The Hog's Head

I'll start right off the top and say I know next to nothing about alchemy. However, I do know that in alchemy there are stages that must occur when transforming base metal into gold: they are the black, the red and the white. In the Harry Potter books, it might be said that these stages correspond to some of the major deaths.

I think it's pretty obvious that the black stage was achieved with the death of Sirius Black. His family name is a dead giveaway. Same with the white death. That's Albus (Latin for white) Dumbledore.

So who was the red death? For a long time I expected it to be Hagrid, whose first name, Rubeus, indicates red. I suppose Rufus Scrimgeour is also a possibility since his first name also means red. However, I don't feel that Harry was close enough to Scrimgeour. He certainly wasn't affected by that death very much -- not on the same level as he was affected by the deaths of his godfather and mentor.

Was the red death Fred Weasley? I'm not sure. Yes, Harry was close enough to be affected by that death in a meaningful way, but I feel it came too late in the story. Harry's quest was practically achieved at that point.

IMO the red death was Dobby. I can't really find a 'red' connection with the name or with the character (unless you want to argue that his bravery was very Gryffindor-like, and one of the Gryffindor colours is red), but there's no denying that his death affected Harry on a very deep level. While Harry was digging the elf's grave, he gave a lot of thought to what he was doing, and made some key decisions as to how to proceed. The death galvanised him to complete his quest. In this sense, Dobby's death moved the plot along on a significant level.

Something else I noticed while rereading the burial scene yesterday was how many times both Dumbledore's funeral and Sirius' death were mentioned while Harry was digging the grave. At the very start of chapter 24, just after Harry witnesses Dobby's death, he's immediately pulled back to the aftermath of Dumbledore's death and how it felt to view his mentor's dead body at the foot of the Astronomy tower. Later he compares the two burials and how so many dignitaries attended Dumbledore's funeral, thinking that Dobby deserves no less pomp. He also notices that Voldemort cannot penetrate his thoughts while he grieves for Dobby, just as his grief for Sirius kept Voldemort from possessing him. It is at this point that Harry truely learns what Snape was never able to teach him -- how to shut Voldemort out of his mind, how to control that connection.

To me the best answer to the question "What was the Red Death?" has been, "There was no obvious red death, and therefore the hypothesis that the author intended a black/white/red sequence of deaths was false."  This makes a lot more sense to me than trying to force an identification that doesn't really work.  It's just Occam's razor; if we have the idea there's a three-point sequence of symbolic events, and only two seem to be there, I don't find it compelling to stretch things to make the whole thing fit.

Where exactly does this idea of an alchemical sequence of deaths come from, anyway?  I heard it repeated many times in the fandom, yet had never heard of it before and although I've read a lot about how everyone knows that alchemy in literary analysis means such and such, I never saw a single reference to any discussion outside of HP fandom.  It seemed like it was an idea that John Granger brought to the fandom, and then some people seized on it as a way that they could believe their sunk ships weren't really sunk — that was what I mostly saw anyway.  John Granger doesn't have much credibility with me; but is there a real corpus of literary analysis he was drawing from, and was it one we would have reason to think Jo was familiar with?

I agree with all your points about the significance of Dobby's death, though.  It was a crucial moment, falling as it did in the middle, and was able to move and inspire Harry to action in the rest of the book, while the tragedies at the end were too late for that.

Not sure, actually. Part of it, at least, is out of my own head. All I know is when I first entered the fandom there was discussion on how JKR did a lot of research into alchemy when she was first planning the books. The idea is certainly hinted at in the title of the first book, and then there's this quote from 1998: "To invent this wizard world, I've learned a ridiculous amount about alchemy." Of course she goes on to say "perhaps much of it I'll never use in the books, but I have to know in detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories' internal logic," which is perhaps where a lot of the literary alchemical theories as applied to HP meet their downfall. People are trying to force a pattern onto the stories that just isn't there, as you say.

I think this is definitely the case where shipping is concerned. It always seemed to me that if there was some kind of alchemical pattern being followed, it was in the significant deaths and not in the shipping. And I think where I got the idea that it would pertain to the deaths was in the characters' names.

Was it or wasn't it a coincidence that Sirius' family name is Black? I don't know. Maybe it was; or maybe JKR chose that name to lend a sinister quality to him in the third book so she could better hide his true nature. And then when the rest of the family is introduced in OOP, we see that there actually is something similar about the Black family.

Same thing could be said for Dumbledore. Maybe she just wanted to associate him with goodness, hence naming him "white". Of course, then we go on to learn in book 7 that he wasn't completely "white" after all.

So am I stretching? Perhaps. But I do think there's more to Dobby's death than just a senseless killing as some have said.

I know that quote too.  But what she says is that she learned alchemy to know what magic can and cannot do, so as to set the in-Universe rules for the Wizarding world.  She doesn't say anything about using some alchemical ideas to establish some kind of literary pattern or symbolic structure — that's a completely different kettle of fish.  To be honest, if other fans hadn't suggested it, it would never have even crossed my mind that she meant anything other than studying medieval ideas about alchemy to add flavor to her system of spells and potions.

