drrockbell:

luffywhatelse:

theothardus:

drrockbell:

luffywhatelse:

theothardus:

drrockbell:

theothardus:

drrockbell:

So this has been something that I have wanted to talk since the THE DAY the opening came out years ago. I found it so interesting and angsty that it was Winry who Ed saw as Truth. I know a lot people took it as a quick ship moment, but I always thought there was a little bit more, but I didn’t know why.

A few months ago I looked up “Truth Winry” and then I found the above notes, specifically the last bullet point. I watched the opening at 0.25X speed and, sure enough, every homunculus except Greed shows up. There is a 7th character, but it’s Kimblee, not Greed.

(credit to alchemeia for creating this gif)

I always thought that this was Hohenheim, but nope. It’s Ed with all of the sins, except Greed coming out if him.

This goes back to Greed saying that Winry was his kind of woman, with Ed saying that kind of wanting is dangerous. And even goes back to a post I made based on the light novels, in which Ed thinks about his reasoning for putting Winry at a distance is because he is afraid he would stop his research to stay with her and Pinako.

Throughout the series, we see Edward thinking of family, seeing symbols of it, and believing that Al was the only family he had. It’s not until after Ed and Al meet the Fuherer’s family that we see a change. Bradley says that even he has a family waiting for him, which is quite different from Ed’s own. Now, Ed immediately thinks of Winry and Pinako also.

In conclusion to all this, Edward loves family more than anything and is quite greedy when it comes to wanting to protect them and keep them. Edward finally acknowledges that Winry is family to him and he reacts violently at the thought of her being threatened. His greed to keep her (and others) safe has led him to get critically injured, but it also keeps him strong.

Winry is his Truth, because she made him realize that he doesn’t need to be on his own and there is a hope for him to have a new family in the future, but because of his desire to keep all of this, she is also his Greed.

Note: If anyone thinks I’m wrong, or has a different opinion, I would love to hear them! And this goes for any analysis I make. I’d love to hear you’re thoughts.

Well thought analysis. I like the reflection of when Ed tells Greed “that kind of wanting is dangerous” alluding to his comment about Winry. I always wondered about it.

Ed does keep Winry at arm’s length a lot (of course this develops less and less later on), and it would seem obvious that it is because he is too focused on Al and their mission, plus he knows the path they are on is dangerous and wouldn’t want to involve her in that, but it’s interesting to think he may actually fear loosing his resolve if he didn’t keep her at a distance.

Yes, she is family so this could be for strict familial reasons, and family does make Ed happy, but all of this sounds very familiar to romantic relationships. Romantic love can make you shift your priorities and not think straight, even if it is with the right person, so I wonder if these are first signs of romantic love he has for her that he doesn’t realize yet?

Or maybe I’m overthinking and need to go home. LOL.

Yep, there’s actually a scene in the light novels (which are all confirmed canon) where Ed admits internally to the real reason he tries not visit Resembool too often

I’m starting to get a bit worried people thought I was only talking about Winry in a strict family way.

I was actually trying to explain Winry is his family the same way a husband and wife are family and the fact that they are close childhood friends. Besides Al, she’s his strongest bond, and for so many different reasons.

And what you said about romantic love not making people think straight, is something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

I noticed, especially in the manga, that the one time Edward actually threatens to kill someone and means it, is when Scar confronts Winry in the alley.

Romantic love always seems to provoke much different feelings of anger, despair, joy, and excitement, than any other type of bond, and I think this is something we can all relate to on some level.

It seems like in regards to her, Edward’s morals, thoughts, and actions shift dramatically, and that’s a really interesting detail.

Man, I need to read the light novels.

Rest assured I knew what you mean; the way I think of Ed and Winry’s relationship is they have a foundation, a familial friendship, that develops into romantic love. As the series goes on, they share some pivotal experiences, all the while emotionally and physically maturing. This is one of the reasons I ship them so hard. They have a basis for what I think it really means to be in love (since the term gets used so loosely in my personal opinion).

You made a good point about the Scar scene. I can 100% relate to the irrational thinking romantic love can cause, so I could empathize that Ed would feel the way he does regarding her and returning home, but it is very interesting considering he is a pretty rational and determined individual in other aspects, which is really what we see when we are first introduced to his character.

I think that everything revolves around the lesson of the Truth.

In the opening Winry/Truth escapes from his hands, he can’t grasp her and suffers. It symbolizes both the fact that he hasn’t come to the head of the situation yet, and the fact that all of this keeps him away from what he really wants: that is (a bit like his father) a family, Winry, etc. All those things that he doesn’t allow himself to get, at first because he doesn’t think he deserves them, then because, according to him, wanting too much you can lose everything, as he tells Greed. It’s true that romantic love can distract him from his “mission”. And it’s possible that he’s afraid of it. Even if I think that, as I said, it’s the life he has chosen for himself – sacrificed, in search of a solution that he didn’t even know whether it really exists – to take him away from a boy of his age’s normal life, with his affections, his house etc.

So the truth remains the same: you’re a human and you must accept your condition, without wanting to play God. And if you haven’t understood, you’re losing what is true happiness for a human being (that is the warmth of a family and the love of the woman you love). If you continue to greedily (!!) want more than you can humanly obtain, not only you won’t enjoy what you have but you risk losing it permanently. Like it happened to Van Hohenheim, who, at the end of his life, really realized that the best thing he did in his life was to love Trisha and give birth to their two children (who then happens to save the world). What he has done with his human part and not as an alchemist.

Alchemy is not meant to make you get anything you want. It’s made of balance like nature itself. So the spasmodic search for what you can’t have will lead you to be lonely and unhappy. You must accept what nature takes away from you and give value to what you have as a human being.

So many contributions😍

I’m glad that I was clear on the family-romance thing; I saw some other tags on another reblog, and it made me worried.

