Characters and magical objects in the Neverending Story

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article deals with the characters and magical objects in Michael Ende's novel The Neverending Story and its film adaptations, The Neverending Story , The Neverending Story II - In Search of Fantasies and The Neverending Story 3 - Salvation from Fantasies . Chapter details refer to the book version.

A detailed summary of the book can be found in the article Content and Interpretation of the Neverending Story .

characters

main characters

Bastian Balthasar Bux

The protagonist and hero of the Neverending Story goes by the name of Bastian Balthasar Bux. Bastian is a fat boy, maybe ten or eleven years old; a shy and feeble bookworm who fails at school and is teased by his classmates. His mother passed away, which is also a great burden for his father, who rarely speaks to him.

On the run from his classmates, Bastian enters the antiquarian bookshop of Karl Konrad Koreander and steals a strange-looking book called The Neverending Story . Bastian begins to read the book in the school attic. It takes place in the fairytale kingdom of Fantasia, whose ruler, the Childlike Empress, is seriously ill. She is on the verge of dying and the kingdom of Fantasy is gradually sinking into "nothing". That is why young Atreyu is sent to find the cause of the disease, which also means the fall of the empire itself. Atreyu embarks on the “Great Search” and finds out that the Childlike Empress needs a new name that only a human child can give her. Bastian is increasingly becoming the character of the story himself. At first he only influences Atréju's journey through violent reactions such as a scream of horror or a cheering sentence. But then he is the one who, after long hesitation, gives the Childlike Empress a new name. When he calls her "Moon Child", he is drawn into the book and now travels through fantasies himself.

Equipped with a magical amulet , the AURYN, which represents the power of the Childlike Empress, his wishes become reality. In this way Bastian becomes handsome, determined, strong and powerful and in return gradually forgets how he really was and who he was in the human world. Seduced by the deceptions of the sorceress Xayíde, Bastian betrays the Childlike Empress and takes possession of her ivory tower . Atreyu then opposes him with an army. In the course of these arguments, Bastian almost kills his friend and threatens to lose the last memories of his true identity. With the help of Atréju and the lucky dragon Fuchur, he succeeds at the last moment in returning to the real world as a better person. He has developed the ability to love in Fantastica, which corresponds to his true will. Therefore he can free his father from his emotional coldness and move him to tears; he brings him the water of life. When Bastian apologizes to Coreander for stealing the book, the latter cannot remember ever having owned the book. But Bastian learns that Coreander was once a fantasy traveler too. Coreander tells Bastian that he can return to Fantasy as often as he wants, as long as he can find new names for the Childlike Empress, and predicts that Bastian will show many others the way to Fantasy.

In the film adaptations of the Neverending Story, Bastian is played by five different actors:

Atreyu

Atreyu is the second main character in the story and Bastian's fantasy counterpart. He is the protagonist of the book that Bastian stole from Coreander's shop and that he is reading in the school attic. For the reader, Atreyu presents himself as a metafictional figure who fictionally exists in the reality of the book. The author Michael Ende emphasizes the special meaning of names in the Neverending Story. This also applies to the name Atreyu. It sounds like the ancient Greek atreus, which means "fearless", whereby fearlessness is one of Atrejus' outstanding qualities. In Greek mythology Atreus is king of Mycenae . The name Atréju is possibly similar to the Atreids in Frank Herbert's novel cycle The Desert Planet , based on this figure.

Atreyu belongs to the people of the "green skins" who live in a fantastic steppe landscape called "The Grassy Sea". The greenskins are a proud race of hunters; even the youngest learn to ride horses without a saddle. Her skin is olive green and her hair is ebony black. They make everything they need from grass or the skins of the purple buffalo that roam their land in large herds. Attréju's parents were killed by a purple buffalo shortly after he was born. Therefore, Atreyu was raised by the entire tribe as "son of all"; this is also the meaning given to his name in translation.

Although (or because) he is only ten years old, he is appointed by the Child Empress as her deputy and sent on “The Great Search”. This quest interrupts the initiation ritual that would have made him a hunter, but his task turns out to be a higher hunt. Attréju's mission is to find out the cause of the child empress's illness. For this purpose he is given AURYN, an amulet that symbolizes the power of the Childlike Empress and places Atreyu under her protection. The green-skinned boy loses his horse Artax to the swamps of sadness soon after he leaves, but finds a new companion in the lucky dragon Fuchur. His travels take him through many countries of Fantasy, which he travels on the back of the lucky dragon, and meets a multitude of different creatures. In this way he familiarizes Bastian, who is reading his story, with phantasias bit by bit, until it finally turns out that this is the actual purpose of his quest. Because only Bastian can save the Childlike Empress and thus all of Fantasia by giving her a new name.

In the course of Bastian's Fantastic Journey, Atreyu becomes Bastian's friend, but also his worst adversary, when he begins to abuse his power as the savior of Fantasia. He often helps him out of almost hopeless situations and finally enables him to return home.

In the first movie from 1984, Atreyu is played by Noah Hathaway . At first they tried to depict the green skin color with the help of makeup, but gave up until the final version of the film. In the second movie, Atreyu is played by Kenny Morrison .

It is a widespread misconception that Noah Hathaway took up his role as Atreyu again in the short-lived cartoon series on the Neverending Story and gave the young greenskin his voice. In the cartoon series from 1996, his role is voiced by Dominic Zamprogna .

Tyler Hynes played this role in the 2001 miniseries .

Appear in other media
  • The American rock band Atreyu is named after this fictional character.
  • The character of Atreyu is mentioned in the songs Shakin ' by Rooney and Jugular Vein by Mr. Lif . Both Atreyu and Artax are featured in the song The Rhythm Method by Flobots . Atreyu is also featured in the title of Cecil Otter's song Atreyu vs. Swamps of Sadness mentioned.
  • Atreyu made a guest appearance in the episode Dragon Nuts of the Robot Chicken series ; he is spoken there by Seth Green . When he and Fuchur are bored, they start an infinite party .

The childlike empress

The Childlike Empress appears in the form of a girl of about ten years of overwhelming beauty. Because of the color of her eyes and her gift for fulfilling the wishes of human beings, she is also called the golden-eyed mistress of wishes . Her hair is bright white, as is her robe. She resides in a magnificent palace in the center of Fantasy, the ivory tower , and her own rooms are located there in the magnolia pavilion. The Childlike Empress is the ruler of this empire, but one should in no way use this title to imagine what is usually understood by it. It does not rule and never uses its power. She never judges; before her, all beings count equally, regardless of whether they are beautiful or ugly, bad or good. Despite her shape, she is ancient, older than the oldest imaginary, and at the same time ageless. It is not a being of fantasy, but without it nothing will endure in fantasy. She is the heart of fantasy. Should she die, fantasies and all fantasians would cease to exist too. Every fantasier respects them, nobody would rise up against them. Your life force is measured by name. If her name is forgotten, she absolutely needs a new one, otherwise she and all fantasies will die with her. No fancier can give her such a name, only a human child can do that; it has to come to Fantasia and give her name. The power of the childlike empress manifests itself in the amulet AURYN, which she gives at first to Atreyu and later to Bastian. The bearer AURYNS applies to all phantasians as the representative of the golden-eyed master of wishes.

When the time came when the Childlike Empress needed a new name, she fell so seriously ill that doctors feared her death. At the same time, fantasy begins to sink into nothingness, a state of complete emptiness, the sight of which no eye can bear, because it seems as if it is blind. Thereupon the Childlike Empress sends Atreyu on the Great Search to find the cause of her illness. Bastian follows this journey as a story in a book and lets her lead him to Phantásia, where he names the golden-eyed mistress of wishes "Moon Child" and lets her heal in this way. She leaves AURYN to him, so that fantasies can be created anew through his wishes. It does not point out to him that his task is to find his true will in order to return home a better person than it does to the danger of getting lost in fantasies. “How many wishes do I have free?” Bastian wants to know. “As much as you want - the more, the better, my Bastian. Fantastica will be all the richer and more complex, ”replies the Childlike Empress. A statement that is not true. In fact, with every wish Bastian loses a memory of his earthly life; So there are only as many wishes available to him as he has memories.

As an interpretation, it can be used, for example, that she is Bastian's anima . Michael Ende probably even brought her into play as his own anima - her counterpart is the old man from the Wandering Mountains, who can only be easily recognized as Michael Ende himself. In the story The World Traveler decided to meet her again on his journey in the form of a girl who shows the world traveler into the dream world.

It can also be seen as an allegory of human imagination.

The fact that you can only see her once characterizes her as a figure from a dream, because lucid dreamers report that things and people also disappear in dreams if you only look away for a moment.

In the first movie from 1984, the Childlike Empress is played by Tami Stronach . In the second part of 1990 Alexandra Johnes plays this role, in the third part of 1994 Julie Cox . In the films, her hair is darker than white; In the first film her robe resembles a wedding dress. In addition, her character is anything but neutral.

Fuchs

Fuchs is a lucky dragon and is therefore one of the rarest creatures in Fantasia. He is the only lucky dragon to play an active role in the course of the Neverending Story, but five others are mentioned as marginal characters.

Lucky dragons have almost no resemblance to "ordinary" dragons as they appear regularly in fantasy literature. They neither live in dark caves in which they hoard treasures, nor do they constantly spew fire and smoke or wreak havoc just for fun. They have no leather wings and are by no means plump, but rather have a long, supple body. Lucky dragons are neither characterized by great physical strength nor special magical talents, but are quite capable of spewing (blue) fire, as Fuchur proves when he is caught in the web of Ygramul of the Many.

In terms of appearance and meaning, the lucky dragons in Neverending History are more similar to those in Chinese mythology. They are creatures of the air, of warmth and unrestrained joy. Despite their size, they are as light as a cloud and therefore do not need wings to fly - they virtually swim through the air like fish in water. Seen from the ground, they look like slow flashes of lightning. Lucky dragons sleep in the air and prefer the open, wide space, which is why they avoid entering structures, no matter how big they may be.

Fuchur's scales are mother-of-pearl, shimmering rosy and glittering white. He has a beard and a lush mane and fringes on the tail and other limbs, with the claws being only rudimentary. Its (lion-like) head shape is not precisely described; however, his eyes shimmer like rubies.

Another special feature is Fuchur's singing, which is described as "the roar of a huge bronze bell". Anyone who has ever heard this song will never forget it in life. Lucky dragons understand all languages ​​of joy and never seem to lose hope and happiness. They trust in their luck and with the help of their optimism they can also cope with tasks that seem impossible. Fuchur always answers the question of how he will ever achieve this with the phrase: “With luck!”. In the whole course of the plot there is no sign that Fuchur's absolute trust in his happiness would ever be disappointed; an invaluable advantage for the imaginative Atreyu and the human boy Bastian whom he accompanies.

When Fuchur and Atreyu meet for the first time, the lucky dragon is trapped in the web of Ygramul, the many. Although Atreyu cannot claim Fuchur's life from Ygramul, he still shows the dragon an escape route. This makes the two friends. Fuchur carries Atreyu on his back and is therefore a more than adequate replacement for his horse Artax, which he lost in the swamps of sadness.

Water is deadly for lucky dragons, but Fuchur manages to salvage the lost amulet AURYN from the bottom of the sea.

When Bastian arrives in Fantasy, Fuchur and Atreyu become his best friends. They help him to return to the human world. Atreyu declares himself ready to complete all the stories that Bastian began in Fantastica, thus enabling him to return to the human world. When Bastian asked how they were going to do the impossible, Fuchur replied: With luck, my boy, with luck!

A book cover designed by Dan Craig for the English edition of The Neverending Story shows Fuchur as a lion. In the movies, however, his appearance is more like that of a dog. In the first and second film, Fuchur wants to be petted behind the ears, which caused confusion among parts of the audience. In the press release, Michael Ende complained that the film would turn his novel into a gigantic melodrama of kitsch, commerce, plush and plastic . Especially the figure of Fuchur made him angry. The film character is not a Chinese lucky dragon, but has degenerated into an oversized long-haired dachshund.

In the first film, Fuchur was voiced by Alan Oppenheimer , who also voiced Mighty Mouse and Skeletor . In the German translation, Heinz Reincke takes on this role .

In the Bavaria film studios in Munich there is a "life-size" reproduction of Fuchur that tourists can mount for a real ride on the lucky dragon.

In English the lucky dragon has the name Falcor or Falkor .

