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The Neverending Story (novel): Difference between revisions
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The story purposefully has lots of loose ends (in the form of left-off side stories and secondary characters), to drive home the point that it ''is'' a "Neverending Story". In addition, there was a scene in the original novel where to convince Bastian that this was [[Up the Real Rabbit Hole|"real"]] the Childlike Empress tells the Historian to read the story over. Which includes what Bastian had done that day. This gets them all stuck into a timeloop until Bastian accepts it and enters the story.
Originally written in German by [[
{{tropelist}}
* [[Above Good and Evil]]: The Childlike Empress considers good and evil, beautiful and ugly to be of equal value, and never favours one over the other. It's not her concern whether the people dream good or bad dreams, as long as they dream.
* [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: Sikanda.
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** There's also an implication that whoever reads the book will end up reading a story about a character somewhat like what they are and also what they want to be. Since Bastian is a young boy who wants to be brave he ends up reading about Atreyu, a young boy warrior. This is heavily implied at the Oracle which revealed Atreyu's inner self to be Bastian, and when Carl Coreander told Bastian that his experiences with the Neverending Story, including the appearance of the book itself, were entirely different from Bastian's. If Coreander was reading, the story probably would have featured [[Grumpy Old Man|Engywook]] or someone similar.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: Argax is fond of inserting "in a manner of speaking"<ref>At least that's how it comes out in the English translation.</ref> into his dialogue.
* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Subverted in the character of the lion Grograman. Yes, [[Walking Wasteland|all land around him is turned into scorching desert]], and no one can touch him without being burnt to a crisp, [[Blessed
* [[City of Canals]]: More precisely, a silver city of floating palaces on a lake of tears. ''Acidic'' tears!
* [[The Chosen One]]: Bastian is [[The Chosen One]] to stop The Nothing.
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* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Argax, Gmork.
* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: The Princess of Luna.
* [[Deus Ex 'Scuse Me]]: The librarian is getting called away for a long phone call, allowing Bastian time to take the book.
* [[Dream Land]]: Fantastica, obviously.
* [[Eat Dirt Cheap]]: The entire race of the Rock-Chewers.
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** In other words, [[The Power of the Void]], perhaps at its most frightening form.
* [[Equivalent Exchange]]: Each wish made on AURYN consumes a memory of home. To be precise, the amount of memory consumed is proportional to the difficulty of the wish. And woe betide you should you run out before finding your way back.
* [[
* [[Extreme Doormat]]: Xayide acts this way towards Bastian, as part of her gambit to manipulate him.
* [[Eye of Newt]]: Memories for wishes.
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* [[Giant Flyer]]: Falkor.
* [[A God Am I]]: {{spoiler|Bastian driven semi-insane by excessive wishing decides that he should become the new Emperor -- like dozens of saviors before him, who are now all stuck in Fantastica as idiot children.}}
* [[God
* [[A Good Name for
* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Bastian, which drives him to utilize his last wishes a bit more carefully.
* [[Hero of Another Story]]: The point of the book is that ''everyone'' is the hero of his own story, but Hero Hynreck takes the cake not only by virtue of being a professional hero and having the word 'hero' in his name, but also because we see Bastian purposefully creating a story of adventure for him after he complained about getting dumped by Princess Oglamar and having no monster to fight as an hero. But, as the book says, that is another story and shall be told another time.
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** The entire first half of the book revolves around finding the one who can give the Childlike Empress a new, true name, to end her illness and dispel the Nothing.
* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: Sort of. The ''names'' of the chapters are ordinary enough, but Ende notably begins each of them with a successive letter of the alphabet. Since the book's only illustrations ''are'' said capital letters (which each take up an entire page), it's hard not to think of the book in terms of "Chapter A", "Chapter M", "Chapter X", etc.
* [[It Was
* [[I Wish It
* [[Jumped Off the Slippery Slope]]: {{spoiler|Bastian becomes an evil psychopath toward the end of the book due to Xayide's manipulation, but snaps out of it, leading to a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moment.}}
* [[Knight in Shining Armor]]: Hykrion, Hysbald, and Hydorn. Hynrek might also qualify.
* [[Made of Air]]: {{spoiler|Uyulala is literally made of ''sound''.}}
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* [[The Mirror Shows Your True Self]]
* [[Mistaken for Granite]]: There's a pair of winged statues that might paralyze you with all the riddles in the world if you get too close to them.
* [[My God, What Have I Done?]]: {{spoiler|Bastian, after turning to the dark side for a while and nearly killing Atreyu....in fact, he thought he flat-out HAD killed Atreyu, which makes his "My God, What Have I Done?" even more dramatic.}}
* [[Names to Run Away From Very Fast]]: Be honest now, does "Gmork" sound like the name someone/something you'd entrust your life with?
* [[
* [[Nigh Invulnerable]]: Anyone who wears AURYN.
