#Hero of Ishval?''

[dailypearldoodles]

Day 534

Yup it's more fma au aha

Decided to go ahead with the idea that Pearl was given a Philosopher's Stone during Ishval, thus also gaining the title The Red Pearl Alchemist for a short time. The stone is returned after the war ends, but later she finds it again in the Fifth Laboratory with Gem

[mikeys-bike-slut]

This man had a chokehold on me for a good 16 years...

[valiantsilver]

what if the five sacrifices but they’re song lyrics

witch image - ghost // rachael - she wants revenge // nobody’s hero - black veil brides // body - mother mother // the foundations of decay - my chemical romance

[flameleadsarc]

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈𝐬 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐀𝐬 𝐀 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧?

you killed the hero, and you regret it

the sun was in your eyes. you lost sight of where you were going. you never expected to get this far, let alone succeed. this was supposed to change things for you, but now you've got this ache in your throat that makes you think that maybe you were wrong. you're still sitting here three hours later with the body of your hero in your arms, and all you can think is /what have i done/.

[sassydefendorflower]

There is such a power in FMA only telling Ed and Al's story.

By the end we can see glimpses of all the other people we met throughout the boys' journey, but for most of them the future in uncertain.

In a way it is a very... un-shounen ending. Because while, yes, Edward does get his happy ending (his brother, Winry, and a future in which he can be a happy and attentive father) for everyone else the future is uncertain. Oh, it is certainly hopeful - but it is not written in stone.

We know that Roy got a promotion, but Brigadier General is still three to four ranks away from becoming Führer and it is likely going to take years if it's going to work at all. And while Grumman is definitely not a Homunculus, he is still human - and FMA shows us again and again what horrors humanity is capable of. He's a moderate and on Mustang's side, but in the end we don't know how his and Hawkeye's story ends.

We don't know if they achieve their goal. If they ever end up paying for what they did in Ishval.

We know that Ling ends up becoming Emperor, and we know he has sworn to protect the Chen Clan. We don't know if his goal of creating peace between the warring clans of Xing will bear fruits. We don't know if his reign will be long and prosperous, and we don't know if he will ever find love - he is, after all, a man for whom duty comes first. Lan Fan and Mei are much the same.

We know Scar reclaimed his heritage - maybe even his title as a monk - and that he and Miles are in charge of rebuilding Ishval. We know Mustang has plans to end the occupation of the annexed country. We know there is hope for a people who had every reason to loose it. But we won't ever know what reparations were paid, what troubles were had, what hurdles almost destroyed them.

We know Winry will have friends in the future, and children. We can hope that her automail business becomes a success and that she fulfills all her dreams - we have reason to hope, her happiness is Ed's happiness after all, and we know he would do everything for her.

We see Al travel, and we see him and Ed share ideas and knowledge and dreams. We can imagine a world in which they live long lives and experience more adventures - but at the same time, their story is over.

FMA answers a lot of questions at the end, telling us that for now, everything is okay, our heroes saved the day, their friends (mostly) alive and well.

But it will never give us the ultimate happy end - it will never give us a "and now everyone is happy and everything is good". Oh, it comes close, because it offers us something else, something central to the themes of the story:

It offers us hope.

The hope that Roy and Riza will succeed, that Ling and Mei and Lan Fan will change the Imperial System, that Scar and Miles will create safety for their people, that Winry will be happy, and Amestris a country worth living for.

We will never know for sure, because it is not their story.

(and thank god for that - the possibility of failure is what makes the hope worth it)

(I'm sure Ed and his automail leg would agree)

[qs63]

Basque Grand might be the character who changes the most between FMA 03 and FMA manga. He appears so little on BH that I keep forgetting he's not supposed to be the unhinged villain we see in 03.

For context, in FMA 03 Grand is one of the masterminds of the Ishvalan War, he thinks little of people's lives (Amestrian or Ishvalan), he's the one that orders Roy to kill Winry's parents, and he's very critical of Marcoh leaving the military and tries to hunt him down.

Meanwhile, manga Grand is doing his best to protect lives, charging to the front to protect his subordinates, being pissed at the way they're using them as cannon fodder, and even trying to stop the war without further bloodshed. He takes a big personal risk by committing mutiny and killing his superior officer, all so that he can arrange for Supreme cleric Lowe to meet Bradley for peace negotiations.

