Created by George Lucas and animated by Lucasfilm Animation in association with Industrial Light & Magic, Inspired by… A Midsummer Night's Dream, and released by Touchstone Pictures in 2015, this uniquely-styled animated feature tells the tale of a Fairy Princess, a Bog King, and a love potion. It does this through using as many pop songs as possible.
This was the first Lucasfilm production to be released by Disney after the studio was sold by to them by Lucas.
Strange Magic provides examples of:
- Accidental Kiss: Sunny and his elf companion have one of these after accidentally tying themselves to a stem.
- Actually Quite Catchy: During the Spring Ball, when Roland tries to make up to Marianne and does a Riverdance bit, her company nymphs dance along for a moment until she gives them a Death Glare.
- Aerith and Bob: Since it's a Jukebox Musical set in a fantasy universe, you have people like Marianne and Dawn (named after Four Season song titles) coexisting with the Bog King and the Sugar Plum fairy (fantasy title names). It would also appear from Sunny and Dawn's conversation, and Marianne's later input, that some Fairies have "regular" names like Nathan and Charles while the Fairy King's name is Dagda.
- All Is Well That Ends Well: The Bog King's kidnapping of Princess Dawn, his and Princess Marianne's attempts to hack each other to death, and the destruction of his castle by fairy saboteurs all seems like it won't have any negative effects on relations between the two kingdoms because Marianne and the Bog King fell in love, thereby apparently generating a lot of goodwill from even the citizens of their kingdoms.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Bog King's raid against the fairy kingdom is incredibly successful, with all the guards and royal family members subdued without any loss of life. Security was so terrible that he could have wiped out the royal family without any losses.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: After wooing fails, Roland decides to use the Love Potion to force Marianne into marrying him.
- Bag of Kidnapping: The Bog King's minions capture Dawn with this method just as Sunny accidentally hits her with a love potion, causing her to fall in love with the Bog King as soon as she's released from the bag.
- Beast and Beauty: Played with in an interesting way - Marianne is the beauty, and the Bog King is the beast, yet due to the different standards of beauty in each culture, the implication is that Marianne is seen as the beastly one by the Goblins.
- The Beautiful Elite: The good looking fairies rule over the more homely elves.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Zig-Zagged, from the paunchy and wizened but well-meaning Fairy King, to the beautiful and fundamentally good Marianne and Dawn, to the heroic at heart Bog King, to Roland, who one of the prettiest members of the cast but easily the ugliest one on the inside.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Marianne says something to this effect to herself as she had expressed a desire to have adventures and was now forced to break into the Bog King's castle to save her sister.
- The Fairy King wants Marianne, his heir, to find a king, and Dawn to stop flirting with every boy she meets. Marianne falls in love with the king of the goblins, and Dawn starts dating an elf.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: During the duet duel between Marianne and the Bog King, both literal and figurative sparks fly and the fight ends with them panting and out of breath, gazing at each other.
- Better than a Bare Bulb: This movie loves to throw in jokes about the fact that it is a musical, the characters will constantly comment on how strange it is for them to be singing or even point out how weird the lyrics to the songs they're singing are.
- Beware the Skull Base: Downplayed. The Bog King's castle is in the trunk of a tree, with a large (to him) skull for a front door.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Marianne and the Bog King have a pretty dramatic one, with a two-part song leading up to this, with the event itself involving the two flying and spinning whilst a kaleidoscope whirls around them.
- Big Entrance: After his minions sneak in and subdue everyone, they start a rock song and The Bog King comes in singing 'Mistreated' by Deep Purple as the stage pyrotechnics go off.
- Big Shadow, Little Creature: The little imp casts a huge shadow that scares the living daylights out of Sunny.
- Book Ends:
- Subverted for the music. The first song in the movie is "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley. At the end of the film the Bog King starts singing it at the end of the film as part of his Love Confession, only to have Marianne interrupt him and end the film with "Wild Thing" by the Troggs.
