Star Vs The Forces Of Evil / Tropes A to M

• 0% Approval Rating: Eclipsa has this among non monsters. She gets it during her first reign for falling in love with a monster and during her second reign for attempting to give monsters equal rights. It gets to a point that Star can't find the culprit behind an assassination attempt because there are too many possible suspects.
• Aborted Arc: In the Season 1 episode "Monster Arm", the titular entity swears to Marco that it will always be inside him, and will one day return. Despite callbacks to it throughout the series, it never does return.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Severing Stone is described to have such properties that it can sever both physical and spiritual things.
• Adults Are Useless: Zigzagged. Star and Marco regularly fight off monsters and deal with other problems without adults around, and adults who are present have a tendency to be incompetent. However, Star also asks her mom and Glossaryck for advice from time to time, and in Season 2 we see cops and park rangers doing their job.
• Aerith and Bob: "Star Butterfly" comes from a dimension where names can range from "Tom" and "Kelly" to "River" and "Toffee" to "Glossaryck" and "Yvgeny^note a less common transliteration of a common Russian name Bulgolyubov" (Buff Frog). Speaking of Tom, his parents consist of "Dave" and "Wrathmelior".
• Again with Feeling: When Star is having night terrors. Marco decides that the problem is psychological and has Star undergo a number of tests during which he tells Star that she has mother issues. She happily screams "I have mother issues" until Marco informs her that it isn't a good thing, at which point she repeats the line dejectedly.
• An Aesop: The series has several:
  • "Mewnipendence Day": Don't have blind faith in your history and heroes, there are two sides to every story, and their actions may not have been as heroic when you take a better look at them.
  • "Storm the Castle": Don't endanger the lives of others for your own thrills and adventures.
  • "Blood Moon Ball": If you feel like you're being underestimated by your loved ones, you should at least try to understand the reasons behind their actions because they may have just wanted to protect you or keep you from harm.
  • "Wand to Wand": When faced with a problem, trying to take the easy way out can often just make things more difficult.
  • "Just Friends": While it's important to be a good friend, it's more important to be well-rounded in your priorities. It's healthier to put yourself first once in a while and prioritize your own happiness over someone else's.
  • "Face the Music": It's OK to have feelings for someone. Nobody can control their feelings for another and sometimes it's best to confess them before any damage can be done. It's better to confess these feelings on your own terms, rather than have a third party do it for you.
  • "Mr. Candle Cares": Life is full of difficulties, experiences, and situations you may not feel ready for. You might not ever feel "ready" for these experiences, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try them. If it doesn't work out, there's no shame in looking to others for help when you can't solve a problem. Nobody ever became good at something without trying it.
  • "Demoncism": There is no such thing as a pure, good person. Everyone has their flaws but without them, we wouldn't be human and we wouldn't have any form of free will. If you are afraid of your bad traits or want to change, learn to control those traits or seek support from your family, friends or therapists rather than hurt yourself for someone else's view of purity.
  • "Out of Business": The classic "Stuff doesn't equal happiness" lesson, but it's approached in a novel way. Janna, Marco and Star already know that. They don't need to be locked in cages and they're in no danger of their minds turning to goo. They just walk right out with no problem.
  • "Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell": Anyone can say they can change, but you have to mean it. Redemption has to be earned through hard work and teamwork. You can't change by amputating the past and never acknowledging it again.
  • "Cornball": To really make a better future, you have to influence the younger generation.
  • Season 3 tackles the concept of family; a person doesn't have to be blood related to be your family. If you do love and care for them, as they do for you, that's all that matters.
  • "Here to Help" has a rather harsh one: you can't be "moderate" between two sides of a conflict when one side is power-hungry, irrational and genocidal. Moon thinks she can use Mina Loveberry and the Mewmans who want her back as queen to get back her throne from Eclipsa "for the good of Mewni" and in hopes of preventing Mina from instigating genocide. It doesn't work; Mina double-crosses her and the Solarians that Moon empowered rebel and go rogue. Star in the next episode reads her mother the riot act for empowering Mina, a very idiotic move, and thinking there was any reasoning with her.
  • As shown through Moon and Eclipsa, the series hammers home that parents aren't perfect. Just because they have made disastrous decisions doesn't make them bad people. Star even recognizes the shades of grey in both their actions in the finale; Moon had the right idea wanting to prevent Mina from doing even worse things to others, and Eclipsa married a monster out of love, even if such a decision would be repulsed by others.
• Alien Sky: Mewni's sky is pink and has three moons, the largest one of which has a ring system like Saturn.
• The Alleged Car: Oskar's car-slash-studio-slash-living space. It's old, it's busted, the brakes and steering are shot, and it's mostly full of garbage.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Tom has a crush on Star, who has a crush on Oskar and then unknowingly Marco, Marco has a crush on Jackie, who has a crush on a guy from skate camp. Mostly averted later on in that the crushes Marco/Jackie and Tom/Star develop into short-lived relationships, Jackie finds herself a girlfriend and Marco and Star end up together.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The last names of most of the characters, including Ludo,^note The episode "Face the Music" did already strongly imply Ludo's last name to be "Avarius", which is confirmed in the book. Tom and most of Star and Marco's classmates, are not mentioned in the series, but are found in Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension. Other details are also revealed in that book, like the fact that the first two seasons take place during the 2014-15 school year and the fact that Tom is specifically from Mewni's underworld rather than a generic Hell-like dimension.
  • The Book of Spells details the lives of previous queens in the Butterfly royal line, as well as the history of Mewni as a whole. This includes the backstory of Toffee (though barely), whose motivations were never fully explained in the series.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Star strongly believes in the fundamental evil of the monsters she's fighting, at least until "Mewnipendance Day" when she is forced to reevaluate the history between Mewmans and monsters.
• Amusing Injuries:
  • Marco's father gets a laser pulse to the eye thanks to Star's adorable laser puppies. He ends up winking it closed and continuing to coo over the cute puppy.
  • Marco himself tends to get them at least Once per Episode, usually due to Star's magic.
• Anachronism Stew: Although Mewni seems to be stuck in the Dung Ages, bits and pieces of the modern world are there; King Butterfly has a wristwatch, and Ludo's castle has a modern break room. Plus, Mewmans use cell phones that are powered by magic.
• Animation Bump: Inverted. Despite having its moments, the animation from Season 2 onward done by Rough Draft Korea and Sugarcube is significantly less fluid and lively than Season 1's animation done by Mercury Filmworks and Toon City. Further explained by the trope below.
• Animation Evolution: The animation of the series was originally animated by the studio Mercury Filmworks (starting from the episode "Mewberty", it was animated by Toon City). Which made the animation super fast-paced, exaggerated, and smooth. Starting from season 2, however (due to Mercury Filmworks having to work on The Lion Guard), the studios have been switched to Rough Draft Studios and Sugarcube. The animation started out almost no different from the first season with season 2, but then as the series progressed to seasons 3 and 4, the animation has gotten stiffer, but more detailed. That's when the animation started looking more akin to Gravity Falls (ironically, the former studio has worked on that series as well), but it took away any exaggerated and fast-paced animation that this series has had before. However, the animation of the fights has gotten better and a lot of the scenes are much smoother than the quick-paced fluid animation of the first season.
