Fullmetal Alchemist REACTION - Episode 31

Looking forward to the northern wall of Briggs. Jimmy is going to love the new characters.

Ashgar77

Why the hell is every character in this damn show my favorite?!

NEMESIS

What you said about Scar and Bradley being the same side of two different coins is pretty spot-on in my eyes. The two of them do have polar opposite worldviews/motivations, but similar attitudes/approaches to things. Scar, while motivated by revenge, still sees everything through a religious lens. State alchemists are evil in his eyes because their work is an attempt to put themselves above God by distorting the world his God created. The fact that they committed atrocities against Ishvale just proves, in his mind, that their disregard of the Divine Creator is truly evil. Thus, they deserve to face God's Wrath (which is Scar). Bradley however despises religion and the notion of a Supreme God. As he said in the last episode, religion just serves to uplift people too weak or cowardly to achieve anything on their own merit. In his mind, if the Ishvalans deserved to live, they would've had the strength to overcome his military might. The fact they were seemingly wiped out just proves that they were too weak to be anything but wasted of life. As for similarities, both of them are calm and stoic on the surface, while being straightforward and ruthless when they need to be. Under that calm surface though, both are consumed with overwhelming fury towards their enemy. Both also see themselves as embodiments of some higher power's Wrath (though in Bradley's  case it's not a matter of faith, but rather demonstrable fact).

Matt Hayes

Even though it’s not his first appearance, Kimblee makes a hell of an impression this episode. I also have a feeling that Scar destroying Marcoh’s face might have been a little bit of revenge, not just for safe travels.

The Knox moment was simply beautiful, and I'm just in awe at how much Arakawa can make us feel for the side characters. So, I said before that the last episode left out a lot of things. For comparison, the manga had a whole volume dedicated to the war whereas the anime had to really condense a lot of it into just one episode. With Knox, they showed what he did in Ishval and why he left his wife and son. He was basically traumatized and disgusted with himself for what he did in Ishval. He had to experiment on live Ishvalans, and there was a moment he had with Marcoh that was very similar to Hawkeye asking Mustang why they were killing people instead of saving them. As a doctor, that question really hit him hard. It's why talking about treating live patients and being an actual doctor that helps people is such a sore spot for him now. He feels he doesn't deserve any kindness nor does he have the right to be an actual doctor after all the things he did during the war. Other than that, Knox told Al that after the war, he started having horrible nightmares and he would thrash around in his sleep. It got to the point where his wife got so worried that she tried waking him up in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, he mistook her as the enemy, and tried killing her right there in their bed. Shortly after that, he separated from his family. Overall, I think with that context in mind, it makes that scene where he was crying and wondering if a guy like him can actually be happy for a bit even more beautifully emotional. You really feel for the guy.

Lalisa Truong