Fullmetal Alchemist / Tropes G to P

Tropes for the Fullmetal Alchemist manga and Brotherhood
Tropes A to F (Berserk Button, Famous Last Words) | Tropes G to P | Tropes Q to Z (Ship Tease)

Entries G-P

G

• Gadgeteer Genius: While gifted mechanics are common in the story (such as Pinako Rockbell, and Garfiel and Dominic and most of the business in Rush Valley), Winry is a particularly standout example because of her youth; she fashioned Ed's first automail at the age of eleven.
• Gaiden Game: Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel/Curse of the Crimson Elixir/The Girl Who Succeeds God are side-stories to the manga (even though they use some music from the first FMA series).
• Gallows Humor: It goes so far that deceased characters appear on the flap of the manga volumes ascending into heaven and in Omakes parodying their own death. Ed and Al's mutilation and their resulting anguish are played for fun more than a few times too.
• Gambit Pileup:
  • In later chapters, with Roy, Olivier, and even Grumman's plans set in motion, it's hard to tell who's manipulating whom. Father and the Homunculi still have a hand in everything that is going on.
  • The train ride to Table City in Sacred Star of Milos. The Elric brothers, border security, the guy the Elric brothers are currently looking for, a chimera who's also after the guy the Elric brothers are currently looking for, and a bunch of bat-wing glider-wearing Mooks with guns all collide and start fighting everybody else (except for the Elric brothers working with border security) and trying to accomplish their own goals while either trying to stop the train or keep it moving.
• Gambit Roulette: Father's plan involves the creation of a whole empire from scratch!
• Game Between Heirs:
  • The Xing royal family displays this. Ling and May, two potential successors to the throne of Xing (out of over forty others). All of them are searching for the best way to prove that they will be the best to succeed the throne, and these two decide to seek out the philosopher's stone in hopes of obtaining a method to give immortality to others. Ling wins, but he swears to protect May's clan with his power.
  • The Armstrong patriarch has Alex and Olivier fight for leadership of the family. Olivier wins, and it isn't even close.
• Gender-Blender Name:
  • The male Ashley Crichton from Sacred Star of Milos. (Ashley was historically a male name, but is now almost exclusively a female one.)
  • Olivier Armstrong; "Olivier" is the French male form of "Olivia".
• Gender Equals Breed: In the ending, Ed's son retains the Xerxesian racial traits of his father and grandfather, while his daughter is an ordinary Caucasian girl like her mother.
• General Ripper:
  • Many of the top military brass, most prominently General Raven, are not above using their influence to impede the heroes' actions in the name of selfish desires.
  • Olivier Mira Armstrong also looks like this, but since her original position is actually border patrol with a hostile nation, it's kinda justified. Plus, her actual perspective is a combination of knowing that her soldiers are both more than tough enough to take it and unwaveringly loyal to her.
• Genius Bruiser:
  • Alphonse and Major Armstrong look like Dumb Muscle at first glance, but they're anything but dumb.
  • Darius and Heinkel both fare fairly well at chemistry when Ed challenges them both to mentally break down dynamite into its component elements while he's actually doing it for real.
• Genocide Backfire:
  • Father annihilated the entire nation of Xerxes and let Hohenheim live as thanks for giving him blood. Hohenheim then spends the next few centuries or so plotting against him, and is instrumental in taking him down when he tries to do the same to Amestris. Part of how he does this is by befriending the Xerxian souls inside his body.
  • The Ishval massacre at Bradley's orders greatly reduced the Ishvalan population within the country. It's these remnants that Scar and company rally to form a counter-circle to Father's plan.
• Genocide Survivor: The Ishvalans are an ethno-religious group native to Ishval. After Ishval was annexed by Amestris, the Ishvalans were at odds with the rest of the population and it resulted in the Ishval Civil War. The Führer of Amestris ordered the State Alchemists to eradicate the Ishvalans. The survivors live as refugees scattered throughout the country. The most prominent among them is a man known only as Scar, who seeks revenge against the State Alchemists for the massacre.
• Gentle Giant:
  • Alphonse is a tender-hearted young man stuck in a giant suit of armor.
  • Major Armstrong straddles this and Boisterous Bruiser.
  • Sig Curtis is a portly butcher who can and will beat the crap out of you, but adores his wife.
• Geometric Magic: Alchemy, which relies on transmutation circles.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!:
  • Ross does this to Ed for his recklessness in Warehouse #5 incident.
  • Winry does this to Al (with a WRENCH, no less) for his angst after he questions his origin.
• Ghibli Hills: The countryside around Resembool is gentle and picturesque.
• The Ghost: The Emperor of Xing. He's never seen on-screen, but his desire for immortality is the motivation behind Ling and May's actions.
• Giant Equals Invincible: Subverted. Envy thinks this is the case when he morphs into his true form, but it just gives Colonel Mustang a bigger target.
• Giant Eye of Doom: The huge gray eye that appears during the failed resurrection and sometimes in the doorway of the Gate.
• Giving Up the Ghost: Ed gets smacked so hard on the head by Winry's wrench and starts bleeding profusely to the point that he passes out. His soul starts to drift out of his head wound, and Alphonse grabs it so it doesn't get away.
  "I've got your soul, brother!"
• A Glass of Chianti: Not wine, but this trope seems to be invoked when Father drinks the Philosopher's Stone residue after melting down Greed out of a fancy-looking chalice.
• Glasses-and-Ponytail Coverup: Riza Hawkeye puts on a pair of glasses and lets her hair down for her civilian disguise as "Elizabeth."
• Glory Hound: Several of the less sympathetic military officers.
• God Before Dogma: After the exposure of Father Cornello and his cult as frauds and the bloody uprising that followed, it seems that the people of Liore have adopted this philosophy. They tore down the church but kept the statue of Leto (their god).
• Godzilla Threshold: Invoked as a justification for activating the zombie soldiers. Alas, they do in fact make things worse.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Appears to be case in the aftermath of the Elric brother's attempt to resurrect their mother. Ed lost body parts, Al lost his entire body and the result was a mess of blood and organs that mercifully only lived a few seconds before dying. Later we learn that Izumi's attempt at resurrecting her child had similar horrific results resulting in the loss of some of her internal organs. Subverted in that we learn that no one who has died can be resurrected and the ritual opens a portal that always demands payment from the caster. It's a case where the ritual actually functions correctly but the person performing it does not properly understand the consequences and costs of doing the ritual.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Masterfully inverted during the Ishval flashback in Brotherhood, where everything is depicted in monochrome except for the characters' eye color. In this flashback, though, the Amestrians, who were the attacking party, had blue eyes, while the Ishvalans, who were the victims, all have red eyes.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars:
  • Wrath has an evil scar over his Magical Eye.
  • Scar has an anti-heroic scar.
  • Roy gets a heroic scar on the back of his right hand when he cuts a transmutation circle on it to incinerate Lust, and a huge burn that presumably scarred.
  • Riza has a burn scar on her back that is technically heroic, but subverts the trope in that it's ugly.
  • Ed has a heroic scar where his automail arm connects, and another that appears repeatedly on his forehead.
• Go Out with a Smile:
  • In chapter 106, Kimblee, who helps Ed defeat Pride by restricting his movement, is seen doing this just before fading away.
  • Chapter 108, Hohenheim dies happily in front of Trisha's grave. Greed dies smiling after realizing he has friends.
• Gorn: The manga and Brotherhood are fairly violent. Characters are speared, blinded, disintegrated, burned to ash, shot, stabbed and eaten. No age group is spared. Homunculi especially are torn to bloody ribbons, over, and over, and OVER with shots of viscera and exposed bone common, with every bone, muscle, and sinew are given special detail in close-ups as they grow back. Awesome, but disturbing.
• Government Conspiracy: The homunculi and all the upper echelons of the military are in on a plan to turn the country into a giant philosopher's stone and gain immortality, and the corrupt politicians rationalize it by claiming to use it to form a utopia, even though they're just unwitting pawns.
• Grand Finale: Chapter 108 is a whopping 113 pages and leaves no plot thread hanging.
• Grand Theft Me: Subverted. Trying to pull this on Ed is a good way to get your ass kicked.
• Gratuitous English: Justified — if newspaper headlines and signs are anything to go by, Amestris is an English-speaking country.
  • "Aye, ma'am!"
  • The third opening has a LOT of English phrases thrown in.
• Gratuitous Latin: A few examples on the soundtrack: "Lapis Philosophorum" ("philosophers' stone"), "Ante Meridiem" ("before noon"/A.M.), "Philosophorum Omega" ("philosophers' omega").
• Green Rocks: Red, actually. Philosopher's Stones allow you to do basically anything with alchemy.
• Grim Up North: Briggs, a fortress in the harsh, wintery north that defends the country from Drachma. The soldiers that are assigned here are invariably tougher than, say, Central soldiers. In contrast with Mustang's soldiers, who make an effort to incapacitate without killing during the coup, the Briggs soldiers treat the Central defenders as any other enemy.
• Gross-Up Close-Up:
  • We get a close up of Lust's half-regenerated face after she starts growing back around the Philosopher's Stone Roy ripped out of her.
  • A more Downplayed example occurs when Scar mangles Marcoh's face. Scar's hand covers most of it, but it's close enough that the audience can see a bit of exposed, bloody muscle.
• Guinea Pig Family: Shou Tucker and his wife, daughter, and dog.
• Guns Are Worthless: Used and subverted. The Homunculi can be slain by them if killed enough times, though alchemy is much more effective since they can make them need more flesh regenerate. The super, zombie soldiers released by Central can only be killed by destroying the crown of their heads, something that is nearly impossible to do with bullets alone. Hawkeye lampshades this trope in one chapter...
  Riza: They don't work on anything these days...
• Guyliner:
  • Pride seems to develop this to highlight his evilness near the climax of the anime, also to go along with the Animation Bump.
  • Also, Kimblee.

