Book Club - "The Bad Beginning," A Series of Unfortunate Events #1 by Lemony Snicket

Welcome back to Book Club! Today we're looking at the first installment of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Bad Beginning. 

Surprise surprise, I was a big reader as a child. My parents encouraged it by frequently buying me books. One such book was The Bad Beginning, on virtue of the movie having come out at the time I was old enough to move onto more complex books, and like The Spiderwick Chronicles, Goosebumps, Hank the Cowdog, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson (say all of those five times fast) at around the same time, I absolutely loved it. I ate it up, and needed more. 

However, that was many, many years ago, and like the story of the Baudelaire orphans, the story of my encounter with A Series of Unfortunate Events is an unfortunate one, and does not have a happy ending. My parents never bought me anything past the third book, so I had to turn to my school library. This was fine for a while, as I managed to read all of the books...

...except for the very last, The End. In a twist of cruel fate, my school library did not have a copy. And I had no money with which to buy my own.

Yes, it is true -- I do not know how the story ends, reader... oh, woe is me!

Except, that was a lie. The story of my encounter with A Series of Unfortunate Events gets even more dreadful, because I do know how it ends. For, you see, I had encountered many a spoiler, on the Internet, regarding the end of the series; and I now know the supposed events of the final book through cultural osmosis - the word "osmosis" here means "learning things one does not want to know, simply by being around rude people," - and have a woefully semi-complete understanding of the narrative. 

...(pause for effect)...

If you couldn't tell, I still love these books. They were part of the pillar of children's literature I grew up on, and can probably be attributed to the reason I started writing. Whether it's through rose-tinted glasses or not, rereading The Bad Beginning was a trip down memory lane, and I'm happy to say I came away enjoying the wit of the story even more than I did when I was a child. 

The plot of A Series of Unfortunate Events is very simple. Three children, born into significant wealth, suddenly lose their home and their parents in a terrible fire, and thus are shuffled into the arms of their closest (geographically, not hereditarily) living relative, Count Olaf. They are then subject to abuse and mistreatment by him as he cooks up a way to steal their fortune. He fails the first time, and launches them into a 13 book series chronicling their misadventure into the hands of more and more guardians, Olaf chasing them down throughout, causing them grief with his villainy and mischief over and over again.

The story is positively oozing with style. It has been literal years since I read a children's book, and I forgot how simple diction needs to be for such a young audience -- but even so, The Bad Beginning delivers aesthetic comedy better than most of the adult books I've read even with this restriction. In fact, it often uses this crutch to its advantage, introducing complex words and defining them in humorous terms that really fit the parameters of the story's writing style, and characterizing the story's various people and places with comedic and exaggerated pessimism. 

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny -- the three main characters -- are heavily defined by their one outstanding trait (Violet being an inventor, Klaus a reader, and Sunny a curiously intelligent baby that likes biting things) and while not much of their characters go beyond this, they're still fun to read about because they're a perfect slate for constant misfortune. That sounds dark, but it's true. Part of the fun of these books is that they live up to their name; there is constant tragedy and suffering, most of which befalling the innocent kid protagonists. Some of it far worse than any child ought to suffer, some of it so mild and inconsequential that the resulting dichotomy is hilarious.

Count Olaf is the perfect villain for this kind of story. He is cartoonish and completely irredeemable. In this case, the relative blandness of both the protagonists and the antagonist only work to make the tone of the story stronger. This book is brilliant proof of the idea that all the rules of writing can be broken to great effect, if handled with care. The art of literature is not mathematical, or scientific. It's much more like painting. There are general guidelines to it, which can produce a structured work, but in breaking those  you can, quite possibly, make something even more interesting than if you'd followed the rules. 

Here's a good look at some of the book's style; 

 (Spoiler, but there are 13 of these books, and I doubt the first one would be unpredictable to an adult audience)

This brand of dry, dark wit is bleeding on nearly every page. And if my memory serves me, this continues throughout all the other books, too. 

I'm pretty busy these days. I'm writing a 10 part short story collection (which I will officially reveal soon), I'm writing the third novel of my fantasy series (and thus, fifth manuscript so far), I'm outlining the next book I'm going to write, and am dreadfully close to my deadline of having completed enough work to start looking for a route to publish. Not to mention I'm reading two enormous, doorstopper fantasy epics, A Song of Ice and Fire and The Stormlight Archive. But I wanted to start this series again because I missed it, and pined for that nostalgic feeling of rereading books you loved in childhood. I am quite elated to say that, even if this is just me stuck in the past, I think they hold up. At least the first one... and as such, on to book two! 

