well the both can be sweet(when winry isnt throughing her wrench)but yes rose is sweeter but i still like winry more

Sweet = interesting not.

lol

I choose Winry. Rose sorta bugged me after a while. Plus Winry has the wrench. I like watching Ed get bashed with the wrench. heh heh

Okay, Rose lost her Mother, Father and Boyfriend, yet Winry has losther mother Father and Has to deal with both Ed and Al's tragedies.
Rose could have learned to be happy but did she...NO! She believed the first greedy looking person who looked like he could help her!
Plus, Winry is much more handy and she gets to bonk Ed on the head! Ha!

I chose Roze cause she is hotter then Winry.

I like Winry better, but Rose is cool too.

Winry, because Rose kinda got on my nerves, always mourning about her boyfriend.

Winry all the way!

couldnt have said it better myself

Winry of course. I think she's a great character even if she does annoy most people. Something you just have to accept is Winry is pretty important to the story whereas Rose could easily have not been there. Winry is down to earth unlike so many female anime characters and she is quite willing to wair for Ed and Al to return which I'm quite sure they appreciate!

Lets face it Rose is in there so we feel sorry for her and for her people. Yes bad things happened to her and she manages to carry on and all that but she isn't the only strong female character. Trisha was a strong character but she is ignored because she eventually sucumbed to her illness and isn't in the show much.

I could go on but I'm sure all of you who come along only to bash couldn't give two hoots what I say.

Winry or Rose?

Winry of course, it`s a no brainer.

Winry. I like people who is very good at fixing things.

I don't love Winry, but I like her a lot better than Rose.

Rose in the manga is kind of a non-entity character, just the typical damsel in distress needing rescue by a male kind of female character.

At least Winry has a point to her character, and a personality beyond that.

As for anime Rose, this isn't her fault, but I don't appreciate the anime making Rose raped to have a baby. I don't like when stories victimize us women by using our gender against us. We're always going to have to be victimized this way because we're "weak" or men have the advantage with their plumbing versus ours?

Why not let Rose have gotten married and had a child, a situation she chose?

I get a little tired of the anime always trying to be so damn angsty all the time, so gloom and doom. If they wanted a baby for Rose, there was no reason whatsoever to rape her for that.

So Rose seems to me to be reduced to being the egg donor for some baby they wanted in the story. Another way to victimize women: make us baby-machines and nothing more.

So I guess you could say I don't like what Rose represents in the story.

I certainly hope the manga doesn't victimize Winry or any other woman this way, because I hate seeing this happen to strong women in stories, it happens too often..........

i voted for Rose... she's prettier than Winry whom i hate the most

Winry..

I don't like Rose...

Okay, then. Let's pretend that rape never happens to women and effects their lives, especially not in times of war. Yay! I love being such a feminist; how bout you?

You realize that Rose having a baby wasn't the only thing they were trying to accomplish, right?

The rape goes along with it. It shows us how cruel war really is, and like Toby said (well.. sorta), shows how rape affects the lives of women. It is a fact. If you must be angry at something, be angry at war or even the fact that rape happens! It isn't the story's fault for depicting an occurence that actually does befall many women.

Omg! Angst in an anime? Whatever were they thinking!?

i voted for WinWin i like Rose but you don't see her much in the story... i hate it when it's so hard to choose

kinda creepy

ehhh winry, most def, her and ed seem totally ment for eachother

Winry. Her character, aside from being more important, is much deeper than Rose.

Of course in the anime both women seem to have the same amount of screentime, but in the manga the difference become so much more apparent.

I agree about this. It seems the war and rape go hand in hand, and been that way for ages, in any parts of the world, and I'm sure it's the same in Hagaren world as well.
Not fair to women?? Of course!! But, I'm not that surprized that anime included it in the storyline.

WINRY by a landslide. As I have said in many a forum...I HATE ROSE! Sure, we NEEDED her in the anime, episodes 1 and 2...but does she need to be soo pathetic. I mean...all that she does is whine, whine, WHINE. (someone offer her some cheese to go with it, please). And even after Ed tells her that she should pack up and leave (in so many words)..what does she do? Why...she just stays in the same ol' town....moron. Winry...at least she is brave, smart, and puts her two-sense into things....AND she wields a wrentch as a weapon...com'mon...no thought's really necessary here.

No, no no, Winry and Shezka were meant for eachother; Ed is meant for Russel.

