It was hard for me to digest that Greed died, indeed, but he did with a bang of glory.

Out of all the homuncüli, Greed's the one who grew-up wiser and the most. His contact with both Ling and Ed played a key role for his character's development. To learn to treasure true things that was able to feel and touch at the end, the value of friends who watched over and mourned for him.

Believe me that my heart, metaphorically speaking, melt witnessing Greed's last moments as Ed, Lan-Fan, and Ling nearly broke down and cried for him.

No doubt, he'll be remembered and honored, specially the most by Ling.

It isn't easy to forget about the person whom you shared your body from within for a tiny piece of time in your life.

As I discussed in the manga thread, I felt glad that Father wasn't conceived as the stereotypical villain of the shounen universe, and I'm glad he ended with what he sowed.

Unlike villains like Hao Asakura and Aeon, whom for the most part in their respective series dealt a lot of damage and humilliation to the protagonists while remaining untoucheable for most of the story until receiving a very anti-climatic death at the last confrontation or other villains like, for example, Aizen Sosuke or Priscilla, who are godly overwhelming that they completely control the battle and leave no chance of triumph for the protagonists, Father was dealt with despair and frustration gradually until it was conquered by the collective will of all the participants deposited and entrusted within Ed's decisive punch.

Like the "Truth" pointed to Father, it did not believe in itself right from the start, so hence how could Father believed in possessing the "Truth", if it didn't grow or learned from its own mistakes.

Father ruined and stole lives to get stronger, hence, it selfishly relied on escaping the Truth by sacrificing the countless human lives it despicably and indifferently crushed.

For me the decisive moment that hammered the last nail on the coffin was for the "Truth" replying back at Father the same words it delivered to the Alchemists before absorbing the "Truth": You cannot handle the truth because it delivers the despair you're sowing to prevent you humans from getting too conceited."

This statement clearly defines that Father was never different from the humanity it much treated like garbage too nonchalantly, and like humans Father became too full of itself, unawared of the countless amount of despair it built-up and refused to confront face-to-face.

At the end, Father was imprisoned within its own despair not because the "Truth" chastised or punished it, but because Father orchestrated its own doom and did not want to acknowledge it was mistaken; Father earned despair itself, it reaped what it sowed.
Everyone has a Gate of Truth from within, therefore, the Gate of Truth that swallowed Father whole was its own: the despair it tried to avert or escape from.

However, I did not like how Hohenheim was depicted showing pity or sympathy to Father for doing what it did, in order not to become a pawn to the will of a higher Conscience.
I'm positively sure that when Father is defeated for real and last in the manga there's no feeling of sympathy and pity exuding from the reasons that led to Father's doom.

Father neither has nor gets any pity and sympathy from me, because it did not regret or reflected, at the least, for what it did. Period.

Before the last manga chapter got released, every fan from the FMA community speculated and delivered theories about the countless possibilities for Ed to bring Al back.

Arakawa-sensei made it clear in the story from the start that the two siblings abided to a code of principles stemmed from the consequences of their failed transmutation: They'll never ever use other peoples' lives to get their bodies back.

Hohenheim's pleading Ed to use his last remaining life to bring Al back had the most emotional impact in the sense that inflicted upon Ed a heartbreak wound.
That's because Hohenheim admitted and faced himself the fault for leaving his family alone and in need that drove the two boys to commit that sin.
When Ed in tears summoned the courage out of frustation at calling Hohenheim a "good-for-nothing dad", that's when Ed finally saw Hohenheim as his Father, and the lad would not have been able to cope with Al's suffering realizing that Al wouldn't have been able to see his Father once again in live flesh again.

The other principle that sticked to Ed's true character was for him rejecting the other option of sacrificing himself to get Al back, because that will put Al to a permanent state of loneliness and misery, which the two of them felt before when their mother died.

It was finally upon hitting the bottom of despair, that Ed realized that the answer was in front of him right from the start.

Returning to the Gate and confronting the "Truth", Ed sacrificed his Gate of Truth as the toll to bring Al back. There was nothing else for Ed to lose, because he learned from the mistakes he did in the past. He grew-up from his pride and saw for himself that there were other precious things in the world waiting for both him and Al, and those were his friends, all the people he and Al met in their journey, waiting for their comeback. In other words, the world that they made together.

That was the correct answer. In the manga, I felt that upon giving the correct answer to the "Truth", the "Truth" smiled back at Ed as to mean all that time the "Truth" waited and hoped for Ed to reach that conclusion; like encouraging to handle the truth on his own and by himself and then moving on.

With the right answer and the sacrifice paid, the Truth allowed for Ed to pick-up Al, and the two brothers exited through the "back door". The "Truth" refers to the back door as Al's Gate of Truth.

RIP Hoenheim.May your souls will live forever (!?)

:mad:SEE YOU IN THE HELL. LOUSY FLASK.:mad: