King Bradley (キング・ブラッドレイ,Kingu Buraddorei?) is one of the primary antagonists in the Fullmetal Alchemist series, being that he is one of the seven Homunculi. Bradley was also the original Führer (大総統,Daisōtō?) of Amestris. In the manga series and the 2009 anime reboot, he was known as Wrath (ラース,Rāsu?), the final homunculus created by Father, but was changed in the 2003 anime to Pride (プライド,Puraido?), created by the ancient alchemist Dante. In both series, Bradley is the leader of Amestris and is seen to have almost inhuman swordsmanship. However, in the manga and 2009 anime series, he is an important character being that Amestris was created for the sole purpose of exacting Father's plan to become the ultimate being. As Führer, Bradley is the respected Commander-in-Chief of the State Military, even though his political standpoints are often questioned in certain instances such as the Ishval Civil War, which was only one of many insurrections focused on creating a massive Philosopher's Stone for Father.
In the Manga and Brotherhood, Bradley appears as an older man near sixty with an incredible physique for his age. He has a full head of black hair, which is cropped on the sides and slicked back. He wears a thick black mustache that is reminiscent of a toothbrush mustache. His right eye appears to be blue, and an ouroboros mark sits in place of his left pupil, which is normally covered by an eye patch.
Bradley's design remains the same in 03, but with noticeably softer features with a thinner and less stocky build. His skin tone is more of an olive complexion. However, the difference in characteristics can mostly be attributed to a change in art style.
Bradley is usually seen to wear a blue, full length military issue coat and slacks with black dress shoes. His uniform has a grey sash around it which he uses to carry his swords. Bradley is almost always seen with at least one sword on him, but has also been known to carry up to five and can wield all of them simultaneously. On occasions, he has been seen without his coat in battle, wearing his military issue slacks with suspenders and boots, along with a short-sleeve black undershirt. Other times, he is seen wearing a black vest with a white dress-shirt, dress pants, and formal shoes. At the time of the promised day, Bradley wore a white shirt with blue pants and a beige belt to hold his hand grenade.
Personality
Several differences are apparent in Bradley when compared to the other Homunculi, such as the ability to sympathize with humans and even show compassion despite his identity as Wrath. He is perhaps the most misleading of the homunculi, appearing generally calm and surprisingly pleasant, even displaying a sense of humor most other homunculi seem to lack.
Instances of his misleading demeanor include giving full credit to Colonel Roy Mustang for killing Isaac McDougal the Freezing Alchemist, despite Bradley himself being the one fully responsible for the criminal's defeat (2009 anime only). Similarly, giving a melon to Edward Elric as a gift when he and his younger brother Alphonse were in the hospital, and sneaking out a window in the Elric brothers' hospital room to escape his assistant who was looking for him afterwards. Bradley uses such actions to win the trust of those around him, and to avoid suspicion of his true nature.
As pleasant as he may seem, Bradley embodies the true image of wrath when enraged. One instance was at the funeral of Lt. Colonel Hughes, where Elicia, not able to conceptualize the idea of death, makes protests to her mother about the burial. Bradley is spotted with shaking hands, which Colonel Roy Mustang mistook as a silent weep, only for Bradley to admit he was trembling due to the difficulty of restraining his anger that Elicia had broken the accepted silence of the ritual.
In battle, Bradley shows relentless determination and brutality, never hesitating to deal the finishing blow and fighting with a silent but deadly aura, a reflection of the inner fury that drives him and embodies his status as Wrath. While generally a silent and ruthless force in combat, he does seem to display a slightly more light-hearted personality when confronting opponent's whose skills he respects, commenting on his enemies and his old age. During his first battle with Ling Yao, he compliments Ling, noting that he knows a thing or two about fighting and swordplay. Additionally, during his fight with Fu, Bradley states that Fu is an exceptional fighter, considering that he is even older than Bradley himself.
