King Bradley

King Bradley (キング・ブラッドレイ, Kingu Buraddorei) is the Führer of Amestris, and with this status, it is his duty to protect and control the country, maintaining the stability of it. In the 2003 Anime, Bradley was known as the Homunculus Pride, but was changed in the 2009 Anime re-boot to his original status in the manga series as Wrath. As Führer, he is the respected Commander-in-Chief of the State Military, even though his political standpoints are often questioned in certain instances such as the civil war with Ishval. The civil war with Ishval was only one of many insurrections focused on creating a massive Philosopher's Stone for his creator, a powerful Homunculus simply known as Father. In the 2003 anime, Bradley was created as Pride by Dante, as opposed to his manga counterpart being the final Homunculus named Wrath, created by Father himself.

Appearance
Bradley appears as an older man near sixty with an incredible physique for his age. He has a full head of black hair and a thick black moustache, and a blue tint to his right eye as he is seen to wear an eyepatch over his left. Underneath his eyepatch is "The Ultimate Eye", or his regular eye with the Ouroborus tattoo in place of the pupil and cornea.

Bradley is usually seen to wear a blue, full length military issue coat and slacks with black dress shoes. Bradley is almost always seen with at least one sword on him, but has also been known to carry up to five and can wield all of them simultaneously. On occasions, he has been seen without his coat in battle, wearing his military issue slacks with suspenders and boots, along with a short-sleeve black undershirt. Other times, he is seen wearing a black vest with a white dress-shirt, dress pants, and formal shoes.

Personality
Several differences are apparent in Bradley when compared to the other Homunculi, such as the ability to sympathize with Humans and even show compassion despite his identity as Wrath. Bradley is perhaps the most misleading of the Homunculi, appearing generally calm and surprisingly pleasant, even with a frequent sense of humor when compared to the others. He is rarely seen to associate with the other Homunculi, aside from times when it is necessary to do so. Instances of his misleading demeanour include giving full credit to Colonel Roy Mustang for killing Isaac The Freezer despite Bradley himself being the one fully responsible for the criminal's defeat. Another instance of this unexpected behaviour was giving a melon to Edward Elric as a gift when the Elric brothers were in hospital, and afterwards mischievously sneaking out a window in the Elric brothers' hospital room to escape his assistant who was looking for him.

As pleasant as he may seem, Bradley embodies the true image of wrath when enraged. One instance of this fury was his trembling hands at Maes Hughes' funeral, upon hearing Hughes' young daughter interrupting the honoured silence with protests to her mother about her father being covered with dirt. Colonel Roy Mustang at the time mistook this as a silent weep from Bradley, only to discover later in the series that Bradley was trembling due to the difficulty of restraining his immense fury.

Abilities
Bradley is known to have an inhuman level of skill in swordsmanship, being able to wield up to five swords simultaneously. As opposed to the rest of the Homunculi, Bradley was originally a human who was injected with a Philosopher's Stone that was made from wrathful souls which eventually dwindled to a single soul, which was the most wrathful of all. Because of this singular soul, Bradley doesn't have the extreme regenerative abilities of the other Homunculi, however, he does have increased resilience and physical abilities when compared to regular humans even half his age. Due to his origin as a human, Bradley has retained his natural ageing process, an ability that the other Homunculi do not have. Being a Homunculus, Bradley possesses a special kind of power in his left eye, giving him sight abilities that far exceed a regular human's eyesight; allowing him to read an opponent in battle and avoid oncoming attacks with little to no effort. This ability is known as the "Ultimate Eye". Bradley later states that his ageing body irritates him, as it isn't able to keep pace with the power of his Ultimate Eye, suggesting that his power is exclusive to his eyesight and that his other physical abilities are purely his own from years of extensive training.

A Human-Based Homunculus
Being a Homunculus, Bradley possesses a Philosopher's Stone at his core. But the process of him gaining the stone was different when compared to the other Homunculi, being that he was an actual human who was injected with the stone when he was a young man in his prime. As a child, Bradley was simply known as "Fuhrer Candidate Number 12", being born for the specific purpose of becoming Father's Wrath and developed into a potential leader of Amestris. When Bradley was a young man, Father injected him with a Philosopher's Stone created from wrathful souls, making him the first of only two Human-based Homunculi. Out of all the other Fuhrer candidates, Bradley was the only candidate who didn't fully succumb to the stone, a feat that would've resulted in his death if he'd been too weak to overcome its power. Bradley later states to Mustang that he didn't know if he retained his original soul, or if his soul at that time was the single wrathful soul which eventually overcame the rest of the souls in the stone that he was injected with.

