Hop Pop was away from Wartwood when Sprig and Polly’s parents died. This was supposedly a few years ago, which matches up with the period of time since the Wrecker was seen at the Bizarre Bazaar. What I find interesting, though, is this:
This may just be survivor’s guilt talking, but… what could Hop Pop have done against multiple herons that the entire town of Wartwood couldn’t? It’s… not hard to notice that the Plantars aren’t the only family in the town with missing members. Why would Hop Pop think that his presence would have changed anything? Unless…
In The First Temple, we can see that one of the flipwart pieces is a heron. (I tried to see if we could tell anything about this piece from the way it moved, but… yeah, they didn’t really bother making that consistent. It does make its starting position in the same place as a bishop, which historically, is based on war elephants). Anyway, the point here is that this shows that herons can be saddled and ridden as war animals. So what if the attack on Wartwood wasn’t just a random tragedy, but a premeditated attack?
Now, who would carry out such an attack, and why? It doesn’t really matter for the sake of this theory, but hypothetically, say someone stole a powerful magical artifact from you and you discovered where their descendants were living? Surely Andrias must know who the Plantars are.
But I’ve got one more thing I want to consider.
4. The Green Lady
Hop Pop has been working for some time on a model of the famous warship, the Green Lady.
He’s also immediately able to recognize the Horsefly Rebellion from Grime’s rather… crude doodle, which is impressive. Especially given Amphibia’s long history of war.
I’ve hit the image limit again, but I’m sure you all also remember General Yunan, scourge of the Sand Wars, defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, youngest newt ever to achieve the rank of general in the Newtopian army. (Also the Horsefly Rebellion happened in the same year and possibly same conflict as the Bogwater Wars, but that’s neither here nor there). The point is, Hop Pop seems to be quite an expert on war history!
So… let’s bring that all together. Here’s the theory.
Hop Pop is a war veteran.
When he was young, Hop Pop went to college to achieve his dreams of acting fame, but war broke out in Amphibia. Hop Pop was conscripted into the army, forced to give up on his career as an actor.
But he wasn’t just a soldier. No, Hop Pop’s brains and talent shone out and caused him to stand out among the rank and file, and he became a spy. Taking up the identity of the toad mercenary known as the Wrecker, he would travel behind enemy lines to gather information and intelligence, and he became quite familiar with military strategy and history as a result.
Hop Pop’s also known to be somewhat paranoid and suspicious of others, which might point to him having some kind of past where he had to be.
During this time, Hop Pop had a brief affair with another young frog serving in the military. It doesn’t really matter who - maybe they didn’t survive, even - but the affair produced a child. (Though I will point out that there’s another frog we know of who has a mysterious past and is quite capable in combat. Even if Sadie Croaker wasn’t necessarily his partner, it would make sense if she was involved in the war as well).
After that, the war ended, or Hop Pop retired to take care of his child. But he would still sometimes take up the identity of the Wrecker and travel to the Bizarre Bazaar for… some reason? I don’t have a good thought on that, to be honest. Maybe it has something to do with Valeriana’s order?
Now, I wanted to add onto this since I had a rewatch of the Cracking Mrs. Croaker episode just to see if I missed out on any details.
Sadie Croaker’s encounter with Jonah made me realize a specific piece of dialogue about her profession.
“Sadie, Sadie, Sadie. You thought you got the best of me in Bogwater Canyon? But I haven’t forgotten. The guild will surely take me back if I took you down. Thirty years, I’ve been searching for ya’. But ya’ hid too well.”
The fact that Sadie Croaker ordered the kids to remain silent about all this meant that the objective of killing each other is very confidential.
The stuff in her secret memories box also shows that she probably had to do process of elimination to find Jonah, the frog’s had to be very important back then if she needed to eliminate him out of sight or followed him extensively to know where he was.
Either they were both spies or mercenaries. And the fact that Bogwater Canyon, sounding strangely similar to The Bogwater Wars of ‘48, really gives me the feeling that these two pieces of information are connected and not too far off from the timeline.
Doesn’t help that in Plantar’s Last Stand, it was hinted that Sadie and Hopediah knew each other ever since Hop Pop’s father ran the product stand in the market, so it could be possible that both HP and Croaker worked in similar fields and yet, like you said, have their pasts hidden very well. They could know a lot more than they lead on.
Makes me wonder if that is the reason why Sadie Croaker is in the title sequence for Season Three. She might basically be Sasha’s version of Hop Pop when it comes to revealing the more lore-heavy stuff in the show, and give a bit more perspective over why the things are the way they are.
Interesting… Hop Pop is established to be 68 (in Stakeout), so if the Bogwater Wars were 30 years ago, he would have been around 40 at the time.
If we assume that Polly and Sprig’s parents were in their early 20’s when they had kids, then they would have been born around that time… but there’s no real evidence either way.
I’m going though fanart I’ve drawn and decided it was about time I posted these, I spent a decent chunk of 2019 coming up with concepts of what some of the campers would look like as adults. Phoebe got some pretty bad burn scars during her teens within my personal canon.
