The Philosopher's Stone is people! IT'S PEOPLE!

[Kiera Greyback]

I have to warn the others!

No, but seriously. *FMA SPOILERS AHEAD*

You know how in Fullmetal Alchemist the Philosopher's Stone is made of people? (Well, more specifically, trapped souls, but where do you suppose souls come from, eh?)

I was just wondering how universal that lore is. Like, on a scale from "vampires sparkle in the sunlight" to "centaurs are rape machines", how universally true is "the Philosopher's Stone is oodles upon oodles of people"?

Is it possible Nicholas Flamel committed democide in the name of immortality?

[This has got to be my most crackpot theory so far, but bear with me guys, I'm drunk.]

[The Username Found]

It is an interesting theory...

[The Sycamore Lady]

Dear God, what have they done?!?!

...but I mean, while I can see the logic in it, I don't think the 'Philosopher's Stone as souls' is a motif that extends beyond FMA. At least I've never heard it used anywhere else - usually the Stone is a metaphor for early experiments in chemistry and the human search for immortality. In many ways this motif is still visible today in our obsession with youth. But the Stones comes from a time before a clear divide between science and magic. Then magic provided immortality, today it is science.

I could see an argument for the souls themselves being a metaphor - magic/science being built on the work of others? But I don't know how far I would have to stretch that idea to make it work.

[Vintage Monochrome]

I thought of that since I watched Fullmetal Alchemist....and then in Harry Potter the word "Philosopher's Stone" can up.....
emotion_jawdrop

[DarkGoddess1992]

stare Great, so if I ever wanted immortality from the stone... The lives of all dead people will bore down on my conscious. DAMN! crying

[Product_of_Boredom]

Yes, I remember that from Fullmetal Alchemist. However, I haven't seen it used too much in other stories. For one, The Alchemist comes to mind- I don't recall anything like that being mentioned in that book.

As we're dealing with mythology here, writers have the freedom to do pretty much whatever they want. Hiromu Arakawa puts a lot of dark themes into her books, and it doesn't surprise me at all that she depicted the stone(s) the way she did. It was probably fun to draw too.

Did anyone else realize that JK Rowling's basilisk was very different from the classical definition? A basilisk is created when a chicken egg is hatched under a toad. it's more common also to see that it's the smell of a weasel, not the crowing of a rooster, that's fatal to it.

[QRK-Minda95]

Product_of_Boredom

Yes, I remember that from Fullmetal Alchemist. However, I haven't seen it used too much in other stories. For one, The Alchemist comes to mind- I don't recall anything like that being mentioned in that book.

As we're dealing with mythology here, writers have the freedom to do pretty much whatever they want. Hiromu Arakawa puts a lot of dark themes into her books, and it doesn't surprise me at all that she depicted the stone(s) the way she did. It was probably fun to draw too.

Did anyone else realize that JK Rowling's basilisk was very different from the classical definition? A basilisk is created when a chicken egg is hatched under a toad. it's more common also to see that it's the smell of a weasel, not the crowing of a rooster, that's fatal to it.

Very true. Besides, this is magic we're talking about, so it's possible that while the alchemy stone needed the lives of other the magical version could have been made from a person's natural stores of magic. After all if it's possible for children to be born without them (squibs) why shouldn't there be a way to remove them?

[DarkRosenia]

I remember watching it the first movie again a little after I finished with some FMA, and I was wait a minute..."isnt the stone made from people?" but I dont think that it was the case for Harry Potter, since they have magic in that world and not just "science" that it is possible to make it and it not be made by humans

[EbonyDemon]

how did fma come up when i searched hery potter????? but i LOVE the anime!!!

[iKarnezar]

I don't think Dumbledore would help create a stone that requires killing a bunch of people and stuffing their souls in a rock.

[The__Dividender]

iKarnezar

I don't think Dumbledore would help create a stone that requires killing a bunch of people and stuffing their souls in a rock.

Dumbledore didn't help create the stone - it was made by Flammel centuries before Dumbledore was even born.

There is nothing in the book that hints that the stone would be made out of people. Well, actually it says nothing at all about how it is made but it is clearly different from the FMA stone. Mind you, I only watched the first anime af FMA and never got time to read the manga, but I got the impression that in FMA the stone is an expendable resource.

In Harry Potter however, one stone lasted for 700 years, could have lasted longer if they hadn't decided to destroy it.

wikipedia

The appearance is expressed geometrically in Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens. "Make of a man and woman a circle; then a quadrangle; out of the this a triangle; make again a circle, and you will have the Stone of the Wise. Thus is made the stone, which thou canst not discover, unless you, through diligence, learn to understand this geometrical teaching."[25] Rupescissa uses the imagery of the Christian passion, telling us it ascends "from the sepulcher of the Most Excellent King, shining and glorious, resuscitated from the dead and wearing a red diadem..."

I guess if you tilt your head and squint you can make out a possible reference to human sacrifice but I don't really buy it.

Magnum Opus (how to make a stone - wikipedia again)

[The__Dividender]

My conclusion is that the FMA stone has nothing in common with the HP stone beyind name, colour and certain aspects of usage such as granting immortality. The natures of the stones are depicted very differently, though I admit that not much is disclosed about the stone in Harry Potter.

Also note that Harry Potter and Full Metal Alchemist are two very, VERY different series. The magic and the laws of magic are completely different between the two.