I don’t really intend on doing any kind of full review of these as I go, just highlight the structure, themes, and notable quotations or clues in each to see if they point to the answers to come in book 7. Plus I want to keep moving on to the next book vs getting caught in dissecting the last.

To start, I read Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. The title is important – I did not wish to read some nonsense about a ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ instead of the historical goal of alchemy. It’s quite insulting (but probably true) that Americans might be confused about the reference to a ‘philosopher’ in the context of magic. Of course in our world, the philosopher, alchemist and magician were once all pretty much the same. As natural philosophy preceded modern science, and the pursuit of the occult was often undertaken by the most learned practitioners of the natural sciences (e.g. Newton), so the search for the means to comprehend and manipulate the world at its base components crossed what are today widely diverse disciplines. Moreover philosophical science was a means to spirituality, exploring the nature of spirit and its interaction with the mundane world. After all, magician and Magi (as in “Wise Men from the East”) are closely related. Alchemy provided a bridge between those planes of experience. It was only after experimental science took hold, perhaps after Francis Bacon, that it was divorced from the elements of philosophy considered to lack the rigor of the laboratory. Likewise alchemy gave way to chemistry, and past notions of the transmutation of elements and the classic elemental forces were replaced with the periodic table and conventional forces like electromagnetism. The spirit was banished from the laboratory, and the scientist and the church have had a troubled history ever since.

J.K. Rowling has clearly shown interest in classical alchemy, both in placing the fabled philosopher’s stone at the heart (and on the spine) of her first story, but also incorporating historical names like Nicholas Flamel and Paracelsus. No doubt there may be deeper parallels in both this first book and the overall series – the stages of alchemical transformation, spiritual symbology, characters as key elements, open to Jungian analysis, etc. – but just on the surface it’s an essential message that magic is not free or easy or all-powerful. It must be learned, and follows its own rules.

The other lesson of the philosopher stone is that alchemy not only offers great power over the world to the studious, but that precisely because of that power it also represents a grave temptation. In The Eight, the secret of eternal life is hidden within Charlemagne’s chess service by the Moors, causing a battle between the White and Black coalitions (loosely representing a good and evil struggle). In most modern vampire fiction, the ‘hunger’ is often portrayed as an acceptable price for effective immortality; the vampires also usually have great seductive allure, thus offering both Eros and Thanatos in one. The ‘dark and mysterious’ man of romantic pulp has become undead, or lycanthropic, or demon-cursed in search of the one woman who can save/join him in his battle against his ‘dark’ nature. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Blood Ties, even characters in soap operas like Dark Shadows and Passions follow this trope. Likewise, bratty Anakin seeks the power through the Dark Side to conquer death, driven by his fear of losing Padme (and ironically it is by embracing death and reincarnating into the living Force that the master Jedi achieve a form of immortality). This same struggle between light and dark sides to control the power over eternal life appears in Harry Potter, when the apparently virtuous Nicholas Flamel and his (comparatively much younger) friend Albus Dumbledore vouchsafe the only currently-existing Philosopher’s Stone.

It is fortunate that the Stone is ultimately destroyed by Flamel at Dumbledore’s urging. First, because as described in Hermione’s light reading, he is almost due for his 666th birthday, hardly a good omen – particularly if you read into Voldemort’s ’second coming’ as that of an Antichrist. Second, as Dumbledore remarks in the hospital wing, “you know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things which are worst for them.” This restraint, and the drive that Voldemort demonstrates in pursuit of longer life and power over others, resonate as one of the central differences between the warring sides. Light seeks natural balance, illumination, and connection with others and champions loyalty and self-sacrifice over personal gain. When Harry demurs at Hermione calling him a great wizard, saying she is better, she replies, “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things – friendship and bravery…” (which perhaps explains why she did not end up in Ravenclaw with the other clever students, but Gryffindor, with the “brave at heart”). Dark seeks the power of few over many, only personal gain, domination at the cost of isolation, and self-preservation as paramount over all things.

Dumbledore also sagely notes, “after all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.” This spiritual acceptance of mortal death instead of materialistic pursuit of eternal, yet cursed life is one of the key themes I see upheld throughout the series, and anticipate being crucial to the story’s conclusion. After all, the story begins with the sacrifice of Harry’s mother, someone that curiously Voldemort said “needn’t have died” but gave her life to protect her infant in a powerful act of courage and love. Her protection, a power that Voldemort “knows not,” deflects the previously-unblockable Killing Curse and even energizes Harry’s skin so that eleven years later his very touch causes Quirrell to blister. Meanwhile Voldemort abandoning Quirrell, even after driving him to be cursed for drinking unicorn blood, shows that he gives “just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies.”

Vital Stats
Pages: 309 (Scholastic Hardback)
Chapters: 17
Starts: 4 Privet Drive
Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher: Possessed/Cursed Half-Life/Blistered
Dumbledore Explains Everything In: Hospital Ward
House Cup: Gryffindor
Exams: Yes
Ends: Platform 9-3/4

Final Score: Harry – 2, Voldemort – 0