Who is the villain of Fullmetal Alchemist? Father and an entire state
Father pulls the strings, Bradley signs and Envy pulls the trigger. But wiping out Ishval took more than homunculi: it took a state willing to follow orders.
Beneath Central, the capital of Amestris, an old man who looks exactly like Van Hohenheim, the Elric brothers’ father, spends his days on a throne surrounded by pipes. He is the short answer: in Hiromu Arakawa’s manga (2001-2010) and in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (Bones, 2009-2010), the main villain is Father, the homunculus born in a flask who wants to absorb God. The homunculi are his instruments, and one of them runs the country: Führer King Bradley, who is really Wrath. The human villains fans remember most are Shou Tucker and Solf J. Kimblee. And there is a fourth answer, the most uncomfortable one: the state of Amestris itself, which wiped out Ishval.
A warning before we go on. The first anime, Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), overtook the manga and invented its own ending: there is no Father there, and the homunculi are led by Dante, an alchemist who was once Hohenheim’s lover and has spent centuries jumping from body to body; Bradley, moreover, is Pride. This article follows the manga and Brotherhood, which adapts all of it. (Spoilers for the whole story.)
// The candidatesFive case files and one uniform
Father, the one who designed the country
He was born as the “Dwarf in the Flask,” a bodiless creature made with the blood of a slave who would later be called Van Hohenheim. He persuaded the king of Xerxes to draw a transmutation circle the size of the kingdom and turned every inhabitant, except Hohenheim and himself, into a Philosopher’s Stone. Then he taught alchemy to the settlers who would found Amestris and settled in beneath its capital. His plan for the Promised Day: repeat Xerxes on a national scale during an eclipse. His case file.
King Bradley, the one who signs
An orphan raised alongside other boys as a candidate for Führer, and the only one who survived the Philosopher’s Stone put inside him. As head of state he signed Executive Order 3066, which sent the State Alchemists to the Ishval front as human weapons and ended the war in a massacre. His case file.
Envy, the one who lights the fuse
The shapeshifter who, disguised as an Amestrian soldier, shot an Ishvalan child dead: the shot that set off the Ishval Civil War, as he boasts in episode 25 of Brotherhood. He also murdered Maes Hughes, Mustang’s friend who had uncovered the plan, and pinned the crime on Second Lieutenant Maria Ross. His case file.
Shou Tucker, the one who passes
The State Alchemist who, to pass his yearly assessment and keep his license, turned first his wife and then his daughter Nina into chimeras, fusing the girl with the family dog (chapter 5 of the manga, episode 4 of Brotherhood). He is the most hated villain and the smallest: he doesn’t want a country, he wants never to be poor again. His case file.
Solf J. Kimblee, the one who enjoys it
The Crimson Alchemist leveled neighborhoods in Ishval with a Philosopher’s Stone the army handed him, and he experiences every explosion as a work of art. He was locked up for killing officers on his own side, not for the Ishvalans, and released as soon as he was useful again. His case file.
Father
Read Father’s full case file · Criminal personality →
// The theoryWhen the offender is the state
Most criminology asks why an individual offends; critical criminology changes the question to who defines crime and who escapes it. Within that tradition, William Chambliss devoted his presidential address to the American Society of Criminology, published in 1989 as “State-Organized Crime,” to crime organized by the state: acts the law itself defines as criminal, committed by officials while doing their jobs as representatives of the state. In State Crime (2004), Penny Green and Tony Ward defined it as the organizational deviance of a state that violates human rights. The consequence is uncomfortable: great state crime doesn’t need a monster on the loose, only an organization with orders and people who carry them out.
Ishval, a crime with an org chart
Applied to Amestris, Chambliss’s definition fits piece by piece. There is an act that would be a crime under any code: the extermination of a people. There is a manufactured pretext: the child Envy shoots. There is an order signed by the head of state, number 3066. There are officials who carry it out, the State Alchemists, with weapons made from human lives. And there is a motive no one at the front knows about: Ishval is one of the ten points of a transmutation circle the size of the country, which Father has been marking with wars and massacres for almost four centuries. Maes Hughes figured it out by matching the pattern against the bloodiest dates in Amestris’s history, and that is why he was killed.
