I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, nor do I want to. Miss Arakawa is doing a spectacular job. I'm just writing this stuff to fill up my time until she reveals more about Hawkeye's character (which she will, hopefully).
Limitations
Riza Hawkeye admitted her limitations. It was not a self-defeating thing to do. It was, in fact, a wise thing to do. It was also a strong thing to do: to admit one's limitations was not always easy. It was a perhaps painful admission that she always measured her limits compared to the limits of a certain man, but he was a man who seemed to have no limitations.
Riza Hawkeye admitted that she could not handle work and a social life. That was why she came back from work to an empty home. Well, not completely empty. She had admitted a dog into her life, and he was a wonderful admission. She had been hesitant to do even that. She could only focus on her work. Roy Mustang said a real man could handle both his work and his women, but maybe that was all talk. In any case, Riza Hawkeye was not a man. She may not even be much of a woman, anymore. But she was a person: a person with a purpose. And she was content with that.
Riza Hawkeye admitted that she was not as smart as Roy Mustang. This did not mean that she stopped thinking for herself, or assumed that the Colonel would always have the answers. But it was something she knew. He had plans and manipulations that had intricacies she did not understand, much less have come up with. She knew that he was more adept at picking up subtleties, even when, or because, his best friend had just died. Sometimes she wondered if the limits of his mind were correlated with the limits of his ambition, his need to get to the top.
While many people may be smart enough to get there, few had the drive. The Colonel had boundless drive. It was something Riza did not completely understand, his need to go to the top. Only he would have come up with such an ambitious plan. Riza may have been depressed and distressed about it the situation of Ishvar and Amestris for awhile, but then she had accepted it. She wondered how much of this acceptance was an admission of the futileness of the situation and her own limitations. Perhaps Roy Mustang had simply refused to admit the futileness, or doubt his own abilities.
He was cocky, that was for sure. In any case, she had resolved to help him achieve his goal. She believed in his goal. She believed in him. But she would not be completely honest if she did not admit that part of what attracted her to him was merely the fact that he was doing something. As a person who admits and accepts she was rather passive, merely existing. She was a moth, who is inexplicably drawn to a flame. Going on this dangerous and unpredictable journey had the thrill of being an active participant that was nothing like enlisting in the military, or even going to war. War had been pointless. She had done what she had been ordered to do and never known why, except that if she didn't she would fail in some way. In the end, it had seemed like she had failed anyway. Now she knew what she was doing. Whatever her limitations, she had chosen.