Appear in other media
  • Fuchur has a guest appearance on an episode of the Family Guy series . There he is ridden by Peter Griffin, who takes on the role of Bastian. In contrast to the Neverending Story, in which the lucky dragon can easily carry Atreyu and Bastian, its weight causes the dragon to crash in this episode.
  • Fuchur also appears in a short scene in the Robot Chicken episode Dragon Nuts , where he is voiced by Seth Green .
  • Fuchur also appears in the credits of the PC game Jets'n'Guns .
  • In one level of the Animaniacs video game, the dragon Yakko, Wakko and Dot serves as a means of transport.
  • Fuchur enters Dean Venture's dreamland in a series of The Venture Bros. on.
  • Fuchur also has a guest appearance in episode 7 of the Code Monkeys series entitled Larrity's Got Back , where he is ridden by Mr. Larrity's son Dean.
  • Fuchur can also be seen in episode 4 of Downtown no Gottsu Ee Kanji's comedy series 5 Rangers .
  • Fuchur has another guest appearance in episode 7 of the seventh season of Rim Tody . There he is ridden by the actor Miguel Campos after a fast-paced rescue operation.
  • Furthermore, Fuchur appears in the background of the South Park episode Imaginationland when the boys arrive there for the first time. He flies through the air and carries a submachine gun in the final battle against the forces of darkness.
  • Fuchur appears at the end of the reminder segment of the SuperNews! Episode Memes, monolith, and pubis, Oh My! on. Darren and Craig ride Fuchur, and he says: "Technically no, so long as we're spending time on the internet, OK."
  • The song Luck Dragon Lady! by The Aquabats from their 2011 album Hi-Five Soup! is sung from Fuchur's point of view.

Minor characters

The nothing

Nothing is the manifestation of the fatal disease from which the child empress suffers. The further their condition deteriorates, the further nothing works its way through fantasies and destroys everything it touches. When asked what it looks like, it is described that it gives the impression that you are blind when you look at a place. Where there is nothing, there is no hole or darkness, but simply “nothing”. It exerts a magical attraction, which leads many imaginative people to throw themselves into it, whereby they become a lie in the human world. When Atreyu is held in the haunted town of Gmork and nothingness is wrapped around the town like a ring at the same time, there seems to be no way out. At the last moment, Atreyu is rescued by Fuchur, but he is hardly free but runs towards nothing, where Fuchur can save him from jumping into it at the last moment. Because of the close proximity that both of them had in this brief moment, Attréju's hair and Fuchur's fur turn gray.

Engywuck and Urgl

Engywuck and his wife Urgl are a quarreling gnome couple who live near the Southern Oracle. Engywuck is a scientist who has studied the Southern Oracle for a long time and hopes one day to solve the mystery of the Uyulála in order to be able to publish a book about it. Since he considers his research to be too valuable to expose himself to the dangers of the journey into the interior of the oracle, he has to rely on the stories of other phantasians who have visited the Uyulála. In this way he gained detailed knowledge about the functioning of the three gates of the oracle. However, he was never able to find out what the Uyulála was, since no one who returned from there was willing to talk to him about it. Engywuck can only observe the first of the gates, the Great Riddle Gate, directly, as he keeps a telescope pointed at the sphinxes in his observatory on top of a mountain.

Engywuck, an easily irritable, proud old man, passes on his knowledge of the gates to Atreyu. His wife Urgl often gets in his way because she is more concerned about the healing of Atréjus and Fuchur and brews potions in a large cauldron for this purpose. It neutralizes the deadly poison with which Ygramul infected Atreyu and Fuchur. After Attréju's return from the Southern Oracle, the gnome reacts extremely disappointed, because Attréju finally reveals to him the nature of the Uyulála, but the subject of his investigation no longer exists because he is lost in nothing.

Engywuck is played in the film by Sydney Bromley , Urgl by Patricia Hayes . In the third movie, Engywuck and Urgl have moved to a forest, where they are still quarreling. During Bastian's return to Fantasy, Bastian visits her house, which is later completely destroyed. The two gnomes accompany Bastian, Fuchur and the troll Barky to find the Childlike Empress and to ask her for help, but they are accidentally transferred to earth by a wish overload caused by Bastian and the others. So they end up in Alaska, where they manage to move themselves and the others back home, where they rebuild their house. According to the logic of the book, such a journey would be impossible; a phantasy who comes to earth becomes a lie there.

Gmork

The werewolf Gmork (his name is pronounced in the film G'mork) serves those who have decided to destroy Fantasia and is thus Atréju's sinister opponent. In the book, his physical appearance is described as a black wolf the size of an ox; one also learns here that, despite his bad condition, he must be an impressive and terrifying figure due to his imprisonment in the haunted city. The film shows him with short, dark, blue-black fur and bright green eyes. Its catches are significantly larger than those of a normal wolf.

Gmork's mission is to find the young warrior Atreyu and kill him so that he cannot lead the savior Bastian to Fantasy. At no point in the book does Gmork manage to catch up with Atreyu. Shortly before the werewolf reaches him, Atreyu uses the magical powers that the bite of the monster Ygramul gives him to wish he was in a far distant place, the Southern Oracle. In the film, Gmork almost manages to kill Atreyu in the Swamps of Sadness, but the boy is saved by Fuchur the lucky dragon.

Gmork and Atreyu meet in the book in the haunted city. There the ruler of the city, the Dark Lady Gaya, to whom he had carelessly revealed his mission, put him on a chain before she herself went nowhere. Since only she can solve the chain, Gmork is trapped there when nothingness begins to encircle the city. Atreyu, who believes that his quest has failed, introduces himself to him as "nobody" whose name should not be mentioned. In this way, Gmork does not recognize his adversary at first and is less hostile to him. Atreyu learns of Gmork's assignment. The werewolf explains to Atreyu not only the true nature of nothingness, but also that a phantasy who gets caught in it becomes a lie in the human world.

When Atreyu tries to fathom the motives for his actions, it turns out that Gmork can exist both in the human world (in human form) and in fantasies (as a werewolf), but is not really at home in any of the worlds. Out of anger that the Fantasier have a world of their own, as it is not granted to him himself, he participates in the plan of manipulative forces that want to use the fall of Fantasia in order to poison people's minds forever so that they can gain more power yourself.

Finally, Gmork Attréju reveals the name of the boy he is hunting, and Atreyu reveals himself. The werewolf, satisfied with the apparent failure of Atreju's mission, then starts a terrible laugh, over which he dies before nothing reaches the haunted city. When Atreyu approaches the dead body, the razor-sharp teeth of the dead wolf snap shut and hold it tightly, which means rescue for Atreyu, who in this way cannot be dragged into nothing until Fuchur reaches him and with AURYNS 'help out freed from the bite.

In the film, the encounter is a little different. Gmork is not tied up here, does not speak of the manipulative powers and attacks Atreyu, who defends himself with an improvised stone knife that the young warrior finds next to him on earth during the conversation.

Graógramán, the motley death

Graógramán, the colorful death, arises from Bastian's desire to develop boldness and courage by confronting the most dangerous and deadly creature of Fantasy. He is lord and guardian of Goab, the desert of colors. There, differently colored sand divides into alternating surfaces, each of which has only one color. Nobody can survive in this desert, only Bastian can survive there because the AURYN protects him. Graógramán appears in the form of a huge lion that changes its colors depending on the color of the sand it steps on. He can never leave the desert because he carries it with him. Any life that gets into it turns itself into sand. When Bastian writes the triple B, the first letter of his name, in the sand, Graógramán discovers him and invites him to his palace, where he can relax. At night Graógramán solidifies to stone, whereupon the desert disappears and makes way for a huge forest, the night forest Perelín, which is full of life and disappears again in the morning, when Graógramán is reborn from the stone. In gratitude for the fact that Bastian revealed his story to him and gave his existence a meaning, Graógramán presented him with a magical and apparently intelligent sword, which Bastian gave the name Sikánda.

Bastian also learns from Graógramán that he has to research his true will. He enables Bastian to leave the desert by drawing his attention to the Thousand Doors Temple and awakening in Bastian the desire to go there to see Atreyu again.

Karl Konrad Coreander

Karl Konrad Koreander is the apparently grouchy owner of an antiquarian bookshop that Bastian meets right at the beginning of the story. The first few words of the novel consist of the mirrored name of the bookstore, which only looks like that when viewed from inside the room through the glass door on which it stands. Coreander, whose appearance corresponds roughly to that of a typical fairy tale magician, is currently reading the book The neverending story that Bastian gets when the antiquarian leaves the room to make a phone call. In the last chapter Bastian visits Koreander again to apologize for the theft of the book. In this way he learns that he not only has the triple alliteration of the first letters of their respective names in common with the bookseller , but that Coreaners also belong to the fantasy travelers. The two tell their story to each other.

Coreander has a double role in the animated series Tales from the Neverending Story ; in fantasies he acts as a magician. Thomas Hill embodies the bookseller in the first and second films and is therefore the only actor to appear in both films.

Pjörnrachzarck and the other ambassadors

Pjörnrachzarck is a large creature made entirely of stone. His species is called rock-biter because it feeds exclusively on rocks and minerals. She also makes all commodities out of stone, so that they are eaten with a touch of cravings; for example, Pjörnrachzarck eats his gigantic stone bicycle on the way to the ivory tower. Pjörnrachzarck was sent by his people to the Childlike Empress to report to her that his homeland is sinking more and more into nothing. In Haulewald he meets three other messengers, the will-o'-the-wisp Blubb, the tiny Ückück with his racing snail and the night alb Wúschwusul. In this way, the four learn that their respective home region is not the only one that has been affected by the annihilation; evidently the whole of Fantasy is threatened by creeping destruction. Since each of the four believes that their way of traveling is the fastest, they split up at first, but later meet again at the ivory tower. There they become friends and later have shared adventures that are no longer told within the book.

The ambassadors also meet in the film, but Blubb is missing there and his role is partly taken over by the rock-biter. In the film, Pjörnrachzarck has a particular preference for limestone. His eating habits are illustrated by the fact that large pieces of rock fall from his mouth to the ground when he eats food. The rock-biter appears only at the beginning of the book; In the film, Atréju meets him later in the plot. Pjörnrachzarck has lost all self-confidence because he could not save his traveling companions from nowhere; they were literally torn from his hands. He warns Atreyu to flee from nowhere before it hits him too.

In the second and third films the family of the rock-biter is introduced, his wife only in the third part, his son in the second and third. Felsenbeißer Junior is the same size as an adult and is still just a toddler who explores the world in a curious, playful and voracious way. In the third part he has a leading role. He is sent to earth there during a wish overload caused by Bastian, Fuchur, the troll Barky, Engywuck and Urgl. There he is rescued by Fuchur before he can fall to his death, and the group meets up with Bastian again. Junior doesn't exactly make Bastian's life any easier; at night he causes chaos in the kitchen and plays on a water jug ​​like a trumpet. Rockbiter and his wife meanwhile take up the fight against a phantom threat that has stolen the book and the AURYN to get their son back. At the end of the film, the family is reunited. Der Felsenbeißer also sings a bad variant of Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf .

The southern oracle

After the ancient Morla, a huge turtle, has betrayed Atreyu that the Childlike Empress needs a new name in order to get well, Atreyu sets off for the Southern Oracle. This is the only place where Atreyu can find out who is able to give the Childlike Empress such a name. The Southern Oracle (also called the Uyulála in the book) is so far away that Atreyu would actually have no chance of attaining it within his own lifespan, much less within the lifespan of the dying Childlike Empress, but the deadly poison of Ygramul, the Thank you, him and Fuchur, to just wish you were there. When they reach the oracle, Atreyu and Fuchur are healed by the gnome couple Urgl and Engywuck. Engywuck, who has been studying the oracle for a long time but has never been there himself, reveals something to Atreyu about its nature. To reach the Uyulála, Atreyu must pass three gates:

  • The first of them is the Great Riddle Gate. It consists of two sphinxes looking at each other. There are no riddles to be solved to traverse it; rather, the sphinxes seemingly accidentally allow some passers-by to continue their journey while denying others. The sphinxes have to close their eyes to do this, for those who are not found worthy are bewitched by their fixed gaze and freeze on the spot. Only another sphinx can stand a sphinx's gaze. This sends out all the riddles of the world, and whoever is hit by it can only move again when he has solved all the riddles of the world. This motif comes from Greek mythology (e.g. the Oedipus story), in which the sphinx poses a riddle to people and punishes those who do not guess the solution.
  • The second gate is the magic mirror gate. It is a large, round mirror that reveals the true self to the traveler. Often times, those who cannot stand the truth react in horror and run away or go insane.
  • Finally the without a key gate is to be crossed. This keyless door is made from a material called Fantastic Selén , which is indestructible and only responds to your will. Only those who completely forget why they came and who do not wish to enter can enter through the gate to the Uyulála.

