Once upon a time
All the Lands were One
And all the Folk were Free
A nine hour theatrical epic written by Nathan Allen and Chris Mathews, The Hammer Trinity examines the nature story and politics and the American myth. Set in a “parallel proto-America” the three plays: The Iron Stag King, the Crownless King and the Excelsior King, follow the rise and rule of Casper Kent, the orphaned heir to the throne raised in obscurity and hunted by a number of unpleasnat, powerful persons who wish the royal bloodline extinguished and the country made “Crownless” (as for what kind of government ought to be set up in place, Casper’s enemies are an example of We ARE Struggling Together.)
Casper is called to his destiny along with a number of boon companions; Rienne Boilou a chess master and archer archetype, Wilke Forsbrand a stoic northern warrior, Hollow Thom Gadsten, a gunslinger with a tortured past, and Hap the Golden, a magical storyteller who has been crafting Caspers “story” since the murder of his parents. They are checked by another storyteller, Irik Obsidian a dragon (long story) and his human daughter July of the Seven Foxes.
In The Iron Stag King, Hap sends Casper on a quest to retrieve his birthright, a magic war hammer that can only be lifted by one of royal blood, hidden in a perpetually smoldering forest of horrors called Cinderwood. They are countered by Henley Hawthorn and his Crownless Army (acting on July’s orders). However after regaining the Hammer, Casper and his friends find that they’re is more to their triumphant story than they would wish.
In the Crownless King, Casper is suffering the Chains of Commanding in trying to rule unite a realm not nessarily asking for unity, and manage diplomatic deals that go against his sense of integrity.The rifts and fissures that threaten to split the companions apart are subsumed by an attack by the pirate captain Davy Boone and a more insidious story by Irek Obsidain.
In the Excelsior King, the country is plunged into brutal civil war and Casper and the hammer are lost. July, breaking from her father spins a new story to unite the broken heroes and settle the war once and for all. But the last of the Crownless, Kaylen Wayne has a story of his own to tell.
The show is noted for its examination of politics and its intricate puppet and model work (don’t forget one of the characters is a full seized dragon.)
Tropes found in all three plays
- A Nazi by Any Other Name:The genocidal Crownless warlord, Kaylan.
- Cold Equation: In each major battle of the three plays. The Rangers of the Vale have to draw the Crownless’ artillery fire so Casper can get to the hammer, Casper is forced to hand over Hollow to Lady Olympia to defeat Davy Boone, and Casper, Hap, and Irek fly to the Zenith airship, with all three knowing they will likely die. All three survive luckily.
- Big Bad: Irek for the first two plays.
- Boom, Headshot!: Hollow Thom’s preferred of offing enemies. Also used to dispatch Pepper, traitorous shipwright Patrick James and tragically, Wilke.
- Color Motif: In Hap’s story, Casper primarily wears gold, and Hap is a golden dragon. In Irek’s story, he wears black, again representing his color. In the final story, he wears a white outfit in the last battle, signifying his independence from their control.
- Cute Witch: July. Casper thinks so anyway.
- Deadpan Snarker: Hollow Thom, and Casper sometimes.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: All the Crownless were fond of Katheryn despite her being the royal queen. were horrified by being framed for her murder.
- Evil Sorcerer: How Hap and Irek appears in each others stories.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
- Havenston Pirates: New England Smugglers (complete with Boston accents.)
- Denizens of the Orchard and the Academy: French Canadians.
- Rangers of the Vale: the Wild West. (the Wastes are the seedier version of this.)
- The People of the Grass: Native Americans (specifically the Great Sioux Nation.)
- Vikings of the Glaze: The Yukon mixed with Scandinavia.
- Citizens of the Delta: the Southeastern US mixed with parts of 17th century England.
- Final Boss: Hawthorn, Davy and Kaylan for each of the three plays.
