Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Literature / TheNeverendingStory

Go To

1[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/NeverEndingStoryCoverImage_8531.JPG]]
2[[caption-width-right:220:Open...but...very carefully.]]
3%%
4''The Neverending Story'' (German: ''Die unendliche Geschichte'') is a German fantasy novel by Creator/MichaelEnde, originally released in 1979, with an English translation published in 1983.
5
6A troubled, insecure young boy named Bastian who loves to read happens upon an antique bookstore owned by a Mr. Coreander, when hiding from some bullies. Inside Mr. Coreander's shop, Bastian comes across a book titled ''The Neverending Story'', which claims to have NoEnding. Unable to resist, Bastian steals the book and hides in the school attic where he can read it undisturbed. In the book is the story of an otherworldly MagicalNativeAmerican boy named Atreyu on a quest to save a MagicalLand from vanishing. As Bastian reads more and more of the story, he finds that the book seems to be aware of him. Eventually, it is revealed that the magical land within the book is actually another dimension encompassing all of human imagination, and only a human with creative ideas can save it.
7
8Bastian is then transported to the world, where he finds that every wish he makes will come true. However, he begins to lose a part of himself for every wish he makes.
9
10The 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 is a scene where to convince Bastian that this was [[UpTheRealRabbitHole "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 time loop until Bastian accepts it and enters the story.
11
12Has received [[Film/TheNeverendingStory three major film adaptations]], though only the first film tried to follow the plot of the novel, being an adaptation of roughly the first half, with the second only making a few loose references to the book's plot (mainly the second half), and the third one going off to do its own thing entirely. There was also a short-lived AnimatedAdaptation, and a live-action miniseries called ''Tales from the Neverending Story'' that created an entirely new plot loosely based on the premise of the book and its characters. More recently, the Creator/WarnerBros fighting game ''VideoGame/MultiVersus'' was announced to have The Nothing as the major antagonist/driving force.
13----
14!!This book provides examples of:
15
16* AboveGoodAndEvil: 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.
17* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Bastian's sword, 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.
18%%* AdventureTowns
19* AlliterativeName: Triply so with Bastian, whose full name is Bastian Balthazar Bux. It also the case with the owner of the bookstore, whose full name is Carl Conrad Coreander.
20* AllStoriesAreRealSomewhere: Because Fantastica is a land literally made of stories, Bastian finds that his storytelling while wearing AURYN can bring things into existence. Not only that, if he tells a story of something set in the past, that something will have ''always'' existed.
21* AllForNothing: Gaya captures Gmork to stop him from helping the Nothing. Then the approaching Nothing drives her crazy and she and her people walk into it voluntarily.
22* AlphabeticalThemeNaming: The residents of Amarganth all have the letter 'q' in their names. Mostly it was their first letter such as Querquobad, the Silver Sage. However, as per Bastian's story of the history of the Amarganthians (which came true as he told it), leaders such as Quana and Quin as well as Aquil and Muqua existed.
23* AmbitionIsEvil: Bastian goes FromNobodyToNightmare all by the fulfillment of his own wishes; while there are some evil Fantasticans like Xayide who manipulate him, the fact is that he wished them into being in order to defeat them with the ultimate goal of being loved and feared by everyone. Bastian is the purest example of how a small, helpless yet good-natured little boy can slowly yet inevitably turn into a cruel, heartless little tyrant by gaining [[DrunkWithPower unlimited power]].
24* AnatomyOfTheSoul: The Mines of Memory, where Bastian attempts to retrieve his final memory of himself.
25* AnimatedArmor: Xayide's guards are nothing but empty suits of armor animated by her magic.
26* AnthropomorphicPersonification:
27** The Childlike Empress is the muse or goddess of fantasy, the embodiment of imaginative and creative potential.
28** The Old Man of Wandering Mountain represents the end result: stories written down, fixed and unchanging.
29* AnotherStoryForAnotherTime: Many chapters end using this on the characters important to that section.
30-->"But that is another story and will be told another time".
31* ArcWords: All the threads left hanging are waved goodbye with the phrase "But that is another story, to be told another time" ("Aber das ist eine andere Geschichte und soll ein andermal erzählt werden."). This is also the final sentence of the book as a whole.
32* 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.
33* AttackOnOneIsAnAttackOnAll: Seen with Gaya, the Dark Princess of Spook City and the Land of Ghosts. She turns on Gmork when he arrives searching for Atreyu, because he lets slip his true mission to bring about Fantastica's destruction. While it's implied Gaya is an evil or at least foul Fantastican, since she rules over a land of vampires, ghosts, witches and night hobs, she nevertheless defends her world against Gmork.
34-->"Gmork. You forgot that I too am one of the creatures of Fantastica. And that to fight against Fantastica is to fight against me. That makes you my enemy, and I've outsmarted you."
35* BatmanGambit: The Childlike Empress sends Atreyu out on a quest to find a cure for her mysterious illness. It turns out that [[spoiler:the Empress knew the cure (to be given a new name by an imaginative human) all along; the actual purpose of the quest wasn't to find the information, but rather to provide a long, harrowing adventure that would summon the savior, and make him sympathetic enough to Atreyu and Fantasia/Fantastica that he would give her a new name when the time came. The Empress also had a back-up plan in case Bastian was too reluctant to name her immediately]].
36* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor:
37** Bastian has it invoked on him when he realizes he is a character in the book he is reading.
38--->"You wish for something, you've wanted it for years, and you're sure you want it, as long as you know you can't have it. But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing."
39** The AURYN can grant any wish, but [[spoiler:does so at the cost of Bastian's memory of his human life. At first Bastian isn't particularly concerned about the loss; by the time he finally realises that without human memories he will be stuck forever in Fantastica as a madman, he's down to his most basic memories]].
40** The Acharis suffer from this as well. They ask Bastian for new bodies but come to regret it much too late as they no longer enjoy being carefree clownish beings and can no longer fulfill their original purpose.
41* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: It's implied that William Shakespeare was one of the previous people to visit Fantastica.
