History Literature / AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt

* FlatEarthAtheist: For a man who wakes up centuries in the past, Hank is surprisingly reluctant to believe that maybe magic exists.

* StableTimeLoop: Though averted in one animated adaptation -- 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 [[MyHorseIsAMotorbike the king straddling a motorcycle]].

* ArtMajorPhysics: upon contact with the electric fence, the Knights armour should have acted as a sort of Faraday cage, safely earthing the fences current without harming the warrior within. If the plates didn't allow the fence to conduct all the way to the ground, the many insulating (read: leather) parts of the armour (in particular the boots) would have protected the Knight anyway.

* AffablyEvil: When Boss met Morgana, at first he could not belive this charming woman to be a psychopathic serial murderer.

* YeOldeButcheredEnglishe: Sandy speaks like this. Amusingly, ''she'' has difficulty understanding 19th-century English, and says as much-in her own semi-comprehensible tongue.

* YeOldeButcheredEnghlishe: Sandy speaks like this. Amusingly, ''she'' has difficulty understanding 19th-century English, and says as much-in her own semi-comprehensible tongue.

* EvilSorcerer: Averted. Merlin isn't really evil, he's just a JerkAss.

* {{Polymath}}: In the beginning of the novel, Hank mentions his skills and knowledge in medicine, multiple disciplines of engineering, and experience of running weapon factory with staff of two thousands violent cutthroaths.

* TheResenter: Merlin, after Hank out-magics him. Of course he brought it on himself by trying to kill Hank just from looking at him from first sight.
* RevolversAreJustBetter: Justified, Revolvers where the only handguns in Hank's native time and Hank is the only gunslinger in a world full of sword-wielding knights.

* StableTimeLoop: Though averted in one animated adaptation -- 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 [[MyHorseIsAMotorbike the king straddling a motorcycle]].

* AntiHero

* CorruptChurch: Hank views the Roman Catholic Church this way and he is proven right when the Church suppresses all his technology near the end of the story.
* CrapsackWorld

* {{Deconstruction}}: of Arthurian legends.

* FishOutOfTemporalWater

* GatlingGood

* TheHeroDies

* KingArthur

* TimeTravel
* TheTourney: He uses a lasso.
* TrappedInThePast: Hank Morgan

* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Sir Lancelot and 500 knights on bicycles turn up just in time to stop Hank and the King from being hanged. Hank's assistant admits he was deliberately waiting until the last minute in order to make the most dramatic entrance.]]
* ButtMonkey: Merlin, the ultimate exemplar of human ignorance and superstition, a con man who believes his own con. [[spoiler: Merlin does get the last laugh on the Yankee though, and, inexplicably, his final spell appears to work.]]

** 52 boys with [[strike:modern]] 19th-century technology vs. 30,000 knights. Guess who wins...
** Earlier in the story, Hank takes on 500 knights with just a pair of revolvers [[spoiler: and wins.]] To clarify, [[spoiler:it wasn't GunFu. After Morgan killed 9 of them in less than a minute, the Knights decided it wasn't worth it. Good thing, because Morgan was [[BatmanGambit counting on them giving up before he ran out of ammo.]]]]

* CorruptChurch: Hank views the Roman Catholic Church this way and he is proven right when [[spoiler: the Church suppresses all his technology near the end of the story.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Arthur has died, his kingdom fallen, and the reactionary forces of chivalry are rallying to exterminate our remaining heroes. Hank manages to survive by sleeping back to his natural time, but all his works are undone and he never sees his wife, daughter, or any of his friends again.]]

* GodGuise: A late 19th-century American is sent back in time to the Dark Ages and becomes an important member of King Arthur's court, using his advanced scientific and political knowledge to greatly improve the quality of life of the kingdom, while also discrediting Merlin (revealed to be a fraud) with his own advanced technology and intelligence that makes him look like a true Sorcerer. In the end, [[spoiler: he's kicked out of the kingdom and he and a small number of his allies make a defensive position with a dozen [[GatlingGood Gatling guns,]] dynamite, and electrical wiring that allows them to defeat 30,000 of England's soldiers.]]

