biting tongue

[dragonimp]

And it meant a lot to me that the series was written and drawn by a woman. I am sometimes bothered by the fact that so few of my artistic heroes are women, especially comic drawing women. I very much enjoy the work of many female cartoonists, but they all tend to be about my age or younger, so I consider them more peers than artistic heroes. Arakawa was not only older than I am, but damn prolific, and she’d written and drawn a series that had many of the things I craved to put in my own comics: action, adventure, magic, limbs getting lost, brotherly love (I actually really enjoy stories about male relationships, especially brother relationships. Readers of my old webcomic Demonology 101 will recognize that), and KICKASS LADIES. Oh man, the ladies of Fullmetal Alchemist. THE LADIES! Strong and tough and funny and sweet and NEVER VICTIMS and every inch equals to the men in their lives (Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye’s respectful and deeply loving relationship just makes my heart ache), the ladies of Fullmetal Alchemist were my wildest dreams come true. It didn’t matter to me that they weren’t the main characters of the manga, because they never played second fiddle. They were their own characters with their own lives, not written to stand around and “support” the male characters. While I do care about having main female characters in media, I’m perfectly fine with main male characters as long as there are female characters who are CHARACTERS, not props for the male character’s journey.

I don't disagree with most of what she's saying here, but I have to wonder if she missed the huge, massive scene of Riza/Roy codependence. The man I love is dead, so I will SIT HERE and WAIT TO BE KILLED is not "every inch equals to the men in their lives". About any of the other ladies I agree, though.

She's also going on about how great the last chapter is so I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Though I agree that it's very good that it has an ending, unlike stories that get dragged on and on forever until they're so thin it's pathetic.

Comments

[firstmoonie.livejournal.com]

Tough I can see where you are coming from(f!s and all),personally love doesn't make sense in the first place.Love is co-dependant and unhealthy, I fail to see the point. They're obviously each other's weakness and it's being used throughout the manga. How exactly did you expect her to react to his death? I'm putting myself in her place and I can't see how would she survive without him, shipping aside, his dreams? After Ishbal only thing that kept away from suicide is Roy's dream for country's sake and their own redemption.Also I'm sure if chapter 94 didn't happen, he'd perform human transformation without a second thought.
Love isn't equal nor support any idea(and this includes feminism time to time).I respect her a lot for the sacrifices she made and her power on Roy.Let's face it, without Riza Roy isn't a complete character.So I guess this makes Roy weak too?

Maybe I misread or missed parts, pardon me I can't use pc now but it's surprising that you didn't mention Lan Fan? And as for Izumi what if they used Sig against her how would she react? The most important thing in these characters is they're human and they all have emotinal weakness like us.Riza is the best sharpshooter in military, a very smart woman, the part completes Roy Mustang, someone who experienced a lonely and painful childhood but despite that kept on living, someone who took a part in a massacre, who burnt her back and tried to repair her damage afterwards.She experienced "much more" than any other ladies and you're saying she's weak just because she's in love? I, myself fell in love and I know other people who experienced that feeling so I guess I can tell; love makes you stupid.Yes, when you are in love you can sacrifice yourself for "that one".It's not surprising nor something person should be ashamed of.

I'm really sorry for my rambling and for my potential mistakes but it's very good to talk with other sides :')

[firstmoonie.livejournal.com]

Ups almost forget, I agree with you about manga's disappointing ending but not because it was too happy, because the way she handled politicial issues. I think Roy won't get a happy ending since he'll be executed after democracy.She'd have made a time-skip to show his execution, it would add a perfect emotion to ending and would make the series a masterpice.

[dragonimp.livejournal.com]

Well, first, I don't consider Riza's characterization in the manga faulty, as in being bad writing or something. Her characterization makes sense and is perfectly valid. I just don't like the character it makes. Second, love is not automatically co-dependent and unhealthy. Izumi and Sig are devoted to each other but we're not given any indication that they're co-dependent. They would each be devastated if the other died, but we're not shown that they would give up on life and wait to die. Roy loves Riza but we're not shown that he would turn suicidal if she died. He went mad with revenge over Hughes' death, but he didn't give up on life and his goals and sit and wait to be killed. I never said Riza was "weak"; I said she was dependent on Roy. Roy depends on Riza as a comrade and ally but is not dependent on her the way she is on him. Riza puts herself on unequal footing to Roy - she puts him above her - with her co-dependence. Love alone wouldn't do that. Love means we sacrifice ourselves for our loved ones, yes, but it doesn't mean we sit and wait to be killed if we think they're dead. I could just as easily argue that if she truly loved him she would fight twice as hard to see his dream fulfilled after he was gone. Love doesn't dictate that a character would go one way or the other, the character's other traits do. And in this case, it seems to me that Riza's actions indicate an unhealthy co-dependence.

I didn't mention Ran Fan partly because the blog post I was reacting to didn't mention her specifically, and partly because her relationship with Ling was always master/servant. It's unequal by nature and we're never told otherwise. But even so I didn't get the same co-dependent vibe from her that I got from Riza. She's devoted because she loves him but also because he's her prince, she's culturally conditioned to put his life above hers. Riza isn't.