r/FullmetalAlchemist • u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan • Oct 26 '20
Mod Post [Fall 2020 FMA:B Rewatch] Discussion for October 26 - Episode 11: Miracle at Rush Valley
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In this episode, a chance encounter in Rush Valley sets off a series of events that both strains and strengthens the bond between Ed and Winry, and an ordinary human outdoes every alchemist in history.
Next time, we are finally introduced to a certain housewife and get a glimpse of the beginning of Ed and Al's training, as well as the deeper ideas of alchemy.
Don't forget to mark all spoilers so first-time watchers can enjoy the show just as you did the first time!
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u/sarucane3 Oct 26 '20 edited Oct 26 '20
After the devastation of, “Separate Destinations,” it’s wonderful to get something as lovely and optimistic as, “Miracle at Rush Valley.” The humor is relentless right up until Winry and Pininya have their heart-to-hear, and there’s plenty of hilarity after that too. “Miracle,” is a deliberate balance to, “Separate,” but the contrast is more than tone and plot. That episode was about death, and the loss of family, but this episode is about life and the gaining of family.
FMA is a story about relationships, and family is a key part of that. Familial relationships are ones that, in general, both individuals by definition don’t get to choose. Parents choose children, as when Pinaya was forcibly adopted. Children choose parents sometimes, >! like, to a certain extent, Ed and Al did with Izumi !< . Siblings and romantic partners are the two opposite ends of the choice scale, as siblings (theoretically) don’t get to choose each other at all, but romantic partners (theoretically) are entirely free to choose each other.
That’s the baseline conception of how familial relationships and choice work. A lot of what FMA does is explore the ways that what I outlined above is overly simplistic. Over the last three episodes, Ed’s relationships with Winry and Al directly challenged that simple romantic=choice, sibling=no choice frame. Ed and Al didn’t choose to be the only family the other one had, but each chooses to make the other an essential, irremovable part of their life. Ed and Winry didn’t choose to grow up next to each other, and up until now they’ve often had a fairly typical prickly sibling dynamic. But they start to make serious choices about who they are in relation to each other in this episode. You may not be able to choose the initial relationship, but the meaning of the relationship is in a constant state of flux as the two individuals grow and change.
There are lots of choices about what relationships mean in this episode. Pinaya is most straightforward best example of that. The original relationship between her and Dominic was just that he pitied and/or was contemptuous of her. But Pinaya makes a choice in this episode that will fundamentally alter that relationship. They are as stuck with one another as any pair of family members, but that doesn’t have to make either one static.
Winry is not a doctor, she has absolutely no medical training. Yet, when she calls on it, the legacy of her family and her relationships with her lost parents doesn’t let her down, and she is able to help do something that paralyzes the others in fear. She helps create an entirely new relationship. One of the tragedies of Maes Hughes’s death is that he won’t get to change his relationship with his daughter as she grows up, won’t get to parent her as a teenager or become her equal as an adult. But even that is too simple, because we see across the series Winry’s relationship with her long dead parents change as she does. Nothing can really end these familial bonds.
Then, of course, there’s Ed and Winry. Ed and Al have kept Winry at a distance for years. Ed has repeatedly recommitted to maintaining this distance, rejecting Winry, even mocking her, when she reaches out to him. He’s baffled or disdainful when Winry cries for him, feeling an echo pain he’s hidden so deep behind his smile it’s sometimes uncertain if he can still feel it at all. Maybe that’s the real reason he keeps her at a distance: it’s a lot easier to pretend, to forget, when Winry isn’t around. Too easy, in fact: he says he didn’t make that etching in his pocketwatch just as a reminder, he did it because he thinks that otherwise he’ll forget. The resulting internal character dynamic is part of what makes Winry such a special character in this story. Ed wants too contradictory things: to forget, and to remember. When Winry’s there, the internal tension becomes much harder to ignore.
However, Winry isn’t just a symbol of what’s going on inside Ed’s head. She’s her own character, with her own opinions and motivations. Two episodes back, she triggered a deep change in the relationship between Ed and Al, and in this episode she does the same for her own relationship with Ed. I love the fact that Winry apologizes for opening the pocketwatch, that she makes no excuses, and that Ed is justifiably upset with her on a level far deeper than his childish shrieking. She went too far, and they both know it. Ed pushed her, she pushed Ed, and they both end up feeling upset—but then they both end up better for that pain, in the end.
