The image above represents a powerful moment in my life. And we’ll get there soon enough.
“Is it really me?” asks a confused Bastian over the heavy and opened book, battling through waves and waves of cognitive dissonance.
“Maybe he doesn’t know what he has to do!” screams Atreyu as the floor of the Ivory Tower shakes, and the very pillars around him split and crumble.
“What do I have to do?” screams Bastian, wide eyes watering. The lightning and thunder intensify outside.
The Childlike Empress shakes her head. “He has to give me a new name,” she says, matter-of-factly. “He’s already chosen it. He just has to call it out.”
SOLVING THE RIDDLE
It’s no secret that all writers, all creatives, all mankind, spend their early years as young children.
But what would Michael Ende make of The Neverending Story decades before he’d written it?
And if you could show J.R.R. Tolkien the world he would one day go on to create for Lord of the Rings while he’s still a young boy, he’d hardly believe it.
The only way Tolkien goes on to create that world is if he one day gets inspired enough to write it, from start to finish, and publish it.
It’s going to be a long, hard road if he wants to grow up into the writer he was meant to be. It will require inspiration, influences, war, struggle, adversity, a passion for philology, and maybe even a friendship with a certain fellow Oxford Don who goes by the name of Clive.
The young Tolkien will either persevere and write it someday, or he will not. And if he doesn’t, The Nothing will swallow it up.
Perhaps this time, it’s the grief of losing his friends during the first World War that lets him sink too deeply into the Swamp of Sadness.
Should that occur, perhaps The Inklings will never form. Perhaps Clive will never get inspired enough to write, and never find Christianity. And then neither influential writer will go on to inspire more people. It’s a domino effect that ripples across the ages.
And a very different world begins to paint its ugly picture.
In this alternate reality, all the generations of readers during and after Tolkien’s time never got to experience his trilogy. They never got to hear The Hobbit before bedtime. They didn’t get to be inspired by it, because in this alternate reality, it never existed.
The first fantasy novel I ever read on my own was The Magician’s Nephew. It wasn’t long before I also found The Hobbit. Would I even have aspirations to write today had Tolkien let The Nothing consume his tale?
As the Childlike Empress said:
“He simply can’t imagine that one little boy could be that important.”
WHAT IS THE NEVERENDING STORY?
If G’mork’s dialogue had helped us define The Nothing and Fantasia, the Childlike Empress’ dialogue is here to help us define The Neverending Story itself, and Bastian’s role within it.
In the previous post, she gave us a crucial clue:
“They were with him when he took the book with the Auryn symbol on the cover, in which he’s reading his own story right now.”
So, it’s exactly as it sounds: Bastian is reading his own story. Not Koreander’s. Not some story someone else wrote 100 years ago. It’s Bastian’s.
When Koreander opens The Neverending Story, he reads about the worlds and characters he either already created or will someday create.
Atreyu wouldn’t be in Koreander’s version of the book. The Rock Biter wouldn’t be there, either, nor the Nighthob.
Perhaps Koreander’s version of the book would have the Childlike Empress and G’mork. Maybe even The Nothing. And we’ll discuss why.
If Bastian’s father were to open this book, on the other hand, he would likely see blank pages. He’s chosen the uncreative consumer path. A mundane, practical, riskless life that has little room for creativity.
Perhaps when he was a young child, he was still creative and full of imagination. Most children are filled with wonder when hearing bedtime stories, after all, or while sitting in Santa Claus’ lap.
But somewhere along the way, a hard-knock life stomped that wonder out of him.
Just like the bullies had tried to do with Bastian.
Perhaps in Bastian’s father’s life, G’mork won and The Nothing was allowed to proliferate until there was literally nothing left.
That’s not to say everyone should be creative. But if you feel that calling, you shouldn’t let G’mork and The Nothing win.
And so, this tome is a magical book of inspiration. A view into your potential future career as a writer.
