Riza Hawkeye

Riza Hawkeye (リザ・ホークアイ ,Riza Hōkai) is Colonel Roy Mustang's second-in-command and personal bodyguard. She currently holds the rank of 1st Lieutenant within the Amestris military.

Character Outline
Riza Hawkeye is Mustang's most trusted subordinate. She carries out many of the tasks he is too lazy to do, acts as his personal assistant, and protects him from danger. She also doubles as his voice of reason, keeping cool in heated situations and scolding him when he allows his emotions to get in the way. Riza specializes in firearms, particularly sniper rifles, and can hit nearly any target with lethal accuracy to the point where she even poses as a dangerous threat to the Homunculi. She's considered one of the top sharpshooters in the Amestrian Army. Her sharpshooting skills garnered her some amount of reputation during the Ishval Civil War and earned her the nickname "The Hawk's Eye".

Riza adopts a dog who she names Black Hayate (in both the anime and the manga) and raises him with stern discipline; when Hayate goes to the bathroom inside, she shoots at the wall behind him to reinforce that doing so is bad. However, the two share a strong, loving bond which Hayate displays by fervently defending his master when she's in trouble. Their bond can be seen as a metaphor for all the relationships in Riza's life.

Riza maintains a very close bond with all her team members but is closest to Roy. Throughout the manga, it is heavily implied that the two have feelings for each other but cannot express them as a result of the turmoil that the country was in.

History
Not much is known about Riza's life before the death of her father aside from the death of her mother when she was a kid but it is assumed that she spent most of her early life growing up in the relative solitude of her family's old manor with her father and possibly (during the time of his training) a young Roy Mustang; in chapter 60 of the manga she reveals that her father made sure that she received a proper education. At some point in the years leading up to his death, Riza's father collected his life's research, the secret of fire alchemy, into a coded sigil and tattooed it upon his daughter's back; whether or not she was a willing participant in this procedure is currently unknown. During his last words, her father entrusted her with the task of determining whether or not Mustang was worthy of inheriting this secret. At his funeral when Roy tells her about his dream of a united, peaceful Amestris, she decides to trust him with her father's research as she realizes they share the same dream, asking if she can "entrust my back to it?"

Soon after this she follows Roy into the military and, as a result of monumental loses in the field of battle, is shipped out to the front lines in Ishval before her training is even complete. Here she is reunited with Mustang after saving both he and Maes Hughes from an ambush by a wounded Ishvalan soldier; before learning her identity and relationship to Mustang, Hughes states that she had become "quite a topic among us". Their reunion is bittersweet at best as Roy laments her transformation into a killer and Riza voices their shared torment concerning the life their righteous dream has lead them to:"'Why are soldiers, who ought to protect citizens, killing them instead? Why is alchemy, which ought to bring happiness to the people, being used for murder?'"

Since she bestowed upon Mustang the secrets encoded on her back Riza considers herself to be at fault for all the lives taken through the use of her father's alchemy. When Roy finds her burying an Ishvalan child at the end of the civil war she asks him to help her prevent the birth of another flame alchemist by burning and crushing the tattoo on her back. Mustang vehemently objects at first, but Riza is persistent and pleads with him to destroy her bonds to her father and alchemy so that she may "become Riza Hawkeye as an individual". He reluctantly agrees and burns away only enough so as to make it indistinguishable.

After he is stationed in Central Mustang appoints Hawkeye as his aide and informs her that he will "entrust my back to you" making their original pact come full circle.