• Animesque: Though the character designs are definitely more Western, the series involves a princess from another dimension with a magic wand that looks straight out of Sailor Moon, there are Anime references and Gratuitous Japanese strewn throughout (a picture taken in the photobooth with Star, Marco, and Pony Head reads "SUPER KAWAII!"), and the ending theme's animation may as well be taken from an anime in its format.
• Another Dimension: Mewni, where Star is from, is one of several. It's right there in the Theme Song. Magic scissors are used by the characters to move between them.
• Anti-Regeneration: Queen Moon learns black magic from Eclipsa to neutralize Toffee's healing factor, making him unable to regenerate.
• Apathetic Citizens: Mewmans only ever get riled up when someone takes them out of their comfort zone or tries to force them to change. For example, when Solaria offered the people a means to protect the land by becoming Solarians, they all refused as they were too indifferent and lazy to change.
• Arc Words: "On the fritz" is used whenever magic stuff stops working properly, something that happens more and more often as the series continues. Eventually it's revealed that "the fritz" is an actual phenomenon that's causing magic to slowly vanish from the universe, and it's steadily getting worse and worse — until Star brings it all back in the finale to the Battle of Mewni.
• Art Evolution: Somewhere in mid/late-Season 1, the character outlines became slightly less thick. Season 2 made a few more changes, the most noticeable being Ms. Skullnick's character design looking a lot less grotesque.
• The Artifact: Star's magic wand, the whole reason she was sent to Earth in the first place and the MacGuffin Ludo's forces are after, becomes less and less important as the show goes on. By the last season, Star doesn't even use it anymore, having since learned to tap into her own innate magical powers.
• Artifact of Doom: Star's wand could become this in the hands of evil. Star herself destroys an entire village not five minutes after receiving it, which leads to her being sent to Earth. Even without being used in evil hands, the wand is apparently so dangerous that simply someone unfamiliar with its powers trying to wield it make even Janna duck and cover. At the time, all Marco was doing was touching the wand and Janna was still fairly sure it could kill him. Star later confirms, after a backlash from a non-combat spell from the wand destroys her room, that doing so was incredibly stupid.
• Artifact Title: Played with. While Star still fights villains as the series gets Darker and Edgier, what "the Forces of Evil" actually entails becomes more complicated. In particular: whether monsters are aggressive antagonists or innocent victims.
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: For all that he calls it karate, none of Marco's moves bear any resemblance to actual karate. This is justified in that his sensei is literally on the same level as him.
• Asinine Alternate Activity: In "Game of Flags", Star wants to sit at the adults' table and participate in the deadly game of Flags, but her mother puts her foot down against her playing Flags and assigns her to the kids' table with her baby cousins. The kids' table is also sized for much smaller kids — it doesn't even reach Star's knees when she sits at it.
• Beast and Beauty: Eclipsa and Globgor. Huge Guy, Tiny Girl, too.
• Begin with a Finisher: Eclipsa opens her fight against a Solarian Warrior with Black Velvet Inferno, the same spell that instantly took down Meteora, the Big Bad of the previous season. Unfortunately, it harmlessly pings off the Solarian's armor.
• Berserk Button: For Star, implying that she's helpless or incapable of defending herself, as Marco finds out in "Blood Moon Ball." There's also the ending of "The Banagic Wand Incident" where she suddenly goes quiet and coldly brushes off Marco when he admits he underestimated her abilities.
• BFS: Star has one of these in her room.
• Big Bad Ensemble:
  • Seasons 1 and 2 have Ludo, Toffee, and Miss Heinous of St. Olga's Reform School of Wayward Princesses. Ludo is bent on stealing Star's wand to take over the universe, while Miss Heinous seeks to annihilate Marco for his uprising against her institute. Toffee overshadows the others, though, usurping and eventually possessing Ludo as part of a grand revenge scheme against Moon Butterfly and Mewni, probably followed by Mewman genocide had Star not entered a Super Mode and vaporized Toffee in the moment of his apparent victory.
  • Following Toffee's death and Ludo taking himself out of the game, Season 3 continues Miss Heinous' path, and introduces Queen Eclipsa. Now free, Eclipsa initially seemed to be influencing Star and was implied to have big plans for the kingdom... Until its revealed that Miss Heinous is actually Eclipsa's long-lost half-monster daughter, Meteora Butterfly. While Eclipsa merely wanted to reclaim the family she lost because of the Magic High Commission, Meteora, upon finding out about her past, looks to take brutal revenge on those who wronged her, pushing her into new and far greater reaching aims and powers.
• Bigger on the Inside: Tom's skeleton-horse-drawn-carriage looks like it would have room for maybe two people. It's actually enormous on the inside.
• Big "WHAT?!": This is practically Marco's catchphrase.
• Bilingual Bonus: In Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension, Ingrid writes on Star's yearbook: "Das sieht aus wie Tinte, ist es aber Nicht, Hab einen schoenen Sommer!"^translationThat looks like ink, but it's not. Have a great summer!
• Birthday Episode: Subverted; Star doesn't celebrate on her actual birthday, because it falls on the same day as "Stump Day". Anything that detracts from Stump Day will make The Stump angry, even though most adults know that The Stump is just a myth. In "Lava Lake Beach", Marco says it's his birthday in the final scene.
• Bittersweet Ending: The series ends with the Realm of Magic, where all magic comes from, being destroyed by Star with the help of her mother Moon, her honorary aunt-figure Eclipsa, and Eclipsa's baby daughter Meteora to both prevent the destruction of her homeworld of Mewni by the magically-empowered, insane and genocidal Mewman supremacist Mina Loveberry, and to break the cycle of power-hungry people using magic for evil. However, while Mina is stopped and depowered, the destruction of magic leads to the deaths of all magical beings in the multiverse (most notably Glossaryck, the Magic High Commission and the Butterfly family Wand's living spells) and the merger of Earth and Mewni into a sole amalgam dimension with Star and Marco reuniting and living together in peace in the chaotic and topsy-turvyed world.
• Black Comedy: Plays with this territory sometimes, with several instances of sentient beings being implied to be killed in the chaos. However, characters have also been shown to be alive and okay after said implications.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Quest Buy, where you can find almost anything, is a clear parody of Best Buy, right down to the style of the sloth employees' uniform.
  • The Mewni chocolate bar brand "Snookers", the favorite snack of Solaria and her daughter Eclipsa, is clearly inspired by the Real Life chocolate bar brand "Snickers".
• Boarding School of Horrors: St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses is made out to be more like an actual jail. It's also infamous within the princess community, as both Star and Pony Head greatly fear the place. It's eventually revealed to be even worse than what they feared. After Marco led a rebellion within the school, it lost this status. It turns out that even its head mistress Miss Heinous wasn't safe and was as much a victim of it as any one, and the original leader was a heartless robot.