42* BiggerOnTheInside: The Änderhaus (Changing House) is, for all intents and purposes, [[Series/DoctorWho a TARDIS]]. The trope is name-checked word for word. And for added points, the woman who lives there undergoes a sort of regeneration upon death, becoming a new person, and having a succession of lives.
43* BlueAndOrangeMorality:
44** No one knows why the sphinxes let some people pass and paralyze others.
45** The Childlike Empress. She is Fantastica personified and only wants to keep it alive. She does nothing to stop evil Fantasticans, because humans would not care for a Fantastica without dangers. [[spoiler:When she needs Bastian to rebuild Fantastica with his imagination, she does not warn him that this will make him forget the real world and eventually trap him in Fantastica as a lunatic.]]
46* BodyHorror: Ever wonder what it would feel like to lose a part of your body, even half your face or a whole limb, and not die or even feel pain? The Nothing would be happy to show you.
47* BookEnds:
48** The book begins with a description of viewing the bookstore from the inside looking out the glass door. Bastian then opens the door "violently" causing the bells on the door to ring for a while. It ends with Bastian looking out the same door at his father, opening the door "vigorously" and causing the bells on the door to ring.
49** Smaller versions, relate to the events in the book when the clock chimes in Bastian's world.
50*** At 9am, Bastian reads as the four travelers resume their trip to the Ivory Tower. At 9pm, Atreyu and Falkor are traveling to the Ivory Tower.
51*** At 10am, Cairon has just appeared from meeting with the Childlike Empress. At 10pm, Atreyu first sees the Childlike Empress.
52*** At 11am, Atreyu accepts his mission from Cairon. At 11pm, Atreyu's mission officially ends after his meeting with the Childlike Empress ends.
53** Towards the end of Atreyu's portion of the quest, when encountering a stranger he comes wary of revealing his true identity and purpose, and merely refers to himself as "Nobody". Similarly, towards the end of Bastian's quest, he too encounters a stranger and becomes wary of revealing his true identity and purpose, but this time refers to himself as "Somebody".
54* BornAsAnAdult: There's a race of Fantasticans called Sassafranians, who are born old and die as infants.
55** This is also true of Fantastica itself. The minute Bastian wishes something into being, it's as if it has always existed.
56* 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 Atreyu rescues and befriends Falkor. The two become inseparable for the rest of the book.
57* CallBack: One which verges on BrickJoke. At the start of the book, seemingly pointlessly, the first words in the book are the sign from Mr. Koreander's store mirrored. At the midpoint of the book, the ''very same'' mirrored letters appear as if words from a mystical language... just before they begin reading ''[[ExactWords the beginning of the book]]''
58* CanonFodder: Invoked in-universe. Everything Bastian does in the story-world creates several new plot hooks which tail off with some variation on the phrase, ''but that's another story for another time''. In the end, [[spoiler:Bastian is told he can't leave until he 'ends all the stories he began', but Atreyu volunteers to do this on his behalf.]]
59* CanonSue: {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in the second half of the book, with Bastian becoming an in-universe Canon Sue. 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 [[GrumpyOldMan Engywook]] or someone similar.
60* 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. [[spoiler:This is also why the Childlike Empress is the only being in Fantastica who can never enter the inside of AURYN - she can't leave herself behind.]]
61* CastFromSanity: Bastian's wishing power turns out to require sacrificing [[spoiler:memories of the human world]].
62* {{Catchphrase}}: Argax is fond of inserting "in a manner of speaking"[[note]]At least that's how it comes out in the English translation.[[/note]] into his dialogue.
63* CatsAreMean: Subverted in the character of the lion Grograman. Yes, [[WalkingWasteland all land around him is turned into scorching desert]], and no one can touch him without being burnt to a crisp, [[BlessedWithSuck but this is an involuntary part of his nature]] and not a sign of malice or inner evil. When Bastian, protected by AURYN, is able to speak with him, Grograman comes across as a quite personable, even friendly, beast, as well as rather melancholy due to his enforced solitude, ignorance about his origin, and [[TakenForGranite painful]] ([[FateWorseThanDeath daily]]) TransformationSequence. The scenes where Bastian discovers the truth about him, and sits with him so he won't be alone, are genuinely moving, and Grograman himself is actually treated as a brave companion by Bastian to the point he wants the lion to come with him on his journey (which Grograman [[LampshadeHanging points out to him]] is sadly impossible since he takes the desert with him wherever he goes).
64* ChekhovsGun:
65** Subverted with Al Tsahir, which [[spoiler:Bastian uses for something else before he can use it for its intended purpose (which Yor laments upon finding this out)]].
66** The fox, eagle, and the owl mentioned in the attic have a chapter more or less revolving around them, sort of.
67* CityOfCanals: More precisely, a silver city of floating palaces on a lake of tears. ''Acidic'' tears!
68* TheChosenOne:
69** Atreyu is the Chosen One for finding the cure for the Childlike Empress.
70** Bastian is TheChosenOne to stop the Nothing.
71* ContrivedCoincidence: Bastian believes two events are this in the book. The first is when he screams , the characters hear a scream. That was justified in thinking it a coincidence. The second is when Atreyu is looking into the Magic Mirror, the second gate to the Southern Oracle. He sees Bastian and the description Bastian reads is an exact description of him and his surroundings. It freaks him out, but Bastian tries to think of it as a coincidence. [[RealAfterAll It isn't.]]
72* CreativeSterility: As Uyulala/The Southern Oracle outright tells Atreyu, no being from Fantastica can ever truly create something new, because they are just characters fulfilling their parts in stories. The power to create new things, to name things, is explicitly the [[HumansAreSpecial power of humanity]].
73* DamselInDistress: Princess Oglamar after Bastian explained she was captured by a vicious dragon so that Hero Hynreck can save her, which makes it happen.
74* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Using Sikanda without the consent of the blade itself.
75* DayOldLegend: The story explores this idea in-depth, as Bastian can create whole worlds from scratch, and they come with their own history and mythology, even if Bastian did not think this up himself.
76%%* DeadpanSnarker: Argax, Gmork.