Bradley is also stated by Ling to be different from the other Homunculi, being that he can sense a singular chi or life force from him; as opposed to the other Homunculi who he states have multiple chi forces. The reason to this is that the other Homunculi possess stones created from the life forces of multiple people, while Bradley only has one spirit in his. Later in the series, Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye learns of Bradley's fabricated life and tells him that it was tragic that nothing about him was real. Bradley states that it was untrue, and shows pride in the only choice of his own that he ever had, the choice of making Mrs. Bradley his wife. This suggests that human-based homunculi are capable of feelings such as love and compassion, a trait that the others don't share.

2003 anime (Bradley as Pride)
In the 2003 anime, Bradley's role in the series was quite different than his role in the manga and the 2009 anime re-boot. In the 2003 anime, was introduced as the Führer of Amestris, but later introduced as the Homunculus Pride, as opposed to the manga series where he was Wrath. In the 2003 anime series, Bradley first appeared in episode six when overhearing Alphonse Elric talking to Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye about the Philosopher's Stone. Alphonse did not know who Führer Bradley was at the time, and Bradley stopped Hawkeye from answering Alphonse when Alphonse asked her. Bradley gave Alphonse information about where to read up on the Philosopher's Stone, seemingly unfazed by the potential danger that he was putting Alphonse in allowing him to search for information on it. Later Bradley is seen during in the examination of Edward Elric's Alchemic abilities. Impressed by his ability perform transmutations without a circle, Bradley makes Edward Elric the youngest State Alchemist ever, giving him the title of the Fullmetal Alchemist. Later in the series, it is revealed that Bradley started and stopped the Ishval Civil War, an event that lead to the near extermination of the Ishvalian race before the start of the series. Bradley ended the war by sending State Alchemists in, although it was Bradley himself who started the war in the first place. The reasons for him starting the war are revealed later when he was discovered to be the Homunculus Pride working for his creator, a woman named Dante. Bradley is later revealed to have a wife and son. In the original manga series, Bradley's son Selim Bradley was his adopted son, but in truth, Selim was "Pride" the highest ranking Homunculus below Father. His role as "Bradley's adopted son" was simply a guise to keep an eye on Bradley and make sure that he did his job to finalize the production of the Philosopher's Stone.

In the 2003 anime, Pride (Führer Bradley) was created by Dante as the fourth Homunculus in existence. He was made the president of the country by Dante to keep an eye on things. Despite his power, it was never known why he did not rebel against Dante and take charge of things, but it is possible that loyalty had something to do with it. Bradley made Edward Elric the Fullmetal Alchemist, and in secret made Sloth his secretary, under the guise of Juliet Douglas. Bradley and the rest of his group in Central fled east and took command of the Eastern Command Center to escape the wrath of Scar, although Bradley apologized to Roy Mustang for the hassle that was being caused. The Führer later returned to Central.

The Führer accompanied Hughes and his team to save Edward and Alphonse from Laboratory 5, allowed Hughes to continue his investigation into the Homunculi, and also permitted the capture of Scar in Reole. However, Martel, the snake chimera found him talking about the deliberate destruction of Reole with Frank Archer. She cornered him and soon discovered him to be the Homunculus Pride.

With his identity exposed and now his role as the Führer on the line, Pride hunts Martel who he finds hiding in Al's armour and stabs her with his sword. However, Al already has learnt the truth about Pride and quickly tells Edward about it. Mustang, Armstrong and other members of the military discover the truth as well. Roy decides to avenge Hughes with the help of Lt. Hawkeye.

A final battle between Pride and Mustang occurs in the Führer's estate. As Pride is on the verge of defeating Mustang, Selim appears with a sack, which in fact contains the skull of the person Pride was created from. Out of rage, Bradley mindlessly kills his young son. Mustang uses this opportunity to seize the skull and paralyse Pride. He repeatedly sets fire to Pride, until he is no more. In the aftermath, Pride has been reduced to a puddle of red liquid. Mustang drops the skull onto the puddle and sets fire to it, melting the skull and ending Pride's life.

Conqueror of Shamballa
In the movie, Ed sees a man drive by that looks like Führer Bradley. He realizes after the confrontation that isn't Bradley, but his counterpart of a Jewish movie director named Fritz Lang.

2009 Anime
In the 2009 anime, far more of Bradley's backstory is given. It is discovered that Bradley was raised specifically to be a potential ruler of Amestris, becoming Father's final Homunculus called Wrath. King Bradley was weened to be the final catalyst in Father's plan to use the country of Amestris to create a massive Philosopher's Stone.

Trivia

 * As a member of the military, Bradley is named for a real world military vehicle, the M2 Bradley tank.
 * King Bradley is the only Homunculus to appear as the character on the manga spines.
 * Bradley was born for the specific purpose of potentially becoming both Führer of Amestris, and Father's final Homunculus "Wrath". As a child, Bradley was simply known as "Führer Candidate Number 12".
 * King Bradley is one of the only two human based Homunculi, being born human, but assimilating the Philosopher's Stone into his body later on; as opposed to the other Homunculi who were created through human transmutation with a philosopher's stone as the substitution for a soul.