• Body Horror:
  • In "Monster Arm", Marco breaks his arm and Star attempts to fix it via magic, only to instead turn his arm into a giant tentacle. Said giant tentacle proves to have a mind of its own and be quite malevolent and destructive.
  • Star goes through this is "Mewberty", where she turns into a six-armed purple butterfly creature that shoots sticky webs and ends up destroying the school in the process.
• Book Ends: The first season finale has Star using the Whispering Spell to destroy her wand. The series finale has her use the spell again in the Realm of Magic, along with Moon, Eclipsa and Meteora, to destroy all magic forever.
• Brick Break: Marco is training in karate and is seen trying to break boards in the opening. In "Monster Arm", he accidentally hits the part of the board over the cinderblock he was using to prop up the boards and breaks his arm.
• Brick Joke: There are several instances throughout the series where Marco, by sheer chance, finds himself owing someone exactly six hundred and fifty dollars. He strangely always has that exact amount on him. Early in the series, he claims it's his emergency cash stash, but it's never really explained or remarked upon beyond that. After all, it's not exactly "twenty bucks for sweets" amount, more like "leave the state quickly" amount. In a later episode in which this does not happen, Star learns that a line of dolls bearing Marco's likeness are being sold in other dimensions. When asked about this, Marco just says, "Oh, yeah. I get a six hundred fifty dollar royalty check every month."
• Broken Aesop:
  • A recurring Aesop is that of letting go and moving on. A lot of episodes were made around this theme, including "Scent of a Hoodie", "Lava Lake Beach", "Rest in Pudding" and "Kelly's World". Despite this, however, characters would either go back to not wanting that thing to go away or get the thing they let go of anyway. "Rest in Pudding" has Star accepting grief and accepting Glossaryck's passing before he suddenly returns, while the other three episodes are about Star and Marco letting go of each other, but they end up together anyway.
  • Part of Star's arc has been that as the future queen of Mewni, she supposed be a Slave to PR, and her decision to fight against that and be her own kind of Queen, one who does things not because Mewni wants her to do it, but because she thinks it's right. Season 4, however, has her constantly micromanaging Eclipsa as queen and forcing her to act in a way that makes the Mewmans more likely to accept her rather than let her be her own kind of queen.
  • Star's arc has always been about creating her own destiny instead of following that which has been chosen and thrown upon her shoulders. The entirety of "Beach Day" is dedicated to the idea. "Cleaved", however, leaves a sour spot in the Aesop because it's heavily implied that Glossaryck's endgame has been destroying the magic all along and, with him being an omniscient being, he always knew that Star and Marco would end up together one way or another. As such, Star ended up doing things Because Destiny Says So.
  • One of the final aesops of the series is that magic is more trouble than what is worth, and you should get rid of it. Yet, throughout the series, it's constantly shown that there is good magic and evil magic and that the latter corrupts the former.
• Broken Record: In the "St. Olga's" episode, Star and Marco encounter brainwashed students repeating: "Keep your pinkies at 90 degrees. More tea please." (sip) "Keep your pinkies at 90 degrees. More tea please." (sip) "Keep your pinkies at 90 degrees. More tea please." (sip)
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Marco is usually on the receiving end of unfortunate events or humiliation, usually caused by Star's ineptitude with magic and destructive tendencies. Sometimes, it isn't even caused by Star at all and is just simply his bad luck.
  • King River and Ludo are usually subjected to Amusing Injuries or misfortune in some way, with "Ludo in the Wild" and "Game of Flags" being the most blatant examples.
• Calling Your Attacks:
  • Star whenever she uses her wand. This is justified since the call-outs are technically incantations, even if they sound like mashups of random cutesy words.
  • In "Conquer", Eclipsa does this, albeit with a much calmer and subdued way, and with more sinister names like "Midnight Shriek".
• Casting Gag:
  • In the Japanese dub, Kana Ueda (Star) already voiced a Magical Girl who speaks in Kansai-ben before. The same goes with Aya Hisakawa, who voices her mom Queen Moon. In a more meta-example, there's Kazuyuki Okitsu as Marco, since he voiced Jonathan Joestar in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
  • In the Russian dub, Natalia Tereshkova (Star) voiced another Cloudcuckoolander girl with similar appearance and personality traits.
  • Principal Skeeves is not the only school principal that Jeff Bennett voiced.
  • Queen Moon is voiced by Grey DeLisle, which isn't the first time that she's voiced one.
  • One of Tress MacNeille's current roles is Rosie the Robot. Here, one of the characters she voices is a robot caretaker who's similarly sarcastic.
• Central Theme:
  • Evil comes in many forms, sometimes bluntly and sometimes subtly. Whether it be monsters who attack Star or a system that oppressed them.
  • Emotions are complicated and can only be resolved by acknowledging them. Ignoring them will be unhealthy and can make a situation worse when those emotions are mishandled.
  • The Arc Villains all represent the theme of racism and how it's created. Toffee was a monster freedom fighter whose motives were eventually corrupted by his own need for revenge. Meteora was a Mewman-monster hybrid who was denied the throne and abandoned for the crime of being a child of miscegenation. Finally, there's Mina, a Solarian soldier who's devoted to eradicating all monsters so the Mewmans can return to their old way of life. Racism comes in many forms, it can be born from revenge, historical inequity and a desire to have everything return to the status quo. Mina's final scene in "Cleaved" represents the sad reality of how prejudice will never die, no matter how much society changes. However, everyone's reaction to this shows how Mina's beliefs will eventually be shelved in the darkest parts of history. Racism will always be a problem, but it's a problem that can and should be handled appropriately and effectively. The villains tried to stop racism or deliver justice by using their own violent methods but, in the end, the Mewmans overcame their racist views by listening to democracy and reason.
  • Season 4 has the theme of changes going on. All characters have their status quo changed and/or are facing the inevitability that it will change, and the main antagonist of the season, Mina, wants things to change back the way they used to be. Even the other members of the Big Bad Duumvirate also desire this. The Magic High Commission want to be back on power and Omnitraxus even mentions how they'll return to their old schedule, and Moon siding with them also hints that she wants everything to go back to before. The season's final conflict also moves a central change to everything as Star has decided she'll erase all the magic in the world.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Longer episodes such as "St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses" tend to have a more serious tone and darker elements than the largely comedic 11-minute episodes.
• The Chains of Commanding: The Queen of Mewni is shown to be less of an actual ruler, and more of a babysitter for spoiled children. The people of Mewni utterly and completely refuse to do 'anything' for themselves or take responsibility for their own lives. They expect the queen to take care of their every need. Provide work and housing and food for them. The Queen has to act as though she is utterly perfect and without as much as a single flaw, regardless of how stressed or tired they are. The people are also stubbornly resistant to change, and any attempts to implement changes, even if they are for the better will either be ignored or met with hostility. When Eclipsa 'forced' reforms to be put into practice, her people either openly defied her at the best or tried to have her killed at the worst.
• Chariot Pulled by Cats:
  • The Royal Stagecoach is pulled by Manticores◊, which highlights Mewni's magical nature.
  • Tom's carriage is pulled by a flaming skeletal horse.