Plot Synopsis
While Riza does not extend far past the role of Mustang's subordinate in the first anime, she takes on a far more central role in the manga. Throughout the manga, Riza keeps Mustang in check and often acts as his personal assistant. Later on, Riza assists in capturing a Homunculus, only to be ambushed by Gluttony. Riza is then saved by Mustang's intervention, only for her to scold Mustang for being foolish and risking compromising their position. Despite this, Riza thanks Roy later on. Not soon after, Riza and Mustang's crew enter the building where Barry's body had led them. Upon arriving at a gate, Lust appears, having just injured Mustang and Havoc. Lust tells Riza that she (Lust) had killed Mustang. Upon hearing this, Riza completely loses her usually calm temperament and goes on to shoot Lust until all her bullets were shot, eventually breaking down in tears. Riza then loses the will to live without Mustang, but before Lust could kill Riza, Al protects her long enough for Mustang to arrive and burn Lust to death. In the hospital after the battle with Lust, Roy harshly scolds Riza for believing the enemy's words that he was dead but asks Riza to continue watching his back. Afterwards, Riza assists in catching Gluttony but not before she is discovered by King Bradley (Wrath). Riza then takes Gluttony to a safehouse out in the forest and upon Gluttony's escape and pursuit of Mustang, she helps take Mustang out of harm's way. When Mustang begins to learn too much about the Homunculi, Riza is reassigned as King Bradley's assistant, a hostage to be used if Mustang steps out of line. Though she no longer worked under Mustang, she still kept an eye out for ways to make his plans of becoming Führer come true; she discovers that King Bradley's son, Selim Bradley, is a homunculus, and sends her discovery to Mustang by way of a coded conversation (Using the first letter of each of the names she uses in their conversation to spell out "Selim Bradley is homunculus". She later defects from the military to aid Mustang in the assault on Central on the "Promised Day". Riza then aids Mustang in defeating Envy, where she follows Mustang. Envy attempts to trick Riza by mimicking Mustang's appearance.  Riza notices, though, and tricks Envy in turn saying that, when she and Mustang were alone, Mustang only called her Riza.  Envy easily falls for this trick, and Riza proceeds to spray Envy with bullets.  Unfortunately, Riza is choked by Envy but is saved by Mustang.  Just as Mustang was about to finally kill Envy, Riza points her gun at Mustang, stating that if he killed Envy, he would only be consumed by rage and revenge, thus breaking their promise, using the flame alchemy for selfish purposes. Mustang still not entirely convinced, but asks her what she would do after killing him, to which she answers, "I have no desire to live a carefree, happy life alone. After this battle, I'll destroy my body and,  along with it, the Flame Alchemy that turns good man into mad man"  Upon hearing this, Mustang ceases, sorrowfully stating that he would not lose Riza and apologizes to her.

Soon after, Mustang, Riza, and Scar are ambushed by the Alchemist Doctor and the failed Fuhrer candidates. The doctor tells Mustang to perform human transmutation. However, Riza's neck was slit in battle as a result of Mustang's lack of cooperation to perform a human transmutation and become a sacrifice.

Mustang attempts to save Riza but is held back. Mustang then considers performing human transmutation to save Riza, but upon gazing in Riza's eyes, he gets the message from Riza not to perform human transmutation. Mustang reluctantly refuses to perform human transmutation, seemingly leaving Riza for dead. However, they are saved by the appearance of May and the other chimera. May then heals Riza's neck wound enough to stop the bleeding. Riza apologizes for worrying Mustang and states that he took her eye signal well. Mustang replies that this is only because the two of them have been together for so long. Riza then is supported by Mustang until King Bradley arrives. Riza is left in the protection of the chimeras while she can only watch Mustang get his hands pinned to the ground inside a transmutation circle.

Trivia

 * The relationship between Riza and Roy is a heavily implied one, and fans refer to their relationship as "Royai."
 * Like nearly all military personnel in the Fullmetal Alchemist series, Hawkeye is named after a military vehicle, vessel or weapon, in her case, the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye, an aircraft carrier-based tactical Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft used in the US Navy. Interesting enough, her grandfather's name was also took from the same aircraft.
 * When General Grumman had talked to Roy before his leave to Central, Grumman asks if Roy would marry his granddaughter. Roy  doesn't answer the question, but doesn't realize that Riza was Grumman's granddaughter.
 * In the Red Gaiden, Riza reveals to her friend Rebecca Catalina that she let her hair grow after she met Winry at Resembool and realising it 'might actually look good'. That reinforces a thought/phrase Arakawa occasionally brings up on the FMA manga: "The reason (why people do a particular thing) is always something simple". That exact same phrase is said by the then Captain Maes Hughes in Ishval upon the question by Major Roy Mustang: "Why do you keep on fighting?". He answers "Because I don't want to die. The reason is always something simple."