* [[No Ending]]: Purposefully leaves almost all subplots hanging. Hence the title.
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* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: Gmork, despite looking like an enormous wolf, describes himself as this. He tells Atreyu that neither Fantastica nor the Human World are his true home, for he has none. Therefore, he is able to travel between both worlds, appearing as a human in our world and a wolf in Fantastica.
* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: The book uses two different colors or typefaces for the two reality levels.
* [[Pals
* [[Patchwork Map]]: [[Exaggerated Trope]] and [[Justified Trope]]. Fantastica itself constantly molds its shape, sending people traveling to various places depending on where they want to go. Thus, the geography of Fantastica can't be pinned down and it would be impossible to draw an accurate map of the place.
* [[Planet of Hats]]: The Yskalnari.
* [[Playing
* [[Portal Book]]
* [[Precision F
* [[Prophecy Twist]]: Al Tsahir, a magical shining stone, taken from a unicorn's horn. When he receives it, Bastian is shown a prophecy. Three things of note: speaking the stone's true name will have it shine its light for Bastian for a thousand years. Bastian does this. Speaking the stone's name ''backwards'' will have it release all its thousand years of light in a single instant. Bastian does this, and it then vanishes. But another part of the prophecy "I will guide him in Yor's Minroud" comes to bite him in the butt when he finds out that he managed to [[Screw Destiny]] by destroying the stone. Yor's Minroud is a mine, and without Al Tsahir, he must dig and grope for his lost dream in total darkness.
* [[Reality Warper]]: AURYN identifies what the wearer really and truly wants, and can then guide them on their task or, if they have memories of the human world to give up, turn those wishes into reality. Humans can also warp reality in Fantastica without assistance; since Fantastica is the land of imagination, peopled with beings who cannot fashion anything new, anyone from the real world with a little creativity can do it. If you actually ''tell a story'' in Fantastica, it will become true, and will always have been true, even if history must be changed to accommodate that, because reality and fantasy are one and the same in Fantastica.
* [[Reality Writing Book]]
* [[Rewriting Reality]]: The Neverending Story is a book inside Fantastica (which makes it a book within a book within a book). The Old Man of Wandering Mountain sits in solitude, writing in it. Everything written in the book happens, and everything that happens is written, by the Old Man, into the book. At one point, the Childlike Empress forces Bastian's hand by having the Old Man recite what he has written. This leads to him reciting every line in the book (beginning with the first line of the ''actual'' book, recounting Bastian's tale), and writing what he says, which creates more lines for him to read, and causes those events to re-happen, ad infinitum.
* [[Riddling Sphinx]]: The Southern Oracle is protected by two sphinxes who petrify anyone who fails to answer their riddles.
* [[Rule of Three]]
* [[Sapient Steed]]
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* [[Say My Name]]: In the end of the first half, Bastian must say the Childlike Empress's new true name, so that she can be healed, the Nothing can be dispelled, and Bastian can be brought to Fantastica. It takes some doing to get him to actually do it.
** Many other things in Fantastica are affected by one saying their true name; see [[I Know Your True Name]]. Al Tsahir is one prime example.
* [[Shakespeare in Fiction]]/[[Shout
* [[Shining City]]: The Ivory Tower, the Silver City of Amarganth.
* [[Spell My Name
* [[Synchronized Swarming]]: Ygramul, which forms a devilish face, a giant scorpion, a fist...
* [[Talking Animal]]: All the animals in Fantastica.
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* [[Time Abyss]]: The Childlike Empress, who has existed at least as long as Fantastica has (that is, she is as old as human imagination). The Old Man of Wandering Mountain is just as old, and has existed just as long. Morla, and some of the residents of the City of Old Emperors, may also count.
* [[Title Drop]]: "The Neverending Story" is, of course, the name of the book Bastian is reading, but ''within'' the book the phrase is first used by Gmork:
{{quote|
* [[Trapped in Another World]]
* [[Turtle Island]]: The wise Morla who lives in the Swamps of Sadness
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* [[Villainous BSOD]]: Xayide's.
* [[The Voice]]: Uyulala, the rhyming voice of silence beyond the No Key Gate.
* [[Two
* [[Walking Wasteland]]: Grograman, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|the Many Colored Death]]. The desert in which he lives travels with him, and extends for many, many miles around him, so intense is the heat that he carries with him. Only Bastian has ever been able to speak with him without dying, and that's because he had the protection of AURYN.
* [[White
* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: {{spoiler|Happens to Bastian towards the end.}}
* [[The Worm That Walks]]: Ygramul the Many, a myriad of blue beetles acting as one, most of the time forming a big spider but changing into other forms when fighting with its prey or into a huge face with antennae instead of a tongue when talking to Atreyu.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]
[[Category:Nelvana]]
[[Category:The Neverending Story]]
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:German Literature]]
[[Category:Literature of the 1970s]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neverending Story (novel), The}}
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