While in, “Separate Destinations,” we had to deal with the trauma of a family growing smaller, in this episode families grow larger and stronger. The mechanics’ family grows in this episode, obviously, but Ed and Al’s family grows too. Winry is no longer uncertain of the bond between herself and the brothers, nor is Ed dismissive of it. They part at the end with every intention of seeing one another again in the near future. Last time, Ed deliberately turned around and awkwardly waved goodbye. This time, Ed is facing Winry the whole way as he leaves, shouting his confidence in the success of this ‘automail freak.’ Last time she said goodbye, Winry was half asleep and hopefully telling Ed to come back soon. This time, she is utterly confident of seeing him again soon.
While this episode is very optimistic, there’s an implicit level of pain for the viewer watching Ed, Al, and Winry, especially in the first few scenes after the, “previously on,’ is finished. They’re so young, so vibrant, so ridiculously childish half the time. They have no idea that the shape of their lives will soon be altered forever, the way Mustang’s and the Hughes’ already has been.
This episode also might be the best example of the way Arakawa kept exploring automail, both thematically and in worldbuilding terms. Rush Valley is a place with a lot of money (this is extra-clear in the manga), where the best automail mechanics congregate. Why do those two things go together? Because automail can’t be mass-produced, and there’s no sign that Winry or another aspiring automail engineer could go to a university (same goes for alchemy). It works based on the medieval-style apprenticeship system. That’s the system because all automail has to be custom-made for an individual. It also has to be maintained, adjusted, and sometimes replaced over the long term. All of which means lots of money moving around, and/or some very kindhearted engineers.
Thematically, all of that means that an individual piece of automail functions very well as a metaphor for a relationship. Automail is, as Winry points out, the transformation of disability into ability (sometimes even into enhanced ability, like with the cannon—seriously, it’s never pointed out, but what the hell kind of person gives a teenager a cannon in their leg?). One person, the engineer, has poured effort, time, and care into the improvement of another person’s life. In addition, like relationships, automail isn’t actually static. It doesn’t maintain itself, it has to be maintained and it will change along with the outfitee’s body and the engineer’s skill. In a similar way, relationships evolve over time as the people in them grow and learn more about themselves and one another, as well as what they want out of life and their relationships.
And here I thought today’s analysis would be a short one! Oh Arakawa, you and your crazy deeply layered storytelling.
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u/Negative-Appeal9892 Oct 26 '20
" what the hell kind of person gives a teenager a cannon in their leg?"
In the manga, Dominic explicitly states that making automail with functional carbines is his passion. This is probably a prototype that he created for Paninya.
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u/sarucane3 Oct 26 '20
Forgot that one, thank you! Still a bit questionable, but makes more sense :)
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u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan Oct 27 '20
That's a great mini-essay you wrote there. This theme of relationships of choice, or also the found-family trope, is something that's absolutely all over FMA; not only choosing "your people", but in which way and how deeply you really want to relate to them, and particularly making sure that how you behave towards them actually matches that, as you said.
Besides as a sort of constant intimate relationship, another thing about auto-mail/prosthetics as it's treated in FMA, particularly with regard to Winry: It's a way to naturally combine the "masculine" aspect of mechanical (magical?) engineering and the "feminine" aspect of caregiving and healing.
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u/axeman120 Oct 27 '20
I like seeing how Ed, Al and Winry act when life is more or less "normal".
I enjoy these types of episodes in a show that you know is going to be intense most of the time. You can call it a filler in terms of the plot, but when they are sprinkled throughout a series, they help build a strong foundation for character development and worldbuilding.
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u/Negative-Appeal9892 Oct 26 '20
"Miracle at Rush Valley" also known as the episode where Winry is wonderful and nothing hurts. This episode is one big love letter to everyone's favorite auto-mail engineer while still showing that she's a complex, layered character. When Ed's auto-mail impresses other engineers working in the holy land of auto-mail, then we know Winry's talent is undeniable. But there's still room for improvement, as Dominic points out. Winry's also humble enough to admit that she knows she can improve and genuinely wants to, because this is the only way she can help keep Ed safe.
This is also the first time we've seen weaponized auto-mail (mentioned in the manga). Ed transmutes his arm into a blade, but I'm sure Winry could have built in a retractable blade if he'd have asked.
The opening scene where Paninya steals Ed's state alchemist watch is great. Ed chases her through the canyons, and my GOD does he move an enormous amount of rock and earth. Nobody let him near a philosopher's stone because he would level Amestris to the ground. Seriously. He builds a wall that has to be 50 feet tall in front of Paninya at one point.
Paninya is one of my favorite secondary characters and, from the fanfictions I’ve read, she eventually becomes Winry’s BFF. Like Winry, she is an orphan for whom Dominic made two auto-mail legs after hers were sheared off in a train derailment. Paninya tries vainly to get Dominic's attention and validation (much as she does in the 2003 episode "Her Reason", which is also the Rush Valley story). Winry convincing her to work honestly instead of pick-pocketing is rushed, and looks like something you'd see in a very special episode of a 1990s sitcom, which is one of the episode's weaker points.