Atreyu succeeds in passing the gates. The Great Riddle Gate lets him pass, the Magic Mirror Gate shows him a picture of Bastian sitting in the school attic reading the Neverending Story; the two are obviously two sides of the same person. Atreyu needs Bastian's help to pass through the Ohne Schlüssel Gate. After forgetting everything and no longer wishing to go through the gate, he turned to go, but at Bastian's request, he turned back and went to the Uyulála.

In this way Atreyu learns that the Uyulála is a disembodied voice that speaks in verse and is only able to understand rhymes. A poetic conversation ensues between Atreyu and the Uyulála, in which Atreyu, whose memory is still extinguished, first of all has to fathom why he started the journey to the Southern Oracle in the first place. But he succeeds in asking the right questions, and so the Uyulála reveals to him that the Childlike Empress can only get well again if she is given a new name by a human child who lives beyond fantasy. Only a short time after the end of the conversation, the Uyúlala and the entire oracle are sucked into nothingness.

Some significant changes to the scenario were made in the film version. The first gate allows those who consider themselves worthy to pass. If someone has doubts that they can safely pass through the gate, they open their eyes and fire laser beams that burn the person. Not even steel armor offers protection against it. The second gate is a mirror as described in the book; however, he is standing in a snowy wasteland. There is no third goal in the film. The oracle itself consists of two shimmering blue sphinxes facing each other, just like the glowing yellow sphinxes at the first gate. The rhyming language is not used in the film. However, the oracle is destroyed in the film after the conversation with Atreyu.

In the Tales from the Neverending Story , a hero has to pass the riddle gate, which tests his self-confidence. He then has to answer a riddle and walk through a mirror that shows what he needs to complete his task. Unlike Atreyu, he arrives at a library where an enigmatic magician who looks like Coreander teaches him to read. Then he goes through a glass door with the name Uyulála written on it and finds the oracle as it is described in the book.

Xayíde

Xayíde is an evil sorceress whom Bastian creates from his wish to be dangerous and feared during his fantasy journey. Xayíde lives in a castle called Hórok, the Seeing Hand; the fortress actually has the shape of a mighty hand. Xayíde's most noticeable physical feature is her eyes. They have two different colors, red and green, like the font colors of the Neverending Story.

When Xayíde had the three gentlemen Hýkrion, Hýsbald and Hýdorn kidnapped, who were accompanying Bastian, Atréju and Fuchur on their journey to the ivory tower, Bastian's companions already failed because of the hollow metal guards who guard Xayíde's castle with its many windows that looked like hundreds of eyes . But with the help of his magic sword Sikánda, Bastian succeeds in defeating the guardians, freeing the three masters and overpowering Xayíde.

It soon becomes apparent to Atreyu and Fuchur that Xayíde has planned their capture, but Bastian does not want to hear about it. Although she basically makes no secret of the fact that her heart is cold and calculating, she shows Bastian from a warm and affectionate side and feigns him the appreciation that he so desires. Bastian allows himself to be fooled, so that Xayíde succeeds more and more in driving a wedge between his friendship with Atreyu and Fuchur.

Xayíde's plans are to use Bastian's power, which AURYN gives him, for their own purposes. She persuades Bastian that he himself deserved to rise to the rank of Childlike Emperor Fantasia. Xayíde can direct hollow things (like her metal guards) with the power of her will, and she works out that she can also direct Bastian like a puppet, who more and more forgets who he really is. In truth, Xayíde wants to rise to rulership herself and rearrange the empire according to her own ideas. But Xayíde's plan fails due to the resistance of Atréjus and Fuchur.

While Bastian chases after the two, Xayíde loses his trail. When Bastian's wish to be feared changes to want to be part of a community through the confrontation with the fate that awaits him if he continues on the path he has trodden, Xayíde is no longer needed. Although she always had full control over her metal guards, she is unable to stop them, so that she is overrun by them and killed in this way.

Xayíde is played by Clarissa Burt (actress and model) in the second movie, which is superficially based on the second half of the book . Your ability to direct hollow things is much more pronounced in the film. There she controls an entity called “the void”, which is like nothing. The void threatens Fantasia and the Childlike Empress. Otherwise, the representation of Xayíde is very similar to its description in the book. She manipulates Bastian and leads him astray, in order to push the childlike empress from the throne and to impose their own order on fantasies. Using a special machine from one of their technicians, Bastian himself becomes hollow and empty , so he is also to be bewitched. In both the book and the film, she gives Bastian the Gémmal belt, which makes the wearer invisible. Of course, she doesn't give Bastian this gift without self-interest. With this, she achieves that Bastian spies on Atreyu and Fuchur and learns that they want to take away the AURYN, whose power he has begun to abuse. In this way, she completes her plan to split the three friends. In the film, Bastian uses his last wish to give her a heart so that she is no longer empty, thus causing her end.

In the miniseries Tales from the Neverending Story, Xayíde is portrayed as the sister of the Child Empress and is the main adversary of the heroes.

Ygramul, the many

Ygramul, the many, is a monster that lives in the land of the dead mountains.

Its name results from the fact that it is not a single living being, but a huge swarm of insect-like creatures, which are controlled by a will and, depending on their arrangement, know how to change the shape of the overall structure at will. Ygramul often appears in the form of a large spider and builds webs to catch prey that the swarm feeds on.

Ygramul's poison is deadly, but whoever has been infected with it can go anywhere in Fantasy, if only they wish, before the effects of the poison overwhelm them. If this fact were made public, Ygramul would soon starve to death.

Nevertheless, Ygramul Atreyu reveals the secret when he confronts her, because she knows that only he can bring about the rescue of Fantasia (and thus her own) from nowhere. In this way, Atreyu succeeds in covering the seemingly far too long path to the Southern Oracle within a split second.

Through Atréju's intervention, the lucky dragon Fuchur, who, stunned by Ygramul's poison, is helplessly trapped in one of their nets, learns how to free himself. Although Atreyu does not succeed in demanding him from Ygramul as a mount, he saves his life in this way, so that Fuchur follows the boy to the southern oracle. The proverbial luck of the lucky dragon not only ensures that Atreyu appears at exactly the right moment, but also that both are found immediately after their arrival by the gnomes Engywuck and Urgl, who also know the antidote to Ygramul's bite. In this way both will be healed. While Atréju is recovering, Engywuck, who has long studied the southern oracle, prepares Atréju for his encounter with the guards of the oracle.

