So, as I I mentioned here, I was reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. For a while, it was all I could manage to find time to read. As I said in the linked post, I had already viewed and enjoyed the anime so I knew most of what was coming and thought I would not find much more to consider beyond what I had previously.
Fortunately, I was quite in error on that score.
One of the things that happens when a prose or even a comic book is translated from the page to animation or live action is that things on paper need to be cut to fit a specific timeframe. Thus the film version of The Robe alters, cuts, and otherwise changes the novel’s story to fit in a visual medium that relies on a set time limit for success. Even The Lord of the Rings films, which squeeze as much of the books into the screen as they can, have to add or subtract items before they can appear in theaters. Part of this process is that the producers want certain things in the film and the audience expects a movie to match other visual media in some way, as they have a touchstone for those types of stories which people who read the book may not be attached to as strongly.
So a movie - or an anime - will put certain things into the visual platform that aren’t in the original material at all. Provided the balance is maintained and the original work is not egregiously violated, most fans of the book can watch the movie and be relatively pleased with it. Such was the case when, while reading the manga, I realized the anime had changed things. I just wasn’t certain quite how, so I went back to the anime to be sure my memory of it was correct.
It was, and that gave me more to think about with regard to the characters and story. Specifically in this case, it gave me a lot to think about with regard to the homunculus Greed that I hadn’t considered closely before.
In Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, homunculus is an artificial human made from a philosopher’s stone, which is in turn created by the transmuting of human souls into energy via human sacrifice. Greed’s “father,” the original homunculus, sought to make himself perfect by removing the seven deadly sins from his soul. Along with his “siblings” - Pride, Sloth, Envy, Lust, and Gluttony - Greed was brought into being both to give “Father” a family and to help him achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a god.
Unlike his fellow homunculi and his “Father,” however, Greed did not want this. As he claims to be 200 years old and to have left Father at the age of a hundred, he is “in his twenties” by the time he meets Edward “Ed” Elric and his younger brother Alphonse. In sharp contrast to his Father and siblings, Greed shows no inherent hatred of humans. Nor does he treat them as pawns or items to be discarded, despite saying in battle with his youngest brother Wrath that his minions are his “possessions.”
Greed is an interesting figure throughout the manga and the anime. Where the other homunculi constantly talk down to and verbally abuse humans (to say nothing of killing them on a whim or with clear pleasure), Greed surrounds himself with humans. Not just any humans, either; his gang is made up entirely of half-human, half-animal human experiments known as chimeras.
These chimeras were originally human soldiers who fought in the country of Amestris’ wars, including the genocidal Ishvalan campaign. Wounded on the field, they were taken by the scientists employed by the rest of the homunculi and forcibly blended with animals. The manga makes it clear that, while several of Greed’s chimeras have visible signs that they are not fully human, they are all far more fortunate than the “failed” experiments who were left wishing they were dead.
This is significant primarily because not only does Greed take in and become friends with these chimeras, he still sees value in them as people. Even other humans would look askance at most human/animal hybrids and wonder if they could at all be considered human in any sense of the word. Yet Greed - the self-titled Avaricious - not only sees their humanity, he values it.
Broken and discarded by the other homunculi, Greed picks up what they would consider the “castoffs” of their work. Like a child picking up the nuts and bolts from his father’s garage floor and taking them over to a corner to play, Greed takes the “leavings” of the homunculi’s dark schemes because he sees their true worth. While others consider them worthless refuse, he emphatically believes the opposite.
In many ways, Greed is the antithesis of his father and siblings, who look down on and spurn humanity in part because they are not human. In point of fact, as Ed and Al’s father - Van Hohenheim - points out, the homunculi are less than human. Although they look similar and are functionally the same physically, they lack the capacity to procreate. Even homunculi who were originally human like Wrath cannot produce children. They are sterile because they are artificial beings who, while they have flesh and bones, are not human.
Greed states many times that he “wants it all! Money! Women! Eternal life!” But as his later host and partner Ling Yao points out, those are merely the trappings of what Greed desires. The stated thing, and it is not incorrect, in the series that Greed truly hungers for is friends. People to love and who love him, who will cheer him on and be there for him while he is there for them.
This means, ultimately, that what Greed truly desires is to be human. He can never achieve this in absolute fact even while bonded physically with Ling. It is interesting and demonstrative of this point that Greed bonds with Ling rather than burn him up and take his body completely. Wrath states that when he was given the philosopher’s stone that turned him from a human into a homunculi, all but one of the wrathful souls in the stone burned out. He has no idea whether the soul remaining in his body is the one he was born with or if it belonged to one of the hundreds or thousands of souls in the original stone.
In contrast, Greed talks to Ling when he enters his body first. Having had his memories of the chimeras erased prior to this point, Greed is believed (but is not truly) to be a revamped version of himself. A “new” Greed, if you will.
Yet even here, as a “new” being, he takes the time to talk to Ling as a person. He is surprised to find Ling holding on through the pain and, moreover, willing to share his body with what is essentially an alien lifeform. Finding Ling is nearly as avaricious as he is himself helps, of course, but Greed specifically states before they fully bond that Ling “…can’t hold anything back. Give me everything you’ve got!”
