Pride (also known as Selim Bradley) is the secondary antagonist of Hiromu Arakawa's manga series Full Metal Alchemist and its second anime adaptation. He was the first homunculus Father ever created and as his name suggests he was created from Fathers sinful desire of Pride. He serves as Fathers second in command.
History[]
Creation of the First Homunculus[]
Pride was created by the Father soon after the destruction of Xerxes, about 350 to 400 years ago. Ever since Amestris's country was founded he always pretended to be a normal and innocent human boy who is part of the family of several puppet leaders in the country (with which the Father chooses and gives the order), that he rarely appears in the public on front of people so as not to arouse suspicion. Pride also serves as the right-hand and mouthpiece of the Father, thus giving orders by watching over the actions of the homunculi.
He is also having to watch the cicle of national transmutation, so he was also forcing the homunculus Sloth to continue digging, which in the mentime he eliminates the indruders that appear and discovers it.
In the Events of History[]
In the beginning Pride is just mentioned, he reprimands Envy and Gluttony for failing in his missions and also allow the death of Lust, and ordered that they retreat without appearing in person. Soon after Gluttony was captured by the brothers Elrich, he talks to Wrath through a shadow, he is shocked to see another failure of and that Wrath likes these problems in his perfect plans and promises to him that this confession will be for himself.
Soon Pride would make several appearances as Selim Bradley and meet the brothers Elrich, then he would appear again the brothers Elrich discovered the circle of transmutation, where Pride would kill all the soldiers who went to explore the place. Shortly afterwards Lieuternant Hawkaye finds Selim plus she feels the dark aura of Pride making him reveal his identify he threatens not to tell anyone else if not he would kill his colleagues.
He then ordered Solf J. Kimblee a psychopathic alchemist, who works for the homunculi and sculpt a crystal of blood in Briggs. He soon afterwards has fight against Von Hohenhein.
Pride enters fight along with Gluttony, he kidnaps Alphonse Elrich and uses his armor with the his shadow and fights against Edward Elrich and his allies including Greed that he decides to kill, Ed causes a blackout so Pride does not use his shadow to attack, but Pride ends up restoring causing a forest fire, Ed then manages to rescue his brother, but Pride devours Gluttony to gain his power and his remaining life, Pride soon succeeds his enemies, but Hohenhein holds him along with Alphonse Elrich in a dome where he could not use shadow, soon after being imprisoned in the cupula Pride talks with Alphonse about his life, and Pride sends a morse code to the Father that he soon sends the Kimble to rescue them soon has a fight but the Kimble is wounded and Pride devours him.
Already in the final chapters, Pride is at the underground base of the homunculi, along with Wrath they fight against the colonel Roy Mustang he is blackmailed by the alchemist Doctor to make a human transmutation at the gate of truth he then refuses at the beginning but when Pride uses a of his shadows to stab the Doctor, he then having not much choice ends up accepting and does it at the gate of truth, but because of this he becomes blind. But Pride was affected by the truth as well as the Mustang, as his infamous body is slowly de-emphasizing, seeing that he has absorbed a high amount of his power, starting from the right side of his face, so the Elrich brothers realize this as well they were fighting him, before they were capture by the Father.
After capturing the brothers Elrich, his father Hohenhein, his master Izumi Curtis and the colonel Roy Mustang; (with all of them already having passed through the Gate of Truth and being used as a sacrifice for the Father's purpose to become god) he then uses his national transmutation power. In so doing the Father absorbs all the souls of the citizens of Amestris, he also uses the source itself to devour the his own Truth and becomes the new god of world.
But the lazy Hohenhein uses his own transmutation of himself making the Father become unable to fully control the Truth within him with that many souls are freeing grace to the Hohenhein said the Father falls, devote all his forces to maintain the power of Truth more to that power goes to exhaust like a ballon pay one blow.
When he discovers this, the Father flies to the surface to absorb the humans and regain their streght, immediately followed by everyone but Edward Elrich, with whom Pride captured him with his dark black tentacles, Edward mocks homunculi for being brainless zombies and do not act for and also observes the Father's lack of consideration for the homunculi and also for the near-death state of Pride being annoyed and throwing him on the floor says that this is just a ''fault human logic'' (To certainly perceive the truth in this).
Pride tells Edward that soon his child's body will soon disappear so he tries to take Edward's body as a host, plus Pride is distracted by Kimble's soul whose taste for tortured souls left him self-conscious inside philosopher's stone of Pride.
Kimble mocks Pride because he is desperate to capture Edward and saves himself, and also captures the body of a human who gives off so much, thus allowing Edward to fully reverse the process and invade Pride's soul and destroy his infant body and his dark body too forever.
After being defeated by Ed, the Pride is in its base form with an appearance of a miniature baby.
After Father's defeat, Edward delivers the homunculus-shaped embryo to Mrs. Bradley, who decides to create it as a real real child, despite having found out about its true nature. He is next seen in an epilogue.
Two years after the final battle against Father, not being called Pride but Selim Bradley, and without the memory of his previous life, Selim is playing in the garden of Mr. Bradley's house and even his mother with wounded bird in her hands begging her to heal the bird, he then politely greets general Grumman who is in fact the new leader of Amestris who came to visit him when he departs, Selim apparently gained a body from a human, or last more like that of a human, or at least more like that of a human by what it seems, able to grow like a normal child, he also keeps a mark of an eye on his forehead, but apparently there is no need for panic.
Curiously, Pride is the most cruel and implacable homunculus of the seven deadly sins, he is also the only survivor of the homunculi to have a normal after his defeat, perhaps purified from the mortal sin that constituted its essence.
Powers[]
- Super Streght- Pride has streght over human.
- Shadow Control- Pride can control its shadow at long range and attack its enemies.
- Super Agility- He also has agility over human.
- Telepath- It can also communicate from a distance, such as when he talked to Wrath about the mission.
- Healing Factor- The homunculi can also regenerate whenever the philosopher's stone is hurt.
- Absorption- The Pride is able to absorb powers of the other homunculus as it is seen when it kills the Gluttony to devours it and absorbing its power and its hunger also and its senses.
- Hunger- After devouring the Gluttony, the Pride also gained his famine and his power to devour person and things also in at once.
- Gluttony's replication of Truth- Although he did not see the Pride using this power he can assume that when he devoured the Gluttony and took his hunger and his senses he must have taken this ability he could also suppose.
- Possession- Although Pride has not used this against Edward Elrich, he can change his body as a parasite.