30 Days of Women: Day Two

[kirin85]

Day Two: Favourite female supporting character

Winry Rockbell (Fullmetal Alchemist)

FMA is one of those series where it’s next to impossible for me to pick a favourite character but I can safely say that Winry is one of my absolute favourites. There’s a lot to like about Winry: she’s cute, she’s smart, she’s funny, she’s kind and she’s tough as nails. Despite her quick-temper, over-emotional nature and tendency to get completely exasperated with Ed at times, she’s a very kind-hearted person. However, there’s also a lot more to her than meets the eye.

Winry could very easily have fallen into the love-interest/female support character role girl-next-door types are often relegated to in shounen series and not got much development outside of that… but this series was written by Hiromu Arakawa. ;) You might not think it to look at her but Winry has been through a *lot* at a very young age. Not only did she loose both her parents during the Ishval war, she also took on the responsibility of helping out her grandmother with her automail business and helping Ed and Al come to terms with the trauma caused by their ill-fated attempt to resurrect their mother while she was still only a little girl.

Perhaps my favourite thing about Winry is that Arakawa makes it very clear that her role and talents are just as valuable as Ed and Al’s and it doesn’t feel at all forced or patronising. There’s this amazing scene in the manga (I know this is in FMA: Brotherhood too but I actually haven’t watched most of it) where Ed stops Winry from shooting the man who murdered her parents. Rather than admonishing or patronising her, Ed tells her that she’s already honouring her parents’ sacrifice by helping people rather than hurting them. Winry’s hands aren’t hands that kill people: they’re hands that let people live. Although she doesn’t get as much page time as Ed or Al, FMA definitely wouldn’t be the same story without her.