Star Vs The Forces Of Evil / Tropes N to Z

• Never Say "Die":
  • Brittney Wong tells Ludo, "I hope you destroy her," when he ambushes Star after she crashed Brittney's birthday party and overshadowed her.
  • "Gift of the Card":
    • Miss Heinous tells Rasticore at the beginning of the episode to destroy Star.
    • The terms of the titular gift card include a provision that the owner of the card and the friend who purchased it for them will "expire" along with the card's expiration date. Subverted when Marco's reaction to learning this makes it clear in no uncertain terms what that means:
      Marco: Wha-ha-hat?! Like, we DIE?!
• Noodle Incident: There are several incidents that are mentioned but never elaborated on:
  • Marco wore a helmet in the gym shower at one point.
  • It's implied that Ludo and Star fought each other before the series started, and they've certainly met previously.
  • Star briefly mentions that Pony Head has gotten "possessive" before.
  • Star's demonic ex-boyfriend has tried to get back with her more than once.
  • Janna has apparantley raised the dead before and once briefly dated a talking skeleton.
  • Star mentions in one of the books that Alfonzo and Ferguson have snuck into her room and messed with her things on more than one occasion.
  • One of the books has Star recall a time where she was possessed by a demon soul that flew up her nose while snooping through Tom's room, and she spent eight hours talking backwards and walking like a crab.
• No Man Should Have This Power: This is Star's reason for destroying the realm of magic. It has potentially infinite power and past users have caused destruction on a multiversal scale. It is also shown to have corrupting effects on those who indulge in it too much.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • The "Bounce Lounge" has no railings, yet is situated directly over a lot of spikes.
  • Quest Buy is poorly managed by sloth workers, people tend to get lost and go insane trying to navigate in the store, and it has working death traps on its booby trap department. However, they do apparently have worker's comp.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • The Season 2 finale, "Starcrushed", has Toffee make his move on Mewni after a season of hiding behind the scenes, forcing Star to leave Earth. Even after the problem is dealt with in the "Battle for Mewni" series of episodes, Mewni becomes the primary setting of the show, with Earth and its supporting cast rarely making an appearance afterwards.
  • Season 3 further upends the status quo by revealing that Star's family are illegitimate and stole the throne from Eclipsa, making her a false princess. By the end of the season and the start of the next, Star gives the throne and her wand back to Eclipsa, while the Butterfly kingdom has been completely destroyed by Meteora, displacing numerous Mewmans.
• Number of the Beast: Joked about in "Blood Moon Ball" but not mentioned directly; Tom states that the ball takes place every 667 years, with Rider Strong's delivery of the line drawing attention toward the subversion. The same joke comes up again in "Running With Scissors", as Marco's dragon-bike has a collar with the tag "667" on it.
• Odd Name Out: Ludo's family all end their names with "-do", except for Dennis.
• Ode to Food: In "Lint Catcher", Star sings to a burrito. She swears not to let go of it, until she throws it on Marco when he accidentally startles her. Moments later, Tom comes out of the toilet, doing the exact same thing.
• Oh, My Gods!: The Mewmans' version of "Thank God!" is "Thank Mewni!" or "Thank corn!", while Marco said "Thank karate!" once.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Averted with the student Justin Armberg and the singer Justin Tower.
  • There are two people named "Larry" in the show: Hungry Larry (a Bedsheet Ghost) and Larry Kelpbottom (prince of the Fish People).
  • Downplayed in regards to "Thomas", which is Tom's full first name and Jackie's surname.
• Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: As Earth and Mewni are merged in the Series Finale, Star and Marco get to stay together and live happily ever after... while Echo Creek's residents run screaming from Mewni's more hostile wildlife which now runs rampant, and the destruction of magic means characters not from either world (e.g. Kelly) are stuck in their own dimensions forever, while anyone that needed magic to stay alive is now dead.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Star is sent to Earth in order to be this. Marco actually is one, but wishes his life was more exciting. He gets his wish and then some when Star shows up.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Ludo and his goons get pretty ridiculous:
  Ludo: You mean you've never met Man Arm?