That's why I want to see some reference to alchemy outside the fandom so I can understand where people are coming from.  I've read a lot of books, and my wife like ten times more, and neither of us had ever heard of this idea of alchemical literary symbolism.  That doesn't mean it's not there, but it does mean I want to see and understand what it meant before HP came along, before I can think about it seriously.

But at the moment, even if there is such a thing out there that's credible, I didn't see anyone make a successful prediction for what was going to happen in DH based on it — which makes me think that JKR wasn't following that structure after all.  Which makes sense to me — she always seemed like an author who appropriated things from elsewhere to tell her story, rather than an author who would bend her story to match a pattern already out there.


Oh, I am in complete agreement with you there!  Dobby's death was extremely important and resonant, emotionally as well as symbolically.  It may be "senseless" in the real-life sense of all untimely deaths, but it is far from senseless in the literary sense.  Digging his grave is the final crucible from which Harry emerges, ready to complete his quest.  It is the end of the dark and angsty middle section of DH, and the beginning of Harry's push to the final confrontation.

I cannot resist pointing out your choice of words here... ironic for someone who doesn't buy the whole "alchemical interpretation" thing! 

I can't give you any references outside of fandom. Ironically, for me, the only real places I've seen discussing the topic in any detail were all Harmonian... Yeah, I know, doesn't lend very much credence to the matter, does it?

I think there is (or there used to be) quite a lengthy thread on the topic at the Leaky Lounge forums. This thread, from what I've seen of it, steers away from the shippy aspects of alchemy.

As a school of literary thought, I have to admit I've never really heard of the alchemical interpretation before I entered fandom.

Have you read The Little White Horse? That story fairly hits you over the head with all the so-called literary alchemy points (or at least the ones I've seen brought up in the HP fandom).

 

But that's the whole thing — Harry does go through a transformative experience, but that doesn't mean there's a whole suite of other symbols and inevitable story structure about color-coded deaths and characters identified with different substances and so on.

Sure, one can say, "I think it's neat that in the first book we have the Philosopher's Stone, which was an alchemical magic item, and then the whole story is about Harry's coming of age, which is a kind of transformation just like turning lead into gold, so there's a kind of parallel."  That's a perfectly valid connection to make, and I have no problem with people making it.  But I don't think it's a mandatory connection to make, it doesn't particularly resonate with me, and I have never seen anything convincing me that it necessarily implies anything else about the rest of the series.


Well, they got it from somewhere, and I suspect that somewhere may be John Granger, though I never really looked into it myself.  But it's the nature of the Harmonian echo chamber that a single person can introduce an idea and then pretty soon the whole bunch of them will latch on and start repeating the same catch-phrases as gospel.  I've never gotten the sense that they went outside talking to each other to justify their alchemical interpretations.

I'm sure it was very appealing to the Harry/Hermione shippers, when they were trying desperately to come up with a reason why they weren't wrong after all despite all the evidence, to be presented with this idea that there was a whole secret world of symbols and interpretations that was telling people who were smart enough to see that the books weren't saying what they appeared to be saying.  And they must have been so happy to receive it that they didn't question where it came from or to what extent it was likely to be true.

Anyway, their use of "alchemy" was obviously wish-fulfillment on their part and didn't end up being anything, and I understand that not everyone who invokes it is following their lead.  I'm sort of trying to understand whether there's anything worth thinking about hiding behind all the shipping talk.


I haven't but Alex has, and she has no idea about alchemy there.  She said something about solar/lunar imagery, but that's all.

I did a google search on "Little White Horse" + alchemy, and basically got back tons and tons of Harry Potter pages, starting with something at John Granger's site.  I literally cannot find anything that is not Potter-related or inspired, which is what I would want to find.  A lot of other things refer back to Granger.

I admit I don't like John Granger's ideas much; mostly I think they're a lot of elaborate hocus-pocus designed to make him look smart and get people to buy his books that didn't really have anything to do with what the author was trying to write or say.  I also admit my usual hypothesis is that all this is something that he or his friends made up or adapted out of true obscurity to make themselves seem like they were in possession of secret knowledge.  Of course I would be interested to learn otherwise!  But I can't help noticing that no one ever seems to be able to find an example of alchemical literary discussion outside Harry Potter fandom; until I find it, it feels to me like there are no clothes on the alchemical emperor.

Sorry to go on at such length, and I hope I'm not too irritating in my stubbornness.   

Oh, I agree, it's not. I sort of come at the whole thing from the "wouldn't it be neat if..." perspective myself.


I suspect this is the case, although I can't prove it. I can just provide anecedotal evidence that the person who introduced John Grangers ideas to the fandom was the captain of the HMS Pumpkin Pie and the founder of the HP4GU mailing list. IIRC he was a speaker at Nimbus. I think the connection made look like somewhat of an authority figure to the fandom at large.


Yeah, see above.


I can't say I've personally researched it myself. I just noticed that upon reading the story that it jibed with all the supposed alchemical symbolism I've seen touted about the fandom. I have no idea if the whole thing is circular or not.


This is quite possibly true. I haven't found the topic fascinating enough to really dig up anything myself. I'd be interested to see if anyone ever does come up with anything.


Well, no. Discussion is the point here.