Befitting its status as a work of gothic fiction, the tone of the story is macabre and sensational, particularly in its notably grim ending. Rather than striking out in anger at the king in defense of Trippetta, Hop-Frog bides his time, planning a far more elaborate plan for revenge. After Hop-Frog has entrapped the king and his men and set them on fire before a horrified crowd of masquerade attendees, the narrator notes that:
Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared through the sky-light. It is supposed that Trippetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and [...] neither was seen again.
Rather than sparing the reader any of the gory details, Poe’s narrator emphasizes the macabre horror of this scene, detailing the “fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass” of their “eight corpses” suspended from the ceiling like a grim chandelier.