Other minor characters

  • Caíron the Black Centaur is the greatest doctor in fantasy, but even he is unable to discover the cause of the Childlike Empress' illness. Therefore the Childlike Empress gives him AURYN. But Caíron is not the bearer, only the messenger. He should give the gem to Atreyu and send him on the great search that will save Fantasia. In the film, Cairon appears as an elderly black centaur, whose lower half has the striped fur of a zebra. In the first film, however, he is completely humanoid. His name and physique as a centaur are reminiscent of the centaur Chiron from Greek mythology.
Sculpture of the ancient Morla in the Michael-Ende-Kurpark in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
  • The ancient Morla is perhaps the oldest living creature in Fantasy, not counting the Childlike Empress, who is not a phantasy herself. It is a huge turtle, the size of a mountain, which is why it is often confused with one; they are called the Hornberg. She lives in the swamps of sadness and has grown tired of her long life. Therefore she does not want to help Atreyu at first when he wants to know from her how the Childlike Empress and thus all of Fantastica can be saved from nowhere. Atreyu has to use a ruse to get the information she needs. If she really doesn't care what happens to herself and fantasies, she might as well tell him what he wants to know. In this way, Atreyu learns that the Child Empress needs a new name and that the Uyulála at the Southern Oracle may be able to say who can give her this name.
  • The four wind giants: the north wind Lirr, the east wind constructiono, the south wind Schirk and the west wind Mayestril confirm Attréju that fantasy is limitless. With this, Atréju's hope of ever reaching the human world disappears, in order to bring a human child to Fantasia, who gives the Childlike Empress a new name. In the battle of the four winds, which are constantly at odds with each other, Atreyu and Fuchur are separated.
  • Gaya , the Dark Lady, proves that even the most evil creatures of Fantasia have no interest in its downfall. She thwarts Gmork's plan to end Atreju's great quest by putting him on a magical chain that only she can break and then plunging into nowhere.
  • The old man from the Wandering Mountains is the chronicler who writes down everything that happens in Fantastica and it happens by writing it down. He is portrayed as an elderly, bearded man who has existed since the beginning of Fantasy and has never been young. He is of the same kind as the Childlike Empress and is not a fantasy. Its home is an egg-shaped house on the top of the Wandering Mountain that can only be found by a stroke of fate. When Bastian hesitates to give the childlike empress a name, she seeks out the old man from the Wandering Mountains and asks him to tell the story all over again. The old man from the Wandering Mountains tries to dissuade the childlike empress from entering his house because she can no longer leave it on her own. He also fears what will happen if he begins to tell the story all over again, but ultimately gives in to the wishes of the Empress, because he knows that there is no other way to ensure the continued existence of Fantasia. It turns out that it is not Atréju's story that begins The Neverending Story , but Bastian's own from the moment he walks into Koreander's shop. Since the story always begins anew at the moment when the Childlike Empress asks the old man from the Wandering Mountains to tell it all over again, an endless loop is created; a form of never-ending story that Bastian hadn't had in mind when he wanted to get the book. Only he himself can break the loop by giving the Childlike Empress her name. When this happens, the egg bursts, the Childlike Empress is set free, and with her, fantasies are also reborn. The old man from Wandering Berg is missing in the first film and appears in a greatly changed role in the third. He owns a large book there that seems to be able to write down the future on its own. He lives in a hidden crystal cave and can look at the outside world with the help of a magic mirror. When the Childlike Empress visits him, he crawls on the floor in front of her and asserts that her visit is a great honor for him. During her visit, the Childlike Empress is accompanied by her guardian Großkopf. Both stay with the old man until the end of the nastie crisis.
  • Quérquobad der Silbergreis is the head of the silver city Amargánth.
  • Held Hynreck arises from Bastian's desire to be admired by others. He is the greatest hero of Fantasy, for which he has worked hard, because he wants to win over Princess Oglámar, who has sworn to promise herself only to the greatest hero of the empire. With the help of his sword Sikánda and the other skills that AURYN has bestowed on him, Bastian easily defeats him. So humiliated, Oglámar turns away from him. To give Hynreck another chance to prove himself, Bastian creates a huge dragon that kidnaps Oglámar. After a long quest, Hynreck also succeeds in defeating the dragon, so that Oglámar would accept him as husband, but now Hynreck has lost interest; the happy ending that Bastian had in mind does not happen.
  • Hýkrion the Strong , Hýsbald the Swift and Hýdorn the Tough are three warriors who, accompanied by Held Hynreck, take part in a competition that Atreyu has proclaimed. He wants to assemble a worthy retinue that Bastian, the savior of Fantasy, should find and protect. But Bastian reaches the competition with the help of the Thousand Doors Temple before the small army can set off. Atreyu understands that Bastian has changed a lot in the meantime and does not need any protection; nevertheless he, Fuchur and the three gentlemen remain in Bastian's company. The three gentlemen are kidnapped by Xayíde and finally stand on Bastian's side in the battle for the ivory tower. They survive the battle for the ivory tower and the fight against Atrejus rebellion, but are separated from Bastian and then go their own way.
  • The Acharai are worm-like creatures who hide in caves deep under the silver city of Amargánth out of sheer shame about their ugly appearance and weep continually for their fate. Your caustic tears wash out the fantastic silver, the only element that can withstand your tears unscathed. The houses of Amarganths are made from the silver, which makes them a splendid and beautiful metropolis. Her tears form Lake Murhu, which the city swims in. In order to prove his power, Bastian transforms the Acharai in an apparent act of pity into a figure in which they are only supposed to spread laughter and happiness. But the figure that AURYN chooses in his place is the strangely bizarre, ridiculous looking clown-moth, called Schlamuffen. While the Acharai were the always-weeping, the Schlamuffen are always-laughing, colorful butterflies with colorful moth wings on their backs and dressed in checkered, striped, curled or dotted junk. But every single piece of clothing looks too tight or too wide, too big or too small, as if sewn together by chance. Nothing is right, there are patches everywhere, even on the wings. No two clown moths are alike, their faces are as colorful as that of a clown. They have round noses or perfectly ridiculous teeth and exaggeratedly large mouths. Some wear cylinder hats in all imaginable colors, others pointy hats, with still others only three bright red heads of hair stand tall. A few are bald too. The clown moths live in a tower made of silver filigree that they had built when they were Acharai. There they hang and tumble around without sense or reason to play jokes. They talk nonsensical gibberish, it is impossible to have a proper conversation with them. Bastian's thoughtless wish abandons the once ugly and sad Acharai, who at least fulfilled an important function, to ridicule and their existence to futility. He also unwittingly seals Amargath's fate. The silver filigree on which the city's wealth is based is no longer washed out of the earth, and the Murhu tear lake dries up. In order to seek revenge for the unworthy state in which Bastian has put them, the Schlamuffen attack him when he has already lost almost all memories of his real life and ask him to become their leader in order to get their life back in the right direction and aim to give. In doing so, they destroy the dream of his father, which Bastian had previously laboriously recovered from the Nimroud pit and which was supposed to lead him home. In this way they almost prevent Bastian's return to the human world. But they are driven away by Atreyu and Fuchur, whose friendship eventually also becomes Bastian's guide home.
  • Jicha, the mule , becomes Bastian's mount and is his most loyal companion until Xayíde convinces him that she is not worthy of him. Although Bastian fulfills her dearest wish to find a partner with whom she can have children, he does this not to do her something good, but to get rid of her. This leaves the stale feeling of not having made your wish out of pure motives. This is another step on the path that leads Bastian to the realization that friendship and love are more important than influence and power.
  • The three deeply pondered ones : Uschtu , the owl-headed mother of the notion, Schirkrie ' , the eagle-headed father of the show, and Jisipu' , the fox-headed son of wisdom, are manifestations of the stuffed animals that stand on the school attic where Bastian read the Neverending Story Has. They achieve their phantasical reality through Bastian's wish to display his wisdom. As the head of the Star Monastery, they try to find out what fantasy is. Bastian shows them that the whole of fantasy exists in the book that was left in the school attic. In order to make the memory visible, it burns the light of the stone Al'Tsahir, which was given to it for another purpose.
  • Illuán , the blue genie: A powerful leader in Bastian's entourage on his way to the ivory tower. He falls in the battle for the ivory tower in the pointless attempt to save Bastian's belt Gémmal.
  • The monkey Argax is the overseer in the "Old Emperor City". Bastian learns from him that those people who get lost in fantasies fall into madness. If Bastian had won the battle for the ivory tower, he would have come here immediately. Argax reveals that people by no means have as many wishes free as they want, but have to give up a memory of the human world for each wish fulfilled. Bastian is threatened with madness if he loses his last memory without having found his way home. Horrified Bastian flees the city and tries with the few remaining wishes to fathom his true will in order to find his way back.
  • Dame Aiuóla : A plant that takes the form of a maternal woman and resembles Bastian's own deceased mother. She lives in the house of change and waits there for Bastian so that she can take care of him and get him on the way to find his last wish, which leads him to his true will to be able to love. The lady Aiuóla arises from Bastian's desire to be loved.
  • Yor is a miner in the Minroud mine, the mine of images. This is where all people's forgotten dreams go. Already in the silver city of Amargánth, Bastian is prophesied that one day he will come here and then need the light of the stone Al'Tsahir, but the human boy burns its light in an attempt to play himself as a great wise man to Atreyu and Xayíde. So Bastian has to look in total darkness for a picture that can lead him home, because he has now almost completely lost the memories of his previous life. After weeks of hard work, he finally finds a picture that shows his father and realizes that he is completely packed in ice; his wife's death left him feeling cold.
  • Bastian's father is a dental technician who was made cold by the death of his wife and who therefore only lives next to his son, but no longer with him. In the course of his journey through Fantastica, Bastian realizes that his true will is to be able to love, and that it is his father he wants to love. He brings this love with him from Fantasia and moves his father to tears with it - the waters of life . In this way both find redemption in the end. In the second film, Bastian's father finds The Neverending Story and accompanies his son's journey by reading the book. Apparently he can't remember that in the third film. The unnamed father in the book is given the name Barney in this film and marries a woman named Jane, whose daughter Nicole plays a leading role in the third film. He is embodied by the actor Gerald McRaney .
  • The bark troll is a talking, tree-like creature that was created for the third film. The bark trolls are also mentioned in the book, where Atréjus' first encounter with them drastically shows the young greenskin the effects of a collision with nothing, but their cinematic design has little to do with Ende's specifications. In the film he makes a rather grumpy impression, but appears as a funny-looking assistant. He supports Bastian and joins him in the fight against the Nastias. Due to a wish overload, however, he ends up on earth in a coniferous forest. There it is finally felled and brought to Bastian's house with a delivery of wood, where it disguises itself as a log or garden plant. Over time, he developed a difficult friendship with Felsenbeißer Junior.
  • Nimbly is a bird-like creature from the second film that has only a very distant equivalent in the book. There the Nimblies are rabbit-like creatures with feathers instead of fur. Nimbly is Xayíde's spy, who encourages Bastian to use his memories to make wishes, but later changes his mind.
  • The manipulators are responsible for the nothingness that destroys fantasies. Its goal is to turn all imaginers into lies and to control humanity or to rule the world with the help of lies. They are apparently neither from fantasies (since nothing would then destroy them too) nor from the human world, which they want to control.

Magical utensils

Some magical utensils play an important role in the course of the plot.

The book The Neverending Story

When Bastian enters Karl Konrad Koreander's second-hand bookshop, he is reading a book called The Neverending Story . This title magically attracts Bastian, because he has always wanted a story that never ends, where he never has to say goodbye to characters he has come to love. When Coreander leaves the room, Bastian steals the book and escapes with it to the attic of his school, where he begins to read it. While reading, he accompanies the “Great Search” of the young phantasy artist Atreyu, who leads him step by step to phantasy. Finally, Bastian himself becomes part of the Neverending Story . It is he who is to give the childlike empress a new name.

When Bastian hesitates, the childlike empress travels to see the old man from the Wandering Mountains. He is holding a book in his hand that looks exactly like the one Bastian is reading. So the book appears in itself; a book within a book. The Old Man from the Wandering Mountain writes the never-ending story as it happens and it happens as he writes it. The childlike empress asks the old man from the Wandering Mountains to tell the story all over again. He reacts horrified, but obeys because he knows there is no other option. In this way, the story begins all over again, but not with the journey of the four messengers to the ivory tower, where it began for Bastian, but with Bastian's own story from the moment he enters Coreander's second-hand bookshop. As the old man of the Wandering Mountain tells the story anew, he also writes it down again so that it happens again and again, because it always ends at the moment when the Childlike Empress asks the old man from the Wandering Mountain to tell it again to tell. A variant of a never-ending story that Bastian would never have dreamed of. Only he can break this cycle by giving the Childlike Empress her name. And that is exactly what the golden-eyed mistress of wishes and the old man from the Wandering Mountains force him to do, because history repeats itself over and over again in his consciousness; he cannot turn this off, even when he stops reading. When Bastian finally names the Childlike Empress Moon Child, the cycle is broken. He himself is drawn into the book and his journey of fantasy begins.

Bastian shows the three deeply minded people that the whole of fantasy exists in the book that is still in the school attic. When Bastian returns to the human world, the book has not only disappeared; Coreander also can't remember ever having owned it. There is also a reason for this: According to Coreander's assumption, the book is the same that the reader of the Neverending Story is now holding in their hand to follow Bastian's own story: “One thing is certain: You didn't steal this book from me because it belonged to me neither me nor you nor anyone else. If I am not mistaken, then it came from fantasy itself. Who knows, maybe at this very moment someone else is reading it. "

Bastian's enthusiasm for a never-ending story describes Ende with the words:

“ He stared at the title of the book and he alternated hot and cold. That was exactly what he had often dreamed of and what he had wished for since he was infested with his passion: a story that never ended! The book of all books! "

Ende alludes to the Bible , which believing Christians also refer to as the “Book of Books”. End indicates the meaning that Bastian hopes for the Neverending Story - redemption from his unbearable reality of life. The theologian Klaus Berger has vigorously rejected this allusion . Since no one can compete with the revelations of God , it is clear that this is where Satan comes into play. With the Neverending Story an antibibel for the Bible and a Bible for godless people who do not know the God of the Bible had been created. The continuing demand for Ende's Book of Mysteries is evidence enough for this.

AURYN, the symbol of the Childlike Empress

Meaning content as a symbol of a real dualism

The AURYN, whose name is always written in capital letters in the book, is also called the gem , the pantacle or the shine by those who shy away from pronouncing its name . Everyone in Fantasia knows what this symbol means. It is the sign of the one who stands on behalf of the Childlike Empress and can act on her behalf, as if she were present herself, her deputy. It is said to impart mysterious powers to the wearer, although no one can say what exactly it is. AURYN is respected by all beings in all fantasies.

The gem appears in the book in three ways. Within Fantasy, the mystical talisman is worn by its wearer on a chain around the neck. During the course of the story, the bearers of the AURYN are: Caíron, the Black Centaur (as the bearer), Atreyu, Fuchur and Bastian. Within Fantasia it can also be seen on the cover of the book in which the old man from the Wandering Mountains writes the Chronicle of Fantasia. Within the human world as it is described in the novel, AURYN is on the cover of the book The Neverending Story. that Bastian reads on the school attic: According to the inner logic of the story, Ende's book, Bastian's book and the old man's book about the Wandering Mountains are identical. Accordingly, the AURYN, at least in the German editions, is also shown on the cover of Michael Ende's book.

AURYN is a large, gold amulet with two snakes on the front side, biting each other's tail and forming an oval. The colors of the snakes are initially only referred to as "light" and "dark" in the book. In the last chapter, Ende specifies this in more detail: one snake is black, the other white. Incidentally, the snakes are not described in detail, not even that they are arranged symmetrically or are intertwined. This only results from the interpretation of the symbol as it can be seen in the films or in the computer games. There the snakes are shown in different colors; one is gold, the other is silver. Each of the snakes has an eye. The colors of these eyes match the font colors of the book edition: red and green.

According to a letter to a reader on April 2, 1984, it was important for Michael Ende that AURYN should form an ellipse because "an ellipse has two centers". The snakes thus form the symbol of two worlds that cannot exist individually without each other. The black snake stands for fantasy because black symbolizes the unexplored, the uncanny; the white snake accordingly for the outside world, for awareness and enlightenment. The two snakes have to hold each other. If they let go, the world would end. For Ende the external reality, the external world, is only one of the two worlds in which a person lives. The other, the world of fantasy, is just as important to him and just as real. Only when both worlds complement each other and are in harmony can they stay healthy. Ende took over this idea from the romantic era, which also assumed that dreams and phantasy have a reality that is in no way inferior to the outside world. Ende saw reality, the outside world, determined by a purely causal logic. The present suffers from this: only what is useful is also viewed as good. But the inner world eludes these one-sided criteria. What is actually useless from a causal perspective - the pyramids, Michaelangelo's David, the Odyssey and many other immortal works of art are ultimately what remains.

According to the description in the book, the AURYN corresponds to a mythological symbol that has been widespread in many cultures since ancient times, the so-called " Ouroboros ", which is associated with the idea of Yin and Yang . This reminiscence is not accidental; the meaning of the two symbols and the AURYNS is congruent. The two snakes stand for the dual nature of the two worlds described (phantasy / reality) and the twin nature with which they can create and destroy each other.According to the end, phantasy and outside world behave like the two sides of a coin: they complement each other and can do not exist without each other. In his book, Ende works with many such (apparent) opposites that ultimately always appear as two sides of the same coin: light and dark, black and white, ugly and beautiful, good and bad, discouraged and courageous, etc.

The snakes also refer to the infinity, the limitlessness of the imagination and the realm of imagination. The motif of the self-giving birth snake means infinity and eternal return as well as wisdom in many religions. The description of AURYNS is reminiscent of the Midgard serpent , which spans the whole world, and of the twelve constellations of the zodiac, the zodiac . There is also a relationship with the horn and ivory gates as described by Virgil in the Aeneid .

