Talk:Ouroboros

Inconclusive? You can clearly see the symbol on its forehead.Nub8 02:25, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

. . and on an unrelated note, I just noticed I've accidentally been using a completely different username this whole time. Very nice. Nub888 02:30, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, so that was you. Either way, upon examining the mark on little Pride's forehead, I see that it cannot be confirmed as an Ouroboros. It's entirely possible that it is, but the lack of detail makes it look like the circular mark that appears in various places on the Homunculi's bodies, like those marks that Wrath stabbed Greed through during their fight in Dublith. It'd be nice if it turned out to be his elusive Ouroboros, but there isn't quite enough information for us to say that it definitely is. CorbeauKarasu 04:53, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah.. I can see what you mean now that I've gone back and looked at it closer. Damn it, why must you always be right? > 3< Nub888 06:13, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone agree with my theory that Ourboros is sorta like a blood seal for a Homunculus' soul? I will provide explanation if necessary.

&quot;I no really understand this language! Bye-bye!&#39; - Lin Yao 08:59, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

But they don't have souls. It's stated in both series and the manga. Tommy-Vercetti 13:18, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

I don't remember the manga saying they don't have souls. In fact, we know they have several. But, the idea of the Ouroboros being a blood seal would suggest that its destruction would compromise the Homunculus' existence and that just isn't the case. Are they merely stylistic? Do they mark the standard location of the Philosopher's Stone core inside the body? I dunno, but they aren't the same as Blood Runes. CorbeauKarasu 14:33, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

The innumeral souls inside the stones does not count for their soul. Even on our own page, which I assume you or someone wrote or at least approved "A philosopher's stone in place of a soul"

Tommy-Vercetti 15:24, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

Actually I find the ouroboros to be a lot more a "identification mark" than anything else. But I agree with TV that they don't actually have souls, since they are, in my point of view, part of other people's souls. In the case of Father, is a little different, since he's a creature from the portal and, therefore, has the "structure" of what we could call a "elemental", and, therefore, have an "elemental's soul", as opposed to a "human soul". But, interesting enough, Father doesn't have an ouroboros' tatoo, which leads me to think that the tatoo is more related to the "sin" than to the fact of them being "homunculi". Even because they're only "homunculi" because of the one part of Father's soul they possess, in comparison to all the other "lusts" that Lust possess that didn't came from Father, but from the Xerxes' habitants. All in all, I don't think we could or should relate the ouroboros to a blood seal, cause they are two very different situations. About the position of the tatoos, is not about the philosopher stone, specifically, but it is related to the sin and also to Dante's Divine Comedy's inspirations: Greed on the left hand representing the "wrong act", Wrath's in the left eye representing the "wrong look over life", Envy's on its left leg representing the "lowest part/sentiment" of the human being (in oriental tradition, the left leg is the place with the highest negative energy of the body), Lust's over her heart representing the "wrong feelings"... etcetera. Turdaewen 20:05, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

Do you have one for Sloth? :-! Or did Arakawa just run out of positions for him and decided "Eh, right shoulder will work"

What about how Pride doesn't have one either? I've always wondered about that.

Lust's tatoo always striked me more as "breasts" than near her heart. 2003 Sloth was more on the heart; Lust's is like literally dead center between her rack; drawing all attention upon them. Tommy-Vercetti 21:21, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

Manga Homunculi definitely have souls. The manga makes no attempt to claim they do not, shows Ling talking to a representation of Greed that looks much like the souls around him, and Wrath is explicitly stated to have one soul. I am also skeptical that the anime Homunculi do not. Everything that was ever said about the Homunculi in the 2003 anime was profoundly biased. Then, lo and behold, Conqueror of Shamballa heavily suggested that Wrath lived on after his death, implying a soul. As for the Oroborus, in the 2003 anime, it seemed to have a function similar to a Blood Seal, in that it was connected to the Homunculus's essance. The manga is much less clear.Neo Bahamut 04:57, May 5, 2012 (UTC)