Thanks for reading, reader! I give The Bad Beginning by Daniel Handler Lemony Snicket an 8/10

  - Austin

Book Club - "Fist of the North Star" #1 by Tetsuo Hara & Buronson

Fist of the North Star! I just finished the first Viz hardcover volume, and I have some thoughts. 

But I'm not quite sure how to segue into an introduction for it. Does it need one? Is it still obscure enough to where readers of this blog might be unfamiliar? Or is it the classic many underground-anime aficionados say it is? I'm willing to bet most readers may not have a great understanding of what this legendary manga entails, simply due to geography. It's always interesting to see how pop-culture develops differently in each region. Fist of the North Star is a manga that has inspired shonen for decades, and is the source of the legendary "Omae wa mou, shinderu" meme. But despite that, it -- and many other older titles -- have stayed in semi obscurity in more mainstream western circles. 

...Uh...

Oh, who am I kidding. All of you fuckin' know what this shit is. A bit of the teenage anime reviewer came back out of me, there, hunting for a way to introduce our subject. I can do better. I can do better! Don't let me get away with shit like this again! 

Anywho -- Fist of the North Star is bonkers. It spares no expense, and instantly thrusts us into a nuclear post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-ian world where the strong survive and the weak are fodder for their whims. Kenshiro, our heroic protagonist, disagrees with this notion, and employs Hokuto Shinken (the manga's martial art/magic system) to mow down waves and waves of enemies. 

First and foremost, and it needs to be said -- the art of Fist of the North Star is absolutely fantastic. Dated in just the perfect way, with amazing panel flow, brilliant framing -- every inch of the story is full to the brim with style. And since it's so old, it really feels... different from much of the mainstream manga of today. It feels more real. Like it came from one mind (even though it's an artist/writer duo) and is on a single path of narrative, which is a sort of feeling that many stories today lack. The hyperviolence just adds to it all, giving the action some truly magnificent... er, well, badassery. That's the only way to put it. Fist of the North Star is a manly man's manga, and oozes testosterone from every pore. The story also moves at a breakneck speed, mowing through the protagonist's supposed great nemesis as quickly as it does all the mooks and drones he takes out in each chapter too. It's like an epileptic fever dream, with fists and explosions and muscles galore.

Despite this, the manga is light on story, with almost no depth at all. What you see is what you get, at least as far as thirteen chapters go. This is perfectly acceptable entertainment, and I certainly cannot speak of how it develops as it goes. But in perfect honesty, halfway through the first volume I stopped and wrote in my notebook, almost verbatim: 

"The novelty and action is enjoyable, but one volume is enough for me to have already gotten all I probably can. Each chapter is the same thing." 

And I stand by that. The scope escalates and the art is insane, but the tendencies of the protagonist (to be a heroic, stoic badass that beats up badies for justice) and the general concept of the world ensures that these adventures will, in all likelihood, be repeating the same few notes over and over again. 

However, I certainly do not regret picking up Fist of the North Star, and seeing where modern shonen -- and of course, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure -- have adapted some of their main ideas. Revisiting old media and art that has become a pillar for modern works is always a bit poignant, because it's a window into an era long gone, yet still continues to make ripples and waves. Influence is a fluid, everpresent thing. It's impossible to avoid it, as all things have taken from what already exists. A story like Fist of the North Star is timeless. And though it had many elements that didn't appeal to me, I think it's worthy of that timelessness. 

Thanks for reading. I may not have said much of substance in this post, it was hard to stretch my ideas in to full paragraphs. Even so, read on, Book Club! 

 

- Austin

 

Book Club - "Anthem," by Ayn Rand

Welcome back to Book Club! A segment I make whenever I've finished a book and feel like talking about it. Which means, whenever I damn well feel like it. If I sound aloof and sarcastic today, it's because I just finished reading one of the worst books I've ever read in my life; Anthem, by Ayn Rand. Why did I put myself through this? It's simple, really. I am a masochist. 

