Winry Rockbell

Her role in the story sucks.

I just finished Fullmetal Alchemist, and what a ride it was. These are just some of my complaints about the manga or, more specifically, about Winry’s role in the story. You see, several parts of it triggered things that I absolutely can’t stand in fiction.

First: the fact that she beats Edward bloody with iron wrenches. I get that this is slapstick comedy, but all I got from this was that Winry does not have even the most basic respect towards Edward. You see, if these guys whose love interests beat them up for “humour” had even half the mind to punch them back because tee hee~ it’s so funny~ then the girl’s fucking head would cave in. And I’m sure all the laughs in the world would dry up faster than the sand in Sahara at that point.

In other words, it’s not fucking funny.

Second: the moment when she rushed over to where Edward and Alphonse were battling Scar. Winry is not an alchemist. She is not a fighter. She is just an ordinary girl who beats up her love interest with iron wrenches. If she’s going to be useless, then at least she should have the intelligence to stay the fuck out of the way.

Third: if all this wasn’t enough, she was used as leverage and then as a hostage to make Edward cooperate. It was at this moment I thought: That’s it. I’m done. There’s no salvaging this subplot anymore.

This is the exact same shit I couldn’t stand in BBC Merlin, and I mocked that pretty brutally in a crack fic.

You see, Winry’s role in the story is to be the love interest. Oh, you can say that her role is the auto-mail mechanic. But that’s not quite true. For one, she does the auto-mail engineering with her grandmother so you could easily remove Winry from the equation and still get more or less the same results. For second, there’s an entire valley of auto-mail mechanics, and I don’t see why they couldn’t have been dispersed throughout Amestris and Edward could’ve sought their services when needed. For third, one of those auto-mail mechanics is better than Winry and says that the auto-mail she made for Edward — as his “personal mechanic” — isn’t even optimized for him.

Being the auto-mail mechanic isn’t Winry’s essential role. Her essential role is to be the love interest and to give Edward two and a half kids at the end.

I’m not going argue if that’s good or bad — because I frankly don’t care all that much — but if that’s her essential role, then you could at least have the decency to write it well. But it’s not written well. It’s the same fucking underdeveloped crap that every action manga suffers from.

I get why that is. If you read Fullmetal Alchemist, you’ll notice that there really isn’t time to develop romance unless you want to completely derail the plot off the rails. The entire story — aside from flashbacks — happens within a year. Making Winry the childhood friend was basically a cheat sheet telling the reader: “Assume it’s there.”

But here’s the problem with that: Winry, Edward and Alphonse grew up together communally up until they were six years old. Pinako, Winry’s grandmother, has baby pictures of Edward and Alphonse. She became their indirect guardian after their mom died. They’re family. They’re siblings. Winry herself even calls Alphonse and Edward like her brothers.

Here’s a little known or acknowledged fact: incest isn’t just about blood-relation, it’s also psychological. Children who have grown up together up until they’re six don’t — generally speaking — view each other as potential mates.

Which is why, as I said in a previous post, the royalty in Ancient Egypt raised the siblings apart so they could actually have sex and carry the royal bloodline when they were married.

The flipside to that is that humans also — generally speaking — tend to be attracted to people who are genetically similar to themselves or their parents. Which is why relatives who haven’t grown up together tend to have intense feelings of attraction towards each other.

……I can’t believe that this manga is making me write about incest on my blog.

Winry’s role was basically everything I can’t stand in stories. She isn’t all that essential to the story and she isn’t written well as the love interest. As a character she’s okay, I guess, she’s there and there isn’t anything inherently dislikeable about her. It’s just her role fucking sucks. Hawkeye had a more active role in the story than her, Izumi had a more active role in the story than her, Lanfan had a more active role in the story than her, even May, who’s eight, had a more active role in the story than her.

If Fullmetal Alchemist was fine with a pairing that psychologically should’ve amounted to incest, then honestly? I would’ve rather taken Edward and Alphonse because that’s where the development and emotion was at.

And poor Alphonse was paired with May of all characters. This isn’t just about me finding May annoying and incongruous, it’s about me actually liking Alphonse and thinking he deserved better than the obnoxious eight year old as the love interest.

You see, if the mangaka isn’t even going to bother developing the actual romance subplot, then why bother with the romance subplot? At the start of the manga, Edward is fifteen and towards the end he’s sixteen. Alphonse is fourteen and then fifteen. Do they really need a love interest at that age? Sports manga do just fine without any romance subplots.

