Adventure Time Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Adventure Time Wiki
This article is about the book. You may be looking for the episode or the real-life book.

The Enchiridion (which translates to "The Handbook" or "The Manual") was an ancient book with codes of conduct, guidelines, and other helpful information for heroes. The book had great power which allowed it to tear open portals between dimensions in the multiverse. It was destroyed after turning to stone by Finn in order to stop the Lich from gaining access to the multiverse, but, as it turned out, by doing this Finn made the portal to the multiverse.

Later on, an alternate version of the Enchiridion was used by an alternate Finn and Lich in an attempt to build a portal to the multiverse, but the latter's machinations were thwarted by the main timeline Finn and Jake.

It was then revealed in that while Finn and Jake were in the Farmworld Dimension, Finn had brought the Enchiridion from that timeline back with him.

Background[]

Jerry screenshot flashback simon betty car photo

Simon Petrikov with the Enchiridion

The book was discovered by archaeologist Simon Petrikov (Ice King) and his future fiance Betty Grof sometime before the Mushroom War in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Pakistan,[2] as revealed in a newspaper clipping in "I Remember You". Betty's role helping him locate it however was never revealed to the public as she wanted him to be the one with the sole credit of finding it so he would no longer be looked down upon by the rest of the scientific community. After he found it, he presented it to a museum. After the war, the Hero's guide somehow ended up in the hands of Key-per at Mount Cragdor, guarded by Mannish Man the Minotaur.

Episode roles[]

It first appeared in the episode "The Enchiridion!" in which Finn passes a series of trials to obtain it.

Finn kept the Enchiridion, and it subsequently appeared in the episode "Evicted!," when he threw it at a worm on his bed. The book makes another notable appearance in "Another Way" in which Finn reads about magical Cyclops tears while the Clown Nurses are healing his broken foot. Its next appearance was in "In Your Footsteps." Finn used it to knock the food out of the Bear when he was choking. Later, Finn gives it to the Bear so he can learn to be a hero, but it is soon revealed that the reason the Bear took the book was to give it to the Snail - who was being possessed by The Lich.

In the episode "The Lich" the book is shown to have intense magical properties, allowing a user to be able to have access to all of the multiverse's many dimensions. This is done by turning the sword on the front of the book to the right and inserting the nine gems of power into their appropriate slots. It was later destroyed by Finn by having it bashed against his knee. It opened the portal as soon as it was broken.

In "Bad Little Boy," Doctor Prince stole the Enchiridion and tossed it back to Fionna. However, it was actually a bomb disguised as a book. Ice King then stole the real book and gave it back to Fionna. Although, this is merely part of Ice King’s fan-fiction, and isn’t in the actual continuity.

In "Crossover," Farmworld Finn and Farmworld Jake (Possessed with The Lich's spirit) used the Farmworld's Enchiridion to build a portal to the Multiverse. Due to the possibility of destruction to other dimensions, Prismo sent Finn and Jake to Farmworld to stop them.

In "Winter Light" Betty Grof needed the Enchiridion to fix the Land of Ooo from the four elements. In order to do this the gems from the 3 elemental princess' crowns need to be inserted into the book. Jake said that the book was destroyed but Finn revealed that during the events of "Crossover" he brought the Farmworld's Enchiridion back with him to their timeline.

Throughout the Elements miniseries, Betty Grof uses the spells in the book in order to fix Ooo.

In "Skyhooks II" when Betty gained all the gems from Finn, she got too carried away. She wanted to use the book to go back in time and prevent Simon from becoming Ice King and possibly even stop the Mushroom War. The plan goes wrong, but Finn later obtains the book, and with the help of Ice King's crown and Lumpy Space Princess' anti-elemental lumps, the Land of Ooo turns back to normal.

Episode appearances[]

Major appearances[]

Minor appearances[]

Appearance[]

Main Timeline[]

The Enchiridion is a dusty, faded, old book. It is in bad condition, with pages, bookmarks, and tabs sticking out of it. There is a bird, a skull, some grapes, and a sword in the center of the cover. Around the center is a ring of six gems. There are also two shields at the bottom and the word "Enchiridion" on the top front. Binding the book's corners are metal caps. On the back 8.13.21 is written. (This is part of the Fibonacci sequence, where each new number is calculated by adding the two numbers preceding it.)

The middle of the book contains nine slots that can be filled with gems. To access the middle of the book one must twist the sword to the right. When gems are placed in the correct order, lights shine through the gems on the cover and the book vibrates wildly. The skull starts chanting and then explodes. During which the grapes wither the leaf falls and the bird flies away. The sword starts to slice the book in half down the middle. Once done slicing, the blade moves into the groove where a black substance emerges from it causing the whole book to turn into a dark brown stone.