No, that was a joke. The thing is, I've been hearing echoes about this author for years, and all I really knew was that her books were extremely controversial. She inspires the lifestyle and beliefs of... uh, some not so savory people -- and famously has persisted in modern literature specifically because of it. One example of the effect she's had on pop-culture is the video game Bioshock, which famously employs Rand's philosophies about society in its setting, and takes a good long look at why they completely suck. 

So needless to say, I was curious. The "classics" section of my local used bookstore was literally teeming with copies of Rand's work, and I sure as shit was NOT about to read something as long as Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. But I wanted to know what people hated about her and her work so much -- (or loved, if you're of that inclination). I thought, "why is one's politics enough to incur so much wrath?" Boy howdy is that a naive thought, but I am a mere foolish babe, and I had it nonetheless. So I bought a second-hand copy, and gave it a read. 

And would ya know it, it was awful.

What is Anthem about? Honestly I have no idea. "Collectivism bad?" It's a painfully boring 104 pages, where most of the "story" is just first-person monologue about the state of the world. How people are assigned jobs at birth, given strange "noun-number" names, think of themselves as a collective instead of a single person, and live day to day doing whatever they're told to do. At first, that would sound like a dystopia, right? Good old satirical science fiction. Not on the comedic side, but the dramatic one. Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and of course, 1984. Classics for a good reason.

Except it isn't a dystopia. It isn't even really a novel. It's a fucking essay pretending to be. Wholly fictitious, yes, but so allegorical -- and one built on a scarily confused strawman, at that -- that it ceases to be anything other than nonsense.

Oh my god! Just look at that prose! The themes are so strooooong and amaaaaaazing I love you Ayn Rand we we weeee!

NO. This is garbage. This is terrible. This is idiocy of the highest form. Self indulgent and masturbatory and pretentious without having anything to show for itself other than a flimsy, uncreative skeleton. Ayn Rand did not write a fiction here, she wrote a rant, all built on the flawed idea that all collectivist philosophies can be pinned into the same wheel; that of oppressing man and striking away one's individuality. Needless to say, this is a big fat yikes. Not really because of its complicated implications, but more so because she just looks like a fucking idiot. Nothing happens in this book, other than the stream of consciousness in the head of a formless, void of a protagonist (whose thoughts are just a stand-in for her own beliefs) that doesn't interact with the setting or themes in any meaningful way. Want me to summarize this book for you? I can do it very quickly. 

 

--

Dude is born in "uh oh, communism society because they're raised by the state and can't decide how to live their lives, but also fascism society because they Sieg Heil, but also a dystopian future society where no one can think for themselves" -->

Dude is pushed around by the feds -->

Dude don't like that, and has oddly translucent thoughts about not liking it, despite supposedly knowing no different -->

Dude meets epic girl!! (all the classic dystopians share this trope for some reason) -->

Dude also finds a hidey hole and learns how to read. Then he researches like a boss --> 

Dude becomes an enlightened Ubermensch and fucks off to the mountains with his beautiful wife to start society anew with his epic knowledge. 

-END-

--

 

Yet just when the story reached a conclusion, it kept going for another twenty pages of ego-stroking, waxing poetic about "yargh argh yargh I can think for myself now" without there being any long-standing repercussions for the protagonist's actions. This is a dystopian novel, right? About the future, if we fall to collectivism and lose all sense of our individual selves? Then why isn't there some kind of setpiece or occurrence where we see this as a consequence? Wouldn't it make sense to show that, if we go that far, that even if he becomes the individual society has lost, his knowledge isn't enough against the world's collectivist power? I think that would be pretty thematically logical, don't you? "We should not do this or this would happen."

There is nothing of the sort. This buffoon thinks he can read a few books and change the world. No cause and effect, no... anything.

And why would there be? This is not a story. It is screaming. There are no consequences because Rand is not criticizing collectivism, she's praising hubris. I don't want to discount Rand's life in communist Russia, but I also can't imagine how those conditions created an obvious "thinker" type who has lived in horrors... then goes and creates a hollow and inane piece of work. It doesn't reflect hardly anything of anything. But in a way, I am willing to bet that this is most certainly her best book -- simply on principle that it's the shortest and, therefore, subjects you to less of itself. Please trust me, reader. I read this so you don't have to. 