The inscription "do what you want"

The engraving on the back of AURYNS also indicates that fantasy is as infinite as fantasy:

"Do what you want"

The motto "Do what you want" and its meaning to recognize and live your own "true will" comes from the Thelema doctrine (Thelema = will), which, among other things, forms the basis for the Astrum Argenteum (A? A ?) formed. The founder of the secret order, Aleister Crowley , declared the motto Fay ce que vouldras (do what you want) as a word of the law, which he published with the following wording:

“ To the people!
Do what you want, let the whole law be.
Since I took office on earth in the year the Theosophical Society was founded, I took the sin of the whole world upon myself - because it was my turn - so that the prophecies could be fulfilled, so that all of humanity can take the next step from the magical Formula of Osiris to that of Horus .
And since my hour is now on me
, I preach the law. The law is Thelema. "

Accordingly, Bastian has to go in search of his true will and finally realizes towards the end of the novel that his true will is to love. Even more than Crowley's teachings, the motto "Do what you want" is reminiscent of the saying "Love (God) and do what you want", which Augustine of Hippo first wrote around the year 395 in his interpretation of Galatians, later in 415 in his commentary on the First Letter of John. Erich Rammerskirch has therefore dealt with the question of whether the Neverending Story is a Christian fairy tale.

In the said letter to a reader of April 2, 1984, Michael Ende writes that he took the motif directly from the novel Gargantua and Pantagruel by the French writer and clergyman François Rabelais (around 1494 to 1553). “Do what you want” (in the sense of “do what you like”) is the (only) rule of the order of the secular Thélème Abbey. Rabelais understood the motto as an expression of the free development of mind and body, which is why the resentment of the persecuted could not lead him to intolerance. Literally it says in Rabelai's work: “ A certain way of life is not prescribed for them by law, statutes or rules, they arranged it according to their will and will: got up when they wanted, ate and drank when they had an appetite, and worked or slept, depending on how she felt like it. Their entire rule of the order consisted of a single paragraph, which read: DO WHAT YOU LIKE. "After the end, Rabelais formed the maxim after Augustine 's saying" Love (God) and do what you want ", while the occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) adopted the motif from Rabelais.  

There is also a parallel here to the novel The Last Unicorn , where the perfection of the personality of the sorcerer's apprentice Schmendrick on his way to become a true magician is accomplished by letting the magic itself choose its form according to his own will, expressed in the Quote: "Magic, do what you want!"

For the film version, director Wolfgang Petersen chose “Do what you dream!” As the translation of the AURYN inscription. Ende clearly opposed this interpretation:

"'Do what you dream!" This inscription is really the opposite of what the message of my book means. Petersen believes that my English may not be enough to recognize that this is the correct analogous translation of 'Do what you want!' act. He only forgets - although I have told him - that the sentence originally comes from English, namely by the writer Aleister Crowley (died 1947), and there it says: 'Do what thou wilt' (solemn church English). The 'Do what you dream!' is Petersen's interpretation, and the wrong one. It is exactly the same mistake that Bastian is subject to and for the sake of which he cannot find his way back from Fantasia. He too thinks first of all that it is about doing what one wishes, longs for, would like to do. The lion Graógráman gets angry when Bastian tells him this interpretation. Finding your 'True Will' doesn't mean doing what you want at all. This formula 'do what you want!' goes back via Rabelais to Saint Augustine. You cannot do your 'True Will' in Fantastica either, you can only find it there. That is why it leads you back into the human world. "

Function and mode of operation

AURYN has three bearers in the course of the plot (if you only consider Caíron as a messenger). First, the black centaur Caíron delivers it to Atreyu so that it can guide and protect him on his Great Search. When Atreyu loses the gem during the encounter with the four storms, Fuchur hides the shine from the depths of the sea. Finally, the Childlike Empress hands AURYN over to Bastian.

It is no coincidence that AURYN appears in the form of an amulet. Amulets have always served to strengthen their wearer and should help them to keep danger, diseases, accidents, black magic and the like away from them.

In magic, a pantacle is a pentagram enclosed in a circle , which serves as a sign of ban against evil. Like a pantacle, AURYN also guides and protects those who wear it. In the hands of its fantastic and human wearers, however, it unfolds very different effects. Atreyu gives it great power, which he is not allowed to use, because the Childlike Empress never makes use of her power either. AURYN protects the green-skinned boy and guides him, but whatever he sees may never intervene, because his own opinion no longer counts on the "Great Search". Atreyu must go out without weapons and let what happens. Everything must apply to him equally, the bad and the good, the beautiful and the ugly, the foolish and the wise, just as it is the same before the childlike empress. He can only search and ask, but not judge according to his own judgment. However, the gem offers him comprehensive protection, because even the most dangerous creature of Fantasy would not dare to attack the deputy of the Childlike Empress. AURYN also suppresses the irresistible attraction that nothing exerts on imaginary people and prevents Atreyu and Fuchur from rushing into it themselves. The childlike Empress accompanies Atréju on his journey through the gem and is with him as long as he wears AURYN. As a result, she knows all the details of the Great Search before it can tell her. When Atreyu loses its luster and Fuchur finds him, the will of the lucky dragon is superimposed by a much more powerful will that takes possession of his body and leads him to where Atreyu is in greatest danger. This will come from AURYN. In Bastian's hands, however, AURYN becomes a comprehensive instrument of creation. What he desires becomes a fantasy reality in one form or another. However, with every wish that is fulfilled, he loses a memory of his real life in the human world; an effect that the AURYN cannot develop in the hands of a phantasy artist because he does not exist in reality. The more memories Bastian loses, the harder it is to find the way back into his own world. He runs the risk of getting lost in his fantasies. Since the Childlike Empress does not prepare Bastian for this and, on the contrary, even asks him to express as many wishes as possible so that fantasies arise again, Atreyu and Fuchur finally suspect that their fate is completely indifferent to Bastian's fate, just as everything else happens leaves, and that their only aim is to save their kingdom. This coincides with the events of the old man from the Wandering Mountains, where the childlike empress forces Bastian to give her a name and to travel to Fantastica, whether he wants to or not.

In this way, the reader gradually learns how the Childlike Empress came to be known as the "Golden-Eyed Mistress of Wishes". It is her power that, through AURYN, turns Bastian's wishes into a fantasy reality. For this reason, Bastian's attempt, motivated by Xayíde, to rise to the rank of Childlike Emperor is doomed to failure from the start, because all his power comes exclusively from the Childlike Empress herself, and it is impossible to use this power to take it away from her.

When Bastian realizes that he will go mad when his last memory fades (and as has happened to many of the previous porters AURYNS; they all live in a mentally deranged state in the "Old Emperor City"), he finally goes on a search according to his true will, as the motley death had advised him to find his way back home this way. To do this, Bastian AURYN has to voluntarily drop. But only the knowledge of his true will can induce him to do so. Bastian Atréju half-heartedly once offered to let him have AURYN, but when Atreyu and Fuchur actually decide to take the gem away from him in order to protect the friend from his side effects, this leads to a bitter argument in the course of which Atreyu is almost killed. This goes hand in hand with the fact that Bastian actually does not wish to return home, because he is apparently so much more in fantasy than in the real world. As Bastian learns later, the loss of the gem would not have helped him either, because it is his wishes that ultimately lead him home, and without AURYN these wishes will not come true.

Bastian recognizes his true will - he wants to be able to love - and also finds out that it is his father he wants to love, but in the end all the selfish wishes that have determined his path turn against him in the end. In an attempt to appear as a great benefactor, Bastian had turned the Acharai, who (like himself) were sad about their own ugliness, but whose existence had a deeper meaning, into silts, always laughing clown moths, who, however, were not happy, but are ridiculous and lead a pointless existence. Out of anger, the Schlamuffen destroy the image of the father that Bastian was supposed to direct, but at the end Atreyu comes to his aid. The sight of his friend moves Bastian to take off the AURYN, and so he learns that he has carried the gate to home with him the whole time, which is opening at that moment. In this way, Atreyu, Fuchur and Bastian get inside AURYNS, where the spring is located from which the water of life rises. The reader learns that phantasians and humans can get here, but the Childlike Empress (as the only one) cannot. Because to get here you have to take off AURYN, and the Childlike Empress can never do that because she cannot take off herself. Atreyu realizes that he has been here before. This is the place the Childlike Empress had him and Fuchur brought to after the end of the Great Search, when nothingness devoured all of Fantasia with the exception of a tiny seed. Bastian and Atreyu cannot understand what the waters are saying, but Fuchur can, because they speak in a language of joy, and lucky dragons understand all languages ​​of joy. The waters demand an account of Bastian's identity and his deeds in fantasies, which he can no longer give because his memories have disappeared. But Atreyu invokes his authority as a friend, which is accepted by the guards, and answers in his place. So Bastian is allowed to go to the spring by the black snake that previously blocked the way, where he bathes and gets his memories back. When the guards demand that Bastian take responsibility for his actions and complete all the stories he started, it is Atreyu and Fuchur who take on this task in his place. Then the white snake lets him pass so that he can return to his world. In this way, Bastian's true will to be loved and to love himself is fulfilled, and with this awareness he manages to move the cold-hearted father to tears, to bring him the water of life from inside AURYNS, although nothing that is only in Fantasy exists, is let over the threshold by the snakes. He himself is now back to the fat little boy he was before, but he has understood that the power to change things for the better is hidden within himself.

AURYN thus appears as a kind of sacred area that can be entered in the form of a golden room. This is similar to Hoffmann's Golden Pot . Ende has used this topos before in Momo , who travels into her own heart, which is shaped like a room in which she can see the hour flowers. Bastian's bath in the waters of life symbolizes a new birth. In many cultures, water stands in a cave for the womb, from which the human being emerges rejuvenated, i.e. virtually reborn. Often, water is generally seen as a symbol of life.

According to Dorothee Ostmeier, the power of the amulet, which Bastian fulfills every will, is atavistic thing magic of the fantastic. Bastian's task is to distance himself from this magic of things, to emancipate himself from it and to reflect on the magic of names. This task is of an ethical nature. In this context, ethics is not a social concept, but refers to dealing with one's own self, with imagination and the dynamics of will. Bastian insists on having the AURYN amulet until the end. Only at the very last moment, when he has already forgotten his own name, the “poetic code” for returning to his homeland, does he give it back. Only his phantasical friend Atreyu can remind him of his name and only through him can he find his way back to name magic. The renewed access to the poetry of his name allows him to find his everyday life again. This renaming or re-naming by a figure from the fantasy sphere charges Bastian's name with fantastic potential and privileges the poetic language magic of the name over the atavistic thing magic of traditional fairy tales.

The amulet, the traditional magic of things in fairy tales, brings about the confrontation of the psyche with itself, for example with the lust for the death instinct that the seductive proximity of the morbid and corrupt Ice Queen represents. AURYN gives Bastian the opportunity to experiment with all will and desire powers and to work off death and life instincts until they overcome themselves and their own egocentrism and thereby transcend their own psyche. Finally, thing magic will be replaced by name magic. This inscribes the poetry of fantasy into everyday reality, which, however, is repeatedly threatened by arbitrary psychological processes. In this constant tension between the destruction and evocation of poetry lies the “infinite” potential for innovation and continuation of Bastian's story and all the stories that he initiated and did not complete and that were repeatedly inspired by him as a read figure.

Bastian's final crossing of borders reads like a baptismal scene. Bastian jump into the very happy "water of life". This vitalizing secularization of Christian healing motifs shifts concepts of divine transcendence and immanence into the sphere of linguistic magic. In fantasizing, Bastian works through arbitrary desires and urges in order to make the personal psyche more transparent for the transcendence of the phantasy, for his “true will”.

Points of friction with Christianity

The clear commitment of Ende to a dualistic worldview that is valid at least within the world of fantasy, which stands in contrast to the monistic worldview of Christianity , but above all the motto "Do what you want" prompted Klaus Berger and other Christian or Christian fundamentalist coined authors, to regard The Neverending Story as a work that only disguises itself as a fairy tale, but in truth seeks to spread occultist ideas. Berger clearly denies Rammerskirch's question whether The Neverending Story is a Christian fairy tale. “ The 'Neverending Story' a Christian fairy tale? As Erich Rammerskirch asks? No, absolutely not! The 'Neverending Story' is the way into the realm of magic, from which only he can get out who consciously renounces it and agrees to God. “Sums up Berger and works out in his closing words that God or Jesus is the only way to salvation.