  Man Arm: [extends a tiny human arm from monstrous alligator body] Hey.
• Out of Focus:
  • Starting in Season 3, Marco doesn't feature in many of the episodes. Even a few episodes focus on Queen Moon with almost no involvement of Star.
  • Star is absent or relegated to a minor role for much of Season 4, as the focus is more on other characters such as Marco, Kelly, Ludo, and also on the repercussions of Eclipsa being made queen.
• Parents Suck at Matchmaking: Queen Solaria tried to set up her daughter Eclipsa with prince Shastacan for diplomatic reasons, although the girl hated his repellent personality. Unfortunately, the queen believed that she knew better and imposed the marriage in her will. Eclipsa complied, but couldn't stand Shastacan for much longer, leaving him to form a family with her true love Globgor.
• Photo-Booth Montage:
  • Star, Marco, and Pony Head go into a photo booth because Star wants them to be friends. As soon as Star leaves, Pony Head threatens Marco while still taking friendly pictures.
  • "Booth Buddies" is primarily centered around Star wanting to do one with Marco, but never being happy with the end result. They take so many photos, the picture strips jam the slot. The final strip ends with Star and Marco kissing.
• Place Worse Than Death: St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses, initially.
• Plaster Cast Doodling: In "Monster Arm", Star signs the cast for Marco's broken arm and draws a lot of cutesy art on it◊ too.
• Plot Tumor:
  • Glossaryck is introduced in Season 1 as a quirky little man who lives in Star's spellbook, making only a few appearances. In Season 2, he becomes more prominent as a mentor character, teaching Star and later Ludo magic. By the final season, he's set up as the Physical God of the setting and responsible for much of Mewni's history both directly and indirectly.
  • Season 1's "Mewnipendence Day" was the first episode to establish the idea that monsters weren't necessarily evil, but forced into a bad situation because of the first Mewmans. By Seasons 3 and 4, this becomes the central focus of the show, with antagonistic monsters becoming scarce and multiple plot threads and characters (Eclipsa, Miss Heinous, Mina Loveberry) tying back to it one way or another.
• Police Are Useless: Pretty much any time Marco or Star call the police, they get told there's nothing they can do, and sometimes get mocked as well. Granted, they're not equipped to deal with, or sometimes even understand, the kind of trouble that Star gets into. This is at its worst in "Starstruck", where the police officers not only make no attempt to stop Mina and Star's rampage (instead going after Marco, who wasn't even doing anything), but do nothing about Star's display of magic that destroyed a public park right in front of them other than just calmly accepting the fact that magic exists.
• Power Incontinence: Star's wand is most dangerous when she tries to use it for non-combat related purposes. Several episodes in the first season have conflicts centered around this.
• Panty Shot: In "School Spirit", when the cheerleaders do the booty shake during the game, Brittney jumps and does a split and her skirt flies up and shows her underwear before she’s caught.
• The Power of Creation: Seems to be the main power of Star's wand, since she can make small creatures appear from nowhere and turn a butterfly into a monster. The problem stems from the fact that Star has trouble getting the incantations right to make what she wishes, which, therefore, doesn't always come out right.
• Practically Different Generations: Marco and his sister are 15 years apart in age.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Daron Nefcy's original conception of Star, who she had been drawing in comics for years, was that she was a deranged but otherwise ordinary girl who only believed she was a magical fairy princess. This concept was ultimately ditched for the series.
  • Pony Head originally had entrails spilling from her neck instead of glitter.
• Prejudice Aesop: This is a major underlaying theme within the series. At first we're lead to believe the evil forces were monsters from Star's homeland, Mewni, trying to seize power for themselves. But as the series goes on, we start to see plotlines that showcase the monsters aren't as bad as Star was lead to think, some even just want better living conditions for their families due to actually being oppressed by the current regime. The prejudice was so bad, that, during Eclipsa's rule, she fell in love with a monster and birthed a daughter, a half-breed. The Butterfly monarchy absolutely rejected the notion of having a partial monster for a ruler and went so far as to secretly switch her out for a normal Mewnian. Season 3 goes into this much more as the series moves into the other realms and we explore more of Mewni. Season 4 takes it full throttle and showcases how prejudice can have devastating consequences if left unchecked.
