The eye saw one name.
The machine received two.
Form A code points: U+0043 U+0068 U+00E2 U+0074 U+0065 U+006C U+0069 U+0065 U+0072. UTF-8: 43 68 C3 A2 74 65 6C 69 65 72. SHA-256: 2880a3219fc7824872b7b80404d25bbc02813b9de31660d278c28aec17911205.
Form B code points: U+0043 U+0068 U+0061 U+0302 U+0074 U+0065 U+006C U+0069 U+0065 U+0072. UTF-8: 43 68 61 CC 82 74 65 6C 69 65 72. SHA-256: 0c713b2586adc1918e3687cc97f8b17250107afa2f3d0e620efdf49eaa7a44e4.
NFC(Form B) code points: U+0043 U+0068 U+00E2 U+0074 U+0065 U+006C U+0069 U+0065 U+0072. UTF-8: 43 68 C3 A2 74 65 6C 69 65 72. SHA-256: 2880a3219fc7824872b7b80404d25bbc02813b9de31660d278c28aec17911205.
Canonical object SHA-256: 8a1c03168797b870637ef7190c87bdb36bad7d3e21fbc9f52e7d1e17632e0885.
“Canonical Form” begins with two Unicode strings that render as the same name.
One contains the precomposed character U+00E2; the other contains
U+0061 followed by the combining circumflex U+0302.
Their appearances agree while their sequences, UTF-8 bytes, and hashes do not.
Normalization changes no visible glyph. It changes the conditions under which the two inscriptions may be treated as one. The canonical object, overlaid DOM inscriptions, metadata, normalization rule, and proof line are linked witnesses of that invisible agreement.