 For years on this series, I've gotten comments requesting episodes on anime, movies, and TV shows. As most of you know, I'm not generally a huge fan, but a couple months ago, I asked you all to recommend some of your favorite content and promise that I would check it out. Shockingly, I got thousands of replies to my first poll, so I narrowed down the suggestions and did a second one, which also got thousands of responses. In the end, I settled on Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, which was fortunately available to watch on Netflix. And I can honestly say that it's a really engaging show with a great balance of serious and comedic elements, and it does feature a lot of interesting themes and ideas. The family dynamic between Edward and Alphonse is wonderful, and there are a ton of memorable characters. My favorites are probably Winry and Izumi. Even some that I thought were kind of silly when they first showed up, like Armstrong, ended up growing on me over the course of the series. But at the same time, I struggled a little bit to see how it would be the basis for a good episode of Out of Frame. Its most important themes aren't really what I talk about here. It brings up some heavily religious questions about metaphysics and epistemology, like what's the nature of reality and what actually makes a person human, or themselves. Those are worthwhile topics of conversation, but probably best left for channels like Wisecrack. That said, I think we can talk about another theme in the series that isn't quite as obvious, but which is no less important. The cost of blindly trusting people in power. Fair warning, there are going to be spoilers for the entire series of Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, but given how many of you wanted me to do this, I'm pretty sure y'all have already seen it. If not, go check it out, then come back here and prepare to give me an equivalent amount of attention in exchange for this short edition of Out of Frame. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is a fantasy series set in the vaguely European country of Amestris, which is ruled by the Fuehrer King Bradley, which, wow, talk about an unsubtle title. In addition to a large standing military mostly made up of average everyday soldiers, Amestris also boasts a roster of what they call state alchemists. Alchemy is, of course, a form of magic, but it's explained as being a somewhat scientific process with three steps. Understanding, destruction, and reconstruction. From a storytelling standpoint, one thing I really like is that although alchemy can be used to do some astonishing things, it does have some hard limits. It is impossible to create something out of nothing. If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the law of equivalent exchange. I have all sorts of questions about how anyone can actually define equal value, when that's an entirely subjective question, but the main point here is that a trained alchemist has an incredible capacity for creating extraordinary benefit or extraordinary harm, depending on how they choose to use their gifts. This always matters, but particularly because a large number of the most talented and skilled alchemists in Amestris are working for the government. Should he choose to accept the position, he'll be required to serve the military in times of national emergency. In return, he'll receive privileges and access to otherwise restricted research materials. Becoming a state alchemist also comes with a handsome salary and significant funds set aside specifically for research and supplies. It's an attractive offer for people who identify as little more than a particular type of scientist, and all it costs is reserved military status, only strictly needing to be deployed in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately for state alchemists in Amestris, emergencies seem to happen all the time. Even now, we still have skirmishes at the borders of Erego to the south and Crata to the west. North of us is the huge country Drachma. We have a tentative non-aggression pact with them and Briggs Mountain stands between us, making invasion difficult, but our relationship is still dicey at best. So with enemies all around and an ever-increasing military presence at home stirring up civil unrest, state alchemists are called to military action on what seems like a daily basis, and in many cases, for not very good reasons. The worst example was the Ishvalan extermination campaign. You see, 10 years before the events in Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, a civil war broke out when an Amestrian soldier accidentally shoots and kills a child in the Ishvala region. The child's death catalyzed an already oppressed minority to launch a full-on rebellion, and then, Führer King Bradley sent his army to exterminate the entire Ishvalan people. When that was taking too long, he called in the state alchemists. The Ishvalan extermination campaign was, as the Führer intended, a brutal slaughter. Though our main characters, Edward and Alfons, were too young to have been sent to Ishvala, their best friend lost her parents in the fighting, and nearly all of the adult characters in the show carry some form of trauma for being forced to murder the Ishvalan people. But as much as we can, and probably should, sympathize with the pain some of our favorite alchemists like Colonel Mustang, Dr. Marco, and Major Armstrong feel from participating in the genocide, the fact remains, they participated. Far too often, far too many people give relatively low-level state actors like law enforcement and soldiers a pass for behaviors they'd consider horrific if anyone else did them. They dismiss atrocities like torture, breaking up families, attacking nonviolent protesters, and even genocide as just following orders. That's just as flimsy a defense for horrible actions by state officials today as it was during the Nuremberg trials in 1945 and 46. Throughout all of history, it's rarely the heads of state or military leaders themselves who get their hands dirty with the actual execution of conquest and mass murder. The people who are directly committing these crimes generally had no real say in making the final decisions. They're given their orders and they're expected to obey. So the question we have to ask is, is it reasonable to hold those people responsible for the crimes conceived of and ordered by other people? For me, in a lot of cases, the answer is yes. This might not seem particularly fair, but we hold hired thugs and the people who hired them responsible for their crimes in the private sector, and putting on a government uniform doesn't eliminate free will or moral responsibility. Just as, in the words of St. Augustine, an unjust law is no law at all, it follows that an unjust order is no order at all. It is possible and good to violate orders that go against what we know to be morally right. If it wasn't, the world as we know it would have been destroyed decades ago. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vasily Arkhipov had standing orders to fire his submarine's nuclear warhead if it was under attack. When the US Navy dropped some depth charges in their proximity, the Russian officers thought war with the US had already started and both the captain and the political officer on board wanted to launch their missiles, but Vasily, whose position was flotilla commander, refused. He disobeyed orders, and he saved the world. And that brings us back to Full Metal Alchemist. Despite the extenuating circumstances that led to the Ishvalan Campaign, every single soldier and state alchemist in the Amestrian Army had a choice. They had a choice to join the army or become a state alchemist. They had a choice about whether to follow the orders to torture and kill Ishvalan civilians. But our good guys chose poorly. They still pulled the trigger both literal and alchemical on thousands of innocent people. Some of them still suffer for their choices during the course of the show. Some of them are desperately trying to atone, but atonement doesn't bring back the dead. Nothing can. Some things simply can't be fixed by alchemy or any other means, which incidentally is another major theme in Full Metal Alchemist. And when you work for a man who turns out to be a homunculus and the literal embodiment of wrath, you're probably going to get some shady orders. People you care about are going to be hurt, and in the end you're definitely going to be betrayed. The only solution is to know ahead of time which lines you're not willing to cross simply because you're told to. You have to take ownership of your actions in all situations. Fortunately, that's one of the reasons that Edward and Alphonse are such heroic characters. Unlike many of their colleagues, the Elric brothers spend a lot of the series examining their morality and making conscious choices about what they are willing to do and why. Edward is also a little stubborn, and personally I think that's not always such a bad trait, especially when it gives you the courage to stand by your principles in the face of powerful authority figures ordering you to abandon them. At the end of the day, you are the one who has to live with yourself and the things you've done. So orders or no orders, make sure that you can. Definitely give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel and ring that bell so you get notified whenever we put up new videos. If you've already done all of that, sign up for our weekly out of frame email for original content you can't get anywhere else. And don't forget to check out our behind the scenes podcast. We talk about a lot of movies, shows, books, and other things that don't necessarily make it into out of frame. Comes out every Friday, but supporters on Patreon and Subscribestar get early access, special bonus content, and access to an exclusive channel in our Discord server. 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