So let’s talk The Neverending Story by Michael Ende is my favorite book and movie of all time! I use to run a website dedicated to it back in the early days of the internet and even had a pretty cute collection of goods at one point.
The story is rich with beautiful fantastical worlds and the classic tale of a hero’s journey pulls you in from the start. How many of us have been made to feel like Bastian Balthazar Bux? picked on and made to feel other, not particularly smart or beautiful/ handsome, feeling like we have nothing to offer the world.
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Which brings me to the two biggest questions I have had about this book/movie.
1 . What is the The Golden Eyed Commander of Wishes/ Childlike Empress/ Moon Child?
A Storybook Character, Human, Alien, Alien Human Hybrid, Parasitic type of magical creature
WHAT ???!?!
The reason for this question may sound silly but it all goes back to the books….
Point 1
In the movie The Childlike Empress is crying and begging for Bastion to do what he dreamed and save them, but in the books she is BAD ASS. She can’t wait on Bastian to come (The world ripping apart and all) she has to go through her own treacherous journey to physically go and get him. Scaling a Mt. Everest size mountain in the freezing snow / ice in nothing but a nightgown of sorts and no shoes!
Hits you right in the GIRL POWER feels!✨💕
She is much more regal only giving a lilting laugh or a grave face every now and again but for the most part her expressions are impossible to read much like those of the Sphinxes; which has also been eluded to as being of another world, hence why I think she could be an alien of sorts 👽.
Point 2
When Falcore was telling Atreyu about the time, when he was a young and foolish luck dragon, how one look from The Childlike Empress changed his whole life! Atreyu asks him.. Is she a …..? And he tells him not to say it… Falcore was so concerned that what she truly is shouldn’t even be mentioned, let alone spoken out loud, maybe it would bring the story to a halt right then and there; after all the power of a new name spoken /unspoken (by a human) has the ability to make or break Fantasia and thus the human world as well..
If she were a human or a Fantasian I think it would be safe to say it out loud.
And this leads me to another question….
- Is she Good or Evil?😇👹
The reason I wonder, if she is a parasitic type of alien👽 at best or purely evil at worst 👿is that…
She uses humans to give her a name, she knows everything, so she knows by doing so they will be transported into her world where they will have to find their way out.
She then gives them Ayurn to … help?
She even tells them to make many wishes on it to expand her realm
knowing they will lose memory and themselves every time they do so (vital information she doesn’t tell them )
She then completely disappears from the realm and with no help the hapless humans fall into a trap of thinking they can take over Fantasia and stay there to rule in her absence (it’s a pretty sweet world they recreated after all), unknowingly by doing so they instantly forget their purpose and lose themselves in the process ….
These humans/ saviors of Fantasia then end up falling into The City of the Old Emperors with no memories or way to escape….. FOR ALL TIME?!?
She just abandons them there and the Ayurn disappears and returns to her. After all you can’t use Moon Child’s powers to take her power away from her, they say…
That’s sooooo cold! 😱 In essence she is saying thanks for saving us all; you failed your mission to get back home, peace out!!
If not for Atreyu this would have been Bastian’s fate as well for all eternity….
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What do you think she is? And do you think she is good or evil?
Please leave a comment below and if you know an NES fans please share this post with them.
And for those that maybe wondering what does Moon Child herself thinks actress Tami Stronach sent me this reply….
you can check out an interview with her on Movie Pilot for all you NES fans … and YASS can we get a remake … I recommend Ava De Vueny to direct it @A Wrinkle in Time
(UPDATE) 7/13
So having some time to think on this futher, 🤔things have become more and more inceptiony. I’ve come to think of, The Childlike Empress now as more of a Goddess.
It was too easy to say how could she let these tragedies happen to humans she must be evil… but the hypocrisy of it all is that she let terrible things happen to Atreyu too!
Atreyu: “My horse died I nearly drowned I just barley got away from the nothing, and for what to find out what you already knew.”
Childlike Empress: “It was the only way to get in touch with an earthling, he has suffered with you…”
Needless to say Atreyu was rightfully pissed off at her, even Bastian was in tears over it all; but during Atreyus journey we didn’t think of her as evil because we knew it was for Bastians benefit, to save their worlds…
soo what if … Bastians heros journey was for OUR benefit his lessons were in turn ment for us?!?! To save our world 🌎 🤔
(Movie version)
Childlike Empress: “just as he is sharing all of your adventures others are sharing his…”
Although each of the main characters has their own Heros Journey tale, Bastian’s is by far the most dangerous/difficult of them all. I think the author/Moonchild was trying to warn us about the traps of modern life, how the lust for power leads to ruin, and how some people get stuck in dead in jobs because they gave up on trying to find their purpose, and how sometimes we have to hit rock bottom in order to find it.
My respect for this book has just gone though the roof 🙌🏾and has me all in my feels now 👏🏾😭✨❤️💕
Nipponsuki 