- The Final Solution: Shortly after the murder of Queen Kathryn rumor reached the Crownless that Casper was alive and hidden amongst his mother’s people in the land the Grass. Kaylen Wayne, seeking to extinguish the Royal line once and for all, created a band of Cradlesnakes and lead them to kill every infant child in the Grass, and their families, in what has become known as The Burn. He tries it again in the Excelsior King, to exterminate both Hap and Irek and everyone who has ever believed in their stories, i.e. everyone in the country.
- Forced Transformation: Hap much prefers to live as a human being and refuses point blank to transform back into a dragon. Circumstances get the better of him however.
- He Who Fights Monsters: All of the Crownless fall victim to this trope(although they are outright villains). Hawthorne himself is a self-serving, murderous,tyrannical kleptocrat who only wants to kill Casper, and will stop at nothing to do this, Davy Boone is essentially the leader of a terrorist group, and Kaylan killed hundreds of thousands of Grass children, leaving the Grass a cursed and haunted land. However, none of them, despite what Hap says, ordered the assassination of Queen Kathryn(he did).
- Legendary Weapon: The Hammer is an ancient weapon that can only be lifted by royalty.
- Love Triangle: Really more of a love Rhombus. Wilke and Rienne love each other, and Casper and July love each other. But Casper’s married to Rienne for the royal progeny, and Wilke’s duty bound to protect the royal couple, including adulterers. July is not so scrupulous.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The Hammer itself. It is the only thing capable of breaking the Great Bell, although Kaylan picks it up with no problem after wounding Casper.
- Opposed Mentors: Both Hap and Irek struggle to make Casper the hero of their stories, either to make him restore the monarchy and a united kingdom or renounce his crown stand as an example of liberty incarnate. It’s implied they’ve been doing this through various heroes for centuries, who all wielded the Hammer. It is also the reason Casper throws the hammer into a bottomless lake, so his unborn child would not be manipulated by either dragon.
- Really 700 Years Old: Anybody who classified as a “storyteller”, like Irek, Hap, and July.
- Token Good Teammate: Both Queen Kathryn and Gordon Pride, from the original government put in place by the Crownless.
- The Unfought: Pirate captain Davy Boone for Casper. He reluctantly kills Hawthorne in the Cinderwood and is nearly executed by Kaylan after fighting him.
The Iron Stag King contains examples of
- Bad Boss: Henly Hawthorn regularly stabs his men and then marches them off into a horror wood full of sadness fire.
- Cold Equation: Rienne’s plan for the final battle means placing Abraham Pride and his men at the mercy of the crown less artillery. They bear it, but with heavy losses.
- Curbstomp Battle: When a hammer-wielding Casper faces off with Hawthorn in the forest, he has suffered a mental breakdown and falls to Casper in no time.
- Driven to Suicide: Pepper, after he realizes that his terror vision forced him to shoot Casper.
- Face–Heel Turn: Pepper, after Cinderwood shows him a vision of Casper as a Tyrant.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: After Hawthorne sends his soldiers into the Cinderwood to kill Casper, he is forced to go in himself, where he goes insane and is easily vested by Casper.
- The Load: Pepper, again.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Ebon Kent, Casper’s adoptive father. Raises him to be honest and brave, and tries to keep him out of danger. Sadly no match for Henly Hawthorn,
- Twist Ending: Pepper kills Casper (he gets better), Casper discovers that Hap murdered his parents, and Irek planned the whole thing all along!
The Crownless King contains examples of
- Breather Episode: In between sea battles, and Casper meeting Irek face to face, we have a moment of a slightly deaf Abraham, filling in for Casper as regent, trying to understand the Royal Librarian explain copyright law and “imaginary property.”
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Davy Keelhauls any of his people who cross him and Rienne.
- Cold Equation: To fight Davy Boone Casper needs a navy. Lady Olympia and the surviving members of the Grass have a navy ready to offer. In exchange they ask for Casper’s friend and former Cradlesnake, Hollow Thom.
