Dante is a master alchemist from the 2003 series of Fullmetal Alchemist. First appearing in Episode 32 "Dante of the Deep Forest", she appears as an elderly woman who lives in isolation, away from large cities. She is a master of alchemy and talented pharmacist; it was Dante who originally taught alchemy to the Elric brothers' own teacher Izumi Curtis. Later in the series, however, it is revealed that Dante is the master of the Homunculi who have been plaguing the Elrics throughout the series. She is also much older than she first appears as she has been using Philosopher's Stones to prolong her life for centuries.
Japanese Voice: Kazuko Sugiyama
English Voice: Cindee Mayfield
History[]
Dante first appears as the former alchemy teacher of Izumi Curtis, who in turn taught Edward and Alphonse Elric. Soon after her meeting with the Elric brothers, Dante faked her death at the hands of Greed, who is in turn killed by Ed, although it is obvious to the viewer that her body was dead before Greed had arrived.
Dante in Lyra's body
Much later in the series, it is revealed that Dante had transferred her soul to the body of her student Lyra, thereby prolonging her life. Dante is actually around 400 years old and is able to escape death by continually transferring her soul to new, younger bodies with the aid of the Philosopher's Stone. Nearly 400 years ago, she was Hohenheim's lover, and together they lived for centuries using this technique. They even had a son; however, he died of mercury poisoning at a young age. Hohenheim's attempt to transmute him back to life created Envy.
The first Philosopher's Stone that Dante and Hohenheim made used those condemned as witches and those dying of the plague as the required human sacrifice. In the course of performing this transmutation, Hohenheim was nearly killed; Dante saved him by instinctively attaching his soul to the body of another man; thus the pair discovered "eternal" life. In addition to this first Stone, Dante and Hohenheim were responsible for the destruction of at least two ancient cities: one located where the present capital of Amestris, Central, now stands, and a "fabled lost city in the east" (in reality, Hohenheim's home city), each of which is said to have mysteriously disappeared overnight. The inhabitants of the cities were used as ingredients in the Stone, while the buildings were pulled underground with alchemy. However, some time prior to the beginning of the anime, Hohenheim left Dante, eventually meeting Trisha Elric twenty years prior and falling in love with her.
Suddenly left to fend for herself, Dante resorted to using the Homunculi to do her bidding. She seeks out Homunculi from the moment they are created (when an alchemist tries to bring a dead person back to life) and feeds them red stones, thus strengthening them. She convinces the Homunculi that they will be better off as true humans, and makes them believe that she can transform them into true humans with the power of the Philosopher's Stone. Hence, the Homunculi become her minions in helping her to create the Stone. In reality, she only wants the stone for herself in order to continue cheating death. Only Pride and Envy seem aware of this. The former serves Dante in exchange for power and adulation while the latter does so to kill as many humans as possible.
Incapable of creating a Philosopher's Stone herself, Dante seeks to manipulate other alchemists into unwittingly doing so for her. However, she reasons that only someone with nothing left to lose would go so far as to sacrifice the many human souls required to create a Philosopher's Stone. Thus she uses the Homunculi (especially Führer King Bradley, who is secretly Pride) to wage unceasing war, hoping to motivate a desperate alchemist to create a Philosopher's Stone, which the Homunculi would then steal for her. To this end, she orchestrates the slaughters in Ishval and Reole, and later, to cover her tracks, she orders Pride to attack Drachma, a country to the north. In the latter campaign, she plans to use the chaos on the front lines as a cover for the planned assassinations of Roy Mustang and his subordinates by Envy, though Envy abandons his mission upon hearing that Hohenheim revealed himself and refused to help her until she reminded him that the Elric brothers had the stone, giving Envy the pleasure to kill Ed (his replacement) and get Al (the stone).
However, Dante's immortality is a lie, as was revealed by Hohenheim when he confronts her after so long. Her body is literally rotting away because every time she transferred her soul, she left a piece of her soul in her previous body, and overtime her soul had been reduced by so much it cannot support her human form, so Dante had planned to transfer her soul into Rose's body next using the Philosopher's Stone that was inside Al's body. This way, she hoped to gain control of Ed, hoping Rose's feelings for him would allow her to have him replace Hohenheim as her lover. But after Ed refused to aid her, Dante sent him away to the other side of the Gate for a short while. When Ed did return and got killed by Envy, Al sacrificed himself to revive his brother, destroying the Philosopher's Stone, while Ed's death manages to shock Rose out of the trance that Dante had placed upon her earlier, much to Dante's dismay.
Death[]
In the final episode "Laws and Promises", Dante escapes from her underground mansion, taking the elevator back up to the surface. However, Gluttony - who had his mind erased by Dante in the previous episode - eats his way through the floor of the elevator. Dante tries in vain to control Gluttony, but the Homunculus is now driven solely by his urge to eat. Dante claps her hands together to use alchemy to defend herself just as Gluttony lunges at her. The shot then changes to the elevator opening as it reaches its destination, showing that both Dante and Gluttony are gone. Gluttony had undoubtedly eaten Dante and then fled back to the underground city through the hole in the elevator floor.