H

• Handicapped Badass:
  • Havoc during his "pension", who changed from paraplegic ex-soldier into civilian smuggler who can smuggle artillery and such from a remote country into a militaristic country.
  • Mustang is blinded towards the end of the series by Truth as the toll for invoking the Human Transmutation formula. It doesn't stop him from helping fight Father.
  • Ed lost his right arm and left leg to Truth as the toll for invoking the Human Transmutation formula. While handicapped, he's no where near disabled as he kicks lots of ass thanks to automail replacements.
  • Izumi lost a portion of her internal organs to Truth as the toll for invoking the Human Transmutation formula. She kicks even more ass than Edward, but does vomit blood and becomes fatigued easily.
  • Buccaneer's missing an arm and has an automail replacement. He's able to go one-on-one with Wrath and hold his own... for a while.
  • Lan Fan cut off her own arm to use as a diversion to escape from Wrath and Gluttony. It doesn't slow her down a bit once she recovers.
• Hands Off My Fluffy!: May saving Scar from the Elrics.
• Happily Ever After: Amestris is saved from Father's Evil Plan, Father is defeated, Ed gets his right arm back while Al gets his body back, Hohenheim finally gets his wish to die and rest in peace, and Ling gets to become Emperor of Xing and promises to take in all the other clans of the royal family. Finally, Ed and Winry get married and possibly Al and May too.
• Happily Married:
  • Izumi and Sig Curtis.
  • Maes and Gracia Hughes.
  • Even if they weren't technically married, Trisha and Hohenheim could count.
• Harmless Freezing: Generally averted — everyone Isaac freezes dies, while the Briggs arc emphasizes how walking around in the snow with regular metal attached to your body could kill you. Justified when Sloth is frozen however; he's no worse for wear due to having the regeneration powers of a Homunculus.
• Hated Item Makeover: Ed, on the run from the Amestrian military with Darius and Heinkel, disguises the latter's car by transmuting it to look like a dragon. He's the only one of the three of them who thinks it looks either cool or inconspicuous.
• Hate Sink:
  • Shou Tucker, though an extremely minor villain, is the only character to go to hell during the author's "In Memoriam" omakes, and for good reason. He subjects his wife, then his five-year-old daughter and her Big Friendly Dog, to a Fate Worse than Death as chimeras both to keep his job and For Science!, driving the first one to suicide by starvation. Even the financial justification he gives for his actions just comes across as the worst kind of pathetic. When under house arrest, all he does is to whine about how no one understands him. Remorselessly depraved behind his mild exterior and lacking the redeeming qualities of the major villains, Shou Tucker's one-shot appearance leaves a massive impact throughout the series.
  • Zig-Zagged with Envy. On one hand, they are flamboyant, incompetent when their manipulation skills fail, and provide a lot of comedy, whether they're the instigator or are on the receiving end. On the other, they are disgustingly cruel and arrogant, and their sheer joy in hurting others incites the ire of both other characters and the audience. Subverted in their final moments, when Ed figures out that, deep down, they are secretly jealous of humans for being able to form friendships and develop past their Fatal Flaws. Envy is so humiliated at being exposed and pitied by the very humans they so thoroughly despise, that they burst into tears and commit suicide.
  • Brigadier General Fessler was an Amestrian military officer deined by his overwhelming ambition and hatred of Ishvalans. A petty and ignorant man, during the Ishvalan Civil War, he recklessly threw away his troops' lives in his haste to clear out his region before his "competitors". When Alex Louis Armstrong had a mental breakdown from the strain of massacring civilians, Fessler berated him and made it even worse. Later approached by Basque Grand who proposed letting Logue Lowe meet with King Bradley in the hopes of negotiating an end to the fighting, he stubbornly refused for no better reasons than bigotry and wanting to advance his own career. So hated was Fessler, even by his own soldiers, that when Grand openly fragged him and took over his command, all the eyewitnesses said he was felled by a stray bullet.
  • The Gold-Toothed Doctor lacks the redeeming qualities of the Homunculi. He is the only one of their human allies who knows Father's plans to cause The End of the World as We Know It, something he doesn't seem to care about. Responsible for the creation of Wrath, he killed the first twelve failed candidates and turned the rest into mindless Elite Mooks, all of whom he treats as expendable pawns. He not only slits Riza's throat in an attempt to force a Sadistic Choice on Roy but also disgusts both Roy and Zampano with his smug belief that the failed candidates must have been grateful to him for taking them in, feeding them, educating them and giving them the meaning of existence. No tear is shed when Pride turns on him by using him as an alchemic resource, leaving him a hideous ball of flesh.
  • General Raven and his associates in Central Command are a corrupt group of military officials who aid the Homunculi's plans to usurp humanity in a bid to grant themselves immortality. These include instigating multiple civil wars to complete Father's Transmutation circle, such as the Ishvalan genocide. When Raven arrives at Fort Briggs to cover up Sloth's attack, he tries to persuade General Armstrong to join them while leaving several of her troops for dead. Much later, during Roy Mustang's coup of Central City, General Clemin callously writes off the Führer's wife as expendable when she's taken hostage. Central Command oversees the creation of the Immortal Legion, an army of tormented monstrosities created from Philosopher's Stones. While claiming to be making a new, better world, the Central Commanders' utter lack of remorse for their crimes makes it abundantly clear they only care about their own supposed entitlement to eternal life.
• Head Crushing: Ultimately what happens to Pride when Edward invades his body and decimates his Philospher's Stone. Ed puts his hand right over Selim's face as the stone's souls are dispersed, with the final scene showing Selim's head being crushed as his body withers to dust. Amazingly, Pride survives this.
• Healing Factor: The Homunculi that are completely powered by a Philosopher's Stone all have this ability, the only way to kill them is to to remove their stone or force them to regenerate until they completely exhaust the stone's soul energy..
• Heal It With Fire: Mustang uses his fire alchemy to cauterize wounds. He does this to save an injured Havoc and gets bonus points for doing it himself.
• Heaven Above: The doorway to God/the Truth in Fullmetal Alchemist apparently lies above the Earth, right in front of either the Moon or the Sun. It's hard to say which, since the door is opened during an eclipse which allows the villain to obtain the power of God.
• Heavenly Concentric Circles: The Eye of God that lies directly behind the Gate of Truth has black concentric rings within its pupil and the rim of its purple iris. Oftentimes, they are drawn irregularly or with a jagged appearance for added psychological horror effect. In the anime, they have a color gradient to further differentiate each circle.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Ling Yao and Greed. Ling spends a lot of his earlier scenes in the series picking sides based off of who he felt could provide him with the most information on immortality, such as running around with Barry the Chopper. Greed on the other hand was already a defector from the rest of the antagonists to begin with, but he goes through losing his memory and working for them again, regaining his memories and becoming an Ineffectual Loner with a taste for taking over the world, and then finally performing a Heroic Sacrifice, cementing his place in the series as an Anti-Hero.
• Height Insult: It's a Running Gag for almost everyone in the series to call Edward a pipsqueak or point out his short stature in any way to the point where he became known for always throwing a fit when someone mentions his height.
  Pride: Oh cool! You're a tiny alchemist, just like everyone says!
  [Edward gets angry as expected]
  Pride: You hate being called small, just like everyone says!
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Hughes who realized the entire Government Conspiracy far before anyone else. Many of the main characters are threatened and watched very closely for knowing too much.
  • In Brotherhood, this is revealed to be why Isaac McDougal was killed as his line about "what this country is trying to do" means a lot more than it does at first glance.
• Hell Is That Noise: When the mannequin soldiers are awakened during the Promised Day.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Greed displays a variant of this. He can encase his whole body in impenetrable armor, but almost never protects his head (because it's unattractive), even though it's repeatedly endangered (he's shot at least twice, and is almost beheaded at one point). He finally conjures the head armor when he's about to be hit by a rocket.
• Hermetic Magic: Alchemy can accomplish many beneficial things if one performs the associated ritual for the transmutation properly. For most practitioners, transmutation circles are required, and the formula within said circle defines how the gathered energy is channeled. Even when Edward Elric and others transmute just by clapping their hands, it's explained that the requisite circle is represented by the ring formed by the alchemist's arms when their hands meet and the formula is held in their mind. The big sign that Hohenheim and Father are truly different is that they don't even need to do that.
• Heroic Bastard: Ed and Al, as Trisha and Van Hohenheim never married (Edward says their parents were never 'registered'). They are given their mother's surname.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Greed sacrifices himself to save Ling and attack Father from the inside. He succeeds.
  • Especially in chapter 107 when Al uses his soul to give Ed back his arm, so Ed (who is pinned back and without his automail arm) can avoid being killed by Father.
  • Al really seems to like this. He also gives up his chance to get his body back so he could fight in a strong state. And a couple of chapters before, lets himself get trapped in a huge dome with Pride.
  • After being badly wounded by Wrath, Scar seems to be headed for this. Subverted when we find out later that he was found and given treatment by the Amestrian military, and survived.
  • Fu tries to take Wrath down with several sticks of dynamite tied around his body. It was almost a Senseless Sacrifice since Wrath just cut the fuses (along with his stomach), but it allowed Buccaneer to pull one of these off himself, finally wounding the homunculus.
  • In chapter 108 Hohenheim offers his life to get Al back. Subverted when Ed comes up with another solution.
• Hero Stole My Bike: In Chapter 82, Ed and the chimeras steal a rich couple's car at gunpoint to escape from the military - which Ed then jazzes up with a little alchemical disguise. (Earlier in Chapter 45, the same couple had had their car confiscated by Mustang and Hawkeye).
• He Who Fights Monsters: Scar went from a victim of genocide by alchemy to hunting down and killing every state alchemist he could find... with alchemy. Later on, Ed, Al, and Winry pretty much call him out on this. Then Riza, Ed, and even Scar try to keep Roy from falling into this.
• He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: Winry does this for Ed and Al at first, until Ed asks her to stop as it only makes things harder for him. He promises her that the next time she cries for him they'll be tears of joy and he and Al would be back to normal. He keeps that promise!
• High Fantasy: albeit set in some form of the early 20th century, but all the elements are there.
• Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Most of the State Military wears a blue uniform. It doesn't really blend in anywhere but is excusable (sorta) considering the time period. But then they go to fight in the desert. Instead of giving more practical desert colors, the solution? Issue white burnouses out to the soldiers, which blends in better to a degree, but is an extra layer to wear in the desert and they still wear blue underneath.
• Highly Specific Counterplay: Dr. Marcoh is a Non-Action Guy who spends most of his time either captured, protected, or taken hostage for his own protection. His alchemy is purely research into Philosopher Stones (which lead him to become The Atoner), so he has absolutely no fighting skills whatsoever from it but he knows how to unmake them, which proves very unfortunate for Envy (who, like all homunculi, relies on them for their Regenerative Immortality).
• High-Pressure Blood: When Riza has her throat cut, we have a Discretion Shot where all we see is a huge burst of blood exploding in the air.
• Hilarious Outtakes: An extra in the final volume of the dub.
• Hired by the Oppressor:
  • The Homunculi detest humans, seeing themselves as superior beings, but frequently employ them by promising things like immortality or allowing the monsters to control most of the highest ranking military leaders in Amestris. Envy even mocks Dr. Marcoh's humanity while blackmailing him into working for them.
  • Major Miles is an Ishvalan, whose people suffered a genocide by the state military that he himself is a part of (he didn't participate, and was protected from The Purge by his commanding officer). The reason it's iffy is that he has to hide his heritage when he's not around trusted comrades, and his commander General Armstrong secretly opposes the central command.
• Hit Them in the Pocketbook: * Fullmetal Alchemist: Yuki is a corrupt military officer who imposed heavy taxes on the city of Youswell. In order to free the local miners from Yuki's oppression, Al gave him false gold in exchange of his mine. As this gold transmuted back into stone and the sale was officially a gify, Yuki ended up penniless and cashiered.
• Hollywood Darkness: Ed uses alchemy to cause a blackout in order to gain an advantage over Pride, who can't use his powers in complete darkness. The characters can't see, but to the audience, the lighting is only slightly darker.
• Hollywood Healing: Justified with Kimblee at Briggs, though, when General Revan and the Gold-Toothed Doctor use a Philosopher's Stone to heal him from his near-fatal injuries acquired during the fight against Scar back on the moving train. Major Miles even lampshades it.
• Hope Spot: Near the finale, Briggs troops capture Central, Bradley seems deposed, the mannequins are being dealt with, the corrupt military brass is killed or captured, and Olivier announces that they've won... then Bradley shows up, rallying the loyal troops, and opens a can of whup-ass. He defeats an enemy tank singlehandedly with his swords and a single well-placed grenade.
• Horse Returns Without Rider: A recon team sent by General Olivier to investigate the huge tunnel the homunculus Sloth emerged from is attacked and massacred by a monstrous Living Shadow (later revealed to be Pride). The only survivor to return is an absolutely terrified horse with a severed human arm still clutching its reins.
• Hostage Situation:
  • To keep Ed and Mustang in line, Führer Bradley subtly threatens the safety of Winry and Hawkeye. By holding the women they care about over their heads, he effectively makes both alchemists unable to (visibly) go against him.
  • Initially the Bastard-doctor-with-the-gold tooth has this situation with Hawkeye, using her as leverage to try and force Roy to invoke the human transmutation formula. This quickly shifts into a Sadistic Choice scenario when he has Hawkeye's throat slit to speed things up.
  • Inverted when it's the "good guys," aka Mustang's team of rebels, that kidnap Mrs. Bradley. The hostage part of it is eventually subverted as well when they prove to her that high-ranking government officials are involved in a sinister conspiracy and she allies herself with the rebellion, helping them gain the public's acceptance.
• Housewife: And God knows Izumi won't let you forget it!
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl:
  • Sig and Izumi. He's a stout butcher while she's a slender woman much smaller than him.
  • The tiny May with both Scar (a tall, buff monk) and Al (a sentient suit of armor). No longer the case by the end, where she grew much taller by the Distant Finale.
• Hufflepuff House: The southern and western military branches of Amestris, as well as their neighboring countries Creta and Aerugo, rarely come into play in the main story. During the Promise Day, both the northern and eastern military forces square off against central command forces and the Homunculi, with the two remaining branches nowhere to be seen.
  • Creta plays a prominent role in The Movie and Aerugo plays a prominent role in the Wii games, but the canonicity of their stories is rather questionable.
• Humanizing Tears: The generally stoic Riza freaks out when she thinks Lust has killed Roy and, after putting a dozen bullets in her body (to no effect), slumps down in tears. Lampshaded later on when Roy fondly remembers Riza crying and tells her he'd like to see her "pure tears" again.
• Hybrids Are a Crapshoot: Shou Tucker is notorious for his creation of human-animal chimeras. The military considers them failures due to their lack of ability and shoddy creation causing them physical pain.
  • Tucker used his wife to create a talking chimera by fusing her with an unknown animal. He then passed his creation off as a standard animal hybrid and gained recognition for creating the first chimera capable of speech. However, her suffering was so horrible she would only say "I want to die" and refused to eat until her death.
  • He later fuses his daughter, Nina, and her dog, Alexander, to make another talking chimera in hopes of retaining his license as a State Alchemist. He's quickly discovered and arrested, and Scar performs a Mercy Kill on Nina, knowing there is no way to reverse what Tucker has done and that Nina will only suffer.
• Hybridization Plot: One of the more advanced forms of alchemy being actively studied is that of hybridizing creatures to form chimera. The foremost alchemist in the field is one Shou Tucker, who was able to create one that was intelligent enough to talk. It is later revealed that, in his desperation to gain his alchemist license, he violated taboo once, and fused his wife into said talking chimera. She ultimately commits suicide by refusing to eat and starving to death. When his license is once again threatened due to his lack of progress with other talking chimera, he fuses his ''daughter' with her dog to create another.

