Pride (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
Pride is a anime and manga villain who features in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Contents |
Biography
Pride (Japanese: 傲慢プライド, Hepburn: Puraido) the Arrogant was one of the Homunculi that were created by Father. Following the destruction of the nation of Xerxes, Father began to wander the lands and sought to accomplish his mysterious goals. Thus saw him creating new homonculi that were patterned after the Seven Deadly Sins of Man and were generated from traits in his own personality. The first of these creations was Pride with it being said that Father went through great effort to give this homonculi his original appearance. Though his shadow form manifested outside his body, a container was crafted to house Pride with this taking the form of a young boy called Selim. Afterwards, Father created further homunculi that included Envy, Lust, Greed, Gluttony, and Sloth. For centuries, Selim lived in Amestris where he was always accompanied by high class officials. By the current age, Father crafted the last of his homunculi that he named Wrath who took the identity of the military ruler of Amestris and was called King Bradley. Pride was placed as Fuhrer Bradley's adoptive son where he became known as Selim Bradley who was cared for by Bradley's wife. His wife was completely unaware of her adoptive son's true nature and instead treated him with care and kindness. Initially, as Selim, Pride maintained the deception and his contempt for humanity but one day a car nearly hit him in the capital with Mrs. Bradley moving in the way to protect him. Mrs. Bradley was unaware of Pride's true nature and selflessly risked her own life to save him. This caused Pride to somewhat revise his opinion of humans as being selfish creatures and for a time he came to know what it was like to have a mother. Among the Homunculi, it was noted he rarely came to visit the lair where his kin had gathered to the point that Greed had only on the rare few occasions seen his 'sibling'. Around this time, the Amestrian military came to reassign Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye to the capital thus separating her from her commanding officer Roy Mustang. This led to her encountering Selim Bradley where she inadvertently discovered the boy's true nature and found out that the reassignment was so that she would be constantly under surveillance by Pride.
Within the tunnels, he sensed an intruder and immediately attacked the individual but the person managed to escape outside the tunnel system. Outside the system, Pride was unable to attack as he could not leave his container otherwise he would die. It was then that he noticed the features of the intruder in that they resembled Father. This person was actually the individual Father based his appearance on and was Van Hohenheim. During this encounter, Pride revealed his name and insisted that Hohenheim accompany him to Father. However, Hohenheim refused but told Pride to deliver a message namely that he was coming to confront Father soon.
He was present at the Bradley residence in his human guise when Greed attacked Fuhrer Bradley. Pride was prepared to intervene until the rogue Greed managed to escape. Pride later journeyed with Wrath to the East where he left the company of Fuhrer Bradley in order to join with Gluttony to find the Elric brothers. Gluttony found the lone Alphone Elric with Pride capturing the alchemist that was imprisoned in a suit of armor. He then possessed the armor with his shadow form whilst Gluttony sought out Edward Elric.
Facing their united foes, Pride noted that Gluttony had suffered heavy wounds similar to himself and asked his fellow homunculi how many times he died. Gluttony stated that he could not remember but that it was a lot though he stated he had no fear as Father would fix the damage. However, by that point, Pride surrounded Gluttony with his shadows and mercilessly attacked him. Despite Gluttony's pleas, Pride consumed him and absorbed the Philosopher's Stone at his core to replenish himself. This act meant that he absorbed the qualities of Gluttony such as superior sense of smell but also included his hunger which he stated that he had to sate. Pride then smelt the scent of Van Hohenheim who was nearby.
As Father departed, Pride was left behind and he was attacked by Edward Elric where the homunculi's dying form was unable to effectively assault his opponent. Edward stated that Pride's loyalty to his Father was useless as he did not care for him. This led to Pride being angry as a result and he managed to ensnare the Fullmetal Alchemist. Pride stated that Edward was his virtual brother due to him being the son of Hohenheim and thus related to Father indirectly. As a result, he decided to take over Edward's body as his new container as his old form was dying. However, at that moment, he was attacked from within by Kimblee who managed to retain his individuality among the souls within Pride. Kimblee stated that he was content to had stayed on the sidelines but acted when Pride had thrown away his honor by attempting to possess a human host. This distraction allowed Edward to enter into Pride's body and attack his core. Pride believed that Edward would kill him but Kimblee stated that it showed the Homunculi did not know the human well. Edward used his power to transmutate Pride's core destroying his body and reforming the Homunculi back into true form that resembled a miniature newborn child. The reborn Pride was given over to Mrs. Bradley who decided to raise him again as her son. Selim once more grow up under the care of his loving mother and was monitored by the military to ensure he did not once more become the dangerous homunculi he used to be in the past.
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Pride's true form was a mass of shadows in the darkness with eyes and mouths where he came to resemble Father's original form. In Amestris, he came to operate in the guise of a young boy under the name of Selim Bradley where his true nature was hidden from people. As Selm, was shown as being an innocent young boy with short dark hair and dark eyes.
On the surface, he pretended to be a sweet, nice and cheerful child. In this state, he demonstrated mannerisms of a usual young boy such as a proneness to hero worship. Selim showed great admiration and respect for his 'father' King Bradley to the point of writing a glowing report about him for a school project. In another case, he showed giddy excitement upon meeting the Elric Brothers. However, in reality, he was shown as being a ruthless, sadistic, intelligent and resourceful killer. Pride had said tat appearances rarely showed the whole truth.