• Princesses Prefer Pink:
  • When Star disguises Marco as a princess he ends up getting the classic Princess Pink. He isn't amused when Star says pink is his color. He later seems to have changed his mind when he asks to keep the dress, albeit immediately after he received forced princess brainwashing.
  • Played with with Star herself: her usual attire consists of blues and greens, but she wears more formal dresses with the traditional pink and purple for events such as the Blood Moon Ball and Eclipsa's coronation.
• Princess Protagonist: Star.
• Progressively Prettier: Monsters are initially drawn rather ugly and weird in the first season, but as the series continues they become more conventionally "cute" and closer to Funny Animals (which makes for a sharp contrast when Ludo's monsters return in a Season 4 episode, by which point their diverse designs clash with the Animal Crossing-esque background monsters). Miss Skullnick is perhaps the most prominent individual example, losing her warts, body hair, and fat rolls almost entirely between seasons.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Inverted. The final shot of the Season 3 intro removed the multitude of characters that appeared in the previous seasons' intros (albeit only in minor cameos for the most part), leaving only Janna, Star, Marco, Pony Head, Kelly and Tom.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: The series often leans into this with Star doing morally questionable acts (which are often played off as Black Comedy) either on a whim or to get what she wants, but the finale in particular has become infamous for this:
  • In particular, the last few minutes shows Earth and Mewni fused together. Despite all the humans running and screaming in fear from the monsters, all the destroyed stuff, how hard it will be for everyone to adapt to the new world, the mostly unresolved racism between monsters and regular Mewmans, the fact that people who have been ruled by a monarchy for their entire lives now having to coexist with countless different world governments, and that Star and Marco will never see their friends who didn't live on Mewni again, this is still treated as a good thing and a happy ending because it means Star and Marco get to stay together. In other words, who cares how many billions of people have had their lives uprooted as long as our leads get to stay together?
• Psychoactive Powers: "Wand to Wand" shows that both Star and Ludo's wands operate this way; Ludo's wand needs anger to charge it, while Star's spells won't work right if she's feeling angry or frustrated. It takes seeing Marco in danger for Star to get her wand working correctly.
• Put on a Bus: At the end of the Battle for Mewni, Ludo is seemingly ready to leave behind his villainous ways, so he decides to go on a soul-searching journey through the void. As a result, he only makes a handful of appearances for the remainder of the series.
  • In a sense, every character from Earth except Marco and Janna gets put on a bus after "Sophomore Slump", due to the series shifting its setting from Earth to Mewni. Many return for brief appearances in "Britta's Tacos" and "Cleaved", and a few make occasional appearances outside of these episodes.
• Putting on the Reich: The guards of St. Olga's are designed in such a manner.
• Raise Her Right This Time: In "Conquer", after Eclipsa defeats Meteora, the latter is turned into a baby.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Star gives an absolutely brutal one to Moon in The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse:
  Star: What is there to talk about exactly?! We can't go back to Mewni because we'll die from a situation you caused! So just stay far away from me! Or better yet, stand over there! [pointing at the void of non-existence] Where you don't exist!
• The Remnant: Queen Solaria's army was enchanted with a spell to make them stronger in order to fulfill her goal to destroy all monsters. However, this enchantment also suppressed any fear, foresight or conscience, which led to these super soldiers recklessly throwing themselves into deadly situations. Mina is the last surviving member of the Solarian army, and she's determined to complete their mission.
• Retool: Season 3 ditches the school setting and shifts the action from Earth to Mewni.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Lots of them. Just watch the initial ending theme.
