Alchemy is a force of creation, but inFullmetal Alchemist, it’s also a weapon. The series never pretends that power comes free. For every brilliant transmutation or military breakthrough, someone else loses something. And more often than not, it’s the civilians who suffer. The ordinary people. The ones who didn’t ask to be caught up in someone else’s pursuit of knowledge, revenge, or control.
The 10 Best Final Episodes of Anime, Ranked
When an anime sticks the landing, it’s remembered forever in history, and these ten anime series went out with a bang and left the audience satisfied.
The Elric brothers carry their guilt, but they’re not the only ones whose actions had consequences. Whether it was a stray alchemical experiment, a state-sanctioned massacre, or a power-hungry alchemist trying to climb the ranks, civilians in this world have paid dearly.Innocent people became test subjects, collateral damage, or forgotten victims in someone else’s war.
10Nina Tucker
Laughter That Never Reached Tomorrow
This is the one no one forgets:Nina Tucker, the sweet daughter of Shou Tucker, was cheerful, innocent, and loved her father. What happened to her is just monstrous. Desperate to keep his State Alchemist license, Tucker fused his daughter with the family dog, creating a chimera. He used alchemy to sacrifice his child, turning her into something inhuman, something that could barely speak.
Nina’s story is short, but the horror lingers. Her suffering came from her own home and her father, not from the war or a political game that we’re accustomed to.Alchemy erased her identity. And when Scar put her out of her misery, it was already too late to save anything.
9The People of Ishval
Graves That Were Burned Into Sand
The Ishvalan genocide wasn’t a battle. It was a calculated, state-led massacre. Alchemists were turned into soldiers and used as weapons of mass destruction.Edwardand Alphonse weren’t involved, but many other characters they met were.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - 10 Best Characters, Ranked
Uncover the brilliance of FMA: Brotherhood with characters like Edward Elric, Roy Mustang, and Riza Hawkeye leading the way.
The civilians of Ishval were targeted because of their race and religion. Buildings crumbled. Families vanished. Children were burned alive by flame alchemy. When Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye talk about their role in the war, they don’t brag.They carry it like a wound. Because they know exactly what happened. Alchemy turned their homeland into a graveyard.
8Rosé and the Town of Liore
Hope That Fell for a Miracle
Rosé was a hopeful girl who believed in miracles. Her town, Liore, clung to the false promises of a religious figure namedFather Cornello, who used alchemy disguised as divine magic to control the people. The Elric brothers exposed the truth, but that didn’t end the suffering. Once the illusion collapsed, chaos filled the streets. Then the Homunculi stepped in. Envy disguised himself as Cornello to incite rebellion and eradicate the city.
8 Most Satisfying Anime Deaths
Some anime deaths hit differently, not with sadness, but with pure satisfaction. Here are 8 characters that got exactly what they deserved.
What began as manipulation ended in bloodshed. Rosé lost everything. Her faith, her home, her voice. And the people of Liore were used as pawns in a game they never understood.Alchemy had been their false savior. Then it became the tool of their destruction.
7The Slicer Brothers' Victims
Chains That Never Got Names
The Slicer brothers were once human criminals, turned into soul-bound suits of armor by unethical alchemists. Before becoming test subjects, they had families and lives. But they weren’t the only ones who paid.
The real horror lies in the experiments that created them. Many other prisoners, many forgotten names, were sacrificed to figure out how to separate souls, bind them, and discard the bodies. Each failed attempt meant someone died. Most of them weren’t even guilty of major crimes.Alchemy, in these labs, was about cruelty. And the civilians who disappeared into those dungeons never came back.
6Tim Marcoh’s Research Subjects
Equations Written in Bone
Dr. Tim Marcohhelped create the Philosopher’s Stone during the Ishvalan War. He thought he was helping his country win, but he soon realized the stone was made by sacrificing living souls.
What he helped build was ruthless execution. He tried to flee, to disappear into obscurity, but his research had already claimed countless lives. Civilians were rounded up and killed in secret to power a stone that could keep state alchemists fighting longer. Marcoh lives with that knowledge.Every quiet moment reminds him that somewhere, a village stopped existing so he could write down an equation.
5Laboratory 5 Experiments
The Lab Where Nobody Left
Laboratory 5 was the site of some of the most horrifying alchemical experiments in Amestris. It was officially shut down, but the military kept it operating in secret. Civilians and prisoners were brought in as test subjects for Philosopher’s Stone research.
Ed and Al stumble into the lab during their investigation and uncover the truth that the people were being turned into ingredients. Their lives reduced to fuel for an object of power.There were no names. No graves. Just blood, stone, and silence. They were the unseen victims of unchecked ambition.
4Ishvalan Children Used as Test Subjects
Childhood Claimed Before Memory
During the war, the military didn’t just kill Ishvalans in the streets. They took some of them, particularly children, and brought them to hidden facilities for experiments. These children were considered expendable by the alchemists seeking breakthroughs.
It’s mentioned only in passing, but the implications are devastating. Children who lost their families were subjected to horrors beyond comprehension. And when the experiments failed, they were discarded like waste.After all, alchemists were products of a system that valued results more than lives.
3Tringham Brothers' Town
Soil That Refused to Grow
InFullmetal Alchemist (2003), the Tringham brothers impersonate the Elrics to get access to restricted alchemical texts. Their goal? To help their dying hometown recover its agriculture after a company’s industrial alchemy poisoned it.
The town’s soil had been rendered useless. Its crops had failed. And its people were slowly starving. All because someone with enough knowledge used alchemy for profit instead of preservation. The brothers were young and desperate. Their town was even more so.The suffering of those people was slow and invisible. But it still counted.
2Barry the Chopper’s Victims
Shadows That Walked Among Shoppers
Before becoming a soul bound to armor, Barry the Chopper was a serial killer who was eventually captured by the military and turned into an experiment. But long before that, he murdered innocent civilians. People with lives, families, routines. His victims were ordinary townspeople, killed because someone like Barry was allowed to roam free.
His transformation into a lab subject didn’t absolve his past. It only added another layer to the horror.The civilians he killed didn’t even get names in the story. But their absence says enough.
1Scar’s Victims in the Early Episodes
Rage That Mistook Innocence
Scar became a killer out of grief. His rage was justified, his anger earned. But in his early days, he killed without question. Anyone wearing a State Alchemist uniform was a target. Some of those killed weren’t soldiers in battle. They were engineers. Researchers. Support staff. Civilians.
Scar himself reflects on this. He realizes that in seeking justice, he became a tool of destruction too. That some of the people he killed never had blood on their hands. They were just there, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.The war changed him, but it also took him further away from the very people he was trying to protect.
10 Best Anime Like Fullmetal Alchemist
Wondering what to watch after finishing Fullmetal Alchemist? Well, here are some of the best anime shows that’ll offer you a similar experience.
