Franchise / Tabaluga

aka: Ice Princess Lily

Tabaluga, a small green dragon, is the protagonist of a franchise of the same name.

He was created in 1983 by German singers Peter Maffay, Rolf Zuckowski, and Maffay's songwriter Gregor Rottschalk. Originally only created for one concept album, the franchise has since spawned 7 concept albums, 4 musicals based on them, a novel, a Game Show, an animated series and special by Yoram Gross, audio drama adaptations of this series, several books, Board Games, and an award for charitable work (the "Golden Tabaluga"). To top it off, a new CGI movie was released in December 2018, later dubbed and released in English in 2019 under the title "Ice Princess Lily", with its sequel in production as of 2022.

To make matters more complicated, concept albums and musicals have a separate continuity than the cartoon, which is more well-known internationally, with the second musical featuring both characters from the former and the latter.

Common connections between the continuities are Tabaluga, his father Tyrion (often as a ghost), and the villain Arktos.

Notable Works in the Franchise

• Tabaluga, oder die Reise zur Vernunft ("Tabaluga, or the Journey to Reason"), 1983; first concept album
• Tabaluga und das leuchtende Schweigen ("Tabaluga and the Shining Silence), 1986; second concept album. Released in English by Chris Thompson as Tabaluga and the Magic Jadestone in 1988
• Tabaluga und Lilli ("Tabaluga and Lilli"), 1993; third concept album
• The Tabaluga und Lilli musical, 1994; an adaptation of the third concept album (also incorperates elements from the first)
• Tabaluga, 1994, novelization of Tabaluga story by Helme Heine and Gisela von Radowitz
• Tabaluga cartoon, 1997-2004; with first season taking many inspirations from the novel and musical. First work to receive wide international release.
  • Tabaluga and Leo, 80-minute 2005 Christmas special
• Tabaluga tivi, 1997-2011; children's game show with Tabaluga characters as hosts
• Tabaluga und das verschenkte Glück, 2002; fourth concept album. Translated into English as "Tabaluga and the Fortune that was Given Away"
• Tabaluga und das verschenkte Glück musical, 2004; an adaptation of the fourth concept album
• Tabaluga und die Zeichen der Zeit ("Tabaluga and the Signs of Time"), 2011; fifth concept album
• Tabaluga und die Zeichen der Zeit musical, 2012; an adaptation of the fifth concept album
• Tabaluga - Es lebe die Freundschaft ("Tabaluga - Long live Friendship"), 2015; sixth concept album
• Tabaluga - Es lebe die Freundschaft musical, 2016; an adaptation of the sixth concept album
• Tabaluga der Film, 2018; CGI movie, taking inspiration from several albums, with Tabaluga and Lilli in the first place. Known in English as "Tabaluga the Movie" (Sony/Global Screen version) or "Ice Princess Lily" (UK/USA release).
• Tabaluga - Die Welt ist wunderbar, 2022; seventh concept album
• Tabaluga 2, TBA; sequel to the 2018 movie, in production

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This franchise provides examples of:

