One Thing Ive Always Loved About Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Is That It Never Begrudges A Person

one thing ive always loved about fullmetal alchemist brotherhood is that it never begrudges a person their revenge. it never paints them as evil or worse than the object of their outrage. fullmetal alchemist will never tell a victim they have not earned their anger, or that it is not right. it does not speak against revenge because your anger is wrong. it only says that you must be careful - that vengeance may destroy you and the ones you care for if you let it consume you.

when mustang hears that scar is ishvalan, he says that, in many ways, his killing of state alchemists is justified, although he's still not keen to become a victim of it. when scar is faced with the daughter of the doctors he killed, he bows his head and tells her that justice is hers to deliver, and that he will not fight if she chooses to bestow it. roy is never told that he must forgive envy, or that hes wrong to want them dead; only that, should he choose to kill them, he will no longer be the kind of man he wants to be. the kind of man he can be. they all agree that envy must die - ed never says that roys anger or grief is unjustified, that his vengeance wouldnt be deserved. instead, he asks "is that the face you plan to wear when you lead this country?" he says your anger is earned, your violence is justified. if you burned them to death like you wanted to, no one would say they did not do it to themself. but is a man who burns a defeated enemy to death the kind of man you want to be?

when scar finally decides to stop killing state alchemists, he doesnt do it because he has learned to forgive, or because they do not deserve it. there is no forgiveness for the things amestris has done to his people, and arakawa never suggests that there could be. rather, he stops killing state alchemists because he cannot build a better world on top of more corpses. his anger is justified, but his violence will breed more violence, his hatred more hatred. it will kill him if he does not stop it first, and it will lead his people to even further ruin if he cannot escape it.

fullmetal alchemist never says that revenge is evil, or that your anger is not reasonable. it only asks, do you know the cost of taking that vengeance? is that the kind of man you want to be?