Actually, I'm kinda sorta obsessed with the idea of Winry and Rose being meant for eachother, lala

NEIN!

I think the reason Rose was raped in the story was to help drive the point home that war is an ugly, ugly thing and many innocent people suffer because of it. People do horrible things in war and have horrible things done to them. They're not going to show the actual rape so they had Rose have a baby and lose her voice to show what happened to her.





*puts feminist hat on*
Wether she was married or raped she would still be an egg donor for some baby they wanted in the story. Women are still viewed as baby machines in society be they married or rape victims. Pleanty of people (mostly the religious right) view women as nothing more than baby machines and if we decide against having kids then we're viewed as less of a woman.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of every woman in damn near every story wanting to have the almighty baby, why can't we have a female character who is happy being childless?

Ok, I'm done. (for now)

About Rose's rape... Yes it was necessary to illustrate the horror of war. But I don't understand WHY it had to be her. She left the first episode as a more positive character - or at least Ed nudged her that way - and yet the animator (BONES) decided to take this girl through ANOTHER emotional rollercoaster. She had been through one for crisp's sake! For me Rose was as insignificant as your next filler character, and yet they decided to use her again... If they want to illustrate the horror of war, I think they should have used someone else with background different than Rose's.

*heaves*

I believe they used Rose because she was from Lior and that was the current city going through genocide since the homonculi took over and installed a fake priest for that very reason.

No suprise that she would get caught up in the middle of it.

They do like to torture characters, don't they? this is why I like the manga better than anime

But still they should, I think, instal someone else in her position. She was broken enough as she was and now... I dunno, I just have this feling that they ran out of miserable characters and put her in that role.

Why do you need to have rape to illustrate the horror of war? Uh, rape occurs in the world during times of war AND peace.

By that logic, then the men should be being raped too.

And like we didn't know war was horrific enough? When people die before their time, that's horrific.



I agree. However, there's a big difference between a woman becoming a mother because she chose to, either by wanting a baby or conceiving it in love, or even by her own carelessness, versus being raped. I, myself, probably wouldn't even have a kid that I conceived in rape. I've had to see at least two of my favorite strong female characters raped, impregnated and those incidents being glamorized, so yeah, I'm a little annoyed with this constant scenario showing up.

Rape is an over-used plot device in many, many stories.

We don't know that they weren't.

Plus it's common for soldiers to rape the women of the country they are invading. I'm not saying it's right but it's true. Men also get raped during wartime usually by male soldiers. While we don't need it in a story, you may have noticed that FMA doen't pull any punches in representing the dark side of humanity.




We must not be watching the same stuff, I don't notice very many strong female characters being raped.


Which is fine by me.

I was talking about characters from other shows I watch: Bianca Montgomery of All My Children, daytime television's first major lesbian character, and Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess.

Ah, that explains it. I haven't watched a daytime soap since high school and sadly I missed most of Xena.

However lesbians being subjected to rape on tv opens a whole 'nother can of worms now doesn't it?

I don't see where the whole females as egg donors and social expectations as becoming mothers comes in here. The point of what happened to Rose is that women do get raped, and it sucks. A lot. I don't see why portraying it (Or in this case, implying it) is such an anti-feminist issue, seeing as it does happen. It may not be lots of fun when a character gets murdered, but it happens.

And I think the directors had wanted to put new developments on Rose, being the one-shot type character she was; try to see just what the aftermath of Ed's behavior in that city came down to; to see how she was able to utilize the wisdom she gained when it came down to facing further tragedy.

It feels almost as though you're just randomly grabbing at excuses when you mention men getting raped, or that it could have just been any girl.

It's more important, I think that it was Rose, because, like I said, there is sort of a lingering wonder about how she and her town have fared since the overthrow. We already know Rose, know how she was before, know what she was told to move on with her life. The point is that her story dosen't just end there, all happy cheery I'm-moving-on-now-yay; that Ed's words weren't exactly magical to fix everthing. Life began to suck for her even more; that's what makes it compelling that she had the strength to keep living.

It was important that it was Rose, of all people. I don't think Edward would have been as shocked or disgusted, to the point that it upturned his view on the military, if it had just been some random girl. Ed cared about Rose, as a human being. He, through tough love, tried to assure that she wouldn't make the same mistakes as he did. It sickened him to think that just as she had gained the mental strength to move on and become independent, that she was victimized by those who he tacitly accepts as comrades by being in the military. That someone could be sick enough to hijack someone's life like that. That is where the true violation stands in matters of rape. The violation of one's morale, life, their personal being.