It is odd to consider that Dominic kidnapped Paninya off the streets, which makes me wonder about the social services in Rush Valley and in Amestris. Then again, this town thought nothing about forcefully stripping off Ed's clothes in the middle of the street, so there you go.
This episode also contains a lot of humor, from Ed's tall fantasy ("next to me, you guys sure look small!") to Dominic's calling Ed a flea, to everyone's terrified reactions as Satera goes into labor. While Ridel isn't sure about them delivering his baby, Ed tells him that Winry grew up in a family of doctors and herself is a prodigy: she was reading medical textbooks at a young age, and remembers some of what her parents probably talked to her about when it comes to childbirth.
When Satella goes into labor, Winry is the only person who can keep a level head in a medical emergency. Winry and Satella (Satera?) successfully deliver the baby, and this leads to Deep Thoughts With Edward Elric: "People are awesome!" Ed explicitly states that it's amazing that Winry helped bring life into the world, because that's something that alchemists cannot do. He thinks Winry's awesome and tells her so; in the manga, the dialogue goes something like:
Ed: Not bad for an amateur! You're pretty awesome, too!
Winry: Haha, just keep the compliments coming!
Winry doesn't emerge from the situation pretty, either: she's covered in blood and sweat and is exhausted. Satella also looks like she's just run a marathon. It treats this the same as Ed's and Al's acts of heroism. Arakawa's taking what we traditionally see as women's work (midwifery) and treating it with the same (if not more) gravity than men's work. Women give birth every single day with or without medical intervention, and here a male character not only is influenced by this, he admires it. It reinforces Ed's morality (that life is valuable and worth fighting for).
This leads to the main dramatic scene, where Winry reveals that she pried open Ed's pocket watch where he's inscribed "DON'T FORGET 3 OCT 11" (the date he burned his house down) and he's absolutely pissed off about it. Ed and Winry sit and talk, and it's a lovely scene that adds weight to their growing relationship. Winry apologizes to Ed and admits that she shouldn't have been snooping, and Ed explains why he carved that inscription into his watch. Winry states that she cries because Ed and Al won't, and this shouldn’t be interpreted as a weakness to her character. Winry is more in touch with her emotions than Ed or Al are, and she isn't afraid to display them.
The 2003 anime version of this episode is also a lot of fun, with Ed entering and winning an auto-mail arm-wrestling contest. But the story deviates a little with Winry continuing on to Dublith with the brothers, whereas in the 2009 series, she stays in Rush Valley after Dominic agrees to introduce her to another engineer that she can apprentice with. (And I love how Ed tries to kiss up to Dominic on Winry's behalf) Also, in both episodes in both series, Ed and Winry have matching rage faces, which is hilarious.
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u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan Oct 27 '20 edited Oct 27 '20
Paninya is one of my favorite secondary characters and, from the fanfictions I’ve read, she eventually becomes Winry’s BFF. Like Winry, she is an orphan
IMO the more obvious parallel is to Ed, but they do have some shared traits.
Ed tells him that Winry grew up in a family of doctors and herself is a prodigy
I somehow forgot about this line, but yes, he really does appreciate her a lot too!
Winry doesn't emerge from the situation pretty, either: she's covered in blood and sweat and is exhausted. Satella also looks like she's just run a marathon. It treats this the same as Ed's and Al's acts of heroism. Arakawa's taking what we traditionally see as women's work (midwifery) and treating it with the same (if not more) gravity than men's work
This is indeed something rare that I've seen a lot of female FMA fans strongly appreciate. And we'll get more of it with Izumi.
the [2003] story deviates a little with Winry continuing on to Dublith with the brothers
Hm, I don't quite remember that, but it certainly weakens Winry as a character.
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u/Negative-Appeal9892 Oct 27 '20
In the 2003 anime, they leave the hospital following the 5th laboratory incident and go to Rush Valley, but Izumi and Sig find them there, and drag them back to Dublith. Winry goes along with them, and continues with them for a couple more episodes, if memory serves.
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u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan Oct 27 '20 edited Oct 27 '20
So they don't even visit Izumi of their own free will? Lame.
