Talk:Main characters of Fullmetal Alchemist

message: There is a discussion of the winged serpent on a cross symbol and its relationship to the Ouroboros in "A Dictionary of Symbols" by J.E. Cirlot (1st edition).  The discussion is under the entry for "serpent".  Its meaning in alchemy has to do "fixing" volatile substances but it doesn't seem like much of a leap to see it as a symbol for Dante's vision of eternal life.  I made some revisions based on that source.  Both the Ouroboros and the serpent on the cross have been used in alchemy, but they have meaning beyond Alchemy.
Dante could potentially have inherited it from the Elric's father, but I can't remember him ever having or using the symbol in the anime.
I think its correct to assume that the serpent on cross symbol is the opposite of the Ouroboros, but the exact meaning of the symbols for Dante and for the Homunculi is more open to interpretation.  My interpretation (fixed endless live versus the cycle of life) is the best I could come up with. But I'm not sure that its 100% correct.
:I've heard some information on this topic but, as you said, it's all speculation. What I've read is that The Ouroboros shows a sort of continuance, in the case of the homunculus eternal life. The winged snake (more commonly known as a flamel) is said to symbolize the breaking of a continuance, which is why it is used in the transmutation circle to seal a homunculus. The flamel breaks the continuance that the ouroboros stands for. --Mushrambo 06:25 PM, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
::Sorry, but no opinions and speculation allowed.  You'll need to find some good sources to back up these theores. 199.126.137.209 06:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Winged snake on cross symbol information 

message: I keep correcting the spelling of Scieszka's name, but somebody keeps changing it back. I'd appreciate it if whoever this is would stop. RiffRaff1138 20:16, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
:http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Animation/hagaren/chara/she01.htmlApostrophe 00:16, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you drop a note on the anon's talk pages (next time they surf Wikipedia, they'll see a big message that says they have messages)? 69.115.251.52 21:12, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I want to assure you that the edit for Sheska's name wasn't meant as a slight against you. As mentioned in the discussion of the main Fullmetal Alchemist article, the original creators and the original versions of the manga and animation takes precedence over the adaptations. That is why Sheska is listed first. (BONES actually had a fully billingual staffer help Aniplex and Square-Enix develop the standardized name spellings in Japan, which is why it is remarkably consistent compared to other projects.) The closed-captioned "Scieszka" mention was consolidated with the English DVD mention, since that spelling originates from the same source (FUNimation). The sentence about disputes was stricken for neutral point of view and because the clause about Jean Havoc should be placed (if at all) under the Jean Havoc entry instead. --Egan Loo 01:32, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Scieszka

message: Err. Sorry it's huge - my fault for not shrinking it enough. Should be a decent placeholder till someone finds a better shot of her, though - the last link was external and that doesn't work on Wikipedia. Still, cleans up a lot of things... Kawa 01:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Winry's screenshot 

message: Since the movie's out in Japan now, when should we start adding new movie characters and notes to other characters about what happens to them in the movie? Geg
:I would say as soon as possible. This page already has a spoiler tag, so if you are here you are accepting the fact that plot details from the anime and the movie are going to be coughed up. Thats my opinion. TomStar81 00:44, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Movie Notes

message: I think the time has come to consider resplitting the article along anime and manga line. I think this would improve the overall page quality and allow the characters to develope seperately, instead of being overshadowed by one series of events. Thoughts on this idea? --TomStar81 06:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. If this were the homunculi page, a split might eventually be warraned, as in some cases the dichotomy is quite severe- but that is not so for this page. --maru  (talk) contribs 07:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am using "the article" as a term for all of the Fullmetal Alchemist caharcter pages; the homoculi page would be the first to be split, but I think that eventually other pages may need to be split along such line to keep their size acceptable and to allow for the fact that the anime and manga do not follow in the same footsteps. --TomStar81 20:00, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, I think you are being entirely too hasty. I don't think the page will grow that much and so fast we need to decide right now. The system at homunculi seems to scale enough for this page. If it isn't, then it is already set up to allow easy splits, anyway. --maru  (talk) contribs 22:43, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split revisited 

message: The content of this article would only seem helpful to those who have already seen the entire series, as it gives away major spoilers from the final episodes, and the dubbed version has not reached
: Hmm, so do we say This article contains information about unreleased material in certain regions. These constitute major spoilers? — Ambush Commander(Talk) 23:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  problem with spoilers,,, 