General Tropes

• Big Bad: Arktos is the Evil Overlord of the Ice World who wants to turn the world into his frozen dominion. In nearly every incarnation of the franchise, he is the antagonist. However, in the sixth concept album he finally becomes friends with Tabaluga.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Arktos did not debut until the third concept album. The second album had an unique villain known as Deimon, The Lord of Hate, who was responsible for killing Tabaluga's father Tyrion. Deimon's pet snake Bilingua would appear in the cartoon, while Deimon would pretty much be erased from the franchise.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: Evil Overlord Arktos lives in an Ice Palace in Iceworld and is (naturally) very fond of the cold.
• Green Aesop: Both Es Lebe Die Freundschaft and Die Welt ist Wunderbar deal strongly with this, the former having a giant volcano that acts as an allegory to Global Warming that Arktos and Tabaluga must stop together, and the latter having a massive climate catastrophe threatening Tabaluga's world, which turns out to have been Earth All Along.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Tabaluga is a Funny Animal. The rest of the animals are Civilized Animals or Partially Civilized Animals.
• Shadow Archetype: Ice-themed Arktos to fire-themed Tabaluga and sand-themed Humsin.
• Snowlems: Arktos is a living snowman, resembling a sinister version of a traditional snowman.
• Spirit Advisor: Tabaluga's father, Tyrion, is this to his son. The ways they communicate, however, change between the works:
  • In music albums and season 1 of cartoon, Tyrion visits Tabaluga in his dreams.
  • In season 2, Tyrion appears in a cloud on the sky, similar to Mufasa.
  • In season 3, Tyrion in his adult form talks with Tabaluga only once, in Crystal Cave in series finale.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons in the franchise share similarities with humans.
• Villain Song: Arktos has "Der Schlüssel zur Macht/The Key to Power". The song is essentially him boasting about how powerful and cunning he is, and usually comes after he's deceived Tabaluga in some way.
• Wise Old Turtle: Nessaja is a giant turtle with an elderly appearance. She acts as a mentor to Tabaluga.

Tabaluga und Lilli

A musical about Tabaluga's struggles to free Arktos' "daughter" Lilli, based on the concept album of the same name.

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Tabaluga wagers his dragonfire to get Lilli's winder in a game of dice against Arktos. Unfortunately Arktos is not a good loser...
• Artificial Human: Lilli was made by Arktos out of ice.
• Clockwork Creature: As an Artificial Human, Lilli needs to be wound up like a clock. Until the very end
• Final Love Duet: A reprise of "Ich fühl wie du".
• Light Is Not Good: Arktos brags about he's "the lord of light" and how his snow is white enough to make people's eyes blind.

The Game Show

Two teams of 4 to 6th graders participate in mostly action-oriented minigames (a quiz-round was introduced later). The team winning more games has to win the final round to win the Grand Prize. (Roller skates/a skateboard/a bike + the latest gaming console + a T-Shirt). Later they also played for money for benevolent institutions.

• Consolation Prize: a T-Shirt, a basket full of merchandising and a board game
• Dueling Shows: Tabaluga tivi vs. Tigerenten-Club. Both gameshows for children about a popular franchise (Tabaluga and Janosch) interrupted twice for episodes of popular kids shows.
• Game Show Appearance: A variation. A Tabaluga animatronic was one of the hosts.
• Soundproof Booth: Used for a while in the very first round: The kids had to answer questions about their teammate, who was in a Sound Proof Booth, then they swapped places. Replaced later with a "typical" quiz in the very last round.

