The Hero and Audience Surrogate, Bastian borrows the Neverending Story from Mr. Coreander and discovers its wonders and how it is acutally a real Magical Land, learning of his required involvement to keep it alive.
A God Am I: Bastian goes powermad thanks to excessive wishing, memory loss and Xayide's manipulation, planning to make himself the Emperor of Fantastica.
A skilled huntsman from the Greenskins of the Grassy Ocean, Aretyu is selected by the Childlike Empress to go on a quest to find a cure to her illness and save Fantastica from the Nothing. Atreyu acts as The Hero, shared with Bastian and becomes the Supporting Protagonist in the second half of the book.
A Boy and His X: First his horse Artax until his death, and then Falkor the Luckdragon.
Adaptation Dye Job: His skin, which is not green in the movie. His hair is also somewhat less blue-black, though by comparison that hardly seems like a big deal.
The Mirror Shows Your True Self: Atreyu sees Bastian through the Magic Mirror Gate, and is freaked out by it. The same happens to Bastian.
Rant Inducing Slight: Twice. Against Morla's antics, and when the Empress tells him that she knew exactly what to do despite Atreyu's trials in his quest.
The God Empress of Fantastica, the Childlike Empress never ages and can only be met once in a person's lifetime. She becomes deathly ill during the novel, sending Atreyu on a quest to find a cure and a way to stop the Nothing. However, it is all a Batman Gambit to get Bastian to Fantastica.
Above Good and Evil: She is completely True Neutral and draws no distinctions between anything, never judges anyone, and almost never actually uses her power. In her view, good and evil are both important parts of Fantastica's existence. She also doesn't warn Bastian about the fact that wishing will make him lose memories, and several of her past saviors have ended up in the City of Old Emperors.
Batman Gambit: The Empress uses this to bring Bastian to Fantastica. She sends Atreyu on a quest for no real purpose but to give Bastian a story to follow, and then ventures to the Old Man of the Wandering Mountains to read out the Neverending Story's content to her in a literal neverending fashion until Bastian names her and comes to the Magical Land.
One-Scene Wonder: She actually appears in only three chapters. It's a plot point that no one can meet her more than once..
Really 700 Years Old: She takes the form of a ten-year-old girl, but is much older than even Morla or any other of the ancient inhabitants of Fantastica. Her appearance may be A Form You Are Comfortable With, especially since both Atreyu and Bastian are also young children of about the same age that she appears as.
Say My Name: Forces Bastian to shout out a new name for her to save her kingdom: Moon Child.
Ancient Keeper: Subverted; when Bastian tries to apologize to him at the end for losing his book, it turns out that he has never seen or heard of it, and it presented itself to Bastian in Coreander's store of its own accord. When Coreander got to Fantastica, it was by a different route.
Played straight in the film, where he is reading the book when Bastian comes in.
Child Hater: When he first meets Bastian, he explains that he doesn't abide children, because they're only good for "screaming, torturing people, smearing books with jam and tearing the pages." When Bastian reveals that he's being chased, Coreander immediately assumes that the police are after him.
A luckdragon who befriends Atreyu. He is very courageous and upbeat, believing luck is a wonderful thing. As a Giant Flyer, he spends most of his time flying. He is a shining white Eastern-type dragon with leonine features.
A rock chewer, Pyornkrachzark is one of the travelling companions on their way to visit the Childlike Empress for help against the Nothing. A giant man made of rock, Pyornkrachzark enjoys eating rocks and rides on a large bike.
Big Eater: The fact that he eats his own bicycle is even more shocking in light of the fact that Rockchewers can usually live for weeks on a single mouthful.
The Big Bad of the first half of the book, the Nothing uses The Power of the Void to erase Fantastica from existence. Created from the forgotten hopes and dreams of mankind, the Nothing is used by the unseen Manipulators to destroy human imagination so that humanity will be more controllable.
Driven to Suicide: The Nothing can make Fantasticans literally suicide jump into nothingness.
Eldritch Abomination: While in the film, the Nothing appears as a giant destructive storm, it is literally formless and indescribable in the book aside from erasing things with mist.
The Nothing After Death: Fantasticans who jump into the Nothing become lies in the human world.
The Dragon to the Nothing, Gmork aids the destroyer of worlds to prevent Atreyu from finding a way to defeat it. A servant of the Manipulators, Gmork appears as a Big Badass Wolf and relentlessly hunts Atreyu through the book and film.
Adaptational Monster: While a deadly servant in the book, the movie makes him even scarier and more of a Nietzsche Wannabe which is indeed more terrifying.
Back from the Dead: Subverted. After he dies, his body springs to life and wounds Atreyu.
An evil sorceress who serves as a villain in the second half of the novel, while pretending to be Bastian's humble servant after he defeats her on her home turf. She manipulates Bastian to siege the Ivory Tower, planning to use him to take over Fantastica. She dwells in the hand-shaped castle Horok, and controls an army of empty iron minions.
Big Bad: Of the second film. In the book, she's closest thing to an antagonist in the second half, but since she's killed off before the climax and never comes to blows with Bastian, she's not really big enough to be a Big Bad.
