What I like is the way the adult characters react to his youth -- from Mustang to Hughes to Ross to Armstrong, who are all trying to protect him to varying degrees because he is young -- to the homunculi who take the attitude that, as Lust says, he gave up being a child when he became a state alchemist.

Having been inspired by you and other wonderful manga/anime analysts here on LJ, I've just joined, though I don't have any posts up yet. I'm hoping to put up some (or most) of the FMA posts I'd put on rec.arts.anime.misc eventually. I became obsessed with series because it's so Faustian -- selling one's soul for power and knowledge and creating a homunculus in the process.

-elsie