I

• I Am Not Left-Handed: Wrath ends up on both the giving and receiving end of this trope late into the manga. At first, he removes his eyepatch to use the Ultimate Eye and gain the upper hand in his fight against Greed. Then, in his fight with Scar, the latter reveals that, during the Time Skip, he was able to complete his brother's research and duplicate his "creation" arm.
• I Am Not Weasel: Shao May is constantly confused for a black and white cat rather than a tiny panda—not that an Amestrian would know what a panda is. There's also the fact that, while searching for Shao May, the characters encounter a black and white cat that does look like a panda.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Zampano and Jerso, who hate being chimeras and just want to go back to being normal humans.
• Icarus Allusion: A parallel is drawn between Icarus and the Elric brothers, who believed they could successfully perform human transmutation despite the fact that no one ever had before. Of course, they failed.
• Iconic Item:
  • Ed's watch (in-universe, this applies to all state alchemists) and red coat. Lampshaded in the manga when Ed enthusiastically buys a length of red fabric to remake his coat, saying he 'needs all the luck and morale he can get'.
  • Roy's gloves. Justified, as he needs them to use his alchemy; Riza's got a whole briefcase of backup pairs.
  • Other examples include Bradley's eyepatch before The Reveal, Buccaneer's automail arm, Major Armstrong's gauntlets, and Major Miles' glasses.
• Identification by Dental Records: Mustang fakes a death by making artificial teeth through dental records, and they were good enough to fool most doctors.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Shou Tucker flat-out telling Edward that his wife left him the same time he made his talking Chimera. It doesn't take a master detective to see the connection. Hell, making Nina and Alexander into a Chimera was pretty boneheaded too. Even if the Chimera asking Edward to play with it didn't give him away, did he seriously think that Ed and Al, who were frequently in his house, weren't going to eventually notice that Nina and Alexander were missing?
  • Envy shapeshifting into Maes Hughes, whom he had just admitted to murdering, in an attempt to get Colonel Mustang to drop his guard. Mustang immediately, and furiously, immolates him for it. The Colonel was right; Envy really is a moron. Envy seems to get an idiot ball that gets heavier and heavier as the series goes on. They start off fairly capable acting as Father's spy and infiltrator, but after that, fall for trick after trick and transform to their larger, more easily hit form even when it would be an obvious disadvantage. By the end, they're being outsmarted by a child and goaded into enraging Mustang.
• Idiot Hair:
  • Ed, who tries using it to cheat on his height! Especially hilarious when Olivier threatens to "cut off that ridiculous antenna."
  • Mustang has one but it's easier to see from certain angles. (Mustang's appears to come and go, depending on the seriousness of the scene.)
  • THE IDIOT HAIR HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN THE ARMSTRONG LINE FOR GENERATIONS! Seriously, even a flower lady that's been working for the family (for generations) has one!
  • Maes Hughes and Denny Brosh have them as well, though Hughes's usually points down instead of up like most examples.
• If I Do Not Return:
  • When Ed prepares to transmute himself to bust out of Gluttony's stomach. Ling gives the standard response.
  • Captain Buccaneer gives such a request to General Armstrong. She doesn't follow through, giving the officer in charge of keeping track of the time they spend down there a broken watch.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!:
  • Scar is fully aware of this, and goes on killing State Alchemists anyway, believing that he's already beyond redemption, after killing Winry's parents during his huge Freak Out.
  • Scar himself lampshades this when trying to talk down Roy Mustang who is ready to give in to pure vengeance now that he has Envy at his mercy.
• I Got Bigger:
  • Ed eventually grows from being the shortest of the main cast to a respectable height throughout the series.
  • May Chang is even shorter than Ed but looks like she's roughly doubled in size in the Distant Finale.
• I Have Your Wife: Used several times by villains who keep the heroes, Ed and Roy in particular, on good behavior by threatening their loved ones. Eventually turned back at them by Mustang's rebellion, which kidnaps Mrs. Bradley and shows her that her husband and his supporters are the bad guys, winning her over and helping them win support from the populace.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Ed to Ling when he gets turned into the new Greed. The latter shows signs of snapping out of it when Ed mentions Lan Fan.
• The Illegal: Played for laughs with Ling, although it later serves the plot when Ling is in the right place at the right time (i.e., in prison). Mentioned again in chapter 108.
• The Illuminati: Between the symbolism and the massive evil conspiracy, Father, the Homunculi, and Central Command are very much this trope without the name.
• Image Song: Ed, Al, Ling, Lan Fan, Riza, and Winry have at least one. Ed and Al have two duets. Roy has a song too, but there's no actual singing.
• Immortality Seeker:
  • The emperor of Xerxes sought eternal life and played right into Homunculus's hands by creating a giant transmutation circle that doomed his entire country, turning it into a Philosopher's Stone.
  • In the present day, the Emperor of Xing wants the secret to immortality, which is the reason his children Ling and May are in Amestris.
• Immune to Bullets: Lampshaded in-universe.
  Edward: It won't work, Lieutenant! Bullets don't hurt them!
  Riza: Not again! They don't work on anything these days...
• Implacable Man:
  • Sloth, a huge, hulking brute who takes nearly everything the Armstrong siblings throw at him.
  • Wrath. He breaks into Central HQ with nothing but his swords and a hand-grenade, with which he promptly blows up a freakin tank!
  • Greed!Ling when he assaults soldiers to honor Buccaneer's wish and Fu's demise. He even has a notable Slow Walk and Out of the Inferno scene.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Wrath can kill a tank with a sword.
• Improbable Age: Much is done to justify twelve-year-old Ed being accepted into the military, the most significant of which is Ed's ability to use alchemy without transmutation circles and that Roy recognizes the horror he has already been through with the failed human transmutation. It turns out the villains, who want alchemists that have survived human transmutation, are involved with the upper echelons of the military, so it would make sense that they'd try to get a hold of Ed in spite of usual admittance requirements.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Riza Hawkeye manages to pull up a sniper rifle and shoot Envy (in human form) with it. Apparently she just does not care that it is nearly impossible to hit someone with a sniper rifle (even at close range) without carefully aiming first. At Ishval she was called 'The Hawk's Eye' (as creative as that was) because of her improbable aiming skills.
• Incurable Cough of Death:
  • Trisha's illness is portrayed this way before her passing.
  • Subverted with Izumi. She has a cough and vomits blood everywhere, but ultimately she doesn't die from it. In fact, it's usually Played for Laughs.
• Impaled Palm:
  • Roy Mustang is stabbed through his palm, damaging the design on his gloves, and impeding him from using his powers. He was also pinned in a Crucified Hero Shot and used as a human sacrifice, so it's probably deliberate symbolism.
  • Major General Armstrong shoves her sword through a hapless official while attacking the heads of Amestris's government.
• Injured Self-Drag: After Edward loses his leg, he crawls towards a conveniently-placed suit of armor and knocks it over so he can bind Al's soul to it.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Ed refers to Father as a "bearded bastard".
  • Envy insists on calling Ed "Pipsqueak".
  • Ed's title as "The Fullmetal Alchemist". Pretty much all the state alchemists for that matter have codenames, but only Ed's and Roy's get mileage in the dialogue.
• Insane Equals Violent: Kimblee, Barry, and the Slicer Brothers.
• Insistent Terminology: Izumi is not an alchemist. She is a housewife.
• Inspirational Insult: While at Rush Valley, the promoter of an arm wrestling contest insulted Edward's height which ticked him of and made him fully determined to win the contest. Edward won but Alphonse says it was because Ed used Alchemy.
• Instant Bandages: One of the military goons pursuing Ed, Darius and Heinkel gets one on his chin after he sets off Ed's Berserk Button by describing him as short.
• Intergenerational Friendship:
  • Scar (an aloof older man) and May (a perky preteen).
  • Also General Grumman (an elderly general) and Roy Mustang (a colonel in his twenties). This is especially made clear in the manga, where Grumman says that he wants Roy to marry his granddaughter.
  • Between Pinako (Winry's grandmother) and Trisha (Ed's mother), especially after Hohenheim leaves.
    • Pinako and Hohenheim could also count, though he is actually the significantly older one!
• Ironic Hell: Father fully experiences everything that he said about the Truth giving despair to the conceited.
• Irony:
  • Mustang tells Hughes during the Ishvalan War not to talk so much about his girlfriend on the battlefield since that's how people tend to die in novels. The audience already knows by that point that before Envy kills him he does in fact talk about his wife.
  • Father's plan was to gain true knowledge and freedom by becoming perfect. But he didn't grow beyond his personality flaws, like his total lack of empathy for humans. The Truth even notes that he never really grew beyond his days inside the flask he so desperately wanted to escape.
• It Only Works Once: Ed gave up his portal of truth and therefore his connection with alchemy in exchange for retrieving Al from beyond the gate. It's not known if this is the default connection, or if this was merely the toll Truth accepted in Ed's particular case, but his payment ensures that he can never open the gate again.
• I "Uh" You, Too: Even at the very end of the manga, some people still can't get over their chronic Cannot Spit It Out disorder.
  Ed: Winry! Uh... Um... How do I say this? Er... Like an appointment, or a promise, right?
  Winry: Huh? Just spit it out.
  Ed: Equivalent exchange. I'll give you half my life... so give me half of yours!
  Winry: (Confused, then frustrated). Argh, why are alchemists like this?
• I Want Them Alive!: The Homunculi need alchemists that have tried human transmutation for their master plan, so they go out of their way to make sure they survive. They're not afraid to rough them up, though, and they will kill them if they prove too big a problem.