Too bad Bradley stomped all over Lowe's and Grand's efforts.

Furthermore, he — not Mustang, not Armstrong — is the one to approach Ed after he gets his State Alchemist certificate and asks him: Did you know many State Alchemists quit after Ishval due to anguish? Which is short from him telling Ed to run because the title isn't worth the trauma.

He was obviously not happy with the Bradley administration, and seems to have fundamentally disagreed with the decisions taken during the war (enough to kill a superior officer to circumvent his orders). It's a shame we didn't see any of these scenes in BH.

His death at the hands of Scar was probably more detrimental than anything in the long run. It's extremely likely he would've sided with the "heroes" against the homunculi, considering his past decisions. They could have all benefitted from his abilities and experience during the Promised Day.

[kattythingz]

I feel like people don't linger enough on the fact that Mustang is literally dubbed "the hero of Ishval". As in, Mustang's flame alchemy actively sped up and worsened the genocide process. Now, would Bradley still have continued the genocide even without Mustang? Yes, obviously. But it would've been much slower. Certainly slow enough for more Ishvalans to even have a chance at fleeing. Mustang didn't NEED to participate. Nobody was forcing his hand but himself.

But he was still out here decimating hundreds with a snap of his fingers. Because ooooh woe is him, he can't just resign, he has to become Fuhrer one day!

Fuck that. Fuck that shit so much. Mustang DESERVES to feel like the scum of the Earth for his stupid fucking title.

[memesmadefullmetal]

🎉 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROY!!! 🎉

To celebrate, we’re asking you 🫵🏻 to choose your favourite nickname for our resident fire starter! 🔥

Vote for your favourite from the series, and let us know if we missed any notable ones! Or create your own in the tags and notes! 😉

(For example, Mod Hawkeye likes to call him soggy poncho man every so often, but dumbass works too 😌)

- Mod Mustang & Mod Hawkeye 🔥🦅

[chrysopoeias]

opinion posting about riza hawkeye/otp on something i see a lot around town but i disagree with.

Anyway. One thing I see more often than not is the idea that Hawkeye joined the military in order to chase after Mustang because she wanted to protect him. Or that she chased him while in love. But that is actually not true. I know ‘Because I have someone to protect’ is meemed into everyone’s head, but that was not her reason for joining the army. And it does not make sense either.

Like in a strategy guide to get Riza laid any% speedrun, what option is most logical?

1) Go completely no-contact with Mustang. Attend possibly multiple years of the military academy, likely in a different region from where he is. Get into a speciality that is wildly different from him. Git gud at that and then hope that maybe, if all the stars align her future boss will one day for some random reason put her in the proximity of this magic scientist she has not spoken to in years. And then ??? profit?

2) Literally just call Roy on his phone number, perhaps sent him a nice letter, or visit his address.

Sure, the first thing is what actually happened. But it's way too uncertain for that to have been planned. She did not need to be a soldier to be close to him. Roy was not a stranger to Riza, she had his current up to date contact info. He gave it to her on page/screen after her dad died. 

When she first sees Mustang in Ishval Hawkeye looks angered and shocked to see him. The first thing she says to him is ‘Do you remember me?’. These two had no contact at all between 1905 and 1908. Mustang got flame alchemy and skedaddled out of her life (even though he was supposed to look after her lmao) and Hawkeye also had clearly no intention of seeking him out when she could have done so easily. She did not join the army to protect him. And also, she says why she joined:

She wanted to improve the lives of the people of Amestris. So am I saying it had nothing to do with Mustang? Well no. Her reasons for joining the military are the same as his. 

She looked up to him. Here is this young man who has been to places beyond her sad little town and graduated from the military academy, he is a genius alchemist and must know what he’s talking about, right? That is on top of whatever their relationship was like before then, and whatever adoration she had for him already. She trusted him and thought his dreams were wonderful. Riza also wanted to believe in a peaceful future. Remember that they live in a totalitarian military dictatorship that has been in continued armed conflicts since the middle ages. There has never been a time of peace, ever, since the country was founded. And from the normie Amestrian point of view, they are just defending themselves from outside attacks. I believe that if Hawkeye and Mustang were sent to a border conflict instead of the civil war, they would have never questioned their government.