Pride like the other Homunculi thought so little of humans and believed he had figured them all out. As such, he was referred to as 'Pride the Arrogant' and represented Fathers egotistical nature. He felt that he was not a puny but instead was one of the superior Homunculi. He found the notion of Greed sharing a body with the Xingese prince to be disgusting and commented that Greed was pathetic for sharing control of his body. Pride stated that there was no anger within him and that he had no need for such emotions. According to Greed, Pride was noted to make use of cheap strikes and tactics where he was extremely arrogant in battle with him quickly resorting to petty taunts and insults against opponents. In battle, he had used his shadow form to take control of Alphonse Elric's suit of armor and use him effectively as a hostage. Greed stated that even he considered Pride to be a monster. His arrogance meant that he did not consider that events might not go his way. Pride was knowledgeable of Morse code and used it to transmit his location when he was trapped inside a prison composed of stone.
It was shown that he tended to justify his cruel deeds for the sake of not hearing insults or accusations against him. To his brother Gluttony, he showed no remorse killing him and claimed that they were once part of the same being so showed no guilt in consuming his fellow Homonculus. Against Kimblee, he would reassure the human stating that he would live on as part of Pride and disregarded the pain as well as suffering he was experiencing at the time.
According to Pride, he said that one thing that was sure in the world was that humans were of little consequence. He thought of humans being selfish creatures but noted that not all had such traits. His viewpoint changed when King Bradley's human wide selflessly risked her life to prevent Selim from being run over by a car. Pride was shocked that she had risked her life by using her body to protect him and her selfless concern for his well being. Pride was greatly intrigued by her as he had known a father but never a mother. Thus, this experience meant he came to realise what it was like to have a mother that cared for him. Initially, he deceived her but in time he found their time together pleasant. However, he felt ultimate loyalty to his Father to the point of following any order and felt that this was only natural for one of the Homunculi. As such, he questioned Greeds honour for turning against Father. Pride did begin to show doubt in Father after he abandoned Pride that he did not care about his own existence as Father did not.
Though he was a brother to the other homunculi, Pride held no special affection for them and was not above killing them to achieve his goals. This was seen when he decided to devour the weakened Gluttony in order to replenish his own power. When asked about eating his own kind, Pride stated that such an act was not cannibalism to him. This was because he held the view that all the Homunculi were a collective that were born of the same Father. Thus, the consumption simply meant that they were back to being one form. Upon taking Gluttony's traits, Pride became afflicted with a hunger to consume others such as when he devoured the badly wounded Kimblee who was an ally but suffered from critical injuries. He told Kimblee not to worry as he would continue to survive within Pride. However, Pride was later shocked to see that Kimblee had managed to survive within him and retain his individuality.
Following his rebirth, Selim was shown as an innocent child that was cared for by his loving mother Mrs. Bradley with a kind hearted nature as he showed immense concern over a wounded bird.
Powers and abilities
Pride was a Homunculus (人造人間ホムンクルス, Homunkurusu, Latin for "Little Human", Japanese for "Artificial Human") who was born from Father and was a representation of his creator's ego. Within his body contained a tempest of souls that were composed of the Philosophers Stone (賢者の石, Kenja no Ishi). It was responsible for granting him enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, and near-limitless regenerative abilities. Among the seven homunculi, he was regarded as the most powerful of their number and second only to Father. As with the other homunculi, Pride was not truly human and had a great level of endurance within his human container. This allowed him to survive a brutal repeated attack from a lion-based Chimera and simply stand up again without any wounds. The human container for his body did suffer extreme damage after passing through the portal of truth. When this happened, Pride attempted to find a new container for his essence by trying to take over Edward Elrics body. This was made possible because he was of Hohenheims blood making Edward his virtual brother.
Pride's true nature was that of a shadow creature that resembled Father. Around his container, he was able to manifest the shadows that took on a monstrous form with numerous large maws, eyes and masses of tendrils. The tendrils could be used to manifest as hands that he was able to use to grab onto targets. These shadows were also capable of being formed into sharp blades that could cut through most objects. Pride was able to manifest the shadows into large maws that he could use to consume his enemies. In some cases, Pride was able to also use the shadows to take possession of bodies such as suits of armor. Alphonse commented that it felt like Pride was manipulating his soul and felt violated as a result.
There were a number of ways his foes could combat his shadow-based nature. Whilst his shadow blades could cut through targets, they were unable to pierce through objects composed of carbon such as Greed's Ultimate Shield or stronger auto-mail forged from carbon. In addition, one way of fighting Pride was by eliminating any light-sources which prevented Pride from manifesting the shadow-based tendrils. As such, encasing him in a cage container with no light meant he was effectively trapped and unable to break out of his prison himself. Pride was able to destroy a prison with his shadow tendrils prior to it encasing him but once the prison was formed he was effectively trapped unless someone freed him. Another way was by unleashing bursts of powerful light such as from flash-bang grenades that actually severed the shadow-tendrils from himself. Similar to the other Homunculi, once severed the tendrils disintegrated and prevented Pride from using those lost shadow tendrils.
He was not above cannibalism of other Homunculi such as when he devoured the weakened Gluttony in order to both replenish himself and to absorb some of his traits. The consumption meant that he gained Gluttony's superior sense of smell but was also ravaged by feelings of hunger that he needed to sate. Such a trait led to him consuming Kimblee as a result who was added into the souls within his body. Consuming others also added their knowledge to Pride such as the devouring of an alchemist allowed him to learn the necessary transmutation means to open a portal of Truth.
Notes
- Pride was created by Hiromu Arakawa where he featured in the setting of the Fullmetal Alchemist universe.
In other media
Television
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, a different version of Pride appeared in the setting of the 2003 anime television series where this one was voiced by Japanese actor Makoto Tsumura and English actor Zarah Little in the dub. This Pride was instead King Bradley who was a deceased person who was brought back by a human transmutation circle making him a Homunculi who served Dante with Selim Bradley being a separate character that was his normal son.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Pride appeared in the setting of the 2009 anime television series adaptation where he was voiced by Japanese actor Yuko Sanpei and English actor Brittney Karbowski in the dub.
Appearances
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood:
External Links
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