Father (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Father is a villain that features in the Fullmetal Alchemist universe.
Contents |
Biography
Father was a homunculi that was created many years ago during the reign of the king of Xerxes. He was created by an alchemist who drew blood from a purchased slave known as Number 23. Following his creation, he was contained within a flask where he was consulted as a source of knowledge where he was known as the Little One in the Flask. During this time, he would speak to the donor that created him namely Number 23 who was a simple slave that lacked any skills, knowledge or education. The homunculi offered to teach the slave and even named him where he gave the young blonde haired man a name which was Von Hohenheim. Under the homunculi's teachings, Hohenheim rose as a skilled pupil and holding a prestigious role as an apprentice alchemist. In this time, the ailing king of Xerxes summoned the homunculi and asked for the secret of immortality. The homunculi initially taunted the king but agreed to aid the king with his goal. He informed the king about the process of creating a Philosopher's Stone. This involved the creation of a mass transmutation circle around Xerxes with this being claimed by the king's men to be an irrigation effort. However, this was part of an effort for the king to achieve his immortality by initiating wide scale sacrifices achieved through murder by his men with the monarch of Xerxes at the center. However, this proved to be a trick as even the king and his court were killed as the true center was the place where Von Hohenheim and the homunculi stood. As everyone in Xerxes died, a Gate of Truth opened sucking in Hohenheim where he was transformed. In the process, the homunculi gained a physical body that resembled Hohenheim who was given great power as a result of the many souls needed to create his form. In gratitude to Hohenheim, the homunculi gifted half of the souls sacrificed to his human donor making him immortal as well. Afterwards, the homunculi departed to begin the next stage of his plans and eventually took the name Father.
In time, he decided to separate aspects of his personality into new homunculi with the first being Pride. He later created further Homunculi that were each based on one of the Seven Deadly Sins of Man that included Envy, Greed, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth. Gluttony was an attempt by Father at creating his own portal of Truth. Despite his power, Father failed and the Homunculi Gluttony was considered a failed experiment. At some point over a century ago, Greed departed the company of Father and instead sought his own desires. Since the inception of Amestris, Fathers Homunculi had been controlling the entire human nation with the higher ranked officers working under them. As such, this led him using high ranking scientists and the military to continue his experiments. Among these was the creation of the last of his Homunculi that was to embody his Wrath. This saw the military taking numerous orphans and subjecting them to a grueling regime in order to train them to become the next ruler of Amestris. By adulthood, a number were taken to be injected with a distilled liquid form of the Philosopher's Stone but the majority of them died in the process. This was until the twelfth subject who managed to survive the merger and become a human Homunculi who could age but shared all the aspects of his kin. Father met this individual who was later given the name of King Bradley with him becoming the Fuhrer of Amestris and continued to ensure his creators plan came to fruition.
With Greed captured, he was brought to the home of Father who offered him the chance to rejoin his ranks. This was because he stated that Greed was both his son and part of his soul. However, Greed refused leading to Father having his body destroyed in order to reabsorb his essence into his body once more.
Gluttony later brought Alphonse Elric to Father where the Alchemist mistakenly believed him to be his own father Hohenheim. At that moment, Edward Elric, Ling Xao and Envy emerged from Gluttonys body, father then determined that the Elrics were his chosen future sacrifices and later discovered them to be the sons of Hohenheim. Father healed the two alchemists but had no use for Ling and ordered Gluttony to devour him. This led to a confrontation ration that was joined by Scar and Mao. Edward Elric revealed Father and the Homunculis being responsible for the destruction of Ishvall. This led to a battle with Ling restrained and Father deciding instead to use the human to create a new Homunculi. Secreting a Philosopher's Stone, he created a new Greed that embodied his avarice that successfully took over Lings body. The Elric brothers were captured but the others managed to flee in the chaos of the battle.
Father later deliberated he completion of his country wide transmutation circle where he began deciding on his sacrifices. Among those candidates were Edward Alric, Alphonse Alric, Hohenheim, and Izumi Curtis with him deciding that he needed one more to complete the circle.
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Fathers body had actually changed at multiple points over the years. Initially, he was simply a small black shadow with a single eye and mouth that fit in a glass flask container. This changed when he tricked the king of Xerxes into performing a mass transmutation that created a Philosopher's Stone that the homunculi used to create a body for himself. As such, in these years he resembled Van Hohenheim as his leather based form was made to resemble him. However, over the years, Father had been evolving himself as he sought to become the perfect being. Within his human form, he was able to extrude a black substance that was able to take a humanoid shape with this having a large maw and numerous eyes over the surface. he also embedded part of his nature that opened into a big black eye within his chamber beneath Central under the Amestrian capital.
During his initial form, he was stated to be so full of life and spirit to the point of being a vibrant being. He was noted to had been arrogant who scoffed at the notion of community and family. Despite this being the case, family was something he wanted the most and he wanted this quality of humanity. Father would later stated that no part of him that wished to lower itself to mankinds level and instead he wished to become a far more perfect being.
After the creation of the Homunculi, he treated them as his children and had them call him Father. Each of his homonculi were part of his being and he claimed that they were his children. Pride was said to be his strongest trait and spent considerable time and effort to give this homonculi his original appearance showed how egotistical he was in his personality. This was to the point that he offered Greed to join him again. When Greed refused, Father said he had no choice but to destroy Greeds body and reabsorb him into his own form. Father stated that he was familiar with the feelings that his Homunculi had such as Greeds avarice as these were traits of his own personality. He told Greed that any feelings such as attaining ultimate power first came to Father. Hohenheim stated that the Homunculi that represented the Seven Deadly Sins were important as understanding them meant understanding humanity. This, it was said that he had cast aside his emotions as a result. Furthermore, despite their loyalty, Father showed no such love for the Homunculi such as when he worked Pride to the point that his body began to breakdown and abandoned him to achieve his own goals.
He compared his view of humanity to that of a humans view of an ant. Father believed in utility and that mankind was a resource to be exploited. As such, he cared little about human life and had those humans of no value to him killed. He did not believe that the Philosophers Stone did not have individual souls but that they had been turned into mere energy.
Powers and abilities
As a homunculi, Father had great alchemical powers allowing him to transmutate other objects or people. This included the standard abilities of manipulating the environment around him. He was also able to heal wounds of others such as broken arms and ribs with a simple touch. Father was able to do this without the need of either a transmutation circle or gestures. Furthermore, he was able to bypass the law of equivalent exchange by utilizing the accumulated energy of his own body. Thus was shown when he reforged Alphonse Elrics armored hand and yet not use the Metal within his body but rather to create a new hand. He was able to also disrupt the ability of Amestrian alchemists from using their abilities but this did not affect foreign alchemy styles such as those used at Xing.
Each of the homunculi were created from his being and he was able to create a new secrete a new Philosopher's Stone from his being. Such a process was used to recreate Greed after Father had absorbed him. The new Greed lacked the memories of the older one that was referred to as Fathers previous avarice before the new one.
At his height, he managed to attain the power of Truth making him effectively a god-like being. With this power, he was able to create miniature subs from his hands against his enemies. However, this great power required a Philosopher Stone with the souls of an entire nation such as Amestris. Without this power, he was unable to maintain the god-like power he had stolen.
Notes
- Father waa voiced by actor Iemasa Kayumi and by English actor Kent Williams in the dubbed series.
- In the first anime adaptation, the character did not appear and was instead replaced with Dante who never appeared in the Manga.
Appearances
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
External Links
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