History Headscratchers / TheNeverendingStory

** Xayide likely just wanted the power and saw Bastian as a way to get it. Even if Bastian were lost to him, she still could act as his proxy, claiming he wanted privacy (as the Childlike Empress rarely was seen). After all, her modus operandi was to get her way through ''BatmanGambit''s.

!! [[Film/TheNeverendingStory The Movies]]:

* The G'Mork is trying to help the Nothing consume all of Fantastica, so he can control humans once their imaginations are killed... except doesn't "all of Fantastica" include ''him?''
** Note this is only movie-only. In the book, G'Mork tells Atreyu that, he only appears as a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolf]] in Fantastica, but he is neither of Fantastica nor of Earth. Rather, he's one of many creatures who have no world to call home. As a result, he is able to traverse the worlds freely and assume any form that is native to the world he goes to. His rationale for helping the Nothing is out of his bitterness for not having a world to call home.
** In the movie, it's implied that an unseen evil is responsible for the Nothing and has sent the G'mork to Fantastica to kill the meddlesome Atreyu, probably with a pact that he will have a place in the new order created in the human world from the resulting chaos. Having failed to complete his mission, he is found [[YouHaveFailedMe abandoned]] in the Spook City that will soon fall to the Nothing (assuming that wasn't to be his fate [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness all along]]). [[note]] Deleted lines from the script have him resignedly tell Atreyu, whom he doesn't recognize like in the book, to leave him alone, and that he has grown weak from searching for his quarry for so long - the removal of that part of the dialogue also took any possible shred of sympathy for the G'mork, keeping only the vicious portrayal.[[/note]]
** Some of his lines in the film suggest that he's been driven mad by the knowledge that he's a character in a storybook and his destiny is always to be killed by Atreyu at the end, meaning that none of his actions matter and his entire existence is ''pointless''. One could [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation speculate]] that the real reason he helps the Nothing is because he desperately wants to end his own [[DeathSeeker suffering]] by erasing himself from existence.
** Somehow I'd always gotten the impression that G'Mork himself was a manifestation of the Nothing. The Nothing turned into Something to do its bidding. Probably because of the scene where G'Mork just comes bursting out like he'd only been created that moment. It's still a huge thing that consumes whatever is in its path... but now it's a wolf.
* G'Mork was tasked with killing Atreyu and very nearly succeed in the Swamps. And yet he doesn't recognize Atreyu at the end? Granted he wasn't covered in mud this time around, but still shouldn't he have known what Atreyu looked like?
** He only saw Atreyu from behind in the Swamp. Also I think it was supposed to be implied (albeit not shown well) that it was night at the time. There was certainly a lot of mist hampering vision.
** At this point Atreyu had lost Auryn, which is probably why G'Mork didn't recognize him.
* If Atreyu hadn't found that sharp stone fragment, Gmork would have easily killed him in their confrontation. Lucky thing, too, because he was ordered not to bring his weapons on the journey because... uh, ''why'' was that, exactly?
** In the book, the reason for the abandoning of weapons is because Atreyu carries Auryn. Whoever carries Auryn is to regard all Fantasticans the way the Childlike Empress does - all as equals. And all Fantasticans are to respect Auryn and not harm the bearer as though the bearer were the Childlike Empress herself. In the book it is never anticipated that a non-Fantastican outsider would be sent to kill Atreyu, although the Gmork gets permanently chained up and dies of exhaustion and hunger before he can complete his mission. Atreyu never needed or used a single weapon in the book. The stone knife in the film is there purely to satisfy the audience expectation that the hero should always personally vanquish the villain.
** Even without the complaining about the deviation from the Holy Scripture, honestly it always made perfect sense to me, both as a kid and as an adult. Fantasia works on storybook rules. Sometimes in storybooks the hero is required to do things that make the journey more difficult on himself because that's just the way it has to be. "That's just how it is" is often offered up as an explanation in and of itself for why quests have to be done a certain way, so telling Atreyu he had to leave his weapons behind and him doing so without hesitation made sense for a world that everyone understands operates on rules like that.
** On the other hand, Gmork doesn't attack Atreyu until Atreyu reveals his identity to him, which he does only after he notices the shard, picks it up, and threatens Gmork with it. While we don't know for sure, the simplest reading of the scene is that Gmork wouldn't have figured out Atreyu's identity on his own, and that he wouldn't have attacked him if he didn't realize who he was speaking to. The shard may have been convenient, but it doesn't prove that Atreyu would otherwise have died there. It was Atreyu's choice to reveal himself once he knew he had the means to defend himself.
* Anyone know who voices Morla the Ancient One? It's not listed in the cast, and even the imdb, which lists several of the voice roles as being an uncredited Alan Oppenheimer, doesn't mention Morla.
** Robert Jadah voiced Morla in both the film and the tv show.
*** Do you have a source for this? The imdb lists Jadah on the show, but not the film.
* At the end of part 2, Bastian is reduced to only having two memories (and two only two wishes) left, those of his mother and father. How does that work? I mean, in that scene he at least knows who Falkor, Atreyu and Xayide are, hasn't forgotten his own identity (as he still responds to the name Bastian), is still aware of the problem with the wishes and Xayide, and he is still able to speak english, so obviously his head wasn't really emptied.