77* DefrostingIceQueen: Hero Hynreck has quested for years to prove himself to Olgamar, Princess of Luna, whose standards are so high that nothing impresses her. Bastian eventually has to invent an impossible peril for Hynreck to save Olgamar from to make her change her mind. [[spoiler: By that time, though, Hynreck no longer wants her.]]
78* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Ivory Tower is given a ''very'' similar description, in terms of its design and layout, to [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Minas Tirith]]. The only major difference being the Ivory Tower is about ten times taller.
79* DeusExScuseMe: At the start of the book, Coreander is called away for a long phone call, allowing Bastian time to take the book.
80* DreamLand: Fantastica, created from human imagination. The literal bedrock of Fantastica is composed of layers of all the dreams humans forget upon waking.
81* DrunkWithPower: [[spoiler: Bastian gets a bit too fond of being an all-powerful unbeatable MartyStu with the ability to make his every wish come true, eventually turning outright villainous as he decides to attempt to usurp the Childlike Empress and crown himself ruler of Fantastica.]]
82* DubNameChange: The German name of Faulkur is "Fuchur" /Foo-Xoor/[[note]]Where X represents the sound in Scottish "loch"[[/note]] you can imagine why there was a name change.
83* EatDirtCheap: The race of the Rock-Chewers subsist on a diet of rocks and stone, and have turned their mountain homes into something resembling Swiss cheese as a result.
84* EldritchAbomination:
85** The Nothing. There are quite literally no words to adequately describe it, as shown in the first chapter when one of the messengers struggles through describing a lake being replaced by nothing. Not like a hole or a dried-up lake, because then there would be a hole or a dried lake bed there. The closest anyone comes to describing the Nothing is that looking at it is like being blind. And when Atreyu takes a look at it from afar, he can't even glance at the Nothing head-on, and his eyes hurt just from seeing it, because his brain can't comprehend it. It isn't just blackness, because black is a thing that can be comprehended. It isn't even empty space which matter once occupied, because empty space is still ''something'' that can be occupied. It is, long story short, something that ''should not be''... because it ''isn't''.
86** One can easily replicate what Atreyu saw. To do so one must simply close their eyes as they normally do at night. However try to focus on what you see and well, you can't. In other words, ThePowerOfTheVoid, at its most frightening form.
87** There're also the Manipulators, Gmork's employers, who wish to drive humanity mad with lies and delusions born out of Fantasticans who have been erased by the Nothing.
88* EldritchLocation:
89** The Mountain of Destiny, 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.
90** The Wandering Mountain, wherein dwells the Old Man who records the Neverending Story, can only be found if fated - never searched for.
91** The Southern Oracle, which can only be entered through a Stargate-like door called the No-Key Gate. This door simply stands alone in an open field, and the only way to unlock it is to forget the reason you came in the first place. Each of the latter two gates are not there until you pass through the previous gate. Behind the Great Riddle Gate is nothing but endless land. Once through the gate, the Magic Mirror Gate appears about twenty paces ahead. Beyond that gate is nothing until you pass into it, then the No Key Gate appears.
92** Salamander, a city whose buildings and people are made entirely of fire. Atreyu's horse, quite naturally, would not go near the place.
93** Fantastica itself, if the incident at the Star Cloister is any indication. Bastian uses an enchanted stone to produce a light so blinding it pierces the heavens, and the space beyond is revealed to be... ''the attic of Bastian's school''. In other words, he is looking out through the pages of the book.
94** The Ivory Tower, which is basically a mountain the size of a city nearer its base, is always at the center of Fantastica. However, since Fantastica has no borders and is infinite, its center is nebulous. Ivory Tower has been stated to be equally near to and far from everywhere in Fantastica and that how far they must travel is dependent on the state of the travelers.
95* EmpathicEnvironment: The Swamps of Sadness. The two fan theories about it are if Morla has gotten as [[JadeColoredGlasses selfish and cynical]] as she is from living there for so long, or if her selfishness and cynicism has caused the Swamps to become such a [[DespairEventHorizon dangerously morbid place]].
96* EquivalentExchange: 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. Woe betide you should you run out before finding your way back.
97** A wish will also consume a memory of its opposite: Wish to be handsome and you will lose your memory of ever having been ugly; wish to be strong and you will forget that you were ever weak. Wish to rule Fantastica and you'll forget that you ever came from a different world.
98* EvenEvilHasStandards:
99** Even evil Fantasticans respect AURYN and its bearer.
100** Gaya, the Princess of Darkness. Alhough she is never shown as a character, [[spoiler: she sweet-talks and captures Gmork for his EvilPlan to destroy her home of Fantastica and herself]].
101* EvilCostumeSwitch: A minor, unintentional version. Bastian's mantle (cloak) was silver until the battle when it was described as black. It remained black for the remainder, even after his switch back to sanity. It was finally left at the House of Change.
102* ExactWords:
103** The words on the back of AURYN: DO WHAT YOU WISH. It does not mean "Do as you please", but rather "[[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor What you wish will happen]]."
104** The Childlike Empress's command to the Old Man Of Wandering Mountain... [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou to turn to the beginning of the book...]] [[NoFourthWall She didn't tell him WHICH book...]]
105%%* ExtremeDoormat: Xayide acts this way towards Bastian, as part of her gambit to manipulate him.
106* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: If a human who comes to Fantastica fails to find their way back to the human world, without exception they all eventually attempt to supplant the Childlike Empress as supreme ruler of Fantastica, losing their memories all the while through wishing. The fate of all who stay on this course is to wind up in the City of Old Emperors as nearly mindless creatures without memory or ability to speak, performing ridiculous meaningless activities forever.
107* FateWorseThanDeath:
108** You risk this with even the first gate leading to the southern oracle. It is guarded by a pair of sphinxes who might let you pass if you're ''lucky'', because who they let pass appears to be completely arbitrary. If you're one of the unfortunate many who they won't admit, they will gaze at you, sending out all the riddles of the world for you to solve. This paralyses you until you either solve them all or die from starvation and dehydration.
109** You do ''not'' want to end up trapped in the City of Old Emperors.
