#dorchette

I still can't believe this is basically all in one single arc, and not even a long one!

The chimeras are here for so little but you can see so much

[Image ID: three panels from the fullmetal's alchemist manga.

Dorchette (aka Dolcetto) is talking with Alphonse, who is present in just one panel, and also smoking a pipe with a big grin on his face.

Alphonse: With... A dog?

Dorchette: Yeah, It's a pretty convenient body

Alphonse: You're pretty positive about this

Dorchette: Maybe too positive. But it's way better than being in that shitty boring lab

End ID]

When I saw this I thought "OK OK but how much uplifting did Greed had to do?" because Dorchette clearly doesn't like being a chimera, non of them do, but it feels like someone just went and said to him an exasperating number of times that's he's cool and strong, and amazing and and ecc...

Like that one particular friend that always cherish you and your art and literally whatever you do like you are the perfect human being, despite them being artificially created (and therefore technically flawless)

You know, everyone has that friend

And this is back up once again from one of those panels that always warms my heart

This singular panel always makes my heart melt:

[Image ID: a manga panel from the fullmetal's alchemist manga.

Bido is climbing a wall that Edward just formed with the usage of alchemy.

He's looking down to his interlocutors and while smiling he says

Bido: I'm amazing too!

End ID]

Like he's literally the most fucked up chimera???? With a big tail, a strange body structure (those feets...) and flakes all over his body

but he's just

"Yeah FUCK YOU, I'm cool as heck"

AND HE'S SO DAMN RIGHT

The supposedly most selfish being on the planet helped so many individuals recover from something that you cannot even classified and he still can't figure out that those same people are what he was searching for this whole time.

Sometimes it seems that the embodiment of avarice doesn't really care about himself huh

In conclusion, Greed is your mutual that is very cool, will support you and cherish your accomplished and just really support you and also acting like they are God and when you ask "how are you?" they respond with "I'm alive I guess"

Dorchette is arguably the character that give us more informations.

They are about chimeras and what he says can help us understand better other characters, in particular Greed, but also (as we'll see later) Alphonse fall in this category too.

Physical abilities

Dorchette is a chimera mixed with a dog.

He was part of the military like probably everyone else in the group. But then he injured and some laboratory took him and began to experiment and he became a chimera.

Even if at first glance it doesn't seem so, the dog choice makes perfect sense for him practically and reflect his personality.

He's short, agile, not particularly strong and probably the fastest of the group right above Martel

He has a great sense of smell

He's also very sensitive about sounds, which leads to one of my favourite details:

When Ed enter their base he starts to scream so loud that he occupies all the page and in the background Dorchette is the only one that covers his hears

We can see that the scream was not indeed very pleasant and that he was the most affected

Personality and characterization

He's the most talkative of the team, he's rather friendly, impulsive, cooperative and also the more sensitive about the situation around him. But also I don't think he's the smartest, like he take a lot of kicks and punches compared to his comrades (look at the first reblog)

Also how he search for validation is both a mood and a callback to the fact that he's a dog

That makes me wonder how much a person change when they become a chimera, does only the genetic change or also they start to resemble even more the assigned animal?

Speaking of appearence, Dorchette and Martel are the only chimeras that don't have some animal-like permanent features and that never transform themselves.

This led me thinking about another thing, but that's another story that should be telled another time.

His loyalty is shown until the very end, he doesn't run away, he dies with Roa.

They stick togheter, trying to protect a friend and even if they failed, that's ok because

What has the character brought?

Other than being a fun and interesting character, Dorchette also begin to the table a lot of informations.

Him and Martel are the first ones that explain how the chimera are made, actually they are the only ones; obviously that was because we, the readers, already knew about that but I think that show us that they are ten time more comfortable and confident in themselves and about their body.

No other chimeras outside of the Devil's nest responds like this.

They don't necessarily like the ways things are but they accept it and understand how things are.

The other chimera we encountered, at first they just think they have no future and are as good as dead.

But you know who at the end of the story live as a chimera and don't go for a change of their body and themselves? Exactly, Heinkel and Darius.

That's where Dorchette not only gave us vital informations in the moment we read them but with the data we now oun, it's also easier to understand better a future Greed and a future Alphonse.

It doesn't need a degree in psychology to grasp that Greed loves chimeras.

He had a whole base filled with them, the first thing he ask when he meet other chimeras is

[Greedling: So what kind of chimeras are you?

Darius: I'm a gorilla

Heinkel: Lion

Greedling: Ooh, very cool]

Well we don't really know why he took specifically the chimeras.

Is it because they are strong and with special abilities?

Or can it be because they are not human either, like him?

Or maybe because they were desperate and in search of a guide and he took advantage of them?

Or he took them with him because they needed a home and he needed companions.

Or he just needed outcasted like him so that he could've fill the void with the power he has over them?

Or maybe that hole was filled with something different that power

At whatever prospective you look at it, I don't think we can deny that he took people that had lost everything and made them strong and proud again. It's clear that he cares about them and they care about him.

And without all this notions I think that I would've just feel disappointed, because that explain so well the relationship between Greed and the chimeras, why they were togheter, how they became friends and why their legacy lived to at the end save the world.

A cheap "Yeah he has emotions uuuuuh and he's edgy, he had friends, like trust me they were friends" like a lot of stories do with dead friends would've leaved a bad taste in my mouth.

But it doesn't end that way, I think that what Dorchette explanations help another character: Alphonse.

Alphonse knows that he will regain his body, he wish so hard that it happens in the fastest way possible and that's probably what he thinks about all the time, even if it doesn't seem about it.

But then he meets the chimera and after he listens to Dorchette, I think that is the point when he begins to understand his current body is not all bad, that people can live in that kinds of situation and that maybe he's not as alone in his experience as he thinks.

The Devil's nest arc sticks with Alphonse, even after what seems an eternity he recall those people that accepted a body they didn't choose and leaved a life worth living anyway.