WARNING! SUPER LONG RIZA ANALYSIS AHEAD!!
Excuse me as I write an analysis/rant about the two scenes above.
Now, I’ve been noticing a few posts on tumblr recently talking about these two scenes. (Episode 19 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood- Death of the Undying/ Chapter 39 of Fullmetal Alchemist- Complications at Central and Episode 54/Chapter 95- Beyond the Inferno.) These posts usually consist of rants about how Riza Hawkeye is weak and/or pathetic in these two scenes. They go on to talk about how weak of her it is to give up on living all because of Roy. They will say how it’s selfish of her to want to commit suicide because then hers and Roy’s dreams cannot be accomplished.
Of course, in this analytical rant, I’m going to counter all of those statements. First, let me talk about what happened in chapter 39 (I’m mostly going to be referring to the manga in this because well… Brotherhood is crap compared to it). So, Lust comes in and tells Riza that she’s killed Roy. Riza goes haywire and starts shooting like a madwoman at Lust. After she runs out of ammo, she completely gives up. When Lust attempts to kill her, she doesn’t do anything to stop her. And this is where people lose it.
Now, the first thing to consider in this scene is that Roy is supposedly dead. Riza has no clue that he’s actually alive. Riza’s main fault in this scene was believing the enemy with no solid proof. However, let’s take a moment to consider why she may have believed her… Earlier that day, Riza came against a homunculus who nearly killed her.
(Seriously, how scary as shit would that be? The thought of being eaten alive .___.)
She’s seen their power and what they can do. When Gluttony had her in his grip, she was basically staring death in the face, totally defenseless. This is a big deal for someone like Riza, “the Hawk’s Eye”, Roy’s body guard. She was basically helpless until Hayate, by chance, came to her rescue.
(Black Hayate appreciation post!!!)
So, she’s seen the power of these monsters. She knows that they have the ability to kill with ease. You can’t blame her 100% for believing one of these homunculi after what she had witnessed and gone through earlier that day. Even if she was able to compose herself pretty well afterwards, it doesn’t mean that she wasn’t shaken up by it.
Moving on to the next possible reasoning. Now, I’m going to be brief with this one, because I want to connect this scene to another point as well. Not long before she had entered the room with Al, the two of them heard an explosion in the distance. They didn’t know what it was, but they decided to move forward anyways, with a hint of suspicion that it may have been something involving Roy and Havoc. It is possible that she could have believed Lust because she herself heard the explosion in the distance.
Now, moving on to Riza’s reasoning for “suicide”. This one is stretching it a little, but earlier in the chapter, Riza was the person who suggested that they split up into groups, her going separately from Roy (yes, in the manga it was RIZA who made the suggestion. I am aware that Roy was the one in Brotherhood). Later, when they heard the explosion, it was Riza’s decision to keep moving forward, to not go back and check what was wrong. It is possible that she may have blamed herself for what happened to Roy. For failing to protect him as his bodyguard. For making the mistake of sending Havoc with him instead of herself, and for not checking on them when they may have been in desperate need of back up. Now, I think there are FAR more important reasons why she did what she did, but that was a small thing that I couldn’t help but notice.
Let’s consider another reason why Riza may have let herself die in this scene. Keep in mind EVERYTHING that she’s been through with Roy. From her teenagehood, to showing him the secret of flame alchemy, to him misusing it in the war and betraying her trust, to him burning her back for her, to her promising to follow him into Hell if he asked her to, and so on and so forth. Basically, THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH A LOT TOGETHER. I think it’s pretty understandable for Riza to be upset after hearing that the man who she’s been through ALL of these things with is dead. And I believe that all of this, everything, just HITS her HARD all in one instant.
(She realizes everything so quickly and just completely snaps.)
I think that people think too shallowly of this scene. They think that Riza is only upset and suicidal because Roy died and she’s super dependent of him or whatever. I don’t really think that’s what this scene was showing.
Calling Riza suicidal is kind of pushing it as well. Riza wasn’t putting a gun to her head (remember that she wasted all her ammo on Lust knowingly). She never said that she was going to kill herself. She had just completely given up on living because she was so devastated about what was currently happening, and wasn’t thinking completely rationally. Riza wasn’t going to kill herself. She was so upset and probably a little traumatized to the point where she didn’t have the will to fight back. She would have let Lust kill her because she gave up in that moment of weakness, which is understandable. Would you want to keep fighting strongly the SECOND you find out the closest person to you is DEAD and it’s possibly your fault?
