Roy Mustang

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Contents

The Mun

The Character

  • Name: Colonel Roy Mustang, "Flame Alchemist"
  • Age/Birthdate: 29/September 25, 1886
  • Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (original anime canon, not manga or Brotherhood canon)
  • Canon Entry Point: Just after Episode 44, "Hohenheim of Light".
  • Journal: http://bastardcolonel.livejournal.com/
  • Card: Ace of Swords (Reversed)
  • Card-Related Abilities/'Card Tricks': Air manipulation that mimics his existing alchemy, allowing him to take hydrogen from the air, direct it, and then ignite it with a spark or flame. In essence, this trick doesn't add to his powers in any real way, just lets him use his existing abilities without the alchemical array on his gloves.

Defining Abilities and Attributes

Roy is an alchemist, capable of transmuting matter through the use of alchemical arrays. Although this is a versatile skill, he's limited by the law of Equivalent Exchange: the mass of a transmuted object must always be equal to the mass of the raw materials. Thanks to his study of alchemy, he also has a thorough understanding of chemistry and physics.

His most common alchemical transmutation involves extracting hydrogen from the air and manipulating it so that the slightest spark can cause a targeted stream of fire. The gloves he wears are made of special ignition-cloth which creates sparks when rubbed together: the gloves also have the alchemical array for his hydrogen transmutation stitched onto the back, so that he's never without a weapon. (And that's a good thing -- although he's a deadly shot with alchemical fire, his skills with a gun leave something to be desired.)

He's keenly intelligent, with a grasp of military strategy and manipulation that's allowed him to advance to the rank of Colonel at an astonishingly young age.

Personality

On the surface, Roy appears to be immensely arrogant, but essentially lazy, showing casual disregard to his subordinates and only interested in sucking up to his superiors so that he can get his next promotion. He's joked that his lifelong ambition is to become Führer... so that he can force all women in the military to wear tiny miniskirts. That lecherous streak is something he plays up extensively, almost never going without a date, always with a different girl.

Anyone who spends a great deal of time working with him will soon see the act for what it is, though. Roy's fiercely loyal to his country and his subordinates (something which they seem to instinctively recognize, because their loyalty to him is every bit as unshakable), and deeply compassionate, though circumstances more often than not force him to take the more pragmatic approach. Oh, he wants to be Führer, but not out of a sense of vanity, or lechery. He's haunted by guilt for actions he was ordered to take during the Ishbal Massacre, and has devoted himself to climbing through the ranks for the sole purpose of ensuring that injustices like those he witnessed and took part in will never happen again. He made a vow to never again follow an unethical order, and it's one he intends to keep by any means necessary.

As a result of the façade he's forced to keep up on a daily basis, Roy's become a brilliant manipulator, arranging things behind the scenes. He very rarely has just one reason for doing anything, especially where his work is involved. Although certain of his subordinates may complain about that habit loudly and often, he's the sort of man who does everything possible to keep his people safe, even while he's pulling their strings.

If Roy manipulates someone, it's for a greater good. If he pushes them, it's to make them the best. And he'll be pretending not to care the entire time.

Background

Roy Mustang was a bright young man... Perhaps not a prodigy, but at the very least adept enough to become a State Alchemist at age 20, something which was almost unheard of. As a State Alchemist, he had unparalleled access to research materials and state-of-the-art laboratories, as well as a sizable government grant each year, and the rank of Major in the Amestrian State Military.

Of course, with the rank came the obligation to fight in times of war. After a soldier in Ishbal, a region which Amestris had long ago annexed, and occupied with some degree of tension, accidentally shot a child (or so the official story goes), a bloody civil war broke out, and State Alchemists were on the front lines. Given an incomplete Philosopher's Stone (a powerful transmutation amplification device), Roy was deployed to Ishbal. For the first time, he was forced to use his flame alchemy to kill. Along with a few other alchemists, he wiped out entire cities in the course of a single night, and burned people alive -- right down to children that had taken up arms.