110** Stay away from the Nothing, or you'll get what the Bark Trolls did. Even Gmork, magically chained, refused Atreyu's offer of food, preferring to die of hunger before the Nothing could get to him. According to him, a Fantastican who enters the Nothing enters the human world as a fantasy that no one believes in -- that is, a lie.
111%%* FisherKing: The Childlike Empress.
112* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou:
113** Bastian looks out at the fourth wall outright of the book he was reading during one chapter...
114** And the Childlike Empress outright demands for the Old Man Of Wandering Mountain to read the book that YOU are reading, creating an endless loop based round that one event!
115* 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, clumsy, scared little boy -- and thus part of the understanding and empathy for what it means to be bullied and downtrodden that comes with it. 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.
116* GiantFlyer: Falkor. His body is so light that he can swim through the air, even without wings.
117* AGodAmI: [[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.]]
118* GodEmperor: The Childlike Empress. [[spoiler:The City of Old Emperors is full of people who tried to set themselves up as one and learned the hard way why it is not a good idea.]]
119* GrailInTheGarbage: The physical Neverending Story itself, the book which contains the entire world of Fantastica, is housed in an unsuccessful antique bookstore.
120* GreatOffscreenWar: The war between Atreyus forces and Bastian's forces was mostly fought while Bastian was at the Ivory Tower still in a ceremony ushering him in as Emperor. The only part that was highlighted was the one-on-one fight between Bastian and Atreyu.
121* GreaterScopeVillain: The mysterious power behind the Nothing who sent Gmork to kill Atreyu. 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.
122* HardWorkHardlyWorks: Hero Hynreck is a professional hero who spent his whole life being the best at everything he does, but he can't hold a candle against Bastian, who outmatches him with ease by virtue of holding Sikanda, the sword that made him undefeatable as well as AURYN.
123%%* HeroicBSOD: Bastian, which drives him to utilize his last wishes a bit more carefully.
124* HeroOfAnotherStory: 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 a hero. But, as the book says, that is another story and shall be told another time.
125* HiveMind:
126** The Yskalnari are so much a community that they lack any form of individualism, when a member of the crew dies not only does nobody seem to care, nobody even seems to notice.
127** Ygramul the Many is a swarm of steel-blue insects that move with a single will, the entire thing speaking and acting with a single consciousness and taking different forms and bodies by arranging the swarming of its component insects.
128* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Bastian thinks nothing of trusting one of Fantasica's most infamous sorceresses, despite the fact she obviously tries to turn him against Atreyu. She also quite obviously feigned defeat when she kidnapped the knights and Bastian rescued them, as Atreyu points out, but he thinks nothing of it. This can possibly be explained as a result of Bastian gradually losing his memories, and consequently his humanity.
129* HumansAreSpecial: Since Fantastica is the world of human imagination, it is only appropriate that humans are special to its inhabitants. Only humans can give names and create stories.
130* HurricaneOfPuns: A disturbing example when Atreyu introduces himself to Gmork as 'Nobody.' They then use that name as a disturbing and serious play on words regarding the hopelessness of the situation.
131%%* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The Swamps of Sadness and Spook City.
132* IKnowYourTrueName: Giving something a name gives it power, knowing a name gives power over it. 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.
133* InexplicablySpeaksFluentAlien: When Bastian enters Fantastica, he has no problem conversing with anyone. {{Justified|Trope}}, maybe, since he's wearing AURYN; or maybe it's because the new Fantastica is rebirth out of his own imagination, language(s) included.
134* ItsAllAboutMe: This is Bastian's fatal flaw and the reason why most of his wishes in Fantastica go horribly wrong. Because he starts out as a LoserProtagonist, he wishes for strength, good looks, favorable opinions, to be feared and so forth. Even when Bastian wishes for good things to happen for others, it's always about secretly getting something he wants, or increasing his own appearance of benevolence. The story even points out that the motive behind doing a good turn for someone is as important as the good turn itself. It takes all of Bastian's selfish wishes going wrong to show him how low he has sunk after mortally wounding Atreyu and later seeing what becomes of the other humans who went down similar selfish paths and became trapped and mindless in Fantastica. Bastian's last remaining wish breaks this cycle for him, because it's a wish to love someone other than himself and thus put another person first before his own wants.
135* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: 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.
136* TheIlluminati: The "Manipulators" spoken of by Gmork, implied to live in and, to a great extent, control the human world.
137* InDefenceOfStoryTelling: The human neglect of story-telling doesn't just make Fantastica sick, but our world too. Bastian's job as storyteller is to "make both worlds well".
138* InformedAttractiveness: Gaya, the Dark Princess, is described by Gmork as "very beautiful... to me anyway". Given that her admirer is a ferocious werewolf who loves the sinister and fiendish, a human might find her to be either a malevolent yet alluring temptress or a stark reminder that other beings' preferences may be a ''tad'' different than our own.
139* InvisibilityCloak: The belt Ghemmal that Xayide gives to Bastian, is made of glass and makes the wearer invisible. Bastian was disconcerted the first time he wore it as he couldn't even see himself so he couldn't take it off without Xayide's help.
140* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: In Bastian's case, his ability to enter Fantastica and to leave it was with him all along, [[spoiler:though he had to read the story and then live as a part of it until he could make use of either. In the former case, all he had to do was give the Childlike Empress a name by calling it aloud in the human world. In the latter case, all he had to do to return to the human world was to give up AURYN of his own free will.]]
141%%** [[spoiler:In both Atreyu's quest ''and'' Bastian's.]]
142* IWishItWereReal: The story is in a sense, an in-depth analysis of the idea of WishFulfillment, playing it straight in the first half of the novel, then [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor deconstructing it]] and rebuilding it at the end. The story itself even comments on this:
143-->''You wish for something, you've wanted it for years, and you're sure you want it, as long as you know you can't have it. But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing.''
144* JumpedOffTheSlipperySlope: [[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 MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment.]]
145%%* KnightInShiningArmor: Hykrion, Hysbald, and Hydorn. Hynrek might also qualify.
146* LateForSchool: The streets around the school are described as deserted, as a student would feel if he was very late for school. Likewise, the corridors of the school were described as echoing his footsteps.