Among other things, Berger is bothered by the parallel to the teachings of Crowley. In Crowley's manifesto, salvation is suggested through him, as if he had taken upon himself the sins of humanity. The allusion to Jesus is just as clear as in Ende's Momo or his water of life. But these allusions were only used for seduction. Do what you want is a clearly demonic maxim. Even Eva was seduced, albeit indirectly, with this sentence, with the known consequences. First the seduction, with which beauty, size and power are connected, then the end. With Augustine, however, at the beginning the devoted, self-sacrificing love is meant, from which the “do what you want” is derived. Those who love as Christ did, can do what they want, they always remain in Christ, whereby it should be noted that they do not do what they want first, but love first. Let Christ's love be exemplary and paramount for his actions. Only then does his will come, which leads to decisions that are tied to love. Augustine is therefore the source of supply for Ende's “Do what you want”.

With Rabaleis and Crowley, however, the magical background of their maxim is identical. Rabelais show him in his novel and Crowley in his doing. So he asked his followers to do what was hidden deep within them: “ Do what is deep within you - follow this! “End show this too. Bastian becomes a slave to his desires until he finally wants to declare himself ruler of Fantasia. To prevent this, intervene white magic.

If one examines the reality of the sentence “do what you want”, one comes to the conclusion that one can only do what one wants infinitely in evil. Accordingly, Berger understands the childlike empress, also because of her connection with the pale moonlight ("moon child"), as an allegory of Lucifer , Satan . It is consistent that even the avowedly sly and evil character in the story, the great sorceress Xayíde, shows due respect for the AURYN. Whoever bears the mark of Satan is invulnerable to a number of sub-demons. Bastian is said to be the property of Lucifer and is placed in his sphere of influence. According to Rudolf Steiner's theory of creation , the moon cosmos precedes the earthly kingdom. With the name Moon Child, Bastian identified her as a child of the moon cosmos and thus saved her. As the bearer of light and guardian of life in Fantastica, she is like Lucifer, who before his fall was a mighty and mighty angel prince. Bastian, who never met the Childlike Empress himself again in Fantasy, although he was eagerly looking for her, was called by her and led into the realm of fantasy. As with Momo, white magic leads into the land of magical fantasies and will soon be taken over by black magic. It is not for nothing that Bastian's meeting with the most powerful and worst magician of fantasy, Xayíde, is so detailed in the book. She is Satan who wants to bind Bastian to the earth and make him a false god.

AURYN thus identifies the wearer with the childlike empress, the moon child Lucifer, and it leads to power on wrong paths that lead to the dependence of Satan. The alleged fairy tales of the Neverending Story are therefore nothing but magic and occultism in their purest form. If one ignores the magical background and only regards the Neverending Story as a fairy tale, perhaps with a deep psychological dimension, then one is well on the way to succumbing to healing through magical fantasy. Bastian's path in Phantasia then resembles a path of purification or a path to finding one's own identity. However, Bastian's fantasy journey can be compared more with a transmigration and manipulation of souls, as contained in the occult systems that Ende studied.

Accordingly, fantasies can be identified with hell. As W. J. Ouwenell pointed out in his book Occultism and Eastern Mysticism with reference to Ecclesiastes 3:11, man is an eternal being. After the fall of man his nature was not taken from him. A desire for eternal and imperishable things they remained in him. But God severely restricted this ability because man was separated from God by sin. If man today develops the ability that is only present in him as a remainder, he could actually come into contact with the higher world. Since the way to God is closed by sin, this means that he can only come into contact with the god-hostile, demonic world.

People couldn't do what they wanted unless they wanted evil all the time. Good acts that are pleasing to God can only be performed when people live in communion with God. This also wants the salvation of the people, but according to his commandments and according to his will. Whoever wants to fulfill this needs the forgiveness of his sins and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in his life. The maxim for action is then no longer "Do what you want" , but do what God tells you, what the Spirit of God makes clear to you " .

In the first case man becomes God, in the second he lives to give honor to his Creator. Christians therefore responded to “do what you want” by saying that God was a holy God and would not tolerate other gods beside him. They consciously subordinated their will to the guidance of his will and not to the unauthorized do-what-you-want religion of healing from magical fantasies, which seduces people. Like Bastian, this ends at the source of the supposed water of life, which is surrounded by snakes. Life and death are still side by side here, the possibility of life is still possible for Bastian because he should bring others into the realm of magical imagination. Real life in God, however, includes overcoming evil through Jesus Christ on the cross. As with Momo, The Neverending Story ends in a mock happiness in life. Bastian came back to reality as a changed person, because he should show others the way to Fantastica. This is how Ende's mission campaign began. Many people followed him into the realm of magical fantasies. Ende used his magic book to reach millions of people with his message, but God resisted sorcery and manipulation. He needs witnesses and disciples who make the changes in their lives visible for their environment in all aspects of life for their environment. The message of the bible woo man in a loving way. The message of the end grabs people and wants to draw them into the reality of magic. Man must decide whether he wants to surrender to God or Satan, but the Endeschen fairy tales would soon be forgotten and the truth of God would gradually reveal itself. Salvation can only be found in God.

Since Ende was not interested in an attack on Christianity, he took note of such hostility with hurt, but ultimately not seriously because it did not do him justice. A closer look at Berger's arguments quickly reveals where his argumentation is flawed or at least vulnerable. So Bastian, in the spirit of Augustine, comes to the conclusion that his true will consists in being able to love. Since the “true will” cannot be changed at will and is therefore not available, this only allows the conclusion that Bastian's desire to love existed from the beginning, he just did not recognize it immediately. Contrary to what Berger claims, with Michael Ende it is love and not his own will that comes first. The conclusion that acting in any way first leads to evil (Xayíde), then to madness (Old Emperor City) is also drawn from the end with the same consequence. Bastian never had a chance to become the “false god”, as Berger thinks; The end leaves no doubt that those who want to rise to rulership of a fantasy world end up falling into nonsense. The Childlike Empress not only allows Bastian to reach this conclusion without influencing it, but rather this knowledge is the only way back into his world for him, and he leads through a gate that is formed by AURYN, the sign of the Childlike Empress . The equation of the Childlike Empress with Lucifer does not stand up to closer examination either. While it is true that the evil characters show respect for the AURYN, the good characters do likewise. Ende repeatedly emphasizes that the Childlike Empress makes no distinction between good and bad. To want to evaluate it (and with it fantasies) on the basis of the Christian-monistic point of view, which proceeds from a God claimed to be benevolent as the only pole of creation, does not do justice to this figure; Rather, it stands in the tradition of the great Asian belief systems, according to which the universe is created in the field of tension of opposites, i.e. always oscillates between two poles, as the derivation of the AURYN from the Ouroboros clearly shows.

It should also not be forgotten that the claim to sole salvation through God may be an important concern of a Christian, but that for an outsider it is only one belief among many. The Christian assumption, shaped by biblical tradition and thus above all by faith, is inaccessible to evidence. In general terms, even if it arises from a deep conviction, it can appear arrogant to followers of another worldview. Berger's premise that children should be able to be introduced to Christianity undisturbed grows solely from the Christian inner perspective based on the Bible and consequently can not demand universal validity against the background of modern human rights , especially freedom of religion . Against this background, the fact that Berger does not take the truth so seriously because he calls Crowley, who has distanced himself from Satanism, as the greatest Satanist of the 20th century, inevitably leads to the question of who is actually manipulating you from the end , who expressly speaks out against any form of proselytizing in The Neverending Story, or von Berger, who openly acknowledges the mission of the church. That The Neverending History was noticed by theology at all seems to be due more to its character as a mass phenomenon; Apparently the Church feels uncomfortable when a large number of young people realize that there are alternative ways of thinking before they are introduced to Christianity. By Joseph Ratzinger , the future Pope Benedict XVI. Originate similar comments on Joanne K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. "It is good that you enlighten people in matters of Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions that work imperceptibly and precisely because of this deep and decompose Christianity in the soul before it could really grow" wrote the then Cardinal Ratzinger in the year 2003 in an almost congruent analogy to Berger's remarks on the Neverending Story to the German Potter critic Gabriele Kuby and thus shows what it is actually about: A young person who has got to know alternative ideas is no longer so easy to incorporate into a worldview , which claims absolute validity for itself. The newspaper La Repubblica assumed that the Holy See was concerned not because of the magic described in the books, but rather because of the vision in which reality and the supernatural mix and do not adhere to the precise rules and regulations of the ecclesiastical hierarchy .

Numerous reviews of the Neverending Story in Christian magazines show that such a polarity between Ende's books and Christianity is not mandatory:

  • "This recommendable book (The Neverending Story)" ...
  • "But if you want to be inspired to shape reality a little bit better in your own way, you should read the" Neverending Story "first" ...
  • "Will there be a poet again or again who, like Michael Ende, his psychological fairy tale, would give us one from the abundance of revelation and the Christian faith?"
  • "Through the pictorial and symbolic language, through the whole positive statement of the neverending story, I felt this by no means Christian book as a gift that transmits hope".
  • “This book is a mirror into which we look and discover the infinity of images that are hidden within us. (...) But for Michael Ende one result seems to be important, that we learn to take our imagination seriously, that we do not consider things to be the ultimate reality. "

“ Dear G.,
in the PS of your last letter you casually ask me whether I know the books by Alestair Crowley. I already know what this question is aiming at, and since I have been receiving more inquiries from concerned educators recently and some kind of campaign is even being waged against me by certain Protestant circles, I would like to answer your question in more detail.
It is true that in the course of my life, in my search for clues that could lead us out of the desert of our present civilization, I have sometimes drifted around in the most adventurous labyrinths. You will not easily find a halfway significant figure of esotericism, mysticism or magic (whatever you mean by that) - in a positive as well as in a negative sense - that I have not already dealt with. Of necessity, I also had to eat my way through mountains of so-called 'occult' field, forest and meadow literature.
My encounter with Crowley's apprenticeship went like this: When I was quite young, about thirty, I met a biologist. H. F., an author of scientific non-fiction books not unknown at the time. After countless intensive, mostly nightly conversations, it turns out that he was Thelemit, a member of a secret order founded by Crowley. He tried to win me over to this cause. As teaching material I received the lodge literature from him, which at that time was only accessible to members of the order. You can now buy almost anything in the esoteric department of any major bookstore. At that time, however, I was no longer a complete newbie in this field and found the Crowleyian teachers to be hermetic kitsch. My friend's efforts failed because of mine - what do you call it in your letter? - 'internal opposition'. Incidentally, it ended a few years later with the systematic use of various drugs in a mental hospital, customary among Crowley supporters, and presumably killed himself there. I have never been able to find out exactly.
Well, you can learn a lot from the devil if you don't let him get you off - although I would like to add at the same time that Crowley is greatly overestimated if you identify him with the incarnate. He is little more than a dope comedian of his own doctrine, with a downright exorbitant lack of good taste (a trait, incidentally, which he shares with many gurus or grandmasters of all stripes). In any case, only people who are quite clueless in this field can overlook the fact that his teaching is an utterly eclectic concoction of ingredients that come from elsewhere, mainly from books by Eliphas Lévi (Abbé Luis constant), the Madama Blavatzki and older Masonic literature, seasoned with a dash of Nietzsche and served in ancient Egyptian ceramics. Basically, he was probably more of a quirky rich Englishman who tried to justify his perverse sexual inclinations and drug addiction through rituals than the great demon he made himself up to be. That he even referred to himself as "To Mega Therion", the apocalyptic "Tier 666", seems to us today, when we are aware of apocalyptic horrors of completely different magnitudes, as a kind of silliness. In any case, its negative need for recognition is far greater than its originality or its actual significance.
Now we have some people who find the effect of my books incomprehensible and therefore suspicious - envy probably also plays a certain role - noticed that the phrase 'Do What You Will' from my Neverending Story also occurs in Crowley's works and therefore suspects me to be a secret agent of the satanic teachings of this villain and thus a youth spoiler.
If these critics were just a little more well-read and knew at least the basic works of European culture, then they should know that this sentence and also the motif of the search for the 'true will' (Thelema) did not come from Crowley at all. Like so many other things, he just adapted it for himself. Rather, it comes from the book Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelasi, who was a contemporary, medical colleague and probably a friend of Michael Nostradamus. He wrote this book, which is bristling with drastic and comical ideas, to encourage his patients. One can confidently call it one of the greatest classical works of the fantastically humorous world literature. In the second part of the book, the princely journey Pantagruel comes with his highly amusing entourage to a monastery called 'Thelema', in which men and women live together. The only rule of this monastery is 'do what you want'.
But even Rabelais did not invent this sentence. Long before him he is found in the writings of St. Augustine, who, when asked what one must do for eternal life, answers: 'Love God - and do what you want.' And who knows where he got it from. Maybe from ancient sources unknown to me. It seems to me that this sentence runs through the whole of Western history as a kind of counterpart to the other - 'gnothi seauton'. Maybe they belong together at all: 'Know yourself - and do what you want.'
As we are already at it, allow me to make a comment about the special function of this sentence in my book, which unfortunately is often not noticed at all and is simply overlooked, as I have noticed. Without wishing to enter into further argumentation about the meaning of Do What You Willst in Augustine or Rabelais - not to mention Crowley - I want to say very clearly that this sentence is not a rule of life for me. In the Neverending Story it is only valid where I believe it belongs, namely in fantasies, that is, in the realm of the imaginary, art, poetry, dreams. This kingdom is, as we know, amoral; in it, as is expressly stated again and again, good and bad apply equally and are equally necessary. It would be pointless to judge dreams morally as it would be pointless to reject Iago or Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's work because they are the devil. Fantasia is there, so to speak, to dream all, even the bad dreams. But in order to return to external reality, to the world of fellow human beings, my protagonist has to give up precisely this sign of authority and with it, of course, the maxim that stands on it. Only by voluntarily renouncing it will he find his way back, by renouncing 'do what you will' Auryn becomes the gateway into the world of fellow human beings. "

