Edward Elric

Edward starts the series noticeably small for his age, standing well under five feet, a fact he does his best to disguise. His golden-blond hair, a marker of his Xerxes blood alongside his gold eyes, hangs long and is usually worked into a braid, one strand poking up like an antenna and bangs parted to frame his face. He gravitates toward all-black clothing, partly to hide automail grease, capped by a signature red hooded coat that bears the Flamel of his teacher Izumi Curtis on the back, and he pads out his height with thick-soled elevator boots while often wearing gloves to conceal his artificial arm.

That artificial arm and his left leg are full steel automail, crafted by Winry Rockbell and Pinako, the arm reaching to the shoulder and the leg starting above the knee. On his journey north he is refitted with lighter, carbon-rich cold-weather limbs that resist frost and move more freely, thinner and more silver in sheen than the old steel. An early scar above his right eye keeps reopening in battle before it finally heals, and by the story's close he has shot up in height, standing at last on level footing with Alphonse.

At first glance Edward can seem immature, headstrong, and petty, quick to lose his temper, foul of mouth, sharply sarcastic, and openly contemptuous of any authority he disagrees with, a self-described loose cannon who settles disputes with his fists as readily as with words. The surest way to detonate him is to draw attention to his height; even the mildest reference to being short throws him into a furious, wildly exaggerated tantrum. Yet under the bluster lies real selflessness, loyalty, and compassion. Having suffered young, he cannot ignore the pain of others, dispensing rough-edged encouragement and a Robin Hood brand of justice that makes him a hero of the people, and for all his talk he holds human life sacred, refusing to kill even when his own is on the line.

A gnawing guilt shadows him throughout: he blames himself both for proposing the transmutation that maimed them and for the fact that Alphonse lost his whole body while he gave up only two limbs. That burden makes him standoffish early on, bent on fixing everything alone and solving every problem through alchemy, though he gradually learns to lean on his friends. He approaches life as a scientist, wary of miracles and destiny, and while he insists he puts no faith in gods he freely invokes a higher power he blames for his hardships. His taste, meanwhile, runs cheerfully to the gaudy and the macabre, from demonic decorations to the red coat he prizes for being a color that stirs the blood.

Small stature aside, Edward is a formidable fighter, scholar, and tactician. Izumi's brutal training built both his close-quarters skill and a compact, muscular strength that lets him hurl far larger opponents, while his automail limbs add power and speed to the mix. He is also an alchemical prodigy of genius intellect, self-taught as a child from the books in his father's abandoned study, quick to crack codes and puzzles because he reads the world itself in alchemical terms.

Having glimpsed the Truth beyond the Gate, Edward belongs to the rare few who transmute without drawing a circle, simply pressing his palms together to reshape matter on the spot. In combat this makes him endlessly adaptable: he raises earthen hands and stone pillars, forges swords and lances, and above all turns the plating of his automail arm into a blade. He can absorb the techniques of others after a single viewing, borrowing Scar's deconstruction, Armstrong's stonework, and Greed's carbon hardening, and in one desperate feat he converts his own body into a humanoid Philosopher's Stone to strike Pride from within. His gift finally leaves him when he offers up his own Gate of Truth to restore Alphonse, keeping the knowledge of alchemy but losing the power to wield it.