Homunculus

Homunculus (Latin for "Little Human", plural Homunculi) refers to the mythological concept of an artificially created human, presumably brought into existence by way of alchemy. Though a common concept, well known and understood by alchemists in Amestris, the idea of homunculi is regarded as no more than a farce or faraway fantasy as no individual or group of alchemists has come anywhere close to successfully creating such a being in officially recorded history. Even so, alchemists have been forbidden by the Amestrian government to attempt or research in the transmutation of humans and State Alchemists have such a restriction as part of their creed.

However, off the official record, not only one, but several of these creatures have been created in arcane, sinister secrecy. In the most relevant sense of the word, "Homunculus" refers to seven individuals who make up the main antagonist group of the Fullmetal Alchemist series. These created humans, named for the seven deadly sins (Pride, Lust, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony and Wrath), are beings with incredible longevity, astonishing regenerative properties and a host of varied superhuman abilities. The Homunculi usually carry the mark of the Ouroboros upon their bodies and are identified as such by said mark.

2003 Anime
Because of the divergence in plot line in the 2003 anime, the origins, identities and secrets of Homunculi differed between the manga and the first television series.

Creation
In the 2003 anime, Homunculi were said to be created each time an alchemist attempted a Human Transmutation. While the transmutation itself was a failure in that the person intended to be revived did not return as expected, a new existence was brought about. The result of failed Human Transmutation was a grotesque, vaguely humanoid monstrosity that retained the genetic material, as well as some of the memory, of the resurrected. The "failed" Homunculus generally remained in this agonizing state until it died soon after. However, newly created homunculi who came into contact with red stones--much weaker versions of the Philosopher's Stone created by condensing human souls--and consumed large amounts of them had their bodies reshaped into their intended forms and became an exact replicas of the entities they were meant to replace.

The English dub of the anime went so far as to state that homunculi weren't failed human transmutations, rather, they were simply incomplete.

Physical Characteristics
Homunculi all carried the form of human beings, albeit some of them with exaggerated features. Some of them had cat-like slits for pupils, pointed teeth, pale skin, and were each marked with an Ouroboros tattoo somewhere on their body. The placement of their tattoo was sometimes in accordance with the sin they represented (Greed's was on his hand; Gluttony's on his tongue; Lust's right above her cleavage). Although they were shown to eat and drink, it's possible they did not have to in order to survive, needing simply the energy provided them by the red stones they consumed.

Despite being replicate humans, however, homunculi were still aberrations of nature created by violating the flow of the universe, and as such, had no souls. This property gave them many physical dissimilarities to ensouled humans:


 * Super-Human Abilities: Homunculi were physically superior to humans in every way. Their bodies were faster, stronger, and far more resilient than normal human bodies. They did not age, were immune to all sicknesses and poisons, and could heal from any injury--even those resulting in death--as long as the energy from the red stones they consumed was not depleted. Gluttony was shown to heal from a battle with Scar in which his brain was completely obliterated and his arm was severed. Greed had his entire head knocked off and was on his feet in less than a minute, with a completely new head that held all of his old memories intact. (Note: The limbs homunculi lost generally decomposed within seconds, though the rate at which they healed varied.) This ability to regenerate endowed them with a limited form of immortality.


 * Molecular Mutability: Because their bodies did not have souls, the constituent molecules that constituted the homunculi's bodies could be rearranged (sometimes at will) to form other substances or to grant shape-changing abilities. The homunculus Greed could rearrange the carbon bonds in his skin to turn it into diamond-hard armor; Gluttony's saliva was acidic enough for him to bite, chew through and digest substances of any hardness; Lust was able to change the shape of her fingers and form them into long-reaching lance-like weapons; and Envy could change the shape of his body into the form of any person or animal, or even into simple weaponry. For some reason, this ability gave all of the homunculi the ability to create their own clothing. It was always black and sometimes either covered or remained beneath the red circle patterns that decorated their limbs.

However, not having a soul also acted as a disadvantage for the homunculi.


 * Non-Alchemists: Because homunculi did not have souls, they were incapable of opening the Gate inside them and were thus unable to perform alchemy. The sole exception to this was Wrath, who was only able to perform alchemy because he possessed the limbs of a true, soul-bearing human-being (Edward). Once they were removed, he lost this ability.


