Armstrong Family

One of the great aristocratic houses of Amestris, the Armstrongs have sent their sons and daughters into the state military time and again, and for roughly 180 years they have carried weight throughout the nation's financial, political, and military affairs. Fiercely honorable, they take enormous pride in their noble past and rarely miss a chance to broadcast it through the theatrical behavior for which they are known.

At the head of the house stand Philip Gargantos Armstrong and his wife, whose children run from oldest to youngest as Olivier Mira Armstrong, Amue, Strongine, the sole brother Alex Louis Armstrong, and the youngest, Catherine Elle Armstrong. Amue and Strongine, the two middle daughters, are dropped altogether from the 2003 anime and appear only once, silently, in the 2009 series. Alex was originally selected as the next head of the family, yet he surrendered that honor after being beaten by Olivier in a duel.

Superhuman strength runs in every Armstrong, together with a strange radiant pride that tends to appear as a sparkle drifting about the face. A curled lock of hair and a similarly curled mustache pass down the line and are echoed in the family seal. As with most of the story's military names, the surname comes from a weapon of war, drawn here from the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, a British bomber of the early World War II years.