The Twins Of Legend In The Alchemist By Michael Scott

The Alchemist is the first part in the fantasy series “The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel” written by the Irish author Michael Scott. Scott started off his writing career by dealing rare and antique books across Ireland and has since written over 100 books. The Alchemist reached #2 on the New York Times Best Seller, and the second book in this series; The Magician reached #4 on that same list. Nicolas Flamel and his wife, Perenelle Flamel has “the Codex”, a powerful book with the formula for the elixir of life which makes them immortal. Sophie and Josh Newman work for the Flamels at their Bookstore and Coffee house. They think they are just working a normal summer job for normal people when Dee attacks them and steals the book. Nicolas then takes the twins on a journey of learning all the elemental magic from all over the world. On that journey Flamel tells them about the twins of legend which are supposed to either save or destroy the world. Flamel and Perenelle have been looking for said twins for decades. They had found lots of twins that they belived were the twins of legend but they all either died or lost their mind. From what I have read about Sophie and Josh I am confident that they are in fact the Twins of Legend. This is the statement I will prove to you in my essay.

Early in the book we hear about the Twins of Legend, “the two that are one, the one that is all” with “the power to destroy the world or save it”. And their auras are supposed to be pure gold and silver, posing as the sun and moon. Later in the book the twins meet Hekate, who has the power to awaken them, but she only succeeds to awaken Sophie before Dee destroys the “Yggdrasill”, the heart of Hekate´s power. But when Sophie is awakened we see her aura shining, and it is in fact pure silver. Proving that she could very well be one of the twins of legend. Josh still hasn´t been awakened but proves his worth in Paris a little later by slaying Nidhogg using the Sword of Fire. So even without awakening his powers, he shows incredible bravery, skills, and strength using the Sword of Fire. Flamel then takes him to the Sleeping God in the Catacombs of Paris who awakens Josh and we discover that his aura is Pure Gold, bringing us closer to believe that he is one of the twins of legend. Josh then meets the Elder Prometheus who teaches him fire magic. Later on Josh joins Dee, and together they unleash all the monsters from Alcatraz to attack San Francisco. Meanwhile Sophie along with Flamel and his allies are stopping the monsters, without Sophie Dee would win, and if not were for Josh, Sophie and Flamel could kill Dee and get the book back. So if they join teams, (“the two that are one, the one that is all”) they can either save the world or destroy it, which proves that they are in fact the twins of legend.

In other words, Josh and Sophie have all the qualities and skills needed to prove themselves worthy of this title; “the Twins of Legend” and thus have the power to save the world or destroy it. But first they are going to have to join teams, whether it is with Dee or Flamel, they have to be both on the same side. I really liked the book, the characters, as well as the way Michael Scott managed to keep the tension throughout this whole book and I am definitely going to continue reading the series this summer. If I were to guess which side they will pick I would have to say Flamel´s side. Although judging by what I’ve read so far in the series I am really not sure, and I would be surprised if Scott would end this series without turning a few tables and twisting the plot a couple of times.