Anyhow, everything else in Fullmetal Alchemist: solid, good, and interesting. The romance subplots for the two main characters: bad.

What a Goofball

These dumbass brothers are so cute, ha ha. ♡

Love Stories

I think it says something sad about the quality of the romance subplot when the love story between two brothers is more compelling and emotional. Can I call it a love story? Who made it a rule that a love story can only pertain to “romantic couples”? Feh.

I’ve never much cared about romance subplots. If I want to read a romance, I go read a romance. It doesn’t help that there hasn’t been a single non-romance story that does its romance subplot well.

Well, I guess that’s not quite true since I haven’t read all the non-romance stories. And I do like the romance subplot in FF7R because Cloud and Tifa are really cute together but, to be honest, the fans of that game kind of put me off it at the same time. I think the one in Psyren was okay as well, but it’s been several years since I read that so don’t take my word on it.

Anyhow, I’m just really not feeling the whole Edward and Winry romance in Fullmetal Alchemist. For one thing, there technically shouldn’t be a difference between Winry and Alphonse in Edward’s brain because they grew up together communally since they were younger than six. Winry herself called both Alphonse and Edward like her brothers.

Which is why the royalty in Ancient Egypt raised the siblings apart so they could actually have sex when they were married. But don’t quote me on that.

Of course, the real difference between Alphonse and Winry is that she’s a girl and she isn’t actually blood-related to Edward.

For another, there hasn’t been enough development — or compelling development — between them for me to be feeling it. They mostly spend their time bickering and yelling at each other, and I guess this is supposed to be a sign of latent love? Then there’re the usual tropes of other characters commenting on the relationship; such as someone asking if Winry is Edward’s girlfriend (which he vehemently denies), and Alphonse acting like said bickering is some kind of courtship ritual. But none of this is still, y’know, actual development between the two characters involved in the relationship.

Look, I did the latter in Incandescent Snow, too. However, the difference is that I mostly used outside commentations as jokes or foreshadowing, and I took the time to actually develop the relationship beyond those commentations.

I actually wanted to bring this mentality up in Incandescent Snow. Because this happened to me in middle school and I found it freaking annoying. You see, this boy sat next to me on the bus one day and promptly fell asleep. He was on the aisle side, and I’m really introverted and I have a hard time talking to people I don’t know. As my bus stop was getting closer, I was fretting what to do and breathed this huge sigh of relief because the kid woke up on his own and got off. I was telling this story to my friends later during break and pointed the boy out in the crowd as — in a surprising coincidence! — we were going to the same school.

MY FRIENDS: Oh! You have a crush on him!

ME, SUCCINCTLY: The fuck?

If we go by this logic in stories that outsiders’ opinion actually means anything, then I guess I would’ve been madly in love with this kid who was obstructing my path out of the bus.

But wait. Wait. WAIT.

Isn’t this more or less what shippers do?

SOME SHIPPERS: OH MY GOD HE SAID HIS NAME! TRUE LOVE! (Actually has seen some people make this comment.)

Shippers have the mentality of middle school girls?

Oh well, that revelation aside… where was I? Right, the lack of real development between Winry and Edward. So far there hasn’t been anything unique between Edward and Winry that doesn’t also apply to Winry and Alphonse. In fact, I would’ve preferred Winry and Alphonse because they’re similar (in a non-bickering way), they actually talk with each other, and most importantly Winry isn’t constantly beating him bloody for “humour”.

Which might be just because Alphonse is residing in a suit of armour at the moment, to be fair.

So far the only actual development in Winry’s feelings has been: his shoulders! his back! oh, I guess I’ve been in love with him since a long time ago.

And Edward’s has been: I don’t want to make her cry anymore! And I guess: next time I’ll make you cry tears of joy!

Which, what the fuck is that anyway? Isn’t that an oxymoron? I know it’s a thing in fiction but has anyone actually cried tears of joy in real life? I honestly wouldn’t know but I don’t cry easily.

To be honest, I find this infinitely more romantic:

And yes, I’m aware they’re brothers. Thanks. When I say “romantic”, I don’t mean anything sexual about it. I don’t care about “romantic”, as in “sexual”, relationships in stories; I mostly don’t care because they’re usually lackluster or horrendous. Which is probably why I find sincere and platonic relationships far more romantic.

