I donât know if this is common knowledge or not, but this scene here is the first, and only time Edward cries in the series. From the day he and Al burned down their home until now, this is the only time.
Ed didnât cry when he and Al discovered what had become of Nina. He didnât cry when she was killed. He didnât cry when Scar destroyed most of Alâs body, or when Scar was moments away from killing him. He didnât cry when Al accused him of creating a fake soul and binding it to armor, of inventing a brother as some kind of sick joke. He didnât cry when he learned Hughes had died, or when he confronted Gracia and admitted the murder was likely his fault. He didnât cry listening to Al admit that he was at his witâs end, that he couldnât stand all the nights alone anymore.Â
He didnât cry when he learned Scar had killed the Rockbells after saving his life, or when Hohenheim accused him of running away. He didnât cry when he discovered the thing heâd transmuted wasnât actually Trisha, or when Envy told him they were doomed to die inside Gluttonyâs failed portal, or when Bradley took Winry hostage, or when the fight with Kimblee left him with a ten foot steel beam puncturing his side. He didnât cry when Pride hijacked Alâs lifeless body, or when he let Al be locked up in total darkness with Pride, or when Father took them captive and used them to kill everyone in Amestris.
And he didnât cry when Al sacrificed his own soul to save Edâs life.
No. Heâs gotten angry; heâs yelled; heâs exploded, but heâs never cried. This is the only time, and itâs when Hohenheim tells Ed to his face that he loves them, more than anything in the world, and only wants for them to be happyâthat everything that happened had been his fault, as their father, as an adult, as the one who should have been protecting them, and not Edâs.
And Ed bawls.
To me, it makes such perfect sense, because Edâs relationship with Hohenheim is the most complex one Ed has. Ed hates Hohenheim, and will easily admit it, but he doesnât hate Hohenheim in the way he hates other people. Ed enjoys talking smack about those he genuinely hatesâheâll talk about wanting to beat Scar bloody for everything heâs done, and wanting to kick the homunculiâs asses for trying to use him and Al as pawns. Hell, he even enjoys jabbing at Roy for the personality traits he dislikes. Hohenheim is different though. Hohenheim is the only person Ed hates that he also hates talking about. Every time Hohenheim is mentioned, Ed responds with a quick, scathing comment about the man and desperately changes the subject.
And this is all because Ed doesnât feel right about his hatred toward Hohenheim. For all the others, Ed hates them from a blameless position. The homunculi hurt innocent people, as does Scar, as does Kimblee. Ed securely knows heâs the good guy who hates these bad guys. Heâs the moral one, the blameless one, pushing back against a truly antagonistic force. And this is what Hohenheim is not. All of Edâs hatred toward Hohenheim stems from a place of projected guilt and self-loathing. Ed decided to try to bring Trisha back to life. Ed performed the transmutation that got Alâs body taken away. Ed burned down their home and enlisted in the military, and Ed agreed to do awful things in order to try to fix what heâd done to Al. But, if Ed dials everything backwards, he can almost justify rooting this in the fact that Hohenheim left them first.
If Hohenheim had stuck around, maybe Trisha wouldnât have died. And if she had, Hohenheim could have stopped Ed and Al from doing something so reckless as human transmutation. Heâs their father after all. Heâs supposed to be responsible for them. But he left, so Ed can almost rationalize the idea that it was Hohenheimâs leaving that led to everything bad in the brothersâ lives.
Ed knows this is grasping though, and he clings to it in part because heâs convinced Hohenheim hates him too. The clearest memory Ed has of his father is from the morning he left, standing stiff at the doorway, glaring down at Ed before heading out the door and never returning. (A glare which we later learn was the result of Hohenheim furiously holding back tears). Clearly, Hohenheim hated Ed and Al and Trisha enough to just walk out the door one day without saying goodbye. Edâs probably spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering what theyâd done wrong as a familyâwhat heâd done wrong as a sonâto make his own father not want him anymore.
So when Ed talks about how he hates Hohenheim, itâs 100% intertwined with a hatred he feels for himself. And itâs an insecurity Ed would never, ever admit to.
Meeting Hohenheim again in episode 20 only works to confirm Edâs fears. Hohenheim is unbelievably cold to himâHohenheim confirms that, yes, all of this was Edâs fault. Ed committed the taboo; Ed burned down their home as a means of hiding the memory. Heâs disappointed in Ed. He hates him as a son. And he leaves, again, without goodbye, because Hohenheim didnât return home with any sort of change of heart.
Learning the truth about Hohenheim only serves to scramble Edâs feelings. Heâs confused; heâs uncertain. He can rationalize Hohenheimâs departure in the context of preparing the counter-transmutation circle, but what about his memories of the man who glared at him, filled with hatred, and left? What about the man who accused him of being a scared, stupid child whoâs to blame for all his failures? What about the man whoâif only heâd stuck aroundâcould maybe have stopped Ed from doing all of this? The truth makes sense, but it does nothing to alleviate all the guilt and self-hatred Ed feels in relation to Hohenheim, so he doesnât soften to his father like Al does.
Until this scene.
Until finally, Hohenheim says everything Edâs desperately wanted to believe for the past ten years. Hohenheim loves him. Hohenheim cares about him. Hohenheim blames himself for what happenedâhe should have been around for Ed and Al, he should have been there to stop them from doing the impossible, he should have been their father. He wanted to. More than anything in the world, he wanted to just be there for them. Their family was everything Hohenheim had loved in life, and heâs sorry, from the bottom of his heart he is sorry, for how he left them behind. So sorry, that he wants to sacrifice his life in order to fix what little of it he can.
And thatâs what breaks Ed. He was strong enough not to cry at any other time, for any other reason, but in these few panels Hohenheim destroys the mangled, tortured sense of fear and guilt and self-loathing that Ed had been harboring for a decade. Hohenheim loves him. Hohenheim is happy to be Edâs father, proud, and so so sorry.
For the first time, Ed cries. Because for the first time, he feels like he can call Hohenheim âDadâ.
