History Literature / TheNeverendingStory

%%* PortalBook

* OmniscientMoralityLicense: The Childlike Empress fits this perfectly when she has to [[spoiler: basically mentally torture Bastian]] in order to get him to say her name. Of course, the people of two worlds were hanging in the balance, so she had justification.

* ABoyAndHisX: Atreyu starts off as A Boy and His Horse, with his talking horse Artax as his only companion. Artax's loss in the Swamp of Sadness is what makes Atreyu realize how truly arduous his journey will be. Later, the story becomes a Boy and His Luckdragon when Atreya rescues and befriends Falcor. The two become inseparable for the rest of the book.

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Sikanda, a blade of living light that can perfectly perform any task the user requires, from slaughtering an entire army to delicately cutting a suit of armor to pieces without leaving a scratch on the wearer's body.

%%* ABoyAndHisX: X being first a horse, and then a dragon. %% Add more context to describe their relationship and what effect it has on them. %%

%%* DefrostingIceQueen: The Princess of Luna.

** Having read the book The Neverending Story himself, after finding himself in Fantastica Bastian theorizes that his current experiences may be recorded in the book, and that "maybe someone was reading it at that very moment".

* NighInvulnerability: Anyone who wears AURYN effectively has this, since no resident of Fantastica will intentionally harm them. There are some who might hurt them ''un''intentionally, though, and it seems to offer no protection from natural hazards like starvation, drowning, etc.

%%* RealityWritingBook

%%* RuleOfThree

%%* SaveBothWorlds

* ToweringFlower: Horok, Xayide the witch's hand-shaped castle, is surrounded by a forest of orchids taller than a man — orchids that also happen to be carnivorous, thus serving as a first layer of protection around her lair.
%%* TrappedInAnotherWorld

%%* VillainousBSOD: Xayide's.

%%* PlantPerson: Barktroll

%%* AllStoriesAreRealSomewhere: Part of the premise.

%%* PlanetOfHats: The Yskalnari.

* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: Ygramul the Many is spoken of as a force of evil by the greenskins, who sing a song about the danger of falling into his clutches if they should venture into the dead mountains. Despite this, he is just a creature who needs food to survive like any other, although his meals tend to be rather large and some of them are sentient, like Falcor. He gives Atreyu some helpful advice; he must measure his quest in terms of her life and not his, which means he can't afford to take months or years to find her a cure. He even gives Atreyu the means to reach the southern oracle instantly, although the means are fatal; his poison bite allows the victim to teleport to anywhere their heart desires. Ygramul can't help this as it's simply his nature, and he suggests that it's [[TheEasyWayOrTheHardWay still a better deal]] than sitting around waiting for the childlike empress to die and the nothing to overtake all of Fantastica.

** The Wandering Mountain, said to be as a big as a whole country yet never occupies the same place twice. One cannot climb it until the last person to do so has not only died but passed out of all memory, or else the mountain will simply not be found.
** For the record, the Wandering Mountain was the tower that the Old Man lived in and could only be found if fated, never searched for. The Mountain of Destiny was a mountain in one place and whose apex was as large as a country but could only be scaled when the former climber was utterly forgotten. They were two different places, but the Childlike Empress found the Wandering Mountain atop the Mountain of Destiny.

* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The animated series, unlike the live-action adaptations, follows the novel's description of Atreyu having green skin.
%%* AnimatedAdaptation
* AscendedExtra: Barktroll, a minor character at best in other adaptations, is almost a {{Deuteragonist}} in the cartoon.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The animated episode ''The Dreaming Fields'' has all the characters getting exactly what they wished for...with the wishes turning bad by the end of the episode.
* ExcaliburInTheRust: Sikanda in the animated series.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: An Eastern dragon in a story otherwise employing Western characters and other stuff. In addition, there is a western dragon named Smerg.

