History WesternAnimation / SongOfTheSea

* ForHalloweenIAmGoingAsMyself: In her brief cameo, Aisling appears as herself in bus is full of kids in Halloween costumes.

* KickTheDog: In a moment of petty spite, Ben pushes Saoirse face-first into her birthday cake, just as Granny's camera takes a photo. Conor sends him to his room. Later that night, Saoirse silently asks him to tell her one of their mother's stories, and Ben proceeds to scare her with the story of Macha, going so far as to say that if the Owl Witch were to steal Conor's emotions, nobody would love her (the implication being that Ben ''doesn't'' love his sister). Ben then tops it off by dressing up as Macha and scaring Saoirse into her bed. He ultimately sees he went too far but is too prideful to apologize.

* TemptingFate: In the prologue, a 4-year-old Ben sleepily wonders to his mother if he and his unborn sibling will be best friends, to which his mother assures her son he'll be the best big brother in the whole world. Six years later, Ben has spent the entirety of Saoirse's life [[BigBrotherBully tormenting]] and resenting her, being neither friends with nor a good brother to his little sister.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Ben is ''terrified'' of the water, since his father warned him the ocean was dangerous nearly all his life.(Which he, in turn, said only because his wife disappeared into it). Too bad for Ben, since his sister is a selkie, and so open water is a de facto part of their journey.

* AerithAndBob: For starters, the two main characters are named Saoirse and Ben. And their parents are named Bronagh and Conor. [[WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells Again,]] [[UsefulNotes/IrishNames that's Ireland for you]]. This actually can be viewed as a functional distinction in the story. If you look are just looking at these family names, [[spoiler:Bronagh and Saoirse are selkies, whereas Ben and Conor are human. The hair colours also set them apart.]]

* GenderEqualsBreed: Ben and Saoirse have a human father and a {{selkie|s and wereseals}} mother. While Ben is a human like his father, Saoirse is a selkie like her mother. This is despite the fact that are male selkies in myth. [[spoiler:Saoirse [[BroughtDownToNormal becomes completely human]] at the end, though, since she had to give up her selkie powers in order to stay in the human world]].

* MeaningfulName: Several names are derived from Irish; the mother's name, Bronagh, roughly means "sorrow" and Saoirse means "freedom". And then there's Cú, Ben and Saoirse's dog, whose name [[ADogNamedPerro literally means "dog" or "hound"]].