The rape story drove away many fans of Bianca from AMC because they felt it was just being used to victimize the lesbian character, and also that it had a deeper motive, that being to keep Bianca "too busy" with the rape aftermath/pregnancy ('cause you know every time a woman is raped, she gets pregnant....-__-) to have time to move along any further with her romantic relationship with her girlfriend Lena.

Many Xena fans were put off by the rape of Gabrielle because Xena and Gabrielle were before this always portrayed as strong women who's gender didn't affect their lives, in the sense being women was never used against them. In this story, people felt it was. (Well, there was debate as to whether Gabrielle was really raped or not, as a magical entity forced a pregnancy on her, though no sexual intercouse was involved....in any case, it was a violation of Gabrielle's body though).



Perhaps that's the problem I have with the FMA anime. (And not just me, but some of my friends) It tries too hard to be angsty all the time. I think I prefer series with a more positive spin on them. That's just my own personal taste, so, uh, not much to say about that...^^;;;

Anyways, it's not Rose personally I don't like, I just don't prefer her kind of character. To me, she is pretty much only there to: be pitied, victimized, and be the damsel in distress and tragedy queen.

That kind of female character is just personally not my type. None of my favorite female characters would fit the description I just gave of Rose.

But I guess you could say, that I don't dislike Rose, just her storyline.

I still think Winry is cooler than her anyway.

I think that's the point, though. It's the fact that no matter how strong a person is, every human being can be victimized, whether they like it or not. Rape is one of the most horrible ways to be victimized because of the shameful effects it has. It's the loss of control; the fact that sex which is meant to be a beautiful and enjoyable thing that you choose to do to reproduce or to express love, is suddenly used against you in an awful way. Your body, and essentially, your entire life is abused and utilized for someone else's petty enjoyment or power needs, and there is no way to escape it. There is the heavy consequence of becoming pregnant, which is, no matter how you stretch it, a life-altering situation. For men, there is double shame, because there is such a societal push for hypermasculinity that if they were to be victimized in what is so viewed as a woman's crime, then they would feel guilt and weakness for having been hurt.

In the case of Nabakov's "Lolita", the crime of violation not only stands in a perverted man's molestation of a young girl, but his overtaking of her entire life in order to fulfill his own selfish ends. He takes all her family from her, all her freedom, any life beyond what he wants to use of her.

I'd take that comparison also to the manga series "Mars". (Mars spoilers here)
The heroine of the story is a weak shy girl, but I found myself loving her from the beginning because she is so easy to relate to as a person; someone with weak moments, but who tries to become better. She developed such introverted tendencies after she was raped by her stepfather at the age of 14. It's not only the singular act that is despicable. It's that he essentially stole a piece of her life from her that she would never regain. He stole her ability to feel safe in her own house; anywhere in the world. He stole her ability to trust men. He stole her courage and strength because of the fact that he made her into a weak object at such a tender age. What is positive about Kira is that she comes not only to overcome her fears, but to trust the unlikliest of people; a troublemaking guy who has a heavy reputation for sleeping around casually. But she can trust him because she finds the strength to see past that and finds that he really is a noble person. She learns out of her own strength to see lies; to see the inner goodness of a person, in spite of the wickedness she experienced. She also becomes frighteningly in tune with her own dark side; she develps a profound comprehension of the ugliness of human nature that comes alongside with it's good side. She knows the horrible things she thought about her stepfather; the ways she dreamed about killing him in awful gruesome ways; even tried at one point in self-defense. She reaches beyond her bad experiences to gain a complete understanding.

In a way Rose is similar; she has been decieved and betrayed so many times! And I doubt that many people could see past some of the lies she was fed; be honest, in real life we don't watch on a screen, and we don't have secret scene exposition and maniacal laughter to hint to us just who is a good or bad person. What I found redeeming about Rose was that she made the best of her situation, which was horribly bleak. When her homeland became a war torn third world country, she could do nothing but walk forward, raise her child that she never wanted, keep on living. Even in the end after so much manipulation and pain, she has faith in the idea that there are good people in the world. That's a faith that I admire in most characters.

winry can do automail rose cant do any thing cool !

