History FullmetalAlchemist / TropesQToZ

* RantInducingSlight: Using words like "short" around Ed, even when not talking to him or about him, causes him to go ballistic, with a line like "WHO ARE YOU CALLING A (blown out of proportion version of what was actually said)?!?!" And yes, the caps are necessary. In the 5th Lab, he even does it to himself. (He mentions that maybe being short isn't such a bad thing, and then yells "...I just called myself a tiny little pipsqueak!!!)

* ReusableLighterToss: Lampshaded after it is tossed.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Lust and Gluttony play this role in the early stages of the story, with Envy joining later on to become a TerribleTrio. Also, the Slicer Brothers, who idiosyncratically share a body.

** Ed's trip to Liore has him expose Cornello as a fraud who uses Alchemy to perform "miracles" and he and Al leave believing they've helped the town move on from his manipulations. It's revealed later that a sizeable amount of the townsfolk didn't just blindly accept the revelation that their rallying religious figure was a fraud, causing a massive riot that claimed the lives of a few people and nearly burned down the town. Envy showing up disguised as Cornello did not help at all since he made it look like Cornello was some kind of TragicHero.

** When Ling is separated from the other protagonists after arriving in Central City, and the authorities who find him collapsed in the street realise he doesn't have any travel documents, he's promptly carted off to prison as an illegal immigrant.

** During his fight with Mustang, [[spoiler: Envy tries to do his usual ShapeshifterGuiltTrip by turning into Hughes. Envy steps out and tries to attack Mustang in the moment of confusion, only for Mustang to easily burn him anyway, with Mustang pointing out that his trick wouldn't work on him because he ''knows'' Hughes is dead and nothing can change that.]]

** The [[spoiler: mannequin soldiers]] are very similar in nature and looks to the mass-production Evangelion.

* SurvivorGuilt: A whole slew of the them.

* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: The climax takes place over a total solar eclipse. Justified, as eclipses are meaningful in alchemy -- the sun and moon unite to form "a perfect being". That said, the eclipse supposedly takes place in the spring of 1915, when in reality there was no solar eclipse at that time. Furthermore, the two solar eclipses that ''did'' occur that year were in February and August, and both were annular[[note]]where the moon covers only part of the sun's disc, leaving a ring of light all around it[[/note]], not total.

* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: The climax takes place over a total solar eclipse. Justified, as eclipses are meaningful in alchemy -- the sun and moon unite to form "a perfect being".

** When Father attempts to [[spoiler: assimilate Van Hohenheim, it turns out Van Hohenheim has befriended every soul in his body, leading to... [[KillItThroughItsStomach unfortunate side effects]] for Father]].

* ResemblenceReveal: This is done with Hohenheim and Father in Fullmetal Alchemist. There's initially some PlotBasedPhotographObfuscation of a photo of Hohenheim, and even when Father himself is sort of obscured, there's enough shown of him to suggest he and Hohenheim are the same person. Even though the two turn out to be separate people, they do look pretty much identical.

* RealityEnsues:
** One of the three taboos of alchemy is that it is illegal to use Alchemy to create gold. The reason is clarified later on as being an economic reason: using Alchemy to create gold is the same thing as printing counterfeit money in our world since it essentially is printing money and disrupts the economy.
** Ed's trip to Liore has him expose Cornello as a fraud who uses Alchemy to perform "miracles" and he and Al leave believing they've helped the town move on from his manipulations. It's revealed later that a sizeable amount of the townsfolk didn't just blindly accept the revelation that their rallying religious figure was a fraud, causing a massive riot that claimed the lives of a few people and nearly burned down the town. Envy showing up disguised as Cornello did not help at all since he made it look like Cornello was some kind of TragicHero.
** Being a HandicappedBadass isn't as easy as you might think. Ed has to spent months getting used to his automail limbs, and even then they provide a major source of stress for him since they can be broken, and need regular maintenance to be kept in shape. Meanwhile, [[spoiler: Jean Havoc]] gets impaled in the spine by [[spoiler: Lust]], and has his lower body nerves damaged to the point where he can't walk anymore. Mustang tries to convince him to keep fighting, but the damage is too severe for him to help, forcing him to retire from the military because of it. Basically, if a character has a handicap of some kind, the show doesn't shy away from portraying how debilitating said handicap really is.
** It's explained early on the reason Alphonse doesn't just use Alchemy to fix damage to armor; doing so requires thinning out the rest of his body to fix the damaged area. Since EquivalentExchange is still in effect, he'd essentially be pulling material from the rest of his armored body to fix it, which weakens the durability of said armor. [[spoiler: Father being able to casually fix his damage without thinning out his armor serves as a major red flag for the brothers that Father isn't to be trusted since it bypasses EquivalentExchange to do so]].
** Just because your nation calls you a hero for your military service doesn't mean you'll feel happy with what you had to do. The Ishvalan Civil War was a brutal conflict and many of those who were hailed as heroes developed major psychological issues as as a result, and none of them feel like heroes for taking the lives of other people because they were told to. Those who seemed to prosper from it are shown to be terrible people who were clearly not mentally well to begin with if they delighted in the bloodshed.
** When Ling is separated from the other protagonists after arriving in Central City, and the authorities who find him collapsed in the street realise he doesn't have any travel documents, he's promptly carted off to prison as an illegal immigrant.
** When Ed and Al travel to Briggs later on, it's revealed Ed was at serious risk of dying due to his automail being made from steel, which is not very cold resistant. Since the metal is attached to his body, the cold slowly would've given him essentially frostbite so severe he would have ''died'' unless the men of Briggs had found him and given him a new automail arm made from more cold resistant materials. Al by contrast doesn't have this issue because he has no flesh to worry about, which makes him the only one able to track down Scar's group when they are out in the snow.
** During his fight with Mustang, [[spoiler: Envy tries to do his usual ShapeshifterGuiltTrip by turning into Hughes. Envy steps out and tries to attack Mustang in the moment of confusion, only for Mustang to easily burn him anyway, with Mustang pointing out that his trick wouldn't work on him because he ''knows'' Hughes is dead and nothing can change that.]]
** The finale reveals that despite [[spoiler: Bradley being the Homunculus Wrath, the heroes had to lie about his fate because he was such a VillainWithGoodPublicity that revealing the truth would cause a nationwide BrokenPedestal that would lead to internal civil-war and undo all the hard work the heroes put into freeing their home from the grip of the Homunculus]].