Farmworld Timeline[]

The Enchiridion in the Farmworld that appeared in "Crossover" appears differently than the previous one. In the center of the cover has a sun and a moon on opposite sides of a diamond, with images of the nine gems needed to activate it, across the top half. In the middle is a right hand, with a skull by the left and a pear by the right, below it are a scythe and the teeth of a key. When opened the nine gems fit in a pattern similar to the other one.

Nine gems[]

S4 E26 gems completed

The 8 secondary gems surrounding the central gem from Bubblegum's crown.

The nine gems along with their owners are shown here (not in the order they must be inserted):

  1. light blue sphere from Princess Bubblegum's crown (middle)
  2. red gem (central hexagon) from Ice King's crown (top, 12 o'clock position)
  3. pink/red sphere from Embryo Princess or Hot Dog Princess' crown (possibly the bottom, 6 o'clock position)
  4. dark green emerald from Emerald Princess' crown (bottom-left, 7-thirty position)
  5. turquoise sphere from Engagement Ring Princess' crown (right, 9 o'clock position)

Four others, owners not depicted in "The Lich."

  1. yellow sphere (right, 3 o'clock position)
  2. purple oval (lower-right, 4-thirty position)
  3. dark blue sphere (upper-right, 1-thirty position)
  4. light green sphere (upper-right, 10-thirty position)

Note: the yellow star from Lumpy Space Princess's head was tried, but did not work.

Function[]

Main Timeline[]

The Enchiridion is, as stated above the heroes guide, indicating it is used to advise heroes in their journeys. The book contains chapters, each relating to a different subject like "How to Kiss a Princess." The Enchiridion also contains the ability to create an artificial passage into different dimensions explained in the episode "The Lich." To activate this portal one must turn the sword on the cover to the right, which opens a hidden compartment where the gems of power need to be put. Placing all the gems in their correct positions, will cause:

  • The skull to chant, and explode
  • The grapes to wither and fall
  • The dove to fly away
  • The sword will cut down around the vertical middle of the book

After the sword completely cuts the middle of The Enchiridion into a loop, a black substance will ooze from the crevice, and turn The Enchiridion to a brown stone. Upon breaking the stone, the portal to the other known universes and dimensions will open.

After the Enchiridion was turned into the stone and broken by Finn, it was presumably destroyed, and has not been seen in Finn and Jake's world, but it was shown in "Bad Little Boy" when it appears in Ice King's fantasy.

Farmworld Timeline[]

The Farmworld version of the Enchiridion operates differently than its main timeline version when opening a multiverse portal. After placing the gems into position, the book hovers in the air, front facing down, and fires an orange laser in a circular motion into a pool of green fluid (possibly the Farmworld Lich's Well of Power) before bathing the pool in an orange glow that shows the network of universes. When Jake knocks the Lich-possessed Farmworld Jake's hand into the portal pool, it divides across all of the universes shown in the projection.

In episode chapters[]

Chapter four[]

Chapter Four is titled "Didactic Padding That The Hero Should Duly Ignore" as seen in The Adventure Time Encyclopædia. Part of chapter four can also be seen. It reads:

Brave hero, let your sword be sheathed, for though it be your best and most trusty tool, it cannot help you when traversing the treacherous terrain upon which you now embark. A great warrior must scale the highest towers, maim the wicked, and throttle agile demons, but these challenges alone make not a...

Chapter five[]

Enchiridion

Chapter Five

Chapter five is titled "How to Kiss a Princess," which Finn found very useful and embarrassing, considering he blushed as he read it. He glimpses it when he first opens the book. It reads:

Kissing a princess is different than kissing your grandmother or your mother. Very different. A peck on the cheek is not going to cut it. Nothing but lip-on-lip action will suffice with a true princess. It's best to first practice on a lip monster, but proceed with caution because, as everyone knows, a lip monster can easily kiss the untrained hero to death!

Chapter nine[]

Chapter nine appears to end in a short story. What can be read clearly is:

"..rock-and-roll dreams will come true," the young man told the scribe. "The music is your master, you hear it calling you," the boy giggled, rubbed his hat and...n into the night. He never...ited him again. The satchel he left behind cried with a giant voice everytime it was opened. It freaked the scribe out, he never had a sword that...erfully underneath his...or. Upon extended use,... montages tend to make him filled with nausea. ...everyone in the whip...meadow kept it on...whoever thinks its...scales tend to...ing it up with...our family...even...