J

• Jacob and Esau:
  • The Elric brothers. Edward very strongly resembles their father Hohenheim, while Alphonse resembles their mother Trisha both in appearance^note While both sons have their father's coloring, Alphonse has his mother's eyes and face shape and kind personality.
  • The family photo in the end shows that Edward and Winry bore two mini-me's: the toddler son looks exactly like Ed, while the baby daughter resembles Winry.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Various hints are dropped early on about the Government Conspiracy until it all starts coming together much later.
• Just Between You and Me: Causes Cornello's downfall via Engineered Public Confession.
• Just Following Orders: Roy and Riza during the Ishval War. They do not consider this a valid excuse - rather, they find the fact that they didn't have the courage to refuse those orders to be a point of shame, and are working to change their society to the point where such orders are never given again - and those who had already followed them can be put on trial for doing so.

K

• Kansas City Shuffle: General Grumman, as head of Eastern Command, manages to pull one on Bradley during the military exercises before the Day of Reckoning. One of the Führer's generals informs him that Grumman's plan is to send his forces into Central City and take it over with the pretext of saving it from Ishvalan terrorists. Unknown to them, however, Grumman has intentionally leaked this information in order to lead Bradley into boarding a train from Eastern Command back to Central, directly into a bombing trap. Had this assassination attempt been carried out on just about anyone else, it might have succeeded.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Played for laughs with the omakes, which sends a number of morally reprehensible villains to Heaven. Chew on that for a second. The only exception of this is Shou Tucker, who is the only character in the entire series depicted in said omakes to be burning in Hell after his death.
  • Paninya qualifies too; it's made abundantly clear that she's undertaken a large number of thefts before meeting Ed, Al and Winry, yet it is never presented as being more than being an endearing quirk of her personality, which makes it somewhat of a Double Standard as well.
• Karmic Death: Many of the homunculi die in a way that involves the sin they embody. Either dying because of the sin, or dying in a way opposite to the sin.
  • Envy's despairs when he realizes that despite his claim of being superior to humans, he's actually jealous of them and their friendship, strength of will, and ability to grow and this causes him to commit suicide.
  • Gluttony is devoured by Pride.
  • Pride is defeated by Ed because he shows a lack of Pride by willing to lower himself and take over a human's body (ie Ed), causing Kimblee to purposely sabotage him out of pride.
  • Wrath is killed by one who was consumed by Wrath but has managed to put it behind him for the greater good: Scar, and dies peacefully.
  • Sloth dies fighting hard.
  • Lust is killed by Mustang, who has a reputation as a womanizer (though the Brotherhood Anime doesn't really show it due to compressing or skipping the first few volumes of the manga the 2003 Anime had covered so it comes across more of an Informed Attribute).
  • Greed dies selflesly... and satisfied at what he had accrued in life.
  • The research teams who made a Philosopher's Stone for the Ishavalan War, or experimented with soul transfers by experimenting on prisoners, were all used as ingredients for Philosopher's Stones when the Homunculi had no more use for them.
• Kill and Replace: In the film Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos, Atlas did this to Julia's brother.
• Kill It with Ice:
  • Briggs Brigade intended to do this with Sloth when he turns up by leaving him out to freeze, but he survives thanks to Healing Factor.
  • Also Melvin Voyager a.k.a. Ashley Crichton, Julia's brother.
  • And then there's Isaac Dougal from the first episode, of course. While his main power is transmuting water, he's known as the Freezing Alchemist for a reason.
• King on His Deathbed: The reason both Ling and May are in Amestris is that their father the Emperor is ailing and will likely give the throne to whichever clan gives him the secret to eternal life.
• Knight's Armor Hideout: Mei, Mei's panda, Winry, and a cat have all hidden inside Al's armored form at least once.
• Konami Code: There's one written on a door in chapter 47.

L

• The Lady's Favour: Winry gives Ed her earrings as they separate on Briggs.
• Large Ham: ARMSTRONG'S HAMMINESS HAS BEEN PASSED THROUGH THE ARMSTRONG LINES FOR GENERATIONS! Every other member of the Armstrong family is shown to be just as hammy, particularly Olivier.
• The Last DJ:
  • Roy appears to be an inversion at first (has no morals and is only after promotions) but we eventually learn that he's a straight example, since part of his plan for what to do after taking over the country include ending the military dictatorship, which would strip away his own immunity from being charged with the war crimes he committed while "just following orders." Riza, who would likewise lose her immunity from the charges, fully supports his efforts.
  • There's also Armstrong, who refuses to follow orders and kill indiscriminately in favor of his own sense of honor and justice, and he flat out gets told that's why he is never promoted.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In volume 14, when Ed comes out of the shower naked and finds out May is inside Al's armor, the guard comes in and says "Stop acting like you're in a manga!"
• Left for Dead:
  • Lust leaves Mustang and Havoc to bleed to death. Mustang cauterizes their wounds and then proceeds to incinerate Lust until she dies.
  • In the film Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos, Atlas did this to Julia's brother, after all, he is Just a Kid.
• Legacy of Service:
  • Lan Fan and Fu come from a family that has served the Yao clan for a long time, hence why they are very loyal to Ling.
  • The flower lady who passes on Olivier's message to Mustang comes from a family that has SERVED THE ARMSTRONG LINE FOR GENERATIONS!
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • Ling. When he's introduced, he doesn't seem to take anything seriously, he mooches food, and generally acts flippant. He's the last person you probably expect to put up a decent fight against Wrath while carrying his injured bodyguard. Is it any wonder he survived being turned into a homunculus?
  • Dr Marcoh defeats Envy in a single transmutation. Turns out a guy who can create a philosophers stone also knows how to destroy one.
  • Yoki hits Pride with a car.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Many off-screen exposition sequences are concluded this way, such as Ed explaining to Lan Fan what happened to Ling and Hohenheim explaining Al his backstory.
• Let the Past Burn: The Elric Brothers' Origins Arc ends with them burning their late mother's home where they grew up before they go out on a quest to get back Al's body (which was lost in an attempt to resurrect their mom in that very house). They say it's so they won't ever be tempted to turn back from the goal they've set. Hohenheim says its more like a child trying to burn the evidence of their soiled bedsheets after wetting the bed.
• Life Energy: Souls have power, quite literally. In fact they're what a Philosopher's Stone's made of.
• Life-or-Limb Decision:
  • Lan Fan cuts off her own arm, attached it to a dog, and wandered around in the sewers for a few hours]] to lure away the two Homunculi chasing after her and Ling.
  • Ed has already lost his leg as "toll" for the portal but chooses to sacrifice his right arm to bind Al's soul to the armor to keep him from being lost forever.
  • Chapter 107: Inverted when Al sacrifices his own soul to restore Ed's arm. Of course he does because Ed's automail arm was destroyed and Ed was pinned and about to be killed by Father.
  • In a flashback, Scar's brother sacrifices his arm to save Scar from bleeding out after he loses his arm.
  • Though it's not as extreme owing to him being a suit of armor, Al blows both his own feet off to get away when Pride grabs him by them.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to the first anime in some ways. Primarily because the ending is a lot happier after the brother's journey ends compared to the Bitter Sweet ending of the first that has them separated. The ruthlessness of several characters is toned down compared to their incarnations in the first series, or are Played for Laughs like Barry The Chopper. Another strong instance is that the Homunculi are made from philosopher stones instead of the body of a failed human transmutation meaning Ed and Al don't have to face the form of their mother as an antagonist.
• Light Is Good: This trope is occasionally played straight and tends to primarily involve blond hair. The Elric brothers and Hohenheim have both blonde hair and gold eyes and are good guys. The Phenotype Stereotype features of the Armstrong family seem to be a mark of them being Amestrian nobility; and there are several other good blond characters.
• Light Is Not Good:
  • The very first villain faced is a megalomaniac priest who pretends to be a kind messiah like figure.
  • The Truth, Fullmetal's version of God, who appears as a white form and is quite devoid of empathy to any that enter its portal.
  • Many vengeance driven or morally challenged characters wear white such as Scar and Solf J. Kimblee.
  • Pride, a living shadow-made Eldritch Abomination whose powers only works when there's a source of light present but is helpless in total darkness.
  • Father himself, who wears white robes and seems to actually glow while in his evil lair.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • In an ironic twist, the gigantic, slow-witted Sloth is the fastest of the Homunculi. As in, you can barely even see him move.
  • Scar's biggest asset is his speed. He is shown literally dodging bullets.
  • Alex Louis Armstrong is also incredible fast for his size. He has outpaced both Scar and Sloth. on occasion.
• Like Father, Like Son: Ed spends years trying to undo his big mistake; Hohenheim spends centuries trying to undo his. Hohenheim even remarks on the trope's presence, saying that Ed is "just like I was at his age."
• Local Reference: An offhand comment about an "eastern island" from which Shogi was imported.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: Mustang and Hawkeye have this in chapter 50.
• Lodged Blade Removal:
  • Lust is stabbed in the head by Hughes after she attempts to kill him for getting too close to discovering the plans for Amestris. As he runs off to call Mustang, she pries the knife out of her forehead and voices her annoyance at the situation. Justified since she's an immortal homunculus with a Healing Factor.
  • During a fight with Lan Fan, Envy takes a kunai to the head, which they respond to by angrily ripping the blade out and using it for an unsuccessful sneak attack. While they complain that she killed them for the third time in a row, being a homunculus, Envy can easily heal from the damage and death usually doesn't stick.
  • A non-homunculus example occurs midway through the series with Edward, who — after surviving an explosion inside a building — finds himself incapacitated and impaled by a large girder through his gut. Ed and two Chimera quickly go over his options, addressing that even though he's bleeding badly, pulling it out will only kill him faster. Ed posits his only workaround: they pull it out of him, and the instant it's out, he'll transmute part of his own soul to mend his flesh and bloodflow. Despite the excruciating pain, Ed manages to pull it off before passing out from shock, though being just a temporary solution, he's still put out of commission for a while for proper medical treatment and recovery.
  • Captain Buccaneer is stabbed through the abdomen by Wrath and passes out for a bit. When he comes to, he considers the blade before realizing pulling it out would meaning bleeding out and dying. However, while the battle continues, Fu is fatally slashed by Wrath, negating his suicide attack. Just in that instant, Buccaneer uses Fu as a cover, pulls the sword out of his stomach and stabs it through Fu and into Wrath. He does shortly after, but his act prevents the other man's sacrifice for being in vain.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The ending themes are even further truncated in the American airing.
• Look What I Can Do Now!: When Ed and Ling are having trouble fighting Gluttony Lan Fan shows up and kicks his ass with brand new automail. After recovering his memories of the Truth, Al shows Ed he, too, can perform alchemy without a transmutation circle.
• Loud Gulp: Izumi in "The Tale of Teacher", when she finds out she must survive one month alone in the Briggs Mountains in order to earn an apprenticeship.
• Love at First Punch: It was implied by King Bradley's wife that they fell in love soon after she slapped him for his rudeness.
• Love Hurts: Mustang and Hawkeye have each been near-directly responsible for almost all the things in the other's life which cause him/her guilt and pain. Not on purpose, of course, but still. And in spite of this, it's made ridiculously clear that they pretty much can't live without each other.
• Love Is a Weakness: At least, the Homunculi think so. Wrath certainly has no qualms about using it against Ed and Roy when he threatens Winry and basically takes Riza hostage. It doesn't help that the two men's reactions confirm his choice of targets—Ed flies into a rage, while Roy has a brief Heroic BSoD.