 * Subject to Human Transmutation: The same characteristic that allowed homunculi to change their constituent elements also allowed for alchemists to perform human transmutations on them with no risk of rebound. Through alchemy, Edward was able to convert Greed's diamond armor into a much weaker substance, thus allowing him to penetrate "the Ultimate Shield". Similarly, he transmuted the water that made up Sloth's body into ethanol, resulting in her death by complete evaporation.

General weaknesses include:


 * Artificiality: Because the homunculi were creatures created to replace certain persons who had died, coming into proximity with that person's remains would result in the homunculus becoming weakened to the point of immobility. Lust was shown to even faint when brought close to a lock of hair belonging to her original identity. Again, Wrath was the only exception to this rule because he was actually transmuted from his own remains.


 * Depleted Life Energy: If a homunculus was depleted of the energy of the red stones they consumed, they were reduced to having a single life, making them as vulnerable as any other creature. This could be done by killing them repeatedly or by utilizing the Flamel transmutation, which caused the red stones in the homunculus to be regurgitated and then disintegrate, leaving the homunculus with only its original life intact. Homunculi reduced to this vulnerable state were no less dangerous than usual. Greed was still able to produce his Ultimate Shield and regenerate from non-fatal wounds while giving Edward a thrashing, and Sloth was still able to use her water transformation ability to reconstruct herself after Edward blew her up by stabbing her with pure sodium.

Probably the most interesting homunculus in terms of physical appearance was Gluttony. Proportionally speaking, he was most unusually shaped, standing no taller that shoulder-height with very large, very round features and ridiculously short legs and small feet. His arms were thick and muscular and nearly reached the ground; his hands were enormous but his fingers a bit stubby. Despite his unusual shape he was still able to blend in among a crowd and even with his stumpy legs, he was very fast and mobile, fully capable of taking Scar by surprise with his swift movements. In Conqueror of Shamballa, he was shown to have mutated severely, becoming an enormous beast with body parts that only echoed his human form. How this came about is unclear. It's possible that his confrontation with Dante led to his shape, meaning that if she somehow managed to land an attack, whatever damage she dealt may have disfigured him. A second possibility is that if she did perform alchemy, the chunk of Philosopher's Stone he had managed to consume drastically augmented any attack she may have made against him, exaggerating its effects. A third, also likely possibility is that simply having the Philosopher's Stone inside of him caused his body to to grow immensely to compensate for its power. (Although homunculi consumed red stones to power themselves, they had only hundreds of humans souls inside them, whereas the Philosopher's Stone condensed tens of thousands of them.) It's also interesting to note that during his battle with Wrath, Gluttony was shown sweating red stones from the exertion, a fact he seemed completely unaware of (and one of which Wrath took every advantage).

Psychological Characteristics
Homunculi in the 2003 series were depicted as amoral, sadistic, sociopathic, and harbored superiority complexes. They derived pleasure from seeing and inflicting human suffering and death, and saw themselves as better than humans, or even as the next step in human evolution. Whether the lack of a soul contributed to these negative personality attributes is unclear. Throughout the majority of the series, the homunculi were portrayed as clearly evil characters, but toward the end of the series's run, they were each revealed to be very layered, very complex individuals capable of love, grief, guilt and despair.

It seemed the homunculi's superiority-complexes may have also masked complementing inferiority-complexes, because, despite their mockery of the human race, several of them desired to become fully human. When pressed by Edward as to why she would want to be human, Lust more or less revealed that homunculi feel incomplete, and that their desire to become human came from a feeling of lacking any real identity. They weren't really monsters because they possessed all of the emotions and instincts of humans, but they weren't humans either because they were not subject to the flow of the natural world.

Whereas Lust desired to ultimately become the person she was meant to replace, Sloth and Wrath both despised their makers for being created, and sought to disconnect from their imposed identities and establish themselves as different from the people they were supposed to become. Sloth was tormented by her memories as Edward and Alphonse's mother and sought to kill them to prove to herself that she was not connected to the people who made her into an aberration. Wrath, on the other hand, merely wanted to have a mother and be accepted and loved as a person instead of being cast aside as a monster.

Although he didn't want to be human, Envy was similar to Wrath in that he felt rejected and cast aside by Hohenheim, who was both the father of the person Envy was meant to be and the alchemist who created him. In the 5th Laboratory, Envy reamed Ed out for saying that homunculi were "made" instead of "born", offering further proof a harbored resentment for his own nature. In the end, Envy finally got his chance for revenge against his maker, and even knowing that he would be killed himself in the process, he exacted it with a grunt of satisfaction.

