Rose Thomas

Rose is best recognized by the colored fringe that frames her face. The two anime adaptations render her quite differently: the 2003 series gives her dark skin, purple eyes, and dark brown hair tipped with pastel pink bangs, while the 2009 series pairs pale skin and purple eyes with black hair and dark red bangs. Both palettes were settled before Hiromu Arakawa fixed an official one, and both proved off the mark; the creator's own coloring gives Rose light skin closer to the 2009 look and bright pastel pink bangs nearer the 2003 version, a scheme not fully rendered until the game Fullmetal Alchemist Mobile.

In the manga and 2009 anime, Rose is a warm and gentle young woman whose devotion to the faith of Leto runs deep. Her belief in Father Cornello is total, to the point of trusting his promise that he could bring her late boyfriend back, and she grows defensive whenever that faith is questioned, bristling at Edward's skepticism yet lighting up when he pretends to share her convictions.

The revelation that Cornello's church is a sham throws her into a spiritual crisis. Unable to accept that her love is truly gone, she grasps at any remedy, even longing for the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect him. In time, and with Edward's blunt encouragement, she works through her grief, chooses to place faith in herself, and pours her energy into restoring the damaged town.

Rose greets the Elric brothers as they first reach Reole in the opening manga chapter. Having lost her boyfriend Cain in an accident, she had fallen for Cornello's assurance that the sun god Leto could grant any prayer, resurrection included, to a sufficiently faithful believer, and had become one of his leading devotees. She initially mocks Edward's refusal to believe in miracles, but once the brothers expose Cornello's wonders as mere alchemy and his cause as a grab for military might, her faith collapses. When she cries out asking why they ruined her last hope of reunion, Edward tells her to rise on her own strength and choose her own path forward.

She takes the lesson to heart and heads the effort to rebuild Reole, later crossing paths with Van Hohenheim, who lends his help without admitting he is the brothers' father. When Alphonse and his companions pass through after fleeing Fort Briggs, she confesses how much she misses Edward, sparking a flash of jealousy in Winry. On the Promised Day she is among the Reole townsfolk consumed by Father's nationwide transmutation circle, though Hohenheim's safeguard returns her soul.

The 2003 anime sends her down a far darker road: the military ravages Reole, and Rose is seized and assaulted, an ordeal that leaves her mute and, later, the mother of a son. The town names her its Holy Mother, a silent figurehead used in Scar's scheme while he and the disguised Dante speak on her behalf. Dante eventually binds her mind into doll-like obedience, intending to move her own soul into Rose's body, and manipulates her through the underground city. The shock of Edward's apparent death at Envy's hands finally breaks the spell over her. In the film Conqueror of Shamballa, Rose has returned to Reole with her child and works alongside Alex Louis Armstrong to rebuild the city and run an orphanage, while a Romani woman named Noah serves as her parallel-world counterpart.