- Even Evil has Loved Ones: The Reason Davy Boone wears his terrifying mask? So his enemies won’t recognize his family and take revenge on them.
- Hand wave: How Casper ends up on shore with an impossibly heavy hammer after falling overboard. Also how he ends up right on Kaylen Wayne’s doorstep after breaking the bell. It is implied that the shockwaves sent him flying all the way there, and the Hammer itself is magic.
- Heroic BSoD: Casper, after Irek reveals the truth about the Cradlesnakes’ genocide and Hap’s betrayal.
- Meaningful Name: Casper is referred to by Irek as the Crownless King after they meet for the first time. When this happens, Casper loses his crown when he is knocked overboard.
- Prisoner Exchange: After capturing Rienne Davy Boone suggests a trade, the Queen for Hap.
- Undying Loyalty: Davy gives his crew the chance to leave before sailing into what is quite possibly a trap. Not one leaves his post. They all die under Hap’s magic and the cannon of the Ghost Fleet.
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Davy Boone and his pirates. Wilke also counts.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Davy Boone is an evil pirate to the people of the Grass and of the Academy, but is loved by all of the citizens of Havenston.
The Excelsior King contains examples of
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: The Final Battle comes complete with archers vs automatic guns, wooden ship vs. submersible and and planes vs. Dragons.
- Big Damn Heroes: Casper’s about to be gunned down by Kaylen’s masked goons, miles from help and without the hammer to protect him. One of the goons turns on the others revealing himself to be Hollow Thom.
- Crapsaccharine World: The underground city of Zenith. At first, Casper is amazed by the technology shown, like cars and planes. However, it is shown that Kaylan only rescued him from the Glaze to kill him.
- Driven to Suicide: Wilke, haunted by his failures, almost goes for the long swim in the great lake. Fortunately Rienne happens by and lambasts him out of it.
- Distant Finale: Spolors: July tells the story of how Casper ala Morte de Arthur, casts the Hammer into a bottomless lake where the dragons can’t make use of it.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Zenith, the secret city, Kaylen Wayne has built inside a mountain. In it he has pushed the envelope of technology far beyond the outside world which ranges from medieval to mid nineteenth century to something resembling America in the nineteen thirties complete with trains, gattling guns and aircraft.
- Enemy Mine: Both armies when Kaylan shows up. They decide that fighting each other isn’t worth it, and ally based on the fact that Casper is the only one capable of defeating Kaylan.
- Expy: Kaylan is one of Arthur Maxson from Fallout 4, in that he wears an armored trench coat during the final battle and overly relies on technology to win a battle.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Cradlesnakes are extremely similar to the Nazi SS.
- {{ Oh Crap}}: Both Casper and Hollow when Lady Olympia asks if they checked Kaylan’s pulse after he was shot. They realize he was wearing a bulletproof vest, and is not dead at all.
- Faceless Mooks: Each member of the Zenith army wears a red bandanna in combat.
- Hope Spot: The armies when the cannons of the Nemesis hit the Great Bell, signaling that Casper is back. However, the arrival of Kaylan’s airship shows that they are quite outmatched.
- Idiot Ball: Two major examples. First, Kaylan bringing Casper to Zenith, allowing him to escape and defeat him. Second, Hollow not shooting Kaylan in the head when he helps Casper escape Zenith.
- Knight Templar: Kaylan
- Not Quite Dead: When Kaylen is shot by Hollow, both he and Casper assume him dead, until it is revealed he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Later in the battle, Kaylan is about to kill Casper with the hammer until he is swallowed whole by Irek, who was last seen being shot down by a plane.
- Show Within a Show: Kaylen shows Casper the “true” story of his life by hiring a bunch of actors to write a show in metrical rhyme. They use, poorly, the same conventions of the rest of the show including “theatrical ribbon blood” and a habit of going “boom” every time the hammer is set down. He is shocked at seeing this.
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