• The Chew Toy: Sabrina, the brunette cheerleader with a ponytail who's always suffering Amusing Injuries. She ends up in a wheelchair in her first appearance.
• Childhood Friend Romance:
  • Moon and River were childhood friends before they became King and Queen.
  • Marco's parents were childhood friends.
  • Jackie and Marco were friends since they were children.
• Class Pet: Star gets detention for freeing the class hamster.
• Cloudcuckooland: Mewni itself has shades of this. For example, dentists and construction workers can team up to combat the local geography, the blacksmith makes iron shells for turtles for no adequately explained reason and there are two weirdos that have been locked into a Staring Contest for years now.
• Clueless Aesop:
  • Played for Laughs in "Fortune Cookies" where Star decides the moral is "Love is never the answer!"
  • Played entirely straight in "Face the Music" where Star's attempt to use her Princess Song to give an honest impression of herself to the people of Mewni rather than be portrayed as a generic perfect Princess results in the Internal Reveal that the Royal Family lied to protect Star's reputation, inciting the peasantry to riot and damaging the Magic High Commission's trust in Queen Moon. The lesson, as plainly stated to Star by her mother after the fiasco, is that sometimes it's better to lie and pretend to be someone you're not, especially when you're in a position of authority where people depend on you.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: in “School Spirit", Ferguson is in the high school football mascot costume jumping around as his pants fall down.
• Coming of Age Story: The series slowly becomes a coming-of-age story for both Star and Marco as they steadily mature. Marco has matured the most, developing more confidence in himself and being less cautious, successfully going into a relationship with his crush Jackie Lynn Thomas and progressing to a red belt in karate. Star has moved on from her prejudices towards monsters, started to take responsibility for her actions and starts to be more honest with herself.
• Common Tongue: The language spoken across Mewni is referred to as Mewnian as revealed in "Death Peck", but it happens to sounds like English. Additionally, Mewmans have a written language too, but they also use English writing.
• Concert Episode:
  • "Just Friends" features Star, Marco, and Jackie going to a concert for Marco's favorite band, Love Sentence. Things start going downhill when couples start kissing, including Jackie and Marco. Star is heartbroken, but remains silent. The episode features a voice cameo by Nick Lachey.
  • "Face the Music" has the "songtrel" Ruberiot (voiced by Patrick Stump) composing Star's princess song for the citizens of Mewni. It turns out to be a full-fledged rock number, which goes well until the song reveals that Star lost the book of spells, and also has a crush on Marco.
• The Conspiracy: Releasing Globgor was supposedly all Rombulus' doing, which is why the Commission arrested him at the end of the episode. It wasn't. All the members of the High Commission, who have repeatedly shown themselves to be racists and bigots where monsters are concerned, were in on it. And when that didn't work, they set Mina loose on Mewni.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • The first Big Bad, Toffee, was a lizard monster with a smooth and suave personality with a particular skill to manipulating people and playing a long term game. He was extremely powerful, but hid behind the Big Bad Wannabe Ludo so Star wouldn't focus on him. He has an extremely sadistic and petty personality, but hides beneath his cool and stoic looks and is fully aware of the entire history of the Butterflies, the monster and the entire magic system, having influenced the past story from the get go and very mysterious plans, methods and goals. He's killed by a powerful blast by Star and having a pillar dropped on him by Ludo.
  • Ludo was introduced as the entire opposite of Toffee in Season 1: short, weak, ugly, unintelligent, frail and laughably incompetent where Toffee was tall, strong, smart, suave and frightfully competent to the point of having the upper hand on Star until the very end. Ludo, however, comes back as the Big Bad of most of Season 2, and unlike Toffee, he goes through Character Development and becomes very competent if still pretty laughable, and is revealed to be a pile of traumas due to an abusive childhood. He goes through a Hazy-Feel Turn at the beginning of Season 3, after offing Toffee with Star, more because he's pissed at him than because he's trying to make things right, he goes off to another dimensions to try to find himself. It isn't until Season 4 he fully retires, deciding to go live with his siblings.
  • Meteora Butterfly is a Long-Lost Relative of the Butterfly family, and is both much more powerful than Toffee and Ludo and has a much more messed up backstory. Unlike the two before her, she's constantly changing her form as she becomes more powerful and is capable of using magic and is someone who can't formulate very complex plans. Like Ludo and unlike Toffee, she's a tragic character at heart and a Psychopathic Manchild to the end, and like Toffee and unlike Ludo, she's intrinsically connected to the past of the Mewni kingdom and works alone in the end. She's also not offed by Star, but by Eclipsa, who turns her back into a baby, and she's being raised again now.
  • Mina Loveberry is the first fully Mewman Big Bad, and the first one to have once been a heroic character, taking this spot in Season 4. She's a Fallen Hero who refuses to accept the more monster-friendly motions that Star thought so hard to make work. Unlike previous villains, she has no interest in overtaking Mewni, just to change it back to its previous state. She's also, while not having any magic, extremely physically strong thanks to being a Solarian soldier. While Meteora and Ludo had traits of being their insanity played for drama, Mina's insanity is played for horror, used to showcase her Black-and-White Insanity as she is going to kill anything or anyone in her way to do what she feels is right.
  • The Magic High Commission in Season 4 become the first Big Bad Duumvirate when they join Mina to depose Eclipsa. Like Mina, they used to be somewhat heroic, but have their heroism shed little by little through their time. While all the other enemies were clear enemies from the start, the MHC pretended to be heroes all along and it's not until "Cornonation" that Rhombulus reveals he released Globgor in hope that he'd kill Mewmans and he'd be able to crystallize him and Eclipsa again while Hekapoo and Omnitraxus are revealed in "Ready, Aim, Fire" to be working with Mina, and are motivated to take back their power over Mewni and maintain the status quo where monsters are a stepped on minority.
• The Corruption: When Moon uses or tries to use the spell she got from her Deal with the Devil with Eclipsa, dark jagged Volcanic Veins start running up her arms.
• Crapsaccharine World: Part of the series' Deconstructive Parody of the Magical Girl genre is that Star's home world of Mewni is not the shining kingdom it appears to be. Star is a magical girl princess who's been given too much power and freedom at too young an age and more than once terrorized her own people by accident. Her family rules over a beautiful, pastel-color-schemed Crapsack World styled after Medieval Europe, in that all of the people outside of nobility and the royal family live in total squalor and the political structure is based heavily on Might Makes Right. To top it off, her family's history isn't exactly clean either — the hordes of monsters they keep out of the kingdom have very legitimate reasons to resent them.
• Creative Closing Credits:
  • The outro for the first two seasons is very reminiscent of anime outros.
  • The end credits for "Starcrushed" is a still image of the Diaz home without Star's tower. It features no music playing whatsoever... and suddenly, Oskar's guitar falls down to the ground out of nowhere.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Spider With a Top Hat seems to just be Star's dorky little comic relief spell. In actuality, he is her most powerful spell.
• Culture Chop Suey: Mewni itself is a mashup of different cultures. Mewni resembles Medieval Europe, while its royals have American/English accents. Monsters also have different accents, with Buff Frog speaking with a Russian accent. During the fight against Meteora, Tom wears Asian armor, while Marco wields a katana.