The Animated Adaption

• Adorable Evil Minions: Arktos's minions are ice-dwelling animals like penguins, seals, polar bears, and walruses. They are drawn in the same style as the heroic animals and look cute in their own right.
• Amnesia Episode: "Don't Forget to Remember" in Season 3.
• And I Must Scream: Arktos' final fate in the cartoon, after having own powers rebound upon him, freezing him solid in a block of ice. He can't be defrosted like his previous victims, as melting the ice would melt him as well, which would be lethal, so he's stuck in the ice block, left to be frozen forever.
• Art Evolution: While the character designs remained consistent, the animation gets better over the seasons. The pilot trailer marks the only time Tabaluga is animated with hand-painted cels. When the series got greenlit, Yoram Gross decided to use digital ink and paint. (It's also the first Yoram Gross series, along with Samuel & Nina to use this technique.)
• Been There, Shaped History: The reason for Tyrion naming his son Tabaluga is his son visiting him personally in his youth (although Tyrion probably did not know that until he was an adult).
• Big Bad: Arktos in Season 1 and 3, Humsin in Season 2.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Arktos in Season 2.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Arktos and Humsin work together on multiple occasions.
• The Bus Came Back: Dandy returns in the season 1 finale and acts as a guard during Arktos' trial.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Tabaluga realises at the end of season 1 that, as the avatar of winter, Arktos is simply too important to the balance of nature to destroy completely, and indeed saves his life during season 3 for the same reason.
• Call-Back:
  • The last person to talk with Tabaluga in the series is his father. He is also the last person to talk with him in the first episode of the series.
  • In season 2 episode Digby the Hero, Tabaluga recognizes the supposed place where he hatched.
  • Season 3 episode Pendant Lost, the series finale, has some too:
    • The prison in Glasstown where Tabaluga and Shouhou are held is the same one in which Tyrion was held years before.
    • The coronation is once again a crucial point of the plot.
    • Shouhou reminds Arktos that Tabaluga is (still) prince of Greenland and is the only one that can legally be crowned as king.
• Criminal Amnesiac: The Season 3 episode Don't Forget to Remember has Tabaluga lose his memory after James unwittingly pushes him into a hole. James them uses Tabaluga's amnesia to convince him that he is a servant of Arktos named Norman.
• Disney Villain Death: Humsin falls off a waterfall by the end of the second season. His death is very similar to that of an actual Disney villain, Percival McLeach from The Rescuers Down Under. Not that it's the fall that kills the sand elemental, but rather being dissolved by the rushing water.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • In the very first episode he appears in, Humsin immediately pulls it on Arktos who seeks allegiance with him, and shows him who is now the main villain.
  • In Season 3, Queen Isadora pulls it on Arktos. He falls in love with her, and she uses his love to make a potion that will make her more powerful and suck the power out of him in the process.
  • To put it straight, Arktos is far from the most dangerous threat or most evil villain that Tabaluga faces, despite being the Big Bad of the franchise and arch-nemesis of all dragons from Greenland. That is, until the last episode of Season 3, where Arktos manages to get a hold of the Dragon Pendant and use it to render Tabaluga completely powerless.
• Flanderization: Digby goes from an intelligent know-it-all in season 1 to a dumb Butt-Monkey who serves as the series' comic relief in seasons 2-3. Averted in season 2 episode Digby the Hero.
• Foreign Re-Score: The Italian dub has the music for the opening and closing themes recomposed, with the results sounding a bit more rock-sounding than the original.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Tyrion dies mere seconds after hiding Tabaluga's egg from Arktos.
• Interim Villain: Humsin in season 2 can be treated as such. While Arktos still prominently appears there, he has been reduced to an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, who mostly just whines about not being able to conquer Greenland (and sometimes even teaming up with the Greenlanders against Humsin, albeit for his own benefit), while Humsin is the real threat to Greenland.
• Interspecies Friendship: Tabaluga, a dragon, is friends with Happy, a snow rabbit and Digby, a mole.
• I Can Rule Alone: Queen Isadora in Arktos's Last Grasp promises Arktos to rule the world with him (while he falls in love with her) but really, she only needs him to make a potion and really, she is planning to rule it by herself.
• The Jeeves: James, Arktos' penguin butler.
• Killed Off for Real: Humsin dies at the end of season 2 when he falls down a waterfall^note It has been previously established that water dissolves him. While most of his minions subsequently disappear, Kayo and Vultur both seek employment, or in Vultur's case reemployment, under Arktos.
• Large Ham: Season 3 episode Scary Story has Tabaluga telling Arktos to, basically, skedaddle out of the former's camp.
  Tabaluga: Get on your penguin and go!
• Laser-Guided Karma: Arktos in the series finale. After freezing countless Greenlanders, killing protagonist's father and threatening numerous living beings throughout the years, he gets frozen in a giant block of ice after his own ice beam, intended for Tabaluga, ricochets back at him off of Shouhou's crystal.