Pride was interesting in that he didn't seem to care that he was a homunculus. His payment seemed to come from being the most powerful person in the country, even if it was a façade. He took pleasure in instigating war after war, and even though he was shown to have an interest in creating the stone, it seemed simply to be because it was what Dante wanted. Although the personality he presented to his countrymen was one of a warmhearted, charming family-man who valued human life, he actually had no respect for humans and even killed his own ten-year-old adopted son in annoyance of his "human foolishness".

All in all, the mental states of the homunculi whose characters were explored were very much centered around the fact that they were not accepted as human by one or more groups, which is probably why Greed bonded so strongly with the chimera. It's also worth noting that despite being the scourge of the homunculi, Greed was probably to most psychologically stable of them all. He knew what he was and had no desire to change. If anything, he wanted to become less human, concocting a scheme to bond his spirit to an inanimate object to escape further persecution from Dante and the others. He fully embraced his greed, and lived life on his own terms, having no goals apart from hedonistic desire and true immortality. He also died by his own terms, dying at the hands of someone he respected while at the same time giving that person what he needed (information on killing homunculi and the resolve to do it) to get his revenge against his persecutors.

Destruction
Killing homunculi in the 2003 series could be done in a variety of different ways, but the task was still a challenge due to the difficulty in dealing with such deadly and unpredictable creatures. Furthermore, the fact they were "mythical" creatures shrouded the means in mystery. Once the means were discovered, it was often necessary to take advantage of more than one of their weaknesses in order to kill them, the most important of which was the remains of the person they were meant to be, which were not always available. Here's how the deeds were accomplished:


 * Both Greed and Lust were killed by being exposed to the remains of the person they were meant to replace, being subjected to the Flamel transmutation--which resulted in the regurgitation and disintegration of their red stones, limiting them to a single life--and then being killed in the same way as a normal human.


 * Pride was immobilized by the remains of the person he was meant to replace and then repeatedly killed until the souls of the red stones he consumed were exhausted. Similarly, Lust planned on eliminating Wrath by "killing him as many times as he [had] stones". This method was time-consuming due to the sheer number of souls consumed by the homunculi.


 * Sloth was killed when Edward transmuted all of the water in her body into ethanol and she evaporated. Whether he could have done this before depleting her body of red stones is unclear, but her immobilization by Trisha's remains was required for him to come into contact with her.


 * Envy, Wrath and Gluttony did not die, per sé, rather, they were all sent back into the Gate, where they simply ceased to exist on any recognized plane of existence.

The bodies of the homunculi that did die all "melted" into a red, liquid ooze-like state and then dissolved into the ground on which they died, leaving no trace.

Role in the Story
The homunculi were very versatile, capable beings, a fact that Dante took advantage of. She initially created Gluttony in an attempt to discover a way to create the Philosopher's Stone without using alchemy. Gluttony was failure in that respect, but her tinkerings did seem to convince her that homunculi could still be of use. She made at least two more--Greed and Pride--and Envy hinted to Lust that if necessary, Dante could very easily create another to serve the cause. She also kept her eye out for other alchemists who might resort to human transmutation in the hopes that if they did, she might reap the benefits of their folly. Those homunculi she did recruit were tricked into helping her with the promise she would make them human once she had the stone. If it was even possible to turn a homunculus human with the stone was unclear, but from what Envy insinuated, Dante had no intention of even trying, and may very well have been planning on killing them once she had what she wanted.

From behind the scenes, sent her homunculi to scour the countryside seeking out alchemists with talent enough to create the stone. The homunculi spread diseases, committed assassinations, tempted the rich and the greedy, and used countless other means to push people to the brink of despair. Those who came close but failed were erased from the world along with the evidence and rumors were mongered of the dangers of creating the stone, rumors which kept the talentless at bay but drew in the curious and the capable.

After creating Pride, Dante maneuvered him into the position of Fuhrer-King, and through him, began numerous war campaigns, using them to wreak havoc and destruction across Amestris and beyond, and to oppress the human spirit into a state of desperation and despair. Those driven to the extremes would hopefully create her stone, which the homunculi would happily collect and bring to her.

