ALPHONSE ELRIC

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ALPHONSE ELRIC-

• Achilles' Heel: His blood seal is his one real weakness; if that gets damaged, he's in real trouble.
• All-Loving Hero: He always looks on the bright side of life. He has also converted two chimera soldiers to his cause just by showing them that they are still human.
• Animated Armor: His soul is bonded to the armor by a circle made from his brother's blood.
• Badass Adorable: A sweet boy with a soft spot for kittens who is a living armor alchemist.
• Bare-Fisted Monk : Unlike state alchemists with special tattoos and gloves or those who have seen the Truth, Al needs time to draw transmutation circles in order to do alchemy at least at first, so he often fights enemies with brute strength and martial arts alone. It helps that he can't feel pain, has metal limbs and is too heavy for most opponents to knock over. He can keep master fighters like Scar and Armstrong on their toes, and Ed mentions that even before he had the advantage of an armored body, Al always won their sparring bouts.
• Berserk Button: Not even close to as bad as Ed, but it still upsets him when people talk about how awesome it would be to have armor as a body, since he clearly isn't very happy about it. His typical reaction is telling them "Be Careful What You Wish For".
• Beware the Nice Ones: Yes, he's a sweet-natured young boy. He's also a living suit of armor with greater than average strength, and is perfectly willing to use it if necessary. He never lost his temper, but has come close...
• Big Little Brother: He may be the youngest of the two protagonists, but his armor body makes him taller and more impressive than his older brother. Despite getting a growth spurt, Ed is still shorter than him, even after Al gets his body back.
• Blessed with Suck: Several characters, namely Ling and Greed, think it's a case of Cursed with Awesome. Alphonse though, doesn't agree because it means he can't eat, can't sleep or even feel the air around him.
• Bulletproof Vest: It's impressive how a 20th century suit of armor can bounce bullets off it without so much as a scratch.
• Child Mage: The mind of a young boy with incredible alchemy powers.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: After blaming himself for the deaths of Nina, Hughes and Martel, he seems unable to let anyone die, even if they're possible enemies. For this reason, he adamantly refuses to leave a heartbroken Lt. Hawkeye behind to die at Lust's hands and shields her with his own body. Giving Col. Mustang enough time to catch up and ambush Lust, scorching her to death
• Corner of Woe: In contrast to his brother, making fun of Al's size or armor results in this.
• Cursed with Awesome: Like Ed, he really hates how his "body" is a suit of armor, but it's saved his life and the lives of others many times over.
• Cuteness Proximity: He's a Kindhearted Cat Lover, and wanted to keep Shao May when he found her alone.
• Deuteragonist: The second main character after Edward (The Protagonist proper).
• Dark Is Not Evil: After being bound to armor, he looks pretty scary, but actually is a very nice and kind boy.
• Extra-ore-dinary: His and Ed's alchemy specialty is metal.
• Eye Lights Out: Whenever Alphonse's soul is unconscious, or being pulled over to the Gate, his eye-lights go out. This seems to be for the audience only, since none of the characters including Ed seem to be able to tell the difference.
• Genius Bruiser: His metal body grants him greater than average strength which he uses in combo with his impressive alchemy. Even when they were kids, Al would win most sparring bouts with Ed, who himself is quite a badass.
• Gentle Giant: He looks intimidating, but he's much nicer than his brother.
• Glowing Mechanical Eyes: It's not clear whether this is for the audience's benefit or not, but his eyes always appear to be glowing.
• He Will Come for Me: After trading his soul to Truth to get Ed's arm back so he won't be killed, Al is stuck beyond the gate and confronted by Truth, who asks him whether he really thinks Ed will come to save him.
  Truth: You really think he'll come back for you?
  Al: He will. I know it!
• Heroic BSoD: He falls on it when King Bradley kills Martel and regains his memories of the gate.
• Heroic Resolve:
  Al: I won't leave you! I'm sick of watching people die, and I can't just sit back and take it anymore! I won't let anyone else get killed! Not when I can protect them!
• Heroic Sacrifice: During the Final Battle, he refuses to get his body back, since he can't properly use it for combat, despite the fact that he desperately wanted that proper flesh and blood body for years. Then after his blood seal was cracked, Ed had lost his automail arm and was pinned against a rock and about to have his life force drained by the Father, he gives back his soul so that Ed could have his original arm back. You dumbass. Thankfully he gets better, body back and all, when Ed comes back to save him.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: His interactions with May would already be this if he were in his flesh-and-blood body, let alone a large suit of armor. She is that small. Subverted eventually; she grows much taller by the end.
• Hunk: He becomes a big-time hunk after he gets his body back and heals up.
• Hurting Hero: Alphonse is wracked with guilt about his brother losing his arm to save Al's life.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Feels responsible for the deaths of Nina, Martel and Hughes.
• Iron Butt-Monkey : A mild example. His gentle nature sees him walked all over, and when played for laughs this often leads to abuse exploiting his immortal body. Ed is fond of using his detachable head as a projectile or flail and his heavy body as a battering ram or shield, without permission or remorse. In one fight Ed transmutes a chimera's thick saliva into water, which quickly freezes in the cold climate, then dropkicks poor Al into him, sticking the two together.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: He hides them in his armor so Ed won't insist he abandon them.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Literally, given his situation and his nobler outward bearing than his brother. May also thinks of him as this.
• Last of His Kind: By descent, he and Ed are the last two ethnic Xerxians.
• Loss of Identity: He begins to fear his life is a lie after facing the possibility of being an artificial soul created by Ed.
• Meaningful Name: Alphonse means "noble brave" or "ready brave," which describe Al's willingness to help others no matter what perfectly.
• Made of Iron: Averted. Even armor that can stop bullets cold still readily gets sliced up by super-powered beings later in the series, to demonstrate how lethal they are.