• Like Father, Like Son: Played With in season 2 finale, Majority Rules. Tabaluga gets frozen by Arktos just like his father, but thanks to the Crystal Ball, avoids Tyrion's fate.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Season 2 reveals that Tyrion was king of Greenland, but Tabaluga refuses to be crowned in the season 2 finale.
• The Movie: A movie adaption titled Tabaluga and Leo was released in 2005. It serves as the show's Christmas Episode.
• Monster of the Week: Usually, in the vast majority of episodes, it's Arktos or Humsin who wants to destroy Greenland. That said, there are very few episodes that have an individual one-episode villain (though, Arktos or Humsin still show up).
  • In season 1's episode, Queen For One Day, Billingua snake. She's a snake with the power of hypnosis, and her intention is to hypnotize both Tabaluga and Arktos, so she can rule Ice World and Greenland.
  • It becomes more common to have individual villains in Season 3 since Tabaluga embarks on a heroic journey for the dragon's pendant. Thus, he encounters some new villains on his journey (though Arktos is still the main villain as he pursues Tabaluga so he can have the pendant for himself).
    • In the episode Eye in the Sky, the villain of the week is the evil warlock Tempest who enslaves rabbits from the local village and guards the wind sign (one of the five signs Tabaluga must acquire in order to have the pendant. It's revealed that Tempest is nothing more than a rabbit in disguise.
    • In a later episode, Whale of Tale, Tabaluga goes on a sea voyage to find the water sign, and Arktos hires a crew of pirates who kidnap whales to pull Arktos's ship, destroy Tabaluga's ship, kidnap his friends, and almost kill Tabaluga.
    • In the following episode Arktos's Last Grasp, Queen Isadora shows up, and Arktos falls in love with her, while she uses him for her wicked ends.
• Never Say "Die":
  • Zigzagged throughout the whole series with Arktos freezing other creatures. His victims in the present are eventually defrosted unharmed but Tyrion died this way.
  • Averted in:
    • The season 1 episode Dragons Don't Cry: Happy is close to death because she has eaten poisonous fruit.
    • The season 2 episode Digby the Hero: Shouhou convinces Digby to save the lives of Tabaluga and co. who are trapped in a cave under the desert. The problem? By the time Shouhou discovers where the dragon and his friends are stuck, they're unconscious because there's almost no oxygen in the cave.
    • The season 2 episode The Sands of Doom: in the retrospection, Arktos freezes Tabaluga's father, Tyrion.
    • The season 3 episode Menace in the Mountains: Tabaluga comes so close to the Magnetic Mountain in order to get the last Dragon Sign, that if it wasn't for the River of Life (and Kayo beforehand), he'd have died.
• Our Time Travel Is Different: The River of Time serves as a natural time machine, although the degree and method of travel changes throughout the series:
  • In season 1, the person has to look into the river to see the past like a movie.
  • In season 2, the person has to jump into the river and swim upstream (into the past), but has to swim downstream bit by bit to see how events progress. These events are presented in varied ways: sometimes like a movie on the wall, sometimes the viewer is where things took place, although without the ability to change anything.
  • In season 3, the method is similar to season 2, but the person has to come out of the river and the cave to see the past events in person, with the ability to change the course of history.
• Plot Armor: As shown in one of the first season 1 episodes, Arktos cannot freeze Tabaluga. Surprisingly, averted in the season 2 finale, Majority Rules.
• Plot Hole:
  • Season 3 focuses on Tabaluga's quest for Dragon Pendant. However, in the season 2 episode The Big Change, he already has it.
  • In one of the very early episodes, Servant of Two Masters, Shouhou shows the past from his crystal ball. In season 3, he claims the crystal ball doesn't show the past.
  • In the season 1 episode The Flow of Time: Tabaluga sees his father's youth in the River of Time. When Arktos also shows up in the retrospection, he's already an adult. Come the season 3 episode Where is Winter?, where Tabaluga goes back in time and meets his young father face to face, here Arktos is very young ( compared with Tyrion being slightly older than he was in the season 1 retrospection).
  • In The Last One of His Kind, it's stated that Tyrion lived very long ago and that it sometimes takes centuries for dragons to hatch, explaining how Tabaluga can still be his son. However, in Servant Of Two Masters and The Sands of Doom, it's shown that Shouhou lived during Tyrion's time, and (in the former episode) was his mentor.
    • The latter episode also shows James being Arktos' servant despite the fact that it's clear James isn't that old.
  • The situation of the ostrich working for Humsin. In episode My Baby, where Humsin gets mad at her and many other of his servants and banishes them all, they end up in Greenland and with her husband, they raise their kids and befriend Greenlanders. However, the following episodes nullify this.
• The Power of Friendship: Tabaluga and many Greenlanders have their lives saved by each other thanks to it.