- Played straight for the boutonniere. The film starts out with Marianne collecting flowers to make a boutonniere give her fiancee but never ends up giving one to him. At the end of the film, she gives the Bog King, her new Love Interest, a boutonniere. note
- Bumbling Sidekick: The Bog King has two goblins, Stuff and Thang. They're probably his most incompetent minions but are also willing to deal with his violent outbursts.
- Call-Back:
- Marianne and The Bog King's duet Strange Magic is full of these from when Marianne first entered the Dark Forest. The various features of the forest that frightened her then are shown to be harmless or even beautiful.
- When she accidentally flies into the Forest at the start of the movie, Marianne kicks a goblin in the chest to escape. She later repeats this move during her duel with Bog.
- During her duel with Bog, Marianne knocks a piece of bark loose from the castle wall and nearly hits him with it. When the castle is collapsing, she kicks a piece of bark into Roland's chest to knock him out of sight.
- Marianne playfully steals and swings around Roland's sword during their engagement. Near the end of the movie, while he tries to dust her with love potion, he knocks her sword out of her hand and she steals his to fend him off.
- Roland calls attention to a goblin being naked. (Most goblins are, and no one calls attention to it before or after.) That goblin is later seen wearing a vest.
- Central Theme: Real love is hard to find at times, but it can be found in the unlikeliest of places.
- Chirping Crickets: When Sunny tries to rally his fellow elves into saving Dawn, an onscreen cricket chirps awkwardly when no one joins in. It then falls silent, hangs its head, and backs away when everyone stares at it.
- Circling Birdies: When Roland slips and hits his head in the middle of C'mon Marianne!/Stronger, Marianne's companion nymphs start circling his head chirping "Cheater! Cheater! Cheater!"
- Combat Compliment: Marianne and the Bog King's duet duel is full of them which shows how they're becoming friendlier despite trying to kill each other.
- Commonality Connection: Marianne and the Bog King bond over how much they hate love since both of them have had bad experiences.
- Company Cross References: Marianne is seen training with a sword while blindfolded, much like the hero from another George Lucas film.
- Crocodile Tears: Roland pretends to cry in order to get Sunny to pity him enough to trick him into getting a love potion for the two of them to use. The tears mostly work, except Sunny is more annoyed by the tears than sympathetic.
- Crowd Song: 'Tell Him' by Bert Berns is sung by a large crowd of elves, fairies, and goblins to encourage Marianne and the Bog King to confess to each other.
- Curse Cut Short: When Marianne talks about Roland, the Bog King cuts her off before she can finish.Marianne: Maybe I couldn't bear to see that he really was a shallow, power-hungry, cheating, chattering, pig son of a-
Bog King: Whoa! - Didn't Think This Through: Roland cheating on Marianne right before their wedding in broad daylight. If he'd only waited a few hours, he'd have been king.
- Disappeared Dad: Whoever was Bog's father remains a mystery.
- Disney Acid Sequence: Tell Him/Wild Thing gets trippy in places.
- Disney Death: The Bog King helps Marianne and Dawn get out from his collapsing lair and appears to go down with it. After a somber moment of everyone mourning him, he arises from the smoke, a touch hurt but alive.
- Distant Duet: “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” is this to be exact.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The portrayal of the elves and fairies is very reminiscent of past American racial politics. The majority of the elves are dark-skinned, poorer looking, and voiced by black voice actors. The fairies are light-skinned, have fancy balls, and are voiced by white voice actors. The fairies rule over the elves and there seems to be some prejudice against them. Sunny, an elf, is desperately in love with Dawn, a fairy, but she never notices him while flirting with every fairy boy she can see. Her father faints in horror upon seeing the two kiss at the end of the film.
- Don't Go Into the Woods: The fairies and elves don't go into the dark forest, since that's the realm of the goblins.
- Door Dumb: When trying to run away from Marianne during "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)", Roland tries to pull open the ballroom doors. Marianne pushes them open and throws him out. This is followed closely by The Door Slams You, lampshaded by one of Roland's vassals saying "Marianne slammed him pretty good".
