3123: Canon

Canon

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Title text: Achilles was a mighty warrior, but his Achilles’ heel was his heel.

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a potato cannon doing the Can Can on a Can. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

The term canon was originally devised to refer to the books of the Bible which are generally accepted as being actually part of the Bible, instead of apocrypha, Christian works that, while edifying and perhaps ancient, aren't considered part of the Bible. It subsequently was adapted to refer to the Sherlock Holmes stories which were written by Arthur Conan Doyle, as opposed to the adaptations into other formats (stage plays, films, etc.) and non-Doyle stories. An early example of this connection was in a 1910 satirical essay by the Catholic scholar Ronald A. Knox, Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes.

From there, it took on its modern, even broader meaning for fiction in general: the material widely accepted as created by the recognized author(s). For instance, Star Wars canon comprises the films and some TV shows made by Lucasfilm (and Disney after its buyout of Lucasfilm), but that canon is supplemented by a large amount of non-canonical Star Wars content in other media such as books, video games, comic books, fan fiction, etc. In addition, what is canon can be changed, as occurred when a large portion of formerly canon Star Wars content was [decanonised] in 2014 to make narrative space for the upcoming Star Wars trilogy sequel movies.

Determining what is canon and what is not in a narrative framework has a tendency to excite huge passions amongst fans, similar to the huge factionalisation of religions where they decide what is and what is binding to the fandom.

Here, Cueball is using the modern meaning to describe a theological dispute from the 18th century when canon had only its original, Biblical meaning. There are many examples of fierce theological disputes that were recorded in pamphlets and books throughout the 16th to 19th century, for example just regarding the correct mode of baptism: 1644 (683 pages), 1646 (342 pages), 1697 (150 pages), 1768 (219 pages), 1831 (400 pages), 1874 (107 pages) - examples selected from hundreds of similar books.

Similarly the word "fandom" comes from the word "fan" (+ '-dom', as in a class of people), which is the shorter form of "fanatic". Fanatic's etymology, in turn, points to the latin word "fanaticus" meaning 'of a temple, inspired by a god'. (The latin word "fanum" means 'temple'.)

An Achilles’ heel is the weak point of something or someone who is otherwise very strong. It derives from the legend of the great Greek warrior Achilles, who as a baby was dipped into the river Styx by his mother to make him invulnerable everywhere on his body that the water touched. However, during the dipping, his mother held him by the heel, which was thus vulnerable because it didn't enter the river, and in fact Achilles later died after he was shot in that heel with an arrow. The joke again is the self-reference.

Transcript

[Cueball talks to White Hat while reading a book. Both are standing.]

Cueball: It's so weird reading these 18th century scholars argue about minor biblical details. It's like they're an online fandom or something - they've developed this whole elaborate canon.

[Caption below the panel]

It's fun when a word's usage goes full circle and, by analogy, lands back on its original meaning.

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Discussion

👋Caliban (talk) 17:14, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I saw a post on reddit a week or two ago that described the how we use the term "kryptonite" to describe someone's weakness, then unironically asked what people thought Superman's Kryptonite would be.... 136.226.60.109

Wow, I never would've guessed what Superman's Kryptonite was! Seriously though, kryptonite has landed back on its original meaning too. Strontium (talk) 18:28, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

cite: https://www.reddit.com/r/superman/comments/1jnh4d0/what_is_supermans_kryptonite/ -- PRR (talk) 20:05, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if there are any examples of that in the wild or if Randall just made it up. Turquoise Hat (talk) 18:40, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I recall seeing someone unironically referring to Leipzig as "Napoleon's Waterloo". RegularSizedGuy (talk) 14:59, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Just checked; there is no Bible wiki on fandom.com. I am sad. (There is, however, a Christianity wiki.) 136.226.19.82 19:49, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Correction: there is one; search just failed to turn it up for some reason: https://bible.fandom.com/wiki/Bible_Wiki 136.226.19.82 19:53, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

There's now a paragraph on the word 'fandom'. I can't see how this is relevant to explaining the comic, and suggest deleting it. DKMell (talk) 20:05, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

the word is specifically mentioned by Cuball FaviFake (talk) 22:51, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Reminds me of this old gem: How COVID-19 is similar to the viruses trying to infect your computer. 220.240.43.39 20:30, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

The history of "canon" from the explanation is inaccurate: Mocking the "Sherlock Holmes canon" already depended on the usage of the word for "literary canon" = the most important works of an author / genre / period / culture. "Canon" has been used with that meaning at least since 1768 [1]. Transgalactic (talk) 23:08, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Your reference does not support your assertion. It says that the use of the word in 1768 was to mean selections of authors – not the "official and recognised works" meaning of literary canonicity as we currently understand it. It also says that such usage has been identified as having been catachrestic. Do you have a reference for "canon" actually being used in the sense of "literary canon" that predates the Conan Doyle one that you dispute? Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 16:01, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

DID Y'ALL MISS ME? Eh, probably not. August 12th is the first day of HS for me, so i should be back sometime just after that date, unless it got blocked. Don't worry, I'll be back shortly. In the meantime, WOW look at all these changes to the wiki since the last time i was on! I like the more brief incomplete explanation template. One thing I think Jeff should install is the visual editor, which many wikis (including wikipedia) have. FaviFake is still active, which makes me wonder how he has a job. Is he being paid to edit Explain xkcd all day? Anyway, see y'all August 12th! Sincerely, --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 03:20, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

That's a weird compliment but no, I "don't have a job" because school has ended hahaha. I'm using Wikipedia more lately --FaviFake (talk) 19:42, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

This Comic about the allies in WWII invoking Godwin's law feels like a similar phenomenon, though maybe not similar enough to warrant a mention in the official explanation 2600:4041:2E5:B900:B97A:E409:F3F3:C38A 14:11, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

This discussion seems to miss the pun on the word canon as used in music, as a piece that has a tendency to evolve until it has returned to where it started. I have to believe that Randall's use of this was intentional.--72.93.242.106 14:28, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Except that a canon doesn't have to return to where it started - only certain subtypes like rounds do. 82.13.184.33 16:00, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Greetings, In the Apostolic age, and for the Early Church Fathers, "canon" means Apostolic laws and decrees, enacted by Ecumenical Councils. This is a broader meaning and predates the "Biblical canon". Canons of Scripture are but the most well-known canons decreed by the Church Fathers (and even at the 16th c. Council of Trent.) So Randall is not so accurate to call this the one and only "original" meaning. The same terms are in use today: Canon Law (Western, Eastern, Orthodox), and the Biblical Canons (OT, NT, EO, OO, Protestant, et. al.) Elizium23 (talk) 21:06, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Originally (as far back as it can be traced), it meant a reed. 82.13.184.33 08:21, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Good, thank you: yes, all the free sources I find are apologetics and Bible studies, but they uniformly cite Strong's Concordance 2583. Looks like the root was κανε Elizium23 (talk) 04:26, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

So we can pedantically qualify this as "original [ecclesiastical] meaning" after church guys picked it up and wrote it into the NT scripture [2 Cor 10, Gal 6], which ... became canon Elizium23 (talk) 04:27, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Sadly, I needed this explanation to understand the joke, because it didn't occur to me to use the word canon for something different. Applying it to fantasy feels heretic. 2.245.6.118 07:09, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

The title text seems to reference the Taoist concept of the uncarved block - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu_(Taoism) 70.124.160.162 (talk) 13:16, 2 October 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
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