And I will end this cynical episode of book club with one thought. That of "Ego." Rand, at the end of the story, proposes this as the unkillable, ultimate power of man. In my own story, a many volume fantasy epic, "ego" is specifically something that leads to downfall. I bring this up only because I noticed that as an instant point of contention between us, as writers. I am fallible, like any human being, and get cocky about certain things from time to time. I also allow myself to have pride in who I am and the things I do. But generally, I see ego, which leads then to hubris, as a universal human fault. Something that becomes a serious issue if left unchecked, and leads to questionable -- sometimes downright heinous -- choices and actions. In the text of my book series, which I call Over the Dust and Snow, I represent ego and hubris with the burning rays of the sun (conversely, modesty and humbleness is represented with the moon, of course). When characters get too big a head or act in their own self-interest, the sun blazes hot or peeks out behind the clouds, and they often suffer punishment for the things they do. Fly too close, after all, and those wings of wax will melt. 

Don't get me wrong. I am an absolutist concerning freedom of speech. I value art, expression, knowledge, and recognize individualism as quite an important part of life. But I cannot bring myself to conflate it with unchecked hubris, nor pit it against a self-informed narrative about what I think another philosophy means.

Maybe, Rand, you should not be encouraging people to fly too close to the sun.

(I genuinely give this book a 1/10) 

--

Thanks for reading! 

Book Club - "Sensor," by Junji Ito

 

Sensor! The newest Junji Ito hardcover from Viz. I saw it, and had to grab it. 

This is the eighth collected work I've read from Ito, the others being Tomie, Gyo, Uzumaki, Hellstar Remina, Shiver, Venus in the Blind Spot, The Dissolving Classroom, and my personal favorite, Junji Ito's Cat Diary. I'm keeping up a sizeable collection of the mangaka's amazing cosmic horror, and I'm happy to say that Sensor was a great addition to my collection.

However, I have a confession. When I first read Ito's work with Viz's release of Shiver, I honestly wasn't super impressed. The art was obviously beautiful, and Ito is great at high concept ideas, but none of it even so much as grossed me out. I was not weary of turning the page, the horrifying reveal of each story didn't give me the heebie jeebies, and overall I closed the book somewhat unimpressed. And to this day, I'm still not bothered by Ito's work... or any horror, for that matter. There's a post on this blog about fear, which I wrote a few years back. In it, I talked about being a huge weenie as a child, scared of his own shadow type. Scared of watching Anakin turn to the dark side, close my eyes when the werewolf from Harry Potter is on-screen type. But for whatever reason... literally nothing gets under my skin anymore. Nothing. Not even gruesome accounts of true crime, or the horrors of war. I blame the internet for desensitizing me. Either way, it has made me literally impervious to most horror (except for Five Nights at Freddy's VR) and Ito's work is still no exception.

However, I have come to really, really appreciate his stuff. It might not scare me, but his art is absolutely mesmerizing, his reveals and frights are perfectly timed, and most of his work dabbles in thematic nuance that horror often lacks. (I would know, I am currently writing a short horror story collection that is fucking atrocious). Sensor, in this sense (ay see what I did there?) is quite the ample proof that he still has it. 

The story is short, with only seven chapters, and deals with themes involving the infinite knowledge of the cosmos, religious fanaticism, suicide, and faith -- most of which reminded me heavily of Ito's other work, Hellstar Remina. Though I prefer Remina because of its insanity, Sensor is more grounded, especially with historical references to Christianity's ban in Japan during the Edo period, and its scale being much more dialed back than that of literal planet-eating. We see a tiny glimpse of that kinda stuff in Sensor, but most of it has to do with horror brought about by crazy people with access to powers they really shouldn't.

Beside the themes, this manga is not much different from Ito's other works. There's not exactly any character depth, but it's also not about the characters, really. It's about the intertwining of the themes with the shock value of his artwork. And let me tell you, there is no shortage of that -- 

Hidden knowledge driving someone insane is a favorite trope of mine, and Sensor portrays cataclysmic, cosmic horror with such themes very well. I also love stories where everything comes together at the end, and while Ito dabbles in this on occasion, it's rare to see it all be as clean as it is here. He also brought in a unique concept in theosophical philosophy, and that is The "Akashic Records." A friend of mine is writing a story that also uses this topic, if you wanted to check it out. In short, the "Akashic Records" are a supposed database -- a library, if you will -- of all knowledge in the universe. As the Wikipedia page states, the Akashic Records contain "all universal events, thoughts, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, and future." That is to say, all the universe's histories, every person's thoughts and actions, everything. And people, in Sensor, want to have this knowledge for themselves. 