• Curse Cut Short: Sherry, who sold yada yada berries, magical berries that petrify those who eat them or drink their juice, to assassins trying to kill Eclypsa, after using a drink spiked with yada yada berries to petrify herself so she couldn't be questioned even by Eclypsa's dark magic, taunted Star and Marco, who were investigating the incident, by asking them to tell Eclypsa that she can "yada yada" her ass, but the petrification was able to take hold before she came to the last word (she was even turned her ass towards the two heroes and was pointing at it as the petrification began).
• Dangerous Interrogative: Eclipsa is trying to talk to her long-lost daughter Meteora, who has assumed her monster form and is rampaging around Mewni, stealing people's souls.
  Meteora: Are you really my...my mama?
  Eclipsa: You know, I think I prefer "mother."
  Meteora: (as her eyes glow dangerously) What?
  Eclipsa: You know, "mama" is just fine.
• Darker and Edgier: Many episodes in Season 2 have a much darker tone in comparison with the Season 1. Season 3 actually takes this even further.
• Deal with the Devil: In the past, Moon made a deal with Eclipsa to learn a spell capable of killing Toffee: Eclipsa would teach her the spell and in exchange Moon would free her as soon as Toffee was dead. She took advantage of the Exact Words by using the spell to cripple Toffee instead of killing him, thereby avoiding freeing Eclipsa while still dealing with the monster army. Except then Star and Ludo manage to kill him, setting Eclipsa up as the Big Bad from Season 3 onward.
• Deconstructive Parody: Of the Magical Girl genre, as well as the associated Magical Girlfriend and Action Girlfriend tropes. With a wrecking ball...filled with dynamite and fiery rainbows.
• Descended Creator: StarFan13 and Sabrina are both voiced by series creator Daron Nefcy.
• Discreet Dining Disposal: When offered Sean's donuts, Star opts to stuff them in her clothes rather than eat them.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When seeing adult Marco in "Running with Scissors", Star barely listens to him, is entirely focused on his six pack and can't compose her sentences.
• The Dog Bites Back: After being manipulated by Toffee throughout Season 2, Ludo is the one who apparently finishes him off by pushing a pillar onto him after Star half-vaporized him.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The first ending theme is performed by Star's voice actress, Eden Sher. Bonus points because it feels like an anime ending (both visually and song-wise). Neither Disney XD or Disney Channel have applied Credits Pushback on their airings.
• Doom Troops: The guards of St. Olga's are designed with maximum intimidation; deathly cold voices, show no mercy, masked faces, and the like. Seriously, they look like they stepped out of BioShock.
• Doorstopper: The manual for Star's magic wand. This is justified as it's a giant collection of personal notes from centuries of past users, and has not been organized nor cared for that much. When Star pulls it out from under her bed, the pages are worn, dusty, and some of the notes appear to have been added with Mewni scotch tape.
• Droste Image: The effect is achieved in "Raid the Cave", when Star is attempting to use her spying spell and eventually spies on Marco through the portal, who in turn is spying on Star and the portal right back.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Season 1 is much more lighthearted and energetic than any of the subsequent seasons, and the characters are also prone to making more exaggerated facial expressions. This is in no small part due to the animation done by Mercury Filmworks.
  • The series initially plays out like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Sailor Moon high school comedy before deciding to focus more on Mewni and lore-heavy plots.
  • Season 1 has occasional cutaway gags and is much more humor focused in general. The cutaway gags would be dropped entirely starting in season 2, and the humor would become much more subdued and down-to-earth.
• Elephant in the Living Room: For most of Season 3, the fact that Star has feelings for Marco and declared it. Neither of them ever bring it up amongst themselves and just continue with their lives as usual. Said elephant ended up being addressed in "Booth Buddies", and Marco even admitted that he never brought it up so that things wouldn't be different between them.
• Elite Mooks: The guards of St. Olga's are just scarily competent and intimidating that fighting them is usually not recommended. It's telling that Star and Marco, who are extremely competent fighters and have been kicking butt up to this point, don't even make an attempt to fight them.
• Elves vs. Dwarves: The Butterfly-Johansen families have this dynamic. The Johnsons are card-carrying warriors, who are rough, barbarous and openly emotional. The Butterflies are elegant, regal, stuck up and highly reserved. The marriage of Moon Butterfly and River Johansen brought the two families together, creating Star who is a blend of both.
• End of the World as We Know It:
  • What could happen if Star's wand fell into evil hands, although she also tends to be rather chaotic with it outside of combat situations.
  • When Star first goes through mewberty, she describes it as "destroy the school" bad.
• Establishing Character Moment: Star is introduced by attacking monsters without provication, busting into the throne room of the castle on a Warnicorn, and then setting Mewni on fire almost immediately after receiving the family wand. This should pretty much tell you all you need to know about her.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • In "Mewnipendence Day", Ludo, who absolutely despises Star and wishes for nothing else but to kill her and steal her wand, lists off all the places he can spy on Star, including the bathroom. Toffee (despite everything he's done and his history with the Butterfly family) and Buff Frog get visibly uncomfortable and are about to call him out on it before Ludo decides it wouldn't be right to spy on an underage girl in there.
  • Despite everything about Toffee, he's still a man of his word, as indicated by him releasing Marco in exchange for Star destroying her wand as promised in "Storm the Castle."
  • Despite Queen Solaria's reputation and remorseless slaughtering of monsters while she was still alive, even she's visibly disgusted by Mina's actions in the final episode, and coldly abandons her to die before turning to assist the heroes in destroying magic.
• Evil All Along:
  • Hey, what do you know? The Monster Arm isn't so bad after all- wait, no, it's actually worse.
  • Turns out the friendly and goofy-looking MHC that have been serving the royal family for generations are actually extremely petty racists and xenophobic towards monsters, and have been lying to the royal family for centuries. It's to the point where they kidnapped a literal baby and completely un-personed her from history just because she was part-monster.
• Evil Colonialist: The Mewmans in are this. Originally humans from Earth, they crossed through a realm of pure magic and into a world full of monsters, demons, and other supernatural creatures. Upon arriving they were given a magic wand that allowed them to access the realm of magic's power from anywhere. They used it to subjugate their new world and horde its resources.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • Ludo and Toffee. Toffee has bigger plans for Star and Queen Moon, while Ludo has ever barely managed to obtain Star's wand. His scheme is so good he possesses Ludo's body/half of Star's wand without Ludo knowing it.
  • End of Season 1 Toffee wins Ludo's castle and minions by simple persuasion. Marco later relates Toffee to a lawyer.
• Evolving Credits:
  • Season 2's group shot near the end of the opening credits changes the characters present from Season 1.
  • Season 3 changes the credits entirely since the series shifted to Mewni, showing the new roster of characters. After the Battle for Mewni story arc, Star's wand regains its missing fragment.
  • The bouncy and cheerful ending theme for the first two seasons is replaced in the final two seasons with the also upbeat but more pop-like "Shining Star".
