Symbolic interpretation of Michael Ende's book

Motto: "What can make a person see, it blinds him, and what can make something new, it becomes a waste."

The purpose of this essay is to familiarize the reader with the content of the Infinite Story, which we can read as a wonderful parable about the process individualization but also as a warning what could happen if we lose the ability to create our own visions. This is already happening on a massive basis through advertising, television, movies, and computer games, which, from small to large children, create just the passive recipients of someone else's vision and raise them from being potentially dependent and easy to handle. This trend is in the Infinite Story symbolized by Nicholas: the disease that has affected the world of people and the world of Fantasy. The hero who can reverse this trend is every small and large reader whose eyes and hearts are open. Without the ability to create a vision, no scientific discovery or artistic work could be reached; but with the same power in the form of ideologies and fictitious media images, it is possible to move the nations and masses of people who have lost their ability to create their own visions. The book is a deep compliment to this wonderful quality of the human mind, which we call fantasy.

The endless story has also had a nice film processing, but it ends in less than half of the book and the author of the book, Michael Ende, disagreed. Of course the Infinite Story can have infinitely many interpretations. This is just one of nothing. At the end of the text, I give a symbolic explanation of the main characters and their relationships.

Bookstore

The book begins with a breathless eleven-year-old boy running into a remote bookstore. His name is Baltazar Bastian Bux. Maybe he is being chased by other children who make fun of him for his thickness and freakishness, but perhaps that he has entered the bookstore at the right moment, in a magical moment that is not repeated and which the Greeks called kairos. It is against the book that the owner of the shop, the old master with fajfka Karel Konrad Koriander, and the one who changes Bastian's life. The moment Mr. Koriander has to pick up the phone and get caught up, Bastian will notice books with fascinating words Infinite Story ... Being inexplicable passion, the book grabs the book and escapes from hiding in the schoolroom, crouched in a blanket and plunged into its pages , which attract him so much. Bastian is a boy whose only hobby is reading books - and dreaming.

What is a book? The book is strange in that one of your prints is just in your hand, that is, you find yourself in the same skin as the Bastian himself. You're watching his story and the story he's just starting to read-you look over his shoulder. What is Bastian? She lives without her mother, only with her father, who is somewhat distant from her death and the spirit absent as if she had lived. Bastian's situation corresponds exactly to the starting situation of the child's archetype: abandonment and loneliness (not having a mother and, in some ways, a father) and a threat to the persecutor (classmates). His situation is hopeless. Still, at some point, someone will come to help or help. It is an archetype of a wise old man in the form of Mr. Coriander, who bash Bastian rather, but certainly with that passionate reader feel affinity. How not if it's him.

Looking over Bastian's shoulder, we find him in his book, in some other reality. Here's called Fantasy. We learn that Fantasy is in jeopardy. All creatures from all corners of the Fantasy hurry to visit their queen and tell her a strange reality they can not quite understand - the places they knew intimately - forests, mountains, lakes, but their friends are losing themselves; but they can not tell where. It is impossible to look into the vanished places, it's like being blind and not seeing anything, and that feeling is very worrying. Panic and terror are spreading everywhere. Fantasy begins to lose sight, and the only one who can help is the Children's Empress. But she is also ill because her existence is connected with the existence of the entire Fantasy.

Children Empress

The Children's Empress is not a ruler in the ordinary sense: "The child empress did not control her, she had never used her powers and she did not use her power, never issued a single order and did not judge anyone, never intervened, and never had to defend an attacker, for no one would come to mind to stand up or hurt her. In front of her, they were all equal. She just existed here, but her existence was strange: the Children's Empress was the center of all life in Fantasy. And every creature, whether worthy or evil, be it beautiful or ugly, merciful or serious, foolish or wise, everyone, all of them were through its existence. Without it, nothing could survive, just as the human body could not survive when it missed the heart. No one could understand her secret completely, but everyone knew it was. And so, without exception, she weighed all the creations of this empire, and they all, without exception, worried about her life. For her death would also mean their end, it would mean the extinction of the vast realm of Fantasy. "

At the same time that Bastian reads these words, the memory of his mum in the hospital where he was operating was flashing at him. He remembers how his father used to be cheerful before, but how he found himself from an invisible wall from the mummy of death. Bastien has spent many nights for his mother, but Dad does not: he is carrying his wounds with him and he does not help himself. He is unable to read the books: as if he was looking into the void between the lines. But the Bastian capable of it is still able to use his imagination. It was as if Bastian wanted to heal his dad and he was doing this strange journey "on the other side".

