The Neverending Story

For the sake of my argument, I hope that several of you are familiar with the film “The Neverending Story” and its decent, though less spectacular, sequel, “The Neverending Story II.” As I was watching these movies recently, I noticed afresh that the evil forces could pontentially be read through an existential lens. In the first movie, it is called The Nothing; in the second movie, it is The Emptiness.

First, let me explain the setting of these movies. Fantasia is the world of dreams, imagination, and ‘make believe’ in general. Potentially, one could even assert that Fantasia is imagination itself. The Nothing of the first movie is destroying Fantasia and reducing it to non-being. It is an inexplicable, unknown evil. It destroys; creatures fear it, but they do not know why. One could look to Tillich’s theories of anxiety about non-being. The creatures are powerless to stop it in large part because The Nothing is not a particular object. Tillich notes that “anxiety strives to become fear.” If The Nothing manifested itself in an object or a person, then the creatures of Fanstasia could potentially fight it and save their world.

The “real boy” of the movies is Bastian who comes across the story of Fantasia in a dusty book. He is in complete control of Fantasia. Just by believing in it, it exists. The landscape and fate of Fantasia are all results of his imagination. Only he can stop The Nothing that is taking over Fantasia. The creatures beg him to do something about it. But Bastian thinks that he is too small and too young to make any decisions about Fantasia. Bastian ignores his transcendence because he believes that he is completely bound by his facticity(see Sartre’s theories of Bad Faith). Because Bastian is a pour-soi, a being with freedom, only he has the power to destroy and save Fantasia. If he were to allow Fantasia to be completely destroyed, which actually happens at one point, he would, in fact, create Nothing, as in Sartre’s negatites.

The Emptiness of the second movie is brought about by the end of memories. An evil witch steals one of Bastian’s memories every time he makes a wish. Once she has all of his memories, she can control Fantasia. When he loses all of his memories, also, he will become an agent of the witch. Tillich would see the witch as a Cynic. She is a staunch individualist who denies truth and reason for self-affirmation. She lacks meaning and seeks to take meaning from all others. She is empty because she lacks self-definition. She is trying to spread her Emptiness to Bastian and all of Fantasia. When the Emptiness is taking over Fantasia, everything becomes hollow. The giant Rock Biter, who surprisingly enough eats rocks, complains that he is hungry because all the good rocks are merely shells. Bastian finally conquers the Emptiness with Courage which Tillich defines as “self affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being.” Bastian jumps off a huge waterfall despite the fact that he is afraid of heights. He is beckoned by his father’s voice which embodies the last of his remaining memories.

While all of this is fascinating, I found myself wondering, why does Bastian care? He himself is not a denizen of Fantasia. If it is destroyed he will still exist.