Besides, originally romance had nothing to do with love. “Literary sense extended by 1660s to ‘a love story.’ ‘Love affair’ is from 1916. Romance novel attested from 1964.” — source: romance.

And I already asked why a love story has to pertain only to sexual love? Supernatural was called The Epic Love Story of Sam and Dean by the writers, and it is. All the bad writing aside.

You see, I talked about this in one of my Harry Potter posts as well but there’s a difference between — how to phrase this? — positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. In Harry Potter, Harry says to the Sorting Hat not Slytherin instead of saying what he does want. Rowling could’ve easily arranged this in a different way and have Harry ask to be sorted in the same house as his parents, for example.

I don’t want to be in Slytherin: negative reinforcement. I want to be in the same House as my parents: positive reinforcement.

The same applies to Fullmetal Alchemist. Edward doesn’t want to restore Alphonse’s body just because he feels guilty or responsible or like he has to atone. He wants to restore his little brother’s body because he wants to see him smile again. They’re so precious. ♡

You know, as opposed to “I don’t want to see her cry again”. Which is nice of him, I guess? But it kind of isn’t positive in and of itself? Not to mention the sentiment is shared by Alphonse so it isn’t even something unique to Edward as a love interest.

I don’t want: negative reinforcement. I want: positive reinforcement.

As free advice, try to avoid describing yourself as “against” or “anti”. Instead, try to describe what you’re for.

I do quite like Mustang and Hawkeye’s romance subplot, though. Well, I don’t know if it’s romantic yet but I still like it. Maybe because Hawkeye has a bit more active role in Mustang’s storyline than “the girl Edward goes to when he needs his auto-mail fixed” — and subsequently gets his head bashed with an iron wrench because that’s funny, I guess. It doesn’t help that there’s an entire valley of auto-mail mechanics, one of whom is better than Winry so it’s not like she’s really essential to the story in that respect either.

And it honestly didn’t do her character any favours when she rushed over to where Edward and Alphonse were battling Scar so she could conveniently hear Edward confront Scar about the murder of her parents. Like, what the fuck did she think she could do anyway? One) get herself taken hostage, two) get herself killed, or three) throw herself in front of an attack and die which would’ve traumatised Edward and Alphonse. More than they already are, I mean.

This doesn’t mean that I dislike Winry. I don’t dislike characters unless the author really messes up between what they’re telling and what they’re showing. The only character I find actually annoying in Fullmetal Alchemist is May.

But anyway, I hope no one is getting the wrong idea from this. Fullmetal Alchemist is a good story — depending on everyone’s personal tastes, of course. In action manga — especially in a manga as fast-paced and compact as Fullmetal Alchemist — it makes sense to give the hero a childhood friend or the equivalent as the romantic interest and be done with it.

And considering how insipid the romance subplots are in most action manga, I guess it’s better that the authors don’t focus too much time on them. If what we see isn’t that good, then how much better could it get to show more of it? But sometimes I wish they would do away with the romance subplots altogether, you know? I mean, does every story have to end with a marriage and two and a half kids?

Not that there’s anything wrong with marriage and kids, but personally I would prefer to leave the story at the dating or pregnancy stage and leave the rest to the readers’ imagination.

…I have a feeling that none of this made sense. Oh well, it’s not like anyone reads these posts anyway, ha ha.

Romantic Couples

You know, it’s not like I dislike Winry or anything but I do wish that mangaka would stop pairing their main characters with girls who beat them up all the time. This is done for “humour” but it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve found this funny — if I ever did¹.

In fact, this is pretty much the only thing I like about Uraraka and Izuku’s relationship; she doesn’t beat him up. Other than that, the relationship bores me because it’s obvious they already like each other but for “reasons” they just can’t get it over with and get together. As far as canon couples go, I prefer Izuku with Tsuyu even though I ship him with Katsuki (yeeees, I know that sounds hypocritical. Thanks. I’ve already explained my reasons for shipping them). I kind of hope Todoroki and Yaoyorozu get together as well.

Also, I really hope Horikoshi will never pair up Jiro and Kaminari because that’s one of those relationship types that I’m tired of seeing.

I realised something else, too. In most action manga, the boys get paired up with girls who like them. Not with girls they like. You see, Goku didn’t like Chichi. When he (re)-promised to marry her, he was actively annoyed with her and never gives her much thought. Naruto wasn’t aware Hinata existed but Hinata liked him. Sasuke actively tried to kill Sakura. Ichigo wasn’t aware Orihime existed either for most of the time.