Anyway, Riza saw an opportunity to be useful with her own two hands, beyond being a walking notebook. Even if she could die in the process, it’d be worth to try. (And the military would also give her a salary after growing up in poverty and a place to live that is not the house she was abused in). She was a teenager with no family, no guidance, no idea what to make of herself. But this was something she could do. (She could have chosen many non-violent paths instead too, to be fair, but I digress).

And then it all went to shit obviously. You cannot become a sniper and never expect to kill. Selling your agency to the state means you can’t just play hero when you want to, you will be sent where ordered whether you like it or not, and forced to commit horrors or die a traitor. Believing the naive ideals of protecting her country was a mistake. Blindly admiring and trusting Mustang was a mistake. Smarter people than me can go expand on that.

But the ‘because there is someone I have to protect’ reason Hawkeye gives for being in the military is actually the reason why she stays. She could have gotten her diploma after Ishval and leave the military behind. But she chose not to.

She stays and will continue to kill because flame alchemy is her responsibility and she has created Mustang, all his kills are mentally hers. If she quits or kills herself while he does not, flame alchemy is still loose in the world outside her control. And just like Roy, she never fully gives up on her dream about protecting everyone. There must be a way to make all this worth it. There is still a way to change the country so future generations won’t have to go through what she did. She’s already doomed so she will take that responsibility so others won’t have to. She violently and fully clings to that.

If Mustang dies before doing anything positive for the world with their dreams and his abilities, all Hawkeye has done with her short life is cause destruction, murder and create a murderer, all the suffering would have been a waste. She cannot life with that guilt or continue the path alone, she will give up and kill herself. Especially in the scenario where she kills Roy herself, and with that her only hope.

There is no way out for them. But their murder-suicide pact was not planned for since they were young. They never intended to see each other again and spend their lives like this. You can blame dad for setting them up for failure.

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Hey I thought your post in response to that ask articulated really well why I don't like mangahood's approach with the ishvalans. And your line about how the bulky, towering scar is contrasted against the cowering form of winry made me think, and I went back and checked and yes, even though the manga does do more to show the ishvalans during the genocide, it's still showing only men. Men dying, young and old. There are no women or children there. We do see the children who have been treated by the rockbells and those are boys too. It really shows how dehumanised Poc men are. Because if arakawa actually showed mustang burning little toddlers or wailing mothers or trembling teenage girls that look like winry it might make us actually think that *gasp* he is a monster in a way him killing ishvalan men who are actively fighting back does not. Also one of the reasons why 03 Rose's stated SA makes the 03 version "darker" for many people than the on page deaths of ishvalan men other then SA being much more horrifying for people than violence like that.

You really hit the nail on the head regarding mangahood's choice of showing rebellion only from the perspective of Ishvalan men, and the mass slaughter of only Ishvalan men. Barring the Ishvalan child who Envy kills to throw a match into the amply-built tinder that was Amestrian occupation of Ishval (and once again, note who does the "unthinkable evil" against a "real innocent": Envy, not our lovable human war criminals), Ishvalan women and children evaporate from the scenes and topic of genocide.

The audience can logically infer that women and children have been murdered in the ethnic cleansing of Ishval, but by hiding this infuriating imagery we spare the creators and audience the additional horror that people are primed to feel when it isn't men being mowed down. This is what I mentioned regarding in-built biases of the audience being catered to by the narrative, as well as baked into the narrative.

There is a cisheteronormative and patriarchal bent to fma that people, even supposedly feminist fans, struggle to identify and contend with. Particular to mangahood especially, as fans continually pedestal this continuity as being "filled with strong, powerful, fleshed-out girls and women". It's not that this statement isn't true to some extent, but (without my rambling for 6 trillion paragraphs solely on a tangent) there are major holes where women/girls are treated with normative sex/gender constraints or wholly erased. Ishvalans are a massive blindspot here. Ishvalan women and girls barely exist in mangahood. The only figure we really see in Brotherhood, who even has any lines whatsoever, is the elderly woman who is sure to regale Ed about how monstrous Scar had been to the kindly Amestrian doctors.

So this leaves the men who, again, there are barely any that can be considered capital-c Characters (Scar and Miles. That's it.) But, they make excellent fodder for our heroes to butcher and feel sad about, and for our noble national coup to also butcher, but no one even acknowledges that loss of life. el-oh-el. And when we're not seeing them as vicious rebels who dare point their weapons at Amestris, Ishvalan men can stand in the background making this face 😟 at Scar's actions. If, ala the manga, we meet any who suffered from the genocide and hold animosity towards Amestris/ians, we can both feel some sadness for their situation while also feeling alienated from those who would hate our beloved protags.

