VAN HOHENHEIM SPOILER!
VH
The brothers' father. Left Resembool when they were small. Appears in photographs that should not exist given when they were taken. Brotherhood's version of Hohenheim is entirely different from the 2003 anime and considerably more developed. He is connected to the ancient civilization of Xerxes, to the original Homunculus, and to a history that predates everything the series puts on the table. What he carries and what he has been trying to do with it for centuries is the spine the Promised Day arc is built on. The absence makes sense once the show explains it. The explanation takes a while and earns every episode it needs.
VAN THROUGH THE ARCHIVE //
BROTHERHOOD COMBAT LEDGER //
Open page →Central Command Subterranean Core · Strategic Draw / Counter-Trap Set
Van Hohenheim confronted his original "twin" Father beneath Central Command, attempting to destroy Father using his own Philosopher's Stone souls. Father attempted to drain Hohenheim's body and stone core completely.
The Breakdown
Hohenheim revealed he had spent centuries conversing individually with all 536,329 souls inside his body, gaining their conscious cooperation. The souls infiltrated Father's physical shell from within, breaking Father's body-holding matrix and forcing Father to shed his human form.
STORY & ARC GUIDE //
Open page →Episodes 36–40
Hohenheim is revealed as the surviving human counterpart to Father's origin, carrying souls from Xerxes inside himself.
Unlike Father, he has spent centuries recognizing those souls as people and preparing a countermeasure for the day Father repeats Xerxes on a national scale.
Unlike Father, he has spent centuries recognizing those souls as people and preparing a countermeasure for the day Father repeats Xerxes on a national scale.
Why it matters
The absent father Ed resents turns out to have left his family because the catastrophe that created him was finally approaching them again.
Episodes 58–59
Father needs five people who have opened the Gate. Edward, Alphonse, Izumi and Hohenheim are already part of the plan; Mustang is forced through human transmutation so the required fifth sacrifice exists on schedule.
What changed
The taboo the heroes chose to break in the past becomes a qualification Father can exploit in the present. Even refusing human transmutation is not enough when Pride and Wrath can force the doorway open.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE //
Open page →Episode 40 · the original national transmutation
The Dwarf in the Flask manipulates the king of Xerxes into activating a nationwide transmutation that sacrifices the population.
Hohenheim and the Dwarf survive carrying enormous reservoirs of those souls.
Hohenheim and the Dwarf survive carrying enormous reservoirs of those souls.
Why it matters
The Promised Day is repetition. Father has already proven that a country can be converted into alchemical power once before.
Centuries of preparation
Father treats the souls inside a Philosopher's Stone as a power supply. Hohenheim spends centuries recognizing the individuals inside himself and speaking with them.
That relationship is what makes his national countermeasure possible: the souls cooperate rather than being spent anonymously.
That relationship is what makes his national countermeasure possible: the souls cooperate rather than being spent anonymously.
Why it matters
Brotherhood's argument about souls is not only that human life has value. It is that reducing many people into one resource does not actually make them stop being people.
THE PROMISED DAY //
Open page →Prepared across the country over centuries
Hohenheim has spent centuries communicating with the souls inside his Philosopher's Stone body and placing portions of that power around Amestris.
When Father activates the national transmutation, Hohenheim's countermeasure reverses the mass extraction and returns the population's souls to their bodies.
When Father activates the national transmutation, Hohenheim's countermeasure reverses the mass extraction and returns the population's souls to their bodies.
Why it matters
Hohenheim defeats Father's first victory using the thing that most separates them. Father treats souls as fuel. Hohenheim learned their names, spoke to them and acts with their cooperation.
Ed · Al · Izumi · Hohenheim · Mustang
Father needs five people with a connection to the Gate.
Edward, Alphonse and Izumi opened it through human transmutation. Hohenheim's existence is bound to the Xerxes transmutation that created Father's present form. Mustang is the missing piece, so Pride and Wrath force him through a human transmutation against his will.
Edward, Alphonse and Izumi opened it through human transmutation. Hohenheim's existence is bound to the Xerxes transmutation that created Father's present form. Mustang is the missing piece, so Pride and Wrath force him through a human transmutation against his will.