• Rhyming Wizardry: Most spells do not require an incantation. The ones that do typically rhyme the last word in each line (though not always).
  Star: [casting the All-Seeing Eye] I summon the All-Seeing Eye to tear a hole into the sky. Reveal to me that which is hidden. Unveil to me what is forbidden.
• Running Gag:
  • Whenever St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses is brought up, it's always followed by lightning, said character who doesn't want to be sent there screaming, and a shot of them being "sucked" into said school with the gate closing behind them.
  • Star accidentally giving Marco a makeover.
  • Flying creatures spawned by Star swooping down and taking people.
  • People, or a puppy, being sucked into black holes.
  • A few episodes have their own gag which often is revealed to be a Chekhov's Gun or Chekhov's Skill, such as Marco's disgust of wet socks.
  • Marco having $650 on him for no apparent reason and using it to pay some unexpected charge. Early in the series, he claims it's his emergency cash stash, which would make sense for him to restore it back to the original amount when he has the use it. It also turns out that $650 is the exact amount that he makes in monthly royalties from Princess Marco merchandise.
  • Janna knowing all of Marco's secrets and stealing stuff from him.
• Satellite Family Member:
  • Star's family (except her parents, Meteora, Eclipsa and Solaria) mostly exist to show what the Butterfly family is and to what to strive for in life. Practically all we know about them is from "Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension" and "Star vs. the Forces of Evil: The Magic Book of Spells".
  • King Shastacan's role is to be a Hate Sink by showing him only as a man equivalent Woman Scorned who decided to erase his stepdaughter Meteora from history by sending her away and replacing her with another child.
• Schizo Tech: Mewni has electronic vending machines but no light bulbs, water fountains, or bicycles.
• Secret Room: There are a number of secret passageways and rooms in Butterfly Castle. While Star and Moon are aware of some of them, only Eclipsa knows all of them.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Magical High Commission discards Meteora and replaces her with Festivia because of the potential danger of a half-monster getting access to magic. That said, Meteora only becomes a serious threat because of the Commission's actions in the first place and it's unknown how dangerous she would've become had she been reared normally.
• Ship Tease: Has its own page.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Star receives a bill from Reflectacorp regarding the equipment she destroyed in "The Pony Head Show, worth a thousand pounds of gold.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: The Diazes are seen portrayed as an extremely lovey-dovey couple. In Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension, Star says that they can be usually be found cuddling on the couch. In the "#MarcoLIVE Animated Live Chat", Marco said in response to a fan, his parents were high school sweethearts and loved each other for a long time. These episodes show how the Diazes are lovey dovey:
  • "Diaz Family Vacation": Rafael and Angie give each other bedroom eyes on the couch and Angie plays with Rafael's chest hair. In the Forest of Certain Death, Rafael comments on his wife's beauty. And while they were in the hot spring, they make kissy faces to each other.
  • "Raid the Cave": As Star uses the All-Seeing Eye to find Glossaryck, Star has spotted them by surprise as they pop their legs up and they lean in to kiss.
• Significant Birth Date: Star was born on Stump Day; however, she does not celebrate it that day as it could anger the Stump.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Star and Jackie developed feelings for Marco because of his kindness. Star was attracted to bad boys and Jackie had interest in a boy from skate camp.
• Sliding Scale of Continuity: The series started out as Level 3, with the only things in Season 1 carrying over into later episodes being: Star getting interdimensional scissors, Ms. Skullnick turning into a troll, and Toffee joining Ludo's army. From the Season 1 finale onward, the series jumped to Level 4, with several plot threads opened in Season 1 continuing into Seasons 2 and 3.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: Was originally in the silly side, but as of the first half-hour episode, the series began going back and forth, with dramatic and lore-heavy episodes being mixed in with random misadventures.
• Sluggish Sloths: The interdimensional megastore Quest Buy is staffed by anthropomorphic sloths, who are lazy, unmotivated and entirely unhelpful to customers. Don't get them mad, though.