I love trotting this out, but the fact that everyone can easily despise Shou Tucker for what he did to Nina and his family, but they cannot fucking connect the fact that Mustang, Riza, Hughes, Armstrong, Marcoh, and every single other participant in the genocide murdered children, families, girls and women by the hundreds of thousands means anything these fans have to say about fma as a story about genocide and imperialism is grotesquely lopsided at best, outrageously racist at worst. Tucker has actually enacted fewer atrocities against children alone than the staggering numbers Mustang et al committed. But Tucker killed his little white daughter. Mustang et al murdered invisibilized brown children. Don't mention the elephant in the room.

And to swing back to the point about the magnitude of dehumanization men of colour, and thus men characters of colour, face: yeah, the scores upon scores of murdered Ishvalan boys and men hardly registers as anything more than mildly off-putting to most fans. A sad factoid of the show's and manga's canon, nothing more.

(Or. Y'know. Excellent whump material for your fave military ships and light-skinned characters to grow. Haha. Ha. Haaaa. 😐 Don't worry, this isn't just the fans either. Arakawa, ma'am. Wut.)

Fma 03, in contrast with mangahood, really didn't fuck around with this topic. Again, not enough major named Ishbalans and Ishbalan women, but women and children ARE shown being decimated by the Amestrian forces. We actively talk about the horrors they too suffered. We don't sugarcoat that Mustang et al are war criminals first and foremost. We don't pretend like Winry is the greatest victim of the squashing of the Eastern Rebellion. And the truth is, 03 paying direct attention to Liore (and the choice to depict Liore as a predominantly brown ethnic group) is another way to show that this is systemic. That it doesn't matter who is in the Amestrian military: they will follow orders to invade, murder, and rape their targets. Ishbalan and Lioran men, women, and children are not spared. And this isn't revealed so you can weep for fascists, it's so you can see the fascism inherent to nationalism and the military.

People run from 03 because it's "too sad," "too dark," "makes the lives of its characters hell," but they love genocide when it's feel-good, (imperial) family-oriented, and ship-fodder! When it says "All Lives Matter," not when it says "Your life is built on the mountains of corpses your nation piles high for its own gain. And you are no less culpable even if you didn't pull the trigger yourself."

"Rose gets raped in 03, and because we think rape is an untouchable topic, we're going to slander the team behind this anime as racist misogynists," people who say this shit couldn't analyze media or politics in any meaningful way if their lives depended on it. Yet this is a common enough refrain, even amongst some 03 fans. Depiction is not inherently endorsement, and far too many people are exceptionally terrified of the reality that rape, sexual assault, sexual slavery, and trafficking are war crimes. Any war, any invading soldier, will have been party to or directly committed rape. They are routine to the point of mundane actions that imperial armies utilize.

Rose, as well as 03's narrative and characters, never demean, mock, sexualize, or reduce her down to the atrocity Amestrian soldiers (and likely Hakuro) did to her. But mangahood and some 03 fans? Boy, they sure as fuck do exactly that! Great job, assholes! Is this feminism? The denial of systemic misogyny as it aligns with imperialism? Not girlboss shonen action wholesome #inspirational enough for you to look directly at and address, instead of bluster and hide away from?

Cough. I'm getting off-track here.

Rape is not a uniquely worse form of violence than murder, let alone mass slaughter. Genocide and ethnic cleansing includes rape. Though girls and women suffer rape from the soldiers of imperial forces at a higher rate than boys and men generally do, they too can be and are raped as well. But, once again, we can't and shouldn't think about that. We can't think about and shouldn't witness that in our silly fun media. We can't discuss this in fan spaces. We can't consider rape on par with tearing brown men's bodies apart in an explosion. We can't see girls and women as brutalized victims of our protag war criminals, period. All of this, murder and rape, violates autonomy, the body, the people, but one form of violation is deemed 'worse' than the other and so that makes 03 "too dark and edgy with nothing to say" while mangahood is "so deep, so anti-imperialist, so anti-military."

All while fans and the narrative forget (willfully and otherwise) that Ishvalan men are being mass violated by the thousands.

