Alchemy

[La Poire]

Although alchemy has not yet been a story element in any way, there are tons of alchemical symbols scattered around in the comic, some more interesting than others. The most obvious one would be Antimony; antimony is one of the elements used in alchemy, it "symbolizes the animal nature or wild spirit of man and nature, and it was often symbolized by the wolf." Annie's necklace, as well as the symbol that appears on her wolf doll, is the chemical symbol for antimony.

Another symbol associated with a main character is mercury to Reynardine. When Reynardine attempts to switch bodies his spirit (or whatever) is seen with the symbol for mercury between its eyes.

Another one is the alchemical symbol for lead, which appears on Mr Eglamore's dragon slayer costume, as well as on a plaque on his office wall and over the entrance to the Court – here along with the symbols for salt/bismuth and gold. The symbol for salt/bismuth (can be either, apparently) is featured in several other places as well.

I'm too lazy to link to all the comic pages i referenced to, but here's a link to some basic alchemy info, as well as very good illustrations of the alchemical symbols (click on them for more info).

www.chemsoc.org/VISELEMENTS/pages/alchemist/alchemy.html

This thread can be used to discuss anything more or less relevant to alchemy.

[nyanko]

I'm sorry, the link doesn't seem to be working.

[La Poire]

The link didn't, in fact, exist, but I've fixed that now.

[monkeybucks]

Oh my gosh. There's an alchemical symbol for PHOSPHOROUS?! Seriously, I have to get that made into a pendant! (Just something about me and phosphorous - It's my favourite element. I'm known for mocking it, suggesting it as an answer to all of life's problems (not just chemical ones), and stating I'm going to name all my children Phosphorous).

[mrw]

The symbol for bismuth could also be the astrological symbol for Taurus the bull, it turns out. Using that symbol for salt is apparently uncommon - I haven't even been able to find that source again.

Without knowing what source Tom is using for his symbols it will be difficult to come to a consensus.

Perhaps there are some clues here?
www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=121

[todd]

lapoire said:

The most obvious one would be Antimony; antimony is one of the elements used in alchemy, it "symbolizes the animal nature or wild spirit of man and nature, and it was often symbolized by the wolf."

Now I'm wondering, with the wolf having already shown up in the form of Annie's stuffed toy, whether our heroine's likely to be somehow temporarily transformed into an animal in a later chapter. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

[rastarogue]

Well remember her connection with the spirit guides, they definetly count as animal spirit of man kinda thing.

[Aspen d'Grey]

mrw said:

Perhaps there are some clues here?
www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=121

There's a lot more than just alchemy there. You also have Sun & Moon symbols, with the sun & moon quartered against an 8 pointed star and their occult symbols. The intertwining wings are interesting, and could mean several things that I want to look into a bit more before I post about them. The position Kat & Annie are holding is a spell casting position (with three fingers of the left hand touching the lower lip), with the moon over Kat & the sun over Antimony, although whether that actually means something is debatable.

There are several triangles in the image, which is an important symbol in occult magic & alchemy. (A pyramid is the strongest simple shape in nature) There are three triangle, one pointing upwards, one pointing down, with a larger one in the middle. Underneath is a Star of David, although I get the impression that this is used more because it combines the other two triangles. There is a fourth downward pointing triangle in the middle of the image, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to relate to the Mercury symbol there. Alchemy is the combination of both 'mystic' and 'natural philosophy', so the 6-pointed star is it's symbol, with an upwards pointing triangle referring to the Heavens, and a downward pointing triangle used to represent Earth.

Next to Annie is a bonfire, while next to Kat is a river. These correspond with the astrological symbols above them- the moon representing darkness, coolness, and water, while the sun represents life, light, and fire. They both have 'triggers' in their right hand that I haven't figured out the meaning to yet.

[mrw]

Interesting info, Aspen. One thing I'm wondering is if this is a rework of a real painting somewhere, modified for Annie and Kat.

Also, according to this page, the up and down pointing triangle can represent fire and water as well.

altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/blalchemysymbols.htm

[Aspen d'Grey]

Ahhh, thank you. I knew there was more symbolism there that I was missing. That said, this makes both more sense and raises mroe questions (go figure): Why is the Greater Triangle (inside the circle) pointing upwards, with the Anterior triangle (with the Mercury symbol) pointing downwards. Mercury is 'quicksilver', and is supposed to be possesed of both fire and water, so... Yeah, more questions. Thanks for the link.

[mrw]

It's also intriguing from the point of view that Antimony and Kat are nearly polar opposites, personality wise, and here they are portrayed essentially as fire and water.

Any idea what the Latin means? Or maybe someone's translated that already....

[Aspen d'Grey]

Someone has, in the translation thread.

[La Poire]

The symbol entwined by the wings can be a symbol for antimony. Can probably mean a lot of other things as well, though.

[AluK]

Annie has a stoic personality usually linked to the fire signs in astrology, like Aries, Leo or Sagittarius. They're usually described as stoic, impulsive and with a strong resolve.

Kat got a more emotional nature, empathic nature. She was almost crying when Annie was talking about her parents/her mom. Water signs are almost always linked to that kind of personality, as Pisces, Scorpio or Cancer.

If I was to bet on their signs, based solely on what was shown it the strips and the Astrological analysis, I'd say that Annie is Sagittarius and Kat's Cancer.

Edit:

On the symbols in the Court's facade: Bismuth and Lead are quite similar in appearance. Gold was considered, in alchemy, the perfect metal, the pure metal, while all other metals were considered impure. It's known that alchemists tried to transmute lead into gold. Adding Antimony to lead makes it harder, tougher, and more suitable for tooling and machinery.

Bismuth is, in fact, even more similar to Antimony in appearance.