• Prophecy Twist: Played With. In the episode Good Fortune, Shouhou's crystal ball shows that a great stone thrown by Humsin will destroy a net protecting Greenland. The Greenlanders try to fight destiny, but in the end, the stone destroys the net, just like the ball showed... and then Humsin's land, because Kayo had stolen the net and repositioned it to guard Humsin's castle. This is because the ball does not answer questions about the future in a straight manner.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Many of the antagonists' sidekicks (mainly James and Vulture) who have nothing personal against Tabaluga, and sometimes happen to work and cooperate with the Greenlanders.
• Purple Is Powerful: In the very last episode, where Arktos almost wins and is about to be crowned, he wears a purple royal cape.
• Really Royalty Reveal: The first episode of season 2 reveals that Tabaluga is crown prince of Greenland, as all of his ancestors (Tyrion included, hence the crown is named after him) were kings of Greenland.
• Rightful King Returns: The whole season 2 plot is basically preparing Tabaluga to be crowned as the king. Ultimately averted by Tabaluga himself by refusing to be crowned in the season finale.
• Save the Villain: Tabaluga does this a lot. This sometimes backfires on him.
  • In the second-to-last episode of season 2, The Sands of Doom, Humsin asks Tabaluga to help him. The help turns out to be a trap with Humsin summoning a tornado, and Greenland ends up turning into a desert.
  • In the season 3 episode Where is Winter?, Arktos is deathly ill, and Tabaluga has to go back in time to acquire a long-lost flower, which will cure the snowman.
• Seers: Shouhou is held captive by Arktos for his ability to see to faraway places using a crystal ball.
• Shout-Out: To Formula One 2002 season in the season 3 episode Ready, Set, Go!. The finish of the race (Arktos winning by the length of his nose) references the 2002 United States Grand Prix.^note The second closest finish in F1 history.
• Stable Time Loop: In season 3 episode Where is Winter?, Tabaluga travels to the past by using the River of Time and meets Tyrion, his father, face to face in his youth. They both learn their names at the end, thus creating the reason why Tabaluga is named as such.^{Bonus fact}Peter Maffay stated on one occasion that Tabaluga's name doesn't mean anything and is a nonsense word.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Arktos is saved by Tabaluga on more than one occasion (one of the episodes of Season 3 is entirely dedicated to saving Arktos' life) and he still wages war on Greenland and wants to defeat Tabaluga.
  • Humsin pretends to be sick and dying, knowing that Tabaluga will try save him, and even promises to surrender. Once Tabaluga follows Humsin's instructions to "help" him, Humsin reveals he was faking it, and Tabaluga's actions lead to Greenland being turned into a desert.
  • Subverted with Vulture in the episode Dangerous Confidence. Vultur almost dies but Tabaluga saves his life by bringing him into a secret valley that Humsin is not supposed to know about. Later, Humsin attempts to destroy the valley, implying that Vulture did tell him... only for it to be revealed that Vulture did not say anything, and this was all staged by Arktos who wanted to make Tabaluga seem incompetent. This is carried into a following episode where Arktos and Humsin team up against Tabaluga and send Vulture to spy on him. Vulture, remembering Tabaluga saving his life, warns Tabaluga of the villains' plans. After that, this is forgotten and Vulture is once again on Humsin's side, and tries to help him in defeating Tabaluga. Not only that, but even in Season 3 where Humsin is dead, Vulture goes back to serve Arktos instead of joining Tabaluga. It’s especially noticeable that Arktos was actually the one that almost caused his death in that aforementioned episode (albeit Vulture wasn’t aware of it). And unlike Kayo, Vultur never performs Heel–Face Turn.
• Took a Level in Badass: Digby in the season 2 episode Digby the Hero. If it wasn't for him, Tabaluga would be dead and Greenland would quickly fall under Arktos and Humsin's rule.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Season 2 reveals that Tyrion was king of Greenland, but Tabaluga refuses to be crowned in the season 2 finale.
• The Vamp: Queen Isadora in Season 3's episode The Last Grasp is this for Arktos. He falls in love with her and she promises to rule the world with him while in reality, she plans to rule it herself and only uses him to make the potion for her (when he breathes into the potion, the energy gets sucked out of him).
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate ice cream for Arktos, carrots for Happy and sunflower seeds for Tabaluga (although the last one disappears after season 1).
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Many named citizens of Iceworld (who often help Tabaluga and his friends) do not show up post-Season 1 finale.
  • Unlike Kayo, all of Humsin's other servants do not return in Season 3.
• What Song Was This Again?: "Tabaluga" (the song that the theme song was based off of) was originally about Tabaluga being fed up with Tyrion telling him about right and wrong and wanting to be like the older dragons as a result. In all other languages, it became an Expository Theme Tune sung from a different perspective that not only talks about Tabaluga, but about Arktos as well.
• What's Up, King Dude?: Being a Universally Beloved Leader, any Greenlander can simply walk up to Tabaluga and casually talk to him, no questions asked.

