Books: FMA 108th and last
Jun. 10th, 2010 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebroadweMust record my impressions, tendinitis in my dominant wrist be hanged! [makes ill-considered emphatic gesture] (Ow.)
I'm surprised at how much of the end I managed to call -- e.g. Ed forfeiting his alchemical abilities as the price of getting Al back, Al choosing to study Xingese alchemy, Grumman as Fuehrer -- and less surprised at how much of it I didn't see coming, or not in the form it took. One thing I've enjoyed about this series is its capacity to take the road less traveled. So Ed getting on the train at the end after his proposal to Winry, heading west as Al heads east, was not in my playbook (I'd always seen him back in Resembool, though I admit it wasn't clear to me what he'd be doing). The context of Hohenheim's death took me by surprise; I was actually kind of disappointed that he laid down his life so immediately. I had expected him to go, but if I were Arakawa [pause for sarcastic laughter], I'd've sent him home to Pinako and then reported his passing sometime during that two-year time skip -- fading away, after all the adventuring was done and his responsibility for the homunculus ended. The way it was handled, particularly after Ed had just dressed him down for offering his own life as a sacrifice, struck me as awkward. I may have to read that bit again more slowly to see if it makes better sense. Greed's status as a dangling plot participle was resolved nicely, if a bit sentimentally. And I suppose the best person to send back to Xing as emperor with the secret of immortality is someone who knows that the price to be paid for it is too high.
Some favorite moments:
Hey, does anyone remember what happened to that letter from Trisha Pinako gave Ed to give Hohenheim? Was that dangling plot participle ever resolved -- and if so, when? You'd think I wouldn't lose track of these things, being an English major, but I do. [hangs head in shame]
I'm surprised at how much of the end I managed to call -- e.g. Ed forfeiting his alchemical abilities as the price of getting Al back, Al choosing to study Xingese alchemy, Grumman as Fuehrer -- and less surprised at how much of it I didn't see coming, or not in the form it took. One thing I've enjoyed about this series is its capacity to take the road less traveled. So Ed getting on the train at the end after his proposal to Winry, heading west as Al heads east, was not in my playbook (I'd always seen him back in Resembool, though I admit it wasn't clear to me what he'd be doing). The context of Hohenheim's death took me by surprise; I was actually kind of disappointed that he laid down his life so immediately. I had expected him to go, but if I were Arakawa [pause for sarcastic laughter], I'd've sent him home to Pinako and then reported his passing sometime during that two-year time skip -- fading away, after all the adventuring was done and his responsibility for the homunculus ended. The way it was handled, particularly after Ed had just dressed him down for offering his own life as a sacrifice, struck me as awkward. I may have to read that bit again more slowly to see if it makes better sense. Greed's status as a dangling plot participle was resolved nicely, if a bit sentimentally. And I suppose the best person to send back to Xing as emperor with the secret of immortality is someone who knows that the price to be paid for it is too high.
Some favorite moments:
Ed walking right by Invisible Truth Guy to make his sacrifice and the right answer being the renunciation of the will to power.All in all, a satisfying read and a good ending. And now I shall go back to chapter one and start over, because I don't want the fun to end ...
Scar renouncing his name along with his past motivations. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on literary onomastics; the shift from the namelessness of the vigilante avenger to the namelessness of the newborn self makes my inner literary critic roll over and purr with thematic delight.
Okay, that page where Winry gives Ed and Al their welcome home hugs? That's just -- that's just so -- help, I'm being ambushed by my fourth function ... [sniffle, weep, awwww ...]
[recovers] Also, Ed realizing on the roof that he has time now, and doesn't have to go full-tilt at everything, was a wonderful piece of character maturity. So is Al looking at the view and seeing how wonderful it is. The fact that neither brother is ready to give up the wide world yet -- just to take it in at a different pace, with different motivations -- also works much better than my Cincinnatus trope, character-wise. All hail the Great Cow!
Canon Ed/Win for the win! But boy, that's one shounen proposal, there. (Also, are we to assume from that snapshot of the Elric family, so nicely reminiscent of that earlier awkward family portrait, that Al and Mei ...? I can hearcornerofmadness's teeth grinding from half a continent away -- and there goes the Al/OC idea I had for that Al-in-Xing novel I'll never write.) But where's my Royai? I guess you can't have everything, even in an extra-long chapter with tons of falling action.
Hey, does anyone remember what happened to that letter from Trisha Pinako gave Ed to give Hohenheim? Was that dangling plot participle ever resolved -- and if so, when? You'd think I wouldn't lose track of these things, being an English major, but I do. [hangs head in shame]
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