Jim is on trial for his crimes of opening the Killahead bridge and allowing Gunmar free, with a death sentence on the line, it's up for the others to find some way to prove Jim's innocence.
Tropes:
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: When Claire tries doing the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine to get RotGuts to tell them about a suspected changeling, Blinky misreads the signals and thinks that he is playing bad cop and proceeds to threaten them with a live dwärkstone.
- Bottle Episode: The episode's setting takes place solely in Heartstone Trollmarket.
- Courtroom Episode
- Destroy the Evidence: Blinky accidentally reduces Krax to dust with the dwärkstone he was threatening him with, thus losing the only shred of evidence they had in Jim's defense.
- Didn't Think This Through: Blinky resorts to threatening people with dwärkstone to get them to talk, even though in both cases he doesn't actually know what to do with an activated stone afterwards, causing property damage in one case, and killing the witness in the second.
- Downer Ending: With Vendel dead (courtesy of Usurna, who is revealed to be Gunmar's agent) and unable to clear Jim's name, Jim is found guilty and sentenced to death in The Deep.
- Eldritch Location: The Deep is a mysterious cavern in Trollmarket devoid of all light where no troll ever escapes. When Jim is banished there, he has to battle an apparition that takes the form of a troll-version of Jim wearing the Eclipse armor. This is never explained, nor is it brought up after Jim escapes.
- Failed a Spot Check: No one ever brings up that Jim has unlocked the Eclipse Armor, which is mentioned to be the only weapon capable of killing Gunmar. If Jim was sentenced to death, the trolls would have no way of stopping Gunmar. Justified since Usurna actually works for Gunmar and knows how much of a threat Jim is.
- Kangaroo Court: The trial is clearly stacked against Jim, which makes perfect sense when it's revealed Queen Usurna is an agent of Gunmar.
- Killed Off for Real: When Vendal attempts to confront Usurna about there being a spy in Trollmarket, she reveals herself to be one and poisons him with Creeper's Sun, and shatters him, removing the possibility of saving him with the antidote.
- Loony Laws: The troll justice system works very differently than that of humans, so even if the trial wasn't just a front, Toby would have had no chance defending Jim anyways.
- Only those of the same tribe as the defendant can act as defense to the accused, so only either Claire or Toby could defend Jim (though Aaarrrgghh!!! could be Toby's co-counsel).
- Instead of a judge or jury, the Tribunal act as such. Whether this applies to all trials or that of high importance like the trial of the Trollhunter is unclear.
- Juror misconduct via a bias by association would get a juror removed from the jury in a human court. In the case of troll trials however (such as Gatto having a personal vendetta against Jim and Toby through their history yet having say on his fate), this is not considered a thing.
- The jury (which in this case is the tribunal) throws rocks at the defendant. The first to land a hit gets to be heard first.
- The accused cannot testify for himself. Jim only got away with it because Vendel allowed it.
- Mad Bomber: Twice in this episode Blinky uses a dwärkstone, and both times it ends poorly.
- Mirror Boss: In the Deep, Jim encounters a troll-version of himself wearing the Eclipse Armor. What this means is left to interpretation.
- Not Helping Your Case:
- Toby's second gambit in the trial is to make Jim look even more guilty in a Zero-Approval Gambit that apparently worked in Mistrial and Error multiple times.
- Toby brings NotEnrique as a witness. When he gets to speak, it at first goes well, but he ends up admitting that Jim's heroics are responsible for Gunmar's escape by proxy of his friends staging his rescue.
- The Jim testifies for himself, he ends up saying that even when his decisions have landed him in so much trouble, he would do it all over again with no regrets. The tribunal latches onto this as an admission.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Usurna admits that she thinks that Jim’s actions are an affront to troll law for the sole reason that he is a human.
- The Reveal: Queen Usurna knows so much about Jim's activities because she's an agent of Gunmar trying to get rid of Jim.
- Revealing Cover-Up: The gang is able to track down the probable spy by the fact that he's bought every single gaggletack in Trollmarket. Exposing him as a changeling spy is also made very easy as he's simply kept all those gaggletacks handy in his place instead of destroying them.
- Shout-Out: Jim's encounter with the troll-version of Jim bares a shallow resemblance to Luke's encounter with the Darth Vader apparition in The Empire Strikes Back.
- Taught by Television: Everything Toby learned about law he learned by watching the Law Procedural-drama television franchise Mistrial and Error. It works out as well as you think it does.
- Tempting Fate: Vendel seems really on board with using Blinky’s circumstantial evidence that could turn the tide of Jim’s ruling. Hope nothing horrible happens so that the evidence does not reach the tribunal in time. Wink, wink.
