What are your feelings on the relationship of Ed and Al? Do you think it can be compared to that of Jon and Arya’s?

I think they’re fundamentally different relationships. Both positive siblings relationships, but totally different.

1) Ed and Al only have each other. Though they were lucky to be taken in by Pinako, it does not change the fact that they were each others only family. They lost their dad when he left without an explanation, they lost their mother when she died of her illness, they lost her a second time with the failed resurrection, and then they lost their house, the last vestiges of memories of their mother. This left them alone, with a shared trauma and tragedy, and made it so that they had to depend on each other and protect each other. It’s isolating and lonely, but they had each other.

Jon and Arya were not alone. They had other siblings and a happy childhood, and they still have other siblings they can turn to and depend on.

2) Ed and Al’s journey is (mostly) taken together. They go out and learn alchemy together, they learn to fight together, they study together, they go through the same trials and challenges up until near the end where they were forced to separate for a period of time. Their character development and growth happens while they are basically in arm’s reach of each other.

Jon and Arya, however, go on their own journeys, totally separate. They have to fend for themselves and survive alone, and while they often think of each other, it does not change the fact that they are thousands of miles away from each other and likely won’t reunite until near the end of the series.

3) Ed harbors immense guilt over what happened to Al during their failed transmutation. He blames himself for not protecting Al and feels that his brother losing his body is all his fault. He is driven by that guilt and love for his brother to find the solution that would bring his brother’s body back. His journey centers around his brother, and is propelled forward by his feelings of loss and guilt and shame.

Jon and Arya on the other hand, don’t have that element in their relationship at all. There’s no guilt, no shame, neither of them inadvertently brought about some cataclysmic event on the other— it’s just a normal, healthy relationship. The only goal they share is reuniting with each other.

So no, I don’t think their relationships are comparable at all, though they both belong in the “best siblings ever” category.