Scar killing their violators, his violators; the rapists and murderers of Ishvalans, is villainy. So says mangahood, so says Arakawa, so says the Broho team, so says the fans.

Good thing Scar gets ~~~~~reformed~~~~~

--

Thanks for the ask! I'm glad I was able to articulate some mutual feelings on the mishandling of genocide, Ishvalans, Scar, and the Rockbells. And I appreciate that you double-checked the manga to see how it stands up in comparison to its 09 anime adaptation!

We cannot One is All, All is One our way out of white supremacy, imperialism, nationalism, and racism/colourism. No matter how desperately people close themselves off from acknowledging the truth.

[kimbleefucker]

Hey. I’m a mega fan of FMA and it is one of my top 4 anime of all times besides Naruto Shippuden, AOT and My Hero Academia. And my fav are Isaac Mcdougal, Edward, Roy and Kimblee. If can, can u elaborate me about Kimblee backstory and what’s he like before Ishval

Well we really don't know, it's never been revealed. My own thoughts are that he comes from a fairly respected family. I've always considered his family running a textile mill that provides the uniforms to the military, giving his name some respect in those circles.

Likely an only child with few to no friends, alchemy is an easy thing for him to fall into. Kimblee within canon believes that all alchemists are inherently self centered and posture themselves above God- to do so, you must first believe in a God to believe you're above it. I think hid family are fairly Orthodox Jews, but he is less spiritual and more cultural and his views on God fall in line with the Jewish practice of questioning God and any higher beings authority.

Kimblee is shown to have no service ribbons in Ishval while Roy already has a few, meaning Ishval is Kimblee's very first job. He also has no personal attachment to rank or military career. Thru this we can gleam that he likely did not attend the military academy nor did he become a state alchemist and a solider, but rather just an alchemist like Ed or Tucker for the resources and was then drafted into Ishval when Bradley signed the respective order to do so.

We also know that Kimblee is aware he is neurodivergent and actively chose to mask to pass the exam. To what extent is unknown however because we have seen the depth of the military corruption and know many of his views on things like, war or murder, would be big pros for them rather than cons. He's kind of a weird guy (read: very autistic and schizophrenic) so he is probably mostly masking his need to talk back or his specific delusions, to the best of his ability.

Because of this we know he is about the same age as Roy and Hughes (approx. 30 at time we see him at Briggs or so) so he's really spent most of his adult life in Prison being that he was there for 7 years.

Some people like to go crazy with it and say things lime "he's an orphan" "he killed his parents" "he had severe trauma" but I think all of that is missing the point that he is the way he is simply by birth and also, despite being abnormal, he is equally capable of normalcy and being jusy a regular person as well.

[yourwakingnightmares]

Roy Mustang is an amazing character, and a great example of what humans are capable of doing to survive.

So to start with, the big question is... Is Roy a good person? Can Roy be redeemed for what he did in Ishval? How can we look at what he did, and still think he’s a good man?

The answer is three-fold.

First, we have to understand the setting. Luckily for us, very, very few of us live in a military state, or even a police state. Unluckily for Roy, he does. The military runs Amestris. There’s very little Roy can actively do to avoid his fate, without getting everyone he loves killed... and for what? What difference will his dying a heroic death make? He’ll still be dead. His loved ones will still be dead. And someone else will come in, and the Ishvalans will still be dead.

Which ties into the second part: Roy has people he cares about. In a military state, anyone can be executed. Roy, being in Ishval, would be all too aware of how easy it is to declare someone an enemy of the state, and execute them. His aunt and his ‘sisters’ would be killed, and very few people would even bat an eye.

And lastly... Roy was raised in Amestris. One of the ways that dictatorships and police states work is by indoctrination. For Roy, up until that point? Amestris would’ve been absolutely in the right. He’s heard about the evil terrible people who want to destroy Amestris. He’s heard about the terrible things people will do to his people if left unchecked.

One of my grandmother’s best friends was a German immigrant we’ll call Sonja. Unfortunately, she’s been dead for nearly a decade now, but when I was in high school, she told me a story.

Her father was a proud German soldier. When the war started, he proudly served his country. But within a few years, whenever he would come home on leave, he would turn the picture of Hitler -kept on the mantle -around, so he didn’t have to look at it. And she told me she remembered being ashamed of her father; how could he do such a thing? It wasn’t until she was an adult, and the family had moved to America, that her father explained it to her.