Why it matters
Father cannot simply choose five powerful alchemists. The Gate experience is the qualification, which turns the heroes' past mistakes into infrastructure for somebody else's plan.
FATHER & HOMUNCULI //
Open page →Xerxes · Hohenheim · a being trying to escape every limit
Father begins as the Dwarf in the Flask, a small artificial being created from the blood of the slave who will become Van Hohenheim.
He teaches the people around him enough to make himself useful, then exploits the king of Xerxes' desire for immortality. The nationwide transmutation in Xerxes destroys the population and leaves both Hohenheim and the Dwarf carrying vast numbers of human souls.
Father uses that power to create a body resembling Hohenheim and eventually builds Amestris around an even larger version of the same idea.
He teaches the people around him enough to make himself useful, then exploits the king of Xerxes' desire for immortality. The nationwide transmutation in Xerxes destroys the population and leaves both Hohenheim and the Dwarf carrying vast numbers of human souls.
Father uses that power to create a body resembling Hohenheim and eventually builds Amestris around an even larger version of the same idea.
Why it matters
Father's final plan is not a sudden supervillain upgrade. Brotherhood reveals that he has been repeating the same answer for centuries: when a boundary exists, spend other human lives to move himself beyond it.
XERXES, HOHENHEIM & FATHER //
Open page →The resemblance is not a family relationship. The being later called Father began as the Dwarf in the Flask, created from the blood of a nameless slave who would become Van Hohenheim.
When the Dwarf later constructs a human body for itself, it uses Hohenheim's appearance.
When the Dwarf later constructs a human body for itself, it uses Hohenheim's appearance.
Why it matters
Brotherhood turns the visual similarity into history. Father is not Hohenheim's brother or alternate self; he is a created being that used Hohenheim as both source material and model.
Before immortality, Hohenheim is a slave known only by a number. The Dwarf in the Flask teaches him literacy and alchemy and gives him a name.
That relationship matters because Father begins by offering Hohenheim personhood while remaining physically trapped inside glass.
That relationship matters because Father begins by offering Hohenheim personhood while remaining physically trapped inside glass.
Why it matters
Their later opposition is not between strangers. Hohenheim's education and Father's freedom begin in the same relationship.
When the array activates, the population of Xerxes is sacrificed. The souls are divided between Hohenheim and the Dwarf, giving both human-shaped bodies that function as enormous Philosopher's Stones.
The Dwarf uses Hohenheim's blood and appearance to create the body that will later be known as Father.
The Dwarf uses Hohenheim's blood and appearance to create the body that will later be known as Father.
What changed
Hohenheim survives the catastrophe without choosing it. Immortality arrives as mass death he has to carry inside himself.
Hohenheim initially experiences the people inside him as an unbearable chorus. Over centuries he learns their names and speaks with them individually.
Father takes the opposite path. He treats the souls inside a Stone as power to be counted, spent and replenished.
Father takes the opposite path. He treats the souls inside a Stone as power to be counted, spent and replenished.
Why it matters
Their central difference is not that one possesses human souls and the other does not. It is whether those souls remain people.
Hohenheim travels through Amestris placing portions of the Philosopher's Stone within him at calculated points around the country. The preparation forms a countermeasure to Father's national array.
He can do this because the souls cooperate with him.
He can do this because the souls cooperate with him.
Why it matters
The same resource that made Xerxes possible becomes the mechanism for undoing Father's first victory on the Promised Day.
Hohenheim spends most of his life trying to undo consequences he never asked for and preparing himself to die once the souls inside him are finally exhausted.
His final return to Resembool is small on purpose. After centuries of alchemy, nations and immortality, what he wanted was the ordinary human life the Dwarf once helped him imagine.
His final return to Resembool is small on purpose. After centuries of alchemy, nations and immortality, what he wanted was the ordinary human life the Dwarf once helped him imagine.
Why it matters
Father keeps expanding the scale of what he wants. Hohenheim's arc moves in the opposite direction.