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains Star's backstory and MO to a T.
• Extradimensional Power Source: The magic used by the Butterfly family comes from a place called the realm of magic. It enters the multiverse in two forms. The first is a golden liquid which flows in to each universe at one specific location like water from a well. This can be collected and used for rituals but prolonged exposure causes amnesia and insanity. The second is a background magic field which is everywhere, but undetectable and extremely difficult to tap in to without a special wand that was made by the magic's living embodiment. As a result, anyone who has the wand becomes a target for those hoping to gain power for themselves.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The events of "Jannanigans" and the episodes between that and "Cleaved" all take place on the same day.
• Eye Scream:
  • One of said puppies fires a laser into Marco's dad's eye.
  • In "Lobster Claws", Star fires a wave of crystal cupcakes at Ludo's minions, one of which gets lodged in Bearnicorn's eye.
  • A running gag has Marco repeatedly get his sensei's clipped toenails, flies, and other objects launched into his eyes whilst training for his red belt.
• The Fair Folk: The pixies in "Pixtopia". They're beautiful, ethereal, and send Star and her friends to the mines for not being able to pay a bill. The pixie empress orders the gang killed when she can't marry Ferguson, and according to Star, she would have eaten him had the marriage gone through.
• Family Theme Naming: The Butterfly royal family seems to name their daughters after celestial bodies and phenomena: Star, her mother Moon, and Eclipsa are just a few examples.
• Fantastic Fighting Style: "Wool-Hair-Do" is a fighting style practiced by Kelly's species, which involves two people fighting alongside each other through their hair.
• Fantastic Racism: Mewman prejudice against Monsters and its consequences are a central theme of the series, to the point of it being the motive of Mina Loveberry, the series' final Big Bad.
• Feudal Future: If "Skooled" is of any indication, Mewni is a medieval-style setting with peasants, royalty and nobility, but they've had computers and robots, albeit outdated by today's standards, even 300 years prior to the present day.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief:
  • Marco is tough and a skilled martial artist (Fighter). Star casts powerful spells with a magic wand, though she is no slouch in hand to hand combat (Mage). Janna, who later joins the other two on their adventures, is stealthy, mischievous, and a skilled pickpocket and lock picker (Thief).
  • The three main villains of the series are this. Toffee relies on espionage, manipulation and infiltration (Thief). Meteora relies more on magic than she does on her physical strength by using a soul-absorption spell and draining the magic from its users (Mage). Mina Loveberry relies more on warfare and destruction (Fighter).
• Forbidden Love: Queen Eclipsa abandons her kingdom to marry a monster. They are imprisoned for their treasonous romance, while their daughter, who would grow up to become Miss Heinous, is swapped with a peasant girl to be raised as heir to the throne.
• Foreign Exchange Student: The Diazes have apparently played host to many of these in the past. One called Gustav visits in an early episode.
• Foregone Conclusion: As what we've learned in "Stump Day", it wasn't really Star's birthday in the first episode when she received the Royal Magic Wand from her mother, given she was born on Stump Day but she doesn't celebrate it that day because it would anger the Stump.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Toffee being the voice inside Ludo's wand got quite a bit of this: Ludo used two phrases that Toffee had previously used "Swallow it" and "Surprise!", Toffee's skeletal hand made up his wand, and his finger showed up inside the other half of the wand.
  • Glossaryck's nature as a true neutral was hinted at in "Page Turner" when he talks about Queen Eclipsa in positive terms for never questioning him.
  • Lekmet was the only one of the magic high council to not have A Day in the Limelight episode and he dies in a Heroic Sacrifice in "Starcrushed".
  • In "Sweet Dreams", River jokingly says in response to Star's questions about unintentionally transforming into her butterfly form that if such a thing ever happened, the Magic High Commission would come and take her away and then they would adopt a new princess. This is exactly what happened to Eclipsa's Mewman/monster hybrid daughter Meteora who was sent away to St. Olga's and replaced by the peasant girl Festivia as the heir to the throne. Though Meteora had been taken away because of her heritage, not because of any power she exhibited.
  • Early in Season 4, Star and Glossaryck are talking about the things that Star has done thus far that have caused trouble, and they all can be traced back to the time she destroyed Toffee in order to save the magic in the world, and Glossaryck mentions that might be a mistake. In "The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse", Star realizes this is true. In order to save Mewni, she must end all magic.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Both humans and Mewmans sport four digits on each hand, as do some other characters. An early indication of Glossaryck's general weirdness is that he has six (five fingers and a thumb).
• Garrulous Growth: In "Naysaya", Marco ends up with a miniature talking head growing out of his neck. The eponymous Naysaya is a curse placed on him by Star's ex Tom, which blurts out all of Marco's most embarrassing thoughts and secrets to anyone in earshot when Marco tries to talk to his crush Jackie Lynn.
• Genre Shift: The first two seasons act as a Slice of Life comedy about Star learning to adjust to Earth culture, and occasionally going on dimension-hopping misadventures. Season 3, however, shifts this by returning Star to Mewni, with Marco following her soon after, with the plot being much more focused on Star learning to handle the responsibilities of royalty, uncovering her kingdom's Dark Secrets and mending some of Mewni's Fantastic Racism. Essentially, it shifts from a magical sitcom to High Fantasy.
• Global Currency: Almost every dimension seems to use the same currency. At the very least, nobody has any trouble accepting $650 from Marco. The only exception thus far is Pixtopia, which only accepts gold and jewels.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The fate of all those who try to decipher the labyrinthine Quest Buy mall's cryptic organization system. Marco cracks the system.
• Good Princess, Evil Queen:
  • In flashbacks, Moon is depicted as a naïve but desperate princess who had just been crowned queen. She makes a contract with the Queen of Darkness, Eclipsa, in order to protect her homeland from Toffee.
  • Eclipsa herself is surprisingly tolerant and caring towards monsters despite being the daughter of Solaria, who is best known as the genocidal and vicious Monster Carver.
  • Later, Star's efforts to promote understanding between Mewman and Monsters are undercut by her own mother, Moon, who creates an army of Solarian Warriors to depose Eclipsa.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Star's casual fights against Ludo and his monsters does not compare with the evil the cast faces in Season 3 "The Battle for Mewni".
• Graying Morality: The series started off as a rather black and white "Mewmans good, monsters bad" story. Then we learn that most of Mewni is stuck in the Dung Ages, most of the monsters are actually just fighting to take back their forcibly stolen land, and King and Queen Butterfly are well aware of Star's dimension-hopping misadventures, using Glossaryck as The Mole.
• Great Big Book of Everything: Subverted with the manual for Star's wand. While Star claims it is a comprehensive list of the spells mastered by the wand's previous owners, that valuable information is extremely disorganized and often barely legible. This isn't helped by the fact that its living glossary likes being a giant pain about it.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Very rare, but it happens on occasion. The episode "The Bogbeast of Boggabah", for example, treats us to a close-up of both River and Star's bulging, very bloodshot eyeballs.
