Episode 38: Conflict at Baschool

Watchthrough Thoughts
  • May Chang really hasn't learned from her mistakes when it comes to romance, has she?
  • Looks like Edward's still really bad at persuading people.


Episode Notes

We find out Yoki's backstory! I'm about as interested as Edward was.

Scar doesn't try to justify killing Winry's parents. Good for him.

Looks like central command is getting a bit impatient with the people at Briggs. General Armstrong can probably lie her way out of this, though, and the commanding officers from central are probably itching to get home anyway, partly because of the cold and partly because they think everyone at Briggs will be massacred soon and have no intention of being there when it happens.

Scar has kidnapped Winry. On the bright side, this means she's out of Kimbley's reach, and Scar won't do anything to hurt her.
But why would Scar kidnap Winry? Maybe he wanted leverage to use against Edward? That's not really his style. It's possible that Edward and Alphonse planned all this as a way to get Winry out of her hostage situation, but there's no way that Edward would EVER trust Scar with Winry's safety. Not that Winry would agree to play along anyway.
If it wasn't staged, though, then why would Edward blame Kimbley for not keeping track of Winry? He and Alphonse are the ones that smuggled Winry away in Al's armour, and Edward's much more likely to wrongly blame himself than to wrongly blame others. I guess it wouldn't be that out of character for him, since he already hates Kimbley, but it still feels off.

Oh! If Scar has a hostage with him, then Kimbley can't use his stone-boosted alchemy to annihilate him from a distance. Well, not unless he wants to kill Winry too, and he's probably too smart to try that, since it'd turn Edward (and maybe some of the Briggs soldiers) against him. Oh, and Winry's the hostage that his side took to keep Ed in check, so there's another reason she's not acceptable collateral damage.

If the kidnapping was staged, then that would mean Ed and Al finally stopped wanting to fight Scar, and decided to team up with him so that they could learn alcahestry, and more about what's wrong with Amestrian alchemy. It would also mean that they trust him enough to leave Winry in his hands, and that Winry's willing to cooperate with the guy that killed her parents. Phrased that way, it makes it seem really unlikely (but not impossible) that the kidnapping was staged.

Things to add to my List Of Stuff That Will Become Important Later:
  • Central command is starting to get curious about what's going on in Briggs. I guess this is more proof that Pride's not omnipresent, or if he is then he's not sharing everything with Wrath, or they just want to keep up appearances.