You wanna know what’s pretty messed up?
So there’s a mini, joke chapter at the end of Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 3 called “Flame vs. Fullmetal” –if you’ve watched FMA 03, you’ll remember they adopted aspects of this into the semi-joke episode, episode 13—Anyway, the premise is that people have started musing about the timeless question, “Who would win in a fight?” between Ed and Roy. And for the hell of it, Ed and Roy agree to an all-out alchemist battle to settle the matter.
Fast forward through the battle a bit, Ed’s lured Roy out with a decoy and seizes the opportunity to jump the Colonel from the smoke.
In classic Roy fashion though–
–he’s prepared. “You sliced up my right glove but psyche I’ve got a second one that does the exact same thing.”
This whole sequence is pure humor, all jokes and snark and the satisfaction of watching Ed and Roy try to beat the shit out of each other. But something about it seemed…familiar. Something that finally clicked.
In this silly little sequence, Ed chose disarmament of his enemy over victory. He chose securing his position of power by using his automail weapon to slice through his enemy’s transmutation circle rather than actual violence. And his foolish trust in passively subduing a powerful opponent is what gets him well and truly burned.
And then, well there’s his fight against Kimblee. Chapter 76
Ed spent a long chunk of the lead-up to this battle arguing that he does not want to kill Kimblee. He gets into a fight with the Briggs soldiers about this, and they never quite convince him that Kimblee is better off murdered.
So when it comes down to a fight between the two of them, Ed chooses mercy. He chooses Kimblee’s life. He separated Kimblee from his philosopher’s stone, and slices out the transmutation circle on Kimblee’s palm.
And just when he’s let his guard down, convinced he’s passively won–
–Kimblee, rather than Roy this time, pulls out his trump card.
It’s…nigh identical. Ed sees an opening, uses it to disarm, then is taken by complete surprise that his opponent has a second transmutation circle…a second philosopher’s stone.
In Flame vs Fullmetal, Ed is just sort of…comically blown away. His weakness was exposed and his pride suffered for it. Against Kimblee. Well–
–he does not get away in tact.
And it hits as such a…dark piece of continuity. A trueness to this being Ed’s weakness, and a stark, cold, harsh reality in the fact that there are bigger, scarier things out there than Mustang, yet things just as manipulative, powerful, tactful. Things which will kill Ed at a moment’s notice, that do not deserve his mercy.
Ed lives, but he sacrifices his own life-force for it. He surrenders years off the end of his life to pull through. This is an unforgiving consequence shown to naivete. And the parallel exposed in a joke chapter from volume 3 is just…
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