The movie "Tabaluga & Leo"

• A Boy and His X: A boy and his dragon friend. The two come to bond over their shared status as orphans and the troubles they endure over the course of the movie to become good friends.
• Christmas Episode: The movie serves as the Christmas special for the animated series.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: In this movie we find out that one of Arktos' motivations for the conquest of Greenland is because his mother wanted to do it and he wants to do it all for her. He even sheds icy tears.
• Eviler than Thou: In comparison to other villains from the series (and himself), Arktos is more evil here - he turns the Greenlanders against Leo through a few tricks done by James, and then uses his toy to build a bigger one in order to destroy Greenland.
• Happily Adopted: Leo at the end of the movie; the foster family that took him home for Christmas decides to adopt him permanently.
• Harmless Freezing: Being frozen in a block of ice by Arktos has no ill effects on Leo. Granted, he's frozen only for a few seconds.
• Human Popsicle: Shortly after arriving in Tabaluga's world, Leo is confronted and frozen solid by Arktos. Good thing Tabaluga is nearby and comes to his aid.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Leo is an unhappy child who wants to have a family. This is why he ran away from the orphanage.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: A lightning bolt eventually powers up the giant toy dozer that Arktos builds (which previously wouldn't start since it was modelled after a battery powered toy), allowing him to start his rampage. Justified since it needed electricity to work.
• MacGuffin: The green crystal that is essential to completing the Greenland Day ritual for another 1000 years of good luck. It gets broken, forcing Tabaluga and Leo to get a replacement.
• No Waterproofing in the Future: Arktos' giant version of Leo's toy dozer is eventually taken out with water, which causes it to short out.
• Rage Breaking Point: During most of the movie, Tabaluga remains calm and understanding with Leo even when the other Greenlanders turn on the boy, but after Leo’s clumsiness causes one accident too many, even Tabaluga gets mad. He calms down again rather quickly when he finds out Leo is an orphan too though.
• The Scapegoat: Leo. When Greenlanders think everything is ready , the fruit punch is found to be salted and the tables are cut. James says he saw Leo do it all and the Grenlanders agree with him. When Tabaluga and Leo return to the feast , the Greenlanders start yells at him ,,Leo out".However Leo instead bearing grudges , forgives them after returning from a quest
• Token Human: Leo is the only main human character from the movie and, in fact, the first human to ever show up in Tabaluga's world. Hence why the Greenlanders are rather suspicious of him.
• Trapped in Another World: Leo is threatened with this if he doesn't go back to his own world before the Greenland star disappears, because then the portal will close for another thousand years.
• Walking Disaster Area: Not as bad as most versions of this trope, but Leo is rather clumsy and accidentally causes a lot of trouble because of it.

