If anyone cares anymore, I'm talking a few scenes that classify as spoilers for the Fullmetal Alchemist series. Names will be pointed and fingers will be named. 

I've been watching the original version of Fullmetal Alchemist, and I got to the scene.

There is more than one scene, really, so the scenes. 

Those of you who have seen this show, read the manga, keep up with the memes or story, you know what I'm talking about. They are the two most heart-breaking moments in the series, if not all anime (although my anime knowledge isn't huge). 

Yeah. First comes Nina, Alexander, and Mr. Sewing Life Alchemist *growls*, and after that is the one that really gets me, Maes Hughes. 

I'm sure at this point you're slightly worried about how the name of this word-barf relates to a dirtbag  who does a horrible thing and a death that threatens the waterworks. No, I don't want to be able to perform alchemy or mash people together. Rather not. People don't like it when that happens. 

I'm talking about the writing. 

In the series, the first major punch to the gut they give you is a torture and death of a little girl named Nina and her dog, Alexander. There are a few tweaks to the timeline in the original anime compared to the manga and Brotherhood, but the story remains the name.  You wind up getting extremely attached to Nina and Alexander throughout the chapters/episodes/minutes due to the dog's joy of jumping on Ed and Al (the main characters of the series) and Nina always wanting to play. 

Nina's father, Shou Tucker, needs to pass an alchemy test in order to keep the job he has. He specializes in creating "life," by combining creatures with other creatures and his research on the topic. Ed and Al leave for the day, he is threatened with his position going up in flames, and he decides to turn his daughter and dog into a chimera. Not only does this happen, but he has no regret over it and did it to his wife years before. 

When I read the manga for the first time, I kid you not, I literally went from laughing at the previous few pages to slamming the book shut and trying not to cry. It was in a snap. 

To make it worse, they then tell you there is no reversal of this, and proceed to and Nina+Alexander be killed in either pity or a good-natured mistake (depends on the version again). 

The fun little girl and her dog are dead, and it haunts the two main characters for the rest of the series. It is a death that has an impact on the story, and can yank the reader or watcher around in so many different ways. 

It hurts. You feel the character's pain, you see their reactions to this and how it changes them. 

On to the next. 

The death that kills a little piece of me every time is Maes Hughes. 

Hughes is a character that's in the series from pretty close to the very beginning. He takes up the job of watching Ed and Al as they do stupid stuff. He's kind, he's understanding, he protects them to the best of his ability, and he does his best to help them. Almost every time the guy shows up, he's being the nicest human being possibly or making a joke. 

He also has a wife and daughter that he never shuts up about. 

Like, this guy has a life.  He works with the military, but works with the military in order to help people. When he finds out a secret that the government wants under wraps, he does his best to tell his friend about it so he can know to stop it. Even still, he cares about his family and they cares about him. 

So when he's killed, it tears you to shreds. 

I'm going to see if I can post the scene that really messes with you under this. You don't really need to know the characters that are shown except that none of the adults are really criers. 

https://youtu.be/i07pCK_ZkRE

This is what being attached to a character is. And the way it's written, you don't realize your attached until it's too late and he's dead. It's really the daughter's reaction that can break me down and I don't get like that with tv/movies. Very rarely do I get so emotionally invested that I almost start sobbing over a fictional character. The only other time it's happened in recent memory was with Disney's Coco and the scene after the fight but not off the battlefield in Avengers: Endgame. 

And it makes me think, the author, Hiromu Arakawa, knows how to do it. She can make you feel the emotions of every single character in series, even the ones I didn't mention. You hate the guts of one person and break when the good ones go. The characters react realistically to the death and don't forget about the next episode. It's there. 

 And just when you think you're over it, those who didn't know find out and you break a little again. 

This one hurts me more than Nina. Don't get me wrong, Nina's end is horrible and painful to all parties involved. I see her as like a little sister to Ed and Al, and to be honest, they need to be reminded that they are kids. You, watching, need that reminder. They are all children. 

But her father turns out crazy. They can't save her and vow not to let it happen again. They were right there when it happened and could do nothing. With all the power in the world, it was out of their reach.

With Hughes though, it's different. He's a father, not just to his daughter, but to Ed, Al, and Winry to an extent. You hear over and over again that Ed and Al didn't know their dad and only had their mom, who's death is the reason the series exists. You even see it. Winry too, because her parents were killed in a war. Hughes is a father to those who have none and a friend to those who need one. 

Then he's gone. 

That's how to do characters. Get people attached, make them know it or don't. But get them emotionally involved. Get them to like the character or hate the character. Make them like a character because another character does. Let them feel the character's emotions. 

If your going to kill someone off, give it an impact. Show what they have to lose, show what others have to lose. Show the reaction and life without that person. Life goes on, but they don't. If we don't and our characters have the emotional range of a brick wall, we sure as heck aren't going to care if Joe Bob who is loved by all is dead. Shoot, I'll laugh at him dying. Why? Because everyone acts like it's not a big deal. Maybe he had nothing pushing him on. Maybe he had no work left to do. He was just done. Sure, maybe I'll be sad for five minutes, but really? It's not going to matter to me if it doesn't matter to them. 

Give them work unfinished. Make the point, they aren't done. They don't want to go. It's not okay. 

That's how I want to write. Whether I try to be published or just keep doing it for the heck of it, I want to get to that point. Give the fictional characters so much life that it hurts when they die. We hurt when they hurt. The story can be minimal, but the people in the story are what makes it. When they have genuine reactions and lives, we can believe the hurt. We can believe the joy. 

We can feel it with them. 

Yes, plot is good. There's got to be a good reason for why everything happens. But the people have to be a part of the reason. They have to make that choice to continue or quit. They decide how much it means to them. 

One day I want to make a world with characters like that, because that's what makes a story good. It's the people in it.