Envy

The shape-shifting homunculus who hides behind other people's faces.

Envy, the Jealous, is a homunculus who can change shape at will and usually appears as an androgynous teenage youth. Envy is the homunculi's infiltrator, taking on other people's identities to gather secrets or steer events, and enjoys hurting humans. Envy's huge true form is a monstrous creature covered with the faces of the people of Xerxes whose souls make up their Philosopher's Stone; when that stone is almost spent, Envy shrinks to a tiny, reptile-like parasite.

Quick Facts

Role: Homunculus
Ability: Shape-shifting

Lore & Background

Envy set off the Ishbalan Civil War by disguising themself as a soldier and killing an Ishbalan child. In the story Envy first appears posing as Father Cornello and later burns down the Fifth Laboratory. Envy murders Maes Hughes and frames Maria Ross for the killing, and after Lust's death becomes the homunculi's go-between, recruiting Kimblee to capture Dr. Marcoh.

Reader's Guide

Envy's end comes when Edward works out that Envy is jealous of humans, who keep going after tragedy and form new bonds with each other. Humiliated that a human understood them, Envy tears out and crushes their own Philosopher's Stone. The first anime tells a different story: there Envy is male, the first homunculus, made from the body of the son Van Hohenheim had with Dante, and he reveals himself to the brothers as their older half-brother.

Envy is caught in a trap with Marcoh's help, loses most of their stone and is sealed in a glass jar for May Chang to take to Xing. Playing on May's kindness, Envy gets carried to Central and rebuilds a body by absorbing Mannequin Soldiers. When Envy gloats about killing Hughes, Roy Mustang hunts them down and burns them back to their powerless form, but Edward, Scar and Riza talk him out of the final blow.