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SCP-701 - The Hanged King's Tragedy (SCP Animation) - YouTube
Channel: SCP Explained - Story & Animation
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Youâve finally done it!
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After years of adding movies and shows to
your queues, youâve officially run out of
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things to watch on Netflix.
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Youâve also exhausted your entire backlog
of books and youâve even run out of cereal
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boxes to read, so youâre left roaming the
streets in search of entertainment.
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Thatâs when you see a worn-looking flier
stapled to a nearby telephone pole.
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Itâs an ad for a local community theater
production of a play youâve never heard
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of.
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A play called âThe Hanged Kingâs Tragedy.â
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Normally, you wouldnât think of yourself
as much of a theater person, but something
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about the art on the poster grabs you.
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Thereâs a strange figure on the poster.
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Its face shrouded, its body wrapped in a web
of chains.
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Your curiosity gets the better of you and
you check the performance date.
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To your pleasant surprise, opening night is
a week from now, and you donât have anything
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planned.
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Youâve made up your mind.
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Youâre going to attend a live performance
of The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy.
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Itâs going to be the first live play youâve
ever seen.
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And little do you know, it may also be the
last.
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Because The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy isnât
just any old play - itâs a powerful and
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deadly memetic hazard that may be one of the
gateways to an even more dangerous being.
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Itâs known to the SCP Foundation as SCP-701,
so take your seats, be sure to read your programs
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thoroughly, and prepare for the dark and terrifying
tale of The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy, and the
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wave of death and destruction it causes in
its theatrical wake.
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But how could you know any of this?
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While you head home to make dinner, looking
forward to seeing the new play next week,
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the local thespians are hard at work performing
dress rehearsals.
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The director, one Marcus Fitch, happened upon
a copy of the play while looking for Carolinian
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theater thatâs a little more family friendly
than some of Shakespeareâs classics.
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When heâd first discovered The Hanged Kingâs
Tragedy on a theatrical forum, it was described
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as being similar to Shakespeareâs Hamlet
and Titus Andronicus - but the violence was
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largely offstage and implied, with a lot of
the playâs nastier elements glossed over.
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Perfect for audiences of all ages!
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Given the fact that performances of The Hanged
Kingâs Tragedy tend to be mass-casualty
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events - for reasons youâll soon see - The
Foundation does everything they can to control
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the spread of the playâs script.
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All copies are kept in a triple-locked vault
in a secure Foundation archive, which currently
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includes two copies of the original publication
that are dated to the year 1640, twenty-seven
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copies of the 1965 trade paperback edition,
ten copies of a 1971 hardcover printing, twenty-one
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floppy diskettes containing the play script,
and one S-VHS video cassette tape containing
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a live taping of one particularly infamous
incident.
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However, this seemingly does little to prevent
new performances of The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy
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from occurring.
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The text of the play continually pops up online,
often under different or misspelled titles,
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preventing Foundation web crawlers from keeping
track of them all.
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Nevertheless, the Foundation does everything
in its power to detect and stop performances
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before they can go ahead.
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The danger of putting on or even viewing a
performance of The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy
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cannot be overstated - itâs believed that,
in the almost 300 years since its original
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publication, itâs claimed 10,000 lives through
performances at the very least.
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And if youâre in attendance, dying quickly
is one of the better outcomes.
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The origins of this memetic virus are just
as mysterious as the power that seems to drive
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its effects.
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The play never has a declared author, and
the publisher - one William Cooke - disappeared
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from all historical records after the playâs
publication.
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Performances have been varied over the 300
years the play has been active - itâs been
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spotted everywhere from British University
drama troupes to American high school plays.
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In what could have been an even more disastrous
tragedy, a television adaptation of the play
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was almost broadcast by the BBC, before the
Foundation stepped in and put a stop to it.
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While its containment classification is currently
Euclid, scientists who have studied the play
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have campaigned strongly to upgrade The Hanged
Kingâs Tragedy to Keter-Class - on account
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of its unpredictability and tendency to manifest
across the globe with incidences appearing
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decades apart.
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While members of the O5 Council are skeptical,
some researchers even believe that if given
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a wide enough exposure, The Hanged Kingâs
Tragedy could cause a dreaded XK-Class End
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of the World Scenario.
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Itâs that dangerous.
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At this point youâre probably wondering
âwhat exactly is The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy?
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Whatâs the play even about?â
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As the name suggests, the play is a tragedy,
and takes place over five acts during the
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Carolinian era, portraying the drama of the
royal court much like a number of plays from
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that time did.
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It takes place in the city of Serko, the capital
of the mysterious, fictional kingdom of Trinculo.
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The focal point of the play is the conflict
between Gonzalo, the illegitimate king of
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Trinculo, and Antonio, the true heir to the
throne.
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Before the start of the play, the previous
king of Trinculo, King Sforza, had been betrayed
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and murdered by Gonzalo.
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Gonzalo led Sforza into the woods, where he
and his men subdued the king, and hanged him
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from a nearby tree like a common criminal.
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Hence, The Hanged Kingâs Tragedy.
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However, Gonzalo is trying to keep his part
in the kingâs murder a secret to keep the
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throne for himself.
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But his guilt-stricken wife, Isabella, threatens
to spill the secret of Sforzaâs murder.
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While Antonio tries to uncover the truth of
what happened in the woods, Gonzalo - in true
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Shakespearean villain style - plots further
murders of his co-conspirators and loose ends
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to keep his dark secret safe.
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This is where the play gets a little gruesome:
One enemy, Gonzalo has killed and cooked into
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a stew.
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He then intends to use this stew to murder
his entire court with the help of an effective
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and undetectable poison he was given by the
mysterious Ambassador of Alagadda.