 

 

It's no small wonder Ito's iteration of the Akashic Records looks like a brain -- I won't spoil the reveal here, but remember that part about how I said everything comes together? Just remember what the Akashic Records is, and who maybe wants it. That being said, this is a genius little motif that I latched onto right when I saw it. I've never pictured the Akashic Records as a brain, or at least something with an obviously brain-like shape, but that just means Ito is many steps ahead of me. If you think it makes sense now, it being "knowledge" and all, just wait until you see what he does with it.

There are other themes here, though. Suicide, cults, religious fanaticism and faith going too far -- does Sensor say anything significant about them? Well, not exactly, but it certainly portrays things like the extended devotion cultists show to their beliefs, and revenge death leading to implied guilt, in a way that melds it with the horror of the story. The imagery here is top notch, man. Although I do think Ito may have used electronic art in these panels more than he usually does, that's certainly not a bad thing. His style is evolving, little by little.

In the unknowable expanse of the universe, forbidden knowledge of what's out there and, maybe, what isn't, is a terrifying thing to me. Similar to the endless depths of the ocean, and the crushing blackness it shares with the heavens. We're all just small little people on a tiny rock in space, but the unknown is so much greater and more vast than we can possibly understand. And we see, in Sensor, the cost of understanding the happenings in that unknown. I'm sorry to say it still did not scare me, but it is certainly a great visual story that's worth the read, as ideas like that are great fun to see in a visual medium like manga. H.P. Lovecraft, an obvious influence to Ito, has his share of stories in prose, and that often serves the genre well when we're forced to use our imaginations. But Ito has a gift at portraying horror with his artwork, and to that I can only beg fans of scary things to give his stories a try. Sensor is an excellent place to start.

Thanks for reading! Happy to be getting back on the proverbial horse, so to speak. I'm looking forward to talking more about other manga and books!

Been a While + News!

Hey, it's been a while. 

I've been fine, thanks for asking. The only reason I haven't blogged recently is because I am knee deep in my current manuscript, which just so happens to be the third novel in my fantasy series, so it's a difficult one to write. It has quickly become my biggest book (180,000 words as of writing this!!) and, thus, my most complex and ambitious. I can't expend too much time on other projects because of this. 

However, I can try. I have a few things to share, so I will start with the first; 

1. I'll be going on several trips this month. Yay me! I will also attempt to blog about them, because I want to blog more about my life and not only about what I read. 

2. Contradicting that first point, I will try to blog more about the books I read. I did this with manga at the beginning of the year, which was fun, but I have gone on to reading more novels at this point and I should talk about them. However, I don't know when this will happen, as everything I'm reading and plan to read -- for the foreseeable near future -- are all sequels and continuations of several series'. Since I haven't talked about the first installments here I may wait until I start something new. But given that I'm going to be reading the fourth Dune novel, the third A Song of Ice and Fire Novel, the fourth Mistborn novel, the second Golem and the Jinni novel, and countless volumes in several manga series, I do not know when this will be.

3. I've started posting my fiction on a web-novel website. Not my main stuff, but side stories I've either had for a long time or am writing currently to take a break from my now over 500 page novel. When the first short story collection is done, I will post a link and reveal the website, as well as the account I post under. I don't think these stories are super good, so the response I get will probably be... interesting, to say the least. But, it's been years since I started down this path, and all of you are so damn lazy you can't finish any of my shit so I had to go to the internet for help it's about time others read my stuff :) 

See you when it all happens! 

SHONEN JUMP - The First Volume of the Big Three... How do they hold up?

 

Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto.

Bleach, by Tite Kubo.  

And last but not least, One Piece, by Eichiro Oda.

The Big Three, as they're called -- juggernauts in not just Japanese media, but pop culture on the whole. All three of them have made their mark on history in the world of modern entertainment. While Ichigo and Luffy may be marginally more obscure, I'd be willing to bet that there's not many children in the western world that don't know who Naruto is.

In my venture at the beginning of this year to consume as much manga as possible, I came upon an idea; what if I gave the big three a try? Despite my large collection and long history with this medium, I honestly had not read or watched hardly any of Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece. I'm not exactly sure why. I was introduced to anime and manga by way of Soul Eater, and then got around to Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, Angel Beats, and various other anime that were popular in 2010 - 2012. However, the big three were not on that list. I didn't actively avoid them, but I think their length might have been a bit intimidating. They, along with Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, just never ended up on my radar. 

