Alchemical Destructors

                The Destructors by Graham Greene describes the meticulous process of converting a house into a pile of rubble, which reminds me of the popular manga and anime Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA). 

Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) Anime Poster

                In FMA, there exists a set of principles by which alchemic reactions can take place, the most important and fundamental being that of equivalent exchange- that is, in order to gain, one must first lose. The process of alchemic transmutation involves the deconstruction of the material one wants to use as the base, followed by the construction of new substance. 

The product of Transmutation in FMA

The primary relation here is the parallel between destruction and transmutation. In Fullmetal Alchemist, destruction is a necessary precursor to creation. In the destructors, the destruction of the house represented the usurpation of the new generation and the trend of ‘deconstruction’ advocated by future modernists as the aftermath of World War II slowly faded into the background. Destruction is a necessary step to even generate rubble, the foothold by which a new symbol of the new age will take the place of the proud dwelling that once stood tall and then disappeared in the blink of an eye. This destruction is also portrayed as almost a force of nature, heavy handed where it strikes and impossible to prevent. 

The character Scar ends his Transmutation at destruction and abhors creation as trespassing into the realm of God

In Fullmetal Alchemist, the theme of equivalent exchange is frequently bypassed by the Philosopher’s Stone, a solid mass of human lives which are traded in exchange for boundless energy due to the immeasurable value of something as abstract as life, thus defying the need for destruction to generate creation. The symbolic value is the base substance that was traded to ‘bypass’ these laws; such is a statement of the path towards change. One can take transmutation to be a metaphor of compromises, of adherent to the law, of the essence by which a stagnant society operates. The sacrificing of lives represents change- the blood and sweat and passion, the everything, that a human has to devote in order to evolve into the new age. 

The Philosopher's Stone evolves lives into substance

Both The Destructors and Fullmetal Alchemist establish that destruction is the beginning of creation, but FMA identifies that defying laws of the world comes at the price of lives and all they have to give while The Destructors identify change as an unstoppable force that cannot be stopped once in motion; similar to the reasoning in FMA that one can convert human lives to mass but not mass into human lives.