- Easily Forgiven:
- Even though the Imp steals the love potion and ends up love potioning half the forest, he's literally forgiven the moment after the elves manage to steal back the potion from him.
- The Bog King. He crashes the elves' party and assaults the royal family, then kidnaps Dawn and holds her hostage, but is forgiven in the end without so much as an apology.
- Elite Mooks: Among the goblins, there seems to be several subspecies, one of which is significantly bigger and brawnier than the others.
- Enchanted Forest: The Dark Forest, which is about as hostile and scary as you'd expect, being home to the goblins. The Bog King shows Marianne the beauty of the forest during their duet.
- Establishing Character Moment: Roland cheating on Marianne right before their wedding with his only reaction to her spotting being disappointment in not getting an army shows his fundamental selfishness.
- Everyone Can See It: By the end, everyone can see that Marianne and the Bog King are in love. Both of their sides start a Crowd Song convincing them to confess to each other.
- Evil Is Not Well-Lit: The Bog King is introduced shrouded in shadows in his castle. Later, it is shown that he has a skylight in his castle signaling his more complicated portrayal.
- The Extremist Was Right: The Bog King's draconian response to the love potion, while not entirely motivated by the correct reasons, seems more reasonable as the chaotic effects it can have are revealed.
- The Fair Folk: Denizens of the Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest closely fall in line with the traditional image of Seelie and Unseelie Court fae respectively. The Fairy Kingdom residents are usually amicable, enjoy festive gatherings, and live in an idyllic clearing. Those of the Dark Forest have slightly more unsettling and grotesque appearances, are often more brutish in behavior, and live under a dense forest canopy. More neutral parties like the Sugarplum Fairy and the Imp often cause trouble or only help the heroes just because they feel like it.
- Fairy Companion: Marianne has even smaller, monocolored fairies that fulfill the trope. They follow her around at eye level and assist with things from dressing to training.
- Fairy Sexy: Every fairy, male or female, is fairly attractive. Downplayed with the king, who is a case of Adipose Rex but still looks distinguished.
- Fantastic Racism: Fairies hold goblins in a negative light and vice versa.
- Final Love Duet: The titular song, "Strange Magic" by the Electric Light Orchestra, serves as this for Marianne and the Bog King. It references the false love created by the love potion and how this couple is experiencing the real deal.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing:
- In the beginning, when Roland comments that Marianne "...could have been killed! Or worse, seriously disfigured!", it hints that he doesn't truly love Marianne, especially since he was caught cheating on their wedding day.
- When Dawn first sees the Bog King after getting hit by the love potion, her pupils dilate dramatically and stay that way until the potion is reversed. When Marianne gets hit by the potion, nothing happens to her eyes, indicating that the potion had no effect. Just a few lines later, she decks Roland.
- Flashback Cut: Marianne has a brief flashback of being attacked by goblins in the Dark Forest when she goes near it again.
- Flat "What": The Bog King expresses this when Dawn's first reaction to seeing him is to sing how much she loves him, even though he's just kidnapped her. It's the effect of a Love Potion, but it takes him a bit to understand. He gets a second one at the end of the movie, when Marianne starts singing after Roland hits her with the love potion.
- Foreshadowing:
- During Marianne's sword fight with the Bog King, she knocks down a large lantern, which explodes, causing damage to the core wood of the castle. Later, Roland has his henchmen slam the hanging prison cages against the walls, making the whole structure collapse.
- The Fairy King spouts this to Marianne: "You'll be a stronger rule with a king at your side!" She ends up becoming an Official Couple with the Bog King.
- Sugarplum reveals that real love is the cure to the Love Potion. When Marianne proves unaffected by the potion, it's all the proof one needs she genuinely loves the Bog King.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Varies quite a bit because there are a lot of different species present. The Bog King and the fairies all have five fingers; the elves and the Sugarplum Fairy have four; the goblins and Bog King's mother have three.
- Funny Background Event:
- One of the goblins, after being pointed out as naked, is later seen wearing a vest.
