FMAB 40 Full Reaction
Added 2025-09-19 19:00:17 +0000 UTCFull uncut reaction to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 40
Comments
“Man-shaped philosopher stone” - this puts it in perspective!
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:50:02 +0000 UTCYay fun facts! 😃
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:49:06 +0000 UTCLove the fun fact! 😍
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:48:51 +0000 UTCI was wondering about the golden eyes so thank you for sharing this!
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:47:10 +0000 UTCThat means only 1/3 left 😢
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:45:20 +0000 UTCYikes! 😟
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:45:03 +0000 UTC“Sloth was spending a century making a cirlcle” - this just made me laugh 😂
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:43:45 +0000 UTCSuch a heartbreaking story!
Bethany and Ken
2025-09-26 14:42:32 +0000 UTCIf you think back to what Van Hohenheim said to Trisha: He's scared of himself and what he is, and that it'll pass on to his two boys. He told Trisha that he's a monster and never wants to touch the kids. His concept of time is a little different from everyone normal, so when he went on his journey to become mortal again for Trisha and the kids, he didn't know that she died to illness, or w/e the boys were doing. During Trisha's deathbed, she told Pinako to tell Hohenheim that she couldn't keep her promise; she promised to wait for him. Hohenheim really wanted to become mortal and grow old with Trisha, watching the boys grow up. He truly is a tragic character.
Bobby Vang
2025-09-21 05:47:44 +0000 UTCThe dwarf in the flask was father before he gained a human form and before he got the idea of splitting himself off into other homunculus by using the 7 deadly sins. Pride is the oldest Homunculus created by Father as he said, followed by Lust remember she was the one leading the operation with even envy following orders at the beginning, then Greed who told al or ed he was around 200 years old, Envy we don't see active before the ishvalan war, Sloth was spendinga century making a circle , Gluttony was a failed artificial gate of truth, and finally Wrath (King Bradley), who is the youngest since he told greed during their fight hw was in his 60s.
gray star
2025-09-20 05:32:01 +0000 UTCBasically, yes Dwarf in the flask ended up becoming Father, he and Hohenheim are basically living philosopher's stone because they're both powered by half a country's population of souls. Father created his children the seven Homunculi by using his blood and rationing out the lives he absorbed to give them they're stones. That's also how Father can just create another Homunculus when they die (like with Gluttony) or reabsorb their stone (like with Greed) he's a living life/soul battery to create their philosopher's stone and since he's made up of half the population of a whole country (Xerxes was said to have a population of 1,072,658, that means Father has 536,329 souls/lives inside of him) so he's never really short supply to create new stones or maybe even other Homuculi whenever he wants. It's not only crazy to think about on grand scale it also adds more stakes to the situation. Not only is Father the strongest character in the series who literally powers all of Amestris with his alchemy, we also find out that the cast would have to kill him 500,000+ times to make progress (you saw how even with Scar and Ling they couldn't even injure or hurt him once in that encounter)
Dorian Cantu
2025-09-20 00:19:04 +0000 UTCThis is such a good episode dude I love learning more about hoenheim. Plus you’re about 2/3 through the show now!
Chris Collier
2025-09-19 23:52:57 +0000 UTCPride is just one part of Father , the first part that he Separated, so the first Homunculus
Nicholas Daniels
2025-09-19 22:21:47 +0000 UTCMore information on Pride is coming, but Pride and Father (the one under Central Command that Gluttony took Al and Xiao May to) are not the same person. This episode shows the backstory of both of them. Hohenheim started out as a nameless Xerxian slave, rose to become an alchemist in the royal court of the Kingdom of Xerxes during its final days, and then was tricked into becoming an immortal with a Philosopher's Stone fused to his soul. Father, on the other hand, started out as the dwarf in the flask, a homunculous brought from within the gateway of truth, through the use of Hohenheim's blood as an experiment by his owner, who was an alchemist. But he tricked the King of Xerxes into setting up the transmutation circle that gave Hohenheim immortality and allowed him to leave the flask. Because of his blood connection to Hohenheim, he created a body for himself identical to Hohenheim's. He looks washed out and pure white because he's hiding underground and probably doesn't go above, so he directs the other homunculi (the Sins) to act in his stead. Hohenheim, on the other hand, is out and about in the world, travelling, so he retains a more natural looking color. Also interesting - because Hohenheim is Xerxian, even though it's been four hundred years since Xerxes was around, that means Ed and Al are both half-Xerxian as well. They're half-Xerxian and half-Amestrian. It's why they're the only ones other than Hohenheim who we've seen with that vivid gold tint to their hair and eyes - it's a trait of the Xerxian people, the same way brown skin, white hair, and red eyes are traits of Ishvalens.