• Something Only They Would Say: In "Escape from the Pie Folk", Star starts to sing a song her mom always sang, and Moon, who seems to have lost her memory, recognizes it.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil:
  • Ludo was usurped by the far more competent and dangerous Toffee, but seemingly managed to come back more dangerous than him thanks to a wand of his own only for him to be Toffee's pawn the entire time and Toffee to reveal himself and prove way more dangerous with the Wand than Ludo was.
  • After his defeat, there's no real Big Bad for awhile until Meteora is revealed and shows herself to be even more powerful and dangerous than even Toffee.
  • In season 4, this reaches a new level when is revealed that Mina has an army of hundreds of soldiers who are stronger than Meteora.
• Spoiled Sweet: Star is the crown princess of the kingdom of Mewni and grew up in a wealthy family getting whatever she wanted, including her family's powerful magic wand. Despite this, Star herself is very kind and friendly, and takes joy in making friends and seeing other people happy. Later on in the series, she takes a liking to Queen Eclipsa and wishes to end racial tensions between monsters and her kingdom's people.
• Spoiler Opening: At the end of the title sequence, Ms. Skullnick appears as a troll.
• Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Janna stalks, spies on, steals from, blackmails, invades the privacy, teases and flirts with Marco in nearly every episode she appears. His horror and discomfort is always played for laughs.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • "Stranger Danger" has Star finally meet Queen Eclipsa. Meeting her in the royal garden has shown her that, contrary to what people say, she’s possibly not as evil as she seems. So just as Rhombulus was about to crystallize her again, Star declares a trial to test this theory. At this point, one might expect an immediate cut to a courtroom for this. Not here. As Queen Moon states, sudden events like this need time to be set up. Eclipsa ends up under house arrest for many episodes until "Butterfly Trap".
  • "Conquer" ends with Star handing over her wand and the throne to Eclipsa, after having learned the truth about her family . Come the next episode, and her reputation in the kingdom tanks to the point where she's openly mocked and sarcastically addressed in public, and even the servants in the castle who wait on her regularly mumble under their breaths to badmouth her. Considering Eclipsa's reputation, it should be no surprise that Star siding with her and handing her a major position of power would be an extremely unpopular decision, and pretty much destroy any sort of positive image she had.
  • "The Bounce Lounge" involves Star and Ponyhead raising money to help the owner of the titular Bounce Lounge pay off her mortgage. They succeed... but the episode ends with the lounge closing anyway. The owner reveals that, while she appreciates the help, the reason why the lounge was closing was because she was sick of partying and simply didn't want to keep it open. This is very much the case for some businesses in real life, where the reason they end up closing their doors is simply because the owner(s) have no interest in keeping them open, rather than any sort of monetary reason.
  • In "The Ponyhead Show", though Eclipsa plays and sings a heartfelt song to the Mewman people about her good intentions, the show's ratings only decrease further because the Mewmans didn't like having their compact mirrors hijacked for the performance. Though she at least got through to one person...
  • The series ends with Mina defeated and completely humiliated (to the point where her own idol Solaria coldly rejects her out of disgust), Star being reunited with Marco and her parents, and the destruction of magic meaning Mina and her cronies are unlikely to cause more trouble anytime soon. Despite this, Mina makes it abundantly clear she hasn't learned a single thing, and explicitly states she'll never give up in her goal of total annihilation of monsters. This is sadly very much accurate to real life, with people like Mina who strongly hold their own prejudiced beliefs will not simply get rid of those beliefs, and no matter what happens to them, they will absolutely refuse to change their views. The only thing Star and Marco can hope for is that their new world has no place for people like Mina and the small group of people that agree with her.
  • Star's reckless behavior and ignorance of Earth's culture is usually played for laughs in the early seasons, but there's several moments where her more destructive tendencies have realistic consequences:
    • In "School Spirit", Star, thinking the football game the school is playing is an actual battle, rigs the field with spikes and explosives that go off as soon as the game begins. This causes the opposing team to freak out and forfeit the game in terror, allowing Marco and Star's school to win by default.
