I found Hank’s journey through Arthurian England as an analogy for how people go through the world. Like the Romans said “Veni, vidi, vici” he went, he saw, he became the boss, tried to takedown the church, then killed twenty- five thousand english knights with electric fences and gatling guns. No matter where people go they never seem to want it to stay the same as before they journeyed there, they always want to leave a mark, so make a change. They cause the natural to become unnatural just as Hank turned sixth century England into the industrial revolution that occurred 1300 years later. He could not sit be and enjoy a world he would have never been able to experience otherwise, he had to create advertising for the knights without a purpose, training schools for a navy that didn’t exist and altogether destroy the flow of time that existed without him. Imagine the incredible story that Twain could have told if people were beings of intrigue, adventure and had the ability to let the time move without them leading it. It could have been a fantastic adventure about a guy stuck in the constantly changing and advancing world of the industrial revolution who gets brought back to King Arthur’s time and just goes along with the world. He might save some pigs who happen to have crowns from evil pig farmers, he could be a peasant in the street who bows as the king walks by, or he could have even been mind controlled by the church to preach their values to the others of the time. Too bad he just could not let time continue as intended.
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