We can imagine the Infinite Story as a children's book, but we can also imagine that in a similar situation as Bastian's father there are many adults who have lost the ability to fantasize and access to the painful memories of their past and become "living dead" (with the liking of being depicted in horrors such as The Night of Revitalized Corpses). Bastian actually represents child archetype in every adult who still has the potential and hope of healing, and just waiting for the right moment to be "awakened" by the touch the wise old man.

Auryn

Children's Empress is an archetype animy, the father's soul who had an illness unknown, and no creature of Fantasy, no doctor knows her cure: only she knows what she can save. Therefore, he instructs the centaur of Caíron to hand over the magical amulet AURYN to the hero Atrej. Caíron (or according to the Greek mythology of Cheiron) is the embodiment of the wise physician of the human souls. The Centaur's human head and animal body represent a combination of spiritual ideals and animal instincts. Anima decides to put the hope of saving herself and her empire into the hands of a hero on the basis of a healthy instinct that still remains with her continuing illness. It means that even though we suffer from any mental trauma or illness, there is still some other aspect (represented by Cheirón) who instinctively aspires to heal, after the restoration of life, and which, on the contrary, is capable of transforming the pain into wisdom and perhaps even the ability to heal the souls of others. Through Caíron, the Children's Empress empowers the child's hero of Attres and sends him to the Great Search. He believes that only him, perhaps because he is still a little boy, can do this. Attret's job is to find a cure for a child's empress - in other words - to heal a daddy's sick animal / soul. The Bastian and the Atrej together are on the Great Search - each on the other side of the story.

"AURYN gives you great power" says Caíron Átrej, "But you must never use it. For even the Children's Empress never employs her power. AURYN will protect and lead you, but you must never intervene, even if you see anything, because your own opinion does not matter right now. That's why you have to go on a journey without arms. You have to leave things free. Everything for you must be the same, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, stupidity and wisdom, as is the same for the Children's Empress. You just have to search and ask, but you can not judge at your own discretion. Never mind, Atreja! "

It reminds of Jesus' words:

"Therefore be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not touch, and you will not be mistreated. Forgive and forgive you. "
(Luke 6,36-38)

Arter on his horse Artex is immediately on his way, but he does not have a goodbye"Both parents killed my bison shortly after I came to the world." We learn that he was brought up by all women and men together, and the name Átrej means "the Son of All." (Again the symbol of the abandoned child). However, at the same moment that Atrej goes to the Great Search, there is a shadowy, black creature that we still do not know anything about. (Symbolism of persecution).

Caíron then disappears from the story like many other characters with the words "Fate had to lead him on a completely different, unexpected journey. But that's another story, and it's going to be some other time. "The endless story then represents a kind of thread from which other threads disappear indefinitely so that we can watch the main story line undisturbed. But the fairy-tale words "Sometimes", some kind of chorus, create the feeling that the world of fantasy is composed of a whole bunch of stories that remain open to other narrators for other adults with the soul of a child like Mr Koriander. Or Exupéry's aviator, lost in the desert, talking to the Little Prince. But that would be a different story, and it will come sometime elsewhere. Now back to Atrejah.

Arter's horse rides Arta through Fantasy, and everywhere he finds the progressive effects of a terrifying Nicholas. The nicotine is getting bigger, and an increasing portion of Fantasy is losing sight of nothing Nothing into which an unbearable sight is. He does not know where to begin his Great Search, but one day a great purple bison appears in his dream, his face filling the whole sky. Futre wanted to get him once, but he saved his life. As a reward, the bison advises him to look for the ancient Morla in the marsh of mourning.

