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Dante's personality and motivation are very enigmatic. She is manipulative, single-minded, devious and vindictive. In her long years as a parasitic soul, moving from body to body, her personality has apparently changed considerably: as Hohenheim lay dying after creating the Philosopher's Stone she rushed to save him, but now she cares little for the lives of others, believing those who die in order to preserve her life to be "necessary martyrs." Ever since then, Dante developed a god-complex, as well as exhibiting a misanthropic view of the world, believing most human beings to be "selfish, ignorant creatures", unworthy of the knowledge of alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone (demonstrating a large degree of hypocrisy as well). As such, she has no qualms over starting wars or taking countless lives, as she is convinced that she is ultimately protecting mankind from itself. Because this is all Dante cares about, global politics, wars and human lives mean nothing to her, as she has control of Amestris through her Homunculus Pride and uses the whole country as a tool to obtain the Stone.

Dante is an amazingly skilled alchemist - probably the second most powerful, after Hohenheim, featured in the series. Like Hohenheim, Ed, and Izumi (and later Al), she can transmute without a circle, completing complex transmutations just by clapping her hands. She also possesses other abilities that go beyond normal alchemy: she is able to summon the Gate using infants (whose souls are more strongly linked to the Gate than those of adults), transform Gluttony from a childish fool into a ravenous monster, and split the mind, soul and body of Hohenheim before sending him into the Gate. Dante is also the only known person to attempt a human transmutation specifically in order to create Homunculi (Greed, Pride, and most likely Gluttony), without any repercussions (apparently).

She uses the symbol of a winged snake fixed on a cross (called a *flamel*), which is passed on to Izumi, and then to the Elric brothers. It is meaningful that the symbol is the opposite of the Ouroboros worn by the Homunculi. It represents a fixation on the volatile principle in alchemy, as opposed to the endless cycle represented by Ouroboros. In Dante's case, the symbol likely represents her belief that she is immortal and has conquered the cycle of birth and death represented by the Ouroboros. In real life, it is a symbol associated with the 15th-century alchemist Nicholas Flamel, who claimed to have created a Philosopher's Stone and used it to achieve immortality (one of the two main goals of alchemy, along with the creation of gold from lead)

As a Human Philosopher's Stone, Hohenheim's body is capable of the same level of miraculous regeneration as those of the Homunculi and as such, he has been rendered incapable of dying or even aging - having been preserved in the prime of life and health for roughly four hundred years. His stone, however, is far greater than that of any of the Homunculi, as their Stones came from Father's stone, which is the same size as Hohenheim's. With nearly four centuries of life experience and alchemical study accumulated, Hohenheim's level of alchemical knowledge easily dwarfs that of any other human alchemist in the history of the world. With over half a million souls powering his stone, Hohenheim is not only capable of performing transmutations without the use of a Transmutation Circle, but can also transmute without moving his body at all and can even perform biological transmutations and circumvent the law of Equivalent Exchange with ease. Additionally, since he has become capable of conversing directly with each of the 536,329 human souls that make up his Philosopher's Stone, Hohenheim's alchemy is extremely versatile and can be implemented in multiple locations at once even without his own will to actively guide it, so long as he has deposited some of his souls there. Additionally, it appears to be more powerful than that of any other alchemist with a Stone due to having the support of the Stone's souls. During his confrontation with Father, he deflected several sustained energy blasts and called upon the souls of his Stone to aid him. After receiving their aid, his power was augmented to the point that Father could not overcome his shielding with anything less than a nuclear explosion. He also defeated Father during the first round of their battle, and was only overcome when Father revealed his amorphous, undamageable shadow form and enveloped him. It is likely that the alchemy he learned during his youth in Xerxes serves as the basis for the Xingese art of Alkahestry. It is not a false statement to say that Hohenheim is the second-most alchemically powerful humanoid character in the series, only surpassed by Father after absorbing the power of God.

**In the 2003 anime**, Hohenheim is not a Philosopher's Stone, but rather an alchemist who has discovered a method of detaching the soul from a body and transferring it to another body using the Philosopher's Stone to circumvent Equivalent Exchange. By this method, he has managed to elude death for roughly four hundred years, but is still as vulnerable to attack as any human. Additionally, the instability experienced when a soul inhabits an incompatible body causes the body to rot more and more prematurely with each body transfer. Of his skills, his most significant is the ability to transmute light, shaping it into a physical form of his choosing and manipulating it remotely, earning him the nickname "Hohenheim of Light". Soon after his appearance in the 2003 anime, he is seen shaping light into Golems (resembling Alphonse's armor), which he causes to attack his enemies.