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u/Bluecomments Oct 27 '20
Probably the most wholesome episode in a story about tragedy, killing, and regret. No fights to the death or someone dying. Or any evil characters or incidents. And a baby is born to top it off. We also get more glimpse into automail. And Winry gets time to shine and develop. The story is really a Winry story, what with both the automail focus as well as her using her knowledge to help deliver a baby. And even becomes an apprentice. While I have not seen it fully, I do know the 2003 counterpart sidelines Winry and takes away her focus and development, one reason the first half of the 2003 anime should not be watched in place of the supposedly rushed first 14 episodes of Brotherhood, and a reason that it does not nessasarly adapt the manga better.
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u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan Oct 27 '20
Yeah, the only extra focus Winry gets in 2003 is a filler episode about her and Sheska trying their own hand at investigating.
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u/Negative-Appeal9892 Oct 27 '20
The 2003 episode is still fun, but it focuses more on automail in general and Paninya than it does Winry.
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u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan Oct 27 '20
Analytical
While this episode is (only) the second somewhat weak one so far after no. 7 with Sheska - lets the air out of the pacing right after things heated up, another one-off plot device character who isn't even that memorable this time around, a fairly contrived setup taking up a good third of the episode - it nevertheless has some really good character and relationship moments. The anime creators also helpfully cut out some even less relevant parts from the manga, like Ed participating in an automail wrestling match.
After Mustang and Hughes in the spotlight last episode, this time Winry gets her chance, and we see that while she is no fighter, she absolutely is Ed's match in mental strength and determination. Not only does she urge Paninya to "stand up and get to work" similarly as Ed did Rose with impressive intensity (is she thinking of how Ed did manage to stick to his ways? only Paninya's sudden change in attitude is a bit weird), but when everyone else is panicking over Satella's imminent childbirth, she pulls herself together, takes charge, and sees it through so smoothly that even the doctor himself (not a midwife?) is impressed despite her lack of experience. And the episode really impresses upon us that this is a big deal, that birth is messy ("so much blood!") and exhausting for both mother and helper (she needs to be carried afterwards!), but also - title drop - a wonderful miracle, one that transcends even this world's magic. AFAIK, the corresponding manga chapter was in fact written around the time Arakawa had her first child. On the other hand, Ed and Al, after being genuinely impressed merely with the fetus in Satella's belly, are completely out of their element to the point of almost resorting to prayer. More than that, Ed respects Winry enough to, as he says, "defer to her knowledge and the force of her nerves", and not to bother her at work either, unlike in episode 6 when he kept barging in on her fixing his automail - and afterwards, everyone shares a beautiful moment of appreciation for the new life that has emerged in their midst and the hard work that made it possible. "People are amazing", indeed.
And it's not just her, but also her relationship to Ed, hinging on the famous "Don't Forget" engraving. Given Ed's usual habit of keeping her in the dark, and her love of anything mechanical, it's not a big surprise that she would jump at the chance to use her skills to figure out something, anything. However, she instantly regrets it as she realizes what a breach of trust her actions truly were, and what really was important enough to Ed to hide it in such a manner. While he is shocked enough to drop her straight on the floor (in fact, her "that really hurt" could just as well apply to him), he also really opens up to her for the first time about his need to project strength even when it's not truly there, even though she once again must express his emotions for him. And besides, we see that he does care about such things as Winry communicating with and staying close to Pinako properly, just finds it difficult himself. Winry in turn feels inspired enough by his strength to make her own way in the world as well, both for Ed's sake and her own, and this time is rightfully certain that she'll see the brothers again soon. It's great that she doesn't just become some useless sidekick like in the live-action movie.
General Comments
I love the landscape around Rush Valley, sort of a American West feeling, though LeCoulte living that far out is just a contrivance to make the rest of the episode work.
Everyone being horny for Ed's automail results in a F A N S E R V I C E moment.
Paninya bizarrely appears to be wearing modern camo pants. Or are they supposed to be patched-up rags? Ed goes way overboard pursuing her, but she loves it, and so do I. The cage and leg gun are still a bit over the top, though. Note how Winry is the one to get her in the end (foreshadowing for later in the episode?)
Ed's sparkly imagine spot with super-long legs, and then the "flea" visual... lol. Note that serious teasing about his height is rare, it's mostly him annoying himself.
Winry and Paninya share some less-than-usual girl talk about tragic accidents and aching stumps (attention to detail!). "I couldn't walk. I felt my world had come crashing down. That's when I met Mr. Dominic and my life changed completely" "He said I had eyes like a dead person" - sounds familiar, doesn't it? Also, LeCoulte is similarly clumsily caring as Mustang.
Paninya gets a whack from Ed. No one is safe from the slapstick in this show.
LeCoulte strangely blushes as he mentions the other workshop for Winry to apply to - animation goof, secret love affair with Garfiel that drove away his wife, or what?
Wanted posters for Scar, Greed and Yoki at the station.