“ Dear AM, there
are about 20 letters to the editor on my desk this morning, all of which want to be answered. So you will understand that it is impossible for me to answer your questions as thoroughly as you expect and as I would like to. In addition, the result of lifelong reflection cannot be represented on one or two pages of a letter. Things are not that simple. But I want to give you a few pointers.
First of all: I don't know Klaus Berger's book about myself, but after what you've written about it, you should read it with caution. What Mr Berger thinks about me are his more or less clever thoughts, not mine. So much is being written about me and my books all the time. Friendly and less friendly, clever and less clever, that I cannot keep busy with it. Otherwise I would hardly get anything sensible. I think it is very regrettable that it was your religion teacher of all people who gave you this book.
I have not completed a "study of Kabbalistic studies", and when Mr. Berger writes something like this, he is only demonstrating a complete lack of expertise. Nobody can complete a degree in Kabbalistic studies, because Kabbalah is not a closed field of knowledge, not even a single book, but consists of hundreds, even thousands of books. Nor is it any creepy magic or anything like that. The word 'Kabbalah' simply means 'tradition' in German and relates to all deeper knowledge of the Jewish religion that has been passed on orally and finally in writing for two to three thousand years. However, I am of the opinion that many of the expressions in the Old and New Testament can only be understood if one is familiar with these connections. After all, Jesus and his disciples were Jews - even if that no longer suits some people these days. That is why I have endeavored my whole life to understand this 'tradition'.
The fact that I wanted to write an "Antibibel for the wicked" with the Neverending Story is almost funny. The term "book of books" is not only used by Christians for the Bible, but also by the Jews for the Torah, the Muslims for their Koran, the Hindus for the Bhagawatgita, etc. ... then I would also have an anti-Koran, one Anti-Bhagawatgita etc. written. Oh, dear A. M., do not believe everything that people print and gossip about.
It is correct that I am convinced that the world and man are much more mysterious than today's natural science can show us. For this reason I have dealt with many religions in the world, present and past, and tried to understand their backgrounds. But you can tell your religion teacher that I am probably no worse Christian than him, even if he may be unfamiliar with my thoughts and ideas. There is one of the ten commandments that concerns 'false testimony'. Does he remember it?
No, my book is not about black, white or checkered magic, it’s about something completely different, and I don’t want to heal the world with magic either - although I don’t really know what Mr Berger means by that. A hundred years ago, for example, hypnosis was definitely counted as magic or occultism and accordingly held for nonsense or demonized, today many doctors use it as a natural healing method, even dentists for drug-free anesthesia when pulling teeth. So here, too, you have to be a little more careful about judging. What you mean by such expressions depends entirely on the level of knowledge (or prejudice).
I have also been told - unfortunately by the pastor - that my books were written under the influence of drugs. If you or your friends are told this about me too, don't believe it. It's a lie. How poor must it be for people who cannot explain their creative imagination otherwise.
And finally: As for the existence of beings that we do not perceive with our normal five senses - well, the Old and New Testaments in particular are full of reports about angels and demons. If today's interpreters of the Bible say: That was then, today we are enlightened and know better - then that only means that they are putting their opinion above that of the Bible authors. They look for what fits their concept and explain everything else away. But of course they can do that with all the contents of the Bible, and they do it too, unfortunately.
I said, and I still say, that every single tree is much more than just the result of chemical-physical processes. Behind the outer shape of a tree there is something living and being, which is of a spiritual nature - as behind every creature of nature. Only a loveless and mindless idea of ​​the world can doubt that. This materialistic conception has led us into the devastation of nature. What I am saying has absolutely nothing to do with pantheism.
The spiritual and soul in below the phenomena of the world are hidden from our direct sensory perception; "Hidden" is only the German translation of the Latin word "occult". In this sense, not only Christianity but all the great religions of the world speak of the hidden or occult, that is, of the divine and spiritual, which underlies all appearances of creation. So don't let that word scare you. Originally it has nothing to do with superstition and charlatanism, even if certain kohlrabi apostles and sect gurus misuse the word for their own purposes. But everything can be misused - even Christianity, as history shows.
With best regards and the well-intentioned advice, in the future to get your information on this topic, if possible, from more than one book. " "

The sword Sikánda

The lion Graógramán petrifies at night and is thus practically dead. In the morning the magic dissolves and he is literally reborn. Bastian tells him that this is happening so that the desert that Graógramán creates and carries with it will disappear. This enables the Perelín Night Forest to grow rapidly and abundantly at night. Graógramán thereby understands the meaning of his existence. Dying gives life, life gives death, and both are good. Graógramán gives Bastian a thank you with a sword that looks old and worthless in its scabbard and only reveals its true nature in the hand of the wearer. His sheet then consists of glistening light that one can hardly look at. It is double-edged and weighs as light as a feather in your hand.

The sword has always been meant for Bastian. Because only he who has ridden on Graógramán's back, who has eaten and drunk from his fire and bathed in it, can touch it without danger. However, only Bastian who wears the AURYN can do this. When Bastian names the weapon Sikánda, it finally belongs to him. The artifact only unfolds its true powers after it has received its name.

There is nothing that can withstand the sword, including steel or rock. But you mustn't do him any violence. It may only be used when it jumps by itself into the hand of its bearer, whatever threatens it; obviously it has its own personality. But if you pull it out of the sheath according to your own will, this will bring great disaster to its bearer and fantasies. Bastian ties the scabbard around his waist with a leather strap.

Sikánda is always with Bastian, in the competition against hero Hynreck as well as in the fight against Xayíde's hollow guardian creatures made of brass. Only when Bastian tries to wield the sword in the battle for the ivory tower against Atreyu does it fail. When Bastian draws the sword in anger and uses it against his friend, it loses its magical powers. This is accompanied by a terrible sound, the same one that sounds when Graógráman turns to stone.

Even without Sikánda's special powers, Bastian succeeds in inflicting a deep, bleeding wound at Atreyu, which makes him fall from the ivory tower where Fuchur catches him.

When Bastian learns what fate is threatening him in the “Old Emperor City”, he says goodbye to Sikánda. He digs a hole in the earth, ties the sword from the hip and puts it in it. “ Sikánda! ", He says," I say goodbye to you forever. Never again shall calamity come from someone who pulls you against a friend. And nobody should find you here until what happened through you and me is forgotten. “Then it digs up the hole again and places moss and twigs over the place so that no one should discover it. Only in the distant future will someone come who can touch it safely, but that is one of the other stories that will be told another time.

Sikánda resembles the two swords from the Arthurian legend, the sword in the stone that was stuck in a boulder for centuries so that it could only be pulled out of the stone by the rightful heir to the throne and future king Camelots, and Excalibur, the Arthur by the mistress of Lake is passed. Like Excalibur, Sikánda gives Bastian tremendous power and invincibility. But the invincible power of such a sword must never be misused: if you pull the sword out of its scabbard with the use of force without it jumping into your hands, it will bring ruin to the owner. When Bastian made this mistake, he unleashed what is probably the most devastating war that the fantasy kingdom has ever experienced, and in which the ivory tower also fell victim to the flames. The echo of the swords of the world of sagas and legends is wanted from the end. After all, these legends are an essential part of our culture and therefore at home in Fantastica.

The stone Al'Tsahir

Out of his desire to meet Atreyu, Bastian reaches the silver city of Amargánth from the Goab desert via the Thousand Doors Temple. There the desire awakens in him to be able to prove his skills as a storyteller to Atreyu. According to an ancient tradition, the Amaragánther are the song singers and storytellers in Fantasia. However, since only people, not fantasy figures (imaginers) can invent new stories, their supply of stories is very limited, so that they have to tell variants of the same about a hundred stories over and over again. At the request of the Amargánther, Bastian decides to give them all of his stories. In order not to have to tell everyone, Bastian invents another story, the story of the city of Amargánth. According to Bastian's story, the city was built by the Acharai, who are so ugly that they live underground, where their ugliness cannot be seen, and who always weep over it. With their tears they wash the silver from the depths of the earth that make up the city. They are also the ones who expanded the city. In return, the people comply with the Acharai's wish to devote themselves to singing songs and telling stories. The Acharai live in the knowledge that their ugliness contributes to something beautiful.

Aquil and Muqua, the Amargánther who signed the contract with the Acharai, have built a library in the center of Amargánth in which they have collected Bastian's stories. The moment Bastian's story ends, this library was created and has always been there.

When Bastian, accompanied by the Amargánther, approaches the library, he finds a stone in a ring-shaped setting in the middle of its smooth, silver door that looks like a piece of clear glass. It was cut from the horn of a unicorn that Quin, the son of the silver giress Quana, had killed in order to obtain possession of the stone. Through this outrage he had brought great harm to the city, because the inhabitants had fewer and fewer children, and only when the Acharai had developed the city into the most beautiful fantasy in Asia, the curse was broken.

As with the Sikánda sword, he first has to give the stone a name before it belongs to him and develops his powers. Bastian calls him Al'Tsahir, and when Bastian calls him that, the doors of the library open and the Amargánthians can take possession of Bastian's stories.

Above the stone there is an inscription that says that the stone will shine for him for a hundred years and will guide its wearer into the dark depths of Yors Minroud. But if Bastian mentions his name a second time from the end to the beginning, he will radiate these hundred years of shine in an instant.

That's exactly what Bastian does after all. Out of his desire to appear to others as a great sage, Bastian creates the star monastery with the three deeply minded people, who ask him to reveal the true nature of fantasy to them. Bastian answers them that the whole of Phanatásia exists in the Neverending Story and this in turn in the book that is still in the school attic. There is also the origin of the three deeply minded ones, which are the phantasical variant of the stuffed animals that are there. In order to make the school attic, which is located above the star monastery, visible, Bastian burns the light of Al'Tsahir in an instant by speaking the name of the stone backwards.

When Bastian finally reaches the Minroud pit and the miner Yor to find a picture of the person he wants to love so that it can lead him home, he realizes that he would now need the stone to close the darkness of the pit enlighten. So Bastian has to search for the picture in complete darkness, which, since he is diligent and unswerving, he finally succeeds. He can feel a picture of his father, because this, like his emotional life, is completely covered in ice.

As the Arabic-sounding name suggests, Michael Ende was inspired by the stories about the open sesame from the fairy tale Ali Baba and the forty robbers from 1001 nights . Here, too, pronouncing the magic formula aloud develops the desired effect.

The Gémmal belt

Gémmal is a narrow belt made up of movable links like a kind of chain. Each link and the clasp are made of clear glass. The belt is kept in an extremely preciously decorated box.

The magical artifact is presented to Bastian by Xayíde. As with the Sikánda sword and the Al'Tsahir stone, Bastian must first give it a name so that it finally belongs to him. It is a belt that makes you invisible.

