Greed

(Japanese:グリード, Gurīdo) is a greedy Homunculus, called the "Ultimate Shield", because he can rearrange the carbon in his body to make his skin as hard as diamond, thus making himself almost impossible to injure. As his name implies, he is a very avaricious character, who likes living in luxury, surrounded by powerful minions and beautiful women. He also has a habit of flipping people off in the manga. Despite his generally greedy nature, he is shown to honestly care for his subordinates, as detailed below.

Manga
Greed, the third Homunculus created by Father (according to Perfect Guide Book 2), apparently abandoned the other Homunculi over 100 years before the start of the series and claims to be around two centuries old. He first appears hiding in the Devil's Nest in Dublith, with his gang of chimeras all of whom he apparently rescued from military experimentation. After learning of the Elric brothers' battle with Scar, he becomes intrigued with the notion that the youngest brother, Alphonse, is an independent soul bound into a suit of armor. Contrary to fact, he believes that existing in this state would make him truly immortal. He sends out his gang's smallest member, the lizard chimera Bido, to confirm his suspicions. Bido locates the brothers, but is discovered and barely escapes the two.

His hopes confirmed, Greed orders the rest of his gang Roa, Dolcetto and Martel to capture Alphonse. After a long chase the chimeras capture and bring Al to Greed where he introduces himself and starts questioning Al about his empty armour. After a short conversation, Al synthesizes stone fists to crush Greed. To his shock, Greed shrugs the hit off. He then orders Roa to smash his head to pieces with his hammer. In seconds, Greed rises up with no wounds, explaining that he is, in fact, Homunculus. Some moments later, Izumi Curtis storms in to rescue Alphonse. She quickly gets in a fight and finds herself outmatched by his Ultimate shield. After she is beaten, Alphonse agrees to make a deal with Greed, to stay with him willingly in exchange for information on Soul Attachment. Greed agrees and Izumi leaves Devil's Nest to tell Ed about the deal. Suddenly, Führer King Bradley arrives with Alex Louis Armstrong and an army unit to reclaim Al and eliminate the chimera's.

Shortly after, Edward rushes into the Devil's Nest to rescue his brother and confront Greed. Finding him, Ed pays no attention to Al and Greed's suggestions about a deal and demands Greed to free Al, saying he wants nothing to do with his plans. Dolcetto tries to physically force Ed to agree but gets beaten in seconds. Seeing what Ed is capable of, Greed fights Edward alone. After getting his neck broken, Greed changes to his completely armored form.

Now practically invulnerable to physical harm, Greed seems to gain the upper hand in the fight. Ed, however, manages to figure the alchemic process behind the Shield (rearranging carbon molecules into a diamond-like form) and nullifies it with his own alchemy. Before the two can finish their battle though, Bradley's army unit storms the Devil's Nest. Greed manages to escape, with Alphonse still in his custody. However, in the sewers below the club, he is met by King Bradley. Not knowing the Fuhrer's real identity, Greed orders his gang to dispose of him. In a matter of minutes, Bradley kills all of Greed's gang (except for Bido), before revealing himself as a Homunculus. After repeatedly killing Greed until his Philosophers Stone is almost depleted, Bradley impales Greed with four swords and takes him prisoner.

Shortly after that Greed is brought before Father and the other Homonculi and recognizes them all, save Bradley who then introduces himself as Wrath. After gleefully insulting Envy, Greed flippantly refuses to rejoin Father's scheme. Knowing he is but an obstacle in his current state, Father lowers Greed into a vat filled with a boiling liquid, and melts him down into his consistuent Philosopher's Stone. Greed remains defiant to the end, laughing maniacally and screaming curses at everyone present.

Second Greed
In Chapter 54, Greed returns to the story as Father exudes his son's Philosopher's Stone core and inserts it directly into the body of Ling Yao to create a second Human-based Homunculus and fill the empty space left by the first Greed's defection and Lust's death. Inside the Xingese Prince's body, Greed speaks with Ling, who accepts the Homunculus' power of his own free will, but not before expressing surprise at realizing that the prince's greed could parallel his own. This second Greed maintains all the same personality and powers as the first (his Ouroboros tattoo is even in the same spot), but appears to have none of the memories, not recognizing Envy, Gluttony or the Elric Brothers. As such, he becomes a faithful servant of his Father as the first Greed was presumed to have been initially and refers to all actions prior to his rebirth as having been done by "the other Greed". But as a result of being accepted willingly into a body with such a strong will, it seems that both the consciousness of Greed and Ling exist in the same body, with Ling being able to take control for short periods of time as made apparent when Edward wakes up Ling's consciousness by mentioning Lan Fan and when Ling tells Wrath to shut up for insulting humans. It would appear that when the right eye is covered by Ling's hair, Greed is in control and when the left eye is covered, Ling is in control. Though Greed respects Ling for having the avarice to accept his power and the will to take over his body, he is very annoyed by the fact that Edward keeps calling him "Ling".

