History Literature / TheMoomins

* BadMoodRetreat: In 'Moominvalley in November', Mymble's Daughter reveals that the Moomin family would go and cool down between the trees at back of their garden whenever they were angry.

* ''Trollvinter / Moominland Midwinter'' (1957) Where the series begins to take a {{Cerebus Syndrome}} turn; Moomintroll becomes the first moomin to wake from hibernation, and finds himself in a cold, confusing, and unforgiving world of winter.

* AllTrollsAreDifferent: Moomins a type of troll which looks like adorable chubby plush hippos. It should be noted that in Swedish, the word "troll" has a much broader meaning than in English, referring to all types of mythical creatures.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: In ''Finn Family Moomintroll'', Moomintroll falls in love with a wooden figurehead of a beautiful woman, making Snorkmaiden jealous. When the Hobgoblin gives her a wish, she wishes for her face to look more like the figurehead. Unfortunately, those eyes on a head shaped like hers does ''not'' look flattering at all. Snork (or Moomintroll in the 90's anime) is forced to use his own wish to undo hers as a result.

* YamatoNadeshiko: Moominmamma fits this trope perfectly - "submissive, loyal, mature, humble, but definitely not a pushover" - though, like so many other things, it's {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in the final two novels. Curiously enough, the Deconstruction is most apparent and visible in the very last novel, ''Moominvalley in November'', in which Moominmamma doesn't even appear. She is, however, constantly referred to by the other characters and appears in the dreams and stories of the orphan Toft, who doesn't have a mother and whose expectations and hopes about her gets more exaggerated and caricature-like during the course of the novel. Finally, he has to confront the fact that the ultimate YamatoNadeshiko that's developed in his dreams is not a real person at all and deep down he doesn't want Moominmamma to be like that.

Aside from the books, the Moomins have grown into a massive multimedia franchise that remains active and extremely popular around the world, especially in its native Finland and [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff in Japan]]. It's received too many adaptations and spin-offs to count, including [[ComicStrip/{{Moomin}} a newspaper comic strip]], several TV series, movies, stage plays, and video games. [[Franchise/TheMoomins The Franchise page has more information]].

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Published in 1946, the book can easily be read as an allegory of nuclear war.

* ArtisticLicenseMusic: Most of the time in the animated adaptations when Snufkin is shown playing his harmonica, he holds it by the sides rather than between the thumb and forefinger with the other hand on the back, which is the correct way.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: In the ''Tales from Moominvalley'' story "The Fir Tree", the Moomin family is woken up during hibernation by a Hemulen who only tells them that Christmas is coming. As the Moomins normally hibernate all throughout winter, they've never celebrated Christmas before, and with no further context, they assume that Christmas is the name of an evil spirit. They then learn of various Christmas traditions from their neighbors (decorating a tree, preparing a Christmas dinner, giving presents), but misunderstand the point and interpret them as rituals to protect themselves from the wrath of Christmas.

* BittersweetEnding: ''Moominvalley in November''. While none of the characters find the happiness they were looking for, they do find some closure, and in the end they all leave the valley to continue their own lives. Except for Tofte, who has come to accept that his idealized reality is not real, but still waits for the family to come home.

* ''Villian in the Moominhouse'' (1980) Almost every Moomin character is {{Back for the Finale}} in the last entry of the original Moomin stories, as Little My tries to find the source of a strange person in Moominhouse. The only one not translated so far, and unique in that the images are photographs of a diorama created by Jansson and her partner arranged in different scenes, rather than illustrations.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The basic Moomin philosophy in a nutshell -- when faced with doing something in a mundane but practical way, or a fun but inefficient way, nine times out of ten they'll go for the fun way. The result being that they don't get much done, but at least have a good time while not getting it done. This trope its particularly prominent in the comic strip and in the 1969 live-action series -- in the latter, it gets extremely bizarre when Moominmamma decides to pick hard-to-reach apples by ''firing at them with a shotgun'' instead of, say, getting a ladder.