Character · Fullmetal Alchemist
Pride
A shadow with eyes inside it, teeth inside it, and the oldest claim on the family name.
In Otakana the clue reads: Homunculus that lives in a shadow
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Letters
- 5 · Normal
Pride is the first homunculus its father made and the closest to him in kind. It fights as shadow: darkness spreading across a floor or a wall, opening eyes inside itself, reaching out with spikes and teeth from directions that do not exist for anybody else in the room. Confined spaces suit it. Bright light does not.
Because it is shadow, it has rules, and the series is careful with them. Pride cannot extend beyond a certain distance from its true body and it needs an absence of light to travel through. Working out those limits is how the characters who face it survive, and that is the sort of fight Arakawa writes best: a puzzle with a deadline attached.
The name matches the behaviour. Pride considers humans beneath discussion and treats the other homunculi as subordinates rather than siblings, and that arrogance is eventually tested hard. It also gets the best entrance in the series, since the audience spends a long stretch knowing a seventh sin exists somewhere and being unable to find it.
Spelling PRIDE
PRIDE is five letters ending on a silent E, the letter that vanishes when you spell by ear. It is the English sin word, as with all seven homunculi, so no katakana is involved anywhere. PR at the front and DE at the back leave one vowel in the middle, and confirming that I usually finishes the row on the spot.