Help a reader out, on chapter 23 and still very confused about some core concepts

For starters, I didn’t read manacled(?) I actually haven’t read any Harry Potter stuff (though I watched the movies as a kid ofc). This book is a self contained universe in my head, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

I’m on part 2 chapter 23. Please no spoilers beyond there. I just want to know if I’m missing/misunderstanding something I should already have gathered.

Okay as for my questions:

So there’s alchemy, which has basically two main branches: of metals and of the body. The former branch can only resonate with metals, while the latter can resonate with metals and the body. Within the second branch, you’ve got vivimancy and animancy? A vivimancer can alter the body but not the mind(?) and based on context I’m assuming an animancer can alter both body and mind? So far it seems more like a power scale than different branches… basically normal alchemist -> vivimancer -> animancer since every animancer is an alchemist but not every alchemist is an animancer. Have I got that right?

Somewhere in there you’ve got pyromancy, which is supposedly “divine” or whatever and unique to the Holdfasts?

Speaking of the Holdfasts, so they’re a total monarchy, ruled by a church full of sexist bigots who commit infanticide towards any fetus with signs of vivimancy (among other atrocities). Which, since alchemy affinity is seemingly genetic, is basically just normalized genocide. Obviously the bad guys.

Then there’s the other side, the necromancer and his guild puppets (I assume more will be revealed here so that’s fine). Obviously the bad guys.

No good guys to be found, that’s fine, realistic even. Maybe they’ll come later, maybe not, but whatever.

Are the only animancers Morrough and Helena that we know of in the story up to the point I’m at? Stroud says they’re “very rare”, but to me that sounds like there must be more than *just* Helena and Morrough. Did I miss something?

There’s also whatever the hell Ferron is, but that’s obviously a later revealed thing.

So, have I got the fundamentals down correctly?