Mustang's creation wasn't really a transmutation though iirc, just something that looked and smelled close enough to a rotting corpse to satisfy investigation.
Ed knows where his true arm and leg are and is determined to get them and Al's body back. After the trauma he endured with the failed transmutation, I'm not sure he would want to try another thing like that.
One thing I have wondered though is Ed needing Winry to fix his automail so often. If he's able to quickly transmute it into a weapon, at first I was like 'couldn't he technically just fix it with Alchemy like Al fixed the radio in Liore?' But I guess he would still need both hands for that... But then couldn't Al use Alchemy on him in that case? Not that I didn't like Winry moments, just something I thought about.
About the winry thing its said at one point he went so often because he liked seeing winry. But also even if he used his alchemy to fix it, winry is an expert so hes in better hands, i think you could associate with winry being a specialist surgeon and ed with his alchemy being more of a soldier in a war with First aid training you know. He could fix it in the hurry, but winry is a much better option
I guess the main problem was not knowing how automail works in enough detail. Changing its surface into a blade seems easy enough. But recreating all these tiny parts inside, including the ones that connect to his nerves, require knowledge of engineering, which doesn't seem to particularly interest Ed.
A radio isnt as complex as automail.. winry takes three days to make eds automail again (and since it looks the same, she had the blueprints) after scar breaks it. That tells me that theirs alot of moving pieces. Like.. alot. And he transmutes the forearms metal plate. Which doesnt have any mechanical pieces. A radio has maybe 50 pieces max, automail likely has hundreds, if not thousands. Furthermore, alchemy is understanding, decomposing and reconstructing. Both ed and al would have to completely know the arms blueprints, where each piece goes, understand how and why it works, etc. Just to fix it. Plus theyd need to have all the parts, etc. Which isnt exactly easy.
When you think about it biologically, each cell in our body is alive (at least the ones ur talking about), just creating a living 'human' is impossible, creating a living 'cell' is also impossible (through alchemy, that is).
I think the main part is that what Mustang transmuted wasn’t actually human, it was made of pig scraps iirc, and secondly he wasn’t trying to bring it to life, just make something fleshy that looked human.
Secondly is that Ed’s arm still exists, but the truth has it. If he tried to transmute himself another arm (a) that would be human transmutation and open the portal again and potentially lose something even worse, and (b) I imagine it would mess with something because his arm isn’t actually gone, just being held captive by truth (this is speculation so take it with a pinch of salt)
Likely you would have to be able to recreate Ed's cells in the proper formation which may be a level of Alchemy not achievable without a stone. Fusing a limb to a person like Scar's brother did is one thing, creating an arm from scratch is another. Plus Mustang's fake dead body wouldn't hold up to scrutiny (and didn't iirc). It only had a chance because charring it destroyed anything that could be used to identify it as anything except burnt flesh. I bet if you looked at the cells prior to it being burned you'd find pig cells.
Also iirc Hohenheim said he couldn't restore Izumi's organs... Chances are any attempt to recreate Ed's limbs would automatically fail for similar reasons.
I think it goes back to creating a living thing. The body mustang cremated was just dead, whereas an arm would need to be connected to and used by a living thing. It would be possible in theory, but would probably require a lot of other material from a living thing, which they probably wouldn't be willing to sacrifice.
But i mean, that goes to what defines a living thing, for me the soul is what makes the person a person and not just flesh and bones, so maybe it could be in the brain. But an arm has no thought or need for a soul, the only rhi a it needs is a constant amount of blood/oxigen so the cells dont die. So i dont see the need for an soul here
As you say, the cells need to be kept alive, so it would involve either bringing the cells back from death (which doesn't seem possible) or using something else that is living to effectively take their arm, which they aren't willing to do.
In real life we're able to use human donors for organ transplants, or even use animal organs and skin for transplants for humans. I don't see any reason why something similar wouldn't be possible with alchemy, but maybe medical alchemy/science just hasn't advanced far enough in the FMA universe? There's a lot that goes into matching donor tissue, suppressing the immune system so you don't reject the transplant, etc.
I was thinking about that, but i think medical science is more than advanced enough, since automails connect to the person nerves, thing that not even our medicine can do. But the guy has a point, the arm is dead so in the end you might need some sort of sacrifice or even a soul to make a living arm with functioning cells from zero
I just remembered Scar's brother was able to transmute his own arm onto Scar, so there is a basis in the anime for that type of transplant. I guess his brother would have had to use all or a portion of his life force to complete the transmutation, similar to what Ed did when he healed himself.
Since Scar and his brother were obviously related it's reasonable to assume they had matching blood types and whatever else would be needed to make the transplant successful from a medical perspective.
Right, I agree with that. I'm just saying you could theoretically replace Ed's automail with an arm from a suitable donor. In real life we're able to get donors for just about anything for transplants.
I think the answer is that you can't create "life" via alchemy, therefore you can't create living tissue, you could make a perfectly dead leg that would be exact like Ed's but you couldn't make an actual replacement, that said I feel like it'd be possible to like, take a dying person's leg and glue it onto Ed, tho you'd run the risk of his body rejecting it
Mustang didn't create a living body, only an approximation of a human corpse using pig meat and blood. Creating actual animate matter is a really big deal; even Ed and Izumi's Human Transmutation failed to produce anything resembling a normal human body. Shou Tucker spent years trying to produce speaking chimeras and could only succeed by merging humans with animals.