** This is something of a simplification of the events of the book, wherein Bastian really ''does'' forget almost everything, and is maybe meant a bit more poetically than literally (Bastian only has two ''meaningful'' memories left, in other words). But in any case, a name isn't a memory, it's just a mark of identification. He knows he's called Bastian, but he knows nothing else about who "Bastian" is beyond that -- where Bastian comes from, who Bastian knows and loves, the countless experiences and habits and quirks that make Bastian who he was. He talks in that language not because he has a meaningful recollection of talking in that language, but because his neural pathways are still firing sufficiently to form a kind of muscle memory to enable him to communicate.
** The movie kind of messed up the entire "memory loss" thing from the book, where the AURYN doesn't take away Bastian's memories because some curse has been placed on it; it's just its natural effect: The more Bastian wishes in Fantastica, the more he loses of himself. It's made pretty blatant that he still remembers everything that's happened to him in Fantastica, it's the memories of his life in the human world that vanish. Early during Bastian's adventures in Fantastica he still remembers his human life and tells Atreyu quite a bit about what things were like for him back in his own world -- but later on, when Atreyu asks him to repeat or elaborate upon some of the things they talked about, Bastian can't remember them anymore. He remembers the conversation he had with Atreyu, and when prompted can even recall his exact words, but he no longer remembers what he meant by those words and now when he tries to repeat them it all just sounds like nonsense to him.
** The movie also omits the visit to the City of Old Emperors, where we see what exactly happens to people who have used up all their memories and are trapped in Fantastica. Having lost all their memories, they're unable to do much apart from wandering around in a stupor and feebly attempt their hands at things that don't make any sense because they don't remember how to make sense. None of them are able to talk, so this would indicate that if Bastian had truly lost himself he would also have lost the ability to speak. Luckily for him, it never got that far.
* Why does the Second Gate (the magic mirror thing) work so much differently than how the characters describe it? Engywook says "Kind men find they are cruel, and brave men find they are cowards", which makes it sound like it's some kind PsychologicalTormentZone akin to that cave in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. Instead, Atreyu just briefly sees into the real world and sees Bastian (which freaks them both out). After this, the mirror just lets him through without any other challenges.
** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, he is the AudienceSurrogate specifically meant for Bastian. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant, so it was mainly just confusing.
* Why is Bastian so scared when he first reads about Morla, to the point that he screams out loud? Yes, she's really big, but doesn't do anything particularly scary (indeed, her sneezing on Atreyu is mainly PlayedForLaughs). Furthermore, there are other ''way'' scarier moments in the story where he doesn't react like that, so it seems even more weird.
** He's startled, not scared. It's a sign that he's really getting engaged in the story; to him Morla is nothing more than a few sentences printed on a page, and he's still so startled by her appearance that he screams. Other things in the story may be scarier, but this was the first scare that took him by surprise.
* In the second movie, Bastian has to give a name to the new evil. While he eventually settles on "The Emptiness", due to how Xayide makes everything empty, it was never stated it had to be a MeaningfulName, so why did he just name it [[TomTheDarkLord "Bob"]] or something if naming it was so important?
** Because Bastian is a ten year old kid who takes stories very seriously. Why ''wouldn't'' he give it a MeaningfulName?
* Bastian has the Auryn from the start of the second movie, so why doesn't he just wish for Fantasia to be saved? Even if given that he doesn't know about Xayide yet, he could just say something like "I wish the new evil threatening Fantasia was gone", or something like that? He was able to just wish the Nothing out of existence in the first movie, so why would it be any different here?
** AdaptationInducedPlotHole. In the book, Bastian gets into Fantasia immediately after he saves it, and in the book he doesn't just instantly restore it to exactly the way it was like in the movie; he travels around Fantasia and recreates it gradually through his wishes, making it bigger and better than ever before. Xyaide doesn't come into the story until he's been in Fantasia for a while, and while she's every bit the ManipulativeBitch, she's not even remotely a threat to Fantasia and doesn't even try to be; her entire goal is to manipulate Bastian and make him do her bidding. The movie upped her to another world ending threat, but her character was never intended to be one.
* Minor headscratcher, but in the second movie why is the Auryn's name written in all caps (i.e [=AURYN=]), as if it was an acronym for something? Does the book explain this better?
** The book always spells the name in all caps. It's not explained but it's never deviated from either, so that's just how its name is written. (The book also says that many Fantasians revere the [=AURYN=] so much they refuse to speak its name, just calling it things like "the Gem" or "the Glory.")