The second gate, if you recall, was the “‘Magic Mirror Gate”, in which you must face your true self. Atreyu looks inside and sees Bastian reading the book in the movie world.
I think the idea is that if YOU were reading The NeverEnding Story, your main character would see YOU in the mirror instead of Bastian (and the book itself would read differently, depending on your personality, creative process, and calling.)
Even if you had this book, however, it’d still be up to you to bring that world into reality. The book won’t do it for you.
Furthermore, a warrior can’t defeat The Nothing with a mere sword. It requires a creator, a producer, a writer, to defeat nothing by filling it with something.
As I said, most seem to think this movie is simply about Bastian’s battle with depression. Therefore, The Nothing is a literal manifestation of the depression trying to consume him. “It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world.”
So, given that line, the interpretation makes sense on the surface level. But, you see, when you lose a parent as a child, you are forced to grow up very quickly. And when you enter the adult world too fast, you often leave behind your wonder, your creativity. The magic is shattered.
Your childlike inner-self is lost. The innocence you felt when listening to your mother’s bedtime stories, gone. That is why the Childlike Empress is feeling ill at the beginning of the tale. She is dying precisely because Fantasia is being forgotten. Bastian’s loss of innocence is going to cost him his beautiful fantasy world.
And G’mork, of course, is a servant of the Devil. He wants to foster The Nothing’s growth in every human’s version of The Neverending Story. Because he knows a truly great story can have a positive influence on the world for generations.
BASTIAN’S STRUGGLE… AND OURS’
The Nothing sweeps away the courtyard surrounding the Ivory Tower in a violent eruption.
Atreyu is thrown to the ground and struck unconscious. The Childlike Empress grows concerned and feels pity and sadness, realizing Bastian might not possess the courage to heed his calling, after all.
And then she looks at the camera. She looks directly at you.
She calls out Bastian’s name but…
…she’s looking at you.
“Why don’t you do what you dream?” she asks. She knows the wonder and innocence of your childhood is about to die. She knows the beauty of all you have failed to create. And she doesn’t want it to perish.
“But I can’t!” cries Bastian. And even if you can’t pinpoint why, you may feel Bastian’s struggle within yourself right alongside him, as if your own soul trembled and has cried out his words.
“Call my name,” she pleads desperate, more fear etching across her face with every passing second.
She’s begging you. Don’t kill your inner child. Don’t let your creations die.
“Please!” she screams. “Save us!”
Save us, she said. She’s referring to everyone. Not just herself. She means all the denizens of Fantasia. All the denizens of all Fantasias. She’s referring to Bastian and every would-be creator like him. She’s referring to the future generations who would be inspired by your work. She speaks of the unimaginable numbers of untold tales lost to the ages forever. She’s referring to you. The Empress can save you. Bastian can save you. He just has to show you the way.
Bastian’s barriers have finally broken down. It’s too much for him. It no longer matters if this is real and grounded.
“Alright!” cries Bastian with frightened conviction. “I’ll do it! I’ll save you! I will do what I dream!”
He rushes to the window and feels the raging storm pressing against his face, and cries out her name into the night.
It’s a cathartic moment like few others.
With that single act of creation, he is now a producer. He has rescued his inner child. He has preserved the innocence of his youth despite having lost his mother at such a young age. And he will go on to create. Because he has broken down his wall.
The original cut of this movie masks the name he cries into the night with the sounds of rain and thunder (this is done through sound mastering on purpose).
If you have to know exactly what he named her, you missed the point of the movie.
Because it doesn’t matter what he said. It’s up to YOU to name the Childlike Empress. You need to be creative and break through all your nonsense.
If you don’t, if you carry your creative ideas to your grave, you let your Childlike Empress, and everyone she was speaking about, die.
Every creator goes through the same thing. And it can be an epic struggle, that point in your life when you realize you have to create. Chances are, your calling will fight you before you obey it.
Don’t let The Nothing win.
Nick Enlowe 