Stanley is a troll who has a magical green thumb with the ability to bring flowers and plants to life at a touch, which is forbidden in his home, the Kingdom of Trolls. When he is discovered doing so, the other trolls take him as prisoner to Gnorga, the queen of the trolls, who concludes that Stanley "gives a bad name to trolls everywhere" and demands that he be turned to stone with her dark thumb (which is also purple when it glows). At the behest of her consort King Llort, Queen Gnorga instead banishes Stanley to New York City where, after a series of mishaps, he ends up in Central Park.