That alone would have been enough to traumatize anyone, but Roy's breaking point came when he was ordered to execute a pair of Amestrian doctors who were treating enemy and ally alike. Their hospital was considered a breeding ground for insurgents, and the Ishballans they healed would go back out to kill more Amestrian soldiers. Despite all this, they kept insisting there were no sides, only patients, and Roy was dispatched to deal with them.

After shooting them both, he tried to shoot himself, but was unable to pull the trigger. He returned home, lost in a deep depression, and began researching the ultimate taboo -- human transmutation. Although there were no records of a successful attempt, in theory, the technique could resurrect the the dead, giving Roy what he saw as a chance for salvation.

His best friend (some would say more than a friend), military intelligence officer Maes Hughes, found him drunk in his apartment, surrounded by sketches of transmutation circles and buckets of blood. Shocked, Hughes tried to talk him out of it, and turned Roy's attention to a different goal: rising high enough in the ranks that he'd never have to follow unjust orders, and could reform the country. In order to support his friend, Hughes vowed to support Roy from beneath him in the military ranks, doing all the dirty work required to smooth Roy's path to the top.

With Hughes' help, Roy moved up through the ranks, being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in a comparatively short time. In his attempts to advance his career, Roy sought out the legendary alchemist Hohenheim, only to find his sons, Edward and Alphonse, instead of the man himself.

Although they were astonishingly young, Edward and Alphonse had succeeded where Roy himself had failed -- they had developed a theory of human transmutation, and used it in an attempt to bring their mother back to life. More than that -- although the attempt failed, the boys themselves had survived, something which was nearly unheard of. Roy offered them a chance to become State Alchemists, confident that they would be able to pass the exams even at their extremely young age.

Once they were ready to take the exams, Roy manipulated them further, talking Al out of taking the exam. A State Alchemist of Al's skill would be a huge asset, but Roy knew well the benefit of having someone who could work outside the restrictions of the military, and he was certain that, even as a free agent, Al would remain devoted to Ed.

His gamble paid off -- Ed was instated as the Fullmetal Alchemist, the youngest State Alchemist in history, and Al remained with him, giving Roy two alchemists for the price of one.

Shortly after Ed became an alchemist, however, the eyes of the military brass turned to Roy and his ambitions again, and he was both promoted to Colonel and assigned far away from Central City, where he could be kept out of trouble. He continued to work with Hughes, though, and sent the Elric brothers on assignments meant to both further their search for the true Philosopher's Stone and keep them safely out of military politics.

During their investigation, the Elric brothers learned several disturbing military secrets, including a history of human experimentation, and the knowledge that the Philospher's Stone was created from human lives, facts which Roy wouldn't learn until some time after the fact.

Hughes, who had also been working with the brothers, knew that for Roy to learn of the secrets they had uncovered could be disastrous to his career, and so intentionally kept him out of the loop. That secrecy, coupled with Hughes' own investigations, cost Hughes his life, and Roy his best friend. While he tried to hide his tears at Hughes' grave, Roy confessed to being tempted, once again, to attempt human transmutation in order to bring him back. Instead, he redoubled his efforts to advance through the ranks, placing eventual justice for all of Amestris over fleeting revenge.

This changed, however, when Ed and Al found themselves on the run from the military after Al inadvertently became the host for a completed Philosopher's Stone. Roy was ordered to personally retrieve them, and he, along with his most trusted subordinates, tracked them down -- not to bring them back, as they had assumed, but to angrily ask them why they hadn't come to him for help in the first place.

While speaking to them, he learned that the Führer was a homunculus, a being created from a failed attempt at human transmutation. The homunculi had been controlling every aspect of the military from behind the scenes in order to create a Philosopher's Stone, and Roy's own ambitions could never be realized while they were in charge.

Furious, and determined to expose the truth, Roy went to warn off the latest search party in pursuit of the Elric brothers, only to discover that he was being summoned back to Central City by the Führer himself.

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