Let’s Talk About - Edward’s Love Languages
So Hi guys! I’m back with another book of a headcanon. So remember this a headcanon and not the be-all-end all. It’s for my personal take on Edward and what I’ve noticed about him.
You’re allowed to disagree with me.
So to start out, let’s talk about what the love languages actually are - they are five different ways of giving or receiving love and each person has a different set of them but ends up having mainly two in each category (giving and receiving) that are more prominent than others. This means that every person can feel loved by all five of the languages but two of them will make them feel more loved than the others.
The Love Languages are: Words of Affirmation, Touch, Quality Time, Giving / Receiving Gifts, and Acts of Service.
Edward’s #1 love language is Words of Affirmation so let me explain this.
That boy thrives on praise and we see it a few times in the series and other various media, I think the most telling scene of it however is the dream he has at the beginning of chapter 6 / Brotherhood episode 5.
It shows both his need for praise and his desire to give presents to show love, but I’m not to that yet. He’s dreaming and he’s receiving praise. Look at his face. Look at his face and how happy he is to be told he did a good job at something.
This is the face he makes after being told he’s Hohenheim’s child, and we all know how he feels about Hohenheim. His skill as an alchemist is being praised and he’s thriving off it. He’s beaming. That’s why the rest of his dream:
her dub line being “If you can do that, why couldn’t you make Mommy better, Ed?”
That’s why the rest of his dream crushes him. It was positive affirmations and then instantly crushed and drowned out with his failures and to make matters worse the anime (brotherhood) drags Nina into it.
But let’s talk more about this ‘Words of Affirmation’ thing.
Ed’s body language when praise starts to occur is just telling of how he handles it. He soaks it up. Look at his face when the villagers are talking about him and his brother being alchemists in Liore
His shoulders raise, his posture fixes its’s self and he’s all around proud of himself (and his brother). They have top notch skills and he knows it but being doted on just visibly makes him feel good.
Then the townsfolk go even further to start praising him as they have heard of the Fullmetal Alchemist and Edward soaks it up like a sponge even if they do think the wrong brother holds that title.
He hasn’t noticed it yet, but he still thinks they realize who they’re supposed to be talking about and’s he soaking up every affirmation he can get. Edward literally runs on praise.
Tell him how great he is. Tell him how awesome he is. He’ll fish for compliments, he’s not above it and has been seen doing it in ‘03′s anime.
Ed literally sat there in this cab, asking his driver questions about himself because he was fishing for affirmations. He just needs praise to function. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just how Ed is.
I mean look at his face when he’s fishing. He’s grinning from ear to ear - excited to hear whatever great things this random stranger has to say about him. He’s running the risk of hearing someone awful for the sheer satisfaction of possibly hearing something good. And when he does hear something good, he laughs and smiles and fishes for more.
Edward’s constant need for affirmation exists for a few reasons.
It’s a counter to his short-man’s complex. He hears so many negative things about his stature that he soaks affirmations up as a counter to that.
Edward is severely depressed and carries survivor’s guilt around with him, so having the things he’s doing being acknowledged makes him feel good. I mean it makes anyone feel good to be told they’re doing a good job, but for Edward it’s how he feels loved. It’s how he feels worth it.
This is another example of Edward soaking up the praise It’s directly after the show boating scene to lure out Scar but even despite that he still just had half of Central thanking him for his work and praising him for his skills. He’s on a high.
The dub line being “I bet all of Central knows my name by now.”
He’s thriving off all these people praising him for his skills. But on the other side of this, you have to know that affirmations can also be things to just show respect for another person.
That’s one of the reasons for the tension in Edward’s relationship with Roy (mainly in 03), even if there is a sense of respect Edward doesn’t feel like there is.
To quote Fullmetal VS Flame “You’re right Al, today is a great day. It’s the day I beat Mustang’s pompus ass in front of the whole army and get some damn respect.”
He doesn’t feel like anyone in the military respects him because of Mustang’s harsh comments and seemingly inability to praise him / compliment him for anything.
It’s what gives us scenes like this:
0:00 - 0:50 being what’s relevant to Mustang.
My point being he’s saying things like:
“What do you think is the matter?! Once again, I’ll have to listen to Colonel Sarcasm tell me how I screwed up.”
“We’re already here so I might as well get the verbal abuse over with.”
He gets in so many fights with Mustang he starts the series (2003; episode 3)with his very first line about Mustang being: “Mustang’s gunna scream my ears off.” in reference to their recent failure in Liore. He’s based their entire relationship in the idea of yelling matches and sarcastic comments, because normally if he does get compliment from Mustang it’s backhanded.
I motion to the beginning of 03′s episode 10:
The actual conversation goes as follows (dub):
Al: “You don’t want to see him?”