Extreme Doormat: She acts this way in order to manipulate Bastian.
Heterochromia: One of her eyes is red, the other green.
Hoist By Her Own Petard: Her death is actually something Bastian inadvertedly causes due to an evil action he makes.....and Bastian is only being evil because Xayide has manipulated him into being so!
A group of Fantasticans who are travelling together to the Ivory Tower. They consists of Pyornkrachzark the rock chewer, the will o'wisp Blubb, the nighthob Whooshwazool (and his stupid bat), and the tiny man Gluckuk with his racing snail.
Team Pet: Gluckuk's racing snail and Whooshwazool's bat.
Cairon
A black zebra-centaur who is the last and greatest of the five hundred doctors summoned to examine the Childlike Empress. She gives him AURYN and sends him to find Atreyu and put him on his quest.
The oldest being in Fantastica, discounting the Childlike Empress and the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, who are ageless. Morla is a tortoise of fantastic size, who has been inert in the Swamps of Sadness for so long that she has become a landmark, Tortoise Shell Mountain.
Amoral Nihilist: As a result of living in Fantastica so long, and coming to believe that life is meaningless and simply repeats itself. Then again, what would you expect from someone living in the Swamps of Sadness?
Split Personality: Morla has been alone with herself for so long that she's separated herself into two distinct identities and often talks to herself, calling herself "old woman."
Ygramul the Many
A feared and powerful monster that lives in the deep chasm.
Supreme Chef: Urgl. The food she makes for Atreyu is described as so delicious that Bastian's mouth waters just reading about it.
Uyulala the Southern Oracle
A legendary being known to be able to answer nearly any question, but can only be met by those who can pass three magic gates to reach her.
Made Of Air: Her body is a living construct of pure sound; her body is the melody that she sings.
The Omniscient: She is borderline this, as people from all over Fantastica travel to speak to her and she can give answers to just about anything.
Rhymes on a Dime: She always talks like this, and cannot understand anyone else unless they do as well.
The Old Man of Wandering Mountain
An ancient being of the same kind as the Childlike Empress. The Old Man of Wandering Mountain writes the Neverending Story, recording every event that has ever happened into the book, in absolute solitude.
The Omniscient: He writes down everything that happens in Fantastica. The only thing that he doesn't seem sure about are the Childlike Empress's motivations.
Time Abyss: He is as old as the Childlike Empress, and Fantastica itself.
Grograman the Many Coloured Death
The Many-Colored Death, Lord of the Desert of Colors, and the deadliest creature in Fantastica.
Back from the Dead: He dies with every nightfall, but is resurrected in the morning.
Fisher King: He fulfills this role to the desert Goab itself, feeling it as he feels his own body. When he dies, the desert becomes a forest.
Super Strength: He is capable of wrestling with Bastian on an even footing.
Walking Wasteland: Everywhere he goes, all the land around him turns into desert and all living things die, because he is the deadliest creature in Fantastica.
The Four Heroes and Princess Oglamar
A group of travelers that Bastian meets shortly after arriving in Fantastica. Hero Hynreck is a knight determined to be the greatest and impress Oglamar, the Princess of Luna, who is only interested in the very best of heroes. Hykrion, Hysbald, and Hydorn are wandering knights looking to prove themselves as the strongest, swiftest, and most enduring of all knights, respectively, who met up with Hynreck and Oglamar by chance and became his friends.
Break the Haughty: Both Hynreck and Oglamar. Bastian doesn't think too much of Hynreck's boasting and deriding of how saving Fantastica "didn't require much of a hero," and soundly defeats him. Oglamar, who is only interested in the best, leaves Hynreck because of this. To remedy the situation, Bastian then invents a story about Oglamar getting kidnapped by a dragon, getting her into a situation for Hynreck to rescue her from. In both cases, Bastian realizes afterwards that what he did was Disproportionate Retribution.
In Harm's Way: How Hynreck wants to live. His greatest frustration is that Fantastica is too boring and doesn't have enough monsters, demons, and wars, thus depriving him of opportunities to demonstrate his skill. His reaction to hearing that his girlfriend has been kidnapped by a dragon is to jump up and clap his hands with joy.
Knight in Sour Armor: Hynreck views himself as a Failure Hero after Bastian defeats him and gives up on his relationship with Oglamar, but when she is kidnapped, he rescues her anyway.
Knight Errant: Hykrion, Hysbald, and Hydorn become this. At one point, however, after getting lost several times, they declare that they are absolute failures at it.
The Sword Master: All of them, but especially Hysbald and Hynreck.
World's Strongest Man: Subverted with Hykrion, who claims to be the strongest, but is later outperformed by Hynreck, who is then outperformed by Bastian.
Yikka
A talking mule in service to Hykrion, Hysbald, and Hydorn, who later becomes Bastian's mount.
The saddest, ugliest, and most depressed creatures in existence, who fashion the indestructible silver that composes the City of Amarganth and weep endlessly. Later, they are transformed by Bastian into their polar opposites, the Shlamoofs, a race of clowns and everlasting laughers.
Comic Relief: The Shlamoofs are created to be the embodiment of laughter and comedy.