M

• Magic A Is Magic A: This trope lies at the very core of alchemy.
• Magical Counterfeiting: Ed transmuted a couple tons of mining waste into gold and used it to buy Yoki's coal mine, then changed it back after reselling it to the miners and before any outside authorities could learn that he broke the law.
• Magic by Any Other Name: Alchemy can perform actions that look like Playing with Fire or Dishing Out Dirt but this world considers it a science. When dealing with purely physical transmutations it does behave like Sufficiently Analyzed Magic and follows scientific principles like combining specific elements to create dynamite. However, once it veers into the metaphysical realms of souls, Philosopher's Stones and immortality it becomes very much fantastical magic. Played with in that the characters do not reject the fantastical elements or resort to calling it magic. It's primarily left as something they just don't understand.
• Magitek: Alchemy is used as an explanation for the Diesel Punk setting.
• Male Might, Female Finesse: Alex Louis and Olivier Mira Armstrong are usually depicted fighting with his fists and her sword respectively. Olivier is a Badass Normal who can wipe the floor with those using superhuman powers and alchemy with nothing but raw martial prowess, while Alex supplements his skill with alchemy and his sculpted physique.
• Manly Tears:
  • Armstrong does it a lot (both for humor, and in all seriousness).
  • Ed, on occasion.
  • Al has many moments where he would cry, but can't, due to his "condition."
  • Hohenheim in two instances: one in the Elric's family picture, and the other when Ed tells him Trisha's last words. Ed was actually very weirded out at this reaction.
  • Ling after Fu's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Roy's moment (blaming his tears on the rain, on a cloudless day) doubles as a Ship Tease moment, since the only person who witnesses the tears is Riza - who agrees that yes, it is raining. Triples as a subtle metaphor. It's raining for two reasons: Mustang's face is wet, and also, he feels useless, which many characters point out as his condition when it rains.
• Marilyn Maneuver: Parodied on one of the omake pages, where Al's loincloth blows up.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: The Emperor of Xing is apparently expected to try have at least one child with each of Xing's 50 clans. The Emperor at the time of the story, Ling and May's father, has 43 offspring: 19 daughters and 24 sons. Ling is the 12th son and May is the 17th daughter.
• Master Swordsman: Führer Bradley AKA Wrath is the definitive example in the series. Pretty much every other character who can theoretically claim this title earned the right to do so by crossing blades with him and not getting killed on the first pass.
• Match Cut: A Discretion Shot where Ed and Al are about to stab the rabbit with a knife, immediately cutting to them stabbing a fish with a pole.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Al first meets with Greed and his chimera underlings by being kidnapped by them. Granted, he never really becomes friends with Greed, but… Greed (and especially his underlings) are portrayed as being pretty sympathetic and not actually all that evil. And their interactions were hilarious. All in all, they actually treated Al pretty decent for a hostage captive. And in the end, Al definitely bonded with and liked the two underlings Dorochet and Martel. Which made their deaths all the more tragic.
• Mauve Shirt:
  • The Chimeras working for both Greed and Kimblee. Kimblee's survive and pull a Heel–Face Turn. Greed's just get slaughtered.
  • Roy's team, as well as Maria Ross and Denny Brosh.
• Maybe Ever After: For Roy and Riza.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: God, aka Truth, does exist in this universe, serving as the guardian of the Gate of Truth and extracting tolls from those seeking advanced alchemical knowledge. What's ambiguous is whether Truth can affect the physical world directly, such as the ray of sunlight that blinds Wrath at a critical moment allowing Scar to mortally wound him, or if the entire arc is a massive gambit to drag the Homunculus into Truth's domain so Truth can deliver long-due punishment for the Homunculus' pride.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Hohenheim and Trisha, on account of him being several centuries old. Episode 27 of Brotherhood may even hint at a Jailbait Wait and/or Precocious Crush story between them, as Hohenheim has a dream involving Trisha as a child, asking him to dance, and aging to adulthood as at the end of the dream. The episode is anime-only so the dream isn't considered Canon, but it's not too much of a stretch to think he did know Trisha when she was young, since he was stated in the manga to have been drinking buddies with a younger Pinako, and is centuries old, after all.
• Meaningful Background Event: In episode 55 of the anime, when Al, Marcoh, Yoki, and Heinkel are preparing to ditch their stuck car, someone with a holstered sword can be seen walking across the street behind Al. It's King Bradley, having survived his train exploding and making his way back to Central Command, before announcing his presence to the Briggs troops several scenes later.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • Ed repeatedly (and unknowingly) echoes things Hohenheim has said or done, despite his resolve to not be anything like his father. This includes his actions when leaving Winry for the Promised day mirroring when his father left Trisha as well as an almost identical line stated by both when using a philosopher's stone
  Hohenheim: Forgive me but I have to use you.
  Ed: I'm sorry but I need to use you.
  • Father's death at the hands of Ed is strikingly similar to the original Greed's death. Right down to quotes being almost exactly the same.
  Father: Now return to whence you were born. Return to my depths and rejoin my soul. Return Greed.
  Ed: Go back to where you were born. Go back to nothing, homunculus.
• Meaningful Funeral:
  • Hughes gets one. Cue massive waterworks.
  • Roy and Riza have their own private one for her father, Roy's alchemy teacher.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Führer is named King Bradley although in his case the name was given to him by the scientists that made him what he is.
  • Sharpshooter Riza Hawkeye (it's even lampshaded a couple of times, especially in the manga where Roy is said to have 'the Eye of the Hawk' protecting him). It becomes more poignant when she becomes Roy's eyes once he goes blind.
  • Everyone in the Armstrong family seems to be ridiculously strong.
  • Roy Mustang is a twofer.
    • "Roi" means King in French - guess who wants to replace King Bradley as Führer?
    • In the US Navy during WWII, a "mustang" was an officer (usually promoted from the ranks) without any patrons or political help from outside the navy. Roy personifies this (substituting army for navy), although it is uncertain that was planned.
  • "Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim", the full name that Hohenheim was intended to receive, is the real name of Paracelsus, one of the most famous alchemists in Real Life. Plus Riesenburg (Resembool) being his home.
  • Amestris was the real-life consort of the Persian king Xerxes. Homunculus turned Xerxes into a Philosopher's Stone, and intends to do the same with Amestris. It's also meaningful in another way, as Amestris was regarded as despotic by Greek historians.
  • Ścieżka is Polish for 'path'. She fittingly leads Hughes on the road to unlocking the conspiracy.
  • Of course all of the Homunculi as well.
  • Xingese alchemy is called alkahestry. "Alkahest" is an ancient name for the Philosopher's Stone, while also being the hypothesized ultimate solvent. Now think, what school of alchemy was used to remove Father's dampener and used to destroy Envy's philosopher's stone instantly?
• Mid-Season Twist: Episode 7 of Brotherhood^note Chapter 10 of the manga reveals that the Philosopher's Stone is made by sacrificing numerous, living humans.
• Mildly Military: Increasingly subverted. The Amestrian military initially has more of the feel of an urban police department than an army, but Amestris is also a military dictatorship— all government officials are members of the military, protest against the government is responded to with military force, and to be a licensed alchemist is to be a member of the military.
• Militaries Are Useless: Subverted: at the very beginning, Edward Elric confronts the Head of the local Corrupt Church without any help of the army. He later explains that, after dealing with the leader, he sent a report to his superiors in the military, who reacted by sending troops to deal with the trouble created by the collapsing of the church. It's then revealed that those troops were sent to replace those of the General in charge of the region, because they were dealing too well with the population, while his superiors needed bloodshed.
• Military Mage: Amestrian State Alchemists are desirable recruits, automatically granted the rank of Major and able to rise much higher. They tend to act as human artillery units in wartime and government-sponsored researchers (often bordering on Mad Scientist levels) in peacetime. In exchange, they gain access to branches of the National Central Library closed to the public, which hold a wealth of information about high-level alchemy.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Father could care less about all the souls in his Stone, but Van Hohenheim actually took the time to come to an understanding with EACH and EVERY ONE of the 536,329 souls now trapped in his body as a result of Father's destruction of Xerxes.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Between the Elric brothers' attempt at human transmutation, the murder of Maes Hughes, and the revelations about the Homunculi and their massive conspiracy for Father to Take Over the World via containing every soul on earth plus the power of God, at least two points in the story could be considered either the minor crime or the major plot.
• Mistaken Death Confirmation: Wrath is impaled on a sword and flung off a ledge into a moat. Those present watch him sink, believing the fight is over and he's dead. He later turns up to fight Scar, still alive and in fighting condition, though bleeding badly.
  • Before that, Mustang and Grummen trick him into returning to central and arrange for his train to be stopped and blown up. Given everything we know about Wrath, it obviously doesn't go to plan.
• Mistaken for Brooding: Mustang thinks back to Hughes' funeral, and remembers seeing Bradley's hands shaking in what he assumed was grief. While Mustang recounts it to Bradley, the Führer corrects him and explains his hands were shaking because he was barely containing his aggravation over Hughes' daughter's cries.
• Mistaken for Transformed: After getting trapped inside Gluttony's stomach, Ed and Ling remember that Envy was sucked in as well and start wondering if either of them is the homunculus in disguise. Luckily, they're able to prove their identities to each other.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Human chimeras Heinkel and Darius join Edward after Kimblee blows up the mine shaft containing all three of them, disregarding the danger to his subordinates.
• The Mole: When 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.
• Monkey Morality Pose: A rather creepy example — in one of the eyecatches for episode 51, three of the mannequin soldiers are shown the classic "See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil" pose.
• Monster Modesty: Al still wears a loincloth despite being an animated suit of armor. (Though later he puts that spot to good use as a hiding place.)
• Mood Whiplash:
  • A theme throughout the series. Wacky Face Fault gags! Genocidal military dictatorships! Wacky characters who appear with pink sparkles and hilarious muscles! Those same characters racked with guilt over the civilians they murdered in the war!
  • The series goes straight from an epic chase sequence involving Alphonse Elric, Roy Mustang, Barry the Chopper, Ling Yao, and several Homunculi to Boob-Based Gag and then straight back.
  • In Volume 10, an Omake makes fun of this:
    Editor: Chapter 38 is supposed to be serious stuff. Take out the comedy.
    Arakawa: Hmm...You're right. The plot may flow better that way.
    Editor: Yeah, that way we can replace 'em with more action.
    Arakawa: Sure thing...But can I keep the boobs in?
    Editor: Of course! You must keep the boobs in!
    Arakawa: I'm so glad you're my editor, Shinomura sir.
  • The fight between May and Lan Fan, with Knox putting them in their place, is entirely played for laughs. Then we have a flashback to Ishval and Knox talking about how he doesn't want to see kids killing each other. Whiplash enough to rattle brains.
  • Episode 10 of Brotherhood has the scene involving Hughes' death immediately followed by this line from Ed:
    Ed: Oh, boy! This is the best apple pie I've ever eaten!
  • After Scar's first attack, and Ed coming close to dying, Al goes off on him for trying to commit a Senseless Sacrifice, punctuated by Al's body falling apart after Scar's attack. But this line comes off as silly every time.
  Al: "Oh, great! Now my arm fell off cause my brother is a big stupid idiot!"
• Mook–Face Turn:
  • All four of the Chimeras that were with Kimblee, after being saved by Ed and Al on different occasions. Not one of them had a name until they turned.
  • The soldiers that were sent to capture Olivier and Alex Armstrong, after the Armstrongs saved them from the Cyclops Soldiers and Sloth.
• Mook Horror Show:
  • Lan Fan has a He's Back! moment in which she shows that she's recovered from the loss of her arm by rescuing Ed and his group from Gluttony by cutting Gluttony to ribbons with the blade attached to her automail. It's an awesome scene, but it's initially shown from the perspective of Gluttony, an Obliviously Evil Psychopathic Manchild who is overwhelmed with pain and fear.
  • "Greedling" helps the rebel forces hold back the soldiers loyal to Central Command. This entails a Terminator-inspired scene where Greedling is in the Ultimate Shield Instant Armor and smashes tanks like toys while the enemy soldiers futilely try to shoot him. Someone on the heroes' side even comments "Good thing he's on our side."
  • Toward the end of the series, Mustang goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Envy, and despite Envy is one of the most sadistically cruel characters in the series, you actually feel kind of bad for them.
  • Badass Teacher Izumi has a couple of scenes where she takes out soldiers while sporting Glowing Eyes of Doom, and it's shown from their perspective.
  • In a humorous example, at one point, Ed is being hunted by soldiers from Central Command after going rogue. In a scene shown from their perspective, an unseen Ed calmly takes out the group looking for him, finishing up with the unfortunate soldier who, when describing Ed, just had to note his short stature.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: The Elric brothers and Winry are the most purely heroic characters; the heroes from the State Military are more gray, being former war criminals who want to atone for their sins; Greed and Scar are fairly sympathetic antagonists until they become Anti Heroes; there's Barry the Chopper who is the Token Evil Teammate for the State Military heroes- he's clearly Evil; finally, the other villain characters are definitely very far down toward the evil extreme of the scale (Shou Tucker and "Dr Goldtooth"). And even one of the worst villains is spared. Then of course we get Kimblee.
• Morality Pet:
  • Both King Bradley and Selim have a soft spot for Mrs. Bradley, despite being heartless homunculi and, at times, complete bastards.
  • May has acted as a morality pet for several people, but most often she's Scar's.
  • Riza is occasionally this for Roy, in part because of the promise he extracted from her that she will be his conscience and shoot him if he strays from the righteous path. Particularly, when he goes on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Envy for Hughes' death, she threatens to kill him because his vengeance is consuming him. She then informs him that once he's dead she will kill herself. He's brought up short by the fact that he's being lectured by Ed and Scar, a child and a guy who previously tried to kill him, but mostly by the fact that he's caused Riza pain again. He even says afterward, "It was the Lieutenant who brought me to my senses."
• More Insulting than Intended: Ed is extremely sensitive about his height, which is bad since people tend to be surprised he's the Fullmetal alchemist. He often retaliates violently even to minor comments, blowing the entire situation out of proportion. At one point Ed attacks Envy for making a remark on his height, despite it being one of the few times the latter wasn't trying to insult him, and explains he's even counted how many times Envy has called him short.
• Motherly Scientist:
  • Winry acts motherly with Ed, taking care of his automail and worrying a great deal about him (although it could be argued it's more of a "Motherly Technician").
  • Izumi is (by virtue of alchemy being a science) also one. She's a strange kind of motherly, though.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: A reoccurring theme in the series is not only can you not bring the dead back to life, but that you should never try and learning to live with this fact is the only way to move on. Ed and Al are forced to confront the fact that as powerful as they are, they can't save everyone and they can't reverse the past, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't continue working to help to prevent repeats of those tragedies.
• Mr. Fanservice:
  • Roy Mustang and Edward Elric have a lot of Shirtless Scenes to show off their muscular bodies. Ling and Havoc get their shaire as well.
• Ms. Fanservice: Lust does tend to be popular among the series' male fans. I wonder why?
• Murder-Suicide: Discussed. Riza tells Roy that she is willing to keep her word and shoot him if there is no other option, but then she'll kill herself too as she sees no point in living without him.
• Musical Spoiler: Who is the person running through a gauntlet of attacking Central soldiers and confronting Wrath at the end of episode 56? The theme normally reserved for Xingese characters may clue the viewer in ahead of time.
• Must Make Amends: The events of Fullmetal Alchemist all get their start when Ed and Al try to bring their dead mother back to life and pay a terrible price for trying. Their quest to set things right and get their bodies back is a major theme of the show.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • The five Human Sacrifices who survived the Gate. Ed in particular because he has to bear the burden that his little brother lost his entire body in the process. Al in a lesser but still meaningful sense since it was because the price of his soul is bonded to the armor was Ed's arm.
  • Greed, who anguishes in an enraged manner when he regains his memories and realizes he killed the last of his former followers.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Nina for Ed and Al.
  • Abandoning the Ishvalan Genocide for Major Armstrong.
• Mystical City Planning: It turns out that does the entire country of Amestris was designed to be a giant transmutation circle for Father's plan.
• Myth Arc: The Elric brothers' quest to restore their bodies. This soon gets entwined with unraveling the conspiracy surrounding the military, the homunculi, and the philosopher's stone.