147* MacGuffinPersonReveal: An unusual version when Atreyu realizes that a human is needed to save the Childlike Empress's life by giving her a new name. It wasn't until Atreyu meets with her that she reveals to him that the human in question has been following Atreyu's adventures with him by reading a book chronicling them. In this case, the shock is far bigger for Bastian, the MacGuffin in question than for Atreyu, the one who only had been searching for him for the short time he knew about the cure.
148* MadeOfAir: [[spoiler:Uyulala is literally made of ''sound''.]] For her, to stop singing is to die.
149* MagicalLand: In its way, Fantastica is ''every'' Magical Land created by human imagination.
150* MagicalNativeAmerican: The literally green-skinned Greenskins (Atreyu's people) who live on the plains of the Grassy Ocean are Native Americans with the serial numbers filed off. They even hunt a purple kind of buffalo.
151* MagicalUnderpinningsOfReality: Fantasticans are only real in their world; once they are taken into our world, they become lies.
152%%* ManipulativeBitch: Xayide.
153* MathematiciansAnswer: Referred to as dream words for the Childlike Empress's response:
154-->'''Bastian:''' Where are we, Moon Child?\
155'''Moon Child:''' I am with you, and you are with me.
156* MeaningfulName:
157** In his own language, Atreyu means "Son of All"[[note]]He is an orphan who was raised by the whole tribe[[/note]]. This is in comparison to Bastian, who feels like the son of no one.
158** Bastian's surname, Bux, is pronounced as "books" (rather than "bucks"). Lampshaded by the novel itself, which points out how appropriate the name is for a boy who loves books.
159* MechanicalHorse: Xayide created hollow metal horses that she could control with her mind. Bastian, due to Auryn, could also control these horses and rode one away from a battle until it shattered from overuse.
160* MediumAwareness:
161** The Childlike Empress uses her power as ruler of Fantastica to turn to the beginning of the book YOU are reading, creating a loop only Bastian can break, being effectively part of the loop at that point.
162** 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".
163%%* MetafictionalTitle
164* TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf: The Mirror Gate trial shows your true inner self, which sends most would-be heroes screaming in the other direction. Atreyu looks in the Mirror Gate and sees [[spoiler:Bastian]].
165* MistakenForGranite: There's a pair of sphynx statues that might paralyze you with all the riddles in the world if you get too close to them.
166* MonkeysOnATypewriter: A disturbing take on this and, ironically, explained by a monkey. In the City of Lost Emperors, the humans who could not find their way back are unable to change, age, or die and have no knowledge of who they were or much of anything. Argax, the monkey in charge, gives some of them letter blocks they can play with and arrange into words. Argax explains that, since they are there forever, they will eventually live up to this trope.
167* MortonsFork: Ygramul offers to bite Atreyu, which is fatal but allows him to teleport to the southern oracle and have an hour or so to live, or he can stay where he is and let the nothing consume Fantastica. {{Subverted}} in that Ygramul points out the first option does allow for a sliver of hope for success, which does indeed pay off when the gnomes who find Atreyu at the southern oracle also happen to have a cure for the poison.
168* TheMultiverse: Briefly touched upon; Gmork's conversation with Atreyu in Spook City implies that Fantastica and the human world are part of one.
169* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[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.]]
170%%* MysticalWhiteHair: The immortal Childlike Empress.
171* NameAmnesia: After making his final wish, [[spoiler:Bastian forgets the last memory he had, his own name. Afterwards, the narration refers to him as "the boy without a name".]]
172* NamedWeapons: Sikanda. The only way for Bastian to claim the sword that was destined for him was to name it, something only he could do.
173* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Be honest now, does "Gmork" sound like the name of someone/something you'd entrust your life with?
174* NearVillainVictory: Bastian gets attacked by the Schlamoofs at the end, who destroy the picture he needs to get home and try to kidnap him. At that very moment [[spoiler:Atreyu and Falkor show up and rescue him]].
175* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Bastian grants the Acharis their wish of being beautiful and happy, transforming them into the Shlamoofs. They then proceed to bother Bastian and company and he has doubts about whether he did the right thing. [[spoiler: Towards the ''very'' end of the book, they are unhappy and want to be changed back, and Moru, the Lake of Tears has dried up since they don't cry anymore. Bastian, of course, can't change them back at that point, having no memories and thus not the ability to wish, and they destroy the only thing that can return him home since they don't want him escaping.]]
176* NiceJobFixingItVillain: And this after the villain is dead! [[spoiler: After Gmork dies, Atreyu gets too close and Gmork's jaws clamp down on his leg, holding him fast. Intended to keep him from leaving as the Nothing moves in, it also keep him from walking into the Nothing, which attracts Fantasticans who get close to it. This allows Falkor to arrive in time to save him.]]
177* NighInvulnerability:
178** 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.
179** Bastian wishes this for himself: his strength, endurance, and determination are limitless, but he still feels the discomfort of thirst and exertion in the desert.
180* NoEnding: The book purposefully leaves almost all subplots -- such as what happened to the four messengers, Cairon's fate after meeting Atreyu, the adventures of Hero Hynreck, what became of Ghemmal and of Sikanda -- hanging. Hence the title. However, Bastian's main plot is resolved.
181* NoOntologicalInertia: After Uyulala, the voice of the Southern oracle, tells Atreyu she will cease to exist, the first gate, the sphinxes go away. That part of the gate then falls and the large boulders left look as though they have been sitting on the ground for centuries complete with old moss growth.
182* NobodyPoops: {{Averted|Trope}}, {{lampshade|Hanging}}d, and {{discussed|Trope}} by Bastian in the real world while reading the book, where Bastian thinks to himself that the need to go to the bathroom is often one of his most pressing, immediate, and embarrassing needs. During his bathroom trip he remembers how he once asked in class if UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} ever peed, which made his classmates laugh and got him in trouble with the teacher. After he goes into Fantastica, it is then played straight.
183* NoFourthWall: Neither for real, nor inside the book.