The hero will move on his way usually when the beings he once helped give his kindly help (like Jiříkovi v Zlatovlásce). In other words, when the hero no longer knows where to go, he must rely on his past good deeds ("good karma"). Without them, it is not a pleasure for the hero to go out for any danger. Another way forward is the abandonment of something - in this case, Atrej gave up the socially attractive status of the hunter who would win the bison. In the motif of an abandoned child, it is often a positive aspect of the soul of the deceased mother, who comes to the helper (like the guardian angel) and who is represented in the Infinite Story by a great purple bison (the noble symbol mother archetype).

The mourners of sadness

Going through the marshes of sadness, the Artax horse begins to fall, go slower, fall in despair, do not believe that their way makes sense, does not believe it is possible to save the Children's Empress. He does not lose any more faith because he is protected by the magical power of AURYA and is trying to drag Artax away, but he does not want to, dying with sadness and despair. He wants to donate his AURYN, but it is not possible: he was commissioned to carry it. The last of Artax's wishes is that his master would not look at him in the last few moments and look back. At the symbolic level, only now the soul of her sick father experienced the loss of her mother deeply, she was crying behind her, leaving behind and stopping to look back. We are talking about the loss of mummy, but more generally it is the symbol of the experience of any loss and sadness at all. Only what we can experience in the depths of our soul can we leave behind. Children are capable of it, but it is worse for adults: they need to get closer to the injured child in herself who is able to cry and heal. However, this is by no means the end of the Great Search, if at all such a thing exists, as the name of the book suggests.

Morla

What follows after we experience great sadness? Agnes meets old Morla, a huge wrinkled turtle living in a black, muddy cave. Corner hill (which is eventually Morla itself), cave, marsh, turtle: all this refers to some aspects mother archetype: what clutches and absorbs, pulls into the darkness and does not let go. What is it in this case? Morla represents the infinite age of memories (the old babe, as she calls herself), to whom everything seems to be transient, dim and indifferent. Morla is the personification of an indifferent and obsolete moruse. The film version is called Morlor. The possible etymological explanation of the name might sound "dead knowledge" (mor + lore)

"We are old, too old. We've lived long enough. We have seen too much. Who knows so much about what we do is no longer important. Everything repeats eternally, day and night, summer and winter, the world is empty without meaning. Everything turns in a circle. What happens, he must die again, what is born must die. Everything is equal to each other, good and evil, stupidity and wisdom, beauty and ugliness. Everything is empty. Nothing is real. Nothing is important. "

Note that Morla speaks in plural: it represents the endless chain of births of mothers and daughters who have never died of their memories. How terrible everything must be remembered! Does Morly not remind us of someone? Yes, her attitude of not distinguishing light and darkness, good and evil, resembles the Empress's Children. Morla is a contrasting aspect of the Children's Empress, who, on the other hand, is always young, pure and innocent and on the contrary, in the middle of the Swamp Morley, it is a lotus. They have something in common. But it is on the opposite side of the living truth (Korah, rose, lotus) - and the dead knowledge (rock in the marsh overgrown with moss). It seems that if the Children's Empress (like Korah) can not be born again - that is to die of old memories and all past - can not be re-emerging in its innocence and beauty. As Morla lives in a dark cave, the empress lives in an ivory tower, ending with Magnolia blossom. Moral's indifference seemed to refer to the urgent need for the regeneration / rebirth of the Children's Empress and the whole of Fantasy - that is, the whole soul of a father, who has suffered great sorrow, but that is not enough to free the soul from the deadly attitude of indifference and resignation or would-be theoretical ballast. Memories and pasts need to die and re-create (regenerate) the whole mental organism, it is necessary to repeat the act of creation according to archetypal structures. Even from sleep we wake up most fresh when it seems as if we "died" during the night and were born again in the morning. Something like that would benefit Morle.