• Magic Knight: Suit of armor? Check. Magic (well, alchemy)? Check. Although at first, he's more of a Kung-Fu Wizard due to lacking the ability to use Clapping Alchemy, but he eventually acquires this ability after regaining memories of losing his body, due to passing through the Gate of Truth..
• Maybe Ever After: It's implied that he hooked up with May since she appears in the new Elric Family Photo in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue.
• Mighty Glacier: Downplayed. Being a heavy suit of armor, he's not as nimble as Ed, but he's much stronger, and can tank hits that would kill regular humans.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Like Ed, he's named after a real-life medieval alchemist.
• The Needless: He cannot eat or sleep and it brings him much sadness and frustration on his quest to get his body back, especially because he essentially spends his nights awake alone while his brother and everyone else close to him sleeps.
• Nice Guy: In contrast to his brother, Al is unflinching nice and sweet and does not enjoy seeing others in pain.
• No Face Under the Mask: He appears to be a large man wearing a medieval suit of plate armor, unless his faceplate is lifted or his helmet is knocked off, revealing empty space. (Technically it's his soul, as it was bound to the armor when his body was consumed by a failed transmutation spell, but souls are invisible.)
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: Inside the gate, his real body is in pretty bad shape; poor hygiene, gaunt with emaciation, and too weak to even walk. Theorizing that his body may have been feeding off of his brother's nutrients, he probably would have died had Ed not been a natural Sleepy Head and Big Eater. Even still, he's happy to get it back at the end, though it probably took months (or even a year or two) to get healthy and back in shape. It is stated that it took 2 months for him to get healthy enough to walk again, and even then he still needs a crutch and lacks the stamina to walk from the train station to Winry's house without a rest.
• Not So Above It All: He acts more mature than his brother, but he does tend to make mistakes too and often times can't help but be distracted by cute things like cats.
  • A hilarious example was when he talked to May for the first time and she learned he was Ed's brother. Her tone indicated her new distaste for him (as a result of her delusion of him). Rather than take it calmly or even defend him, he becomes really annoyed before ranting in an Ed-like manner (albeit more subdued) about his qualities, saying he's taller, has neat hair, being the better fighter and being a gentleman. Quite out of character and hilarious (furthermore is that this speech was helped kickstart May's infatuation of him.)
• Peek-a-Bangs: His hairstyle while trapped behind the Gate.
• Poor Communication Kills: Barry the Chopper screwing with him about whether he is really alive or just a puppet made by his brother actually rents space in his head because of something that Ed tried to talk to him about once but couldn't. He flips out on Ed as a result and accuses him of creating him so he could control him. True to the trope, this gets solved within a minute of Winry confronting him about this, as she knows what's really going on—turns out Ed wants to know if Al hates him for dragging him into his plans to transmute Trisha back to life and thus causing Al to lose his human body, but he can't bring himself to actually ask about this. Sure enough, Al doesn't hate Ed, in fact he feels responsible as well for Ed's missing limbs as he could've refused or talked Ed out of the plan but instead helped him carry it out. Thus, once it's clear Al's memories truly are his own, the brothers make peace.
• Punny Name: The Japanese transliteration and pronunciation of "Al" is "Aru". This is also a homophone for the Japanese verb "to be" that is used when referring to inanimate objects (with humans and animals, the verb "iru" is used). Suddenly, Barry the Chopper screwing with him about whether he is really alive or just a puppet made by his brother makes a bit more sense.
• Sense Loss Sadness: He misses being able to do basic human things, but tries to remain optimistic by keeping a notepad of things he will do when he gets his body back (like trying Winry's pie).
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: He denies that he has any feelings for May when Ed asks him about it in the final chapter/episode, but unlike most examples, he says it as if he was correcting Ed about a math problem and doesn't get flustered at all. They are still implied to get together in the Distant Finale.
• Shipper on Deck: For Edward and Winry. "Brother is so youthful!"
• Shrinking Violet: Al spends a lot of time in a Corner of Woe or otherwise shrinking away from someone else.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Whereas Ed looks like Hohenheim, Al looks like a blonde, male version of Trisha.
• Stronger Sibling: Ed is the superior alchemist, but Al was always the better fighter. Even before his soul was bound to a steel suit of armor, but especially after.
• Tareme Eyes: His human body has them as a contrast with his sharp eyed brother but the "eyes" of his metal body are different.
• Teacher/Student Romance: May teaches him about alkahestry, making it a variant where the teacher is younger by a few years.
• Took a Level in Badass: To a point that he's just as badass as Ed!
• Tranquil Fury: Towards Shou Tucker, after the latter turned Nina into a talking chimera. Ed flies into an Unstoppable Rage and has to be physically restrained by Al to stop him from beating Tucker to death... before making it clear that even if he is calm, he's just as outraged as Ed is, and just as close to beating the crap out of them himself.
• Traumatic Haircut: Played for Laughs; He has the long "hair" (actually tassels) from his helmet torn off after being tangled up to Buccaneer's Automail during their first fight. Alphonse becomes distressed of that and comments how horrible his "hair" looks now.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Okay, he doesn't exactly go unnoticed, but you would think people would be more baffled to talk casually with a 7-foot-tall suit of armor which has the voice of a child to boot. No one ever seems to question why someone would need to wear the armor around all the time, even while (pretending) to eat.
• Vocal Dissonance: The voice of a child isn't what one would expect from a huge armor, even if it's just the soul. It seems even more out of place, for some reason, coming from an older, giant-sized man after getting his body back.
• Walking the Earth: At the end he goes east to Xing to learn under May. Which Ed teases him for. He ends up returning (her following no less) back to his hometown.
• Wise Beyond His Years: Is far more level-headed than Edward despite being one year younger than him.