And I have to admit, they still aren't. I don't intend to read past volume one. This is a writing experiment to see just what I can pull out of a single volume of each series, and I recognize that I won't have necessary context to adequately analyze each of these story's wider narratives. In as such, I'll be looking at what makes up each of their first installments; the art, the panel flow, the action, the characters, the setup, the power systems, and their general beginnings. What I like, and what I don't. I won't be covering each event of the volume unless it's relevant to what I might have to say, so don't expect a full description of whatever happens in the story.

So, let's get started!

Fullmetal Alchemist and Truth -- A Very Personal Manga Retrospective (SPOILERS!)

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange." 

--

Fullmetal Alchemist is a behemoth of a series. Packed with themes, nuance, and topics that could have us talking for hours. I may delve into more than one, but the biggest theme I want to talk about from Fullmetal Alchemist today is that of "truth." A very philosophical concept, indeed. While I hope most readers are familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist and I will be spoiling and referencing things in fashion for an audience that is, I will briefly go over the premise of the story;

 

Set in a 1910's like world, Fullmetal Alchemist follows the journey of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, as they search for the Philosopher's Stone in hopes they can use it to return their bodies back to normal. Edward has two mechanical limbs, and Alphonse is only a soul stuck within a suit of armor. They tried to bring their mother back from the dead with a half-science, half-magic known as "Alchemy," which much of the story and setting is based around, and in the process it backfired and ruined their bodies. This is certainly a "back of the book" description of the story, as there are many other themes in Fullmetal Alchemist; the horrors of war, the contrast between faith and science, the circle of life and how we can't remove ourselves from it, and the simple truth of existence; the dead cannot come back.

I think many of these themes are not only connected inherently, but connected to the idea of "truth" as well. First and foremost, we come to the concept of the "Philosopher's Stone." This object has appeared in other fantasy media, like Harry Potter, and while it isn't a real thing, it was certainly a real idea. There are many recorded references to it found in scientific writings from as early as 300 A.D., as it was supposedly an "all-powerful" material said to turn metal into gold. Alchemists, which were scientist-philosophers playing around with metals and chemicals before actual chemistry was a thing, would attempt to find or create it, resulting in the the term "magnum opus." The stone is used far differently in Fullmetal Alchemist, as it's not just used for metal, but can do basically anything and thus supposedly breaks the law of "equivalent exchange." As we see from the first volume, alchemists in the universe of the story are already able to turn other materials into gold. The Philospher's Stone is instead used as a macguffin until the characters learn how it's made and why it can sustain such immense power -- it's crafted with the transmuted souls of many, many other humans. By using the energy of their harvested lives, the laws of alchemy can be surpassed. But even then, it's not infinite. When a stone's power is used up, it falls to ash.

What's interesting here is that after the pieces fall into place, we see that the Philosopher's Stone isn't actually surpassing anything. The value of a human soul, in Fullmetal Alchemist's world, is quite a lot -- but it is still just a part of the world's flow like everything else, and is finite. The law of Equivalent Exchange is not being broken with the use of the stone -- it's just that an overwhelming amount of energy is expended, thus allowing for the creation of many complex things. In the end, it breaks like every other machine, and dies like every other life.

The Philosopher's Stone is a brilliant metaphor for the value of our lives pitted against the value of everything else; one life is equal to exactly that. One life. No matter what race, gender, ethnicity, class, creed, faith, profession -- the truth is that of the cycle of the world, as we are all equally a part its of ecosystem. One is all. All is one.

 

This is why the main antagonist, Father, ultimately fails at obtaining the power of God; because no one can become greater than this great flow -- and God, in this sense, is the truth; which represents all of us and our world, parts of one greater whole that cannot be surpassed.

 

Another truth the story demonstrates is the cyclical nature of vengeance, and the way it begets more violence. "Vengeance sows seeds for more vengeance." We see this with the character of Scar, a victim of the Ishvalan War of Extermination; a military genocide, created specifically for the purpose of completing a nationwide transmutation circle so the main antagonist, Father, could ascend to godhood. State Alchemists and the rest of Amestris's military marched upon the land of Ishval and slaughtered their citizens in the hundreds, and in the process, Scar lost his arm and his brother. (An interesting parallel to Edward, no?) In a fit of blind rage, when he wakes up from an attack and discovers his brother had grafted his arm onto Scar's body with alchemy and perished in the desert, he kills two of the Amestrian doctors taking care of him. 