Wrath was born a human, and that's his human soul (more than likely), that he's referring to. Human-based Homunculi and just the ones split from Father really can't be compared this way. Tommy-Vercetti 14:23, May 5, 2012 (UTC)

Well, my notion was that when Ling was injected with Greed, (The philosophers stone; soul; whatever) he then developed an Ourboros. And yes, I agree with Turdaewen's wording more, "Identification Seal". But my thinking is that it represents the fact that the soul/stone is bonded to the body, rather than relying on it. Then again, it seems "compulsory" for the stone injection to complete.

&quot;I no really understand this language! Bye-bye!&#39; - Lin Yao 06:13, May 5, 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind what the homunculi are and how they were born. Father might have his own soul (the dwarf in the flask), but every other homunculus is really just a piece of him, made up of the people of Xerxes. Tell me then, where did their souls come from? Did Father split up his "core" self and put a piece of it in each homunculus? If so they could have what might be called a soul if you consider the "original" Father to be his soul, but I highly doubt that's the case. So no, I don't think the homunculi have their own soul to speak of, with the possible exception of Father. Fullmetal Fan 09:12, May 5, 2012 (UTC)

I don't really see why that's a problem. One of the first things Edward says in the entire series is how unremarkable the creation of a human really is. In fact, you might say that a human is "made of" one's mother's DNA, one's father's DNA, and a bunch of dead plants &/or animals. Not exactly the stuff miracles are born of. Yet at no point does anyone doubt that the human characters in FMA have souls. Also, depending on how literally you take certain lines in the manga, rocks have souls. I do not know where they "come from," because that is never explained.Neo Bahamut 09:44, May 5, 2012 (UTC)

I see what you're talking, Neo Bahamut... if you take into account a definition of 'soul' as not just "human soul" than, yes, we could say the the homunculi have a sort of soul (in the same way that rocks can have souls in that sense). But they are not human in any sense and that is vital to understand the concept of the homunculi in the series. But, even then, it is not definitive that homunculi have souls in the manga, cause the times when those souls are spoken of, it's always related to the souls of the Philosopher's Stone, and not the Homunculi.

In fact, if I could relate the homunculus in FMA with any "real world" thing it would be with the concept of the "creatures of the treshold", from Helena P. Blavatsky (which are a sort of elemental beings), which could be very plausible, taking into account that many alchemical traditions regard Homuculi as such. Something similar to a celtic fearie (like a banshee), if you would like. Even then, we're still talking about THE Homunculus the "being created through human blood in an attempt to reach out to occult mysteries" and not about the homunculi created by said Homunculus and (THAT, I do believe is quite explicit in the manga, especially when we read the talk betweeen Hohenheim and Father) the 7 Homunculi are nothing more than "personifications of the 'expurged' sins from the Homunuculus who's trying to achieve perfection" and the "souls" they bare are merely said sins from the human souls of Xerxes.

About the creation of human not being remarkable, we have to remember always that there's a difference between creating a "human body" and creating "a human". Creating a human body is not remarkable at ALL (Roy did it with little effort!), but, creating a human is not only remarkable: it's impossible! It is impossible because the connection of a human soul to a body is "a miracle" and cannot be recreated through human efforts. And, therefore, even the Homunculus (Father) wasn't "created", he was a elemental soul summoned from the portal into the concrete world, and created a body for himself. But he existed before that.

