The homunculi are a sinister force that the Elric brothers heroically face down throughout Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. These synthetic humanoids are made from multiple suffering human souls and the separation of human emotion from the prime Homunculus “Father.” All of these homunculi present as despising mankind for their weakness, yet as the series progresses and each homunculus is defeated, a different picture begins to get painted. These beings made from humans are just that, so incredibly human, they may not constantly present as human, but when a narrative continually harps on the human aspects of these beings, there is only a single conclusion to be drawn.
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Greed is the single humunculus that we get to see evolve and fully embrace his human side throughout the series. Greed is always at odds with the rest of his family and often ends up operating in parallel and even at times completely against them. Greed shows his ability to work alongside humans in the many instances where he allows his human host Ling, to take control of their shared body. Ling and Greed work alongside each other, and even in his final moments, Greed manages to swing the final fight in favor of the protagonists on his way out.
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What It Means to Be Greedy
His very ethos as a character is one of constant desire and self-righteousness, yet when confronted with the ideals of our protagonist Edward Elric, he falters while holding up a constant facade. Greed frequently tells the protagonists and the viewers by proxy that the only reason he ever cares about anyone or anything is because they are his “things”. However, out of the gate, when we meet Greed and the Elric brothers face off against him and his allies, we see that his allies follow him without doubt. If Greed treated these allies as “things,” it is unlikely they would respect him so deeply and even refer to him as a friend. But this Greed quickly comes to an end after being captured by his sibling, Wrath, and being melted back down to his essence.
We don’t get the opportunity to see a version of Greed again until the Crown Prince of Xing Ling Yao, a greedy man himself, takes on the essence of Greed to become the new vessel for the homunculus. Ling Yao is shown to be greedy, but greedy for the power to better rule and protect his people. While in Ling’s body, Greed is faced with an old friend whom he does not remember having been “erased,” but after killing this old friend, Greed finds himself mourning and realizes that he has lost those dear to him. After this moment, Ling and Greed continue working together and thwarting the plans of Father and the homunculi. Greed and Ling slowly show that they think about things on the same level, and we even get a Greed and Ed team-up where Greed “allows” Ed and company to join him as his “followers.”
What It Means to Be Human
Greed and Ling fully recontextualize the way we, as viewers, look at the rest of the homunculi. These two characters show that as much as the humunculi claim they are separate from humanity, the sum of their parts says otherwise. They are portions of the human ego and emotion, and like any human with emotions, it is up to their agency to decide how to behave. Envy and Wrath are two perfect examples of this fact. Bradley was a soldier raised and trained to become Wrath the Fuhrer, yet in his last moments, he thought back kindly on the humanity in his life, such as his wife. Envy, on the other hand, when he realized that he was becoming envious of the humans who should all hate each other, forgiving each other, chose to tear out his own Philosopher’s Stone.
With all of this in mind, it becomes clear to any viewer that the villains were not pure evil and did not enact their violent acts as if it were in their nature, but rather made decisions and chose to enact violence and harm upon others. A mirror was held up to the soldiers of Amesrtris, and the things that looked back were seen as monsters, yet exactly like the majority of our cast in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood the villains never lacked any agency and were human through and through and acted just as cruely as any human would be capable of. Just like any good character and any good human, these villains were filled with depth and nuance to their decisions, and their brother Greed showed the viewers that it is okay to exist within emotion but not to allow the emotion to dictate your existence. “Aw, I’ve had enough. Yeah. That’s all I really need. They gave me everything I could want. Heh heh heh… thank you, and goodbye, my friends.”