As a King who was handed his position in life and was rarely to make the true decisions regarding his country, Bradley firmly disagrees with the concept of a "true king", that of a monarch that serves its people and to better their country. From his perspective, kings are only figureheads that are instated and have no true power. Despite this belief, he does not necessarily seem unhappy with his position in this way, accepting his role as a fake ruler and enjoying the act he puts on for his life. Since his entire life was planned out for him and he rarely if ever got to make his own choices, Bradley takes great pride in his wife since she was the woman he chose to marry, openly expressing this to Riza. Despite keeping his own secrets from her, he believes that the bond they share is strong enough that no words need to be shared between them in order to understand and accept each other.
He is rarely seen associating with the other Homunculi, aside from times when it is necessary to do so. He is more lenient towards humans than his siblings, due to spending the most time among them and once being a human himself. He also appears to secretly enjoy the complications that the Elric brothers and their friends have brought to Father's plans since he has lived a life where everything has been planned, controlled, or predicted. However, he still does express some annoyance towards humans, sometimes referring to their constant meddling as bothersome, even once remarking to Mustang, "You humans sure piss me off."
Bradley has openly expressed his disbelief of God, believing the concept as a tool to inspire fear and order in society. When Ishvalans claim that God will punish him for his crimes, Bradley scorns them, asking how long their God would wait and how many more lives Bradley would take until he'd finally take action, urging the Ishvalans instead to use their own strength to try and stop Bradley if they so wish. Despite this, he called out Scar for abandoning his previous beliefs and using alchemy even though his God, Ishvala, viewed it as abhorrent; upon his death, he noted the irony that his defeat from being momentarily blinded by the sun could possibly be a form of divine justice and an act of God. This implies that Bradley isn't exactly disdainful of the existence of God, but rather the way that humans attempt to use the threat of God against their enemies instead of fighting their enemies with their own hands.
Powers and Abilities
As opposed to the rest of the Homunculi, Bradley was originally a human whose body was infused with a Philosopher's Stone that was made from wrathful souls. These souls fought and eventually dwindled to a single soul, which was the most wrathful of all. After his transformation into Wrath, Bradley possesses enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, durability, senses, agility, coordination, willpower, intelligence, and instincts superior to any human.
Physical Abilities
Unique amongst the Homunculi, for the most part Bradley's physical body was identical to that of a normal human, albeit a human at the peak of physicality for someone his age. Despite being 60 years old, Bradley possessed superhuman levels of speed, strength, reflexes, and agility, feats even more impressive given that his physicality are due to his own abilities and not gifts from his status as a Homunculus. He has on multiple occasions outpaced gunfire and moved faster than the eye can see. His abilities made him perhaps the most deadly of the Homunculi at close-range combat, even without his Ultimate Eye he proved more than a match for most opponents and only resorted to using it when truly pushed.
Being fast enough to dodge bullets, strong enough to slice through solid stone and metal with ease, and able to perceive the most optimal path to victory, at his full-strength Wrath was never shown to falter or even sustain injury- only taking blows by surprise. While he was undoubtedly one of the deadliest of the Homunculi, especially at close-range, he was not without weakness. Chief amongst them was his physical body. Even though he showed feats of physical prowess well beyond someone his age, unlike his brethren his body was mortal and thus he did not share their regenerative healing abilities. He has pointed out on multiple occasions that while his eye is capable of reading any situation, his own aging body is often unable to keep up with the projected courses of action that his sight ability proposes to him.
Ultimate Eye
Wrath's unique abilities centered around his left eye. With it he gained incredibly enhanced perception and extra-sensory vision of his general surroundings, able to percieve and process information at instantaneous speeds. Coupled with his incredible physical abilities, Wrath could adapt perfectly to all factors achieving maximum efficiency in offensive and defensive strategy, ensuring optimal results as long as there is the slightest chance and depending on the means at his disposal. A simple glance will detect his opponent's or obstacle's nature, strengths, weaknesses, etc. making Wrath a perfect military field strategist. His visual prowess was so absolute that it was akin to precognition, able to react perfectly to any situation.
While his Ultimate Eye did grant him extraordinary sensory abilities, this was only limited to things within his field of vision. Like any other person, he was vulnerable to surprise attacks as his enhanced sight could do nothing against threats he could not see. In a sense, Bradley was a very durable glass cannon, in that he could get wounded by an enemy's attack, they just needed to get passed his offensive abilities and land the hit.
