Why Being a State Alchemist Was Worse Than Becoming a Homunculus

The Moral Cost of Becoming a State Alchemist

The video argues that becoming a State Alchemist could be morally worse than becoming a Homunculus—not because the Homunculi had easy lives, but because State Alchemists were human beings who could understand right from wrong and still be drawn into Amestris’s violence.

Privilege and obligation

The silver watch offered researchers funding, access to restricted knowledge, influence, and military rank. For Edward, those benefits were a way to find information that might help restore Alphonse. But the title came with obligations: State Alchemists had to submit their research, maintain their certification, and serve the military. Their expertise became government property, and they unknowingly helped maintain a country secretly shaped around Father’s plan.

The Ishvalan War

The Ishvalan War reveals the cost of that bargain. State Alchemists such as Roy Mustang, Basque Grand, and Kimblee were deployed as devastating human weapons. The Homunculi helped plan the conflict, but people carried out the killings.

The video contrasts their responses. Mustang obeyed and later tried to change Amestris. Armstrong reached his limit and was withdrawn. Marco fled after helping create Philosopher’s Stones from Ishvalan lives. Kimblee openly enjoyed the destruction. His lack of excuses makes him a chilling counterpoint: the military didn’t create his appetite for violence—it gave it official approval.

Shou Tucker’s choice

The system’s harm wasn’t limited to battlefields. Facing another evaluation, Shou Tucker turned Nina and Alexander into a chimera to protect his career, repeating what he had done to his wife years earlier. The horror is that no direct military order forced him to do it; the pressure to preserve his status was enough.

The video contrasts Tucker’s decision with the Homunculi’s cruelty: they were made by Father to serve particular roles, while Tucker chose to sacrifice his own family.

King Bradley and the machinery of Amestris

The comparison is complicated by King Bradley, a human raised and altered through a state experiment before becoming Wrath and ruling over the military. His life was shaped for Father’s purposes, though he still believed some choices—especially choosing his wife—were his own. He embodies the result of Amestris’s logic: a person made into a useful instrument and given a title within the machine.

Choices and accountability

Edward prevents the argument from becoming “all State Alchemists are evil.” He joined for personal reasons, but refused to use a Philosopher’s Stone once he understood its cost, resisted murder as an easy solution, and ultimately turned against those controlling the country.

Mustang, Armstrong, Marco, and Edward show that people inside a corrupt institution still make choices—and remain accountable for them.

The burden of conscience

The video’s final distinction is that Homunculi suffer physically as vessels for stolen souls and servants of Father, while State Alchemists with consciences must live with what they did. Mustang remembers the people he burned; Hawkeye carries the burden of her father’s flame-alchemy secrets; and Marco cannot escape the reality of the Stone he helped create.

The watch, the narration concludes, wasn’t proof that they had mastered alchemy. It was proof the army had found a use for them.

Characters discussed

Roy Mustang, Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Alex Louis Armstrong, Basque Grand, Solf J. Kimblee, Marcoh, Shou Tucker, Nina Tucker, King Bradley/Wrath, Riza Hawkeye, Father, Envy, Lust, Pride, Gluttony, and Greed.