    • "Star vs Echo Creek" ends with Star learning the police car she accidentally destroyed earlier was decommissioned and set to be destroyed anyway, but she's still sentenced to community service for her actions. Decommissioned or not, Star still destroyed public property and fled the scene, and while the police officers understand it was an accident, her running away used up police resources and upset Marco's family.
    • "The Banagic Wand Incident" has Star angrily attack a waiter and trash a pirate-themed restaurant, thinking the employees are actual pirates. This ends up angering the manager, who doesn't want to hear any sort of apology, and chases after Star with her staff throughout town. The only reason they back off is because Star manages to talk them down by offering them ice cream.
    • In "Interdimensional Field Trip", Star makes a bet with her teacher Mrs. Skullnick that she can be a better teacher to the class by allowing them to have fun and do whatever they want. This quickly ends up with nearly everyone in class getting severely injured and almost killed by a dangerous monster, while Star suffers a breakdown from things spiraling out of control. When Mrs. Skullnick steps in, she immediately gets things under control and moves the whole class to safety before telling off Star for her recklessness. Even though Star is a princess and is used to ordering people around, she's still a teenager who has no experience teaching, while Mrs. Skullnick is an actual teacher and knows the proper protocol for keeping order in the class.
    • "Girl's Day Out" begins with Star getting into an argument with Mrs. Skullnick and making a big scene in class, followed by her releasing the class pet and throwing it outside. All this ends up accomplishing is Star getting dragged off to detention, and even after her and Janna return the pet, Mrs. Skullnick refuses to budge with the punishment.
    • In the same episode, the pet runs into a drainage pipe, and Marco sticks his arm inside in an attempt to reach it. This predictably causes his arm to get stuck, and the last time we see him in the episode, the fire department is cutting the pipe out to free it.
    • "Collateral Damage" has Star accidentally destroy the possum statue in front of the school. Unlike other episodes such as "School Spirit" and "Mewberty", Star is not so easily forgiven; the statue was a historical icon that had been there for decades, and for what everyone in school treated like an old friend. So its destruction results in everyone being pissed as hell at Star, and upset to the point where the principal can't even say anything to her without bursting into tears. The only one who isn't affected is Marco, simply because he's the only one who actually read up about the town's history and didn't have any particularly strong feelings towards the statue in the first place.
    • This all comes to a head in "Face the Music", where Star, not wishing to be seen as a generic perfect princess, demands that her Princess Song shows who she really is as a person rather than a flawless fake persona that her mother and Mewni's citizens want to see. However, since Star never actually specified what she wanted in the song along with her less-than polite behavior towards the songwriter, her song ends up revealing several things that severely damage the reputation of the Butterfly family and royally piss off the MHC since they were never informed of such. Queen Moon sadly explains it to her daughter after the fact: since she's in such a high position of power with several people depending on and looking up to her, it's better to lie and pretend to be an idealized version of herself that people want to see, as such people don't want the truth, and being honest often causes more harm than good.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The principal, for no reason, informs everyone at a pep rally that the head cheerleader did not get that position because her father donated a bunch of money to the school.
• Synchronized Morning Routine: Star and her Love Interest Marco have a Morning Routine sequence that's very similar to each other and runs parallel. Particularly, they brush their teeth in synchronization while lip-syncing to a song by their favorite band.
• Take That!:
  Rafael Diaz: For how much money these doctors charge you would think they'd be much better at their jobs.
• Team Mercy vs. Team Murder: This basically becomes the setup between Star and Marco's stance against monsters compared to Mina Loveberry. The two of them - Marco from the get-go, Star after a little soul searching and analyzing the situation - come to believe that it's possible for Mewmans and Monsters to coexist as long as both species actually take the time to look past their prejudice towards each other, mostly from Mewmans against monsters, and actually talk things out and see each other's POV. Mina, meanwhile, comes from a time when Mewmanity's hatred towards monsters was at an all-time high, and was indoctrinated into believing they were scum, which lead them to believe that the complete extermination of monsterkind is the only possible outcome between the two species.
