

why did he have to rely on Ed to mend his armor? Did they not have the same
abilities more or less?


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2019-12-24T18:11:09.517
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2020-01-11T06:33:35.737
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question
fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood
Why couldn't Alphonse Elric fix his own armor?


**The blood rune binding Alphonse's soul to the armour is too fragile to be
handled by anyone other than Edward**

In Ch. 10, No. 48 "Slicer" explains to Ed how the blood rune functions

[![Slicer
Explains](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fRbX1.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fRbX1.png)

Basically, the blood of the rune links to the soul and the iron in the blood
anchors the soul to the armour. Since the armour is made of iron it stands to
reason arbitrarily fixing the armour with alchemy is dangerous as it might
harm the blood rune and cause Al to unbind from the armour. We see with the
death's of Slicer in Ch. 13 and No. 66 "Barry the Chopper" in Ch. 39 (depicted
below) that the rune is incredibly fragile

[![Barry the
chopper](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vSdfp.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vSdfp.png)

Just a scratch in the rune was all that was needed to kill Barry so it's not
hard to imagine the consequences of accidentally warping the rune when
transmuting. Theoretically Al can draw himself a transmutation circle when an
arm comes off after the battle with Lust but likely did not want to risk it.
In Ch. 7 after the brothers' first encounter with Scar in which Ed's arm gets
destroyed and Al loses an arm + a leg Ed says he's the only one capable of
handling repairs to the armour

[![Alphonse
armour](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSra1.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DSra1.png)

In terms of if the brothers alchemical abilities are the same, the answer is:
not to begin with. At the start of the series Al doesn't remember seeing
"Truth" which is the requirement to be able to transmute without a
transmutation circle by clapping your hands together. Until he does, Al still
has to draw transmutation circles to use alchemy. He only regains his memories
of the "Truth" when Martel's blood splashes onto the blood rune during the
Furher's raid on Greed's hideout in Ch. 30. The reason this restores his
memories is unclear, whether this "completes" the rune or it just shocks the
memories back is never elaborated on. Even after Al regains his memories of
the "Truth" though he still relies on Edward to fix the armour as it's safest
to let the person who crafted the rune to handle the armour. Especially when
the rest of the armour needs to be thinned to compensate for the bits that are
completely gone.

[![Repairs](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BazJu.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BazJu.png)


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2019-12-28T00:13:43.850
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answer


It may be metal but it was his own body connected to soul. To repair it
something of equal value must have required for him to repair it like another
persons body. But for edward and others its just piece of metal so he can
repair it easily.


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answer