Wow, I actually like Roze a lot more now.

*envies Toby's mad essay-ish writing skillz*

Well, I think that maybe I have an aversion to any rape storyline because for one, being raped is a big fear of mine, and for another, someone very special to me, Nakago (don't anyone make fun of me because he's an anime character! You'll be wasting your typing), was raped.

Nakago couldn't handle it the way the character you described could, and that was one of the huge roots of his troubles. So anytime I see rape stories, it makes me think of what happened to him and I get all sick inside.

I think sometimes someone like Rose irritates me more, because they make it seem like it's easy to move forward, and in her case, because you get a "cute baby" out of it, maybe it's not so bad after all. (and many feminists say that this is a bad message, because it promote the idea that "all normal women want to be mothers")

Because for Nakago, being raped destroyed him, there was no moving on or glamorizing of it. I think that's more realistic, actually. No baby, or anything that comes out of a rape is going to make you forget the horror of it. I think many people who face this kind of thing will never be able to be positive.

I kinda like Nakago's reaction better, he never really trust people again. I don't blame him.

So, having a baby is a little 'plus' of rape? Nice logic there.

And because one character you cared for had that situation, you suddenly have no sympathy for others with the same? Again, nice logic. In both cases, the crime was a plot point. Yuu Watase seems to like using rape as a plot point in her stories. In the case of Fushigi Yuugi, I didn't have a ton of sympathy for any of the victims/ near-victims. Nakago seemed to be doing fine for himself in becoming a powerful villain in order to make up for the pain of his childhood. I can easily see his emotional reasons for doing such, and understand. It was bad for him. So, then, why is it that a girl who experienced the same victimization is different somehow?

If there is one case I might find that deviates from my general unwavering sympathy towards pretty much any kind of victim, I'd say it was with Yui from Fushigi Yuugi. Mostly because her reaction to it was so unbelievable and went beyond plain shock and hurting, and came down to her being mean. She went for the whole "I thought I got raped, so now I hate my best friend because she wasn't even there when it happened, so now I'm gonna steal her boyfriend." It just made me 'wtf'? And Nakago was simply using her with a crime he knew hurt himself personally, because he wanted to gain power, etcetera. I didn't care for either character's reaction; they struck me as selfish. That dosen't mean I hate them.

I think rape is still a very powerful important topic to be touched on, especially in a series that dosen't shy away from serious probems with humanity. After all, would we be here discussing the psychological, moral, social problems involved in rape if it hadn't been touched on in the anime? Nope.

This is getting rather OT...

Yes it is OT but an interesting discussion.



The reason I mentioned men was because Nakagos had mentioned that it was thrown in there to make women seem weak and like victims my point was that war sucks for everybody and bad things happen to everybody in war. That's the point FMA was making I believe.

I'm actually enjoying reading those discussions.
Since Rose WAS presumably raped in the Fma storyline, I think these discussions are quite relevant, IMO. Interesting to find out how others see what it represents.
By any rate, to me, it's much more meaningful and interesting to read than whole bunch of "xxxx sux" kind of one liner posts.
Please, please carry on with this discussion!!

That wasn't directed at you; she was the one who brought it up and said something like "By that logic the men should be raped too." or something...

But yes, yes it is a very interesting discussion. *Looks back* I can't believe I wrote so much. I'm starved for writing, just in all the wrong places. *Stares at NaNo* Stupid effing wordcount...

Uhh... true that she becomes important in the anime but I like how she looks better than Winry. Also Winry can be really annoying and loud sometimes. Rose is quiet, and even though she was confused the first time we saw her, that was because HER RELIGION failed her. plus Now she has to handle the idea that her Boyfriend DIED. She becomes strong and you have to feel sorry for her later in the series... she goes through HELL of ALOT. The poor girl.

But of the girl characters my favorite will always be Izumi and Martyl. They just rock.

Oh no, I don't think having a baby from rape is a plus at all. If it happened to me, that would make it even worse. But the writers of rape stories tend to have the opposite belief of mine. The shows I mentioned tried to say in so many words, "Ah, but her rape was all worth it because see, she had this darling little baby from it."

I'm just saying about Nakago that I think his feelings reflect more how awful rape is on the victim. How it can change their personality forever. Nakago was a gentle, sweet boy until all those awful things happened to him. After that though, he no longer trusts anyone, and with good reason. I'm just saying if they're going to have a rape story, I'd rather they show how awful it is rather than try to say, well it's easy to move on, and like I said, add in the baby thing to try to somehow "soften" it, or make it look like at least the victim got a child (which the writers try to make look like a gift, or prize, or reward) out of it.

