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Well fucks? Get to it!
This is the correct way to interpret fullmetal alchemist.
Iâm glad Maes Hughes died.
Heâs a fan favorite character and I enjoy him a lot too, but I think fundamentally heâs a character who has to die. His role in the narrative is to haunt it.
I might be even more of a weirdo because I enjoy his manga characterization over his Brotherhood or â03 portrayal, but I love the idea of Hughes being someone the Elric brothers barely know - someone we, the audience, barely see.
Until he dies.
Because suddenly heâs everywhere. He was Royâs friend and Armstrongâs superior officer and Winryâs acquaintance and Eliciaâs father - and he was the soldier both Ed and Al knew, but didnât actually know, that got killed because of them anyway.
In the manga Winry stays at Hughesâ place, but Ed and Al enter his house for the first time after they found out he died. For them, itâs not about losing a friend (though I am sure they liked him just fine) because that story is already Royâs - for them itâs about realizing that this plot theyâve involved themselves in kills people that arenât actually directly involved at all to begin with. It makes sense for their allies and friends and loved-ones to be targeted by the antagonists - but a soldier who mostly joined in because he was at the right (or wrong) place at the right (wrong) time? Thatâs not supposed to happen. And thatâs what makes Hughesâ death so hard on them.
(and poor Elicia - abandoned children without their fathers were always a weakness of Edâs)
But Roy? Yeah⊠he suffers. From the moment of Hughesâ dead on, Roy is haunted by it. By him. His best friend follows him everywhere. We see it in the way Roy only involves himself in the plot because Hughes figured something out and Roy is desperate for answers. He hunts down the homunculi to save this country, sure, but mostly so he can burn his best friendâs murderer to the ground. When Riza talks about winning against the FĂŒhrer and their military dictatorship, she talks about all of them, not a hint of revenge coloring her vision - but Roy? It is telling that it isnât a greater ideal that makes him torture Envy, but the agony of his best friendâs death.
The thing that almost breaks Roy is Maes.
No.
Itâs Maesâ memory haunting the narrative.
And isnât that beautiful?
The tragedy of it all, the horror, and the realization that Roy Mustang never really recovered from the War, that his friends are the only think keeping him in one piece, the fact that Roy Mustang is a Hero and a Monster and a fallible human capable of love.
Maes Hughes has to die to remind all of us of what Roy Mustang is capable of: love, loyalty, devotionâŠ. and the slaughter and torture of numerous people.
His ghost is haunting the narrative - and for that I love him.
Giraffe helps a little friend go faster.
Source
me as a writer: Oh no I canât write that, somebody else already has
me as a reader: hell yes give me all the fics about this one scenario. The more the merrier
This was funny in my head
my favorite picture ever is the one that says âHELL IS FULL, BITCHâ and then it has the national suicide prevention hotline on it. it makes me smile every timeÂ
warhammer 40k but the k stands for kirby