Rick

Rick is gentle, trusting and less openly resentful toward Amestrians than his older brother. Although he has suffered the same displacement as Leo, he retains a strong emotional attachment to his mother and refuses to discard the locket associated with her.

His attachment to family is central to his behavior. Rick looks to Leo for protection but is capable of forming his own judgments, particularly when his brother's anger threatens to reduce complicated people or events to simple acts of betrayal.

Rick also readily accepts help from people outside the Ishbalan community. His interactions with Alphonse and Edward show considerably less hostility than Leo initially displays.

Rick possesses no alchemical or supernatural abilities. He is an ordinary Ishbalan teenager who has survived war, displacement and life in refugee communities.

In the manga and Brotherhood, he helps the Ishbalan elder tend Scar's wounds after Scar's confrontation with Lust and Gluttony. His role is supportive rather than combative.

The 2003 anime similarly presents Rick as someone who must rely on Scar, Leo and the Elrics when armed mercenaries target the refugee community.

In the manga continuity, Rick is an unnamed Ishbalan boy living near East City. He and the elderly Ishbalan find Scar after his confrontation beneath the city and care for him while he recovers.

The 2003 anime gives Rick a larger personal storyline. Wilson's mercenaries abduct him to lure Scar and the other Ishbalans out of hiding. During the rescue, a projectile strikes the locket Rick carries. The locket absorbs enough of the impact to save him and finally breaks open, revealing a family photograph and medicine used to treat blindness.

The discovery changes Leo's understanding of their mother. The brothers learn that her worsening eyesight prevented her from seeing them during the military attack; what Leo interpreted as abandonment was actually their mother desperately searching for children she could no longer see clearly.

Leo is Rick's older brother and primary protector. Their shared childhood in Ishbal and subsequent life as refugees create a close bond, although Rick does not always share Leo's anger toward others.

Rick and Leo's Mother remains important to Rick through the locket he carries. The medicine hidden inside reveals the truth about her deteriorating eyesight and helps clear her of Leo's belief that she deliberately abandoned her sons.

Old Man is Rick and Leo's grandfather in the 2003 anime and cares for them within the Ishbalan refugee community.

Scar is an important protector of Rick and the other refugees. He participates directly in rescuing Rick from Wilson's mercenaries.

Alphonse Elric helps Scar rescue Rick and earns the boy's trust despite being Amestrian.

Edward Elric also becomes involved in the rescue and the events surrounding Rick's family history.