
It's an interesting and fun scenario to use in order for us to see two of the show's
strongest characters go head-to-head, and Ed's been given a really good
reason to want to beat Mustang. Sure, Mustang helped them get where they are today,
but Mustang’s also been overworking Ed under the threat of letting their secret out, which
is actually really messed up if you think about it. He’s hanging this traumatic moment over the
brothers’ heads, just as a means to reach his end. However, despite all of these bad things about
Mustang, the show manages to give us reasons to like him. For one, he has his funny moments
in this episode, like when he goes on this huge spiel about how much he loves dogs, or
where he talks about how he's going to make all the female officers wear miniskirts.
The fact that he can be funny like this, that he can have these charismatic moments,
gives his character a sense of depth that he would otherwise lack. It's also easy to
view him as an underdog, seeing these people boo when it's announced that he's fighting.
Sure, it's funny that he's that disliked, but it drives home an important point: People
don't like Mustang, yet he's still persevered. Everything I've mentioned so far builds
Mustang up as a strong character, as a figure of authority and power, but in one
of the episodes best moments that idea comes into question. After all, during Mustang and Ed's
fight, there's this moment where he could beat Ed, but then he's reminded of the war in Ishbal and
he hesitates. Even if only briefly, this cocky, authoritative man becomes a weak, as the trauma
breaks loose. And this brings us to the connection between Ed and Mustang because they really
aren't all that different. They're both strong, prideful characters who are willing to
do so much in order to reach their goals, but they're also both traumatized, afraid, and
broken. They’re trying to fix their past mistakes, trying to correct something that can never be
corrected, by pushing forward and doing better. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's as
Ed and Mustang clean up the mess they've made in their fight that they come to a better
understanding of one another. Because, arguably, that's what 2003 is all about: Ed
trying to clean up the mess he's helped make, and Mustang doing the same thing. For Ed, that
mess is the homonculi and his brother’s body, while for Mustang that mess is the aftermath
of the Ishbal war of extermination. Yet, in the same scene, the shots consistently
emphasize distance between Ed and Mustang. Despite all their similarities, they're
very different people with different ideals, but they still come to their understanding
and Mustang tells Ed where Marcoh is. Then, after all this, we learn that
Mustang doesn't want to tell Ed and Al about what has become of Liore,
which is now an insane battleground, in some part due to what Ed and Al did there.
Is this what's best for them? To leave them in the dark? I personally don't think so, but it
shows that Mustang does care about Ed and Al, that he wants them to have confidence
and to maintain some of their innocence. After all, even if Ed thinks he's lost
everything, there's still more to lose. This isn't the only aspect of this episode that
touches on that. Though I didn't have a chance to mention it, at the beginning of this episode,
Al finds this little cat, who he can't leave alone because, well, how could he just leave a cat all
by itself like that out in the cold rain? As the owner of a cat, I can definitely relate to Al on
this level. However, at the end of the episode, they leave the cat in a stroller, a symbol of
Ed and Al leaving their innocence behind them, so that they can focus all their energy on their
mutual agreement to get their bodies back. But there's something even deeper to the symbol, as
in a flashback we see that Ed, as a child, tried to save a cat and took it to their mother and
Al watched this happen. Now, he's tried to keep this cat - mimicking his brothers past actions and
trying to hold on to his brother's innocence - and this really shows how futile Mustang’s attempt
to maintain the boys innocence is. These boys have already made their decision. No one else can
make it for them. The boys are moving towards a harsher reality, towards Scar, who is accompanied
by these low, creeping chants as he stands over an officer's dead body; towards the homunculus, who
are going to force them to face their mistake head on; towards the truth of how cruel this world
is and of how much more they have left to lose.