Greed's new position seems to involve standing guard over Father's lair and dealing with intruders, as witnessed in Chapter 73 when he is spotted merely watching Father sleep and, more poignantly, in Chapter 82 when he chases Bido (who has blundered into the Homunculi's inner sanctum) with the intent of killing him. Because the new Greed shares powers and mannerisms with the first, Bido recognizes him despite his different body. Greed is confused by how much this odd stranger knows about him, but shrugs it off and uses Bido's relaxed guard as an opening to kill him, stating that the lizardman has the wrong Greed. But as soon as Bido dies, Greed begins to have mental flashes back to his first life and his comrades at Devil's Nest and begins trembling uncontrollably. Ling berates the Homunculus from inside for killing a comrade and believing that the old Greed's memories and feelings could be purified. He informs Greed that things that have become part of a soul can never be truly washed clean or forgotten. Holding Bido's body in his arms, Greed has a complete mental breakdown and then rushes to the Führer's mansion to confront Wrath. The two Homunculi do battle as Greed demands to know what is going on, but when Greed notices that Pride is there as well, he flees, defecting from Father for a second time.

In his state, Ling takes the body over again and wanders to Mustang's safehouse outside Central City, encountering Edward, Heinkel and Darius. As Ling threatens to divulge parts of Father's plan to them, Greed takes over once again. Edward offers to allows Greed to join the good guys, after learning that he has left the Homunculi forever, but Greed says that his greed can not be satisfied by working for Edward or merely being the Emperor of Xing, as he desires the whole world. The only way he'll help is if Edward offers to work for him instead, which the Fullmetal Alchemist accepts. For the next few months, Edward, Heinkel and Darius work as Greed's outlaw henchmen, using the basement of the Rockbell house in Resembool as their hideout before returning to Central for the final battle. They are confronted by Pride and Gluttony, against whom Greed must allow Ling to fight with the body under his control because he can sense the Homunculi's aura, but after Gluttony is killed and Pride is trapped, Greed takes his chance to escape from the battlefield. Realizing that the only Homunculus left to guard Father is Sloth, he heads to Central Command to take a stand against his creator.

Greed reappears in Chapter 97 to confront the returned Wrath at the entryway to Central Command and engages him in combat the next chapter, claiming that his avarice now desires Wrath's life. With Ling providing tactics from inside Greed's mind, he manages to hold his own against Bradley in hand to hand combat, deflecting sword strikes with his armored hands and moving into the Fuhrer's blind spot, until Wrath removes his eyepatch and gains the upper hand. Though Briggs soldiers attempt to come to Greed's aid by providing cover fire, Greed warns them to stay uninvolved in the fray. His advice proves justified when Wrath mercilessly cuts down all who fired impotently on him. After Captain Buccaneer manages to disarm Bradley, Greed engages him again, only to be met with further resistance as Wrath procures twin bowie knives with which to do combat. Fu arrives on the scene to provide further backup and the two prepare to take on Bradley in tandem. Wrath still holds ground against them both and wounds Fu fatally. Fu tries a suicide attack against Bradley, but fails as Bradley slices detonators and Fu himself. Cpt. Buccaneer stabs one of Wrath's swords through Fu, wounding Wrath. Greed continues the fight, hitting Wrath to head with his hardened arm. The Gate is opened on Central, distracting Greed, which gives Bradley time for counterattack. Wrath throws them off the walkway but Greed manages to grab the side of walkway. Lan Fan and Briggs men try to help Greed up but he and Wrath weigh too much. One of Briggs soldiers shoots Wrath down to moat surrounding Central HQ. Greed, reverting to Ling Yao, promises to Buccaneer to guard the HQ's gates. He then transforms to his fully armored form and charges against the attacking Central forces, although not before offering "those who have a family, a lover, or simply doesn't want to get hurt" and women to leave (only to be ignored). Central troops are quickly defeated before Greed's might. As Father is prepared to use the five sacrifices to open "The World's Gate", Greed suddenly appears right behind him and cuts him down while saying the world belongs to him. But his attack fails to kill Father as the latter tells him that he knew Greed would come as he was born from his own avarice. When Father successively bring God down to earth and make him a part of himself, Greed, Mei, Roy, Izumi, Lan Fan, Scar, Hohenheim, Alphonse, and Edward are the only ones left free while everyone in the country's souls are removed and contained within Father's new body, much to their shock. During the final battle against Father, Ling tells Greed that what he desires isn't to take over the world, Greed however argues and charges into the battle. With him attacking Father who is now losing the power of his philosopher stone, Father decides to lower his guard down to take over Greed's stone. This is actually a trap to enable Edward to land blow on Father making Father losing control of God. When Edward regains his right arm and tries to finish Father off, everyone cheers for him except Greed who admits to Ling that the only thing he ever wanted wasn't world domination but to have friends like them.