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Though youâll be pleased to know that this
tragedy has somewhat of a happy ending.
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In the end, Gonzalo is exposed and Antonio
claims his rightful place as King of Trinculo.
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Unlike his predecessor, Antonio decides to
show mercy, and Gonzalo is exiled to a monastery
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for life rather than being executed for his
murderous ways.
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The heroes are rewarded, the villains are
punished, and all the deserving parties live
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happily ever after.
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At face value, nothing seems off about the
play.
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If youâre familiar with other works of the
era, you might even find yourself getting
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bored while reading it.
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How can something this⊠normal, be the cursed
play that claimed so many thousands of lives?
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But the playâs unassuming nature only serves
to make it more dangerous.
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It doesnât appear that the memetic hazard
is caused by simply reading the play.
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Like all good theater, it only truly comes
to life onstage.
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And your local production of The Hanged Kingâs
Tragedy is no exception.
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As your communityâs amateur actors study
and rehearse the play, making sure to commit
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every scene, every line, every single word
to memory - they donât notice the little
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things that, to an outsider, might seem a
little...off.
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Occasionally, during group dress rehearsals,
actors will veer from the script.
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And weâre not talking about flubbed lines
or simple improvisation.
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No, actors will at times seem like theyâre
reading from a completely different script,
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and their fellow performers will respond in
kind.
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The play lulls you into a false sense of security
- stagehands, crew members, even the director,
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all believe theyâre performing the play
exactly as it was originally written.
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Ok so thatâs not so bad.
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A play that changes itself.
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But things are going to get worse from this
point.
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Much, much worse.
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But hey, why let a deadly anomaly ruin your
evening plans?
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Youâve been looking forward to seeing this
play all week.
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And you couldnât seem to get that figure
from the poster out of your mind: All-black,
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face shrouded, wrapped in chains.
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You have no idea that this entity is wanted
by the SCP Foundation, and that its designation
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is SCP-701-1.
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All you want is an unforgettable theater experience
- and youâll certainly get one.
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Itâs a packed house, not an empty seat in
sight.
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The house lights dim and the curtain opens.
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Act 1 is quite normal, with all the back-stabbing
and royal court intrigue youâd expect.You
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actually feel yourself getting a little bored.
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A big yawn escapes your mouth.
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Youâre thinking that maybe this was a big
mistake and you might sneak out between acts,
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when just then, you see it.
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In the final scene of Act 1 you see the shrouded
figure, lingering in the background against
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the curtains.
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He seems so still heâs almost like a shadow,
but as each act seems to run into the next,
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he becomes more prominent.
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The rest of the cast never acknowledges him,
as they deliver dramatic monologues, but heâs
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always there.
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Finally, the play reached Act 5 - the grand
banquet scene where it all comes to head.
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Gonzalo is preparing to poison his dinner
guests with his cannibal stew, while Antonio
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and his allies plot to reveal his terrible
crimes and dethrone him.
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You find yourself so gripped by the drama
of it all, you almost didnât notice that
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the shrouded figure of SCP-701-1 was standing
right among the actors now.
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While, unbeknownst to you, the actors have
been deviating from the scripted story this
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whole time, things are about to really take
a turn for the horrific.
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SCP-701-1, who is now known to the other performers
as âThe Hanged Kingâ, produces a blade
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from thin air and passes it to the actor playing
Gonzaloâs wife.
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The actors onstage suddenly become entranced
- they attack and restrain Gonzalo, and a
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noose drops down from somewhere above the
stage.
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The actors proceed to ritualistically hang
Gonzalo, before the actor playing his wife
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stabs him to death, all while chanting âBlood
for the Hanged King!â
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You should be horrified, but youâre not.
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You donât even feel like yourself anymore,
and youâre loving everything thatâs happening.
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Onstage, a series of other nooses fall from
above.
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Each actor grabs their own noose, and the
cast repeats âBlood for the Hanged King!â
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before sacrificing their lives to the shroud-wearing
monster.
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If the carnage stopped there, it would be
bad enough, but this play doesnât just drive
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its players to acts of violent insanity - it
pulls the audience in, too.
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Before you know it, youâre pulled into a
vicious brawl with your fellow theater-goers.
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Thereâs biting, clawing, punching.
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People hitting each other with chairs like
itâs a wrestling cage match.
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Itâs such a frenzy of random, senseless
violence that the building canât contain
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it anymore.
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You and anyone else who isnât dead already
spill out onto the streets, and start attacking
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everyone you can get your hands on.
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Itâs transformed from a pleasant night out
at the theater into a full-blown riot.
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Even the police, sent in to control the situation,
are overwhelmed.
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It isnât until the SCP Foundation sends
a number of Mobile Task Forces trained in
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advanced crowd control that the situation
finally begins to de-escalate.
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But you donât care.
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Even when large men in Foundation tactical
gear are holding your arms, you still try
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to bite and kick.
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The effects of the play normally wear off
after around twenty four hours, but until
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then the infected, including you, are just
rage-fueled monsters.
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In the end, it takes four adult men to properly
restrain you.
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Youâll feel the bruises from their night
sticks tomorrow, but now, all you feel is
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hate, and violence, and single-minded devotion
to something out there that you couldnât
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possibly comprehend.
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And the whole time youâre screaming one
thing, over and over again âBlood for the
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Hanged King!
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Blood for the Hanged King!â
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Now go watch âSCP - 610 - Zombie Plague
- The Flesh That Hatesâ and âSCP - 3999
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- I Am At The Center Of Everything That Happens
To Meâ for more horrific stories from the
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files of the Foundation!
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