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So, to my understanding, the idea of alchemy is equivalent exchange, in which
you get in return as much as you gave.

This doesn't make sense to me, as in the beginning when they tried to
transmute their mother back, Alphonse lost everything, and Edward lost his
leg. They didn't get anything in return, or at least anything worth of a soul
and a body. After this Edward transmuted his arm to get Alphonse back.

So, put in a calculation:

Things lost

  * Random piled ingredients which were supposed to compose the average human
  * Alphonse's body
  * Alphonse's soul
  * Edward's arm
  * Edward's leg

Things gained

  * A blob of purple stuff with Alphonse's soul affixed to it ( for a while )
  * Alphonse's soul

So, where the hell did the rest of the stuff go? And more importantly, why
could they not just have transmuted everything back?


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fullmetal-alchemist-series
When Edward and Alphonse try to transmute their mother, how come they didn't gain anything?


Here's an analogy for you

Suppose you are cooking, and you're making a dish that uses a lot of expensive
ingredients.

Suppose you royally screw up, and make something completely inedible.

The ingredients are still gone. Even though you've ended up with something
unusable, the things that you've put into it don't come back.

That's what happened here. Just because they didn't end up with anything
useful didn't mean that it would cost them any less.


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**_Unmarked spoilers for both_ Brotherhood _and the 2003 series follow._**

You're missing a key bit of information: they _did_ gain something for their
loss[1], just as Izumi did.

The boys gained the knowledge of what was beyond the gate. Unparalleled truths
of alchemy reside beyond the gate, and no mortals are ever allowed access to
it--unless they commit the taboo.[2]

Both Edward and Alphonse were shoved through the gate and absorbed as much
material as they could from it, Edward even wanting to go back to get more. In
the 2003 series, Alphonse never recalls this, though in _Brotherhood_ , he
recalls it after having blood spilled on his seal. Ed remembers it from the
beginning, and this knowledge is what allows him (and later, Alphonse) to
transmute without a circle.

The reason they couldn't just transmute everything back is because they had
already committed the sin. If you steal something, and are caught, but then
give it back, do the police let you go? No; and this is also the way of The
Truth. Performing the sin is the punishable act; transmuting it back would be
futile.

**1**   Keep in mind that by the end of the series (at least in _Brotherhood_
's case, original _FMA_ was not as forgiving), much of what was lost is
regained through further equivalent exchanges.  
**2**   It's a bit more complicated than this, but it will suffice for this
explanation.


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I think Ed was able to get Al's soul back because it was never taken by the
gate. The gate took Al's body but not his mind and soul. Those where left
standing in front of the gate or the void. Ed learned from the gate that if he
acted quick enough he could get them back. So he used his right arm as
material to summon the gate. At witch time he got Al's mind and soul back and
affixed it to the aromor via the blood seal. Had the gate taken his soul Ed
wouldn't have been able to get it back because there is nothing you can trade
for a soul not even another soul. Thats why you cant bring dead people back to
life. 2003 anime.


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Let me try to explain this better. Think of the gate as god. When you die the
gate reclaimes your mind, body and soul.

Since the mind and soul are completely unique, there's nothing you can trade
for them. So you can't bring someone who has died back to life.

When Ed and Al tried to bring their mom back, they preformed human
transmutation which automatically summons the "gate of god". Since the human
body is composed of simple elements they got their mom's body back via the
pile of stuff they poured in the bowl, but it was a soulless and mindless body
so it didn't take a human form.

That is, until Dante feeds it pieces of incomplete philosophers stone which
contain souls.

The gate also gave them knowledge of alchemy. Ed got a little for his left
leg, and Al got a lot for his whole body. Al just can't remember any of it
until much later. But the gate didn't take Al's soul or mind, it left those
sitting in front of the gate.

Ed used the knowledge he got from the gate and his right arm "human
transmutation" as material to summon the gate, where for his arm he got a
little more knowledge and since Al's mind and soul were not in the gate he got
those back for free in the process. Where he affixed it the the armour via the
blood seal.

On a side note, Ed will never get his limbs back because the homunculus Wrath
took them for himself and left the gate with them. So unless Ed can get wrath
to give them back to the gate, Ed will never get his true arm and leg back.

This is going off of the 2003 anime. Just my personal theory


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They did gain something, though it cost them a bit more. See while the
materials were enough in theory to remake a human body, it might not have been
enough to construct it. So it took their bodies to help with the construction.

What you gotta remember is they did get what they wanted. Their mother, at
least in the 2003 version. In Brotherhood, it's never revealed who it was they
really brought back. So in either case, they did gain the body they tried to
revive. In the '03 version, Alphonse did not gain anything because he lost his
body, so Edward was the one to gain from the transmutation, and when he
transmutated his leg, he gained back Al's soul, since it was still being taken
by the gate. Maybe souls take longer to breakdown, so he was able to pull it
back, and anchor it to the armor. So, that's what Ed gained for that
transmutation.

In Brotherhood, it's the same, the boys did get something from the human
transmutation, but in this case, they got two things each. The creature from
the chemicals they'd used, and the Truth. But what they learned, probably
can't be measured in what they gave up. Since Alphonse was so young and eager
to grow up, that could be why he lost his body. And since Edward was so proud
of his Alchemy that he'd stand against life to gain back his mother, he lost
his leg, and maybe to be ironic, the truth took the last of his family since
he opposed Trisha's death so much. (those were just my thoughts there) In the
end, both boys received the Truth as recompense for their bodies being lost,
but it's hard to say if Al gained more or not, since you can't really measure
what he lost in measure to what he gained, which he didn't really get until
later on.

Or maybe everything I said sounds like nonsense, either way, hoped this
helped.


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In Brotherhood, it's alluded to in Episode 14 that Alphonse's soul was within
the body that he and Edward had created in an attempt to bring back their
mother. Essentially, Alphonse lost his body to properly construct a new body
(which was deformed because it didn't really have all the elements that make
up a human) and Edward lost his leg in order to transmute Alphonse's soul into
that new body... and then Edward lost his arm to transmute Alphonse's soul
before the deformed new body completely died, transferring it over to a suit
of armor.

None of this is explained properly because you're meant to come to your own
conclusions via context clues and theorycrafting. It's the mark of a good
story when people actually care so much about the protagonists' backstory.


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They did gain something. The fact remains the thing they get it was not in the
exact form they wanted. "Sometimes not everything is in our hands", that is
what the author's main idea was.


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