Tabaluga (2018) / Ice Princess Lily

• A God Am I: Arktos' Villain Song includes the line "I'm a god / And you were born to follow".
• Adaptational Villainy: This movie makes Arktos more of a serious villain than usual, especially compared to his Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain portrayal in the 90's cartoon.
• Badass Boast: In the English dub, Arktos gets one hell of a boast in his Villain Song:
  "I am worse than the devil, I'm so mean/I can turn the fires of Hell into steam!"
• Canon Immigrant: Tabaluga's mother, Tyria, who previously appeared only in a 90's novel.
• Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: When Tabaluga asks Nesseja the turtle on where to find his fire, she tells him It Was with You All Along. He then points out that her advice was both vague and obvious at the same time.
• Covers Always Lie: With Advertised Extra in case of Lily. Some language versions (i.e. Australian, Russian, English) changed the title to Ice Princess Lily, due to release dates being close to Frozen II premiere possibly in order to draw more attention, making Lily the title character and eliminating Tabaluga from the posters. This backfired, as some reviews called the movie "a ripoff of Frozen".^{In fact}original Tabaluga stories on which the movie is based (Tabaluga and Lili, the novel and the cartoon) were created 20 years before Frozen.
• Damsel in Distress: When Tabaluga and Lily flee to Greenland, Arktos convinces the Icelanders that Lily was kidnapped, convincing them to invade Greenland to save her. When Lily goes back to fix things, he captures her, forcing Tabaluga to go to Iceland and face the snowman.
• Die or Fly: When chased by Arktos, Tabaluga and Lily find themselves at a cliff, at Lily's urging, they jump, and Tabaluga's wings grow to carry them both.
• Eat the Camera: Done with Tabaluga when a beehive falls on his head and runs around screaming. Also done by Arktos during his Villain Song.
• Last of His Kind: Tabaluga, his mother Tyria even states that he's this trope word for word.
• Magic A Is Magic A: The Power of Love seems to be what gives a dragon their fire - but on the flip side, they lose their fire if they lose the one they love. Tyrion loses his fire when his wife is shot down by Arktos, and when Lily appears to have died Tabaluga temporarily loses his. Arktos remembering the former allows him to realize this detail, giving him a chance to gloat as he prepares to kill the defenceless Tabaluga.
  Arktos: How ironic, that a dragon's greatest weakness... is his heart!
• Mood Whiplash: Arktos' terrifying Villain Song is interrupted by...Limbo the polar bear's comical rapping and beat-boxing, trying to act as a diversion for Lily to save Tabaluga.
• Power of Love: It's ultimately his feelings for Lily that help Tabaluga find his fire.
• Quest for Identity: Tabaluga spends much of the movie unable to breath fire, and suffers some angst because he feels without it he's not a "real dragon."
• Signs of Disrepair: Tabaluga finds his mother's grave with the words "Tabaluga" "Fire" and "Iceland" and some moss, which he assumes is a message telling him to find his fire in Iceland. Later on, he rechecks the grave and when the moss is wiped off, it reads, "Tabaluga, find your fire, beware of Iceland." Doubles as Once More, with Clarity.
• Unwitting Pawn: Arktos reveals that he created Lily solely to draw out Tabaluga. Lily for her part is shocked to learn that she's nothing more than "Dragon bait".
• Villain Song: Arktos sings "Der Schlüssel zur Macht/The Key to Power" ("Devil in White" in the English dub), in which he gloats to Tabaluga about his sheer power after tricking him into a trap.

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