Chapter ten[]

Cyclops page

Chapter Ten, full background image

Finn reads chapter ten, The Cyclops, in "Another Way." "Deep in the Forest of Trees, there's a cyclops whose magical tears can heal any wound." Part of the chapter can also be read:

What Cyclopses lack in depth perception, they make up for in being really tall and crying a lot. They have pretty bad emotional problems. Cyclops, if you are reading this: get over it. We all have problems (see appendix B.) but you don't hear us complaining about it. Cyclopses have magic teardrops that possess mystic healing abilities. They are made of a combination of echinacea, chicken soup, toad potion, apple juice, celery soda, ginseng, rocks, and marshmallow mold. They live in forests, mountains, or hills.


Unknown chapter[]

S4e26 Snail silhouetted against Enchiridion

This chapter appears in Finn's dream in "The Lich." Two of the pages appear before the snail turns into the Lich.

Super Secret Scrapbook[]

Chapter One And More[]

Trivia[]

  • In reality, the Enchiridion, or the Manual of Epictetus, is a book written around 125 A.D. by Arrian of Nicomedia. Arrian was a pupil of Epictetus, a famous Greek Stoic philosopher, and wrote down much of his advice and teachings. Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its system of logic and views on the natural world.
  • In chapter four, the word "treacherous" is spelled incorrectly, leaving out the "a."
  • On the back of the book there are three numbers from the Fibonacci sequence: 8, 13, and 21.
Enchiridion Elvish
  • The line, "The music is your master, you hear it calling you" from chapter 9 resembles a line from the Led Zeppelin song Houses of the Holy that says, "Let the music be your master. Will you heed the master's call?"
  • The line, ". . . Rock and roll dreams will come true!" from chapter nine resembles, or could be a reference to, lyrics from the Meat Loaf song, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through."
  • The lines "..rock-and-roll dreams will come true," and "The music is your master, you hear it calling you," closely resembles the chorus of the parody song "Rock 'n' Roll Dreams'll Come Through" from the sketch "The Gas Station Dogs" on Scharpling & Wurster's 2004 comedy CD "New Hope For the Ape Eared." The song was originally performed on the popular radio show "The Best Show on WFMU" in 2002. You can hear Ted Leo's cover of the song (with lyric video) here.
  • In the episode, "In Your Footsteps," Finn reveals he often uses the book as a seat when the grass is wet.
  • A SteelBook case, designed to look like the Enchiridion, came with the collector's edition of the game Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd you steal our garbage?!!.
  • On the bottom left corner of the Enchiridion book, a different form of writing is present. It resembles the Elvish form of writing from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
  • In Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?!!, The Enchiridion is a usable item.
  • In the episode "Evicted!," Finn threw the Enchiridion at a worm to knock it off his bed.
  • The plural of cyclops is "Cyclopes" but is erroneously stated as "Cyclopses."
  • The Enchiridion contains knowledge of life after the Mushroom war, (such as the Cyclops being located in the exact forest it was found) yet it was discovered before the war by the Ice King. This may give information that the Enchiridion has powers beyond time, or the very past was the same as it is after the Mushroom war, or pages are added onto the book by new Heroes.
  • The Enchiridion has the numbers 8, 13 and 21 written on the back. As stated previously, these three numbers follow the Fibonacci sequence. The word "enchiridion" is a Latin term meaning "handbook." This could link to the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. Page 8 of the Player's Handbook is the Abilities section; Page 13 is the Race and Languages Section, which discusses specifically Human Racial Traits; Page 21 is The Classes section. These three sections are needed to make a character in D&D v3.5. The show's creator, Pendleton Ward, has stated that he was inspired by D&D when creating the show.[3]
  • The Enchiridion resembles the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition Players Handbook, including the sword and gemstones affixed to the front of it.
  • Subtracting all the tremendous power, the Enchiridion is remarkably similar to The Dangerous Book for Boys, a guidebook published in the United Kingdom in 2006 (2007 in the United States) aimed specifically at boys aged 8-80 and covers at least 80 subjects worth of survival tips, life hacks, and captivating anecdotes which has sold at least half a million copies.
  • In the episode "In Your Footsteps," Finn states that he and Jake only use it for "sitting on ... when the grass is wet and stuff," a misuse of the ancient text. Billy (The Lich) states that the book holds great power; at this Finn blushes, because he knows he has misused The Enchiridion, and then carelessly gave it to the bear.

Gallery[]

See also[]

Enchiridion (disambiguation)

References[]

  1. Adventure Time: The Enchiridion & Marcy's Super Secret Scrapbook
  2. From newspaper clipping: "[Simon] is back from his latest expedition in the Hindu Kush or wherever."
  3. http://youtu.be/4xiLC6PV6CY
Advertisement