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Father VS Dante - Analyzing the Villains of Fullmetal Alchemist

978K views · Aug 8, 2020 · Gaming

Lowart

208K subscribers

Comments · 2K

@Lowart · 6 years ago · pinned
Sorry for the long wait on this one. To be honest, this video isn't as long as I would have liked after such a lengthy wait, but after some consideration I moved a good amount of content from this video to a later video in the series.  While I don't want to give a date for the release of the next FMA video, I'm confident in saying that the wait won't be as long as the wait from the homunculi video to this one (multiple months). Either way, I hope you enjoy what's here. Thanks for watching, and I hope you have a great day :)
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@thankyounext365 · 6 years ago
I think the fact Father was a mirror of Van Hohenheim made him much more unsettling as a character.
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@stelliana_vkei · 6 years ago (edited)
Everyone in this comment section could be an author...writing whole paragraphs…
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@mafeuk07 · 6 years ago
Even though I consider Brotherhood the superior adaptation, I think the idea of the homunculi as a consequence for trying to play god is more fitting than some black goo that hates humans. Also Lyra is cuter than Father.
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@tripkings547 · 6 years ago
Dante represents denial and cognitive dissonance. She tells Ed straight up equalvant exchange is a lie. He reflexively denies this parroting off his childhood lesson. But once she says "equal effort does not always mean equal gain" if you look at Ed's face, his expression is priceless, like in spite in believing, he has some doubt. Dante proceeds bring up example after example of clear unrewarded effort, and Ed has no rebuttal. The brilliant irony of this is this mirrors the first episode where Ed was talking down to Rose, lording his science and alchemy over Roses "pointless" and "irrational" beliefs in a god she couldn't see and all her actions were in based on her belief like a puppet. Yet here Ed is talking to Dante, thinking he was following the truth, when like Rose, was only following a flawed belief, having absolutely nothing to say. Just denial. This is made even worse because his father shows him, scientifically, that equivalent exchange still requires extra energy to change the matter and is therefore not "equivalent". And even having this explained to him pedantically and in detail, he walks away from that still believing in equivalent exchange. Even in the last episode, still parroting off equivalent exchange this. Equivalent exchange that. It mirrors Rose finding out that Father Cornello was a fraud. She could not let her belief go. She had invested too much of herself in the belief for it to be false, dispute all evidence against it. It couldn't be wrong as that would mean she wasted all that time believing. Sunk cost fallacy. And Ed fell for it just like Rose did. His God was just called equivalent exchange. A Rose by any other name is just as sweet. Ironic really. The whole series was Ed attempting to come to terms with this belief and it's contradictions. Ed accepted early on "a life is not worth a life," yet still believed in "equivalence". How does he reconcile these 2 contradictory beliefs? Denial. Dante is just like this. She rationalized mass genocide was justfied to prevent mankind from destroying itself. Yet this was an excuse to hide from herself that she is simply scared of death. She needed to frame genocide as virtue, so she can live forever. There's a good reason... but then there's a reason. She was suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance. Denial.
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@jaimepe4765 · 5 years ago
Let's not forget Dante gets one of the coolest and most haunting melodies in the series.
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@taproot4287 · 4 years ago
Father and Dante are very similar characters in certain ways.   1. They both seek to use the philosopher's stone at the cost of countless lives to become more than what they are. 2. They both take advantage of the homunculi and never think of the possibility that their motives and emotions will conflict with the plan. This ultimately leads to their downfall when they are destroyed by a homunculus. 3. They both have a certain pride in themselves  (despite one trying to remove it) and think that they are above humans. They see life as a resource. 4. They both create a philosopher's stone with Hoenhiem. 5.  Both take a form that isn't their own.
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@kriitikko · 6 years ago
Back when I first watched FMA03 I thought Dante as a rather boring main villain, but after re-watching the show couple more times, and falling in love with it even more over time, I actually think she's a pretty terrifying villain. Her parasitic nature of literally stealing lives and bodies of others makes my skin crawl. And I think her real motivation of destroying civilizations isn't doing humanity a favor as she claims, but just to stay alive. It's a simple motive but also very relatable and human. All in all, I now think Dante is one of the most underrated anime villains I've come across.
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@brandynlovett4054 · 6 years ago
Villains Wiki described Dante's true form as only ever being shown in flashbacks and that "the old lady and Lyra are just victims" what really got me their was "the old lady" part. We don't even know who she is and what's hiding behind that face is actually an evil soul, almost as if Dante is masquerading as a corpse. That's what makes her so terrifying.
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@hinata1ize · 6 years ago (edited)
Thinking of every humonculi other than Lust and Sloth in Brotherhood, the idea that Father wanted a family and to be able to make connections is believable. Greed's ultimate wish, Pride's love (if you can call it that) for his mother, Wrath's love for his wife, Envy's jealousy of the connection of the main cast, and Gluttony's love for Lust. I doubt he could handle that and viewed all those emotions as limitations and began shedding his sins. In doing so, he lost any chance of understanding all is one and one is all. I also like the execution of Father's attempt to transcend and the line about how he just wants to get out of his flask when Hohenheim asks what his wish is. Dante, on the other hand, was just too creepy to me (mostly bc of the thing with Ed bc otherwise she was the right amount of creepy) and seemed less above those limitations than she claimed to be. When Father compared humans to insects, it felt more justified. However, that's only bc Dante is just a human, so her looking down on humanity just felt petualant to me. I actually do like Dante in the original though, and I'm glad the anime got past the manga bc the whole different angle of the show was great to me. I found Dante compelling, but I have a bit of a peeve about human character pretending they are above humanity. As you can probably tell, I prefer Father.
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@thedestroyer3471 · 6 years ago
Honestly this is 100 percent the most unbiased comparison between the 2 shows on youtube  where you can tell with other youtubers that they clearly have a bias towards one show and just want to put down the other you can tell lowart is truly passionate about both and just wants to share what he finds to be so great in both shows while also pointing out the flaws he finds in both.
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@tommcburney301 · 4 years ago
I'm surprised that there aren't many female anime main antagonists like Dante in recent media. Even though she is a scripted villain she still stands as one the best underrated anime villains of the early 21st century.
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