Character · Fullmetal Alchemist
Elric
One surname, two brothers, and a bill that came due the night they tried to raise the dead.
In Otakana the clue reads: Surname of two brothers who broke alchemy's taboo
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Letters
- 5 · Easy
The Elric brothers grew up in Resembool with an absent father and a mother who died young. Edward and Alphonse learned alchemy well enough to attempt human transmutation, which their discipline forbids for reasons they then discovered personally. Edward lost an arm and a leg. Alphonse lost everything, and Edward fixed his brother's soul to a suit of armour rather than let it go.
Their repair job is the Philosopher's Stone, and hunting it puts Edward in uniform as a State Alchemist at twelve, working for the military of a country with a great deal to answer for. The search widens into national history, a massacre in Ishval, and a household of homunculi named after deadly sins. Very little of what they find is really about alchemy.
Equivalent exchange is the rule the series keeps testing: to gain something, you give up something of equal value. Arakawa applies it to grief and lets nobody off. The brothers never get a discount, and the best scenes in Fullmetal Alchemist are the ones where a character works out what they are actually prepared to pay.
Spelling ELRIC
ELRIC is the family name and five letters, which is what the tiles want rather than Edward or Alphonse. One L, one R, nothing doubled. The Japanese is エルリック, closer to Erurikku, so sounding the name out from a dub hands you an extra syllable that will not fit the row. The vowels sit first and fourth.