Although pretty much every aspect of Fullmetal Alchemist is close to flawless, one of its strongest suits has to be its characters. Every single person who inhabits the world has a purpose, from the childhood friend to the smooth-talking superior to the daughter and dog of a State Alchemist, and everyone is pretty well fleshed-out even if they don't get much screen time.

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While Edward gets the most development of all, which makes sense considering he's the titular character, his neighbor and childhood friend Winry comes it at a close second. Throughout the show, she goes through even more character development than Alphonse, and there's a lot about her to love- but that doesn't mean that she's a character who doesn't also possess realistic flaws.

10 Strength: Quick Self-Teacher

Winry is an incredibly capable and intelligent learner, who is able to perform such feats as delivering a baby on her own in her early teens with only having read medical textbooks to go off of. Of course, the fact that her parents are surgeons helps in that regard, but she's also able to pick up engineering and designing her own automail exceptionally fast as well. She becomes so proficient in handling Edward's automail relatively on in the series, to the point where her grandmother insists that only Winry can perform maintenance on it as she knows it better than anyone else.

9 Weakness: Overly Trusting

Winry crying with Edward’s cloak around her shoulders from Fullmetal Alchemist

Winry is quick to try to see the positives in other people, and while this isn't a negative in itself, it can become a problem when there are so many people in the series hiding malicious intentions behind lies and fake smiles. For example, whenever Ed and Al are stuck- essentially being held prisoner- at Briggs, Winry is called in by the Fuhrer himself, and to Ed it's a clear hostage situation. However, Winry herself doesn't suspect any ill intentions until she's already there and behind bars with them, showing that her trusting nature can be an extreme weakness within Amestris.

8 Strength: People Person

Winry is incredibly good with people, and this has been true since she was quite young, as shown in how she interacts with Riza when she and Roy first visit the Rockbells for information on Edward. She's also shown to be great with kids, as she both willingly volunteered to help a mother give birth and is immediately loved by Elicia, the adorably little ball of sunshine that is Hughes' daughter. Finally, after she starts working alongside a famed automail engineer in Rush Valley, her customers express their dismay after she takes a break from work as they miss her warm personality.

7 Weakness: Disrespects Ed's Boundaries

While Winry would never dream of behaving in such a way with most people, she openly messes and clashes with Edward quite often, given how close the two are. This makes one of her actions near the beginning of the series feel quite insensitive as she forces Ed's watch open 'to see what sorts of secrets he was hiding inside'.

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Being the one person who should have understood just how dark his past is, this action rubs viewers the wrong way. It makes Winry seem as if she doesn't respect Ed's boundaries, and also just feels incredibly out-of-character.

6 Strength: Unwavering Dedication

ed winry maes fullmetal alchemist

Winry is incredibly dedicated to her trade as a mechanic, and she's also selflessly devoted to helping Edward achieve his goal. This also includes improving herself when necessary- at first she chides Ed for being reckless and destroying her automail, but later tries to study under a skilled mechanic to gain the experience necessary to make stronger, sturdier automail for him. Even when faced with adversity or straight-up rejection, Winry never allows herself to falter and is an incredibly driven, reliable person as a result.

5 Weakness: Not Owning Up To Mistakes

Again, this is something that's primarily only seen with Edward, but it leaves Winry's character off with such a sour note that can't be overlooked. After one of her early repairs to Ed's automail, she accidentally forgets a vital screw as a result of pulling several all-nighters to finish the job. That alone wouldn't have been too bad, but after she's called to the hospital to repair Ed's malfunctioning arm, she completely hides the fact that she messed up after he fails to notice. Being the emotionally intelligent person that she is, it would've made much more sense for her to simply own up to her mistakes, and thus makes this feel like a pretty glaring flaw.

4 Strength: Empathetic Angel

Ever since she was young, Winry had an overwhelming tendency to bear the burden of other peoples' emotions, and this is especially true when it comes to Edward and Alphonse. Since the two- especially Edward- refuse to let many of their true emotions show, Winry is often seen crying for them, stating that it's too cruel to not shed tears upon going through such hard tragedies. She's also seen reminding Ed on several occasions to be more considerate of other people's feelings, as he has a tendency to be overly blunt. This extreme empathy isn't seen within many other characters in the series and is one of Winry's best traits.

3 Weakness: Emotionally Volatile

Despite being one of the most empathetic and emotionally-in-tune characters within the series, Winry isn't immune to having her own volatile outbursts. These are often pretty out-of-nowhere seeming and unnecessarily violent, and are directed at Edward most of the time.

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It's one thing for her to give Edward a light smack after almost allowing himself to be killed, as her response doesn't really outweigh how foolish and reckless his actions were. However, the gag of her being overly violent towards him is used even in super-light situations such as Ed sparring a little roughly with her automail and her throwing a wrench at him in response, and get old incredibly fast.

2 Strength: Stronger Than Revenge

winry rockbell with gun fullmetal alchemist

It's revealed to Winry at one point during Brotherhood that it was Scar who killed her parents during the Ishvalan War, when they were doctors who had simply been trying to treat him. She grabs hold of a gun that'd been on the ground and threatens to shoot him, composition wavering as tears stream down her face, and she begs to know why he'd kill them. Edward stops her from going through with it, and later she's seen talking to Scar of her own volition and even treating an injury that could have killed him if left unchecked, saying it's what her parents would have wanted.

1 Weakness: Gullible Gearhead

Winry's gearhead tendencies aren't a negative on their own, but she's so blind to anything else when she's too absorbed in engineering that it becomes a genuine danger to both her life and Edward's. In the original anime, she strikes up a conversation with a 'woman' outside of a butcher shop who turned out to be a serial killer targeting young women. Winry was engrossed with the other's truck and how it worked, and when the stranger offered for her to come inside and take a look, she obliges without a second thought. If the military hadn't been able to pinpoint their location and rescue them, both Winry and Edward would have died because of how gullible she can be.

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