Swordsmanship
A formidable combatant, Wrath strongly favors using swords, which he wields with deadly proficiency thanks to his unique gifts and lifetime of training, to the point where he can wield five blades simultaneously. Even without his Ultimate Eye, he could already perform impossible feats of swordsmanship such as slicing through cannonfire in mid-air. With it, he became all the more deadly, easily overcoming any opponent he faced in direct combat.
Wrath apparently has the highest level of skill when it comes to the art of swordsmanship among all the characters, capable of easily fighting against both the second Greed and Fu simultaneously using only two daggers as well as being able to defeat the first Greed with ease. After being severely injured by Buccaneer and Greed/Ling with a surprise attack that rendered his Ultimate Eye useless, he proved capable of defeating Colonel Roy Mustang by charging him so quickly that he outran the Colonel's explosions. Then, still mortally injured, he fought and nearly bested Scar, nearly killing him at least twice during their battle, only to be stopped either by his wounds or circumstance. After the battle, Scar himself admitted that if he had fought Wrath while the latter was uninjured, he would have stood no chance. He has also demonstrated himself to be extremely intelligent and skilled in military weapons, as he was able to destroy a Briggs Tank with only a sword and a hand grenade.
A Human-Based Homunculus
Bradley was raised for the specific purpose of becoming Father's Wrath and developed into a potential leader of Amestris. Because of this, his construction is an anomaly among Homunculi. While Bradley possesses a Philosopher's Stone at his core, he was created with a live human at his base, who was raised solely as a candidate for becoming fuhrer alongside other orphaned boys. When Bradley was a young man, Father injected him with a Philosopher's Stone created from wrathful souls, making him the first of only two human-based Homunculi (the other being Greed-Ling). However, the battle between the wrathful souls of the philosopher's stone left only one soul, making Fuhrer Bradley the only homunculus with human mortality. Bradley later states to Mustang that he doesn't know if he retained his original soul, or if his soul at that time was the single wrathful soul which eventually overcame the rest of the souls in the stone that he was injected with. Out of all the other Führer candidates, he was the only candidate who didn't fully succumb to the stone, a feat that would've resulted in his death if he'd been too weak to overcome its power.
Bradley is also stated by Ling to be different from the other Homunculi, being that he can sense a singular chi or life force from him, as opposed to the other Homunculi who he states have multiple chi forces. The reason to this is that the other Homunculi possess stones created from the life forces of multiple people, while Bradley only has one spirit in his. For this reason Bradley lacks the regenerative abilities his siblings possess since he doesn't possess multiple souls within his stone to heal wounds making him physically the weakest Homunculus. Later in the series, Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye learns of Bradley's fabricated life and tells him that it was tragic that nothing about him was real. Bradley states that it was untrue, and shows pride in the only choice of his own that he ever had, the choice of making Mrs. Bradley his wife.
Trivia
Führer (alternatively romanised Fuehrer) means leader in German. The title was used by the supreme dictator of the Third Reich, mostly associated with Adolf Hitler, though was also briefly held by Karl Dönitz.
Bradley's first name, King, is at times mistaken for or as part of his actual title rather than Führer. Many times, the english translations of the anime and manga will mistakenly refer to him as "King" by title rather than name, though this is at times meant to be taken metaphorically rather than literally.
As a member of the military, Bradley is named from a real world military leader, General Omar Nelson Bradley, one of several five-star generals in the US military overseeing World War II and the Korean War.
Bradley appears to be modelled after the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.
During the "Promised Day", in episode 55 and 56, Führer King Bradley can be seen carrying a Model 24 Stielhandgranate tucked into his belt. He uses the weapon to destroy a tank operated by Briggs soldiers at the command center. This also ties in with his Führer name, as the Stielhandgranate is of German design.
Ironically, Wrath is the youngest Homunculus (at 60-years-old), despite being physically the oldest-looking. This is the opposite of Pride who is the oldest (over 3 centuries) Homunculus, despite having the youngest physical appearance.