Actually I think Yui had kinda got a crush on Tamahome the first time she saw him also, but yeah, I don't like Yui at all so......I'm not going to defend her.XD

Yeah, we are getting OT. And I don't really like having this type of discussion because I don't like debating/arguining. I hate it actually, so I'm going to shut up now.^^;;;



I'm surprised so many people think Rose is so much prettier than Winry. I personally think Winry is a lot prettier than Rose. But, that's just personal taste. I think anime Winry's a lot prettier than manga Winry though.

YAY WINRY!!!

she cares more about ed, after being childhood friends and all. at the beginning of the anime, rose's stupidness and denseness and stubbornness annoyed me, but i guess its not her fault. and she's just kinda... weak and puny. oh welly. she's still cool in her own way. i like winry better tho.

aha! my 50th post. wow that's still pretty puny compared to most of yallyheads. oh welly. wheee

I hate Rose, so I'll go with Winry.

Rose is hot.

Rose's stupidness and Denseness? Rose is not stupid or dense! How would you like it if your boyfriend/girlfriend died tragically right before your eyes? Or what if what you believed in turned out to be fraud? Your spirit would be shattered. Weak and puny? She proved to be very strong in heart especially when she wanted to protect the children of Lior during the Soldier raid. I think you have no right to call her weak and puny.

Winry doesn't understand how Rose would feel. Sure, Winry's parents died but Rose had NOBODY she was always alone. Her whole town is ruined! She was confused and hurt, later you find out that she gets more important and she gets dragged into the most aweful situations.

Winry's troubles is very small compared to Rose's. Also Winry can be extremely self centered and obnoxious sometimes.

I think that is the general argument both for and against Rose; her life has sucked a lot, and she's still putting up with that. Some people believe she should be appreciated and commended for simply living through that, and others just don't want to hear about all the problems she had to go through when they're watchin anime, where everyone is expected to have some sort of quirk or madd skillz in order to be good people. As for Winry, I don't think you should minimalize her problems like that. It's an awful ordeal to lose one's parents, and on top of that, she lost her best friends too. She can easily feel lonely, but she's also incredibly lucky that she was still blessed with a loving grandmother, a home in a safe supportive town, and the intelligence and talent it takes to become a skilled medical worker and mechanic to build an independent life for herself and support her friends.

I can see where as a character, Rose might not surface-wise strike one as a particularly gripping individual. But I'm pretty sure that if you were to visit a war-torn third world country and encounter a young woman who has been through all she has, you wouldn't be so upset about how 'dense' she was and mad about how 'Zomg shes so stoopid for yellin at Ed'. I'm sure if you, Rose haters/ dislikers were to go to a place such as liore and meet a teenage girl who had lost every person she ever held dear, decieved with the promise of hope for a new life and affection from a kind fatherly figure, had her faith stolen, her peaceful homeland ravaged by war, raped and become pregnant and alone in the world, you would more likely want to help her and try to find a way to tell the world her story to illustrate the horrors of war, rather than brush her problems off so lightly. Hers is the kind of story we read in international news magazines and shake our heads, muttering, "how horrible."

But then again, that's an interesting little phenomenon, isn't it? A liked character isn't neccesarily parallel to the kind of person you would like in real life. For a reverse example, I'd give L from death note, personally. (See signature) He's easily one of my favorite manga characters, because I find his odd behavior and monkeyish personality to be funny, cute, and fascinating. However, if I were to encounter soemone like him in real life, I would probably be scared out of my mind. He looks like a psycho otaku, has a creepy stare, and probably smells funny. (That's my theory anyhow . You can't exactly expect someone who looks and lives like he does to smell like roses, can you?)

I still say Winry over Rose, character favorite wise. Somehow, Winry captured me much more easily, and Rose was an acquired taste, so to speak. Doing serious thinking and writing about her has increased my respect and love for her a lot more, but maybe you shouldn't have to write an essay about a character to see where their likeablity is. I guess I could say that for Ed; I have no idea exactly what I like about his character; I just do. He fascinated me from the beginning. (IRL, I'd probably kick him in the shins once or twice for whining, then give him a noogie, or something....)