184** The point of the book is that the book that Bastian is reading is luring Bastian into breaking its fourth wall. His scream is heard in the book, Atreyu enters into his image in the second gate to the Southern Oracle, and Bastian actually sees the Childlike Empress as Atreyu first saw her. Eventually, Bastian broke through the fourth wall.
185** The narration describing the geography of Fantastica is introduced as a pause in the story to talk directly to the audience.
186** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d when Bastian himself, in the scene directly preceding his move to Fantastica, contemplates whether someone might be reading this scene right now.
187* NoNameGiven: Applied only in the last part of the book and only for a few pages. After [[spoiler:Bastian]] loses his memory of who he was, he is referred to in the narrative as "the Boy Who No Longer Had a Name" (or some variant) or just "the Boy".
188* 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 Falkor. He gives Atreyu some helpful advice; he must measure his quest in terms of The Childlike Empress's 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.
189* NotQuiteTheRightThing: Bastian falls into this trap with a lot of his wishes. In many cases it's because he's careless or he means well but hasn't fully thought through the potential consequences of his actions, although there are some situations where he is also doing the 'right' thing for selfish reasons (namely, doing something that seems good because he wants everyone to see him as benevolent or because he thinks he'll benefit from doing so rather than because it's the right thing to do). This is lampshaded when he makes his beloved mule's most fervent desire to have children come true in order to give himself a reason to 'upgrade' to a seemingly better mount, only to feel curiously ambivalent and guilty afterwards despite seemingly doing a good thing for her:
190-->A person's reasons for doing someone a good turn matter as much as the good turn itself.
191* TheNothingAfterDeath: "The Nothing". Characters from Fantastica who are swallowed are "reborn" in the real world -- as lies (at least that's what Gmork claims). It's implied that the Nothing is caused by people in the real world becoming less honest and happy.
192%%* ObviouslyEvil: Xayide, although [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter Bastian fails to realize this]].
193* OhLookMoreRooms: In the Temple of a Thousand Rooms, each door leads to a new room with two other doors. If a person doesn't have a concept where he wants to go, he will never leave. finding a new room behind every door. Eventually, for those who can find a way, a door will open into a part of Fantastica that is relevant to where the person wants to be.
194* OlderThanTheyLook: Time in Fantastica flows in strange ways:
195** When Bastian arrives at the Ivory Tower, he finds out that the Childlike Empress has not been there "for a long, long time" -- even though Atreyu has not aged noticeably since he met her up there.
196** Later, when Bastian makes his way to Dame Eyola's House of Change, she tells him his travels began 100 years ago. Bastian doesn't believe it at first, but he eventually acknowledges it has indeed been 100 years without him (or anyone in Fantastica) aging.
197* TheOldNorthWind: Lirr, the black North Wind, is one of the four giant elemental embodiments who guard the winds of Fantastica.
198* OmniscientMoralityLicense: The Childlike Empress fits this perfectly when she has to [[spoiler: basically mentally torture Bastian]] in order to get him to say her new name. Of course, the people of two worlds were hanging in the balance, so she had justification.
199%%* OnlyOneName: Everyone in Fantastica.
200* OurDragonsAreDifferent:
201** Falkor is a luckdragon, a benevolent, essentially Eastern dragon in a story otherwise employing Western themes. Luckdragons are "creatures of light, air, and pure joy", who can fly without wings and resemble slow lightning flashes when seen from the ground. Their voices like the ringing of bells.
202** "Ordinary dragons" are also mentioned in contrast to luckdragons in Falkor's introduction. They are loathsome, foul-tempered serpents that lurk in deep caves, guarding real or imaginary treasure, and spew smoke and fire. They have large batlike wings, but are noisy and clumsy flyers. They may or many not also be extinct.
203** Smerg is a dragon created by Bastian as a foe for Hero Hynreck to test himself against. He lives the land of Morgul, where fire burns cold as ice, and lairs in a castle of lead surrounded by moats filled with acid and scorpions in the middle of a petrified forest. He has huge slimy wings, a body like a rat's, grasshoper legs on which he stands like a kangaroo, wizened arms like a small child's, a retractable neck, and a crocodile head that has the wizened heads of an old man and woman instead of eyes. He breathes icy fire and can only be killed if his eye-heads are struck off with a lead axe that he guards in the depth of his lair. Every generation or so, he flies out across Fantastica to kidnap a maiden that he forces to serve him for the rest of her days.
204* {{Ouroboros}}: AURYN takes the shape of a two-serpent ouroboros, one black and one white. Inside it is a pocket dimension where the Water of Life is guarded by the actual two giant serpents, whose strength would destroy the world if they let go of each other's tails.
205* OurDoorsAreDifferent: Appropriately, in the Temple of a Thousand Doors. Doors were described as extremely thin, thick, gingerbread, buttoned, caves, shaped like an ear, mouth, etc.
206* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: 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.
207* PaintingTheMedium: The book uses two different colors or typefaces for the two reality levels.
208* ParentalNeglect: Bastian's father is well-intentioned, but he has become depressed and distant after his wife died and has ended up pretty much ignoring his son.
209* ParentalSubstitute: Dame Eyola becomes this to Bastian for a time, taking the role of his deceased mother.
210* PatchworkMap: {{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.
211* PlanetOfHats: The Yskalnari are physically identical to underscore their lack of individuality: in their minds, they all exist as a single unit, distinguished only by their duties.
212* PlayingWithFire: The city of Salamander is ''made'' of fire. Atreyu is able to enter because he protected by AURYN, but anyone without such powerful protection would be incinerated before even reaching the gates.
213%%* PortalBook: The "The Neverending Story" book works as a portal to Fantastica.
214* PrecisionFStrike: "Go to hell, you little fool! Do you want to keep me alive until the Nothing gets here?"
215* ProphecyTwist: 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 hundred years. Bastian does this. Speaking the stone's name ''backwards'' will have it release all its hundred years of light in a single instant. Bastian does this, and the stone 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 ScrewDestiny 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.
216* RainbowSpeak: A rare literature example, used to distinguish Bastian reading the book from the actual adventures ''in'' the book. Only certain editions of the book do this (namely hardcover versions), while the others (paperback) simply use italics.