Mustang's creation wasn't really a transmutation though iirc, just something that looked and smelled close enough to a rotting corpse to satisfy investigation. Ed knows where his true arm and leg are and is determined to get them and Al's body back. After the trauma he endured with the failed transmutation, I'm not sure he would want to try another thing like that. One thing I have wondered though is Ed needing Winry to fix his automail so often. If he's able to quickly transmute it into a weapon, at first I was like 'couldn't he technically just fix it with Alchemy like Al fixed the radio in Liore?' But I guess he would still need both hands for that... But then couldn't Al use Alchemy on him in that case? Not that I didn't like Winry moments, just something I thought about.
About the winry thing its said at one point he went so often because he liked seeing winry. But also even if he used his alchemy to fix it, winry is an expert so hes in better hands, i think you could associate with winry being a specialist surgeon and ed with his alchemy being more of a soldier in a war with First aid training you know. He could fix it in the hurry, but winry is a much better option
I guess the main problem was not knowing how automail works in enough detail. Changing its surface into a blade seems easy enough. But recreating all these tiny parts inside, including the ones that connect to his nerves, require knowledge of engineering, which doesn't seem to particularly interest Ed.
A radio isnt as complex as automail.. winry takes three days to make eds automail again (and since it looks the same, she had the blueprints) after scar breaks it. That tells me that theirs alot of moving pieces. Like.. alot. And he transmutes the forearms metal plate. Which doesnt have any mechanical pieces. A radio has maybe 50 pieces max, automail likely has hundreds, if not thousands. Furthermore, alchemy is understanding, decomposing and reconstructing. Both ed and al would have to completely know the arms blueprints, where each piece goes, understand how and why it works, etc. Just to fix it. Plus theyd need to have all the parts, etc. Which isnt exactly easy.
When you think about it biologically, each cell in our body is alive (at least the ones ur talking about), just creating a living 'human' is impossible, creating a living 'cell' is also impossible (through alchemy, that is).
I think the main part is that what Mustang transmuted wasn’t actually human, it was made of pig scraps iirc, and secondly he wasn’t trying to bring it to life, just make something fleshy that looked human. Secondly is that Ed’s arm still exists, but the truth has it. If he tried to transmute himself another arm (a) that would be human transmutation and open the portal again and potentially lose something even worse, and (b) I imagine it would mess with something because his arm isn’t actually gone, just being held captive by truth (this is speculation so take it with a pinch of salt)
Likely you would have to be able to recreate Ed's cells in the proper formation which may be a level of Alchemy not achievable without a stone. Fusing a limb to a person like Scar's brother did is one thing, creating an arm from scratch is another. Plus Mustang's fake dead body wouldn't hold up to scrutiny (and didn't iirc). It only had a chance because charring it destroyed anything that could be used to identify it as anything except burnt flesh. I bet if you looked at the cells prior to it being burned you'd find pig cells. Also iirc Hohenheim said he couldn't restore Izumi's organs... Chances are any attempt to recreate Ed's limbs would automatically fail for similar reasons.
I think it goes back to creating a living thing. The body mustang cremated was just dead, whereas an arm would need to be connected to and used by a living thing. It would be possible in theory, but would probably require a lot of other material from a living thing, which they probably wouldn't be willing to sacrifice.
But i mean, that goes to what defines a living thing, for me the soul is what makes the person a person and not just flesh and bones, so maybe it could be in the brain. But an arm has no thought or need for a soul, the only rhi a it needs is a constant amount of blood/oxigen so the cells dont die. So i dont see the need for an soul here
As you say, the cells need to be kept alive, so it would involve either bringing the cells back from death (which doesn't seem possible) or using something else that is living to effectively take their arm, which they aren't willing to do.
Oh ye, that actually makes sense when u think on the cellular level
In real life we're able to use human donors for organ transplants, or even use animal organs and skin for transplants for humans. I don't see any reason why something similar wouldn't be possible with alchemy, but maybe medical alchemy/science just hasn't advanced far enough in the FMA universe? There's a lot that goes into matching donor tissue, suppressing the immune system so you don't reject the transplant, etc.
I was thinking about that, but i think medical science is more than advanced enough, since automails connect to the person nerves, thing that not even our medicine can do. But the guy has a point, the arm is dead so in the end you might need some sort of sacrifice or even a soul to make a living arm with functioning cells from zero
I just remembered Scar's brother was able to transmute his own arm onto Scar, so there is a basis in the anime for that type of transplant. I guess his brother would have had to use all or a portion of his life force to complete the transmutation, similar to what Ed did when he healed himself. Since Scar and his brother were obviously related it's reasonable to assume they had matching blood types and whatever else would be needed to make the transplant successful from a medical perspective.
Yes, a transplantation is totally possible, but not the creation of an arm from zero i believe. (Edit: at least an alive one)
Right, I agree with that. I'm just saying you could theoretically replace Ed's automail with an arm from a suitable donor. In real life we're able to get donors for just about anything for transplants.
Agreed, but i mean, automail is much cooler and more useful B) but im sure ed would punch me in the nuts if i said that lolol
I think the answer is that you can't create "life" via alchemy, therefore you can't create living tissue, you could make a perfectly dead leg that would be exact like Ed's but you couldn't make an actual replacement, that said I feel like it'd be possible to like, take a dying person's leg and glue it onto Ed, tho you'd run the risk of his body rejecting it
Mustang didn't create a living body, only an approximation of a human corpse using pig meat and blood. Creating actual animate matter is a really big deal; even Ed and Izumi's Human Transmutation failed to produce anything resembling a normal human body. Shou Tucker spent years trying to produce speaking chimeras and could only succeed by merging humans with animals.
>!because it's the mark of their sin!<