Hey, here’s just another one of these episode analysis things I’m apparently addicted to. This one was kind of giving me trouble. Maybe because it’s already very good at getting its points across? Oh well.
This is another episode that explores the Elrics backstory. So yeah, more talking about Ed and Al’s characters. It’s a pretty brutal experience, honestly, and demonstrates that Izumi is a wise teacher (but would probably make a terrible mother given these harsh methods.)
Whatever the case, the Elrics are left alone on an uninhabited island. They have to work out what Teacher means by “One is all, all is one.” She means for them to learn about the flow of life.
At first, Ed and Al pretty arrogant and energetic, determined to beat this puzzle and overcome the challenge. But over the course of the episode we see their focus narrow to just trying to survive. They soon no longer care about winning. All their lofty goals are irrelevant to their present situation.
They’re instead learning to do what is necessary to survive.
Early on, they catch a rabbit in a trap. But then they realise they have to kill it to eat it and neither of them have the nerve to do so despite their growing hunger. Then a fox steals their rabbit to feed its young. It gives Ed an awful bite. Ed’s furious but then his expression softens as he realises that the fox mother is caring for its two children.
Meanwhile, they’ve also got to contend with the masked man. It’s Mason in disguise but they don’t know that. He repeatedly attacks them, steals their food and make survival generally harder. They learn to tread carefully and stay alert.
And after about two weeks they’re questioning what they’re even doing here. They barely remember that there’s a greater reason for being here. They’re eating anything they can find, including rats, snakes and poisonous mushrooms.
Ed seems to become particularly depressed. Al is frustrated and desperate as well of course, but he’s always just a touch more optimistic. Though he does at one point confess how much he just wants to go back home. And in that moment where Ed asks why they’re here, Al doesn’t have an answer either. So Al’s not doing all that much better.
But Ed’s state of mind is a bit worse. See this, where Ed’s grimly thinking about death with really deadened eyes:
This is all leading up to this moment where the two of them are fighting the masked man. Ed takes a blow to the stomach and lies on the ground. His brother is still fighting and can be heard taking hits and Ed doesn’t even move out of concern for him – it’s like he’s given up. His eyes have this dead look to them.
That’s when Ed sees this dead cicada and even tinier microorganisms harvesting the little insect’s corpse. That when he comes to the realisation that it’s death is enabling other things to live, that life works in this flow. The natural flow of the world is this cycle of life and death. And he applies this idea to himself and his own situation.
(There’s also this very brief image of his mother appearing once more in his thoughts.)
With newfound determination, Ed picks up his knife and faces the masked man. The message is clear: he’s willing to fight with lethal force to protect his brother. With that, the masked man simply drops Alphonse and finally leaves them alone. He doesn’t bother them again. (And Ed finally gives a brief relieved smile.)
So Ed’s starting to get what Izumi meant by All is one, one is all. With this understanding comes a greater appreciation for the value of life and a understanding of the world as a whole.
As he explains his thoughts to Al, there’s loads of beautiful imagery of wildlife. Actually, this whole episode has lots of nice visuals, I think. Ed talks about death again, this time far less depressed about it. He says that in their subjective mindset, people will be sad and they won’t have achieved anything but looking at their lives as part of a bigger picture, the world would just keep on going as if nothing had happened while their bodies would decompose into their base elements. (Al lists the elements that make up a human body here.)
They realise that they’re only tiny individuals in a greater world where their elements that make them up will keep on circulating through the system long after they’re dead. But without all the individual parts that make it up, the ‘All’ couldn’t exist.
This time, when faced with a rabbit, Ed’s able to kill it. (Foreshadowing how Ed could be pushed to taking a life as the Greed arc is coming up).
And they link it to alchemy. Alchemists like them work by recognising that flow of the world and working within it – to understand, decompose and recreate.
And that pretty much concludes the flashback portion of this episode. Izumi’s impressed with what they’ve learned and agrees to teach them.
In the present, Ed confesses that while they’d learned that much, they hadn’t accepted that life can only flow in one direction. That death is irreversible. They understand it better now as he says how it was a mistake to try and bring their mum back. Coming back here was to give them a chance to reflect on that.
Despite confessing that much, they both stay firm in their choice to continue seeking a way to fix themselves even it means potentially making the same mistakes. This time, they’re far more aware of the costs and dangers.
The storytelling in this episode is pretty nice. It does a bunch of cuts between the past and the present which isn’t something I want all the time but it works here. Seeing how capable the Elric brother are shows how much they’ve grown and changed from when they were kids. It also prevents the episode from being too dark as you get to see the two of them laughing and fondly reminiscing about their terrifying experience on the island as kids.
(This is also the episode which introduces Wrath. He’s observing them as they wander about. Al even somehow mistakes him for Ed at one point. He doesn’t reveal himself until the end, giving a hook for the next episode.)
So yeah, all in all, one of my favourite episodes. Just wanted to talk mostly about the development of young Ed and Al throughout this episode though I feel like I just ended up summarising the story. Oh well.
Zetalial 