• Tiger Versus Dragon:
  • Marco and Jeremy have this antagonistic relationship. Marco is the dragon because he is the most rational, patient and logical to win fights. Jeremy is the tiger because he fights because of his ego and Spoiled Brat behavior which results in him being an aggressive fighter.
  • When Star and Marco argue, then they represent this. Alternatively, they represent this when fighting enemies. Star is the tiger because her magic is affected by her emotions and she tends to allow her emotions to affect her decisions. Examples include refusing to help an enemy because she believed that monsters were naturally evil and irredeemable, angrily believed that Marco saw her as helpless and in need of rescue from Tom despite Marco being Properly Paranoid and finally she tried to bury her feelings for Marco because she feared that she would ruin their friendship or ruin his relationship with Jackie. Marco is the dragon because he is the most rational and logical when making decisions but it has gotten him in trouble due to other dimensions having different laws and traditions. This is best shown in two episodes, when Star and Marco tried to save the bounce lounge Marco tried to tell her that she should accept the change to preserve her nostalgia however Star refused to listen and valiantly tried to save it. This is also shown when Marco and Star became babysitters for Buff Frog's children, Star disregarded the rules so that the children can have fun but Marco insisted that they follow Buff Frog's instructions. This dichotomy is primarily shown when the pair fight enemies as Marco uses his martial arts to win whereas Star uses devastating magical attacks to quickly win fights.
• Transformation Sequence: In "The Battle for Mewni" Episode 7, Star has a sequence before turning into a yellow butterfly with six arms (similar to her mother's magical form) and vanquishing Toffee. This drains Star but saves everyone.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Marco and Star. Star have been harboring a crush since mid-Season 2, finally getting over it after the Battle for Mewni to which Marco starts being attracted towards her, but the implications of such are not on lost on her.
• Unusual Euphemism: Star sometimes uses the phrase "Pegasus feathers".
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: It's pretty rare for anyone in the series to react to the display of magic, particularly not Star's extremely liberal usage of it. Only the school principal in the first episode displays any skepticism, and it gets dropped as soon as Star's father gives him a box of gold. Marco's parents have no reaction to the strange girl who summons puppies that shoot lasers from their eyes and adds an entire wing/tower onto their house. A guy who trails fire, has three eyes and arrives in front of the school in a carriage drawn by a skeleton horse draws no further comment from anyone other than a few girls remarking on how hot he is. And Oskar complaining that the demon parked his carriage in the handicapped space. In fact, the only people who seem to care that magic exists are two police officers in one episode, and even then, they don't do anything about it.
• The Upper Crass: The Johansen family that Star's father River was born into is a group of small nobles who live out in the wilderness, engage in savage capture-the-flag games, and apologize to people by handing out hunks of meat with "I'm sorry" engraved in them.
• Versus Title: Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
• Volcanic Veins: Eclipsa has dark ones running up her arm, and Moon gets them as well after her Deal with the Devil with her.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: During "Brittney's Party", Marco has been constantly holding back his sick. Once the bus crashes, Marco and Ludo take turns throwing up into a garbage can.
• We Sell Everything: Quest Buy stocks pretty much every item any trans-dimensional citizen could ever want. Good luck finding exactly what it is you're looking for, though.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: Ludo Avarius inherited his title as king of monsters from his family — as well as a castle and riches he uses to respectively house and hire an army of physically-imposing monsters to fulfill his dimension-conquering dreams. Ludo himself was born the runt of his litter, not having the ability to fly (he is a bird-like monster) and being weak due to his small size. Because of this, he's a Dirty Coward who treats his minions like trash and flees when his army is defeated. This is Double Subverted when half a magical wand gets embedded in his hand, which makes him a substantial threat. However, it turns out the hand doesn't actually belong to him but to his Dragon with an Agenda, who then regenerates himself, leaving Ludo as ineffective as he was before.
