I’ve been in this fandom for a very long time, and fans of the manga, and more recently Brotherhood, are often perplexed by the assertion that these versions have any problems in their portrayal of non-white minority characters. So, for the sake of clarification, I’ve written an explanation as to what I feel these problems are, and why I find them so upsetting.

Firstly, let’s establish some base facts about Scar:

* He was the victim of a successful genocide.

* He actively fought against this genocide, and saw the murder as it was taking place.

* His “revenge” constituted going after military targets.

* The only civilians he kills are a suffering little girl who has been turned into a primitive chimera, and two Amestrian doctors who had the bad luck of being near him while he was in a delirious stupor caused by grief, pain and blood loss.

I am not saying that his killing those civilians was excusable – it wasn’t. What I’m establishing is that he’s not a “terrorist” as we in the West understand it. His objective is not to create fear for its own sake, but to purge the world of dangerous human weapons. Which is what State Alchemists are.

Secondly, some facts about the Amestrian military:

* State Alchemists are volunteers; they are not drafted. This was a life they chose for themselves, knowing that it would make them legitimate military targets and could get them called in to kill huge amounts of people.

* The government responsible for this genocide is still very much in power. And still treats Ishvalans like disposable human waste.

I am also not excusing Scar killing State Alchemists who weren’t involved in the war. But the above shows that they were in no way helpless victims. As for those who were involved in the war…I think that’s a morally grey area. Regardless:

More than only going after mindless revenge, Scar is fighting a one-man guerrilla war. The fact that revenge is part of his motivation doesn’t negate the fact that his strategy is perfectly logical: the State Alchemists are this world’s equivalent of WMDs. The genocide against the Ishvalans was kicked into high gear only when the State Alchemists were mobilized. By killing State Alchemists, Scar is potentially preventing the future deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Because he knows very well that the Amestrian government is not shy about piling up the bodies.

Of course, the narrative itself doesn’t engage with Scar’s actions in this way. It’s treated as a matter of irrational revenge, rather than a potential strategy of undermining Amestrian military power. And this is a foundational issue with the way Scar’s character is engaged in the manga and Brotherhood.

Thirdly, let’s establish some facts about Miles:

* Miles was spared from the genocide because his Ishvalan blood was diluted.

* Canonically, other Ishvalans working in the Amestrian military were “purged”.

* He identifies very strongly with his Ishvalan heritage.

* He chose not the rebel against the government when the Ishvalan genocide was taking place.

* He works with the Amestrian military in order to “change the way Amestrians view Ishvalans”.

Bear in mind that, while he was “changing Amestris from the inside”, most of his Ishvalan brothers and sisters were killed. There is only a tiny portion of the Ishvalan people still left alive. So objectively speaking, his method of combating the genocide was wholly ineffective. And subjectively speaking, his method of combating the genocide was self-serving at best. He was in a difficult position, and I don’t want to judge him too harshly for choosing to stay on the sidelines; but if he had been just a little less white, he wouldn’t have had any choice but fight or die.

All that said, Miles is also:

* Part of an oppressed minority.

* Not outwardly white, and therefore unable to “pass”.

* The victim of racism and discrimination.

Problem #1: Edward – the series’ moral compass – is a privileged shit to Miles’ face, and it’s completely ignored.

Edward and Miles are alone together during the Briggs arc, and Miles reveals to Edward that he has Ishvalan ancestry. He then also points out that Edward is a member of the race that practically wiped his own race off the planet. To this, Edward responds with:

* “I think people should ignore race and just relate to each other as individuals.”

* “Yeah, well – one of your people killed my friend’s parents. And some Ishvalans destroyed some shit in the countryside. So there.”

In other words, a “colorblind” statement that diminishes Miles’ racial identity – something he feels very strongly about – and a disgustingly false equivalency between the action of one individual who was clearly under duress, and the systematic genocide of an entire race of people.

I’ve heard multiple rationalizations of this scene by people in this fandom, but most of them boil down to, “Miles is obviously happy that Edward doesn’t talk down to him or pity him, and Miles doesn’t call Edward out on the false equivalency Edward draws because he just thinks it’s patently ridiculous and it doesn’t deserve mention.”

The former is canonically true: Miles is happy with Edward’s colorblind bullshit, rather than disgusted. This is in itself a problem. Miles doesn’t want people to ignore his race; he wants people not to fear or pity him because of it. There’s a very big difference between these two desires. I’ll state again that Edward is the moral compass of the entire series: his opinions about moral matters like killing and revenge are absolutely given more weight by the narrative than those of other characters. So is it really any surprise that we find people reblogging a gif of Edward’s colorblind bullshit and touting it as progressive and insightful?

Well, it isn’t either of those. It’s the same tired tune of privileged majorities the world over.

The latter rationalization, however, literally comes out of nowhere. It’s a headcanon with no evidence from canon to support it. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t a valid interpretation – it is. But the only canonical interpretation? No. What possible reason should I have to believe that Miles wasn’t impressed by Edward’s ignorant false equivalency? Miles is barely developed – a character whose flashbacks are more about developing the personalities of other characters. His primary purpose is to be a foil to Scar and support for Olivier and occasionally Edward. And the simple fact is that Edward said something that revealed he was privileged, ignorant and had internalized racism. And Miles? Wasn’t upset by it at all. In fact, he seemed pleased.

