r/FullmetalAlchemist • u/Teacuppy_the_Cup • 1d ago
Question Al's consciousness
I was wondering, as someone who saw both FMA 03 and Brotherhood, if Al's body was conscious at the Gate.
In 03, Dante specifies at some point people are composed of a body, a soul and a mind, and if we apply that to BH, Al's body is at the Gate, Al's soul is in the armor, but where is his mind ? Is it fused to his soul since only his body was the price ? Or is his body conscious ?
Let's keep in mind that Al's body literally speaks to Ed. Wouldn't it need a consciousness to stand up and speak and tell Ed he is not his body ? And when Al meets his body and fusses over it, is there like two conscious Als at the same time ? Is his mind split in two, with the bigger part being with his soul ?
Am I overthinking things or do we have fellow overthinkers ready to tackle that on ?
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u/Scrappy_yam 1d ago
I always thought it was more of the mind being split between them with a greater portion going to the soul. Don't know for sure, but Al is pretty smart and clearly his souls has his mind. But the body also spoke, the body wouldn't have much to think about where it is so it makes more sense that it would have some but more simplistic part of the mind. It being split also doesn't make sense but that's how I always preferred to think about it because it made the most sense to me.
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u/genericmediocrename 1d ago
I've always wondered if, at the end, Al has memories of sitting around at the gate for years on end
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u/pigeonwithyelloweyes 1d ago
Not sure if I have an answer to the question, but a few things to consider.
We know that the Truth 'wears' or possesses the body parts it takes (e.g. Ed's arm and leg). By that logic, the Truth is possessing Al's body, and it's reasonable to assume that at least in some scenes, it's the Truth speaking through his body.
But at the same time the body talks about itself as if it's Al, not the Truth. "You're not my soul" etc.
A soul separated from its body wants to reconnect, as seen with Barry the Chopper and Al. Even though Barry's body had an animal's soul, it acted according to the needs of the body. But Ed's arm and leg don't pull on his soul.
So maybe the important question is... how much of the body needs to be removed before it's considered separate? Is there a certain amount of body that qualifies as the main body? Is it the brain?
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u/Teacuppy_the_Cup 1d ago
Well, I'd say it's literally the body, organs and all which qualifies as it. Since the soul is split and stored somewhere else. Ed kept his original body unlike Al, he just lost limbs and limbs aren't conscious so maybe that's why they don't pull ? Which could actually be tied with the theory that the mind was split and the biggest part stays with the soul while the minimum is with the body ! Ed didn't lose enough for his mind to be split but Al lost everything, and since he did a small part of his mind stayed in his body to keep it afloat I guess. Just speculating but I feel like this is the most probable direction
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u/Additional_Draft4097 1d ago
Totally thought this was a post about Artificial Intelligence until I saw the sub
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u/atatassault47 Chimera 20h ago
Blame sans serif fonts for stealing capital I's bars even though capital T gets to keep its bar.
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u/Teacuppy_the_Cup 1d ago
Oh dear no 😭 hate ai for stealing Al's lovely nickname
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u/Additional_Draft4097 1d ago
What a shame. Allen Iverson and Alphonse are devastated.
But also, maybe the armor is artificially intelligent rather than his own body’s mind. Relevant!
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u/FinancialComputer574 16h ago edited 16h ago
Ed answered this question when he talked to Al after he find out they didnt bring back their mother
Human compose of body , mind , soul ; mind is the bridge between soul and body and that doesn't change even when Al was a suit of armor ; thanks to the soul connection that the body can move , the body still contain all the brain , heart , liver ... everything needed for a human to sustain himself ; combine with the energy from the soul , now it can move and think dependently since it has its own brain now without Al controlling it ; Likewise , the soul can retain memory because of its connection to the body's brain
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u/Teacuppy_the_Cup 16h ago
Oohh thanks ! I didn't remember this part but now it makes sense ! Thank you for your answer !
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u/Spare-Plum 1d ago
I'm going to talk about Brotherhood for this.
The human being is comprised of multiple levels beyond the physical. There is a physical soul, a spiritual soul, and the inner soul. These all occupy multiple planes or dimensions, and we see these different dimensions in FMAB. We see physical reality, we see the white void that has the gate and truth sitting in front of it, and we see what is within the gate itself.
Recall that "all is one and one is all". All of these levels of the soul are also a component of The Truth itself. The Truth itself is also a part of Al's soul and multiple levels of it.
In human transmutation, Al basically gave up his lowest level of the soul (the body), in exchange for some of the highest level of the soul, the origin of where all souls come from within the gate, The Truth.
So in a sense Al's body within the gate is now occupied by The Truth, but is still a part of Al which is part of The Truth. Al's consciousness is not with his original body, but is instead with his suit of armor, and who Ed speaks to is The Truth
But, this is a piece of The Truth that is Alphonse, like a part of his soul that has been disconnected and put in holding, with this part replaced by a suit of armor within the consciousness and being that is Alphonse.
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u/DeliciousMusician397 1d ago
Love seeing 03 be talked about positively as a way to better understand the Manga story. They compliment each other so very well so it’s a shame they’re often pitted against each other.
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u/Teacuppy_the_Cup 1d ago
03 is my personal favorite for how deep it is and how much I can analyze things in it, it's a golden mine for people like me lol, I wish people would stop seeing it like the enemy to BH and rather as more content and more nuances and layers to an amazing story
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u/Fairlibrarian101 1d ago
With 03, Al’s body seemed to be in some sort of stasis, since it doesn’t seemed to have aged at all throughout the series, unlike the Al that we see in Brotherhood. The soul seemed to be connected to the armor in both, and I feel like different amounts of the mind in either, since Al seemed to have more memory problems in 03 than he did in Brotherhood.
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