okay everybody, listen up, because I need to talk about Edward Elric. I've started watching fmab and I am losing my mind over this boy. There's so many incredible things about this kid; he's such an incredible protagonist.
the realism of Ed is so painfully wonderful- this is a fifteen year old child. Remember what you were like when you were fifteen? Yeah? Fifteen is so young. This is a child who's had to grow up WAY too fast and has been through so many unspeakable things, but he's still a kid and he actually ACTS like it. He gets irritable over small things and acts "childish" when he's excited and has that touch of arrogance a teen gets when they know they're important.
Ed gets scared. He's not like a lot of your "unshakable" shounen protagonists, who, when faced with something shocking in a fight, eyes only widen and mouth only frowns and they only worry a little and maybe ask for an explanation. No, Ed is a kid and he gets scared. Sometimes he handles fights well, but sometimes he freezes. When Scar found him and Al, when he hurt Al and tore out Ed's arm and pursued relentlessly in the rain, standing over Ed as Ed writhed on the ground, Ed screamed for his brother and froze in his fear and thought he was about to die then.
He's so fifteen in everything- in his anger and his arrogance, in his fear, in his trauma, in his reverence of life. Ed is at the age when your eyes truly start to open to reality and society, though given his past he probably started earlier. But he holds life so preciously, so closely, cradles it in his arms and declares over and over again that it is one thing he will not trample, will not hurt. That fifteen-year-old conviction and the leftover naivety from childhood, paired with the newer discovery of just how sacred, how beautiful and important life is.
He's fifteen in his love. You ever been around teenagers, especially today's teenagers, and you know they do everything fiercely, most things boldly, and Ed screams it in his love. In his protection of Al, his absolute dedication and protection to the one person he has left, can hold close. He's a teenager in their banter but such an eldest sibling in every way- in his drive to protect Al from anything, everything he can, in his leadership, in his fear of losing his sibling.
Ed is such a real person, such a real kid. He's incredibly mortal, unlike a lot of op shounen protagonists. He hits his head and it bleeds. He gets impaled and struggles to stand at all. Every time he's injured we see him recovering in the hospital after. He has nightmares from his fear of failure, about Al and his mother and Nina. He's smart but not indestructible. He's incredibly earnest about his convictions, earnest about the beauty of life, just like a teen.
Edward Elric is probably the most realistic anime teen I've ever seen, and I love him SO much
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