Of course, if you flip it around these guys probably did the smart choice and eventually picked up a girl who liked them instead of chasing after girls who liked someone else.

As a final word, I really wish Arakawa had paired Alphonse with someone else than the loli.

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¹ I guess it’s different with boy and girl pairings because boys aren’t socially allowed to hit girls back even if they’re beating them up. Throughout Fullmetal Alchemist all the male characters are saying how you shouldn’t hit women even if said women are beating men left and right and centre. Not to mention the ridiculous Uraraka and Katsuki fight in Boku no Hero Academia. “How can you fight so seriously against a girl, Katsuki~?!” Because it ain’t like she’s studying to become a hero or nothing.

This is actually one of the things I like and appreciate in Lovely Complex; whenever Koizumi would slap Otani as slapstick humour, Otani would just casually slap her right back. None of this onesided bullshit because girls can’t possibly abuse boys, tee hee hee~.

Just saying, most horrific child abuses are perpetrated by women.

The World

I wonder where it takes place? One newspaper mentioned something about British whatever. One of Mustang’s soldiers mentioned a country in the east where they eat dogs (China). Another soldier mentioned shogi which is from an island in the east (Japan).

There’re these real world references but the world of Fullmetal Alchemist itself — you know, the parts we see — doesn’t happen anywhere in particular. Which isn’t bad or anything; I think it’s better that way but it does make me curious.

The Alchemy

Wait, wait, wait.

Is the alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist based on Taoism? Because it sounds that way with the circle and “all is one, one is all”.

The First Three Volumes

I forgot how dark Fullmetal Alchemist is.

I watched the first version of the anime a million years ago with my sister when it aired on Saturdays. Of course, the first anime diverged from the manga quite a bit — especially towards the end. Much like the Claymore anime which really wasn’t all that great. While Fullmetal Alchemist got a second anime more faithful to the manga, I doubt they’ll ever do the same with Claymore.

In some aspects, Fullmetal Alchemist feels like it was written a lot — later? earlier? which one am I supposed to use? — than the beginning of the 21st century. Which probably has something to do with Arakawa wanting it to feel like a B-movie. In other ways, it’s a lot darker and more mature than the shounen manga that gets published today. Not that I’m going to name any names or anything.

Characters are dying left and right — to be fair, these are mostly minor characters. There’s a brooding civil war and revolution, serial killers, mutilations, genocides, abominable monsters, etc.

Speaking of abominable monsters, I find Gluttony really creepy. There’s just something chilling about him — it? — asking if he can eat someone and then him crunching on the poor character in the background.

But you know what I appreciate the most? That Arakawa actually had the integrity to make her main characters suffer the consequences of their mistakes. Alphonse lost his entire body, and Edward lost his left leg and his right arm. And the story is about them trying to restore their original bodies.

None of this “Oh look how cool he is for losing his arms” like in certain other I’m Not Naming Any Names manga.

Also, I’m just really fond of stories about brothers who love each other unconditionally. ♡

Equivalent Exchange

“To obtain something, something of equal value must be lost.”

Does that mean Alphonse’s soul was of equal value to Edward’s right arm?

And you know, I find it curious that Edward’s agnostic. I mean, his little brother is a soul. In a suit of armour. Alphonse doesn’t exist in any physical capacity. He’s like the living proof of non-physical entities. If Alphonse can exist separate of his physical body, doesn’t that mean there is a world beyond the physical?

Agnostic

I started reading — or trying to read, we’ll see how it goes — Fullmetal Alchemist. In the first chapter Edward calls himself “agnostic”, and I gave a laugh at this.

The word gnostic comes from the Greek gnosis, γνῶσις, which means “inquiry, knowledge, fame”. I know the religious connotations of the word means knowledge into humanity’s nature as divine, and agnosticism means that you think the existence of God, divine, or supernatural is unknown or unknowable.

But if we remove the religious aspects of it, the word agnostic would pretty much mean ignorance, the a- prefix being a negation. I thought this was funny because Edward is an alchemist whose life more or less revolves around knowledge and inquiry.

…hey, I’m the kind of girl who made a joke about the semantics of like, 好, in my fic. And I’m pretty sure no one noticed (although I did mention it in my author’s notes). I thought it was funny.