** The book always spells the name in all caps. It's not explained but it's never deviated from either, so that's just how its name is written. (The book also says that many Fantasians revere the [=AURYN=] so much they refuse to speak it's name, just calling it things like "the Gem" or "the Glory.")

** Because Bastian is a ten year old kid who takes stories very seriously. Why ''wouldn't'' he give it a Meaningful name?

** Because Bastian is a ten year old kid who takes stories very seriously?

** AdaptationInducedPlotHole. In the book, Bastian gets into Fantasia immediately after he saves it, and in the book he doesn't just instantly restore it to exactly the way it was like in the movie; he travels around Fantasia and recreates it gradually through his wishes, making it bigger and better than ever before. Xyaide doesn't come into the story until he's been in Fantasia for a while, and while she's every bit the ManipilativeBitch, she's not even remotely a threat to Fantasia and doesn't even try to be; her entire goal is to manipulate Bastian and make him do her bidding. The movie upped her to another world ending threat, but her character was never intended to be one.

----

* Bastian has the Auryn from the start of the second movie, so why doesn't he just wish for Fantasia to be saved? Even if given that he doesn't know about Xayide yet, he could just say something like "I wish the new evil threatening Fantasia was gone", or something like that?

* In the second movie, Bastian has to give a name to the new evil. While he eventually settles on "The Emptiness", due to how Xayide makes everything empty, it was never stated it had to be a MeaningfulName, so why did he just name it [[TomTheDarkLord "Bob"]] or something if naming it was so important.

* He's startled, not scared. It's a sign that he's really getting engaged in the story; to him Morla is nothing more than a few sentences printed on a page, and he's still so startled by her appearance that he screams. Other things in the story may be scarier, but this was the first scare that took him by surprise.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is something akin to Basian's self-insert, created for him by Fantasia itself. That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant, so it was mainly just confusing.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is something akin to Basian's self-insert, created for him by Fantasia itself. That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant, so it was mainly just cunfusing.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is something akin to Basian's self-insert, created for him by Fantasia itself. That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is something akin to Basian's self-insert. That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made to face the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is Basian's self-insert... except Bastian didn't actually create him (at least not consiously; Fantasia seems to respond to Bastian's desiires even as he's reading the book). That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). The Second Gate is not at all a PsychologicalTormentZone like in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' -- that cave was meant to make Luke face his fears. The Gates have very different purposes. Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made tio face up to the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is Basian's self-insert... except Bastian didn't actually create him (at least not consiously; Fantasia seems to respond to Bastian's desiires even as he's reading the book). That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant.

** Engywook's decription was perfectly accurate, it was just a little vague and misleading (he's a lot clearer about it in the book). Where the First Gate is meant to test your confidence and belief in yourself, the Second Gate is meant to make you face your "true self." No comforting lies or self-delusions. The coward who told himself he was brave is made tio face up to the fact that his bravery was fake, the cruel man who deluded himself into thinking he was kind sees just how cruel he really is. But Atreyu's circumrances were different than anyone else's. He sees Bastian, because he IS Bastian... or rather, Atreyu really only exists to be someone Bastian can identify with and experience the story through. He says and does the things Bastian would have said and done in his place... again this is clearer in the book, where every so often Bastian thinks Atreyu should do something, only for Atreyu to do that exact thing in the book.... and when Atreyu meets the Empress, we get this whole scene where Bastian doesn't know what to do and wishes he could ask the Empress, only for Atreyu to ask the same questions immediately afterwards. You could say that Atreyu is Basian's self-insert... except Bastian didn't actually create him (at least not consiously; Fantasia seems to respond to Bastian's desiires even as he's reading the book). That's what the Second Gate is hinting at, but neither Atreyu nor Bastian realized what it actually meant.

or if Bastian has a question about something, Atreyu asks that question moments latrer.

* Why does the Second Gate (the magic mirror thing) work so much differently than how the characters describe it? Englywook says "Kind men find they are cruel, and brave men find they are cowards", which makes it sound like it's some kind PsychologicalTormentZone akin to that cave in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''. Instead, Atreyu just briefly sees into the real world and sees Bastian (which freaks them both out). After this, the mirror just lets him through without any other challenges.

also specified that Bastian still remembers everything that's happened in ''Fantasia''; the memories he loses