- When Stuff and Thang are relaying the second Mushroom-message to the Bog King, you can see Griselda half-hiding behind, half-dragging a plant along in the background.
- Glad I Thought of It: One of Roland's minions suggests using a Love Potion which Roland's insulted by, since he thinks it implies he can't woo Princess Marianne successfully on his own. When he thinks of other ways to woo her, he "comes up with" the idea to use a love potion. He then tricks Sunny into coming up with the love potion idea and encourages him to make one.
- Gossip Evolution: The Dark Forest mushrooms provide intel to the Bog King but since they are immobile, they have to whisper it mushroom to mushroom until it gets to a goblin; somewhere along the line, it gets nonsensical. Possibly subverted in the post-credits scene, when the mushrooms all roll their eyes and seethe with frustration at Thang getting the whisper wrong, implying that we've only been hearing the messages get mangled because Thang's been the one saying them aloud.
- Got Me Doing It: The Bog King ends up correcting Dawn when she uses his correct name, rather than by his Embarrassing Nickname.
- Got Volunteered: Pare is 'volunteered' when everyone steps back to avoid volunteering and he's so big that Sunny can't tell that he stepped back. Pare is too nice to break it to Sunny and reluctantly goes along on the dangerous mission.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: The Bog King's mooks outside his palace, while not competent enough to capture one fairy princess, are at least awake. His personal guards actually fall asleep in front of him.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: One of the goblins does this with a leaf after a fairy points out that he's naked, even though it's the first time anyone notices this.
- Hell Is That Noise: Dawn's singing is torture to the goblins. They're basically incapacitated until the Bog King convinces her to sleep.
- Hero vs. Villain Duet: "C'mon Marianne/Stronger", as Roland tries to convince Marianne he didn't mean to cheat on her on their wedding day, while Marianne has seen through to his true, shady self.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The imp is only successfully caught by Sunny because of help from the lizard that the imp had love potioned into loving him. The imp had love potioned the lizard partially so that Sunny wouldn't get eaten by the lizard, and partially because it amused him to have a lizard fall in love with an elf.
- Hypocritical Humor: The Fairy King states the typical aesop about not judging people by their appearances. He promptly faints in shock when he sees his daughter kissing an elf.
- Insistent Terminology: The Bog King feels the need to correct every instance of 'Boggy Woggy' by Dawn until the end when she actually uses his correct name. This of course causes him to miscorrect it by sheer habit.
- Instantly Proven Wrong:Bog King: Oh no, not another princess! Well, at least you're not singing.
Marianne: (singing) I'm coming straight on for you! - Interspecies Romance: Several are induced by the love potion such as fairy/goblin, elf/lizard, toadstool/snail. The final two couples are both non-magically induced examples of this, being fairy/goblin and fairy/elf.
- Irony:
- Marianne tells her father that she'll marry a guy she can look in the eyes and not want to punch in the face. Later on in the film, she falls in love with the Bog King, who she punched in the face during their first interaction. The two of them started having romantic tension during their first duel, which was shortly after said punch.
- Marianne, as part of her pre-wedding bliss, confidently states that she'll be able to negotiate peacefully with the Dark Forest to end hostilities. A major reason why the Bog King and Marianne fall in love is the Belligerent Sexual Tension during their attempts to hack each other apart, meaning violence was the real solution to generations of hatred.
- The Fairy King spouts this to Marianne: "You'll be a stronger rule with a king at your side!" She ends up becoming an Official Couple with the Bog King; at the sight of this, Dagda covers his eyes.
- It's Not You, It's Me: Dawn uses this line at the end on the Bog King, after being freed of the love potion. He reacts with relief, because Dawn's flirting made him uncomfortable, and he's already fallen in love with her sister Marianne.
- It Was a Gift: Implied to be the reason Bog doesn't reject or throw away the boutonniere Dawn made him while she was dosed with Love Potion, even though he doesn't like her personally.
