Basque Gran

Brigadier General Basque Gran is one of the higher ranking officers in the Amestrian Military and a prominent State Alchemist known as the "Iron Blood Alchemist". Like Roy Mustang, Gran was a legend of the Ishval Civil War and has gained much notoriety for his actions on the Eastern battlefield. He is known among the ranks as a master of hand-to-hand combat in addition to his significant alchemical abilities, but was nonetheless murdered by Scar early in the series.

In The Manga
In the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, Brigadier General Gran is referred to only in flashback or in retrospect, as he is one of the earliest named victims of Scar's murderous rampage, but the flashback to the Ishval War in Chapter 60 displays him at the height of his prowess on the front lines. Gran appears to be a man of great honor, charisma and conviction, charging into battle as the vanguard regardless of his higher rank (Colonel at the time) and against the protestations of the enlisted men under his command. When the Supreme Cleric of the Ishvalan people, Logue Lowe, offers himself up to end the fighting, Gran takes the man under his protection and leads him to Brigadier General Fessler in the hopes of finding a quick resolution to the war. But Gran is driven to take more direct action when Fessler proves to be too committed to the massacre to allow a meeting between Logue Lowe and Führer King Bradley, shooting his superior officer coldly and assuming Fessler's command position. Though the act was witnessed by a fair number of soldiers (the then Captain Maes Hughes included), all present state their approval of Gran by verbally attributing Fessler's death to a stray bullet. Logue Lowe offers his thanks to Gran, but the Iron Blood Alchemist shrugs it off, merely stating that he hopes negotiations with Bradley go well.

In an omake, Fullmetal Alchemist author Arakawa Hiromu reveals that Scar was able to defeat Basque Gran despite the Brigadier General's proficiency in hand-to-hand and alchemical combat by catching him in the night after he exited a pub, soused to dizzyness. In the 2009 anime series, however, Gran took on Scar in an alley and overestimated his alchemy's ability to keep the murderer confined, therefore being caught off guard and killed. It is unknown whether Gran was at his peak, but the episode shows no indication that the Brigadier General was drunk.

2003 anime
In the 2003 anime series, Basque Gran plays a more significant role in the early storyline as an antagonist, first appearing in episode 6 during the Shou Tucker arc. He is shown bullying Tucker into delivering results with chimera research so as not to be shown up by Colonel Mustang and his new acquisition of Edward Elric and then attempts to cart Tucker's daughter Nina away to a lab for study (presumably Laboratory 5) after it becomes apparent that her father had experimented on her. Gran reappears in episode 13, at the beginning of the Scar/Tim Marcoh arc, interrupting Ed and Hughes' conversation about Marcoh to reveal his disgust with the Crystal Alchemist for deserting during the Ishval War. Gran, in episode 14, follows Ed and Al to Marcoh's current location and storms in with a platoon of soldiers to arrest Marcoh and confiscate his Philosopher's Stone. The armored car is stopped by Scar and, despite having the added power of the Philosopher's Stone at his side, Basque Gran is killed by the Ishvalan avenger.

During the Laboratory 5 arc, Envy disguises himself as Basque Gran in order to shepherd prisoners for Philosopher's Stone ingredients and attempts to fool Edward, but fails due to the Fullmetal Alchemist's presence at the real Brigadier General's death.

Alchemy


Due to the 2003 anime series taking its own turn, the Iron Blood Alchemist's abilities differ greatly between the manga and anime versions of the character, but in both, Gran is a notable combat alchemist.

In the manga, Basque Gran is portrayed during the Ishval War as wearing two elaborate gauntlets with stylized metal plating on the forearms and the backs of his hands, and rings around the wrists. The rings are inscribed with alchemical markings while the seven plates on each arm are marked (in descending order from elbow to wrist) Inuenies, Occultum, Lapitem, Visita, Interiora, Terra, Rectificando.

Gran transmutes by slamming his fists together to create a transmutation circle with his arms (similar to the styles of both Solf J. Kimblee and Edward Elric) and then uses direct hand contact to transform large nearby objects to the shape of his choosing. In chapter 60, Gran transforms an Ishvalan building into a huge mass of weapons including several cannons, gatling guns and chained flails.

note: "Visita Interiora Terra Rectificando Inuenies Occultum Lapitem" comes from an alchemical symbol in a text by M. Daniel Stolzius von Stoltzenberg, an alchemical scholar in the Paracelsus tradition, and translates to "Discover the innermost essence of earth in a correct manner and you will find the philosopher's stone".

In the 2003 anime series, Gran also sports a pair of gauntlets, but they are much less elaborate than in the manga, resembling instead the gauntlets worn by Alex Louis Armstrong, The Strong Arm Alchemist. Though Gran did not have the opportunity to reveal his alchemical style before he was murdered by Scar, a flashback to the Ishval War depicts Gran as specializing in the transmutation of firearms, as he is shown encased in an iron, egg-shaped mass with several small cannons sticking out of it, firing into the desert. Although, this style may only have been used by Gran because he'd had a government-issued Philosopher's Stone augmenting his abilities at the time.