#after the events of lab 5 for roy and havoc

[felixcloud6288]

Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 91

This chapter is just setting up the last fights against the remaining villains.

Outside Central City, Al is facing against Pride and Kimblee.

Kimblee seems a bit unsettled by Pride killing Gluttony. Remember that he's fighting alongside the Homunculi because they let him be a mad bomber. But he ultimately wants to see if humans or Homunculi are more fit to inherit the future.

Pride's sheer lack of concern for his fellow Homunculus seems a bit off-putting to Kimblee, but it's not a dealbreaker to him. He accepts Pride's excuse for eating Gluttony, however flimsy it might be.

First time I read this, I was so worried for Heinkel. I thought he might die right after I'd decided I wanted the Chimeras to all live.

Pride doesn't attack while Al and Heinkel are trapped in the dust cloud. Maybe all that dust blocking light without making effective shadows limits Pride's abilities?

Ed impressed Kimblee with his resolve to not kill. And now Al has impressed him with his resolve to fight to protect those around him.

Somewhere in the underground passages, May has encountered an army of the artificial soldiers. More likely than not, Envy revealed some additional secret passage that may could take to enter Father's layer. Still don't know why it took her several months to get to Central City though.

Envy getting tossed around in that jar is cute and funny only because Envy is a little slug.

May had an appropriate reaction to seeing Envy assimilate all the artificial soldiers to recreate itself. Only question I have is could Envy have done that with regular humans or was it able to do that because they were artificial bodies powered by Philosopher's Stones?

And Envy is super heavy again.

In Central HQ, Major General Armstrong takes one of the top brass as a hostage to demand Central to withdraw their troops. Surprisingly, the commander refused to yield no matter how much she stabbed him. Not that it saved him.

And Olivier Mira Armstrong SAYS THE THING!!! Her sword has been passed down the Armstrong line FOR GENERATION!!

Not much to say about team Ed. We're just getting assurance those dolls aren't going to escape into Lab 3.

And Hohenheim has reached Father's lair. He had gone in the same direction Roy and Havoc had gone back during the Super Heist, so he likely walked into that abandoned lab room and walked through the door Lust came out of. Ed's team has to fight a big army of zombie dolls to get to Father, and Hohenheim just casually reached him with no issue.

Upon meeting, Hohenheim is quick to remind Father of who he is. He's just an arrogant little dwarf kept in a flask. And not to be outdone, Father reminds Hohenheim that he was once a slave who didn't even have a name.

Father's insult doesn't really strike as much as Hohenheim's though. Hohenheim has grown and become far more than what he was. Father is still the same conniving thief.

It thankfully doesn't get bad due to the chapter lengths and Arakawa's quick story-telling pace, but this chapter leaves us with SEVEN major concurrent plot threads. Alongside the 5 we saw in this chapter, we also have Roy's team fighting the Central troops and Foo and Lanfan searching for the rogue Greed.

I think the closest the story has ever gotten to this many major threads happening at the same time was in the aftermath of Heist 3. We had Ed and Lin trapped in Gluttony's stomach, Al and Gluttony visiting Father, Sacar and May searching for Xiao Mei, Roy discovering the corruption in Central City, and a minor thread of Lanfan recovering from her lost arm. And there was only one fight going on prior to any of these threads coming together.

The next several chapters really show how well Arakawa can juggle multiple events simultaneously while making sure each chapter feels like the story is moving forward.

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[rizah]

OK, Berthold used his daughter and Grumman is ambitious, and they both underrated Riza. But what about Roy ? He used her too, if we're being honest : if they hadn't met again in Ishval, would he have come back to her or got in touch with her after that? It seems he hires her because he feels guilty, ashamed, and wants to atone for Ishval, like she does. We always blame Berthold, but Roy isn't better - in the beginning, at least. No?

sorry i got to this weeks later, i’ve been super busy with uni and firefighting and staring deeply at the wall wondering if my existence should even be here ANYWAY

i like the cut of ur jib anon, i really like the cut of ur jib

i totally agree, from the outset it really looks like that. BUT i can’t really think of a ‘good’ way to spin an alchemy like flame alchemy without the whole destructive aspect of it being Blatantly Obvious - so i’m loathe to say that roy was 100% manipulating/using her in the same way i see berthold doing and grumman trying. riza chose to divulge that knowledge to him and she acknowledges that she has to accept some responsibility in the aftermath of creating a new flame alchemist. 

i do like the angst of them being caught up in that whole ‘young love’ affection stuff, and a naughty part of me really likes the idea of exploring a roy who is scrabbling for whatever power he can find at 19/20 to make a point to the military, but even that’s veering into ooc territory for him. ultimately i think they were young ppl who were very idealistic about the world and it took the war for the years of propaganda and naivete to be stripped away. what i love about roy’s character is that despite those horrors he’s left with grit determination to be the change he wants to see, and riza follows him to atone for the consequences of those choices.

i think her choosing to go to ishval hinges purely on learning (or perhaps realising) that flame alchemy has some uses when it comes to Exploding Ppl and Things. i think roy would’ve tried to find her afterwards, but riza struck me as somewhat aimless at the funeral so who knows where she would’ve ended up if not in the military. however - @hlwim​ did a lovely story called ‘homefront’ which explores that premise a bit (go read it. it’s hella).

it’s super easy to blame bertie bc we see the dude for like 10 panels at best but to marry someone and have a kid with them... he’s got to have some redeeming characteristics tucked away somewhere. i would really like to see a fic or even some character studies which flesh him out a bit more and give him some humanity.

ultimately tho, roy is better simply bc we get to see him change. there’s an argument to be made that his intentions were more noble (than say, the more neutral ones of bertie preserving knowledge for knowledge’s sake) but we all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.