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• Naked First Impression: A non-embarrassing male variation: When Al finally gets his human body back from the Gate, he's naked, which is the first time everyone except Ed, Hohenheim, and Izumi & Sig Curtis gets to see his actual form. He does have a blanket over his lap, though.
• Narrator All Along: Father is the narrator in both the dub and the sub, though the trope is subverted because the narration happens from more than one perspective.
• Nay-Theist: Edward Elric of tells most people that he's an atheist (claiming that alchemists, being practitioners of an art based in truth and logic, don't believe in such vague concepts), but in truth he has met and has a very bad relationship with the Truth, the living embodiment of Equivalent Exchange that's the closest thing to a proper "god" ever seen in the setting.note
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Amestris itself, when one General makes clear his feelings on the Ishval massacre.
• Necromantic: Trying to bring back the dead with alchemy is a bad idea.
• Never Given a Name: Father's process to create homunculi was repeated many times. Many of the candidates were raised from children without being given names by their parents.
  • King Bradley is a false name given to the one who survived the transformation into the homunculus Wrath. He does not consider this to be his true name, and even comments on the similarity between himself and Scar when they fight.
  • The other candidates for the process to create the homunculus Wrath were kept as an elite and completely loyal force in Central. Not one of them has a name or any reason for living aside from carrying out orders.
• Never Trust a Trailer: In the English manga, at least, the "next volume" previews always seem to take panels out of context, or translate certain sentences in such a way as to change the meaning of what is being said to make it more dramatic or to give it different implications entirely.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Sloth battles Alex Armstrong, his arm gets dislocated in the fight leaving him at a severe disadvantage. When Sloth moves in and starts to crush Alex, he pops the shoulder back in place. Cue ham.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Homunculi, and Hohenheim and Father. Immediate regneration is tied into their immortality.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The one-eyed mannequin soldiers.
• Nightmare Hands: The inside of "The Gate of Truth" seems to be filled with nightmarish hands that seek to rip you apart.
• Ninja: Lan Fan and Fu are as close as it's gonna get even though they come from Xing, the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of China.
• No Conservation of Energy: Alchemy, despite following Equivalent Exchange, does not explain why it seems to bypass entropy. Mid-way through the series, it's revealed that the energy of alkahestry comes from the 'dragon's pulse', and alchemy works almost the same way, using the natural movements of the Earth.
• No Face Under the Mask: In the film Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos, it is revealed that Julia's brother's face was stolen by Atlas forcing him to don a White Mask of Doom.
• No Longer with Us: When questioned by Greed, Alphonse says that "Edward is gone now." Greed and the chimerae are immediately abashed and apologize for being insensitive (even though they're also holding him captive), much to Al's confusion. When they protest Edward's arrival later, Al says they shouldn't have jumped to the wrong conclusion.
• No Loves Intersect: If you live in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist you may have to accept Ship Tease, Love Hurts, Unequal Pairing, and Cannot Spit It Out getting in the way of your potential relationships, but you'll never have to deal with a viable Love Triangle. Especially remarkable since this is a land where almost Everyone Is Single and heavily populated by attractive people. The closest there's ever been to a Love Triangle is Al mentioning that he used to fight over Winry, with Ed and Ling hitting on her a few times, and May fantasizing about Ed after Winry realizes she loves him.
• No Man Should Have This Power: In The Sacred Star of Milos, Ed tells Julia to destroy the Philosopher's Stone. Subverted when she gains its power by literally swallowing it instead.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Scar, of all people, gives one to Bradley when he reveals during their fight that now he can deconstruct AND reconstruct:
  Scar: Your face tells me 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. The result of my brother's research. The power to reconstruct.
• No Name Given: Scar, his brother, King Bradley's real name, and the "gold-toothed doctor".
• No Place for Me There: Discussed. Mustang and Hawkeye's ultimate goal is to end the military rule over Amestris, bring back Parliament, and try all the "heroes" of the Ishvalan Civil War as war criminals... including themselves.
• Non-Indicative Name: Father's sacrifices turn out to be the only ones guaranteed to survive his nationwide human transmutation circle.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Gluttony has the mental capacity of a toddler and does not seem to realize that his actions hurt people, he even apologizes after accidentally eating Edward.
• Non-Serial Movie: Appears to be the case with The Sacred Star of Milos, considering that it involves an armored Al and new enemies.
• No One Gets Left Behind: Mustang (with Havoc and Hawkeye), Ling (with Lan Fan) and Olivier (with her scout team in the underground tunnel).
• No Romantic Resolution: Few romances are actually resolved or given anything beyond subtext.
• Nosebleed: In an omake...
  Roy: When I become Führer, all female officers will be required to wear... TINY MINISKIRTS!
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Dr. Marcoh, in his takedown of Envy.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Many characters compare themselves to Elric brothers because of their acts of human transmutation or what they have become because of it. Every time, the brothers would deny accusations and work to undo their mistake.
• Not So Episodic: The series starts off looking like it will be a road story about the Elric brothers visiting various Adventure Towns and Wacky Wayside Tribes while trying to restore Alphonse's body. Around the time of the first encounter with Scar, however, it becomes clear there's a much bigger plot afoot and that many of the previous misadventures were more important than they seemed.
• Now Do It Again, Backwards: How Edward gets his arm back. Granted, it was against his will, but it ultimately saved his life.