• Wham Line:
  • Season one's "Storm the Castle" even lampshades the nature of Toffee's statement.
    Toffee: Do you think I'm like Ludo? I don't want your wand... destroy it.
    Star and Marco: WHAAAAAAAT?
    Toffee: SURPRISE!
  • From the "Battle for Mewni" trailer:
    Moon: Eclipsa's alive... and I made a deal with her.
  • In "Return to Mewni", when Moon objects to Star leaving the sanctuary to fight Toffee:
    Moon: Star, Stop!
    Star: Why? What happened to cool, warrior queen mom?
    Moon: I was never a cool, warrior queen, Star. [tearing up] I was a happy-go-lucky girl like you and then Toffee and his monsters killed my mother.
  • Ever since Glossaryck came Back from the Dead in "Rest in Pudding", he could only say one word; "Globgor". In the Season 3 finale "Conquer", we finally find out what it means:
    Glossaryck: Eclipsa's Monster Love, Globgor! She's going off to be with him. I've been trying to tell you for months!
  • When Marco catches up with Star in "The Right Thing", he warns her that Mina is coming. Star tells them about how they just defeated Mina, referring to the destroyed armor above them:
    Marco: Uh... That's not Mina.
  • "Here to Help":
    • When Marco and Star are herding the piggoats.
      Star: You know, I'm glad we're alone, together, because there's something I wanted to talk to you about. I remember what you said to me in the magic.
    • We find out who is really behind the Solarian soldiers.
      Star: What do you mean "intended"? Are you... are you working for Mina?
      Moon: No. Mina's working for me.
  • From "The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse":
    Star: I hate magic.
• What Are Records?: Marco once called a typewriter a "vintage laptop".
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Although the series has a strong sense of continuity, there are a few elements that are seemingly neglected. Marco's magic Dust Buster, for instance, is never brought up after Star found her replacement charger.
  • Lobster Claws, one of Ludo's minions, only appeared in two episodes (and was the focus of the second) before vanishing from the series completely.
  • The bulk of Ludo's minions are unaccounted for after "Storm the Castle", with only Buff Frog and Boo Fly showing up in Season 2.
  • Alfonso and Ferguson for the bulk of Season 2. This is later lampshaded when Star addresses them by name, but only their arms waving over a crowd could be seen.
  • Marco's Monster Arm is seeded in Season 1 as something that will return later, but never appears after it's debut episode save for a Freeze-Frame Bonus in "Storm the Castle".
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Played for Laughs in "Page Turner". At the end, Star has read the forbidden chapter of her spellbook and decided it's not for her. Marco, however, has gone insane with power:
  Glossaryck: Luckily, there's a spell to fix that.
  • Played far more seriously with the Solarian Warriors. Overexposure to the setting's magic has mind altering effects in general and Solarian Warriors are created by channeling it directly into the warrior's body. The first generation of warriors killed each other in their madness. The second took people who were merely intolerant and turned them into genocidal maniacs.
• Women Are Wiser:
  • Subverted with the main couple: Star is a Genki Girl to Marco's Straight Man.
  • Played straight with the Royal Couple: Queen Moon is The Stoic while King River is a Boisterous Bruiser.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: "Mewnipendence Day" reveals that the founders of Mewni invaded the monsters' home and slaughtered them. This makes you see Ludo and his minions as well as the citizens of Mewni in a whole new light.
• Written by the Winners:
  • If the implications in "Mewnipendance Day" are correct, the current inhabitants of Mewni are descended from colonists who forcibly removed the comparatively weaker original inhabitants from the land in a "massacre" using the wand that would later become Star's, then claimed it was a self-defense fight in their history books. That these original inhabitants were monsters may be why the monsters of current day are so eager to get Star's wand.
  • As Season 3 progresses, many facts come to light which suggest that Queen Eclipsa, despite dealing in dark magic, may not be the cut-and-dry villain that she's been made out to be.
• You All Look Familiar: Quest Buy is staffed entirely by anthropomorphic sloths with identical voices.

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