Stjernestøv (Stardust) is a Norwegian Jule Kalender that first aired on NRK Super in 2020.
Jo is a nine-year old boy whose parents are getting a divorce, and so he faces some tough times as he and his siblings move to a new apartment with his mother. Jo is interested in stars, and one evening notices that the North Star has vanished, and finds a strange stone in the forest near his new home.
The stone belongs to Elly, a child from North who is the current star child, whose power keeps the big storm at bay. However, Elly doesn't fully understand her responsibilities yet, and after an argument with her father, ends up throwing the stone away into the star cloud that allows her people to travel as stardust through the world and help people who have lost their way find their way home. When Elly goes to look for the stone herself, the rest of her people end up losing their power, including Varg, who was asked by Elly's father to help search for the stone.
After the two meet, Jo tries to help Elly find her way back home. Unbeknownst to the two of them, Varg is also searching for Elly in order to obtain her power and return home.
This series provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Varg is set up as a potential threat towards Elly early on, as when Elly's father is sending him a letter asking him to assist in finding the stone, Elly's mother reminds him that he once tried to steal the power of Elly's father and not to trust him. However, since Varg doesn't know who the star child is, he doesn't really get to do anything all that bad aside from pretending to be a substitute teacher and some questionable behavior while trying to determine the identity of the star child, and in fact, he turns out to have been Good All Along. The more immediate threat turns out to be Ingeborg, who starts out trying to help Elly find her way home, but later starts to sabotage Elly's efforts to return home so she can keep Elly around and steal more of her power for herself.
- When the kids help Elly fake a fever to fool Varg into thinking Elly isn't the one he's looking for, Varg touches Elly's forehead when checking her temperature. Since we've seen that Elly's power can transfer to other star people via physical contact, one might expect that Varg would unknowingly absorb some of her power during that moment, and that he would later notice that some of his power had returned and realizing he'd been tricked. This doesn't happen. Instead, he learns Elly's identity from another member of the star people after Ingeborg convinces him to search in another city.
- Big Brother Instinct: Kalle develops this for Elly after she starts staying at his place.
- But Now I Must Go: The final episode has Elly finally return home to the North after regaining her powers, and using the stone to stop the storm. Varg follows shortly after.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Leon just can't bring himself to tell lies. Even his first scene has Aliyah commenting on it. Even when Elly is seemingly in danger when Varg is chasing her, Leon can't bring himself to lie when Varg asks him where she went.Leon: (to Aliyah, after giving away Elly's hiding spot to Varg) "I just can't lie when people look me in the eyes!"Aliyah: "Then don't look them in the eyes! Look at their nose, or something!"
- Following said advice from Aliyah, Leon manages with some effort to lie about Elly's location the next time they run into Varg.
- Cassandra Truth: When Jo first tries telling his father about Elly and her connection to the North Star, he doesn't believe him. Neither does his mother, who initially believes Elly is an Imaginary Friend, until she meets her. Of course, she still doesn't the part about Elly having magical powers.
- Chekhov's Gag: Eva and Selda's younger brother end up stealing some of Selda's old toys and wrapping them up as presents for other people living in the apartments, including a walkie-talkie, figuring it's okay to give one of them away since she has two of them. In a later episode, said walkie-talkie ends up in Leon's possession, which comes in handy when he, Aliyah, Jo and Elly get locked inside a room in the nursing home by Ingeborg, allowing them to get in touch with Selda and ask her for help.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Selda, the daughter of a hockey coach in the new town, grows jealous of Jo when her father tries to recruit him to their team, and it becomes apparent that Jo might be a better hockey player then her. This causes Selda to take on an antagonistic role towards Jo.
- Good All Along: Episode 21 confirms that Varg wasn't planning to steal Elly's power. He just wanted to help her so they could both return home, and to help his brother since he'd seen in the past what damage taking the stone from the star child could do when he had taken it from Elly's father.
- Heel Realization:
- Ingeborg has this after Kalle and the kids realize that she's been stealing Elly's power, and it starts to dawn on her just how much damage her selfish actions have caused Elly and Kalle.
- While Jo is having dinner at her place, Selda may have realized that she was being a jerk to Jo for no reason when her father explains that he had hoped Jo would join his hockey team playing the position that Selda wanted because he had another position in mind for Selda and thought she and Jo would play well off of each other that way.
- It's All About Me: It is revealed that using one's power for one's own benefit can lead to the star people losing their power. It is implied that this is the reason Ingeborg lost her power, as she loved the attention and praise she got from saving people. Later in the series, Ingeborg starts actively sabotaging Elly's efforts to return home so she can steal more of Elly's power, even though the rest of the star people back in the North need Elly and the stone to stop the storm that's gradually getting worse.
- I Choose to Stay: When Varg is about to head home, he asks Ingeborg if she too will return to the North. She declines, choosing to stay with Kalle.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Having been living away from the rest of the star people for about fifteen years, Varg doesn't know the name of the star child or what they look like. It is only in episode 19 he learns that he learns this from another member of the star people, causing him to realize that he had been on the right track when he suspected Elly and that Ingeborg had tricked him by sending him away from the town she was in.
- Mundane Object Amazement: Both Elly and Varg experience this with certain things the star people don't have back home, particularly certain foods.
- No Social Skills: It's clear that living without contact with the rest of the star people for about fifteen years or so has left Varg a bit lacking in social skills. He does gradually get a bit better over the course of the show.
- Playing Sick: During a school trip, Jo, Elly, Aliyah and Leon realize that Varg is one of the star people that is searching for Elly. Aliyah decides to help Elly fake being sick so the teacher will send her home. When having Elly pretend to throw up isn't enough to convince the teacher to send her home, Aliyah has to take some extra steps to help Elly fake a fever. This also has the benefit of fooling Varg into thinking Elly isn't the star child, since the star people have a naturally low body temperature.
- Poor Communication Kills: It becomes pretty clear in the first two episodes that Elly doesn't fully understand the importance of why she needs to stay in the North, with her father trying to get her to show interest by making her read the book detailing their history instead of just explaining it to her himself. This all leads to problems for everyone when Elly first throws away the stone into the star cloud, and then enters it herself to search for it, leading to the rest of the star people losing their powers, the star cloud that allows them to travel disappearing, leaving them unable to leave or return to North and the storm that Elly and the stone's power was keeping at bay returning.
- Power Incontinence: Elly can normally control her powers just fine, but when Jo brings her to the swimming pool to teach her how to swim, she ends up accidentally freezing the pool. The frozen swimming pool also tips Varg off to the fact that he's on the right track in regards to his search for the star child.
- The Power of Friendship: Elly is able to regain her powers and gain the ability to turn to stardust and become a guiding star when Jo gets himself lost in the forest during a storm.
- Secret-Keeper: In addition to Jo, the old lady Ingeborg also knows of the star people since she used to be one of them herself, as does her adopted son Kalle, who ends up letting Elly stay at his place until she can return home. Aliyah and Leon also discover Elly's secret after witnessing her using her powers and offer to help finding a way to help Elly return home after Elly explains things to them.
- Wham Line: Varg is seemingly set up to be an antagonist early on, but throughout the show, his actual intentions in his search for Elly and the stone remain unclear. Then, if you listen closely when he's chasing Elly in episode 20:Varg: "I just want to help you!"
- Wham Shot: After Elly and Ingeborg first meet in episode 7, after Elly and Jo leave, we see that the previously darkened star marking on Ingeborg's shoulder is now lit up again, showing that Ingeborg has regained some of her lost power.
