Headscratchers / The NeverEnding Story (1984)

• The G'Mork is trying to help the Nothing consume all of Fantastica, so he can control humans once their imaginations are killed... except doesn't "all of Fantastica" include him?
  • Note this is only movie-only. In the book, G'Mork tells Atreyu that, he only appears as a Werewolf in Fantastica, but he is neither of Fantastica nor of Earth. Rather, he's one of many creatures who have no world to call home. As a result, he is able to traverse the worlds freely and assume any form that is native to the world he goes to. His rationale for helping the Nothing is out of his bitterness for not having a world to call home.
  • In the movie, it's implied that an unseen evil is responsible for the Nothing and has sent the G'mork to Fantastica to kill the meddlesome Atreyu, probably with a pact that he will have a place in the new order created in the human world from the resulting chaos. Having failed to complete his mission, he is found abandoned in the Spook City that will soon fall to the Nothing (assuming that wasn't to be his fate all along). ^note  Deleted lines from the script have him resignedly tell Atreyu, whom he doesn't recognize like in the book, to leave him alone, and that he has grown weak from searching for his quarry for so long - the removal of that part of the dialogue also took any possible shred of sympathy for the G'mork, keeping only the vicious portrayal.
  • Some of his lines in the film suggest that he's been driven mad by the knowledge that he's a character in a storybook and his destiny is always to be killed by Atreyu at the end, meaning that none of his actions matter and his entire existence is pointless. One could speculate that the real reason he helps the Nothing is because he desperately wants to end his own suffering by erasing himself from existence.
  • Somehow I'd always gotten the impression that G'Mork himself was a manifestation of the Nothing. The Nothing turned into Something to do its bidding. Probably because of the scene where G'Mork just comes bursting out like he'd only been created that moment. It's still a huge thing that consumes whatever is in its path... but now it's a wolf.
• G'Mork was tasked with killing Atreyu and very nearly succeed in the Swamps. And yet he doesn't recognize Atreyu at the end? Granted he wasn't covered in mud this time around, but still shouldn't he have known what Atreyu looked like?
  • He only saw Atreyu from behind in the Swamp. Also I think it was supposed to be implied (albeit not shown well) that it was night at the time. There was certainly a lot of mist hampering vision.
  • At this point Atreyu had lost Auryn, which is probably why G'Mork didn't recognize him.
• If Atreyu hadn't found that sharp stone fragment, Gmork would have easily killed him in their confrontation. Lucky thing, too, because he was ordered not to bring his weapons on the journey because... uh, why was that, exactly?
  • In the book, the reason for the abandoning of weapons is because Atreyu carries Auryn. Whoever carries Auryn is to regard all Fantasticans the way the Childlike Empress does - all as equals. And all Fantasticans are to respect Auryn and not harm the bearer as though the bearer were the Childlike Empress herself. In the book it is never anticipated that a non-Fantastican outsider would be sent to kill Atreyu, although the Gmork gets permanently chained up and dies of exhaustion and hunger before he can complete his mission. Atreyu never needed or used a single weapon in the book. The stone knife in the film is there purely to satisfy the audience expectation that the hero should always personally vanquish the villain.
  • Even without the complaining about the deviation from the Holy Scripture, honestly it always made perfect sense to me, both as a kid and as an adult. Fantasia works on storybook rules. Sometimes in storybooks the hero is required to do things that make the journey more difficult on himself because that's just the way it has to be. "That's just how it is" is often offered up as an explanation in and of itself for why quests have to be done a certain way, so telling Atreyu he had to leave his weapons behind and him doing so without hesitation made sense for a world that everyone understands operates on rules like that.
  • On the other hand, Gmork doesn't attack Atreyu until Atreyu reveals his identity to him, which he does only after he notices the shard, picks it up, and threatens Gmork with it. While we don't know for sure, the simplest reading of the scene is that Gmork wouldn't have figured out Atreyu's identity on his own, and that he wouldn't have attacked him if he didn't realize who he was speaking to. The shard may have been convenient, but it doesn't prove that Atreyu would otherwise have died there. It was Atreyu's choice to reveal himself once he knew he had the means to defend himself.
• Why does the Second Gate (the magic mirror thing) work so much differently than how the characters describe it? Engywook says "Kind men find they are cruel, and brave men find they are cowards", which makes it sound like it's some kind Psychological Torment Zone akin to that cave in The Empire Strikes Back. Instead, Atreyu just briefly sees into the real world and sees Bastian (which freaks them both out). After this, the mirror just lets him through without any other challenges.
  • Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a Psychological Torment Zone like in The Empire Strikes Back — that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, he is the Audience Surrogate specifically meant for Bastian. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant, so it was mainly just confusing.
• Why is Bastian so scared when he first reads about Morla, to the point that he screams out loud? Yes, she's really big, but doesn't do anything particularly scary (indeed, her sneezing on Atreyu is mainly Played for Laughs). Furthermore, there are other way scarier moments in the story where he doesn't react like that, so it seems even more weird.
  • He's startled, not scared. It's a sign that he's really getting engaged in the story; to him Morla is nothing more than a few sentences printed on a page, and he's still so startled by her appearance that he screams. Other things in the story may be scarier, but this was the first scare that took him by surprise.