- I Want Grandkids: The Bog King's mother keeps trying to pair him off with various women but grandkids are never mentioned as the reason why.
- Jukebox Musical: The entire soundtrack consists of covers of famous pop songs, ranging from Elvis Presley to Lady Gaga.
- Light Is Not Good: Not all the fairies of the light forest are good with Roland and his three goons being an example.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Later in the movie, Roland first realizes that Marianne and the Bog King have fallen in love because they start arguing in a fashion that suggests a lover's quarrel.
- Love at First Punch: Marianne and the Bog King's first meeting involves her punching him in the face. Ironically, Marianne thought her true love would be a guy she didn't want to punch after meeting.
- Love at First Sight: The one dusted with the love potion falls for the first person they see after it.
- Love Is a Crime: The Bog King's response to the love potion is draconian. While he's not entirely motivated by the correct reasons, The Extremist Was Right nonetheless.
- Love Potion: The central conflict revolves around Sunny producing an illegal love potion and how this provokes the Bog King. Its use then spreads to other conflicts.
- Missing Mom: Dawn and Marianne's birth mother doesn't make an appearance.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Played with. Roland convinces most of the Fairy Kingdom that this is why Marianne left him at the altar, or that the girl he really was cheating on her with was 'one little mistake', 'a passing fling'.
- Mood Whiplash:
- The Bog King is hesitantly but sincerely starting a slow love confession using the song "Can't Help Falling In Love" only to be interrupted by Marianne taking over the love confession with the high energy rock version of 'Wild Thing'.
- At the beginning of the film, Marianne is singing and flying through a bright sunny meadow, when she suddenly crosses over into the Dark Forest. She's attacked by goblins and flees in terror... then immediately runs into Roland and has a cute moment with him which quickly leads to spotting him cheating on her which starts a heartbreaking song.
- Mouse World: All of the characters in the film are smaller than squirrels.
- Musicalis Interruptus: Just as "Can't Help Falling In Love" is reaching the end, the music abruptly stops when Marianne sees Roland kiss another girl, much to her shock. Averted in the soundtrack release where the song is uninterrupted.
- Myth Prologue: The film starts with a map being opened on a table to show the Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest, "side by side, but worlds apart". The narrator explains that all along the border between the kingdoms, magic primroses bloom and that they are used to make love potions, because "everybody deserves to be loved". The camera approaches as it focuses on an animated lavender butterfly, then the map vanishes to show the title and then the real scenery appears, showing that the butterfly is Marianne, one of the main protagonists.
- Offhand Backhand: Both Marianne and the Bog King do this to each other during the duel to show off.
- Our Elves Are Different: The elves are only half the size of the fairies who are small enough to ride squirrels as mounts. They come across as the lower class to the fairies as they live in ramshackle looking homes, dress in dirty working clothes even at festivals, and are ruled by a Fairy King. The majority of the elves are dark-skinned and the fairies are light-skinned.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins are very diverse in this film. Some are small and have avian beaks, others are toad-like and Bog himself is an insectoid/humanoid being.
- Parents Suck at Matchmaking: At the very beginning of the movie Dagda sets up Marianne to marry Roland who she is happily in love with, at least until she catches him cheating on her in broad daylight, from then on she sees what a selfish person he is and wants nothing to do with him let alone get married to him, something her father Dagda ends up agreeing with near the end of the film.
- Griselda keeps arranging girlfriends to her son Bog, at hopes of bringing love back to the goblin kingdom. He rejects all of them, but Griselda insists she won't give up. Fortunately, she approves when he falls in love with Marianne.
- Phrase Catcher: Dawn's boutonniere. Both Marianne and The Bog King perform the same hand wriggling that says "I'm-struggling-to-come-up-with-a-suitable-compliment" and settle on lovely.
- Pity the Kidnapper: The Bog King and his subjects take Dawn hostage. They suffer every second of her singing Silly Love Songs to him. Justified by them actually being decent guys who won't hit her just for singing while brainwashed.