About the seals of Sloth and Pride, Tommy, I believe (and that's a theory of mine) that Sloth's is due to fact that Sloth is a sin regarded as a "burden upon the shoulders" of the human who possesses it, cause it's an "illusory limitation" to the possibilities of what he/she could actually do. Saint Thomas Aquinas said Sloth was "carrying the weight of the world on one's shoulders", by not accepting the "mission" given to humans of taking efforts to change the world. And Pride's I believe he doesn't carry one because he's more of an internal sin. Pride is the "mother of all sins" and is related to the Original Sin, or the "knowledge of good and evil". It is the sin adquired by Adam and Eve in the Genesis, when they eat the "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (and not an apple, mind you. lol), which is a metaphor to the moment that humans adquired "Conscience". That is why Pride doesn't die and why he has no ouroboros: he's inherent to the "human condition" and, without it, there's no human to speak of. All other capital sins are related to lack or excess of something, but not Pride: it is a sin born with the Human and not adquired through action or inaction. Turdaewen 14:15, May 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * What you ultimately keep coming back to is the issue of what makes a Homunculus a Homunculus. What is clear is that there is something in the Philosophers Stone that is not one of the human souls. Something that gives the Homunculus its own individual identity. An identity that is independent of Father, that is usually (but not always) loyal to him, but still follows its own particular drives and ambitions that Father may show no evidence of. It does not necessarily view the other Homunculi as "part" of itself, usually regarding them as mere blood relations. Its personality may be strongly related to a particular emotion (wrath, pride, etc.) but it also has others. This thing is also capable of keeping the Homunculus alive and maintaining its Philosophers Stone even when all of the human souls are seemingly separated from it. If you ask me, there is nothing that explains this as sufficiently and with fewer assumptions than that the Homunculus has its own soul. As you have alluded to, soulless bodies tend to pop up from time to time in FMA, but without a soul being attached to them, they just sit there and rot. Would I say it is a "human" soul? No, but I would say it is much more similar to that than to the soul of a bird or a rock.Neo Bahamut 02:52, May 7, 2012 (UTC)

You've really put a lot of thought into the FMA world. :-! The problem is, all FMA really says about souls is that they are life energy, and they cannot be created, whatever that means. It says nothing about where they come from or how people get them.

This should be added to the actual pages, because this is the kind of stuff I enjoy reading about on series wikipedias; behind the scenes stuff, origins, etc. Tommy-Vercetti 17:46, May 6, 2012 (UTC)


 * I've always felt that what you might call "speculation" has its place on a Wiki page, but only in very specific circumstances: The work actually DOES leave multiple interpretations open, only the few most likely ideas are concluded, and they are framed in a way that nothing looks "more canon" than anything else. I've also felt that Wikis should not engage in the practice of "discerning what something means": The less "behind the scenes" stuff that goes on, the better. That is what I go to forums for.Neo Bahamut 02:52, May 7, 2012 (UTC)

I've never actually thought of the Homunculi as "independant individuals". In fact, quite que contrary, I've always regarded them as not individuals at all. For me, for a being to be considered "individual" it would have to be just that: indivisible. I disagree that they have a 'mind of their own' or that they have 'sentiments' or 'feelings' different to the sin they were created after. All "links" that could be considered in regards to the homunculi (aside from Wrath, due to his human part) are, in fact, quite inside what is described as the developments and consequences of their sins. "yeah, but Gluttony shows love towards Lust", you could say, but that is ALSO part of Cardinal Sins tradition, as it is said that Lust is the primary "sin of the body" and that the sin of Gluttony is a sort of derivative from it and, therefore, have strong connections to eachother. "Greed shows loyalty and care for his subordinates", also a part o cardinal sins tradition, as it says Greed is a sin that comes from the feeling of being detatched from everyone and everything else, the extreme of the feeling of lack and that it's "resolution" lies in the understanding of 'being a part of something bigger", of "belonging" and understanding "everything is part of a whole" and, just like in FMA, once Greed finally realises and accept this truth about himself, there's no more reason for him to exist. I'm yet to see any actual "feeling" shown in the series by the Homunculi that can actually be regarded as one, showing them as something outside the realm of their sins and that could be considered something of an 'individual'. Not saying it doesn't exist, just that noone has ever showed me one. Turdaewen 03:37, May 7, 2012 (UTC)