The Alchemyst

Fifteen-year-old Josh Newman is one of the protagonists of The Alchemyst with his twin sister Sophie. He is described as “tall for his age, and heavy: he was big enough to be a linebacker” (22). Sophie adds that her brother is “impulsive and reckless, but […] also loyal and trustworthy” (206).

Just like his sister, Josh is naturally inquisitive, as evidenced by his habit of looking up the different characters they meet on his computer. He also demonstrates his observation skills when leads Sophie out of the maze of the Yggdrasill by using logical reasoning. However, the young boy sees himself as ordinary, “not too brilliant, but not stupid either” (36), and he becomes jealous of his sister’s abilities after her magic is awakened and not his. However, their bond of trust eventually leads him back to her, thus foiling Dee’s attempt to use Josh’s insecurity to rally him to his side. Incidentally, Josh is the other half of the prophesied twins and his aura is pure gold, a powerful and even rarer occurrence than silver, reiterating the motif in the novel that the ordinary may in fact be the most extraordinary.

Nicholas Flamel, the titular character of Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, was inspired by real-life scribe Nicolas Flamel, who lived in Paris in the 14th and early 15th centuries. In popular belief, Nicolas Flamel has been widely speculated to have become immortal after developing the formula for the philosopher’s stone through alchemy. Scott’s fictionalized version of Flamel and his wife Perenelle are indeed centuries old thanks to an immortality potion which they brew every month.

Flamel and Perenelle have been hiding in San Francisco as Nick and Perry Fleming when Dee attacks Flamel’s bookshop. He is described as “a rather ordinary-looking man. Average height and build, with no real distinguishing features, except for his eyes, which were so pale that they were almost completely colorless. His black hair was cropped close to his skull and he always seemed to have stubble on his chin, as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days” (9-10). Although friendly and funny, Flamel is also cunning and secretive, with both his allies and his enemies agreeing that he most often conceals his true intentions. While seeming suspect, Flamel proves to be fighting on behalf of the good, furthering the motif of duality and not accepting appearance as reality.

A formidable alchemyst, Flamel is also a skilled magician, and his abilities allow him to guide the twins through their journey. On some level, he acts as a mentor to Josh and Sophie, but the teenagers soon realize that he has a hidden agenda. Indeed, Flamel is the first who recognizes them as the twins prophesied by Abraham. Additionally, without the Codex, Flamel and Perenelle cannot brew the Elixir of Life and start aging at the rate of one year a day, meaning that they have about a month to complete their quest before they die of old age.

Perenelle Flamel, née Delamere (or Perry Fleming as Sophie initially knows her), is Nicholas Flamel’s wife. She is ten years older than him and also immortal thanks to the Elixir of Life. A renowned sorceress, Perenelle is “at least as powerful as her husband—in fact, there were some areas in which she was even more powerful” (47). Among other things, Perenelle has the rare ability to commune with the dead, and she uses ghosts to send messages to her husband while she is locked up.

Perenelle is abducted by Dee at the beginning of the novel and spends the rest of the book helping her husband and the twins from afar. Her love for Flamel is evident, and she risks her own safety to warn her friends of upcoming danger. The sorceress is strong-willed, clever, and calculating.

The sorceress is “the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and in the tiny village of Quimper in the northwest corner of France, where she had grown up, she was considered special” (88). She became known as Chatte Noire, or Black Cat, when she worked as a fortune teller in Paris, where she later met her future husband, Nicholas Flamel. Perenelle was always more interested in magic than alchemy, though, and she helped Flamel decipher the Codex when it first came into their possession. Incidentally, Perenelle’s aura is “a pale ice white, which acted like a beacon for the dead, [but] over it, like layers of paint, she had created auras of bright blue, emerald green, and primrose yellow” to deter spirits (142).

Scathach is a 2,000-year-old Next Generation Elder, though she is described as looking like “a girl not much older than [Sophie and Josh]” (57). She has green eyes, bright red hair, and an Irish accent, and Sophie notices that although she looks almost human, she does not blink. Flamel explains that she is a legendary warrior who has trained the best human heroes, although Scathach insists the twins call her “Scatty.”

Scathach and Flamel are old friends, and the alchemyst initially enlists her help when they take refuge in her San Francisco dojo. From then on, she acts as Flamel and the twins’ protector. Although her combat skills come in handy in battle several times in the novel, she also offers practical advice to Josh and Sophie. For instance, she cautions them against trusting anyone, even Flamel himself.

Scathach is wry and often petulant, but she is also caring and fierce. She seems to have contentious relationships with a lot of other Elders, as she has a feud with Hekate and initially seems unhappy to reunite with the Witch of Endor, who is also her grandmother. However, she and the Witch make up, and Scathach promises to call her grandmother more often before she leaves.