And still on the subject of Greed, I got to thinking about how the distance Ed put between himself and Winry in the beginning changed dramatically as time went on.

His greed to keep her safe from the beginning caused her to be put in a hostage situation, and it’s then we see him finally give in. It’s as if he let go of some of his greed for the sake of HER, not his own feelings. The key symbol is how angry and frustrated he is with her plan at Briggs, but he puts it aside for her well being, even though he’s still seething inside. Imagine if his greediness made him force her to stay. Kimblee would have killed her and Ed would have lost everything. (Personally I think this is a nice fanfic waiting to happen)

We also need to remember that this exact same layout occurred between Hohenheim and Trisha, (As in a man tries to handle the situation on his own and makes the decision by himself, disregarding the woman’s feelings and choices). The difference was Hohenheim allowed his own selfishness to take over and Trisha paid the price for it.

And what @luffywhatelse said about the similarities between Ed and Hoheheim were so spot on. Hohenheim wanted and claimed, but allowed his own fears to engulf himself and abandon his family.

When it comes to greed in romance, you have an extreme of possessiveness and jealousy. Now we all know that Edward is far from being manipulative and abusive towards her, but there is one aspect about her that he was so controlling about, and that was her safety and ignorance. His way of controlling her was shutting her out, because he hoped that she wouldn’t be able to exist in his dangerous second life. The only thing is, he can’t control his enemies and their knowledge.

A theme here is of how a boy refuses to be like his father and learns to let go of control. Edward starts out like that, but he actually learns and forces himself to change for other people.

I feel like this is one of the major subtle things in FMAB and the manga that no one really puts together. And from all the different things people are bringing up, there are SO many different aspects to this one theme regarding this couple and that’s just amazing.

And people say Brotherhood had no subtlety 😂

You basically put it into words I could not. The relationship between Ed and Winry is subtle in my opinion, at least compared to your average love interests. Even when Ed does his little proposal at the train station, he uses alchemical metaphors to say what he wants.

In 2003, on the other hand, any possibility of complexity beyond friends was subtle. Nonetheless, even before Brotherhood came out, there was something about the two as love interests that I liked. Once I did watch Brotherhood, I always wanted to say what you just said about a major difference between the two versions, because it is WORLDS apart regarding where Ed is at in the end, but I always questioned, how did he get there? What choices did he make that made him differ from his ‘03 self? And it was what you just said.

What @luffywhatelse said:  “You must accept what nature takes away from you and give value to what you have as a human being.” That’s what I think is missing from ‘03 Ed. A major theme of Ed in both versions is his inability to accept death, or bad things that happen to good people in general, and wanting to cling to equivalent exchange. But in the manga/brotherhood, he embraces the humility of being human and comes to accept love and support from his family and friends. Winry further validates Ed and Al’s new hypothesis of overturning equivalent exchange, wanting to give her all to him. He lets the people in his life, especially Winry, influence him for the better, rather than shutting them out.

I like how you, @drrockbell, approach the concept of greed to possessiveness. And I’d like to emphasize how Edward makes a clear distinction between the two things. Just when he answers to Greedling, he has just told Winry to hide herself and save Pinako and Den (so he showed how he’s a possessive, apprehensive and protective man) but at the same time he thinks that Winry’s attitude is greedy. Because she stubbornly and impractically wants him to save everyone (he understands only later, before leaving, that she was trying to tell him not to be pessimistic from the beginning and to be the Edward who fights tooth and nail even in hopeless situations because it’s the only way to get a chance to win – and it’s also a way to tell Ed that she will never abandon him). According to Ed, “greed” means to crave happiness, perfection, more than what is necessary to live. And he doesn’t want to be like that. Despite this, he’s still possessive and jealous of Winry. We see in many scenes how he acts like a jealous boyfriend or as if he has decided that Winry is his woman from the beginning, even if he’s terribly embarassed to admit it even to himself (maybe I talk about this in another post). It’s like he’s led to be like his father but he strives not to be. He succeeds also thanks to his life experience: he saw his mother’s emotional suffering even before the physical one and then two women put him back on his feet. He could never fail to recognize how much they are worth and how much they deserve respect and he knows that he cannot do everything by himself.

Surely, as you two said, unlike Hohenheim, Ed realized that he can’t keep control of all the variables and keep Winry locked up in a case but, above all, he can’t decide for her, the way Hohenheim did with Trisha.

I don’t want to say that Hohenheim didn’t respect Trisha or women in general. In fact, he respects her even for the fact that she has carried out two pregnancies. But he wants to take charge of all the responsibility, of all the evil; he feels it’s all his fault. Exactly as Edward thought at the start, he felt guilty for Alphonse and for everything. Only then, he understands that he doesn’t have to do everything by himself and that everyone is free to choose to stand by him and help him. Including Winry.

To continue what @theothardus said, Winry makes Ed realize that the equivalent exchange doesn’t apply to everything in life. Definitely not to feelings because she wants to love him – and she has always loved him – unconditionally.

I am SO happy other people saw what I did. It’s so easy to write this couple off as stereotypical and plain simply because they are young, extroverted, and bicker a lot.

But this doesn’t even scratch the surface of their relationship.

For example, Roy and Riza are mature and formal on the surface, and really only the audience cab see that there is joking and light moments between the two. This is what makes them subtle.

Ed and Winry’s subtlety comes from the moment in Briggs. Getting down to business and talking to each other more like partners than childhood friends. Learning to let go and accept. Using eye contact and body language to communicate their feelings and choices.

It truly takes a very strong mind to understand the dynamics of EdWin. I just see far too many people treating it innocent as if it’s simple puppy love. But that is so wrong. This couple is the most dynamic, with the most growth and development in the entire show.