Gluttony

"Can I eat [him/her]?"

- Gluttony

Gluttony is a minor, yet much featured, villain of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga and two anime series. An overweight and childish homunculus only interested in eating (especially humans), Gluttony is one of the most "innocent" homunculi, obeying orders without question and being tasked to track people and to erase evidence.

Gluttony is the sixth born of the Seven Homunculi. It was revealed that Father created him to replicate the Gate of Truth, the access to all the alchemic power and knowledge in the Fullmetal Alchemist world, but not to avail.

Description
Gluttony is obese, short and bald, with white eyes, oversized teeth and the Ouroboros mark on the tongue. He has a childish and meek personality, being content to do whatever the higher-ranking homunculi tell him to and to find something to eat in doing so. He has a never-ending, ravenous hunger and his only interest resides in eating anything that comes by, especially living creatures, with a particular fondness for women whose meat he finds tastier.

Gluttony divides people in two categories, those whom he is forbidden to eat; for whom he holds no interest whatsoever, and with whom he can interact in a friendly way if that does not contradict his orders; and the potential meals. It must be noted that he finds a vicious pleasure in the prospect of eating someone. Gluttony is genuinely fond of his siblings, who do not always reciprocate, and is especially close to Lust with whom he is almost always paired.

Gluttony is the sixth born of the Seven Homunculi. It was revealed that Father created him aiming to replicate the Gate of Truth, the ethereal access to all the alchemic power and knowledge in the Fullmetal Alchemist world, but not to avail. Like every homunculus, Gluttony was created from a Philosopher's Stone which serves as his core. As long as there is power left in the stone, he can regenerate his body no matter the wound, should it be from almost nothing.

In spite of his size, Gluttony is highly strong, fast, agile and spry. He uses his heavy frame to crush his victims against a wall or the ground in a body slam, and his muscular arms to punch his foes or to toss very heavy weights with no effort, making him a dangerous opponent despite his clumsiness and his lack of fighting skills.

Gluttony has exceptionally strong jaws able to masticate wood or steel and even Greed's diamond-hard carbon structure. Because of this, he is sometimes tasked to devour evidences of Father's nefarious plans, such as buildings in the capital of the fallen kingdom of Xerxes, where Father was created. Gluttony also has an exceptional sense of smell, enabling him to locate people from very far or even in complete darkness, making him a useful tracker.

When irked enough, Gluttony opens his incomplete "Gate of Truth:" a huge hole opens in his body from his lower jaw to his entire belly, revealing huge fang-like ribs which he can elongate at will. The eye in the center can fire a huge energy blast which sucks anything in its range into the dimensional void inside of him: the imperfect replica of the real Gate of Truth.

History
Gluttony is introduced alongside Lust after the downfall of their pawn, the fraud priest Father Cornello. After Lust kills Cornello (whom Gluttony devours) and has Envy impersonating him to cause violent riots in the town of Lior, the three homunculi are seen watching the riots and mocking mankind's predictability.

After that, Lust sends Gluttony to East City to track down Scar, a serial killer who targets State Alchemists. (Alchemists working for the military.) It is then revealed that Scar is a survivor of the Ishvals, an ethny that was almost wiped out by the military for the homunculi's secret goals, who uses the alchemic power of destruction inherited from his late brother to enact his revenge. Gluttony eventually finds Scar's smell and he attacks him in the sewers alongside Lust. They grievously wound him but he scarcely manages to escape, much to Gluttony's dismay, as he missed a good meal.

Lust, Gluttony and Envy then return to the capital Central City, and Gluttony stays by Lust's side. Upon learning that Barry the Chopper (a former serial-killer whose soul was bound to an armor) is alive and at large, Lust sends Envy and Gluttony to track him down. Gluttony discovers that Barry is watched over by the subordinates of Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, and tries to eat Mustang's right-hand-woman Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, only to get roasted by Mustang's flame alchemy.