• Hard Truth Aesop
  • "Face the Music" has Star's attempt to use her Princess Song to give an honest impression of herself to the people of Mewni rather than be portrayed as a generic perfect Princess results in the Internal Reveal that the Royal Family lied to protect Star's reputation, inciting the peasantry to riot and damaging the Magic High Commission's trust in Queen Moon. The lesson, as plainly stated to Star by her mother after the fiasco, is that sometimes it's better to lie and pretend to be someone you're not, especially when you're in a position of authority where people depend on you.
  • "Monster Bash" teaches the lesson that you can't and shouldn't expect centuries of prejudice and bigotry to disappear overnight. It is possible for both sides to try to overcome their biases, but it is also too easy to fall back on them. Also, no matter how logical a change to the status quo may be, some will still viciously oppose it.
• Hartman Hips: Averted, Queen Moon, Miss Heinous, and probably Hekapoo^note she's only seen in one dress, so there is no way of knowing how wide her hips actually are aren't as bottom-heavy as they look because of their hoop skirts.
• Hero Insurance: Everyone on Earth is surprisingly cool with all the mayhem and destruction caused by Star.
• Hidden Villain: Season 3 hints that someone with a lot of power has been acting behind the scenes of the Butterfly family. Eclipsa never had a daughter named Festivia. Her only daughter was Meteora, who was erased from all registers and even from the Magic High Commission's Archive, a secret archive that keeps the story of the royal family in check, someone positioned Mina in an abandoned monster temple to end Meteora were she to ever come back and erased Meteora's memory, turning her into Ms. Heinous, while simultaneously giving Festivia the throne. At the end of "Total Eclipsa of the Moon", Moon says she thinks she knows who did it. As it turns out, it was the Magic High Commission all along, just as Moon suspected.
• High-School Sweethearts: Mr. and Mrs. Diaz, according to the "#MarcoLIVE Animated Live Chat" by Marco in response to a fan.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Implied to be a problem for wielders of the magic wand in general. No-one ever explains what words are necessary to cast the desired spell. A slight change of the spell's incantation can have dangerous and possibly fatal consequences. Even Star's Book of Spells is just a catalog of notes from previous users who awkwardly scrawled down incantations without any regard to organization or legibility.
• Human All Along: Of a sort. Although Mewmans always looked identical to humans, it's strongly suggested in "Mama Star" that Mewmans were just humans who fell into the magic well and somehow ended up in Mewni. Since that realm messes with memories, none of the Mewmans remember that's how they got there.
• Humans Are Warriors: Marco is a shining example of this. Marco is 14 years old, and learned karate from a strip mall dojo. He's only a green belt, which is only about halfway through the ranking system. Yet he is capable of defeating fully grown, adult monsters time after time, just as well as an alien princess with extremely destructive magic. He's not even fully grown yet, but he's more than a match in a fight than most of what he and Star go up against.
• Hypocrite:
  • Season 3 addresses the audience's concerns about how Mewman prejudice against monsters has been accompanied by a slew of hypocritical behaviors. To begin with, there are certain creatures that look unnatural, by Mewman standards, and yet they're not subject to the same treatment by Mewmans. Demons, in this case, add more insult to the injury — they look and act like monsters, people fear them, but they're treated with respect due to them having been allies of the royal family since Mewni's founding (notably, there's one episode where a shop keeper yells at Tom to get out of his store for looking like a monster, but then backpedals as soon as he realizes who he's talking to). There's also Ludo' family, whom Moon, who holds prejudiced views against peaceful monsters such as Buff Frog, treats with respect and pity due to them being close allies with the royal family, just like Tom's.
  • Hekapoo in particular is notable for this, as despite holding the same prejudiced views against monsters as the rest of the MHC, she regularly hangs out with monsters in bars back in her home dimension. She also gets angry at Queen Moon for hiding things at the end of "Face the Music" despite Hekapoo herself being part of the Meteora coverup and subsequently lying to the royal family about their true bloodline for centuries.
• Hypno Pendulum: In "Deep Dive", Janna uses Marco's wristwatch to hypnotize Star into a Forced Sleep so they can find out where her sleep-portaling leads her.
• The "I Love You" Stigma: In "Face the Music", Star's crush on Marco is publicly revealed to him in the final stanza of the song and in "Starcrushed". The two couldn't maintain a conversation long enough without becoming awkward with each other. Due to the fact that Marco was struggling to comprehend her feelings for him and Star was too embarrassed to admit the accuracy of the song.
• Imagine Spot: Both Star and Pony Head have identical nightmarish imaginings of going to St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses.
• Immortals Fear Death: Back when Moon the Undaunted became Queen of Mewni, an army led by Toffee was trying to conquer the kingdom and they took victory for granted because they can regrow any body parts they lose. With a spell she learned from Eclipsa, Moon made Toffee lose a finger and he couldn't regrow it. Seeing it scared his followers into fleeing.
• Innocently Insensitive: Several characters were like this to Star since "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown". For example, Jackie wasn't aware of Star's crush on Marco and didn't realize how it affected her. Marco didn't realize how uncomfortable Star was during the concert in "Just Friends".
• Insistent Terminology: In the episode "Divide", Star refuses to be called Queen and insists that she is only acting queen.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: Characters, both good and evil, use magic "Dimensional Scissors" to cut open portals to other dimensions. One even used a dimensional chainsaw.
• Killer Rabbit: It's almost a running gag that Star will turn normally harmless creatures into voracious, man-eating creatures.
• Knighting: After saving Mewni from Ludo and Toffee, Marco is made an honorary Knight of Mewni and given an official knight's cape by King River. Of course, River tells him he can make it official if Marco is ready to commit. It's later subverted because River did it just to humor Marco, and he didn't think Marco was going to be serious about it. Later on, Star gives him the equivalent of a knighting ceremony, to make him her squire. Even later, Eclipsa officially promotes Marco to knight, but he ultimately declines the position because it turns out that a knight's post is for life. Marco decided that the only thing on Mewni he was willing put that much of a commitment to was being with Star.
• Kneel Before Zod: The incantation for the Spell with No Name, which Eclipsa uses, demands this before unleashing a butterfly-shaped projectile of pure destruction.
  I call the spell which has no name.
  My mother's gift with which she reigned.
  Eclipse my heart with rightful power.
  Stand before the queen and cower!
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Not even less than a week after the airing of "Monster Bash", Disney XD did not hesitate to air a promo for the Disney NOW! app, showcasing each of the identities of the holders of the card symbols, spoiling that Heinous is Eclipsa's daughter.
• Loser Protagonist: Well, secondary protagonist, but Marco is this at the beginning of the series and throughout most of season one. He's extremely unpopular, with his only friends being Alfonzo and Ferguson (who are both gross, unattractive geeks), has a crush on a girl whom he's never said a word to and barely even knows he exists, is bullied regularly by a nine year old (granted, an extremely spoiled and bad behaved nine year old, but still), and thinks fanny packs are the height of fashion. It's his friendship with Star (who's extremely popular in school) that leads to his character development of becoming more confident and moving outside his comfort zone.