Interestingly, the youngest and oldest Homunculi are the only Homunculi to share a close, yet fake, father-son relationship with one another.
As a joke in the non-canon 4-Koma Theater, it is stated that King Bradley's real name is Jugemu-jugemu Gokōnosurikire Kaijarisuigyo-no Suigyōmatsu Unraimatsu Fūraimatsu Kūnerutokoroni-sumutokoro Yaburakōjino-burakōji Paipopaipo-paiponoshūringan Shūringanno-gūrindai Gūrindaino-ponpokopīno-ponpokonāno Chōkyūmeino-chōsuke, derived from the Japanese folktale "Jugemu." The joke also states that Scar, another character whose real name is unknown, shares the same name.
In the dub this is changed to Russell Daniel Paul Blake Joseph Alan Eric Fred Orson Trevor Richard Charletons Christopher Benedict Garfield Polyurethane Nicholas Robert Theodore Skeet Michael Alvin Carter Bryce Jeffrey Marigold Peter Ethan Arin Papa Willie Nathaniel Orville Chuck Slippy Slappy Zippy Zappy Angel Eyes.
King Bradley is one of the only two human based Homunculi, being born human, but assimilating the Philosopher's Stone into his body later on, as opposed to the other Homunculi who were created through human transmutation with a Philosopher's Stone as the substitution for a soul.
Wrath, in the 2009 anime, can be seen outside the room where Lust has just been killed, sliding his sword back into its scabbard. Meaning if he was able to get there any sooner he could have possibly saved her life.
Wrath bears a resemblance to General Keiro from Hero Tales, another publication of Hiromu Arakawa's.
Wrath also bears a resemblance to Joseph Stalin, a dictator who oversaw the deaths over 6 million of his own country's people in state-sanctioned massacres and imprisonments, not too dissimilar to the 'Crests of Blood' and Maria Ross's false imprisonment in the FMA universe. Bradley's comment to Roy Mustang regarding the significance of death of a single man is similar to a quote widely misattributed to Stalin, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." Subsequently, in Arakawa's short series Raiden-18, which revolves around Boris Karloff type Frankenstein monsters, Stalin's corpse is among the many other corpses owned by Professor Tachibana, and bears a striking resemblance to King Bradley.
Wrath's loss of his arms might be a reference to Dante Alighieri's "Inferno", where the wrathful have their limbs ripped off the body.
Also, him being blinded during his clashes with Ling Yao and Scar may be a reference to the third terrace of the mountain in “Purgatorio”. In this terrance, the wrathful wander in a thick, acrid mist, which represents the blinding nature of anger and fury.
Scar's defeat of Wrath is a bit of irony. During the Ishvalan War, Wrath criticized the Ishvalans and their belief in God and challenges him to strike him down. In his final fight with Scar, Wrath once again denies the existence of God before the sun revealed itself and blinded Wrath long enough for Scar to sever Wrath's hands, defeating him. This indicates that it was an "act of God" that defeated Wrath.
Interestingly, both anime series, including the movie connected to 2003 series, have the Homunculus named Wrath be the fifth one to die.
In the 2003 anime, during his battle with Mustang, Bradley's outfit changes. In episode 50, it looked like a low tank top and his chest was visible, whereas in episode 51, it looked more like his outfit when he stormed The Devil's Nest in the manga and 2009 anime. This is because his shirt and tank top were burned by Mustang during the fight in episode 50, and Bradley uses his Homunculus abilities to create new clothes in identical fashion to all the other Homunculi in the 2003 series: tight clothes with black colors, with several red nodes connected by lines appearing on his shoulders, upper back, and the backs of his hands.
According to an interview, Wrath, at one point in his past, went to Lust to find out about women and to Envy to learn how to compliment them. The end result was the future Mrs. Bradley slapping him, which even his Ultimate Eye was unable to warn him about.
In nearly every fight that Wrath participated in, one or more of his swords would break. The only exceptions was the anime-only fight against Isaac, his first fight with Greed, and his brief confrontation with Mustang.