message: There is disagreement over what happened in the final episode. My view is that:
- Edward was not ever dead. He was mortally wounded with his soul at the gate. 
- Alphonse used up the Philosopher's stone to completely restore Edward's body and probably to also reattach his soul which was at the gate. I think a soul attachment happened because the alchemy Alphonse used was the multi-circle alchemy used in other soul attachments. The circles were on the building rather than on his armor because his armor was the stone and he had no body to draw the circles on.
- Edward at that point with a fully restored body marked his body with the circles for a soul attachment and created a transmutation circle probably to recover Alphonse's body.
- Equivelent Exchange does not come into play because the anime never concludes that the law of Equivelent Exchange is actually true.
- Edward is next seen on the other side of the gate. His body on the other side of the gate is missing at least an arm. I think that the missing arm indicates that he is the body of the other world's Edward rather than his own. That Edward probably lost the arm in the bombing attack on London.
- His father offers an explaination of what happened to him which in the subbed version I have seems to suggest that as previously, it was his soul that came through the gate rather than his body and soul.
* An alternative explaination I could accept is that since the other Edward died (if he died) in London, that Edward's body had to come through the gate for similar reasons to why his father's body came through the gate. And that the arm was lost at the gate in exchange for the soul transmutation on Alphonse (as before). But the anime never really shows that happening.
Anyway, thats my view - (anonymous)
I don't believe that the body Ed has at the finale is the London body he had, the London body was killed when the Zeppelin fell on it, plus from what I observed in episode 50 Ed's arm was never hurt in anyway. The Zeppelin crushed his lower torso, plus if you look at Ed's arm at the end of the finale you can see he has his auto mail arm, auto mail doesn't exist in our world and even if Ed could build one how would he be able to move his arm? Auto mail is powered by alchemy. Also it is implied in episode fifty that when Ed entered the body in London that there was someone else in there with him when you hear someone say "who are you?". This person was probably the person who inhabited that body before, when Ed's London body died the previous soul in the body died and Ed's soul returned to the gate because his body was in the gate at the time. Observe here how Ed's london body has been crushed beneath the shoulders, not touching his arms 
http://fma.warcry.com/scripts/images/view_image.phtml?id=57029&site=76
Wolfcott 01:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't read this if you don't want to know about the movie. My theory is that Ed's body did go with his soul because in a later scene in Shambala he is seen attaching some sort of artificial limbs to his right arm and left leg which have a different power source and were also created by Hoenheim. After he goes back to Amestris Winry gives him new automail which does, for some odd reason, work in our world.Mushrambo 15:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Don't see why it shouldn't work. It's basically attaching a bunch of machine parts to nerve endings. Very precise. This is the one element of FMA that ever bothered me. If it's mainly technology, then how the heck is it supposed to work like that? Ah well...guess it makes about as much sense as Hughes having 50 knives up his sleave. I'm mostly confused on how it works in either world...JONJONAUG 21:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edward's final transmutation of Alphonse (anime) 

message: I don't see anything about him on any of the character pages except that he's the adopted son of Bradley and was strangled in the anime during the last episode. And is it confirmed that anime Salem really died from the strangling? I can't tell if he did. (Though I haven't watched the FMA movie, if you're wondering.) But the lack of an entry on Salem is the real problem. --Juigi Kario (Charge! * My crusades) 06:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't hesitate to list him as dead. He looks pretty dead when Bradley gets through with the strangling, and we never see him again, so... --maru  (talk) contribs 02:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Salem - where does he belong? 

message: May I ask where exactly is Pianko? Is there a profile on her anywhere? Evilgidgit 17:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pinako? 

message: Does anyone else think that the article could be split into two articles, one for anime-only characters (and anime versions of characters that appear in both but differ between the two media), and similarly one for manga-only characters/manga versions of characters? Mistamagic28 10:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting page in two 

message: This has bugging me for some time now. We know that Edward is 16, and Al is 15, but what about the other characters? How old are Roy Mustang, Maes Hughes, Riza Hawkeye, and the others?--Summonmaster13 01:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They never really say any of the adult characters' ages in the show. But we do know that, when they arrive in Lior in Episode 1, Edward is 15 and Alphonse is 14 -- but the series spans a few years, so it shows Edward when he's as young as 6, and he's about 16 in the last episode. So if you want definite character ages, it's better to go by year of birth. And if you pay attention to the dates and ages introduced in Episode 1, it's safe to assume that Edward was born in 1899, and Alphonse was born in 1900. They also say that Russel Tringum is a year younger than Edward, so he was also born in about 1900. I think Alicia Hughes is born on Edward's 12th birthday, meaning that she was born in 1911. Hohenheim and Dante are at least 400 years old, so we can place their birth dates somewhere in the late 1400s or early 1500s. Other than that, the ages of Fullmetal Alchemist characters are a mystery. --Wikivader 03:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikivader, when you say this, are you using "our" calendar, or the calendar used in the Fullmetal Alchemist series? --IloveMP2yea 21:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Character's ages

message: I'm not sure which spelling is official. Some people put Noa, and I think, more people are putting Noah. 69.192.62.63 15:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Noa or Noah? 

message: I added an intro under Edward's section.  All that was there before was the link to his main article.  We could trim down the Alphonse section by leaving just the intro in the same manner, but we should discuss before the change.  CPitt76 01:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Edward Elric Section

message: Where exactly does her last name come from?  Neither the anime nor manga mention her last name, and none of the guide books that I own state it either (including the official manga guide, the "Fullmetal Alchemist Perfect Guide Book."  So...?
Chibi Gohan 05:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rose Thomas?

message: Does Rose really belong here?  It seems to me that she does not play as large a role as most of the characters here, and should be moved to Minor characters of Fullmetal Alchemist. Fullmetal2887 23:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rose as major character