217* ReadingAheadInTheScript: Subverted when the Childlike Empress asks the Old Man of Wandering Mountain to read ahead in the Neverending Story that he is writing. He tells her there is nothing but empty pages.
218* RealityBreakingParadox: What happens to humans in Fantastica who crown themselves emperor, or try to. Through wishing upon AURYN, they try to use the Childlike Empress's power to take her power away from her which results in their minds utterly breaking from the paradox. AURYN disappears from them and they suffer a complete loss of memory of the human world. This renders them mindless gibbering fools who can never return home. After all, the Empress is called "The Golden-Eyed ''Commander'' of Wishes" for a damn good reason.
219* RealityWarper: 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. Once Bastian finds AURYN, he starts to make very liberal use of its powers to create and reshape lands and creatures and casually rewrite history. [[spoiler:This becomes one of the driving problems of the second half of the book, both because Bastian's cavalier attitude to rewriting reality to suit his needs, whims, and passing interests causes him to quickly develop a serious god complex and because overuse of this power starts to eat away at his memories and personality.]]
220* RealityWritingBook: The book the Old Man of Wandering Mountain writes doesn't change reality, but merely records everything that happens in Fantastica. Of course, when you're ''in'' Fantastica and someone reads the book, history literally repeats itself.
221* Really700YearsOld: The Childlike Empress is as youthful as her name implies, but has existed as long or longer than Fantastica itself. [[spoiler:On metaphysical level, giving her a new name makes her a new person, just as Fantastica is reborn whenever it is rescued. However, as the book itself explains, a story written yesterday can be about something that happened a thousand years old, therefore everything in that story ''is'' a thousand years old to those within the story.]]
222* RescueRomance: Subverted with Hero Hynreck, who saves his one true love Princess Oglamar but decides that he no longer wants to marry her.
223* TheResenter: This is Gmork's reason for wanting to see Fantastica destroyed; the Fantasticans have a world to call home, and he never did.
224* RewritingReality: 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.
225* RhymesOnADime: Uyulala. In fact, she ''can't'' speak without rhyming, and also cannot hear people if they do not talk to her in verse. (Atreyu manages to get a knack for it rather quickly.)
226* RiddlingSphinx: The Southern Oracle is protected by two sphinxes whose gazes hold the victim still until they have answered every riddle in the world. Needless to say, anyone who is caught by the sphinxes dies of thirst long before they even make a dent in that task.
227%%* RuleOfThree:
228%%* SapientSteed: Atreyu's horse Artax, Falkor the luckdragon, who carries Atreyu and on occasion Bastian on his back, and Yikka the talking mule.
229* SavageWolf: Gmork is a hitman sent by "the force behind the Nothing" to kill Atreyu and thereby doom the world.
230* SaveBothWorlds: If humans stop inventing new stories, Fantastica begins to decay, and its residents are forced into the human worlds as lies and delusions that stifle human imagination and further hastens Fantastica's destruction, resulting in a deadly cycle that can only be stopped when Fantastica is healed.
231* SayMyName:
232** 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 say it.
233** Many other things in Fantastica are affected by one saying their true name; see IKnowYourTrueName. Al Tsahir is one prime example.
234* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler: Ilwan, the blue djinn, sacrificed himself to save Ghemmal, the belt of invisibility, from a fire. While chasing after Atreyu, Bastian fell off his iron steed after it broke apart, dropped Ghemmal, and never thought of it again.]]
235* SerpentOfImmortality: This is the visual motif behind [[https://theneverendingstory.fandom.com/wiki/AURYN AURYN]], the amulet representing the power of the immortal Childlike Empress.
236* ShaggyDogStory: The section with Engywook, as he tragically understands. Engywook has spent decades of his life trying to solve the mystery of the Southern Oracle. Finally, Atreyu tells him the final aspect of who she is but adds that the Southern Oracle will no longer exist. Atreyu was her final audience.
237* ShakespeareInFiction: When the three knights stroll along with Bastian, they sing "When That I was and a Little Tiny Boy" (which we know from ''Theatre/TwelfthNight''), which they learned from a previous human visitor to Fantasia/Fantastica, "name of Shexper, or something of the sort."
238%%* ShiningCity: The Ivory Tower, the Silver City of Amarganth.
239* ShoutOut: Quite a few meta-examples, meant to imply that other famous authors had at one time visited Fantastica:
240** The City of Old Emperors, filled with madmen, is modelled on the "madhouse of Cairo" where Theatre/PeerGynt is brought in the famous Creator/HenrikIbsen play.
241** [[ShoutOut/ToShakespeare William Shakespeare]] is mentioned by one of the knights as having visited Fantastica in the past, and the knight then quotes a song Shakespeare taught him (from ''Twelfth Night'') that begins:
242--->When that I was and a little tiny boy\
243With hey, ho, the wind and the rain
244** ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'' is referenced on a number of occasions:
245*** The dragon Smerg, which sounds an awful lot like [[Literature/TheHobbit Smaug]].
246*** Smerg's lair is said to be in a land called Morgul, which is a Sindarin term for "black magic" and is used as part of the names of multiple places and objects.
247*** The construction and layout of the Ivory Tower is quite similar to that of Minas Tirith.
248*** The bark trolls are awfully similar to Ents in their description.
249* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
250** 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 [[WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}} Walt Disney's movie]].
251** The name of the Luckdragon. The German name is "Fuchur", derived from the Japanese word "fukuryu" (meaning "Lucky Dragon"). Due to the magic that is English pronunciation the resulting name would be more fit for an unintentional ClusterFBomb. The original name is roughly pronounced [[TheUnpronouncable "/foo/-throaty German/Scottish 'ch'- oor"]] in German.
252* SpiritAdvisor: The Purple Buffalo that Atreyu didn't kill in his ritual hunt to officially become a hunter becomes this in Atreyu's dreams. He is the one who points Atreyu to Morla as a thanks for not killing him and instead answering the call of Cairon, whose job was to send him on the mission to save Fantastica.
253* StrawNihilist: Morla, due to her long lifespan, has seen things come and go, and became convinced that nothing matters.
