Van Hohenheim

Van Hohenheim is a character from the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and manga.

Van is a deceptively ancient and extremely powerful Alchemist as well as the estranged father of Edward and Alphonse Elric. Despite disappearing suddenly during their infancy, Hohenheim returns during the course of the series in order to right the wrongs of his mysterious past.

Appearance
Hohenheim is a fairly tall, broad-shouldered gentleman with the appearance of a man of relatively healthy middle-age. He wears his long, golden-blond hair in a loose, shoulder-length ponytail with two or three loose strands of hair falling over his brow and sports a full Donegal-style beard on his square jaw. He also wears spectacles over his golden eyes, though whether or not he needs them is unknown. He has been described as "very handsome" by several women over the course of the series. In the manga, Hohenheim frequently wears a white dress shirt and tie under a black vest with matching slacks and a brown overcoat. In his youth, Hohenheim looked much like his son Edward, save for slightly increased height and a slightly more pronounced jaw.

In the 2003 anime series, Hohenheim sports a slightly doughier build, a softer jawline, and darker hair.

Personality
Through Hohenheim's devotion to Alchemy and the mysterious circumstances under which he was witnessed abandoning his young family gave the impression that he was cold, he is an unexpectedly softhearted, kindly individual who is quick to give compliments but loath to accept them. Hohenheim appears to care very little for his own well-being, much less his dignity (because he thinks of himself as a monster because he became a Human Philosopher's Stone), and is therefore often put in situations that give him the impression of being goofy or eccentric, adding greatly to the series' comic relief. Slow to anger and apparently a bit of a pacifist, Van Hohenheim would much rather talk out disputes than fight, frequently doing so even while he himself is under vicious attack. Chief among his personality traits appears to be his hopeless romanticism, given his propensity for spouting sappy lines about his love for Trisha Elric, his readiness to weep openly over her, and his charming treatment of women in general. Van Hohenheim lacks the ambition of others, clearly content to take his time dealing with things that do not demand urgency, but in his youth had a hair-trigger temper much like that of his son, Edward, and became irrationally angry when taunted for his ignorance.

Abilities
As a Human Philosopher's Stone, Hohenheim's body is capable of the same level of miraculous regeneration as those of the Homunculiand as such, he has been rendered incapable of dying or even aging - having been preserved in the prime of life and health for roughly four hundred years. His stone, however, is far greater than that of any of the Homunculi, as their Stones came from Father's stone, which is the same size as Hohenheim's. With nearly four centuries of life experience and alchemical study accumulated, Hohenheim's level of alchemical knowledge easily dwarfs that of any other human alchemist in the history of the world. With over half a million souls powering his stone, Hohenheim is not only capable of performing transmutations without the use of a Transmutation Circle, but can also transmute without moving his body at all and can even perform biological transmutations and circumvent the law of Equivalent Exchange with ease. Additionally, since he has become capable of conversing directly with each of the 536,329 human souls that make up his Philosopher's Stone, Hohenheim's alchemy is extremely versatile and can be implemented in multiple locations at once even without his own will to actively guide it, so long as he has deposited some of his souls there. Additionally, it appears to be more powerful than that of any other alchemist with a Stone due to having the support of the Stone's souls. During his confrontation with Father, he deflected several sustained energy blasts and called upon the souls of his Stone to aid him. After receiving their aid, his power was augmented to the point that Father could not overcome his shielding with anything less than a nuclear explosion. He also defeated Father during the first round of their battle, and was only overcome when Father revealed his amorphous, undamageable shadow form and enveloped him. It is likely that the alchemy he learned during his youth in Xerxes serves as the basis for the Xingese art of Alkahestry.

In the 2003 anime, Hohenheim is not a Philosopher's Stone, but rather an alchemist who has discovered a method of detaching the soul from a body and transferring it to another body using the Philosopher's Stone to circumvent Equivalent Exchange. By this method, he has managed to elude death for roughly four hundred years, but is still as vulnerable to attack as any human. Additionally, the instability experienced when a soul inhabits an incompatible body causes the body to rot more and more prematurely with each body transfer. Of his skills, his most significant is the ability to transmute light, shaping it into a physical form of his choosing and manipulating it remotely, earning him the nickname "Hohenheim of Light". Soon after his appearance in the 2003 anime, he is seen shaping light into Golems (resembling Alphonse's armor), which he causes to attack his enemies.

Trivia

 * Hohenheim is named after Paracelsus, a prolific real-world 16th century Swiss Alchemist, who was born with the name "Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim"


 * It is also noteworthy that the Dwarf in the Flask suggested the name "Theophrastus Bombastus".