* {{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.

* [[spoiler:TheHeroDies]]

* NoEndorHolocaust: Averted. After the final battle in which tens of thousands of knights are killed, Morgan's hand-picked band start getting ill from all the decomposing bodies. [[spoiler:It's implied that these people died because Morgan was the only one who could have negotiated a truce, enabling them to escape the cave they were in.]]

* RedBaron:: Hank Morgan's title is "The Boss"
* RealAfterAll: After being systematically defeated and shown to be a fraud for the entire book, [[spoiler: Merlin uses his magic to send Hank home.]]

* RockBeatsLaser - {{Subverted}}: During a joust Merlin steals Morgan's lasso which he's been using to rope one knight after another. Everyone thinks The Boss is finished... only for him to draw a [[HandCannon Colt Dragoon]] and gun down his charging opponent. Morgan then challenges anyone who thinks he didn't fight fair to attack him then and there -- and has an OhCrap moment when several hundred knights charge him at once. Fortunately they break and run before he runs out of bullets.

* TheWorldIsNotReady: [[spoiler: Hank does try his best to modernize the medieval era, but it's obvious too many of the locals are too entrenched in their old ways to accept the change. This leads to the fall of the kingdom and a full blown war.]]

* DumbassHasAPoint: When incredibly dumb Sandy stops Morgana from executing the mother of the boy Morgana has meaninglessly killed before. Also an unique MomentOfAwesome for her.

* Polymath: In the beginning of the novel, Hank mentions his skills and knowledge in medicine, multiple disciplines of engineering, and experience of running weapon factory with staff of two thousands violent cutthroaths.

* BadassNickname: Hank Morgan's title is "The Boss"

* [[NeverBringAKnifeToAFistfight Never Bring A Sword to A Gunfight]]: [[spoiler:During a joust Merlin steals Morgan's lasso which he's been using to rope one knight after another. Everyone thinks The Boss is finished...only for him to draw a [[HandCannon Colt Dragoon]] and gun down his charging opponent. Morgan then challenges anyone who thinks he didn't fight fair to attack him then and there -- and has an OhCrap moment when several hundred knights charge him at once. Fortunately they break and run before he runs out of bullets.]]

* TheCoconutEffect: This story originates several ArmorIsUseless subtropes, Twain plays up how incredibly cumbersome armor is to the point that Knights can barely move in their mobile shells and can't hit anything that isn't similarly slow with their massive swords. Despite this being entirely a gag for physical comedy, the idea of unbelievably heavy armor and weapons remains solidly ingrained in the public mind, and influenced such things as TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons equipment having extremely unrealistic weights.

* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Sir Lancelot and 500 knights on bicycles turn up just in time to stop Hank and the King from being hung. Hank's assistant admits he was deliberately waiting until the last minute in order to make the most dramatic entrance.]]

The novel is both a satire and a seminal work of time travel science fiction. The story has been adapted many times for film, television, and other forms of media. Surprisingly enough, given the book's popularity, most literary critics rank ''Connecticut Yankee'' among the worst of Twain's written works. Although, that's like saying ''{{Macbeth}}'' is the worst of Shakespeare's tragedies.

* TheResenter: Merlin, after Hank out-magics him.

The novel is both a satire and a seminal work of time travel science fiction. The story has been adapted many times for film, television, and other forms of media. Surprisingly enough, given the book's popularity, most literary critics rank ''Connecticut Yankee'' among the worst of Twain's written works.

* TheCoconutEffect: This story originates several ArmorIsUseless subtropes, Twain plays up how incredibly cumbersome armor is to the point that Knights can barely move in their mobile shells and can't hit anything that isn't similarly slow with their massive swords. Despite this being entirely a gag for physical comedy, the idea of unbelievably heavy armor and weapons remains solidly ingrained in the public mind, and influenced such things as DungeonsAndDragons equipment having extremely unrealistic weights.

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* AllJustADream: Possibly; we only have TheNarrator's word that he wasn't just hit on the head too hard.