Seen this way, Tucker and Kimblee stop being exceptions. Nobody asked Tucker for a chimera made from his daughter, but the state set him an exam that weighed more than she did. Kimblee is the ideal official for an extermination: the army doesn’t sideline him for enjoying the killing, it hands him a Philosopher’s Stone. And the high command in Central, which reports to Father in his lair, knows exactly whom it works for.
// The answerSo who is the main villain?
If you want a name, it’s Father: he designed the plan, created the homunculi and is the Elrics’ final enemy on the Promised Day. Bradley is his best tool; Envy, Tucker and Kimblee are arc villains. But there is another answer underneath: a being locked underground can’t wipe out a people on his own. He needed an army, a signed order and thousands of people who obeyed it. What’s frightening about Amestris isn’t that a monster rules it, but how smoothly the country ran in the meantime.
// The crackA state as the villain doesn’t erase anyone’s guilt
Critical criminology has a well-known risk: if everything is the system, nobody is responsible. The story sidesteps it. Edward is a State Alchemist too, he also puts his license on the line every year, and he doesn’t turn anyone into a chimera to pass. Mustang and Hawkeye obeyed in Ishval and carry it for the rest of the story; Kimblee obeyed with delight. The state handed out the orders; each of them decided what to do with theirs. Explaining is not excusing: Chambliss, Green and Ward study state crime not to let the shooter off the hook, but so that the signature at the top can’t serve as his alibi.
Father / Fullmetal Alchemist
Father wanted to be God, and to try it, all he needed was a state that followed orders.
Three key ideas
- In the manga and in Brotherhood, the main villain of Fullmetal Alchemist is Father, the homunculus who wants to absorb God; King Bradley (Wrath) and Envy are his instruments, and Shou Tucker and Solf J. Kimblee are the best-remembered human villains. In the 2003 anime, the villain is Dante.
- The extermination of Ishval fits the definition of state crime from Chambliss (1989) and from Green and Ward (2004): a pretext manufactured by Envy, Bradley’s Executive Order 3066, State Alchemists as weapons and Father’s plan behind it all.
- A state as the villain doesn’t erase anyone’s guilt: Edward faces the same assessment as Tucker without doing what he did, and Kimblee obeyed because he liked it. The order explains the crime; it doesn’t excuse it.
Sources · further reading
- Chambliss, W. J. (1989). “State-Organized Crime.” Criminology, 27(2), 183-208.
- Green, P. & Ward, T. (2004). State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption. Pluto Press.
- Arakawa, H. (2001-2010). Fullmetal Alchemist. Monthly Shōnen Gangan, Square Enix (in English, Viz Media).
- Irie, Y. (dir.) (2009-2010). Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, episodes 4, 25 and 30-31. Bones.
- Martin, T. (January 19, 2011). “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Blu-ray 3” (review, episodes 27-39). Anime News Network. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/fullmetal-alchemist/brotherhood/bluray-3
// Quick challengeWhich theory best explains Father?
Frequently asked questions
Who is the main villain of Fullmetal Alchemist?
In Hiromu Arakawa’s manga and in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, it’s Father: the homunculus born in a flask in Xerxes who created the other homunculi, controls Amestris from a throne beneath Central and plans to absorb God on the Promised Day. King Bradley and Envy are his instruments; Shou Tucker and Solf J. Kimblee are human arc villains.
Who is the villain of the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime?
Dante. The 2003 series split from the manga and built its own story: there is no Father in it, the homunculi are born from failed human transmutations, and they are led by Dante, an alchemist who was once Van Hohenheim’s lover and has spent centuries moving from one body to another with Philosopher’s Stones. In that version King Bradley is Pride, not Wrath.
Who started the Ishval war?
In the manga and in Brotherhood, Envy: disguised as an Amestrian soldier, he shot an Ishvalan child dead and sparked the riots that grew into a civil war. Years later, King Bradley signed Executive Order 3066, which sent the State Alchemists to the front and ended in extermination. All of it served Father: Ishval was one of the points of his country-sized transmutation circle.
Is King Bradley a homunculus?
Yes, though unlike the others. In the manga and in Brotherhood he is Wrath, the last homunculus Father created, but built on a human base: an orphan raised as a candidate for Führer who was the only one to survive the Philosopher’s Stone. That is why he ages and doesn’t regenerate like his siblings. In the 2003 anime he is Pride.