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• Ocular Gushers: Al shows this in comedic moments despite not having any tear ducts. Also, Armstrong, whenever he sheds his Manly Tears. May can put out fires with her tears. Denny when he finally sees Maria again.
• Odd Friendship:
  • May, cute little princess with the pet panda, and Scar, alchemist-hunting serial killer, get along surprisingly well.
  • Riza and Rebecca Catalina are close friends for some reason, despite their polar opposite personalities. Perhaps this is a case of Opposites Attract?
• An Offer You Can't Refuse:
  • Dr. Marcoh was forced into cooperating with a plan to destroy the whole country because the homunculi promised to wipe out his whole village if he didn't.
  • Edward, in episode 29, is forced to remain a state alchemist, even after he announces his resignation, due to the homunculi threatening to harm Winry if he didn't. This is used in a similar fashion against Mustang, who has the well-being of his whole team (Hawkeye most of all) resting on his willingness to comply, although he never threatens resignation. (They both find their own ways around it.)
  • Due to above, Ed was forced to cooperate with Kimblee's attempts to hunt down Scar and Marcoh, using Winry as a leverage point. Kimblee even offered Ed a philosopher's stone in exchange for committing mass murder on the Briggs frontier, though Kimblee was unaware at the time that Ed and Al had already vowed to never use a philosopher' stone due to its grisly nature. This actually leads to Edward escaping his contract; Winry is able to fake her own kidnapping and get away to safety, and a few episodes/chapters later, Ed (unintentionally) fakes his own death, letting both disappear off the map for a couple months.
• Offered the Crown: In Chapter 108, instead of Olivier or Roy taking Bradley's place, they instead allow General Grumman to replace him as Führer.
• Official Couple: As of Chapter 108, we've got four that count. Ed/Winry is confirmed, Al/May is pretty much confirmed, and Roy/Riza and Ling/Lan Fan are, as ever, very, very strongly implied.
• Oh, Crap!: Many.
  • The climax of episode 41 has two massive ones for Ed, likely shared by the audience. The first? Oops, Kimblee had two philosophers stones. The second? Ed seems only moderately injured from falling down a mine shaft. Must be Made of Iron, right? Wrong. He notices his Blood from the Mouth, looks around and sees he's been impaled on a girder. Then the pain sets in and he collapses, unconscious. Meanwhile, due to the empathic bond between Ed and Al, Al collapses in the snow and is drawn towards his body, presumably because Ed is close enough to death that Al's body would be unable to survive without his soul. Oh, Crap! indeed.
  • Heinkel has one while guarding Al and Pride, who have been mutually trapped inside a giant mound of dirt to keep Pride's shadow abilities in check. After a while, Pride starts banging on Al's helmet, and Al and Heinkel assume that Pride is just acting like Selim (aka, a bored child trying to amuse himself). That is until Heinkel realizes the banging is Morse code and Pride is transmitting their position to his allies. Cue attack by Kimblee.
  • Envy has this in episode 43 when Marcoh reveals while they're captured and restrained that not only can he create philosopher's stones, but destroy them as well. Shock turned to pain and despair as Marcoh revealed his transmutation circle and drained Envy of all power in a single, massive, and badass transmutation.
  • During a coup, the commander of soldiers defending the main gate to Military Headquarters dismisses the possibility of being defeated by the Briggs soldiers, saying that "they'd need a tank to breach the gate." Guess what he sees when he looks through his binoculars a second later.
  • The entire rebel forces have a collective one when Bradley/Wrath is revealed to be Not Quite Dead.
  • Pride and Kimblee have one in Episode 51 of Brotherhood when they realize that Al has a Philosopher's Stone.
  • The faces of the Briggs' soldiers when they hear Mustang's back in Chapter 107. "Hit the deck" indeed.
  • Hawkeye when Mrs Bradley mentions that Selim is from her husband's side of the family
• Omake: Hiromu Arakawa has one mean sense of humor and it shows in the "extras" pages in the back of every manga volume. The content of them occasionally make it into either of the anime (two words: TINY MINISKIRTS). They've also been animated as DVD extras.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: One of the background themes from the anime, known as "Lapis Philosophorum" on the soundtrack, plays to this. It often plays during particularly poignant or dramatic moments.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The homunculi are portrayed like this early in the anime, where they appear to be able to foil the Elric brothers' plans and prepare their own without previous knowledge. The manga goes into more detail over how the homunculi get their information before the plot is fully unveiled.
• One Cast Member per Cover: The re-released manga volumes have a different character on each cover.
• One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: Edward Elric is (unlike almost every other Alchemist on the planet) able to do alchemy without first drawing a circle. Anybody who opens the Gate of Truth can do this, at the cost of a "tribute" taken by Truth, such as Ed's leg or Izumi's organs.
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: At Rush Valley.
• On the Next: In some editions of the manga, each volume ends with a page foreshadowing events in the next volume.
• The One Where Everyone Dies: Near the climax, Father activates his transmutation circle and forcibly removes the souls from everyone in Amestris, absorbing enough power to contain 'God' and kill everyone save his five sacrifices. However, Hohenheim's own transmutation circle, created from the shadow of the eclipse activates not long after, returning everyone to normal.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Envy, Gluttony, and Pride all have monstrous true forms.
  • There's also a fairly big subversion of this trope during the final fight between Roy and Envy: Envy transforms into their True Form and gloats that there will be no holding back. Mustang's reaction is to flash-boil their eyes again while berating them for stupidly making himself a bigger target. Envy responds by reverting back to their humanoid form and running away as fast as they can.
  • In the new anime, Father Cornello gets this during a fight, in true Batman Beyond fashion.
  • In chapter ninety-seven of the manga, Father reveals his true form to be a humanoid shadow covered in eyes and mouths, just like the shadows Pride uses to attack.
  • And then in Chapter 104 Father somehow manages to go One-Winged Angel AGAIN, having opened the Gate of the entire planet, turning the entire population of Amestris (except our heroes in the center of the circle) into a Philosopher's Stone within himself, and absorbing the knowledge of God to cross the Bishōnen Line.
• Only Mostly Dead: Everyone not in Father's sanctum from the end of chapter 104 to the middle of chapter 105.
• Oppressed Minority Veteran: During the war against the Ishvalans, members of the Amestris military with Ishvalan heritage were rounded up and imprisoned, regardless of their rank or how distinguished their record was. (And in at least some versions, then became subjects of very lethal human experimentation.) Both the manga and the Brotherhood version of the anime have the character Major Miles, the right hand man of General Armstrong at the legendary Briggs fortress. Miles is a quarter Ishvalan and must hide his heritage, as he would still be subject to these orders despite the fact that the war is long over and how small a part of his heritage it is.
• Orphaned Etymology:
  • In a flashback during Episode 27 of Brotherhood, Pinako and Hohenheim share a bottle of Scotch whiskey, despite living in a world where Scotland presumably doesn't exist.
  • During the Lior arc, Ed recounts the story of Icarus (though not by name) to Rose, even though Greece also presumably doesn't exist in this world. Since Xerxes seems to be a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for Greece, maybe that's where the myth came from in this world.
  • Winry jokes that Al marrying May could be a "reverse Cinderella story."
  • The manga and Brotherhood anime also have a lot of Orphaned Symbolism, given that it uses real-world alchemical symbols. For example, the Elric brothers' mark, the Flamel, combines a Greek symbol (the caduceus) with a Christian symbol (the crucifix) despite the presumed nonexistence of Greece and the confirmed by Word of God nonexistence of Christianity.
• Our Clones Are Different: Father was a Homunculus created using Hohenheim's blood, and thus is his clone, but appeared as a ball-like creature until becoming a living Philosopher's Stone and recreating his appearance to resemble Hohenheim. Later, Father made seven Homunculi from his sins, whom are also considered clones of Hohenheim, yet possess powers unique to themselves and bear no resemblance to him, with some not even appearing as human.
• Ouroboros: All the homunculi (save Pride and Father) sport one somewhere: Lust - above her breasts, Gluttony - tongue, Envy - upper left thigh, Greed - back of his left hand, Wrath - left eye, Sloth - back of his right shoulder. Pride probably has one somewhere, we just never see it.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Darius, Heinkel, Jerso, and Zampano, four chimeras who were Kimblee's soldiers before joining up with Ed and co., can transform into different kinds of beastmen (a gorilla, a lion, a frog, and a boar, respectively). Greed's chimeras appeared to be humans with some animal-like characteristics, but these four chimeras can switch between appearing to be normal humans and their humanoid beast forms, seemingly at will.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Mannequin Soldiers. Souls of executed people reanimated in artificial bodies.
• Out-Gambitted: Hohenheim inflicts this on Father in chapter 105. He clearly learned from his past experience as an Unwitting Pawn.