Xayíde's gift is not an altruistic one, rather it serves to drive a wedge in the friendship between Bastian and Atreyu so that the green-skinned boy can no longer disturb the plans she has with Bastian. Immediately after the gift of the belt, Xayíde indulged in hints that Atreyu wanted to harm Bastian and in this way sows suspicion. “It will be seen, my lord and master. The Gemmal belt will prove it to you. ”She whispers when Bastian leaves her camp angrily.

A little later Bastian decides to use the belt to get into Atréjus and Fuchur's company. Neither of them speak to him since he added Xayíde to the group that had all too obviously planned her capture. In this way he learns that the two have come up with the plan to take AURYN away from him. Bastian, bitterly disappointed, sets a trap for the two of them, has them captured and banishes them from his entourage. In this way he ensures that both of them assemble an army and stand on the side of Bastian's opponent in the battle for the ivory tower, if only to protect him.

While trying to save Bastian's belt from the burning ivory tower, his faithful servant, the blue genie Illuán, falls in battle and is one of the numerous victims that Bastian's selfish decision, motivated by Xayíde, claims to become Emperor of the Child to crown. Xayíde returns the belt to Bastian. But Illuán's sacrifice turns out to be just as pointless as the battle itself and the lives it has claimed. When Bastian Atréju pursues to take revenge on him, he loses his belt Gémmal in a juniper bush. He doesn't even notice the loss and never thinks about it again later. The belt is finally found by a magpie and carried into its nest, but that too is yet another story to be told another time.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Introduction.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Chapter II.
  3. ↑ a b c Chapter I., II.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Chapter III.
  5. ↑ a b c Chapter VII.
  6. ↑ Chapters IV. And VI.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Chapter XII.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Chapter XIII. to XXVI.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Chapter XXII.
  10. ↑ Chapter XXIV. To and XXVI.
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Chapter XXVI.
  12. ↑ Bastian Balthasar Bux, figure of the neverending story.
  13. ↑ Chapters II. To XII.
  14. ↑ Meaning of the name Atreyu.
  15. ↑ The name Atreyu.
  16. ↑ Chapters IV. And V.
  17. ↑ Chapter III. to XI.
  18. ↑ Chapters III., VII. And XII.
  19. ↑ a b c d e Chapter XVII.
  20. ↑ In particular in Chapter XXII.
  21. ↑ Atreyu, Figure of the Neverending Story.
  22. ↑ a b c d e f g h Chapter X.
  23. ↑ Among other things, Chapter XIII.
  24. ↑ Chapter III. Atreyu learns this from the ancient Morla.
  25. ↑ a b Chapter XI.
  26. ↑ a b c d e f Chapter XIII.
  27. ↑ a b Chapter II., XIII.
  28. ↑ For the first time Chapters I. to III.
  29. ↑ Chapter XII. and XIII.
  30. ↑ a b Chapter XV.
  31. ↑ The Childlike Empress, figure of the neverending story.
  32. ↑ a b c d e f g h Chapter IV.
  33. ↑ For example in Chapter XXVI.
  34. ↑ a b c d Chapter V.
  35. ↑ So too, when the Waters of Life set Atreyu and him the most difficult task of ending all the stories that Bastian began in Fantasia, Chapter XXVI.
  36. ↑ Fuchur / Falkor, figure of the neverending story .
  37. ↑ a b Roman Hocke, Uwe Neumahr: Michael Ende. Magical worlds. published by the Deutsches Theatermuseum Munich. Henschel Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89487-583-1 .
  38. ↑ Chapters V. to VII.
  39. ↑ a b Chapter IX.
  40. ↑ For the events in the book, see Chapters IX and X.
  41. ↑ Chapter XIII. to XV.
  42. ↑ Chapter I.
  43. ↑ Cf. up to this point Chapter VI.
  44. ↑ Chapter XX. and XXI.
  45. ↑ a b c d e Chapter XXIII.
  46. ↑ At the beginning of Chapter 24.
  47. ↑ Chapter VI.
  48. ↑ Chapter VIII.
  49. ↑ a b Chapter XVI., XVII.
  50. ↑ a b Chapter XVI. to XXII.
  51. ↑ Chapter XVIII., XV.
  52. ↑ a b Chapter XVI.
  53. ↑ a b c d e f Chapter XXI.
  54. ↑ Chapter XXIV.
  55. ↑ a b c Chapter XXV.
  56. ↑ Chapter I, XXVI.
  57. ↑ Chapters I. to XII.
  58. ↑ In the introductory chapter.
  59. ↑ a b c d Klaus Berger : Michael Ende. Healing through magical imagination. With a foreword by Ulrich Skambraks. Publishing house and writing mission of the Evangelical Society for Germany, Wuppertal 1985, ISBN 3-87857-203-4 .
  60. ↑ Chapter XXII: Little by little she could see a faint, reddish glow in the darkness. It radiated from a book that was open in the air in the middle of the egg-shaped room. It was bound in copper-colored silk, and like the jewel that the Childlike Empress wore around her neck, two snakes were to be seen on this book, biting each other's tails and forming an oval. And in this oval was the title: The Neverending Story.
  61. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Roman and Patrick Hocke: Michael Ende, The Neverending Story. The encyclopedia of fantasy. Thienemann-Verlag, Regensburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-522-20050-9 .
  62. ↑ Bernhard Dietrich Haage : Ouroboros - and no end. In: Josef Domes, Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard Dietrich Haage, Christoph Weißer, Volker Zimmermann (eds.): Light of nature. Medicine in specialist literature and poetry: Festschrift for Gundolf Keil on his 60th birthday. (= Göppingen work on German studies. 585). Göppingen 1994, pp. 149-169.
  63. ↑ In particular, Bastian wishes in Chapters XIII. to XXII. always the opposite of what it actually is.
  64. ↑ Jormungand. = Midgardschlange In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 10, Leipzig 1907, p. 309.
  65. ↑ Wolfgang Hübner: Properties of the signs of the zodiac in antiquity. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-515-03337-8 .
  66. ^ Robert Powell: History of the Zodiac. Astronova, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-937077-23-9 .
  67. ↑ The gates made of horn and ivory
  68. ↑ Complete German translation of the Aeneid (Latin text can be parallelized).
  69. ↑ This motto is mentioned for the first time in the book when the Childlike Empress hands over the gem to Bastian (Chapter XIII.). As Bastian in Chapter XVII. When Atreyu asks about the inscription, the latter explains that although he saw it, he was unable to read and therefore did not know what it meant. This is consistent, as the AURYN does not fulfill any wishes in the hands of a fantasy man.
  70. ↑ Bastian learns that this is his job from Graógramán, the Colorful Death (Chapter XV.), Who advises him that he must not just do what he feels like doing. Bastian initially underestimates how difficult this path is and that it requires the utmost truthfulness and attention in order not to get lost. “Do you think because maybe it is not always good wishes that one has?” He asks Graógramán, who replies: “What do you know what wishes are! What do you know what is good! " .
  71. ↑ Aleister Crowley , Edward A. Crowley: The Book of Law, Liber AL vel Legis. Kersken-Canbaz Verlag, 1992, ISBN 3-89423-000-2 .
  72. ^ Andreas Ludwig: Aleister Crowley's Scientific Illuminism. Magic and mysticism as applied psychology for the transformation of humans. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-8288-8869-0 .
  73. ↑ Horst E. Miers : Lexicon of the secret being. Munich 1982, p. 99.
  74. ↑ Chapter XXIV, XXV.
  75. ↑ In epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos, Tractatus VII, eighth
  76. ↑ Portal to the Catholic spiritual world
  77. ↑ Horst Rammerskirch: A Christian fairy tale? "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende ". In: Christ der Gegenwart. 36th Volume, No. 51, December 16, 1984, p. 421.
  78. ↑ you = a group of monks.
  79. ^ François Rabelais : Gargantua and Pantagruel. 1532, Volume 1, Frankfurt 1979, pp. 170ff.
  80. ↑ “ Do what you want! “ In: The time . No. 6/1954.
  81. ↑ Peter S. Beagle : The last unicorn (original title: The Last Unicorn ). German by Jürgen Schweier. Hobbit press. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-608-87502-6 .
  82. ↑ Typescript from the author's estate, published in: Roman Hocke, Uwe Neumahr: Michael Ende. Magical worlds. German Theater Museum Munich. Henschel-Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89487-583-1 .
  83. ↑ Atreyu can, for example, face Ygramul of the Many or the four storms, chapters IV. And VIII.
  84. ↑ E.g. Chapter X: The Nothing that is coming ever closer. But AURYN protected him from the suction .
  85. ↑ a b in particular Chapter XXIII.
  86. ↑ Chapter XIX.
  87. ↑ Chapter XIV.
  88. ↑ Chapter XXIV., XXV.
  89. ↑ Chapter XVIII.
  90. ↑ Dorothee Ostmeier: Between Worlds of Fantasy. parapluie.de
  91. ↑ Berger refers in this regard to the article Moon Child Lucifer . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 1984 ( online ).
  92. ↑ Is. 59.2: "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God."
  93. ↑ Chapter XXIV: The days in the House of Changes passed and the summer still continued. Bastian continued to enjoy being pampered by Dame Aiuóla like a child. Even her fruits still tasted as delicious to him as at the beginning, but gradually his cravings were satisfied. He ate less of it. And she noticed it without saying a word about it. He also felt satisfied with her care and tenderness. And as his need for it diminished, a longing of a completely different kind awoke in him, a longing that he had never felt before and that differed in every respect from all his previous wishes: the longing to love oneself can. With astonishment and sadness he realized that he couldn't. But the desire for it got stronger and stronger. And one evening, when they were sitting together again, he talked about it with the lady Aiuóla. After listening to him, she was silent for a long time. Her gaze rested on Bastian with an expression he didn't understand. “Now you have found your last wish,” she said, “your true will is to love”.
  94. ↑ Chapter XXV. and XXVI.
  95. ↑ Worked out for the first time at the very beginning of the story, in Chapter 2.
  96. ↑ Rachel Storm: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Mythology. Reichelsheim 2000, ISBN 3-89736-305-4 .
  97. ↑ Stephan Schuhmacher, Gert Woerner: Lexicon of Eastern Wisdom Teachings. Buddhism. Hinduism. Taoism. Zen. Vienna 1986.
  98. ↑ Joachim Schmidt: Satanism: The Religion of the Ego - The First Church of Satan and the Temple of Set. In: Connection. 1995.
  99. ↑ Chapter I: “He didn't like books that told him in a bad-tempered or cranky way the everyday occurrences from the everyday life of some very everyday people. In reality he had enough of that, why should he read about it? Besides, he hated it when he realized that someone was trying to get him to do something. And in this type of book you should always, more or less clearly, be led to something. "
  100. ↑ a b Ratzinger doesn't like Harry on Spiegel online .
  101. ↑ The community. No. 14/1984.
  102. ↑ point. No. 6/1984.
  103. ↑ The Neverending Story.
  104. ↑ Christ in the Present. Volume 36, No. 51, p. 421.
  105. ↑ Pack it! No. 3/3, 1981.
  106. ↑ What is meant here is the mirror in the mirror .
  107. ↑ Pack it! No. 4, 1984.
  108. ↑ Michael Ende: Letter to a world explorer. In: Roman Hocke: Michael Ende's card box. Stuttgart / Vienna 1994, p. 300 ff.
  109. ↑ Michael Ende: Letter to a frightened reader. In: Michael Ende: Zettelkasten. P. 170 ff.
  110. ↑ a b Chapter XX.
  111. ↑ “Bastian Baltasar Bux”, said he [the silver rice Quérquobad, head of the city of Amargánth], “you have given us more than a story and more than all stories. You gave us our own origins. Now we know where Murhu comes from and our silver ships and palaces that the sea carries. Now we know why we have been a people of song singers and storytellers since ancient times. And above all, we now know what that big, round building in our city contains, which no one of us has ever set foot in because it has been locked since time immemorial. It contains our greatest treasure, and we didn't know it before. It contains the library of Amargánth. "
  112. ↑ “Weren't you given any light on your long journey?” Asked Yor and looked through Bastian again, “no shining stone, nothing that could help you now?” “Yes,” replied Bastian sadly, “but I did I used Al'Tsahir for something else. ”“ Bad, ”Yor repeated with a stony face.