Alchemy in Fiction: What exactly makes it different from Magic

Alright, so we got stuff like Full Metal Alchemist, Buso Renkin with their different Portrayals of Alchemy (though they obviously have common traits like the Homonculi and references to making lead into gold and all that.

I also read the Alchemy page in the Useful Notes section trying to get a feel for what exactly it is about.

However, in the long run, I'm still not really clear on what Alchemy is, and more importantly, what makes it different from Magic (when it is different that is), so I come to my fellow tropes.

What distinctions are there between Magic and Alchemy, and besides stuff like Equivalent Exchange, creating Homonculi, and maybe mixing potions, what kind of stuff would someone writing about Alchemy need to include?

edited 20th Aug '13 1:30:20 PM by HandsomeRob

Apart from the decoration (Things normally associated with alchemy—philosopher's stones and Homunculi and whatnot), classical alchemy was mostly characterized by the application of the scientific process. This might seem silly to us today, but you have to remember that A, they really didn't have much to go on, and B, it was a lot closer to the modern portrayal of magic than magic was back then. Magic was a lot more simple—you hung a horse shoe up, or left milk out for the faeries, or took drugs to meet dead people or whatever. Maybe you'd try to read the future in sheep guts. Alchemy was an attempt to understand all of that—sure, it was, in hindsight, an obvious dead end, but before then nobody tried to figure out how magic actually worked, or search for uses for it.

So basically, Alchemy is just... what Magic in fiction is now then?

Huh. Didn't expect that.

You can add your own interpretation if you like, and it's not like there aren't a plethora of myths and legends to draw from, but most of the famous (Western) myths were of the, "We've worn clover in our shoes for as long as we can remember, and we haven't been attacked by squirrel-monsters yet!" or, "That woman is old and has no offspring and/or knows about medicine! Ergo, she consorts with demons and places curses on her enemies,!" varieties. Alchemy was people attempting to practice magic, rather than just rumor.

Medieval alchemy had a lot of heavy philosophy in it too. Turning lead into gold wasn't just about getting rich quick; it was also a metaphor for purifying and exalting your soul. If you could turn a base metal into a precious one, you could use the same principles to turn your own flawed self into a being of perfection. The alchemists used astrological symbols as shorthand for substances and processes because they believed in "As Above, So Below"—silver wasn't just like the Moon in its color, on some level it was a manifestation of the Moon, or at least partook of the same cosmic essence.

edited 20th Aug '13 2:37:39 PM by Karalora

Alchemy was just as much about chemistry (and medical chemistry) as magic. They where trying to make sense of everything during a time where everything was kind of magic.

Alchemists did actually do and invent stuff.

Well, yeah. Many of the discoveries made in history were done by Alchemists(by accident, but still).

I'm just trying to make sense out of what it all is. It seems to encompass a lot of things (Science, a sort of spiritual bent, etc). And that's when you only take the real world into account.

Take it to a fictional world, and it's damned hard to distinguish it from Magic.

edited 20th Aug '13 3:37:53 PM by HandsomeRob

If the fictional world is a fantasy setting then it probably really is magic. Either as a subset of whatever magic system is in place or magic under a different name to be different and stand out from the rest of the genre.

Think of it like this;

1. They believed in magic was what the world ran on.
2. They tried to study and understand magic. To this end they made their best guess as to how the magic, and thus the world, worked as a self contained system (rather than "fairies are warded off by iron, silver kills werewolves, etc" its something like a table of magical substances and how they're connected to each other and how what they're connected to is connected to fairies, werewolves, etc).
3. These conclusions were classical alchemy.
4. Actual science (i.e. what they discovered and eventually realised to be true) is arguably modern alchemy (although technically the scientific community distanced itself from the concept; hence why Newton was thought of as a bit weird when it turned out he took it up as a hobby).

and

Ah. I see now. That's a good way to look at it.

Now that you mention it, since the 2003 version of the Full Metal Alchemist Anime had the split in the two worlds being the respective pursuits of Alchemy and Science, I guess looking at Science as modern Alchemy is a fair comparison.

There's a bit in one of Terry Pratchett's stories where he points out that Magrat thinks she's better than Granny Weatherwax because she knows which, out of a dozen plants with the same common name, is actually the best at curing headaches while Granny is a better witch than Magrat as she knows it doesn't matter.

In trying to scientifically test and work out which is best, Magrat is an Alchemist.

Whereas Granny is a practical psychheadologist

While real life alchemists did in fact make a lot of advances in chemistry, they failed to reach the two goals of alchemy: to turn lead into gold and to reach immortality. The key point is that they thought that reaching these goals was scientifically possible and was allowed within the natural laws of the universe.

By contrast, the fullest extent of magic is about making the impossible possible by circumventing the natural laws of the universe by accessing the supernatural (usually through accessing the power of gods or demons). Miracles are essentially about circumventing the natural laws by using the power of the one who created those laws in the first place.

Basically, regarding the discipline itself, there is no such thing as possible alchemy, since possible alchemy would be indistinguishable from actual science. However, alchemy could also refer to the two alchemical processes: changing one element into another and making the mortal immortal. (The latter is the route Fullmetal Alchemist took.)