But the only Mora in Fantasy knows what the Empress can heal. "The child empress was here before me. But she is not old. She is forever young. To make it clear. Its existence is not measured by number of years but names. He needs a new name, always a new name again ... The baby empress needs only a new name, then heals himself. But if he heals, it does not really matter. " Still, Morla does not know, after he goes back to his cave, who can think of this new name. He will turn Atrej to the Uyulal living in the South Oracle, a thousand miles away, who might know it. The dark animal is the hero at the heels. Its contours emerge from the darkness and take on the shape of a big wolf like a cattle. The black wolf or wolf is the traditional symbol of the goddess Hekaté, which represents the dark aspect of the mother's archetype.

Ygramul

Atrej climbs through the landscape of the Dead Mountains (reminiscent of Tolkien's Mordor) until there is a huge bottomless crack.

A spider network is struck across the crack, in which the Falcon is thrown. It is just a desperate struggle with the scorpion creature Ygramul. "The entire creature did not form a solid body, but it consisted of countless small steel-blue beetles that buzzed like angry hornets, and whose dense swarm was constantly changing its shape." Ygramul reminds Odulu of Lord of the Rings. Another power of the AURYU amulet requires the Happy Dragon for himself. Ygramul refuses to know that he has a right to his food: "The Children's Empress allows us to be as we are. That's why Ygramul is bending over her badge. And you know all that well. "Nevertheless, Atrej reveals his secret (every creature in Fantasy has its secrets) - if left to bang her - it will immediately appear in a farthest place in Fantasy. He agrees. In the next second, the wolf will arrive instead, but only sees the empty net and loses track.

What is symbolically Ygramul - after the hero has met the sadness and indifference of an old soul too? Is indifference the last layer? What's behind her?

Stamen or shit is undoubtedly the expression of aggression. A multitude of hornets stinging on a miserable sacrifice - a beautiful kite - represents tortuous remorse to defeat his soul, Bastian's father. Deeper than his own sadness of loss lies, deeper than the seeming indifference of morose-morale, lies a terrible sense of guilt, a guilt that his mother died because of him that he could not save her. Stronger than the sadness of her loss, she was the sadness of the unselfish love that turned to reproach after her death. Remorse resembling a terrible erosion, in the form of overturned aggression, all that is in the human soul capable of hope and happiness (whether in the sense of "luck" or "happiness"), what is able to fly joyfully into the cloud and what a magical dragon Falco. It was here that there was a huge crack of daddy's soul. It was in this trap that the hope and the joy of her father's soul lay.

As if the story said this is not a quicker way to heal than to forgive yourself - especially where we were powerless in the face of the fate - like Falco's helpless dragon fluttering in the net.

From now on, he will be Atrej's ally. Falco had heard Ygramul's secret when he whispered to Atrejah. And because he was bored with the same poison, it was enough to think that he would appear in the same place as Atrej: a thousand miles away, at the South Oracle.

Two-seaters

There is a phase of healing the soul. Both False and Falco are weak, but with the help of two eternally quarrelsome, but suited elves: the old man and the old lady begin to heal. The worst moments are behind them. "From now on everything will be successful. After all, I'm a Happy Dragon. I did not give up hope even when I hung there in the network - and as you can see, right. " The Happy Dragon is in the Infinite Story the symbol of never-ending hope, innocent joy and wise intuition that was previously tied to feelings of wrongdoing.

The old man Urgla takes care of their health, cooks food and potions, while the old man Engywuk needs Atreas to discover the mystery of Uyuálina the oracle over whom he has been studying for life.

"So who is or what is Yuyula?" Asked Atrej.
"Hell!" Engywuk growled, his eyes angry with anger. "You too get into all of your straight legs just like my old ones. Could not you start with something else? "
"Have you ever been there?" (Yuyulals)
"What's upsetting you!" Engywuk replied, a little cracked. "I'm only a scientist. I gathered all the news from those who were inside. "

As can be seen, we get some mystery that is not scientifically detectable. Only someone who can get through all three gates can penetrate it. Engywuk spent his life trying to analyze the data by who, and under what circumstances, the gate would be released. After all possible theories about the character of a hero who can succeed, Engywuk came to the conclusion that "The decision of the sphinx is totally random and makes no sense at all." However, he adds:

"My wife, however, claims that it is offensive, totally unscientific and, in addition, totally unfamiliar."
"You're starting with your nonsense again?" It was heard from the cave. "Shame on you! Just because your little brain in your head has already dried up, you think you can simply deny such big secrets, you guys! "
"Here it is!" Sighed Engywuk. "And the worst thing about it is he's right."
The old man recognizes that there is some secret he does not understand.