By the time the series begins, the country is slowly recovering from a civil war instigated by Dante and her minions. The main task of the homunculi at this point to continue the unending search for talented alchemists, which is aided by the military's new State Alchemist program, which recruits only the best and the brightest. This gives Dante and the homunculi the chance to add further flames to the defeated Ishbalans, who, as legend tells it, have the means to create a stone of their own. Through dozens and dozens of manipulations over the years--with several false starts and planted clues to lure in the curious and further inflame the furious, the homunculi finally succeed in forcing Scar into creating the stone for them. The situation spins quickly out of control, with Dante's deceptions reaching light in her frantic attempts to procure the new stone. Learning her true nature, several of the homunculi rebel or change allegiances, allowing for their previously unseen human natures to be made apparent, and the creatures who had been portrayed as unforgivably evil are shown to be more human than even several of their true human counterparts.

Philosophically, the homunculi serve to lay down the questions as to the value of human life while at the same time challenge the definition of humanity and tolerance.

Manga and 2009 anime
In the manga and 2009 anime, the seven Homunculi are the spawn of Father (who himself was the earliest known Homunculus, birthed inside a flask in the ancient country of Xerxes). After having used half the population of Xerxes in the creation of his body, Father himself became a Philosopher's Stone of sorts and became able to siphon off smaller stones from his body to create minions he calls his children. Each Homunculus, as a former part of Father's body and consciousness, is said to have been made up of a different emotional vice - corresponding to their name - and carries that vice as a part of their personality or identity (with Greed being greedy, Pride being proud, Wrath being irascible, and so on).

These Homunculi have physical compositions similar to those of humans but consider themselves superior due to their heightened strengths and abilities. They boast human intelligence and emotions, taking pride in their existence as higher beings, but feeling humility and gratitude toward Father for having given them life. As a result, these Homunculi are largely devoted to the completion of their Father's grand plan (with the exception of Greed, as he defects twice). Each of the seven Homunculi has a Philosopher's Stone as its core, fueling its life, regenerative ability and other abilities with a multitude of souls. Each Homunculus can be damaged to the point of death, even to the point of having his or her entire body disintegrated, but can only truly be killed when the Philosopher's Stone heart is either destroyed or runs out of lives to use as power. Envy and Pride have proven capable of absorbing the lives from other Homunculi into themselves to lengthen their lifespans, but it is unknown whether or not this is a trait shared between all seven.

Though the original six Homunculi have bodies that were built around the Philosopher's Stone, for the sake of his plans, Father began experimenting with a new method of Homunculus creation. A new set is created by injecting one of Father's stones into the body of a living human being. The souls in the stone and the soul in the body clash for supremacy, often destroying the body entirely, until one consciousness takes control. Homunculi created in this manner are able to age - a property of which their Stone-based brethren are incapable.

Mannequin Soldiers


In Chapter 80, it is revealed that the Amestrian government, presumably under the supervision of Father, has created an army of lesser Homunculi whose soulless bodies are stored beneath Central Command. They are injected with Philosopher's Stones,which give them life. These "Mannequin Soldier" Homunculi are white and red, skeletally thin, hairless humanoids with one eye in their foreheads and green "blood". They lack intelligence and appear only to follow base instincts toward feeding and destruction, similar to the souls within the Philosopher's Stones who have long since forgotten their true identities. Envy, at one point, describes them as mere puppets injected with Philosopher's Stones. Their main attack is to try to eat their victim, since they lack the thought processes to do anything else. Envy also uses their bodies and their souls to recreate his original body after being reduced to a small lizard from having his own Philosopher's Stone drained. They do not regenerate as Father's children do, but are able to keep functioning even if their heads are grievously damaged, making them similar to zombies in a way. They seem to make similar vocalizations to the souls of the people of Xerxes trapped in Envy (crying out for help or relations and complaining that they are in pain), but they seem to want to get rid of their 'pain' by eating everything except each other.

They are awakened in Chapter 90 by one of the Generals of Central Command in an attempt to quell the insurrection going on in the city. For this foolish act, he is devoured by the monsters, who have no sense of loyalty or authority. From there, these Mannequin Soldiers begin to spread about the Central Command grounds, devouring anyone they come across. Major General Armstrong manages to remove several of them as a threat by severing their heads, at least at the upper jaw, leaving them mobile, but unable to eat anyone. Colonel Roy Mustang devises his own method of incapacitating them by burning off their legs with Flame Alchemy (in the 2009 anime version, he instead incinerates them completely to ash).