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that Miles was indeed “sick of explaining himself” in the manga version in this scene. This may be a matter of different translations, or a matter of altered dialogue between the manga and Brotherhood. Regardless, the core of my criticism remains unaltered. Whenever Edward’s said or done something another character has objected to in the past, the nature of their objection has been spelled out very clearly. In fact, Miles himself later objects to Edward’s “no-kill” policy. It seems to me that, if Arakawa understood the true extent of how problematic Edward’s statements are, she would’ve afforded Miles with a similar reaction here. But she doesn’t. (I am keeping the original text so that the objections to it remain in context.)

Which leads me to believe that Arakawa didn’t realize that what Edward was saying was privileged, ignorant or smacked of internalized racism. Because FMA mangahood isn’t subtle when it comes to its stances on moral issues, but the narrative is completely silent when it comes to pointing out the problems with Edward’s attitude.

Because if Miles had called Edward on his bullshit, people probably wouldn’t be touting Edward’s attitude as admirable.

Edward’s attitude on this matter is not admirable.

I sometimes complain about mangahood being too preachy and in-your-face with its messages, but this was one time where that lack of subtlety would’ve been welcome.

(For an in-depth explanation on why a colorblind ideology is actually a form of racism, I suggest taking a look at this article.)

Problem #2: Miles convinces Scar to fully abandon his “revenge crusade”.

If you have a word processor, I would appreciate you to indulge me in an exercise. Copy and paste the following into a blank document:

“A(n) [minority] man has witnessed his people be victims of a genocide. He watched as everyone he cared about was killed by the [majority] soldiers, and has set out to weaken their military and get revenge in one fell swoop. He has spent years tracking down military targets to destroy, and was willing to kill soldiers in the process. Another man is working for the [majority] military. He has a grandparent who was [minority], but the rest of his family were [majority]. As such, he was spared from being killed in the [minority] people’s genocide. He had the choice to defect from the [majority] military to fight with his brethren, but chose not to because he had convinced himself that his time was better spent changing the way their oppressors saw them.

Meanwhile, countless [minority] people were killed horrifically.

Later on, the first man is confronted with the second man. The second man greets the first as his “[minority] brother”. He explains with pride how he was working in the [majority] military in order to change the way the [majority] people view their ethnic group, and that he made the decision to do so while the genocide was happening. The first man, who has spent years fighting against the regime that slaughtered his people, is shocked. But then his reaction is a little…odd. Instead of being angry or disgusted by the second man, he is pleased with him. He compliments the second man’s methodology, and says that he wishes there were more people like him.

The first man stops going after targets from the [majority] military and decides to rebuild his homeland instead.”

Now do a find and replace of [minority] with a real-world oppressed group of your choice, and [majority] with the corresponding oppressive majority. Now imagine that this is a series that portrays that oppressive majority from a sympathetic POV.

….I hope that my problem with this scene is now clear.

Now, obviously Arakawa isn’t okay with genocide, but she still endorses a very idealistic solution to dealing with its aftermath. There’s nothing wrong with idealism in and of itself, but it can lead to some unfortunate implications when complicating factors are outright ignored. Scar’s actions – which are perfectly logical and can even be argued to be morally justifiable – are dismissed as indefensible crimes. Violent resistance against the infrastructure of an oppressive regime’s military is portrayed as being the wrong thing to do no matter what has precipitated it. The only thing that’s portrayed as morally justified is going after the people (in this case, actual monsters) directly responsible. And only when it’s a matter of resistance or certain death.

At this point, I can maybe see Scar giving up his crusade against State Alchemists in light of everything he’s learned about the Amestrian government – with the hope that the genocide wouldn’t be repeated if Father was no longer in charge. Or maybe he might have simply postponed it, knowing that Father posed a greater threat than the power of the State Alchemists, but secure in his conviction that State Alchemists were still a menace that needed to be destroyed.

What I cannot reconcile is how he reacted to Miles, or how the narrative clearly endorsed Miles’ strategy over Scar’s.

Miles was at best a misguided idealist and at worst a coward using weak rationalizations. Whatever the case, I don’t see how Scar could’ve been so pleased with his decision to stay on the sidelines while the Ishvalans were being massacred. Not angry, necessarily, but certainly not impressed.

Beyond Scar’s bizarre reaction to Miles’ statement, there’s the even more disturbing fact that nobody seems to take issue with the idea that it’s somehow the Ishvalans’ responsibility to “change how Amestrians see them” in the first place. It’s subtle, but smacks of victim-blaming nonetheless. Especially coming from a person who was spared the worst of the Amestrian atrocities by virtue of being mostly of Amestrian ancestry himself.

In all honesty, it reads like the sort of thing you’d see in the propaganda of the oppressors, rather than as an honest and respectful representation of the oppressed.

Edit: I would also like to clarify that the core of my objection to this scene, and in fact Scar’s overall character arc, does not lie in Miles helping to convince Scar to abandon his revenge. Because I could see Scar doing that regardless of his conversation with Miles. What I find upsetting is how Scar reacted to Miles’ proud admission that he was working with the Amestrian military. That is, with admiration rather than a more negative emotion. But overall, I just think Scar’s character arc is full of unfortunate implications, and that his character should not have been used to make an Aesop about revenge (or, as I’ve seen some fans argue, about the importance of meaningful sacrifice). Not when there are people in real life that are in similar situations taking similar actions in response to oppression and genocide.

For both of these problems, I’m afraid that dismissing it as “only fiction” simply doesn’t hold water. This is, after all, a series that people frequently claim has deeply influenced the way they see the world. And people often do take these really skeevy “lessons” to heart, as is evidenced by their enthusiastic reblogging and praise of Edward’s privileged, ignorant statement. I’ve also seen people arguing that Miles is absolutely right, and that the Ishvalans need to behave themselves in order to avoid further persecution. So…yeah.