A Look at Olivier Armstrong: Loyalty Is A Soldier’s Tool

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so I am infinitely nervous when starting it. Still, I rewatched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood with dad recently and it’s been a fun time. The last time I watched Brotherhood was when it finished airing almost a decade ago. Saying that makes me feel old, but it also shows how memorable of a show it is because I remembered almost all of it beat by beat. There are just so many well-paced out amazing moments in the show that it’s hard not to remember them. It’s a brilliant character journey for a lot of people, not just Ed and Al Elric. I love that fact. This post is a result of me re-watching it at least saying something about it. Let’s talk about someone. You know who it is already, but I need to do some build up.

That leads to the idea behind this post. Brotherhood has a lot of great characters and a lot of them are powerful women. We could talk Winry, Izumi, Hawk Eye, and a few others, but I think the most interesting one out of the characters is Olivier Armstrong. General and Leader of Brigs. A characater that you could say is hot and strong and she totally is. Total waifu material right here. At the same time, that isn’t really all you can say about her or any other character. For instance, there happens to be a lot of hot and strong characters in Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. All in different ways just like people in general. There isn’t a solid definition of what strong means in Brotherhood, so it can mean personality or their own physical capabilities and abilities. That also applies to being hot as well. What does hot mean to you? While you answer that in the comments below, let’s continue this post.

Olivier Armstrong seems like an enigma of a person, but I just find her so fascinating. Especially since I think Olivier Armstrong is a character that relies around a trait that many other characters in Brotherhood are not. Loyalty. Almost every other character in the show instantly breaks into rebellion in the state and she doesn’t until it’s proven that the state is disloyal towards its pate. She hates that her brother ran away during the Ishvalan War and makes fun of Roy Mustang for some very similar reasons. Though, she does deliberately like Hawk Eye, but Hawk Eye is loyal. To me, it feels like if the Admiral and Leaders on top of Amestris didn’t try to seduce her with power, she would have easily fought against our main protagonist’s groups without a second thought.

That fact is something that just catches my mind every time I think about Brotherhood. All of my proof for that lies in the scene where she is being accosted by King Bradley for killing one of his staff. She doesn’t deny the fact she did it, because she is smart, and pushes that the guy was unloyal for spreading secrets so easily. She pushes into wanting that position as well. King Bradley easily accepting Olivier’s thoughts and ideas shows how strong of a case this is. Olivier Armstrong is a loyal soldier that holds her position at Fort Briggs because that’s her job and the government trust her because she does her job to perfection. Loyalty, Loyalty, Loyalty. She doesn’t care about other people until those other people show that she can trust them. That means loyalty comes with larger benefits. .

Loyalty is something that Olivier Armstrong values and if the people following her orders show loyalty to a fault as well, then she has and endless amount of lee-way that she can give anyone. The biggest example was when she sent men to hunt in the tunnels under brigs. Her men were given a time limit, right? Well, isn’t it interesting that she gave the guy watching the hole to the tunnels a broken watch? Within that domain of loyalty is a lot of caring. Olivier cares about her people enough to sacrifice her life if she had to and a lot of her people feel the same way towards her. The group at Brigs are so close together, possibly from the cold environment around them, that there is a real show of unity and loyalty between all of them. It may take a little bit to get Olivier’s trust, but once a character is in, they are in.

Olivier Armstrong is one of my favorite characters in Fullmetal Alchemist because of how complex and interesting she is. Not just because Olivier is super strong and can beat up their brother so easily. Not just because they are charismatic as hell and knows how to rally troops even in the direst moments for survival and help. Her first entrance is amazing and tells you everything about her. Even when Olivier is out of her element, she can find a way with her intelligence to get back into her element. Olivier’s since of morality is so different from a lot of other characters in Brotherhood and she adds a much-needed perspective inside all

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