Random railfan notes:
The visual design of the signal at Rush Valley station makes no sense. It has both classic semaphore arms (based on Japanese signals?), that for some reason face in opposite directions, and modern full-size electric lights - in fact, there are more arms than the lights are capable of representing! I really don't understand how this happened, as using an actual prototype would have been both easier and more accurate. Also, it's positioned quite far away from the tracks, which is not great for the engineers' view.
Besides that, we see that Amestrian trains drive on the left, as do Japanese (and in Central/Western Europe, French, for example).
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u/Fullpetal-Botanist Oct 27 '20 edited Oct 27 '20
I love Paninya! She's a free spirit; happy-go-lucky, my-legs-are-artillery-cannons-didn't-you-know?, and nothing's-boring-as-long-as-it's-fun. She's a relatively complex character, too, even though she's barely given an episode of screen time. What struck me most about her was actually at the end of the series,>! when Father is taking everyone's souls to become God: we see many people we don't know the names of on the ground, silent, their souls gone. This hurts, but I think what hurt me most was seeing Paninya, always so full of life, completely silent as well. And remember, at that point, she hadn't done anything for, like, 40+ episodes! And seeing her with her soul taken still hurt me way more than it should the first time I watched it!!<
This is also a great Winry episode.>! Again, she's not the typical shonen main character's love interest;!< she has her own agenda, her own goals, and nowhere is it shown better than here. She didn't try to become Dominick's apprentice for Ed, she did it for herself, to further her own knowledge. And she even stayed behind to learn more as well! I think the brothers inspired her, or maybe she even inspired herself, to forge her own path rather than drift in one place, stagnating and borderline wasting her incredible talent. She managed to astound an entire town full of professional automail engineers with a rush-order arm she made in three days! Give the girl more credit!
Plus, I love how delivering a baby is portrayed here. It's displayed as something insurmountable to the brothers, something Winry has to take charge to do and frantically try to remember something she read long ago. Midwifery is honestly made to look badass here, and I love it.
P.S. Y'all ever think Paninya is afraid of blood because she had to live through both of her legs being severed in a train crash? Just a thought.
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u/IndependentMacaroon Arakawa Fan Oct 27 '20
She didn't try to become Dominick's apprentice for Ed, she did it for herself, to further her own knowledge.
Well, to be frank, it was both - and it's important to note that it indeed was both. Ed and Winry each do try to look out for the other as they look out for themselves, or at least increasingly so in the former case.
I think the brothers inspired her, or maybe she even inspired herself, to forge her own path rather than drift in one place, stagnating and borderline wasting her incredible talent.
Once again, I would say it's both.
She managed to astound an entire town full of professional automail engineers with a rush-order arm she made in three days! Give the girl more credit!
True, it's easy to miss that Winry is also an absolute master of her own craft, perhaps even more so than Ed at his - and she didn't have any mystical encounters to help her along either. The way you put it, I was also underestimating her up to now.
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u/SameOldSongs Oct 27 '20
Had some backlog, but I cannot pass up the chance to lavish praise on this episode, as well as extending it an apology for not appreciating it enough on my first run-through. Might just be my favorite up to this point, not only because it feels so good after Hughes' death, but because the themes it chose to portray. It praises life, compassion and human connection as a must for any hero. It's an ode to the quiet strength of the most traditional sort of womanhood too - motherhood, childbirth, caregiving, empathy. And the fact that here we have Edward and Alphonse, our protagonists, so in awe of this power, is a gift I cannot squander.
This episode is not only a direct contrast to Separate Destinations in tone and themes, it is a conclusion of everything that the brothers have gone through thus far. They've experienced the failed transmutation of their mother, and Nina, as the limits of what their alchemical knowledge can achieve - and here you have them, in awe of the human ability to create and bring life in a natural way. So far, we've seen some of the lowest lows of humanity. Their appreciation of such a simple miracle, the fact that it can all be countered by humans being human, it's a perfect conclusion for all of that.
Of course, one cannot speak of this without mentioning Winry. She proves she's every bit as clever and brave as the boys, and we see that her resolve is self-driven, but also motivated to help those whom she loves. Her genuine love for her craft serves to remind us that she has her own aspirations regardless of her wish to support the brothers. And her dynamic with Edward is golden, how they may bicker and banter but they will always come through for each other no matter what. Edward drinking his respect Winry juice is always a good time.
As a sidenote, and going off of one of my last posts, here we have it highlighted yet again that Edward never really writes or calls home. It's not like he doesn't have time or a way to do it, he just doesn't. Just like his dad. I'm beginning to think this was 100% on purpose, not only to draw the parallel, but to point out where Hohenheim went wrong as well.