Essay: insight on Simo’s characterisation with the help of another manga

Now all of this Simo’s atonement and his character overall got me thinking and in a complete random way I got reminded of this one scene from one of my all time favourite series: Fullmetal Alchemist

In this particular scene that is a flashback from a war fought before the events of the main plot in the story (so not much of a spoiler), all these soldiers were sort of trying to rationalise on all of the war that was forcing them to take a ton of lives but then the ponytail guy, Solf J. Kimblee, who has his own twisted mentality about how this war is going has this speech that then involves a sniper lady, Riza Hawkeye, who obviously reminds me of Simo; she pretty clearly states she doesn’t enjoy killing which is cut off by Kimblee who states how her way of killing gives her a sort of satisfaction in the end, each successful shot is a kill so how come she doesn’t “feel good” at taking lives? It’s her job as he has even said before that. Then even if the subject shifts from guns to alchemy, science used by some of the soldiers including Kimblee which is even more effective and devastating in taking lives, but that argument doesn’t really change: people took this duty to serve knowing they would have to eventually kill so in his own opinion they shouldn’t even be allowed to feel bad when they’re taking lives. Last part of the speech is what really really made me connect with Simo’s situation and experience: the lives you took will have immense weight on you cause you simply were the one that stole them from your victims and for Simo and Riza their “targets”

Now I wanna also mention how the nature of a gun is and has always been peculiar and cruel, it’s one of easiest weapon to wield and use and it’s also the most effective, you just have to pull the trigger and aim at the guy and the deal is done, all of this while you’re at a safe distance and far from the target. It’s a pretty dehumanising thing, it’s so easy to take a life with a gun and that’s why Simo’s characterisation is so good to me, all the fighters we had to far always fought in close range with weapons that forces the user to be near the opponent but Simo’s different: he’s a sniper so to use his weapon he has to be further away. Many human fighters in the roster took lives and many lived to fight and “enjoy” all the killing they made but the choice to have your one and only sniper to actually value and feel bad at the lives he tool for all the reasons I already said before