Megan Saunders
2025-09-19 22:05:41 +0000 UTCSo to sorta answer a few of your questions: What we saw is the Fall of Xerxes, an event that happened several hundred years before the series starts. We saw the ruins of Xerxes when Ed and Major Armstrong crossed the desert to meet up with Maria Ross, as well as a portion of the ruins/alchemical formula they used within Gluttony's stomach. This ruin, as Ed stated, depicted "striking God to earth [to] become a perfect being". You will get some more information on Pride/Homunculus/Dwarf in the Flask/Father in the near future IIRC, but in real life, the concept of a homunculus is a broad one. It's a creature capable of doing many fantastical things, depending on the cultural context. In some, the Homunculus is a treasure trove of knowledge about the material and metaphysical worlds. In others, it's a being capable of manipulating those very worlds and the laws that govern them -- a false god/demiurge of sorts. FMAB seems to lean more into this interpretation, with the Dwarf being a source of further alchemical knowledge, beyond what the Xerxian alchemists could ever hope to access on their own. The Dwarf is meant to be a tool used by man, but the tool had plans of its own. Also a fun fact! The names the dwarf chose are a dual reference to the Greek philosopher/botanist Theophrastus, as well as the Swiss alchemist Theophrastus von Hohenheim.
Ceeneon
2025-09-19 20:25:25 +0000 UTCFun fact: "Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim" was a Swiss phsycian, philosopher, and alchemist of the German Renaissance (early 1500's)
DudeTrue
2025-09-19 20:16:57 +0000 UTCThe dwarf in the flask is the culmination of all of the sins. He’s not just pride, he’s all of them.
GrimmxLaw22
2025-09-19 20:08:59 +0000 UTC10:40min In this episode, in addition to that big reveal, it also became clear what Izumi was trying to teach the brothers when she left them on the island for a month at the same time how ingeniously Hawkeye and Mustang are able to converse without attracting attention
Guru_Rick_
2025-09-19 20:08:36 +0000 UTCplus old man FU and Ed talk about the legend of the Eastern and Western sages then the time of the maria ross incident and at this point (in its own way) ironic Old man FU said that it might just be a legend after this episode I wouldn't be so sure
Guru_Rick_
2025-09-19 20:01:50 +0000 UTCVon Hoenheim is a genuinely kind man...if only because he remembered Tony! For a slave, he sure managed to remember a bunch of names. Though I guess you could debate it's because he's just assimilated all of their souls, but I like to think that Hoenheim just remembered all of those names from before he became a man-shaped philosopher stone
Andrew Zhang
2025-09-19 19:58:40 +0000 UTC"I'm just trying to figure out how the dad figures into all of this" Well OH BOY HAS THIS EPISODE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU
Ceeneon
2025-09-19 19:35:27 +0000 UTCSo the anime never gives a full explanation as to where the “dwarf in the flask” came from. But if you remember when Ed meets the Truth there are those creepy black hands that grab him and pull him into the doorway. The dwarf in the flask was extracted from inside that portal in an experiment by an alchemist and Hoenheim’s blood was used in the experiment. Also the city of Xerxes was mentioned a few times throughout the show, as an advanced ancient civilization that was “wiped out in a single night”, this is showing us how it happened. Another fun fact is the name Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim was an actual alchemist during the renaissance.
Just some guy
2025-09-19 19:31:30 +0000 UTC
![Murasaki [ムラサキ]](https://nokimo.com/istorage/44954.jpg)