Powers and Abilities
Being a member of the homunculi, Greed (in both incarnations) possess the standard abilities of his race: rapid regeneration, enhanced strength and speed, as well as near immortality. As for his homunculus power unique to himself, he has the ability to re-arrange the configuration of carbon atoms of his body, allowing him to convert his skin into an indestructible substance. He usually uses this ability to partially strengthen the density of selected parts of his body during battle, but can apparently extend the effect to its entirety. In this form, he resembles a black-skinned demon with a malevolent facial visage.

As for the second Greed, while sharing the same powers, these advantages are further enhanced by Ling's abilities such as the knowledge of Wrath's sword skills. Though he prefers to use his ultimate shield to form claws covering up to his shoulders (thereby summoning make-shift weapons at will), leaving much of his body vulnerable to attack (only using his shield on other areas to protect them from attack temporarily, as seen when Wrath attempts to slice Greed's head off with his sword only to have it broken in two by Greed's shield), in Chapter 100 of the manga, Ling requested more power from Greed and finally assumed a fully armored, presumably invincible form. Furthermore, being fused with Ling's body enables the two to conveniently switch during battle (though he dislikes having to do this, as he fears that Ling will simply "run off with this body"), allowing them to compensate each other's weaknesses with the other's strength (i.e. as Greed, he can summon the Ultimate Shield, while Ling possesses superior reflexes and combat skills, and can sense the presence of people and diffrentiate them from homunculi, allowing to fight in the dark, effectively becoming a 'sword and shield' pair in one body)

In the 2003 anime
The second oldest of the Homunculi, Greed was created by Dante. Due to his avarice, Greed rebelled against the woman who created him and was eventually captured and sealed within the bowels of the Fifth Laboratory in Central. He escapes some 130 years later with some of the other Lab 5 prisoners. After establishing his base of operations within The Devil's Nest, he hears of a new Homunculus (Wrath), and begins a hunt for him intending to add him to his cause. His attempts to capture Wrath from South Headquarters and later Yock Island fail due to Envy and Sloth's intervention. After this, Greed's next plan becomes the kidnapping of Alphonse Elric. He explains to Al that the reason for the kidnapping was his desire for a "truly immortal" body after seeing Al's apparent impervious form. His ultimate goal to force Edward Elric into bonding his soul to a suit of armor similar to Al's condition. This is all stopped by the arrival of Izumi Curtis and Ed, but just minutes after they start their fight, they are interrupted by a surprise military raid (lead by Frank Archer) on the Devil's Nest. Greed, Marta, Roa and Dolcetto are barely able to escape when they are confronted by Lust and Gluttony. The two Homunculi slaughter his chimera mercenaries (Marta is once again able to escape), and Greed is forced to go on the run. With no place to go, Greed goes to the place where he was born, Dante's mansion. It is here that he meets with his creator who, in the guise of Lyra, takes him before his former human remains and from there drains the Red Stones in him, thereby rendering him mortal. Almost immediately, Edward arrives at the scene and begins his final confrontation with Greed. Now knowing full well how to transmute Greed's body structure and fight him, he pierces Greed's heart, killing him due to all the Red Stones previously leeched out of him. Before dying, Greed tells Ed how to weaken the Homunculi and kill them. He is the first Homunculus in the 2003 anime series to die.

In the OVA "Reflections", a segment possibly reveals Greed's past and the reason he broke away from the rest of the Homunculi. A voice-over by Envy states that Greed was Dante's former lover (possibly his human forerunner) and the current him still loves her. This is further cemented by his final actions of going to see her one last time before death and him backing down from harming Ed when he notices Dante was watching him from afar. Envy goes on to state Greed was merely an experiment for Dante (possibly in her greed to become more knowledgeable in creating Homunculi). Greed, however, denies being some love-struck fool and storms off in a huff.

Last Words: "I'm greedy as hell, only out for myself.... She always said it would be the death of me... They pull the strings... now cut them. I'm counting on you, kid..."

Trivia

 * In the 2003 Anime, when Greed goes into his full Armor state, his mouth doesn't move (unless he laughs). However in Brotherhood, when he uses his armor, his mouth does move like in the manga.
 * Taking into consideration Greed's particular skills and charismatic persona, it is likely that he served as an instigator agent alongside Lust and Envy before defecting.
 * The original Greed's boiling could be a reference to Dante's Inferno where the greedy are placed in boiling gold.
 * The reason Greed appears to be loyal to his friends, unlike any of the other Homunculi, is suggested by Ling to just be another extent of his greed -- possessing all would also imply "friends".
 * Interestingly, as the second Greed, when his hair is over his right eye Greed's soul is in control, when it's over the left side, Ling is in control. However, this is only mostly present in the manga, as the 2009 anime shows the bangs in mostly random positions, regardless of who's in control. Instead, they are differentiated by their voice actors.
 * In the latest fan poll Greed came in the 12th place, making him the second most popular of the Homunculi, Envy being the first. Ling as Greed came in 13th place while Ling himself came in 9th.