Trivia

 * The seven Homunculi are named after the Seven Deadly Sins. Interestingly enough, these sins are part of the evils in the Greek myth of Pandora's Box, just as Alchemy has Greek influence.
 * The bodysuits that most of the Homunculi wear have a slight brownish-red tint in the 2009 anime. In the 2003 anime, they had a dark green hue to them. Occasionally, though, in both series, they will look more black, akin to their color in the manga.
 * The deaths of the Homunculi in the 2003 anime greatly differs from that of the manga versions. While the manga has them disintegrating into black dust, in the first anime, after death, their bodies seem to go into extreme rigor mortis before melting down into a puddle of Red Water (presumably the Red Stones that is their make-up).
 * The exact reason why the Homunculi are named after the Seven Deadly sins is never fully explained in the 2003 anime. However, they still embody the sins they are called after; while Greed and Gluttony have similar roles and personalities to their manga counterparts, there are examples of others living up to their namesakes:
 * Lust was born of Scar's brother's lover, and had affairs with other men, including Lujon.
 * Envy despises Edward and Alphonse for being the "favored" children of Hohenheim and for being abandoned because of them. He also hates Hohenheim for being able to find a life of peace and happiness after abandoning him. Envy is not simply wanting other things, it is also the "hatred of others' good fortune".
 * With Pride, the aspect manifests through the power he wields from precognition, and having political power at his beck-and-call. Pride refers to himself as "God's guardian angel".
 * Wrath, is the desire for harm. He tried to kill Izumi, and tried to take Alphonse's body, as well as Edward's other arm and leg. Wrath can also be described as just "Hate" or "Anger".
 * Sloth passes up numerous opportunities to kill the Elric Brothers and their friends. When she does harm someone, she often uses one arm, while the rest of her body is immobile. Her turmoil over her memories and feelings as Trisha could also be seen as embodiment of her sin, as the original definition of Sloth was "sadness to the point of despair".
 * It is, however, never explained what would happen if there were to be more than seven Homunculi at a time, as they're created from Human Transmutation, so more than seven could theoretically be possible.
 * In the 2003 anime the alchemist Majhal claims to have failed a human transmutation, yet none of the Homunculi were credited as his creation. It's probable that he simply was not talented enough to open the Gate during his attempt, or that the Gate would not open because the person he wished to revive wasn't really dead.
 * Most of the Homunculi have red nodes connected by lines, which seem to incapacitate them and/or cancel out their powers when pierced, e.g. Lust in the 2003 anime and Greed when he is captured by Wrath in the manga and 2009 anime.The only Homunculi who do not have apparent nodes are Pride (manga), Father (in his humanoid form), and possibly Wrath (manga). Wrath and Sloth in the 2003 anime also seem to possess the nodes and lines as well. However, because some of the lines and nodes are on the articles of 'clothing' that the Homunculi wear, the question stands whether there are identical lines beneath the clothes or if the clothes are connected to Homunculi physically. Some examples are Lust's 'gloves' and Greed's bodysuit.
 * The permanent deaths of the Homunculi occur in almost the exact opposite order as the levels of the mountain of Purgatory in Dante's Purgatorio, the only exceptions being that Pride didn't die and Envy and Greed's places were switched (Envy dying after Gluttony and Greed dying after Wrath).
 * While a Homunculus' memories can be 'wiped' in transferring their Philosopher's Stone to a new body or host, they can never be completely erased. Rather, the memories will be pushed down in the mind of the Homunculus, often only resurfacing during a powerful emotional event. This is seen in the case of the Second Greed, who remembers his friends after killing Bido.
 * In the manga, all of the named Homunculi die in a way related to the sin they 'embody':
 * Lust is burned to death by a man well known as a serial dater;
 * Greed is boiled down for his most valuable part;
 * Gluttony is eaten by Pride's shadows;
 * Envy kills himself out of jealousy and self-loathing;
 * Sloth gets worn out by a long fight;
 * Wrath is dismembered by one of the vengeful people he tried to exterminate;
 * Pride, while never actually killed, was stripped of his powers and reduced to the form of one of the creatures that he despised.
 * In an omake, Father scolds the Mannequin Soldiers for not having any underwear on.
 * In the 2003 anime, Envy said that "It's been forever since the seven of us were united", implying that there were Homunculi before the current Sloth, Wrath, and Lust, minus Envy (who's the first one born), Greed, Gluttony, and Pride.
 * Animals seem to have the ability to recognize homunculi. In Chapter 40, Den barks angrily at Hohenheim, to which he replies, "Animals have never liked me much." This likely has something to do with the Philosopher's Stone and the numerous souls encompassing it, as animals, along with the chimera Heinkel, were shown to be frightened when the Central City transmutation circle was activated.