Ed: “Of course I don’t Al! Our best lead on the stone turned out to be fake! All this searching and we’ve got nothin’ ta show for it.”
Al: “But we’ve done lots of good.”
Ed: “Good?! Good goes on a military report in a sidebar for collateral damage! I can just see his face, his sarcastic little quips. Just thinking about it makes me completely nauseous.”
Mustang is the opposite of his love language - the guidebook to everything not to do. There’s things Mustang does that hit the correct ticks on his second love language but we’ll get to that.
But I mean, Edward has been so blunt about his need for affirmation, he straight out says so in Prince of Dawn (Wii). After a section at the end of the game in which the player has to collect “Prince Points” should Edward collect all of the possible ones, he’s met with praise from his friends and family. He’s told things like “Amazing Edward!” “You’re awesome Big Brother!” etc and his reaction to it is this:
That child just needs to be told he’s doing a good job. He just needs to be reminded that everything he’s doing is okay and he’s doing things well. Even if it’s just a ‘you look nice today’ he’ll eat that shit up. He thrives on communication. He’s a talker and that’s why he has information dumping tendencies.
Compliment his coat, the length of his hair, his height. Just compliment him, and for faster more longer effects (people who are exceptionally close to him. Here’s lookin’ at you Al; Winry; family.) Just remember to remind him that you love him. A simple and well placed ‘I love you’ can solve wars and smooth over the roughest patch.
Affirmations are how Edward functions from day to day.
They help him combat his self-deprecating depression.
Now let’s talk about his #2 love language - Acts of Service.
Acts of service is going out of your way to do something for another people. It’s anything that can help lessen the load of things they have to do in life / their daily life. But it can also be so much more effective if it’s done without being asked.
My greatest example of this is his relationship with his brother. Both Elrics tend to function in Acts of Service in some way or another. They don’t blunt out say ‘I love you’ often, but Ed knows his brother loves him whole heartedly because Alphonse still does things like this:
Alphonse will push and pull Ed all over the battlefield but Ed knows full well he’s doing it to protect him. Al’s body is a suit of armor and he can’t be injured as easily - they both know this.
And Al will take the hit for him time and time again. Edward doesn’t have to question it. If Al can shield him - he’s going to do it. Without hesitation or thought.
And he’ll catch him when he falls, care for him when he’s sick, let him rest in his lap after he passes out.
Al just sat there with his Brother as close to him as he could keep him while he slept in his passed out state. Ed could openly admit to his brother “I’m having some trouble breathing.” to his sibling because he knew if and when he went down, Al would keep him safe. He knows that act of service is something Al will never fail him on. His brother has his back, no question.
But Alphonse isn’t the only one who does things like this for him.
*special manga before Sacred Star of Milos
*after the first encounter with Scar.
And this is where Mustang shines. (see here) Mustang sucks at Words of Affirmations, but he excels at Acts of Service. Edward knows full well that Mustang would keep him safe if they were in a situation that called for it and he knows he’s someone he can trust. That’s why when Ed gets the paper about Lt. Ross being “the one who killed Hughes” he doesn’t jump to conclusions but instead gets up to go get information from Roy.
He knows at the end of the day, Mustang is going to keep him informed. He’s going to help him with information, and leads on the stone. He also knows that Mustang is doing one very important act of service for them - keeping his mouth shut about the taboo and even helping come up with some bullshit line to sell his automail. “it happened in the eastern rebellion.”
And then there’s Winry, whom of which he tells - “You gave me a new arm and leg, to replace the ones I’ve lost.”
His automail was her Act of Service to him, and her constant repair and up keep is a continuation of that act of service.
Pinako gives him a roof over his head and food his stomach. She’s always been the stand replacement figure since Trisha died. She even helps him dig up the ‘grave’ of the thing the boys transmuted all those years ago. Even when he’s throwing up and in mass amounts of pain, she doesn’t stop him because she knows he won’t.
For Edward a lot of Acts of Service for him is about showing up, and if you do it without him having to say anything then it means even that much more. When he needs advice, he goes to Mustang. When he needs to rant he goes to Alphonse (or Winry). When he has automail issues, he goes to Winry. When he needs protection, that’s Alphonse again.
When he needs someone to help him out with a plan then he found Ling can help him do that (and found out that Ling will protect him too. They didn’t even know each other very long but Ling was helping and protecting him off the bat and for Edward that grew their relationship fast.
Edward can draw love from all the things that people do for him and he thrives off the things people say to him. Words and Actions carry a lot of weight to him so they can turn his mood up or down with a few right or wrong ones.
Just remind him he is loved by doing something nice for him or just simply saying it and you’ll have him wrapped around your finger.
