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History[]
Scar is an Ishvalan, a group of religious people who take their name from the god they worship, Ishvala. In particular, the art of alchemy (known to Ishvalans as the "Grand Arcanum") was considered one of the greatest taboos of Ishvalan culture (because alchemy implies that humans can make God's creations better than God could). Scar's elder brother broke this taboo by attempting the most dangerous form of alchemy, human transmutation, in an attempt to resurrect the deceased woman that both he and Scar had loved. As is the way of such things, the attempt failed (leading to the creation of the Homunculus, Lust), causing Scar's brother to be outcast by his people. Later, during the Ishval massacre, he began to seek the Philosopher's Stone and soon discovered the truth from an Ishvalan Exile. Realizing that the key ingredient in the stone was human lives, Scar's brother tattooed his body with the necessary transmutation symbols that would allow him to absorb lives and become a living Philosopher's Stone himself. The lives in question were those lost in a massacre of the Ishvalan people by the State Military, but as Scar and his brother attempted to escape after the attack, they were pursued by State Alchemist Solf J. Kimblee, who used his alchemic powers to give Scar his eponymous disfigurement, and to blow his right arm off his body. Scar's brother dispatched Kimblee by robbing him of the power-enhancing Red Stone he was wielding, and then fused his own right arm to Scar's body before dying. Due to the type of Transmutation Circle on his brother's arm, Scar has a partial Philosopher's Stone always ready to be used.
Scar's brother's right arm bore the symbols necessary for the first two portions of an alchemic transmutation - the understanding of an item's molecular composition, and the deconstruction of that matter (with the third step being the reconstruction of the matter into a new form). Unaware of this particular detail, Scar traveled to the city of Central, in hopes of using the information in the State Library to discover the nature of the symbols. His entry to the library barred, Scar clashed with young State Alchemist, Edward Elric, who inadvertently tore his shirt and exposed his arm, causing him to flee. Not long thereafter, while ruminating in an alleyway, Scar was approached by Nina Tucker, a young girl who had been turned into a chimera by her father. Taking pity on Nina for the pain she was now suffering, Scar discovered the power within his arm when he deconstructed her body, killing her out of mercy. Soon after this, Scar briefly encountered Ed again but spared him as Ed had temporarily resigned his commission as a State Alchemist.
Now aware of the power he wielded, Scar embarked on a campaign of revenge against all State Alchemists over the course of the next three years, killing many by exploding their brains within their skulls. In tracking and killing the "Iron Blood Alchemist," Basque Grand, Scar crossed paths with Edward Elric (and his brother, Alphonse) once again. Edward quickly recognized Scar from their last encounter three years earlier and he and Alphonse attempted to prevent Scar from killing Tim Marcoh, another State Alchemist who had participated in the Ishval Massacre. The fight was interrupted by Major Alex Louis Armstrong, who held off Scar long enough for Elric and his brother to escape, but it was a brief respite - Scar soon tracked them down, and shattered Edward's arm, and a large portion of Alphonse's body. Reminded by them of his relationship with own brother, Scar promised not to kill Alphonse (as he was not a State Alchemist), but before being able to kill Edward, Marcoh confronted him with an incomplete Philosopher's Stone, which Scar's arm absorbed (as per its purpose to absorb souls). Unaware that this was the purpose of his arm (and that it appeared to cause him pain as it was absorbed), a suffering Scar fled. However, when the Elrics were preparing to travel to Resembool with Armstrong, Scar hid in the train station and held a young paperboy's sister hostage in exchange for having the boy eavesdrop on a brief conversation between Ed and Maes Hughes for him. It was during this conversation that Ed found out Scar killed Nina.
When the Elrics later broke into the military's Laboratory Five, to uncover the twisted alchemic experiments that had been conducted there, Scar followed them, saving Alphonse from serial killer Barry the Chopper and battling the Homunculi Lust and Gluttony. When Edward was presented by the Homunculi with the chance to obtain a Philosopher's Stone by killing the prisoners held within the laboratory, he refused, and, noting this act of nobility, Scar held back from killing him.
Nursing injuries from this encounter, Scar returned to the refugee camp occupied by the remaining Ishvalans, only for it to be attacked by mercenaries posing as the State Military. Scar escaped with two children and an Ishvalan elder, and promptly ran into Alphonse once again, who was at the time separated from his brother after a disagreement. The younger of the children, Rick, was then captured by the mercenaries, and Alphonse and Edward reached an uneasy truce with Scar to work together and rescue him. Scar then left with the refugees and traveled with them to the Southern Slums.
Through further study, Scar eventually came to realize the true nature of his arm as an incomplete Philosopher's Stone, containing the souls of all those who had died during the Ishval Massacre. Concluding that he needed the stone to stop the action of the State Military, he decided to finish what his brother had started, officially choosing to become an exile himself and sever his ties to the rest of Ishval. After picking up a locket that belonged to his brother's fiancée in Ishval, Scar traveled to the war-torn desert city of Reole and inscribed a gigantic transmutation array around the city itself by dragging a rock through its dirt streets. Learning of his presence there, the State Military arrived in force, along with the Elrics, who feared that he planned to sacrifice all the inhabitants of Reole to create the stone. Once again, Edward and Scar battled, with Edward repeatedly transmuting the matter of his mechanical arm to prevent Scar from deconstructing it, during which time, Scar confirmed to Ed that he did kill Nina four years earlier but only out of mercy. The subsequent arrival and defeat of Lust with the locket delayed the fight, which was then halted by the arrival of Rose and Lyra, prompting the revelation that Scar, in actuality, intended to safely evacuate the inhabitants of Reole and use the invading military as his sacrifices instead. He also managed to clear Lust's thoughts on her past human life, and admits that he loved Lust's human form; he also claims to have loved his brother, but hated him for his negligence and ignorance. Scar also learned from Ed that the hair in the locket is Lust's weakness, due to the Homunculi being weak against the remains of the human they were modeled after.
Scar's battle with Kimblee in Reole.
Kimblee led a small army of chimeras into Reole, and with the evacuation nearly complete, Scar and Alphonse engaged him in combat, only for Scar to have his left arm be transformed by Kimblee's alchemy into a living bomb. Scar sacrificed his arm, deconstructing it off of his own body, to prevent it from exploding, and blasted a hole in Kimblee's chest. Kimblee, however, proved able to cling onto lifelong enough to transmute Alphonse's body into explosive material. Lust told him to wait for Edward's arrival, as the only way to save Alphonse was to transmute his body into a different material, which Scar lacked the knowledge to do. To save him, Scar transmuted his remaining arm, and all the power and souls within it, into Alphonse's armored body as well as placed the locket on Al's body so Lust cannot interfere. Finally, he got Lust to take Kimblee's dead body into the sight of the military amassed around the city, prompting them to attack. Suffering bullet wounds in protecting Lust, Scar used the last of his strength to complete and activate the transmutation circle around the city, dying as the transmutation took place, and the Philosopher's Stone was completed - within Alphonse. Scar's real name is never revealed, as he states that he no longer deserves one. Scar later appears along with Trisha Elric, Nina and Maes Hughes in a montage of deceased characters whom the Elrics grew close to during the end credits of Episodes 42-50.
In the film that concluded the story of the 2003 anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, a parallel universe version of Scar is seen near the end driving a truck next to an alternate version of Lust, probably suggesting they developed a relationship in our world.