He saw the concentration camps. He knew what was happening. And he knew what was happening to the Jews would happen to his family if he spoke out. He knew what would happen to his wife, three daughters, and two sons if he dared object to what was happening. The only thing he could do was turn around a picture, so he didn’t have to stare at the face of the man who controlled his fate.

Even knowing that he just doing what he had to do to keep his family safe, Sonja said her father lived with the guilt of that the rest of his life. That he was constantly donating money to synagogues, sending money to Jewish families in their neighborhood. When he was 49 years old, Sonja’s father committed suicide, unable to live with what he had done any longer.

Roy isn’t a ‘bad’ guy; he’s a guy doing whatever it takes to survive, and try and keep his family safe. It doesn’t make him a hero, to be sure. It doesn’t make him a good guy. It makes him a human being, put in a terrible position, doing the best he can to struggle through.

[actuallyidontgiveadamn]

Really out of nowhere but I rewatched some of fma03 eps and im gonna rant

I'm just so done with smiling politely saying that fma03 and fmab are both great sorry i cant anymore. Just no

So if you in love with fmab im warning you it probably won't be a good read for you, so feel free to ignore this, block me or idk read this and give it a thought

0. I really dont understand the glorification of manga over anime adaptations. Like people who are making the adaptation are not artists and creators themselves? What makes mangaka better than others and absolutely indisputable, seriously?

1. 'Oh no long introduction and fillers' that actually allowed for Hughes' character development before his death. Seriously if i mention his death among my homies I'll get lots of faces clearly going through some ptsd level flashbacks, it was that impactful. I still need to take a breather when im rewatching before diving into that ep.

2. Nina. Yet again got more time to grow on us and thus aquired higher trauma inducing levels.

3. Ishval massacre and aftermath are WAY MORE VISIBLE in fma03. First of all Ishvalans are depicted as human beings, and not some background, and we get lots more on their sufferings, raids on camps, racism towards them, etc etc etc

4. Scar. Oh boi how do i even go about this. So without raging much about that beefy obviously wrong dude who got 'sense' bitten into him and started working with the oppressing gov in fmab, we have a wronged and tormented survivor of a genocide, who was justified in his vengeance and rage, was depicted as an attractive person of color despite his antagonistic role and was seriously almost cheered on in his actions by the narrartive. His interactions with his people and his moral dilemmas made his character possibly the deepest and most thought out one in the series.

5. The Rockbell doctors being killed by their own government. That's a waaaaay more interesting and damning detail on our government affiliated protagonists than just dumping their murder on a delirious patient.

6. Homunculi had their own will and desires and a way more developed story arc that had a huge impact on protagonists' morals. Being created by the humans who were desperate to bring back their loved ones and both parties are getting tormented by it?? Characters strongly driven by their own goals and staggered by their relations to their creators vs some indifferent goons in fmab. Just compare Sloths and their impact on the stories and protags.

7. Final conflict being a fight with god and his intricate plans in fmab, versus final battle vs a selfish pretty much usual person who had thrown everyone under the bus in pursuit of immortality. Adds so much more desperation flavor. Suddenly your hero journey doesn't end in epic battle for the sake of the mankind, as you would like it to be. It's just to oppose one awful person with too much power and zero care about anyone else. That's raw and that's way more plausible and relatable in our mundane lives.

8. Overall darker tone and themes of the fma03.

9. MUSIC. I dont remember a single track from fmab, but i went really out of my way in my teenage years to find internet access and pirate fma soundtrack and cry listening to it

10. ART. Sorry but don't tell me fmabs flat colors are anything to 03's soft tones and lighting

So yeah sorry, but I'll take the dark and gritty tragedy over just another shounen with doubtful messages each and every time

[flameleadsarc]

There is a part of Roy that relishes how much power he has as the Flame Alchemist, what he can do, and that no one else can do it.

And he loathes it.

To understand this part of Roy Mustang, we have to go back to the Ishvalan War of Extermination. Roy was an effective State Alchemist during said war, later touted as the Hero of Ishval, a moniker he holds with disdain. Roy viewed his orders with disgust and horror, which he shared with both Maes Hughes and Riza Hawkeye more than once. During one of these conversations, Solf J. Kimblee happens to listen in and offer his insight, namely to Riza:

Riza, who is fresh out of the academy, freezes. The very thought is dreadful. How could Kimblee ask such a thing?