** When referencing the various historical conflicts used to carve the blood crests, they seem to have taken place within the span of a year or two. (The uprising in Liore, for example, while the bloodshed at Briggs only lasted for a couple of days at maximum.) The Ishvalan war lasted ''seven'' years because, in the manga, the neighboring country of Aeurugo did what [[RealityEnsues many countries do]] when a rival is undergoing internal conflict: supplied the rebels with arms and other materiel.

** There are numerous references to real-life alchemy and other elements of Hermeticism and Western esoterica. For example, the reference to the "green lion" (which represents the "incomplete" or "impure" material of the Philosopher's Stone), and the Kabbalistic tree of life on Ed's Gate.

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech:
** Scar, of all people, gives one to [[spoiler:Bradley]] when he reveals during their fight that [[spoiler:[[LookWhatICanDoNow now he can deconstruct AND reconstruct]]]]:
-->'''Scar:''' [[OhCrap Your face tells me]] [[DidntSeeThatComing you had absolutely no idea.]] It's true. I can do ''that'' as well. Although until a moment ago I had neither the confidence nor the imagination to make it work...I spent ages thinking about what I should be doing. And this is the answer I found waiting for me. [[spoiler:The result of my brother's research. The power to reconstruct.]]
** Al's confrontation with Kimblee and Pride involves one being given to him, then he gives one of his own. First, he and Heinkel are pretty much screwed, when Heinkel urges him to [[spoiler: use a Philosopher's Stone to win]], with the reason being that while he would never do such a thing for selfish reasons, there's no reason why he can't do it to save others. He also tells him that [[spoiler: to use up the souls in the Philosopher's Stone would also let the people it consumed fight, through Alphonse, which is what they would want.]] Partway through, Kimblee asks him why not [[spoiler: use the Stone to get his body back]] and leave everyone else behind, saying that one will cost the other, per EquivalentExchange. Alphone's [[ShutUpHannibal response]] is that it's not two choices, he can and will [[TakeAThirdOption to do both]].

** Mustang also makes reference to a film cliche while specifically mentioning it as happening in the "movies and novels", suggesting that film got a head start in this universe as well if its a common enough occurrence to mention.

** Making it more complex: out of the whole cast in which 20+ alchemists are seen there are a grand total of two female alchemists and neither of them are State Alchemists. That said, they're not state alchemists because they don't want to be; they would be eagerly welcomed if they chose to join the military and one of them is, in fact, scouted by Bradly himself and turned down.

** The military order that changes the fighting in Ishval from a Civil War to a War of Extermination is 30[[Film/RevengeoftheSith 66]]. [[note]]It's "306" in the manga. The number can also be a reference to the order that led to the internment of Japanese American citizens in the United States, following the attack on Pearl Harbor[[/note]]

** Hughes' military identification code is USO-800. This is likely shoutout to Uso 800 potion from ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}''.

** "[[EvilGloating You honestly believed]] [[ReverseMole you could pull one over on me]]?"

* ReverseMole: When [[spoiler: Zampano calls Envy to let them know of Marcoh's location. It turns out he did this ''at Marcoh's request'', to lead Envy into a trap.]]