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• The Paid-For Harem: Greed's girls.
• Paint the Town Red:
  • Scar is the initially the biggest perpetrator of this while he's killing State Alchemists, but Wrath becomes an even bigger perpetrator of it after Scar's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Homunculus/Father is the ultimate perpetrator/instructor of this, what with the crests of blood needed to carve out the points needed for his nationwide transmutation circles in both Xerxes and Amestris.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Hohenheim is one absurdly powerful and protective case of this, even if he doesn't act like it the first time we see him.
  • Fu to Lan Fan, which makes him a Grandpa Wolf.
  Fu: So, who is this man who remains uninjured despite both our best efforts?
  Ling/Greed: That'd be King Bradley.
  Fu: "''Oh ho! I've never seen him with my own eyes...So this is the man who severed my granddaughter's arm!!!
• Parental Abandonment: Ed and Al. First, their father left when they were five and four years old, respectively. Daddy had a good reason for abandoning them, but apparently he didn't feel the need to explain it to them. Then, their beloved mother died of an incurable illness, leaving them orphans at eleven and ten years old.
• Party Scattering: Führer Bradley uses his position to reassign the entire Mustang group to far corners of the country, each doing a job they're not very good at. They aren't reunited until near the end of the story with added allies, one of whom does kill Bradley and appoint Mustang as the new leader of the country.
• Path of Inspiration: Cornello's cult.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Multiple characters deliver these to the homunculi in response to claims of humans being foolish animals. Envy commits suicide after hearing one too many of these.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: It is necessary for them to defeat Envy, so Mustang begins to torch him over and over again. He crosses the line into this trope when be begins to do so in the most painful ways possible once he gets Envy to admit that he killed Hughes. This leads to Mustang being on the edge of his Start of Darkness by almost becoming consumed with vengeance.
• Paying It Forward: Roy Mustang is trying to build this trope as a form of protection by becoming Führer of Amestris. After losing so many soldiers under his command and committing so much death in the Ishval War of Extermination, Roy hits the Despair Event Horizon over how many people died and how many Ishavalans he killed that he can no longer remember. The soldiers who survived thanked him for his service and remarked all his sacrifices ensured they lived. With that, Roy resolves to do as he can as a single person to protect the entire country by saving as many as he can and those who he has protected will continue to protect others ad infinitum. Hughes, being a more cynical realist, compares it to an idealistic pyramid scheme, but applauds Roy's dream and swears to help him achieve it at all costs by helping him become the leader of Amestris to fulfill his dream.
  • Scar himself attempts to indulge in this trope by following Miles' example and atone for his wrongdoing by protecting others instead of bringing punishment.
• Permafusion: These are essentialy what Chimeras are, utilizing alchemy to mix humans and animals together. If done correctly, it results in a human with animal abilities. If it's not done correctly, the end result is a mix between human and animal who's in constant pain.
• Pec Flex: Armstrong's manly physique has been passed down the Armstrong line for generations! (Looking at some of his sisters, it has.) At one point, he has a flex-off with Sig Curtis. They end up as friends as a direct result.
• People of Hair Color: The Ishvalans have grey hair and red eyes, as well as dark skin. Xingese people have black hair and black eyes and people from Xerxes had gold hair and gold eyes.
• Percussive Maintenance: In episode 45, Ling meets up with Ed after a fight with Wrath. In the middle of their conversation, Greed tries to take control back over Ling's body. Ed starts hitting him on the head to stop this from happening.
  Ed: (To the rhythm of his hits) Hey! Hey, hey, wait, wait! No, no, no, no, no, no! Fight back you idiot! Don't let him overpower you!
• Person of Mass Construction: Every Alchemist is capable of transmuting materials into objects and structures.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Every State Alchemist can be considered this; Mustang even commented that their job is like an "artillery person who gets sent in when everything else fails". Father and Hohenheim also count.
• Pet the Dog:
  • A literal example with Hawkeye with Black Hayate; the encounter where she adopts him shows that she's not as unflappable and stoic as would initially seem.
  • Scar really likes cats◊.
• Phantom Limb Pain: Ed's amputations are shown to be physically excruciating despite the auto mail.
• Phantom Zone: Gluttony's stomach.
• Phlebotinum Breakdown: If you don't know your stuff, alchemic reactions can backfire on you pretty spectacularly.
• Photographic Memory: Sheska and Kimblee. Falman may not be quite this level, but it's still described as being "so sharp it's scary."
• Physical God: Father after he literally ate the Truth/God. Among his powers are the ability to create a mini-sun in the palm of his hand (using nuclear fusion), the ability to fire tremendous energy blasts in front of him or above, and the power to control the weather itself.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Twice in one scene. After Riza's throat is slashed and Roy escapes from the goons holding him, he rushes to scoop her up in a very Pieta-like pose, urging her to open her eyes and answer him. Once May saves her from bleeding to death in the alkahestry circle, he does it again, this time holding her closer and pressing his face into her hair.
• Piggyback Cute: Ed carries Winry this way when she's exhausted after helping deliver a baby.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth:
  • Olivier Armstrong does this when she takes a grenade from a fallen soldier to attack Sloth.
  • Lan Fan does this, too, in episode 62 against Father.
• Playing Up the Stereotype: Ling plays up the stereotype of foreigners not speaking Amestrian whenever he thinks it will make him seem harmless or get him out of trouble. The only time it's actually worked, though, was when he stuck Ed with a massive restaurant bill right after meeting the Elrics.
• Please Wake Up:
  • Hughes, spoken by his daughter.
  • When the Elric brothers visit their teacher in chapter 20, there's a little girl who comes to Izumi in hopes that she would fix her cat since she won't move.. It takes a while for Izumi to explain her that you can't bring back living once they're dead. The fact that it's Izumi telling her this with Ed and Al standing behind makes it just even more sad. And the backstory we see afterwards.
  • Mustang says this almost verbatim to a dying Hawkeye after the gold-toothed doctor's mook slashes her throat. Fortunately, unlike the other two examples, she's not dead and does wake up.
• Pink Is Erotic: Lust is a Homunculus that's accommodated with the color pink (i.e. pink eyes and a pink background). She's mildly flirtatious and recognized as a sex object by others. Among her fellow Homunculus, she plays a motherly role to Gluttony and is frequently paired with him. She has the ability to create sharp claws that can penetrate anything and her title is "The Ultimate Spear".
• Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation: Hohenheim's face is obscured on the only family picture the Elrics have. Initially, the reason for hiding Hohenheim's face seems to be Ed's loath of him so that he wouldn't have to see his father's face. It turns out that in the photo, Hohenheim looks exactly like the Big Bad, and also that he is crying in it.
• Plot Pants: Edward Elric wears different clothes on occasion when he's not running around being the Fullmetal Alchemist, but when something important happens he's usually wearing his customary black clothing and red jacket.
• Plot-Triggering Death:
  • For Ed and Al, their mother's death is what prompts them to throw themselves into alchemy, becoming Izumi's apprentices and eventually trying to bring Trisha back from the dead via human transmutation - whereupon all hell breaks loose, and they then set out on a journey to restore their bodies to normal. Her death is what ultimately caused their involvement in the whole story - and ironically, it's also one of the only two non-Big Bad-related deaths in the whole series.
  • For Scar, his brother's death is what prompts him to become a ruthless Serial Killer who seeks to avenge his entire people.
• Poisonous Captive: Envy, when trapped in a flask. Even as a prisoner they were dangerous enough to talk their way out.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Hohenheim could have said, for instance, "Alphonse. Edward. Dad has something very important to do and might be gone for a long time. Take care of each other and your mom until I get back okay?" Instead, he gives his children what amounts to a Death Glare with the expressions on Al and Ed's face making it look like they think their father hates them and having abandonment issues when their mom dies. That's good parenting right there. This might have been intentional, however, given how much Hohenheim hates himself, and it could have also been meant to be a deterrent to keep them from seeking him out and getting themselves killed.
  • Deliberately invoked by Ed and Al so they could have (if not a somewhat flimsy) excuse to fight and neutralize Jerzo and Zanpano in Baschool.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Justified. Mustang comes out of nowhere and torches Lust. While simultaneously dealing with a massively painful newly cauterized stab wound. That he sealed himself. Unsurprisingly, he collapses afterwards.
• Posthumous Character: Several. Trisha Elric, Scar's brother, Riza's father, and Winry's parents for starters.
• The Power of Blood: Used in Ed and Al's attempt to bring their mother back.
• The Power of Friendship: Of course. What makes humans special despite their flaws is their capability to lift each other up, and in the climax, people from all walks of life are bonded in their desire to defeat Father. In fact, Ed recognizing that his friendships are more valuable than anything alchemy could give him pleases Truth so much that he returns Al, body intact.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Used as The Reveal twice.
• Power Trio: A villainous one formed by Lust (Superego), Envy (Ego) and Gluttony (Id). Until Lust is killed, that is.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Various scenes are either omitted or tweaked from the manga (be it time or budget), but Brotherhood stays quite spot on with the key elements.
  • Brotherhood also condenses the events of the beginning part of the manga which were already covered in the first anime adaptation (before it overtook the manga). For example, Hughes dies in episode 25 of 51 in FMA, but episode 10 of 64 in Brotherhood.
• Prayer Pose: Used creatively. Edward Elric's transmutations involve clapping his hands together. As pointed out by Rosé in Brotherhood (Ling in the manga), it looks much like prayer. Appropriate, considering the divine-like powers of alchemists, and Ed's struggles against evil.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
  • Ed gets one inside of Gluttony, during his and Ling's fight with Envy's true form.
  • And arguably the biggest one in the entire series, when Envy revealed that they're the one who killed Hughes to Mustang.
  Mustang: There's no need to say anything else. The first thing I'm going to turn to ash is your tongue.
• Precious Puppy: Black Hayate, an adorable dog that hangs around Riza and Mustang's squad.
• President Superhero: The Führer President of Amestris, "King" Bradley, is a Lightning Bruiser who still punishes crime by himself, even when he's got an eyepatch and pushing past middle age. Even when his army is made up of State Alchemists with elemental powers, he still surpasses them easily with little more than super-speed, super-strength, and his sword. As it turns out, he's actually an artificial homunculus bred for being the leader of the country, hence his superhuman attributes and all-seeing eye beneath his patch.
• Prophecy Armor: Enforced. The homunculi seeking to use Edward and Al as human sacrifices have to keep the boys alive until "The Promised Day", so they frequently end up pulling Villainous Rescues to ensure their prey stays alive. When the two brothers learn this, they start exploiting it, engaging the homunculi in battle fearlessly and at one point putting themselves in danger to bait their watchers out into the open.
• "Psycho" Strings: "Tribute to W.C. I", used when Greed attacks Father out of nowhere in a futile last-ditch attempt to stop the countrywide transmutation circle from being activated.
• Public Secret Message: Hawkeye, while under surveillance, has a mundane conversation with Mustang over lunch. She talks about various people she knows and how they've been. Later, Mustang is able to take the first initials of each name Hawkeye mentioned and spell out her message: SELIM BRADLEY IS HOMUNCULUS.
• Public Service Announcement: Don't get into cars with strangers. Really.
• Punished for Sympathy: Narrowly averted. During the Ishvalan War, Alex Louis Armstrong becomes so horrified about the genocide brought down on the Ishvalan people, that he ends up letting a couple of them escape the extermination. Solf J. Kimblee notices this and quickly kills the two Ishvalans. As Kimblee states himself, he could easily get Armstrong in trouble by reporting him to the court-martial. However, he doesn't do this, which makes his character all the more disturbing.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Maria Ross and May Chang, though the latter's departure was brief and The Bus Came Back with the former at the wheel.
  • Denny Brosh completely vanishes from the story after the arrest and "death" of Maria Ross, despite being heavily involved with the Elric brothers' actions up to the fight at the Laboratory 5 as their escort and being a part of the original crew who started to uncover the conspiracy early on alongside his partner and superior. He only returns very later on, during the final arc.
• Putting on the Reich: Amestris in general. The use of the title "Führer" is just the most blatant.
• Pygmalion Snap Back: In the manga and Brotherhood, Father reduces Greed to a Philosopher's Stone and creates a new Homunculus from it lacking the old one's memories and rebelious nature. However on killing one of his old self's friends, Greed is overwhelmed as the memories return and he is confronted with the grief of losing everyone he loved, driving him to rebel once again.

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