* CantTakeAnythingWithYou: A non-time travel example. Bastian cannot leave Fantastica with anything the Childlike Empress gave him or that he received in Fantastica. This means his clothes fell off him and he changed from the Oriental Prince look to his normal look as both were given to him by the Childlike Empress.

%%* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Sikanda.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Perrilin the night forest can only live and grow at night; by day, it withers and dies and is replaced by a scorching desert where nothing can live. This ignores the fact that plants need sunlight to thrive in the real world.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Bastian starts out as an overweight, ugly, unathletic scared little boy who tells stories to himself. He reads the Neverending Story and gives the childlike empress a new name, propelling him into the world of Fantastica. He is granted the power to make wishes using Auryn, the symbol of the empress, and his first wish is to be strong, handsome, athletic and brave. This first wish also robs him of the memory of ever being that overweight, ugly unathletic, scared little boy. Each subsequent wish removes his memory of something vitally important to Bastian's character that made him a good person, and so he slowly transforms from the savior of Fantastica to a bloodthirsty conqueror who seeks to depose the empress and sit on her throne.

%%* TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf

* AnthropomorphicPersonification: There are two in the book: the Childlike Empress is the personification of fantastical inspiration, while the Old Man of Wandering Mountain is the personification of written and recorded stories.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Ivory Tower is given a ''very'' similar description, in terms of its design and layout, to [[Literature/LordOfTheRings Minas Tirith]]. The only major difference being the Ivory Tower is about ten times taller.

* GreaterScopeVillain: The mysterious power behind the Nothing who sent Gmork to kill Arteyu. It or they are mentioned once by Gmork and never play any role in the story after the Nothing is defeated. If they're even sentient creatures is up for debate.

* MathematiciansAnswer: Referred to as dream words for the Childlike Emperess' response:

* OlderThanTheyLook: Time works in a strange way in Fantastica.
** When Bastain arrives to the Ivory Tower, he founds out that the Childlike Empress has not been there "for a long, long time" - even though Atreyu met her there and has not aged noticably since.
** Later, when Bastian makes his way to Dame Eyola's House of Change, she tells him Bastian's own story in Fantasia, which began 100 years ago. Bastian doesn't believe it at first, but eventually acknowledges it has indeed been 100 years without him (or Atreyu--or anyone in Fantasia) aging.

*** At 9am, Bastian reads as the four travelers resume their trip to the Ivory Tower. At 9pm, Atryu and Falkor are traveling to the Ivory Tower.

* SerpentOfImmortality: This is the visual motif behind [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/AURYN_72.JPG AURYN]], the amulet representing the power of the immortal Childlike Empress.

** Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium is referenced on a number of occasions:

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Fantasia? Fantastica? Depends which version you're reading (or watching). "Fantasia" is a more direct equivalent of the German original (''Phantásien''), but the standard English translation of the novel uses "Fantastica", possibly to avoid confusion with any of the several things already called ''Fantasia'' in English, like [[Disney/{{Fantasia}} Walt Disney's movie]].

* VoiceForTheVoiceless: Interesting variant on this. The Childlike Empress only hears The Old Man of Wandering Mountain as if she remembered that he just said spoke. His mouth never moves.

* UnbuiltTrope: The second half of the book brutally deconstructs the idea of [[spoiler: TheChosenOne TrappedInAnotherWorld. After physically entering Fantastica and rebuilding it, Bastian's newfound ego runs amok. Rather than heal the world, he does tremendous harm to feed his power fantasies, leading to a number of tragic events. He is ultimately only able to go home when Atreyu and Falcor selflessly agree to fix all the damage he did]]. But the book predates their becoming very commonplace in children's fiction by a wide margin.

* NameAmnesia: In the final chapter, [[spoiler:Bastian]] overuses the powers of AURYN (which are powered by his memories) and forgets his own name, condemning himself to an eternity as a nameless shade. Fortunately for him, his friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend finds him and gives him at least his name back.

*** At 11am, Atreyu accepts his mission from Cairon. At 11pm, Atryu's mission officially ends after his meeting with the Childlike Empress ends.