phantomrose96:

One of the most hilarious aspects of FMA:B is just how the finale plays out.

like the protags get split (roughly) into Team Mustang and Team Ed Team Greed. 

Team Mustang, in preparation for the Promised Day, has consolidated power across the entirety of Amestris and organized a secret coup led by the Briggs forces covertly smuggled into Central. They then successfully take out the entirety of the High Command, and take command of the radio in such a way that they smoothly and secretively dictate all information released to the public which shuffles all blame onto the High Command and Briggs, away from Mustang, leaving Mustang’s hands clean and ripe for Fuhrer-dom, like the goddamn fucking pros they are

…and Team Greed has….um….hmmm…they sure did Show Up. Greed went somewhere. But I mean. …Ed definitely got into Central. He just……. Yeah he had no plan. None of those 4 (5?) idiots had any kind of plan in the months leading up to this. They were hiding in a basement. Stellar. Illustrious. Our Protagonist, everyone. The Prodigy. The Smartest state alchemist Amestris has seen. Hiding in a basement at home. Pretending to be dead.

Like Thank Fucking God for Mustang because FMA was never going to shape up into one of those “plucky young protag kid somehow outsmarts the whole Big Bad Organization” no Ed’s dumb as a doornail and would have gotten stomped into the ground if he didnt have An Experienced Strategic Adult With Uncountable Connections and Vast Knowledge of Military Procedure on his side.

phantomrose96:

You wanna know what’s pretty messed up?

So there’s a mini, joke chapter at the end of Fullmetal
Alchemist Volume 3 called “Flame vs. Fullmetal” –if you’ve watched FMA 03, you’ll
remember they adopted aspects of this into the semi-joke episode, episode 13—Anyway,
the premise is that people have started musing about the timeless question, “Who
would win in a fight?” between Ed and Roy. And for the hell of it, Ed and Roy
agree to an all-out alchemist battle to settle the matter.

Fast forward through the battle a bit, Ed’s lured Roy out
with a decoy and seizes the opportunity to jump the Colonel from the smoke.

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In classic Roy fashion though–

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–he’s prepared. “You sliced up my right glove but psyche I’ve
got a second one that does the exact same thing.”

And Ed’s toast. Rip Ed.

This whole sequence is pure humor, all jokes and snark and
the satisfaction of watching Ed and Roy try to beat the shit out of each other.
But something about it seemed…familiar. Something that finally clicked.

In this silly little sequence, Ed chose disarmament of his enemy over victory. He chose securing his
position of power by using his automail weapon to slice through his enemy’s
transmutation circle rather than actual violence. And his foolish trust in passively subduing a powerful opponent is what gets him well and truly burned.

And then, well there’s his fight against Kimblee. Chapter 76

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Ed spent a long chunk of the lead-up to this battle arguing that he does not want to kill Kimblee. He gets into a fight with the Briggs soldiers about this, and they never quite convince him that Kimblee is better off murdered.

So when it comes down to a fight between the two of them, Ed chooses mercy. He chooses Kimblee’s life. He separated Kimblee from his philosopher’s stone, and slices out the transmutation circle on Kimblee’s palm.

And just when he’s let his guard down, convinced he’s
passively won–

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–Kimblee, rather than Roy this time, pulls out his trump card.

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It’s…nigh identical. Ed sees an opening, uses it to disarm, then is taken by complete surprise that his opponent has a second transmutation circle…a second philosopher’s stone.

In Flame vs Fullmetal, Ed is just sort of…comically blown
away. His weakness was exposed and his pride suffered for it. Against Kimblee.
Well–

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–he does not get away in tact.

And it hits as such a…dark piece of continuity. A trueness
to this being Ed’s weakness, and a stark, cold, harsh reality in the fact that
there are bigger, scarier things out there than Mustang, yet things just as manipulative, powerful, tactful. Things which will kill
Ed at a moment’s notice, that do not deserve
his mercy.

Ed lives, but he sacrifices his own life-force for it. He
surrenders years off the end of his life to pull through. This is an unforgiving consequence shown to
naivete. And the parallel exposed in a joke
chapter
from volume 3 is just…

…well, chilling.