Ling does this as much for his people and bodyguards (one of whom cut her arm off to save him in an earlier encounter with Wrath) as for himself. After this, despite being programmed to be loyal to his father, Greed takes the time to let Ling write a message to his female bodyguard assuring her that he is all right. Greed then gives that message to Ed to take to the girl before talking to Wrath, who says something to upset Ling. Ling briefly overrides (or seems to) Greed’s control to snap at Wrath, “Don’t underestimate us humans!”
On and on it goes, with Greed showing more and more that not only does he not hate humans, he longs to be close to them. When he ends up killing the sole remaining chimera from his old gang, Bido, he has a severe attack of conscience that brings his memories back. This leads him and Ling to argue about whether or not friends can be purged from one’s memories, with Ling stating that friends can’t be “rinsed out of [one’s] soul” and that no matter what Father did to reprogram him, Greed still remembers his companions.
After this, Greed’s fractured memories and the pain they cause him lead him to attack Wrath again. His confusion is such that Ling is able to take control and get them to safety, showing once again that Greed keeps rather lax control of his host’s body for all that he later tells Ling not to steal the body from him or yells at him for retaking control from time to time.
When Ed and the two new chimeras with him join up with Greed following this, Greed is the only one to consistently remember and use the chimeras’ human names. In the manga and anime, Ed tends to refer to the two by what animals they turn into, a gorilla and a lion respectively. Greed calls Darius (the gorilla) by his name and is one of the few to use the lion’s real name (Heinkel). Others follow Ed’s lead and call the chimeras by their animal names, with some notable exceptions.
Right from the start, though, Greed uses their real names. They’re never “Mr. Gori/Gorilla” or “Lion guy” to him. He addresses them as Darius and Heinkel without a second thought. Although he doesn’t scold Ed or anyone else for messing up or forgetting their names, he makes a (seemingly) unconscious point of using their proper names himself. Again, in the “leavings” of his family, Greed sees their inherent worth despite their half-human nature.
The further the series progresses, the more Greed shows interest in and appreciation for humans. When fighting Wrath at the gate to the presidential palace, which is being held by rebel human soldiers, several of the men fire on Wrath in an effort to bring him down both to serve their own cause and to help their bizarre ally. Greed calls out, far too late, telling them they are fools and that they shouldn’t interfere. Wrath proves his assessment right by slicing the men in half without receiving a scratch, just as he did Greed’s original gang of chimeras.
Although these rebel soldiers aren’t Greed’s “possessions” - he doesn’t even know their names - he still shows an unnecessary amount of concern for them. When Ling’s older bodyguard Foo is killed fighting Wrath, Greed is clearly affected by Ling’s grief, remaining silent as the young man mourns his loss and the fact that his new power won’t let him bring back one of his subjects. Normally, Greed is ready with a quip, and he even admits prior to his rematch with Wrath that allowing emotions to cloud one’s judgement or take over publicly in the middle of a battle is a bad idea.
Yet he says nothing as Ling makes a scene and is actually shot while mourning Foo. Ling recovers thanks to his bond with the homunculi, but even so. Greed essentially stood aside and let his host be ruled by his emotions out of respect for Ling and the validity of his grief.
Before he dies, Greed saves a soldier he doesn’t know who was sent flying by a concussive blast. He scolds the man for getting caught off-guard, telling him to keep his head in the game, before Father attacks Ling in an effort to reabsorb Greed and his power. Running low himself, if he is to survive, Father needs to take his “son” back into his body.
Ling naturally doesn’t want this to happen, both due to the fact that he has affection for his homunculus and because he wants to use his power to rule his country and protect his clan. Greed warns Ling that if he doesn’t let go he’ll die but the young man refuses to give up.
Knowing it is a hopeless battle, Greed does something he has never done in his life: He lies to Ling. Ling falls for it and Greed uses the opening to force him to let go, saving his life at the expense of his own.
It is unlikely that Greed would have done any of this prior to his association with Ling, Ed, and the rest. But it is perfectly reasonable to assume that, if they had met earlier under friendlier conditions, Greed might have attempted to find a way to circumvent the need to fight at all to keep his “possessions” safe. While it isn’t made clear from the beginning, Greed always valued humans and human life more than his “family” did precisely because he instinctively recognized that they had a great inherent worth of their own.
Greed didn’t realize or truly understand that, though, until he had spent far more intimate time with some stubborn kindred spirits in Ling Yao and Edward Elric. Once he knew that they recognized the same thing and were willing to count him as a comrade and friend, Greed made the decision that these people he treasured and who considered him a companion (even if they never directly called him that) had to be saved for the simple reason that they were human. And while humanity - as Fullmetal Alchemist reminds readers and viewers - may be messy, prone to sin, and undeniably atrocious at times…
…it is far more valuable than anything else on the planet could ever hope to be, and that some humans will admit.
Not enough coffee but I see Greed as mis-named. He "values" people in ways that doesn't reflect the sin of greed.
Interesting analysis; I enjoyed reading it. It seems he desires companionship and (at first anyway) control, later treating people more as ends than means, as he ought. (Perhaps a different reason for Greed picking up the chimeras is that he doesn't feel inferior around them? Which eventually leads to recognizing their humanity, rather than Greed starting with their humanity.)
I don't know (having not read/watched) but I've heard it said that the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime has a much worse ending than the manga because the anime got ahead and had to figure something out to end the series. Supposedly Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was the one that follows the manga and is better ... but still wants to you have watched the original anime series beforehand.
(These were comments from an acquaintance of mine, so I don't know independently.)