We do not see Maes respond to Kimblee in either the manga nor FMAB. Roy, however, is quick on his feet with a fight response:

In looking at this scene, we might think Roy's anger comes from a place purely to defend his friend. That would not be inaccurate as Roy cares deeply for Riza. Everything we know about Roy's character leads us to believe he would not sit idly by while someone he cares about is threatened or hurt. This war also has most people on edge. Such an emotional response is in the realm of normal.

But, it's not the only thing that bothered Roy here. Kimblee in this scene makes an excellent foil to Roy's fraying idealism and self-image. He runs almost completely opposite as he views his work as a State Alchemist as a job, which he takes satisfaction in. He also acknowledges what this war is and what they're doing, giving his famous speech that Riza eventually quotes back to Edward:

"Don't avert your eyes from death. Look straight ahead. Look squarely at the people you're killing. And don't forget them. Never... forget them. Because they won't forget you" (Chapter 60: In the Absence of God).

This entire confrontation between Kimblee and Roy forces the latter to come face-to-face with uncomfortable truths about himself and the war. The one that got him angry in the first place, though? There was a part of him that took pride in what he did on the battlefield. There was a part of him that enjoyed using his flame alchemy to kill.

Just like everything else, he compartmentalized that part of himself. It could never see the light of day again. Every time he used his flame alchemy after that, it was with the specific purpose of ensuring he and those around him survived---or, in the case of Fullmetal vs. Flame, it was for training purposes.

Flames of Vengeance, however, was the exception. The man who enjoyed using his flame alchemy to harm and kill came out then, and he was not quiet about it. Listen to and/or read how he speaks to Envy when he describes what he is doing with his alchemy. It is sadistic, and it is terrifying.

And, underneath all of the fury, there is pride.

In conclusion: Roy Mustang compartmentalizes almost every facet of himself in order to get ahead. This is just another part, one he hates, and it is perhaps one of the deadliest of all.

[sassydefendorflower]

Okay. It's been a hot second since I watched FMA and I've been meaning to revisit. BUT. Something that always got to me, watching it, was Ed and Al's youth and their relationship to the military and power? Does that... that might be too vague. But is that something you can work with?

Ohhhhhh, that is SUCH a juicy topic and I probably can't even begin to touch up on all of it... but let's get started, shall we?

Sometimes that I always deeply loved (and found horribly frustrating) is how convincing Ed and Al are written as teenagers. Genius teenagers, maybe, but teenagers nonetheless. We see this wonderfully in the very first episode of the anime, when Isaac McDougal (what a delightful name) tells them that there's something wrong with the country, that the military is involved in that, and Ed literally tells him "I don't care. You have a philosopher's stone, right?".

Like.

WOW.

Plot of the whole show could be over right then and there if Ed had only stopped to listen. But, of course, that's not what a teenager would do, especially one so guiltridden he can only see his incredibly selfish goal right in front of him.

We are at the beginning of the story, after all, and there needs to be some room for character development.

But Ed and Al never quite lose that selfish, teenage viewpoint even as they grow (Ed comparing the bombing of Resembool with the genocide of Ishval to Major Miles' face, Ed throwing a hissy fit when they join forces with Scar even though Winry has made peace with it, Al sounding all of five years old when he repeats "Hughes moved to the countryside" like a child whose favorite animal just "ran away") but they do grow. Considerably.

They were always good kids. They always had an inane sense of fairness. But by the end of it, that sense of fairness has grown beyond them and their immediate surroundings. They can see farther than just themselves and Winry and the handful of people they call friends.

By the end of if their good deeds changed enough in the hearts of the Amestrian people to allow a certain degree of unity.

But how does that relate to power and the military?

Now, you see, Amestris is presented to us as a military state and we quite often get the sense that the military is the most common career path available to most of the country. At least if you want to eat. Somehow the Amestrian military has to feed all these endless wars after all, and that only happens if people join up voluntarily.

And it only happens if the benefits are good enough.

Which is exactly how Roy gets them. He dangles hope in front of their small, traumatized faces and makes it quite clear that the military is the only way to get what they want.

