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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: Difference between revisions

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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (view source)

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* [[Brick Joke]]: "Hello, Central."
* [[Clarke's Third Law]]: Hank uses this to his advantage, performing many "miracles" with his knowledge of science and engineering.
* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Hank, but also the knights -- Hankknights—Hank notes when he's charged by three knights simultaneously that there's none of this chivalrous one-against-one stuff.
* [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]]:
** 52 boys with <s>modern</s> 19th-century technology vs. 30,000 knights. Guess who wins...
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* [[Handwaved]]: There's no explanation for how Hank got to Camelot in the first place. Similarly, {{spoiler|the paradoxical implications of existing in two places at once while he sleeps for 13 centuries}} are also never addressed. There's a reference to "transmigration of souls" but that doesn't explain how Hank's body (and clothes) change centuries either.
* [[Hand Cannon]]: It's interesting that no-one refers to Hank's revolvers as this. However, the Colt Dragoon was one of the most powerful handguns of its day.
* [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters]]: The thesis of the book seems to be that it's not the time period, the society, or the level of technology and infrastructure that make people do evil things, it's just basic human nature. This being a Twain book, however, there a few stubborn kernels of optimism that refuse to be stamped out in the book. Whether this is a straight example of this trope or a subversion depends on the reader's interpretation.
* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: On first meeting Clarence the page, Hank comments that he's no more than a paragraph.
* [[Jerkass]]: Medieval society is arranged to specifically encourage and reward this sort of behavior on the part of the nobility and clergy. It is, in effect, the Empire of the Jerkass.
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* [[Knight Errant]]: Hank reluctantly becomes one, and the knights of the round table also qualify.
* [[Lawful Stupid]]: The denizens of Camelot always put the rules before good sense or basic human compassion.
* [[The Munchausen]]: All the Knights of the Round Table -- noTable—no-one ever questions another knights' tale of adventure, no matter how ridiculous.
* [[Medieval Morons]]: At least, in Hank's eyes. There's also that situation with Sandy and the pigs...
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The story starts as an amusing fish-out-of-water story and a satire of Arthurian legend, but by the end it's a rather grim lampoon of modern England and America that saddles us with a real downer ending.
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* [[Snipe Hunt]]: Averted. Everyone but the Yankee actually expects the harebrained quest they send him on to turn out to be genuine.
* [[Spanner in the Works]]: Discussed. "The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't know the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him."
* [[Stable Time Loop]]: Though averted in one animated adaptation -- Theadaptation—The hero wakes up in the present-day hospital and immediately goes to an encyclopedia to look up King Arthur...and bursts out laughing when he finds a picture of [[My Horse Is a Motorbike|the king straddling a motorcycle]].
* [[Stranded with Edison]]: Hank is impressively knowledgable about the details of 19th-century technology, even leaving aside the part where he's apparently memorized a 6th-century almanac.
* [[Tear Jerker]]: Frequently, particularly when the Yankee takes the King out incognito to see what peasant life is really like.
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