Authors from Chaucer to Shakespeare have been co-opting alchemy, The Great Work, a process said to create gold, offer immortality, and develop spiritual purity. The process and the symbols associated with it are used to enhance the emotional catharsis in many great works of literature.

J.K. Rowling reintroduced it to modern literature with the Harry Potter series. As Rowling employed it, literary alchemy is an arcane catalog of symbols of but it can also be compressed into three colors: black, white, and red for each step in the alchemical process.

As explained in Wikipedia:

The Great Work; mystic interpretation of its four stages

  • nigredo (-putrefactio), blackening (-putrefaction): corruption, dissolution, individuation
  • albedo, whitening: purification, burnout of impurity; the moon, female
  • citrinitas, yellowing: spiritualisation, enlightenment; the sun, male
  • rubedo, reddening: unification of man with god, unification of the limited with the unlimited.

After the 15th century, many writers tended to compress citrinitas into rubedo and consider only three stages.

The end result of the alchemical marriage of opposites in the red stage is an androgynous child, which is the ultimate goal of the process. In addition to gold, the product of the warring couple is immortality and spiritual perfection. This is the reason why Romeo and Juliet ends, not with the lovers’ deaths, but with the erection of a gold memorial statue.

John Granger, one of the first to identify the alchemical structure that the Harry Potter series is based on on has recently written about the alchemy found in the Twilight series.

Granger noted the red, white, and black colors in the cover art are linked to the alchemy within. He identified New Moon as the black stage, which breaks down Bella emotionally and psychologically and includes a spiritual death. Eclipse, with Bella’s spiritual resurrection and new determination, is the white work, and Breaking Dawn, with its sacrificial death and alchemical wedding of opposites, the red. The marriage of Bella and Edward, mortal and immortal, god and human, produces the ultimate work of perfection, which is more precious than gold, the androgynous child, Reneesmee, neither human nor vampire, but both.

While it is too early in the True Blood series to tell if Alan Ball is employing alchemy, the twinning of all the major characters, which is something also found in Harry Potter, the color scheme, the title sequence, and the plot so far are suggestive.

Seasons one and two are without a doubt a black phase in Sookie’s life. They could even be classified as a period of spiritual death. In fact, if the show follows the plot of the novels, when Eric rescues Sookie from the truck of a car, he will literally pull her near lifeless body out of her tomb and the arms of death, her lover, Vampire Bill.

If Ball is incorporating alchemy into the series that act will be the beginning of the white stage when Sookie not only affirms life but becomes a new person, one who has learned from the past and moves forward with renewed strength and clarity.

What follows is the red stage. The blood bond between Eric and Sookie, which occurs in the novels, becomes a perfect metaphor for this stage when both members are willing to sacrifice themselves for the other. This is the alchemical marriage of�seemingly�irreconcilable�opposites: mortal and immortal, fae and vampire, sun and moon, male and female.

The one thing that is missing is the product of the warring couple’s union, the golden child. In a previous post about Jessica and Hoyt, I described how Sookie and Bill are actually Jessica’s parents. Bill, the vampire who created her from his body, is the mother figure, and Sookie, the catalyst for that creation in an unthinking moment of passion, is the unwitting father figure.

If the foreshadowing that has already been the topic of much discussion on the show’s message boards is carried through the series, Eric and Sookie will likewise become the parents of a vampire, the androgyne in gold pants, Lafayette.

While Jessica was an unprepared, unplanned, and unwanted child, Lafayette will be the opposite. Lafayette has a long way to go, but it seems clear that he will have an important character arc that will eventually render him worthy of becoming Eric’s child.

In Living Dead in Dallas, after the attack on the Dallas nest by the Fellowship of the Sun, Eric asks Sookie if she wants him to turn a woman who is dying. Not knowing the woman’s wishes, Sookie hesitates, and before she can make a decision, Eric informs her that it is too late. This event was omitted from the show, but we could very well see something similar play out another time.

True Blood vampires are much more discriminating about who they turn, but if Lafayette proves himself to Eric and, in so doing, is mortally wounded, Sookie may be faced with the same question. The difference in this case is that she will know Lafayette’s wishes, and her love for him will demand a prompt answer to Eric.

Revised 11/17/09

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