They need research materials, power, and the oversight of the state. They get all that by Ed joining up with the State Alchemists programme. As a civilian, all of that would be restricted and inaccessible to him.

But -- even in the beginning -- Ed never really identifies with his identity as a Dog of the Military beyond his title. He, in odds to all other State Alchemists, is known as Hero of the People, because while the rest of the Amestrian military exploits and the State Alchemists break with their promise of "be thou for the people" Ed and Al do give back. They do help. They do free towns from corrupt military officials, they do fight terrorists on trains, they do fix a street vendor's broken radio.

Ed is uncomfortable with the power he theoretically holds. When Maria Ross and Danny Brosh call him "sir" and use his official rank, Ed asks them to just call him Ed, saying that he's nothing special. We never once see him lever his status as "major" over any of the lower ranking officers. Later, we see him desert with no regards to his future career, and by the end we know he quit because the military was only ever a means to an end. And he reached that end. He reached his goal.

Ed never shows respect for authority figures (but he does salute Hughes once, so he must have had some formal training on how to behave), he doesn't claim the power he is theoretically owed beyond the independence it allows him, he has no invested interest in the politics of it all (even though he is aware of them), and he actively fights the corruption within the military when personally affected by it (even if he is way too selfish in the beginning to see the bigger question).

And both he and Al hate killing. They seem to accept it as a part of a soldier's job -- their problem isn't death, I don't think, considering how unbothered they are by dead bodies throughout the show - but the act itself is so abhorrent to them, that they try to stop even tangentially related murder plots simply because they want no part in it. It is naive -- the show tells us so. Many of its characters tell us so.

But.

But it is also a reclamation of Ed's agency. And it is hope for the future. Because Ed knows that he has become a Dog of the Military, he knows -- on some level -- that he's just sold his soul to a monster far bigger than him, but he will keep this one part of his innocence for himself. He will not kill in the name of the Amestrian government.

And you know what? Riza Hawkeye is impressed with him for that. Because she pulled the trigger when ordered to, and Ed is her hope for the future. Because he is the next generation. And he refuses to do what she once did.

(I think it is interesting to investigate under which circumstances Ed would kill and how that would influence his character and what would be the consequences of that, but for the sake of the show itself, I think it is a wonderful visualization of the world healing beyond what Riza and Roy and Armstrong and Marcoh and Kimblee did to it)

Now, how does that all tie together?

Well, I think it is Ed's youth that allows him to disregard much of the military's power over his life, and it is his stubborn teenage-ness that allows both him and Al to hold so steadfast to their ideals, be that the selfish goal of self-realization or the refusal to kill. Not once does either character strive for power, and even at the end of the series, once they're all grown up, we see them long for a simple life. For interesting travels, good food, family, and a future worth living.

The military is a tool, for Ed and Al - because the military state ensured that they would have to use it.

It is interesting, really, because Roy joined up because he believed the propaganda, and once he recruits the Elrics he's been firmly broken by that belief -- and the Elrics join up even though they distrust the military (the Rockbells seem firmly anti-military all things considered) simply because it offers the resources they need.

If Ed was any other protagonist this would be a very different story, because they handed a twelve-year old a whole lot of power and a pretty high-up rank and the worst he did was blow up a few buildings and buy ugly clothes.

This is probably not at all what you expected, but... well, you successfully activated my rambling button! AND MANY THANKS FOR THAT!!! <3 <3 <3

[experimentalfma]

@oniric-multimuse-rp

"Hiya, Roy!" Hughes burst into his friend's tent without announcing himself, with far more energy than he ever really felt these days. The desert's scorching heat and the senseless slaughter of the Ishvalans could wear down even the most upbeat personalities. The fighting seemed to be over for the day, but the promise of more impending violence hung heavy in the air.

He dropped down heavily next to the alchemist and gave him the most convincing smile he could muster, though it never reached his eyes. "I heard some interesting news today. They're saying we're getting better rations tonight. Calling it a way to boost morale, if you can believe it." He shook his head. "As if the higher-ups actually think that means something. Anyway, why don't you come with me to get something? I'm sure you could use it after a long day."

Small talk. That's all it was, but whatever it took to get them through another day, no matter how inane or minor, was worthwhile. Besides, he knew Roy's involvement in the war had to be taking a toll on him with his newfound status as "the Hero of Ishval," and if anything he could at least try to distract him for a few brief moments.