Hughes and Roy in “Unfinished Business”

Got my girlfriend to bake you an apple pie! You want it? Roy…

Roy

It’s called a "Taboo", forbidden alchemy, it’s kind of fun.

I don’t understand much about alchemy! But I’m no fool, and I certainly know what happens to anyone who commits a taboo!

Roy

You can relax, Maes, I haven’t done anything.

Maybe not yet, but you were planning to.

Roy

You just don’t understand. I killed a lot of people out there.

It was a war.

Roy

Easy for you to say you weren’t there.

No, I wasn’t. And if you didn’t want to kill enemies in battle, you shouldn’t have been there either; you should have asked for a desk job, like I did. Did you think if you became a State Alchemist you could fix everything? Bring back anyone who ever died in a controversial war? Invent some Utopian world?

Roy

Heh, I don’t know.

Is a taboo so easy to commit you just need a little binge of studying to pull it off? Or do you just want to wait and die? Because if that’s the case, there are plenty of easier means.

Roy

I had it at my mouth, Maes, and I couldn’t pull the trigger, I was too afraid to end it.

I’d hope so.

Roy

That’s just the kind of cowardly human that I am.

Every sane person is.

Roy

Even my life, detestable as it is will have some use… Maes, I have a plan.

Let’s hear it, Roy.

Roy

I’m going to become the Führer, Maes. It’s the only way I can justify taking my next breath.

Well to do that you’ll have to have someone who knows you and the system, and can support you from the inside. I work under you, stay close to the higher ups, and help push you to the top.