Keep in mind that she might not only be upset because of what happened to Roy, but because of herself as well. Roy has worked so hard to be at the point to where he was in that chapter. However, Riza has as well. She was his support system, his aide. They had been through A LOT to reach that point. And now, so suddenly, it’s as if it’s all been thrown down the drain. Put to waste. Their years upon years of effort and struggle and heart ache was all of a sudden taken away from them. I’d say that’s pretty upsetting. I think that because of this, Riza was not able to think as clearly as she could. I’m sure that if she were able to think about this rationally, then the results may have been different. She may have chosen to continue on with Roy’s dream in whatever way she could have.
However, since the circumstances were what they were, that served to be pretty difficult. It’s hard to be rational with all that’s running through her head, Roy’s supposed “death”, this enemy attacking her and Al and death staring her in the face again. I think it’d be rather hard for her to stay strong in a situation like this. Riza is a human. She has moments of weakness and faults. A person can never be strong all the time. Even someone as composed and strong as she is. And I think that’s what this scene was trying to show. Not that Riza is so attached to Roy that she can’t live without him (because that would be an absolutely PATHETIC message for Aarakawa to display about one of her personal favorite characters), but that even someone like her can have a breaking point. And that everyone is human and nobody is so strong that they can always keep their composure and thought process intact. Seriously…
We know a theme in FMA is having people to support you, to pick up your pieces when you fall.
(Actually I’d like to highlight those last panels of Ed and Al, Ed gave up and was going to let Scar KILL him, but then Scar was stopped and Al lectured him about not giving up and blah blah. Hm… funny, sounds like another scene I know. But is Ed pathetic and suicidal? No? I didn’t think so.)
That’s what happened here. Riza fell. Afterwards Roy lectures her in the hospital about how she must NEVER give up on living, etc. Consider this a TURNING point of Riza, a moment of character growth for her, her learning and growing as a human being.
(We can even tell that Riza is still having regrets/taking this all pretty hard.)
This shows that Riza has learned a lesson here, an important one, and she needed the strength from others to be able to help her stand back up again. And there’s nothing wrong with needing a little help from others, it does NOT make you a pathetically dependent person. I could easily go into how Roy had a moment of weakness and Riza had to be the one to pick him up again, but that’s off topic. The point is Riza’s not pathetic for needing help nor showing weakness. Now, I know you might be thinking “Oh, if that’s supposed to be her “turning point” or whatever of the not giving up on life thing, then why was she going to kill herself in the Envy scene? She’s still weak!”
And that happens to be the perfect transition point into talking about the Envy scene, and how that’s actually not the case AT ALL.
We know how the Envy scene goes, Roy totally loses it when he finds out Envy kills Hughes and goes on a rampage for him set on hard cold revenge. When he finally catches Envy, Riza points a gun to him. Ed and Scar also come to the scene, and then Roy proceeds to get some lectures, first by Ed, then by Scar, then finally by Riza, Riza appearing to be the one to actually get him to completely snap back to his senses. I’ve seen people say that three people lecturing Roy is unnecessary but uh… really? I think it is. Consider what Roy’s doing, how he’s totally and completely LOST himself in this, consumed by hatred, basically WILLINGLY THROWING AWAY HIS GOAL for the sake of revenge. Now, after Ed and Scar are done with their thing, Roy STILL looks like he wants to kill Envy. He looks like he’s starting to consider things that they had said, but he still intends to finish the job at this point, you can see it his expression. And that’s when Riza steps in, her gun still pointed to Roy.
Let’s remember the scene at the end of the Ishval flashback, where Roy makes Riza his assistant, when he tells her that he’s entrusting his whole back to her and that because of that Riza has the right to shoot that back if he ever strays from this path he’s on, this path to make this country right, to atone, etc. He’s DEPENDING on Riza to support him, to keep him on track, to guide him and be by his side through all of this. This is a heavy burden for Riza to take on, but she accepts it because she believes in what Roy’s doing, and this is her own way to atone as well. I could go more into detail about this specific scene between these two but I want to stay on topic, so back to the main point.
Roy’s fallen from that path. He’s basically turned into a monster, fueling solely on hate, doing something that will have NO benefit to anyone, not himself, not his comrades, and especially not his country that he hopes to change so much. He’s opening up to become part of the horrible cycle of revenge, this same cycle that’s been mentioned MANY times before in the manga, the biggest example being Scar who was sworn for revenge, but in the end only caused more hate and pain, Winry then pointing the gun towards him, the cycle continuing until everyone was dead. FMA clearly is showing you why revenge is WRONG, and understanding the reasoning for this is important to understanding this revenge scene with Roy and why it’s crucial that he doesn’t commit the murder at hand.
At this point, Riza’s merely doing what she’s been entrusted to do. Roy told her to shoot him if he lost himself, and that’s exactly what she’s preparing to do at the moment. And then there’s this scene right here:
Look at Riza’s face. Look how horrified she looks. Basically, Roy has been completely lost to her and it seems like he’s NOT coming back, that she’s going to ACTUALLY have to kill him. But then Roy asks what Riza will do next, and THIS is the line that makes people throw the “suicidal” and “weak” card out again.