254* SupernaturalGoldEyes: The Childlike Empress, which leads to her official title, "The Golden-Eyed Commander of Wishes."
255* SymbolicBaptism: The only way to ultimately restore Bastian's humanity and ability to love is the Water of Life, an enormous fountain located inside the AURYN itself, and from which he emerges naked and reborn.
256* SymbolicWeaponDiscarding: The magical sword Sikanda will leap into Bastian's hand and fight for him whenever he is threatened, making him practically invincible. However, he has been sternly warned never to pull it out himself, but he forcibly draws it to fight Atreyu's well-meaning coup. This causes its blade of light to turn dark, indicating that it's now corrupted and will no longer make sure he's doing the right thing when he wields it. After he wounds Atreyu, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he comes back to his senses]], and sorrowfully buries Sikanda so it won't cause further harm -- and, more broadly, he stops seeking Fantastica's power and accolades.
257* SynchronizedSwarming: Ygramul the Many, which forms a devilish face, a giant scorpion, a fist...
258* TalkingAnimal: Many, if not most, of the animals in Fantastica seem to be able to talk.
259* TakenForGranite:
260** Smerg's ice-cold breath has this effect, and turns some trees to stone.
261** Grogramann turns to stone every night, and is reborn with the dawn.
262* TaxidermyTerror: Bastian sees the preserved heads of a fox, an eagle and an owl, and later in Fantastica he meets three sages with the heads of said animals.
263* TechnicolorEyes: The Childlike Empress has [[SupernaturalGoldEyes solid golden eyes]].
264* ThatsNoMoon: Morla. Atreyu thinks she lives on Tortoise Shell Mountain so he climbs it to find her - only to find out that Morla ''is'' the Tortoise Shell Mountain.
265* ThresholdGuardians:
266** The two golden sphinxes Atreyu has to pass on his way to the Southern Oracle.
267** The second doorway to the Oracle is a mirror you have to step through, which shows fears or thoughts of the seeker. The third door, on the other hand, plays this a bit more... strangely: you can't pass it if you want to, because it's made of some kind of {{phlebotinum}} that shuts the door ever faster the more you want it to open. Good thing then that the mirror also temporarily wipes your memory to see if you'll go through on curiosity alone.
268* TimeAbyss: 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.
269* TitleDrop: "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:
270-->"What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story."
271* ToweringFlower:
272** The top of the Ivory Tower, where the Childlike Empress herself resides, is shaped like an enormous magnolia bud. Its petal-wall sometimes "blossoms" to reveal the Empress herself seated in the center, a sight Falkor has witnessed.
273** 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.
274* TrappedInAnotherWorld: The City of Old Emperors is full of former humans who eventually turned into true Fantasticans and can never leave. Bastian narrowly avoids this fate.
275* TurtleIsland: The ancient Morla who lives in the Swamps of Sadness is so large that her carapace can be easily mistaken for a hill, and in fact forms the landmark known as Tortoise Shell Mountain.
276* TwoActStructure: The first half of the book is a fairly conventional fantasy adventure. The second half is considerably heavier and more philosophical.
277* UnbuiltTrope: The second half of the book 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 Falkor selflessly agree to fix all the damage he did]]. But the book predates these tropes becoming very commonplace in children's fiction by a wide margin.
278* TheUnseen: The Manipulators that Gmork works for. Also Gaya the Dark Princess, who traps him in Spook City.
279* VagueAge: Bastian is described as being a boy of ten or twelve.
280* VerbalTic: The night hob Vooshvazool is really fond of saying "hoo hoo". Other night hobs do not appear in the novel, so it could be [[PlanetOfHats just a generic trait of his species]].
281* VillainousBSOD: After Bastian abandons her, [[spoiler:Xayide appears to suffer one of these, as she appears to allow her hollow army to trample her to death while making no move to escape them.]]
282* TheVoice: Uyulala, the rhyming voice of silence beyond the No Key Gate.
283* VoiceForTheVoiceless: Interesting variant on this. The Childlike Empress only hears The Old Man of Wandering Mountain as if she remembered that he just spoke as he is writing the very scene they are in. His mouth never moves.
284* WalkingWasteland: Grograman, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 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.
285* WellDoneSonGuy: After his wife's death, Bastian's father became emotionally distant and Bastian couldn't figure out how to even get him to care about him anymore.
286* WhamLine: skooB dlO rednaeroK darnoK lraK. Makes no sense, does it? [[spoiler:Well, Look at the mirrored text on the VERY FIRST PAGE OF YOUR BOOK.]]
287* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Invoked: "But that is another story and shall be told another time".
288* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: [[spoiler: Happens to Bastian towards the end.]]
289* WorldBuilding: One of the most prominent {{deconstruction}}s of this trope. Many chapters end by tailing off abruptly, excusing itself by saying that it's AnotherStoryForAnotherTime. It gets through illustrating people, places and things and then stops because the story recognises that a world should be far greater than the narrative it serves. Fully fleshing it all out would bog the story down in endless description of yet more people, places and things in order to explain where these people, places and things came from. In doing so it posits that, in order to fully realise a fictional setting, you'd have to literally write a neverending story.
290* TheWormThatWalks: Ygramul the Many, a myriad of blue beetles [[HiveMind 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.
291* YearInsideHourOutside: Atreyu spends what he feels is just less than a day at the Southern Oracle but actually a week has passed for everyone outside the Oracle, though it is slightly averted as time did pass for Atreyu as he notices his wounds are significantly healed.
292----
293!!Adaptations with their own trope pages include:
294
295* ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'' (film and sequels)
296* ''WesternAnimation/TheNeverendingStoryTheAnimatedAdventuresOfBastianBalthazarBux''
297
298!!Other adaptations provide examples of:
299* IAteWhat: In the third episode of the live-action adaptation, Atreyu and Tartus enjoy a meal they got from the escaped Woodlanders children, but when they hear the ingredients, they stop immediately.
300* PlantPerson: Barktroll is a humanoid, ambulatory tree with leaf-hair and twigs growing from his back.
301----

Top