Edit 2:

The three of them, Lead, Bismuth and Antimony, are quite near in the periodic table, too.

One of the meaning that the school's facade might have it's that they're trying to "purify" Leads and Bismuths, turning them into Golds. Dunno, makes some sense from the educational view-point.

Also, I'm willing to bet that if Anthony had an alchemical symbol, it was Bismuth.

[fjodor]

Maybe it's been mentioned already, but does anyone know what the symbol to the right means in below link:

www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=33

[fjodor]

ahh... silly me... it's mercury. It's different from the mercury symbol shown in the La Poire's link though.

[mrw]

aluk said:

One of the meaning that the school's facade might have it's that they're trying to "purify" Leads and Bismuths, turning them into Golds.

That's been done in the real world, actually. Scientists have succeeded in turning lead into gold. Took a really large particle accelerator and way more energy than the gold was worth. But still, just the thing to have hidden away in a giant scientific complex like Gunnerkrigg. Especially if they can tap some of these paranormal children as power sources (evil grin)

[fjodor]

here's a nice link to all sorts of symbols - including elemental alchemy symbols.

www.whats-your-sign.com/index.html.

They also sell patch-on alchemy symbols:

www.whats-your-sign.com/images/AlchemyBackpackBig.jpg

I guess it's the type of bag Annie would use.

[La Poire]

fjodor said:

Maybe it's been mentioned already, but does anyone know what the symbol to the right means in below link:

www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=33

I hadn't even seen those! Well.

It seems as though there are a lot of different symbols for the most common alchemical elements. The reason for this is that when alchemy was considered witchcraft, and witchcraft could get you burnt, alchemists had to write in code. Anyway, if you click on the symbols in my link, alternative symbols will be shown as well. The big ones are just the most common, I think.

[Aspen d'Grey]

That's another symbol for mercury, used to represent Reynardine for his very fluid nature.

The first is lead, Eglamore, the second is Antimony... Guess.

[AluK]

When I said transmuting Leads and Bismuths into Golds, I thought on a more metaphorical base, like, perfecting their students minds (or magical powers, who knows?).

I found this, also: Mutus Liber - Plate 14

Tom drew some of his inspiration for the page 121 from there, it seems. ;D

Mutus Liber, or Mute Book, is a book composed of 15 plates describing, it seems, the alchemical practice. It's kind of obscure and open to misinterpretations.

For those interested, two links:
Analysis
Plates

[mrw]

Re "Mutus Libre": Nice find!!


About La Poire's links - if you click on the symbol for an individual element, it will bring you to another page showing all the symbols for that element known to chemsoc.org. So if you click on mercury, you will find a page of symbols including the one that exactly matches Reynardine's symbol.

[russlol]

This just in!

"The word ‘surma’, which denotes the same product has become the name for antimony in most Altaic and some slavic languages. The native Mongolian term for this element ‘budag’ also means ‘eye-pigment’."

Now isn't that a co-incidence?

(edited for relevance)

[iMacThere4iAm]

Russlol, I posted that same information last night under Magic.
I'm sure it's not a coincidence. Tom's research must have been pretty deep.

[russlol]

Heh, sorry, I haven't read that thread. And I don't really think it's a co-incidence, I was just being facetious.

Back to the topic at hand, when Annie visits the Donlan's, there's a pattern in the background, above a door I think, which reminds me of one of the symbols for Silver. I could be a bit off with that one though.

[Aspen d'Grey]

That would make sense, considering that in the bonus page showing Annie & Kat in the field, Kat is represented with silver. (The Moon)

[brice]

The two symbols for bismuth show up everywhere: the figure eight and the circle with horns. I found the following kinda interesting:

There exist also a document from 1477 on a Bismuth mine at Schneeberg, this means that the name was already known and was apparently not uncommon in this area. Alchemy held that one metal could be transformed to another. Miners believed there were three types of Lead: Ordinary, Tin, and Bismuth. Silver was often found in ore below Bismuth. So they believed that Bismuth had progressed farthest but not completed its transmutation to Silver. Striking a vein of Bismuth, miners would say sadly, "Alas, we have come too soon."

Maybe GC is some sort of halfway house along some path for souls?

[Aspen d'Grey]

Hmm, kinda like the anime Haibane Renmei, if you've seen that?

[brice]

In the title page there www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=183 there is the moon and saturn. From a very interesting page on alchemy comes this list of the progression of alchemy:

alchemy 1 Saturn.....Lead.........Black Stone
alchemy 2 Jupiter....Tin............Brown
alchemy 3 Moon......Silver........White Stone
alchemy 4 Mercury...Mercury.....Mercury
alchemy 5 Mars.......Iron..........Red Stone
alchemy 6 Venus.....Copper......Green
alchemy 7 Sun........Gold.........Golden Stone

On the title page Gamma seems to be looking at a progression from lead to silver to stars (gold?).

See occult-advances.org/greatwork.shtml

This page may help to explain several things about the end page of Book I
www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=121

The up triangle is the greek symbol for fire while the down triangle is for water. Their superposition would be a mix of fire and water. Why am I reminded of Zimmy right now? The central mercury symbol has the water symbol inside. Dunno why. Didn't read all of the alchemy page. But the wings and cross symbol also shows up in a picture there. Didn't dig to understand it.

Bismuth was considered a form of lead. The figure eight and circle with horns shows up everywhere in GC. Alchemy 1?

I have a feeling we're at the very beginning of a very long story. And I wouldn't be surprised if Zimmy ends up being as important as Annie in the long run. Zimmy might even be the real central character.

[AluK]

What we're watching on that chapter might be the transmutation of Lead (or Bismuth) into Silver, something nearer to the perfection. Zimmy's transmuting through the effect of water.

That would comply with my theory about the school facade. Not exactly as I thought, though.