Hagen von Tronje, the Burgundian master-at-arms, holds his troubled kingdom together while hiding his dark past. The arrival of the unpredictable dragon slayer Siegfried threatens to upend the old order. As King Gunter seeks Siegfried's help to win the fierce Valkyrie Brunhild, Hagen faces a tragic choice between loyalty to the king and his own identity.
Jakarta, a 21-year-old Indonesian, is obsessed with the legendary stories his father told him as a child. Just like in those stories, he wants to create something special. When he falls in love with a mysterious, blue-haired hairdresser, he decides to gather all his friends and create the greatest magic trick ever seen.
17-year-old Rebekka is feeling hollow and empty after her brother Dennis died by suicide two years ago. Dennis' friend Vincent is the only one who can help her through this difficult time. But Vincent is an outsider, accepted by nobody, especially since he jumped off the bridge with Dennis and survived.
Astrid is in her late forties and has her life firmly under control. She has fallen in love with Paul, and their first weekend trip together takes them to Budapest for a few romantic days, just the two of them. But in the Hungarian capital things happen differently than they'd planned: They run into Julius, Astrid's first great love, whom she'd met at an artists' party in East Germany in 1986.
When his two mature children Anton and Linda start leaving the house, after graduation, father Michael stops taking care of his body. Anton sacrifices his body for a bed-rest-study to contribute to spacetraveling, while Linda is in search of her first sexual experience.
After being enlisted to recover a dangerous computer program, hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials.
The door has been closed for many weeks. A teenager has locked himself in - shutting out a helpless father, mother and sister. In Japan, youths like him have already been given a name: Hikikomori (the secluded). The phenomenon is also beginning to spread throughout the Western world. This is all the family has been able to find out. All they can do is stand in front of the locked door and ask, beg, implore, throw tantrums, despair, accuse, ignore and hope. All the while, the door increasingly becomes a mirror of their own lives.
Since the death of her parents, Natalie has been taking care of her younger brother John, who has gone wrong due to this tragic loss.
In the late 70s, young Petra Grust begins teaching at the progressive Odenwald School. She is flattered by the trust placed in her by its widely respected headmaster Simon Pistorius. But gradually certain incidents at the boarding school begin to unsettle her. Petra then realizes that Pistorius is abusing Frank, a 13-year-old. When Frank is told that he has to spend school holidays with Pistorius, he tries to commit suicide. Petra tells Frank's father (the chairman of the school's governing body) but he believes Pistorius instead of his own son. Petra fails to convince people of the man's true nature. 30 years later, Frank goes to Petra, who has long since left the school and has stopped teaching altogether. He has never been able to speak about what happened but now, after the suicide of another pupil, he is no longer willing to remain silent. He wants Petra to bear witness at the school's forthcoming anniversary celebrations.