OOC: Personality
Alphonse is a gentle soul, with many characteristics to go alone with it, all one needs to do to see this side is merely look at him. Growing up he was a happy child, except for the few times he was picked on by Ed, in which he was always grateful when their mother intervened. When she got sick and died, Al depended on his older brother to know what to do, believing that the decision they had made was the right one. With the recoil they didn’t calculate, rather than feel sorry for himself, his first concern was his brother, taking him to the Rockbell home for treatment. Despite feeling alone, and being left alone with only his thoughts for company, Al has never lost the part that makes him gentle and caring, although he can sink into depression.
Insecure at times, he can get depressed when people are scared of him, although that hasn’t happened since he was a suit of armor, and Al doesn’t quite remember that. Also, with Barry the Chopper, he allowed the killer to get into his head, thinking that maybe he never existed. Keeping it inside until he could move again, it’s the one of the few times that Alphonse is truly angry with his brother and Winry, and yet he forgives Ed when he realizes what the other boy wanted to ask him, but was too afraid to.
Thanks to all the time spent training with Izumi before and after the four years spent as a suit, Al is exceptionally good at martial arts and surviving in the wilderness. Although he may hesitated at killing an innocent creature, Al does it, knowing that they need to survive. He has always had a love for learning, especially alchemy related subjects, often reading and studying everything he can get his hands on, often losing himself in the knowledge. Yet Al is not nearly as devoted to learning as Ed is, with a tendency to wander off and spend time with people, this boy could be called a people person, getting along with almost everyone the come across, even to those who once hurt him.
With his kind, and caring nature, Alphonse goes out of his way to help people (and animals) even attempting to keep a chimera, whom had kidnapped him, safe from discovery amongst the military. He’s compassionate believing that both Scar and Marta should not take revenge for the sins committed against them and supporting encouraging those who need it, as he did with Sheska. On occasion, he can be the voice of reason, usually when his brother’s lost his temper over another ‘short’ comment made. A protector of the innocent, Alphonse is always willing to place himself in harm’s way should the need arise, as he did with the incident with Scar, insisting that Ed run away. Usually he tends to be a pacifist, letting Ed do most of the fighting, only intervening when facing a tough or multiple opponents, intent on not letting anything happen to his brother.
Obsessed with cats, this teen believes that he should take care of every single cat that comes his way, especially those who are stuck out in the rain. He even seems to be afraid of things like ghosts and zombies and even with time passing that hasn’t changed as is evident when wandering through a graveyard. Throughout the whole series, Al is more concerned about restoring his older brother’s body than he is his own, showing just how humble he is by sacrificing himself to save him. Ed is Al’s most precious person, the only person he has left of his family, relying on him to have answers from most of the time. He doesn’t like it when Ed becomes defeated when they discover the secret ingredient and he becomes angry, although Al just takes it all in stride, allowing his older brother to be upset for both of them.
Often Al can act irrationally when he believes what he thinks is right and his brother is against it, even going to see Shou after his brother told him that he shouldn’t use alchemy. He can be sneaky when he needs to, but not very often as Ed always seems to know exactly what he’s feeling, probably something he picked up from years of not really having an expression. When Al realizes that he’s done something wrong, this boy will do everything he possibly can to make things right, although not at the cost of killing someone. Al is stubborn on occasion, both in their quest for the Philosopher’s Stone and in the search for a way to bring his brother back from the other side of the Gate.
When Wrath offered himself up as a sacrifice to open the Gate, Al hesitated, yet his determination won out over any of the beliefs instilled in him about going against the flow of life. When the lives of innocent people were lost because of his actions, his irrationality takes over, and he almost attempts the forbidden human alchemy, although he’s stopped by Ed. With a few words from his older brother, Al then knows what must be done to take the first step towards fixing his mistake, although he knows that nothing can make up for the lives lost. When faced with losing his brother once more, all reason leaves the youngest Elric sibling, and he has to be physically restrained by Mustang. Again he shows his sneaky side by crawling into a suit of armor, showing up on the other side of the Gate.