Gluttony then joins Envy in an unexpected battle against the Xinese Prince Ling Yao and his bodyguard Lan Fan, who are more than a match for them and manage to "kill" them both repeatedly. After Lust's death at Mustang's hands, Envy and Gluttony are forced to retreat. Gluttony is next seen grieving Lust in Father's throne room.

A while later, the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric (the primary protagonists of the series) devise a plan with Ling Yao and Mustang to capture a homunculus and engage a fight against Scar to lure them out. Gluttony is then tasked to guide Wrath towards Scar, only to find and battle Ling and Lan Fan. Wrath severely wounds Lan Fan and tracks her down, ordering Gluttony to deal with Scar.

He quickly finds him, interrupts his battle with the Elrics and drives him into a corner, but Ling Yao appears and manages to blow Gluttony up from the inside by stuffing a grenade in his mouth. Before Gluttony can fully regenerate, the protagonists knot a metallic cable all around his body to bind him, and bring him in a hideout outside Central City.

Upon learning that Mustang is here, Gluttony goes mad with fury and unleashes his fake Gate of Truth to break free of his restrains, before going on a devouring rampage and forcing Mustang to flee. Envy then appears and calms Gluttony down, before engaging a fight with Ling Yao, during which Gluttony accidentally swallows Ling, Edward and Envy. Distraught, Alphonse convinces Gluttony to lead him to Father, hoping that he would find a way to rescue them. On their way to Father's subterranean lair, they are spotted by Scar and the Xinese princess Mei Chang who follow them.

In Father's throne room, Edward, Ling and Envy manage to escape Gluttony's fake Gate of Truth. As Ling and the Elrics attempt to battle Father, he suppresses their Alchemy and Envy and Gluttony quickly subdue them. Shortly after Ling is turned into the second Greed, Scar and Mei Chang (who can still use Alchemy) storm into the fray. In the ensuing battle, Gluttony gets "killed" to the point that he can no longer regenerate, prompting Father to absorb back his Philosopher's Stone, planning to recreate him with his full power.

Gluttony reappears much later in the story, carrying Pride on his shoulder and using his sense of smell to track down the protagonists. Gluttony first finds Alphonse Elric, whom Prides captures and uses as a bait to lure Edward, Greed (who betrayed the homunculi) and their chimera associates in battle. After Edward causes a black out to neutralize Pride's shadow, they must fight Gluttony, who can locate them with his sense of smell. Lan Fan then appears and Ling takes over Greed's body to fight, killing Gluttony several times.

Pride then causes a forest fire to restore light and restarts the battle. Seeing how dangerous their situation is, Pride remorselessly devours Gluttony to gain his sense of smell as well as his remaining lives and energy. Gluttony dies for good, begging Pride to stop and calling Lust's name.

2003 Anime
In the 2003 anime series, which follows a radically different storyline, Gluttony's role and personality remain quite the same, although he lacks his fake Gate of Truth and he is even more attached to Lust. His main purpose is to eat as many people as possible, so that Dante (the main villain of the anime) can use the souls of his victims to create the Red Stones that the homunculi need as a power source.

After Lust is killed, Gluttony enters a catatonic state of depression. Irked by his constant moping, Dante erases the Ouroboros mark on his tongue, turning him into a mindless eating machine. This proves her undoing, as he later devours her when she attempts to flee, after the Elric brothers manage to thwart her plans.

In the movie Conquerors of Shamballa, which takes place two years after the anime series, it is revealed that Gluttony found his way into a subterranean city in ruins, right below Central City. After spending all this time eating dirt and corpses, he has become a gigantic, multi-limbed monstrosity, still acting only on instincts.

As Wrath's anime counterpart leads Alphonse Elric into the subterranean city, he is suddenly attacked by Gluttony. Wrath eventually manages to restrain the giant monster and convinces Alphonse to sacrifice them both, in order to open a gate towards the real world in which Edward has been banished at the end of the anime.

Gallery
Coming soon!