I’ve heard people say that Riza only said that to get Roy to snap back. Which is, not to sound blunt, stupid. Riza would NEVER lie about killing herself to Roy to get him to come back, that’s just… well horrible is an understatement, but you get my point. I understand why people want to believe Riza WASN’T going to actually kill herself because it makes her seem weak or whatever, but we can’t deny the truth just to justify your favorite character. Riza WAS going to kill herself, and NOT because she was weak or suicidal. If anything, I actually think this scene shows Riza has a LOT of strength.
Think about it. Riza is going to go through with killing Roy. Her superior officer. THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON TO HER. Now think about yourself. Would YOU be able to kill the person who meant the most to you? Would you be able to shoot them dead if you had to? I’m sure most of you wouldn’t be able to kill someone you have strong feelings for like that. I think this proves that Riza has a lot of strength to be able to go through with killing Roy with her own two hands. It shows their goal is so important to them, to HER, that she can kill Roy so that way he doesn’t rule the country with the face of a monster, that he doesn’t live his life lost to himself.
And well, when Roy hears this answer, he gets upset and that’s just the thing he needed to hear to snap back to reality. Roy had almost thrown away his whole dream, and in the process had hurt someone he cared about for like the billionth time. The thought of losing Riza struck a nerve due to how he lost Hughes, and by getting revenge, all he would have done would lose himself as well as the most important person to him. You know the rest, he apologizes, feels foolish, etc.
Now that I explained all of that, I can now explain the main point, the point about Riza saying she was going to kill herself. Riza, I will say again, was going to MURDER the MOST important person to her as well as having her dream (her dream she shares with Roy) thrown right out the window. She will have to live with the fact that she killed him, she’ll forever have his blood on her hands. Can you imagine what that does to a person psychologically, how that effects them? How their conscious will forever haunt them? But even still. Let’s say Riza DID have more to live for, which you could certainly argue she does. Does it matter though? No. Why? Because uhm did you forget she KILLED HER SUPERIOR OFFICER? Do you know what would happen to her? She’d be put on trial and then sentenced to death, most likely by a firing squad. SHE WOULD BE DEAD ANYWAYS. So don’t you think it’s justified she feels if she’s going to die either way, it should be by her own hands, to almost in a way punish/atone for how she murdered Roy herself?
And just another thing to remember, (see the panel above where Riza talks about “erasing her life”.) FLAME ALCHEMY.
It’s RIZA’S fault Roy has done ALL of the bad things he’s done. She watched her father become a madman to flame alchemy, and now she’s watching the same thing happen to Roy. This is VERY important to highlight because Riza even says that she’s going t to end her life AND TAKE HER SECRETS OF FLAME ALCHEMY WITH HER. I actually think flame alchemy is the MOST important factor as to why Riza was going to kill herself, because it’s not only going to be her fault that she shoots and kills Roy, but it’s her fault he got in this position in which he needed to be killed IN THE FIRST PLACE. If it wasn’t for flame alchemy, Roy wouldn’t be where he is today. And who gave him that flame alchemy? Riza. Riza entrusted it to him. In this scene he’s misusing that trust to the point where Riza has to KILL him. Can you imagine how betraying that must feel for her in that instance? She blames herself for this. It’s HER fault he went down this path in the first place (if Roy had never gotten flame alchemy, he wouldn’t have become a State Alchemist and he wouldn’t have had his revelation of wanting to become Fuhrer), and now it’s HER fault he’s going to be dead. So yeah, don’t you think it might be a LITTLE justifiable with all of these factors considered that she might want to kill herself not only for murdering Roy but also to just put flame alchemy to rest permanently after all that’s happened and is about to happen?
Riza wasn’t emotionally weak, suicidal, or showing pathetic dependence for Roy in this scene (if anything this scene more shows Roy’s dependence on Riza, considering he needed her to come to his senses again, he needed her to learn he couldn’t sacrifice his dream/goal, this is an important lesson for Roy that comes into play when Riza’s throat is slit, but that’s another story and not the point at all). She was showing strength and loyalty. Roy was the weak one in this scene who needed Riza this time around. Riza needed to be strong to bring Roy back.
So please… don’t mistake “I’m going to end my life” as an automatic “suicidal emotionally weak overly dependent pathetic” statement. Riza IS a strong character. She just happened to have moments of weakness like anyone else in the world.
tl;dr: Riza’s a human. She has flaws and weak points, but is NOT suicidal or pathetically dependent. She’s possibly one of the strongest characters in the show, considering all of the hurt that she’s been put through, and yet continues to carry on.
(Hooray for you being amazing, Riza \o3o/ )