• Love Triangle: After "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", one has started between Jackie, Marco, and Star. Star didn't want to admit it since Marco is already with Jackie. She eventually does confess to Marco at the end of "Starcrushed", just before she has to leave Earth and possibly never return. This was later put to rest in Season 3 by having Jackie break up with Marco but a love triangle instead formed between Marco, Tom and Star. This lead to a Cock Fight between Marco and Tom on "Stump Day".
• Ludd Was Right: Season 4 veers towards this with regards to magic, showing that the Mewman peasantry are so dependent on the Queen's magic that they can hardly care for themselves. By the end of the series, Star decides that everyone who uses magic (including herself) is an idiot that only ever abuses it, and so wipes it from the multiverse entirely.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Miss Heinous from St. Olga's is strongly implied to be related to the Butterflies through the club marks that occasionally appear on her cheeks. This is confirmed in "Monster Bash", when she is revealed to be the daughter of Queen Eclipsa.
• Magitek: Played for Laughs as the wand requires a charger, not unlike a cell phone. The charger itself is also magic and can enchant any device.
• Magic Is Evil: Played With. Star decides that using magic to solve problems only causes more problems, and the ones using it are all idiots who don't deserve the power they have, her own family included, and the cause of all problems by the end of the series. It's seen as a good thing when Star decides to destroy magic because it cannot be used responsibly, and it causes more problems than it solves.
• Magic Mirror:
  • Star's mirror allows her to contact anyone from Mewni and across dimensions. The user usually chants "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, call..." and the name of whoever they are calling. It even features a randomization feature where it simply connects with "anyone".
  • Many characters are also shown to have magic compact mirrors which are essentially interdimensional mobile phones.
• Magic Skirt: Star, as is to be expected from a Magical Girl expy. To a lesser extent, Moon and Miss Heinous as well.
• Magic Wand:
  • Star's wand is incredibly powerful and could potentially destroy everything in the wrong hands. It also seems to change its form depending on who uses it. It looks more like a royal scepter at first, but when the Moon gives it to Star, it changes to look like something Sailor Moon or Sakura Kinomoto would use. When Lobster Claws gets it for a moment, it turns into a dark scepter with an eye, not unlike the Eye of Truth from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
  • After the wand is cleaved in "Storm the Castle", Ludo discovers the other half, consisting of the left side of the severed wand crystal and a handle made out of a skeletal right hand and forearm with the middle finger missing, taking it for his own.
• Magical Incantation:
  • Played with. Most of Star's spells aren't poetic lines of incantations, but not as simple as an "Abracadabra" either. Star tends to shout her intent with whatever words pop into her head. She doesn't always think ahead (or at all), which causes problems.
  • In "Storm the Castle", a straighter example is the Whispering Spell, in which Star whispers an incantation. However, it isn't discernible exactly what is whispered, or in what language. Revealed when Eclipsa, Star, Moon, and Meteora incant it in the realm of magic to remove all magic from the universe.
    "Break the bond, tear the fabric, cleave the stone, stop the magic."
• The Mall: Quest Buy is a transdimensional example.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: The series is essentially a deconstruction of this; it starts out with Star indeed making Marco's life more interesting but also more chaotic, as if it's saying "be careful what you wish for" to viewers who dream of meeting such a character, but over time, the it becomes more about Marco aiding the character development of Star by helping her tone down and control her uber-impulsive behavior.
• Matriarchy: Mewni's royal family is revealed to be this. In "Mewnipendence Day", it is revealed that the land was conquered through the power of the Queen's wand. In addition, it is revealed in "Game of Flags" that husbands take their wives' names when they marry and apparently the Queen has the right of repudiate her marriage if she desired it. Despite Star being an only child, there is never any hint of a succession crisis. In "Divide" Star becomes acting queen and ruler of Mewni when her mother goes missing, despite her father, the king, being still alive.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Toffee spends all of Season 2 manipulating Ludo from inside his wand and causing the Fritz, all so that he can reclaim the finger Moon took from him. He gets it back at the end of "Battle for Mewni"... only for Star to manage to fix the wand from his corruption, enter a Super Mode, and all but vaporize him, and when that doesn't kill him, Ludo appears to do the job by dropping a pillar on him.
• Merged Reality: In the series finale, "Cleaved", Star and Marco bring the worlds of Earth and Mewni together.
• Mistaken for Insane: After his revival, Glossaryk, normally a Trickster Mentor, seems to have lost his mind, unable to say anything but "Globgor" as he runs around on all fours. With Eclipsa back and Miss Heinous causing trouble, the cast don't really have time to find a way to fix him though. Then comes the season finale when it's revealed Glossaryk hasn't lost his marbles, with him explaining he'd been simply warning them that Eclipsa will try to reunite with her monster lover; Globgor.
• Mister Big: Ludo. All his mooks are several times bigger than he is, yet he intimidates them just the same.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The peasant village in Mewni boasts stables full of part-pig, part-goat creatures.
• Modesty Towel: One scene shows Marco wears one wrapped around the chest, in the traditionally feminine way, including a towel wrapped around his (short) hair.
• Moment of Lucidity: The Realm of Magic causes anyone who enters to rapidly lose their mind and memories, with the affected becoming nonsensical and forgetting who they are. After finding her mother in the Realm of Magic, Star succumbs to the magic's effects and forgets everything until she finds a note she left for herself to remind her of who she is. Star is able to open a portal to save herself and her mother, though unfortunately forgets once more and the portal closes.
• Mood Whiplash: Anytime an episode ends on an ominous or grim note, immediately followed by the cheery ending credits. This is averted in "Starcrushed".
• Multicultural Alien Planet: Although it is never called “Planet”, the dimension of Mewni is a good example, on the one hand we have the mewmans, who have a culture and technological level similar to that of Medieval Europe, the Johansen, who seem to be a Barbarian Tribe, then there are the monsters, who have their own culture with artistic expressions including painting, sculpture and elaborate dancing, the Waterfolk kingdom, the Lucitor kingdom, which is underground and inhabited by demons, the Pigeon Kingdom inhabited by pigeons smart, and the people of Pie Island, whose culture seems to be based solely on lies, theft and scam.
• Morph Weapon: The wand zigzags on this. First of all, the wand changes to match the personality of the wielder. In "School Spirit", we see Star had turned it into a mace. She can extend the handle making it a Boom Stick to use it like a bazooka or just pull a construct of the barrel out the back as a rocket appears out the front. She once grew a cone on it to use it as a megaphone.
• Muggles: To Mewmans, regular humans whom they are actually descended from, are this compared to them.
• Mundane Utility: Star can use her wand to give her ponytails or pigtails at the blink of an eye.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Ludo's minions are mostly big, muscular brutes... who routinely get beaten up by a pair of average-sized fourteen-year-olds:
  Ludo: How are you losing? You guys have like 200 pounds on her!
• Mushroom Samba:
  • Star's "Jellybean Hallucination Mist" spell.
  • The famed Goblin Dogs taste no different from any ordinary hot dogs, but they cause one of these to incur after being consumed, which apparently makes them completely worth the absurdly convoluted and frustrating method of obtaining them.

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