- Plot-Inciting Infidelity: At the beginning, Marianne is Roland's happy, idealistic bride — until she sees him cheating on her right before their wedding. This shapes her character as she gives up on love and grows into a snarky, hot-tempered Action Girl. And of course, she dumps Roland who doesn't actually care about Marianne but wants the army that comes with marrying a princess, so he tries to manipulate her into taking him back. When this fails miserably, he manipulates Sunny to get the love potion, setting in motion the whole movie's plot.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- If the Bog King had let the Sugar Plum Fairy explain why the love potion didn't work when he tried to use it on the girl he was in love with, he and everyone else would probably have been much happier for it.
- Nobody would give Roland the time of the day if Marianne just told everybody why she broke off the wedding engagement, meaning he couldn't keep manipulating everyone.
- The movie would be very, very different if the mushrooms learned to enunciate.
- Post-Credits Scene: The message-passing mushrooms deliver a final one directly to the audience, mangled as usual by the guy who actually says it: Tea Blend.
- Pretend to Be Brainwashed: At the end of the movie, Roland dusts Marianne with the love potion and she starts singing "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch"... until she punches him into a pit. The potion doesn't work because she has fallen for the Bog King by then.
- Punch Catch: After getting sucker-punched by Marianne, the Bog King catches the second attempt.
- Reaction Shot: There is a whole screen worth's of goblins looking shocked and glancing at each other when Dawn starts singing to the Bog King.
- Running Gag:
- No matter how dire the situation, if the scene contains Dawn and the Bog King, she will call him Boggy and he will angrily correct her.
- Stuff keeps convincing Thang to do things that will get him in trouble, usually by telling him he'd do a better job. Thang falls for it every single time.
- To Serve Man: The goblins express the desire to rip apart and eat Dawn after she's been kidnapped.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: The love potion causes those afflicted with it to sing sappy love songs while kissing and cuddling the first person they see. This disgusts the goblins.
- Sidekick Song: Sunny has "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley And The Wailers. He queues this one up in his first scene with Dawn to show their great relationship (even if it is more platonic than he'd like) and then again when he needs to comfort himself or her.
- Skewed Priorities: In the first act, Roland is horrified to hear Marianne accidentally flew into the Dark Forest. "You could have been killed! Or worse, seriously disfigured!" In a double example for that scene, Marianne is more concerned about keeping Roland from looking at her, because it's bad luck to see each other on their wedding day. (The wedding doesn't happen, because she sees him kissing another girl about two minutes later.)
- Something We Forgot: Marianne is so focused on lecturing her sister Dawn after she was attacked by a lizard that Marianne forgets that Sunny was knocked into the forbidden Dark Forest by said lizard. Thankfully, she remembers just in time to save him from being attacked by goblins.
- Sound Off: Since the film is a Juke Box Musical, the fairy and elf army marches to "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga.
- Storybook Opening: The film starts with a scroll being opened to show the map of the Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest while the opening narration explains the setting.
- Strangely Arousing: Roland's response to what he correctly interprets as a "lovers' tiff" between Marianne and the Bog King, which he alternately describes as disgusting and interesting.
- Supervillain Lair: The Bog King's castle is the trunk of a tree, with a large (to him) skull for a front door.
- Tagline: "Everybody deserves to be loved" states the theme of the whole movie.
- Take Me Instead: Sunny tries to offer himself up as a hostage in exchange for Dawn by pointing out that he was the one who stole the Love Potion. Since he doesn't actually have the love potion and isn't as useful as a hostage as the King's daughter, he's rejected.
- Take My Hand!: How their hands interact are a running theme between Marianne and the Bog King. At first, he's catching her fist before she can punch him. Then he's catching her from falling. Finally, he's offering his hand to her and she takes it, showing that she trusts him.
- Talking Animal: A frog joins in on singing "Only Fools Rush In" by Elvis Presley.
- Tempting Fate: The Bog King expresses relief at Marianne not singing when she arrives in his palace. She promptly starts singing.