Scar's character arc is that of becoming a terrorist against state alchemists, and rising out of this prejudice after finding out the doctors he killed were the parents of one of the main characters, Winry Rockbell. A wanton massacre of innocent people obviously can't be excused, and Colonel Mustang, a participant in the "war," plans to hold all of those accountable once he becomes furher. However, revenge only piles up on more revenge, and perpetrating violence after being a victim only furthers these problems.

Lastly, before I start talking about the impact this story had on me specifically, I want to briefly mention how truth fits into one of  Fullmetal Alchemist's other major themes; that of faith, and science. Both are "truth" to different people and play significantly into one's way of life. But too much of either one has lasting consequences. We're introduced to a fanatical religious organization, the Church of the Sun God Leto, right at the beginning of the story, as Edward exposes the main priest's scheme to the people who had fallen for it. What once gave them purpose now became an object of fierce loathing, and Edward himself, a cold-hard athiest, outright says that "alchemists don't believe in unprovable concepts like 'gods'." Conceited in this belief, he outright mocks the faith of a religious character.

However, the alternative to faith is the world of proof, theory, and science. In the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, this is synonymous with Alchemy. But we see the horrors that can be brought about when science goes too far, with the Ishvalan War of Extermination, the Hommunculi, Chimeras (mainly Nina and Alexander) and every other twisted thing created with Alchemy. By volume sixteen, Edward admits that the idea that "an alchemist is one who seeks the truth" is a pretentious point of view, and truth is not as black and white as faith or science, but it's something in between.

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You see, Fullmetal Alchemist was there when I was truly starting to become the person I am now. (The rest of this essay is about to get very personal).

In middle school, I discovered anime and manga. I'm not sure why, but I instantly fell in love with its topics and styles. It was so unique. So strange. I've talked a little bit about this idea in my Kingdom Hearts post a few years back, when the third game came out; but the wide array of similar aesthetic styles in anime and manga were really captivating to me, and they still are. 

Right around this time in my life, however, I was twelve, thirteen. I was still attempting to fit in with the more typical kinds of kids, and I didn't yet have the self awareness to understand just how easy of a target I was making myself by being open about my love of anime. I went to sleep overs and hang outs with a lot of different boys my age, and I tried to broach the topic of anime -- over time, I continued to get it spat back in my face via bullying, harassment, sometimes smaller things like snide comments and mockery... but they always stick with you. I struggled with who I was, and who I was trying to be.

Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (yes, both of them. Thank you Netflix) were shows I was watching/had watched with my father at the time (my dad seems to have an affinity for cartoons as well, I catch him watching Futurama almost every night, and I've watched multiple anime series in their entirety with him) and they had a really strong effect on me. When I brought up anime with my friends, Fullmetal Alchemist was typically one I would be talking about.

Nowadays I can look at the series and appreciate it for its complex themes, its great characters, its fantastic storytelling -- but back then, the single fact that I could watch something like that with my dad was very important to me. Doubly so because I don't think I've ever related to a protagonist as much as I do with Edward. We're both shorter than average, we're both picky eaters, and his agnosticism is one of the first times I interacted with main characters that shared my point of view of God and faith. It was still a confused and developing worldview back then; I come from a pretty conservative, religious town -- (just one more reason I have never fit in) and I also come from a conservative, religious extended family; so entertaining different notions of our universe out loud came with a price. But the value in seeing one's self in art and media cannot be understated. It's why diversity is so important in stories, and even though my relation to Edward had nothing to do with race, I still managed to see someone much like myself grow and change, and it changed my life. Paired with watching it with my father and having it at a time where I was growing into the person I am now,  Fullmetal Alchemist is a piece of art that means the world to me. 

These things definitely make my experience with Fullmetal Alchemist a personal, subjective one. But the older I get, the clearer I see that it's not possible to separate life, yourself, and your personal truths with the art you consume, and the art you create. That subjective experience with something gives it meaning. Right? That isn't fact. Instead, it's truth. 

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Thank you Kato on YouTube with your great Fullmetal Alchemist and Truth video. It helped me flesh out my ideas a lot!

As always, thanks for reading. And remember; something cannot be gained without first giving something in return.