- That Reminds Me of a Song: The movie cannot seem to go five minutes without the characters breaking into a pop song. Sometimes these songs are appropriate to the plot ("Strange Magic" as a love duet), others seem to have been shoehorned in ("Bad Romance" as the fairy armies' marching song). Opinion is divided among viewers about whether this made the movie better or worse but the fact that several songs are repeated multiple times did not help matters with the latter group.
- Third-Act Misunderstanding: "You played me!" After they start to warm up to each other, Bog thinks Marianne only lured him away from his castle so the fairy and elf army (lead by Roland) could attack it.
- Those Two Guys: Thang and Stuff are rarely seen apart and provide comedy.
- Throne Made of X: The Bog King's throne is an upside-down sacrum bone, possibly a small deer's.
- Title Drop: "Strange Magic" is a love duet between Marianne and the Bog King; sure, it drops the title in every chorus.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The scene where Roland makes out with some kind of insect is frequently shown in trailers. It's actually one of two stingers.
- Training Montage: Marianne gets one in the beginning after she breaks off the wedding. It's implied she spends a year throwing herself into learning how to use a sword as a distraction/coping mechanism for her heartbreak.
- True Beauty Is on the Inside: Both Marianne and the Bog King were burned by past relationships where they fell in love with somebody because they were good looking. The two fall in love with each other even though the two are nothing like what their ideal of beauty or attractiveness is. Instead, they connect and fall for each other due to their similar personalities.
- True Love is Exceptional: Lampshaded with the song "Love is Strange". Dawn spends the first part of the film flirting with tall, handsome fairy bachelors, but the love potion's effects are broken when she realizes she loves the small elf Sunny.
- Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: While Marianne is your typical beautiful fairy princess, Roland is the handsome villain and the Bog King, who looks like a humanoid moth-cockroach monster, turns out to be a pretty decent guy.
- Unwanted Assistance: One of the Bog king's mooks keeps asking if he needs help during his duel with Marianne. He doesn't want help, especially as the duel becomes more and more flirtatious.
- [Verb] This!:The Bog King: I don't need [the love potion], I want to eradicate it!
Marianne: Eradicate this! - Villain Love Song: Roland uses "C'mon Marianne" by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in his attempt to woo Marianne after breaking her heart earlier.
- Villain Song: The Bog King gets "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" by Elvis Presley to show how evil he is.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Roland is described by his former fiancé as a cheating, power-hungry scumbag but he successfully convinced a large number of people that he was not to blame for the canceled wedding.
- Weapon Twirling: The Bog King does a lot of unnecessary and showy staff twirling during his duel with Marianne. That's his way of flirting with her.
- Wham Line: The Sugarplum Fairy reveals to the Bog King why the potion didn't work on "that fateful day":Sugarplum Fairy: She was already in love with someone else!
- What Does She See in Him?: This is something of a Running Gag.
- Marianne is shocked by her sister's adoration of the Bog King until she finds out about the Love Potion.
- Roland is squicked out by Marianne's love for the Bog King.
- The Bog King is not impressed with the dunce making stupid faces in front of him, and this is "the guy" who broke Marianne's heart.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- What happened to the love potion after Roland is hit by it? Is the imp going to find it and continue his reign of terror/shipping?
- Marianne's three little sidekicks are by her side constantly, right up until the elves' party, after which they are never seen again.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sonny gets a tongue-lashing from everyone because he wanted to use a love potion on Dawn.
- Worthy Opponent: The Bog King and Marianne quickly learn that they're evenly matched in dueling, and admit to having fun.Marianne: You know, I really enjoyed our fight...
- You Monster!: Roland mocks the Bog King as a beast after Roland finds out he fell in love with Marianne. Marianne calls him out on this, which considering that he was about to forcibly Love Potion her is pretty pertinent.Marianne: Who's the beast?
"Got it! Tea Blend! Nailed it again!"
*Que one of the mushrooms raging in frustration and one fall his head on the ground in shame*
*Que one of the mushrooms raging in frustration and one fall his head on the ground in shame*