Engywuk Átreje begs him to tell him when he comes back from the road to the oracle, if he can pass through, reveals his secret - he shakes himself like a little boy. But Agnes can not promise it in advance. They suspect that those who were silent before him had reason to remain silent. The old man, who in the Infinite Story symbolizes the scientific approach to reality, is going to heat up the rage.

Three Magic Gates

The first gate is in the form of two sphinxes that look into each other's eyes but do not see anything. On the contrary, they send - they send all the puzzles of the world. No one can stand in their field of view. Only the one they go through when they close their eyes. Atre, precisely when he does not hope, he will pass. Maybe because his ambition is not to solve all the puzzles of the world that constantly produce our minds. Not because there are no answers to them, but because of his entrusted and true mission to rescue the Children's Empress. The passage between the two sphinxes, among which all the world's riddles flow, represents the overcoming of the dualistic level of thinking that produces a huge number of questions but no vital answers to life. Here, one can stop on his way and never hear a "voice of silence" at the end of the journey. Note that the sphinxes only ask questions endlessly, but they can not listen to each other; they do not even see each other.

The second gate is the gate of the magic mirror. No one knows what form of self he sees in him and whether or not he will take that look. What will they see? Something he can not understand. He will see the boy with his big, sad eyes bobbed in the blankets: yes, Bastian will see. At that point, Bastian shakes hands on the old school floor. One side has a voice in the voice of an adult that it can not be that it's just a coincidence; on the other hand, he would like to believe it, it would be wonderful if they knew about him in Fantasy. Atray is surprised, he does not understand what he sees, he is just passing by. At that moment, however, he forgets all his goals and intentions, forgets his entire previous life and the Great Search. The real right I had to look at his face was Bastian. This is not just the story of Átrey's. In fact, it is about who reads this text now.

The third gate is a gate without a key. This is the hardest. The stronger the person wants to go through, the more firm he holds. However, even he will pass through it because he does not want it, but Bastian, which Átrej, now in the state of an innocent child, obviously does not know. The third gate reflects the experience of Zen that the effort is at a certain point in the way of an obstacle, and that the path of non-violence, surrender, the state of innocence without the memories and experience in which Átrej was situated is determined by further progress.

Thirdly, the hero meets the voice of silence, Uyulala. It is learned that in order to save the Children's Empress, he must go beyond the bounds of Fantasy and bring a child from the outside world who would give the Empress a new name. The pheasant on the Palaces in the vast distances, looking for the boundaries of Fantasy. He meets with four wind giants from all over the world, he asks them and they laugh at him:

"Who are you, that you have a badge of the Children's Empress and do not know that Fantasy has no borders?"

Then Atrej in the windmill shatters into the sea and walks over the unknown coastline - without AURY, without Falca.

Gmork

Azrej wanders by himself a ghost town, everywhere he sees the growing niceness in which Fantasy creatures disappear one after another. He will hear the desperate, bleak, cursed dangers that are reflected in the echoes of the deserted city. He seeks to find himself in a dirty yard at a hole in the wall of a huge, starved werewolf chained. This humiliation was caused by Gaya, the Dark Princess, before her departure to Nicholas.

They talked to each other: Atrej and Gmork, the last two lost in this city. Future will introduce himself as "Nobody" - the one who lost the sense of his search ...

The Werewolf bent a little on his lips and pointed at scary fangs, which he meant to indicate a smile. He knew something about the darkness of the soul and felt he had some sort of equal partner in front of me. "If that's the case," he growled, "then Nobody heard me and Nobody came to me and Nobody talks to me at my last hour."

Futre will offer Gmork to dock him, but he is protected by a magical spell. There is no hope for either of these strange couples. Gmork gradually reveals the secrets of his identity.

"I do not belong to you."
"Where are you from then?"
"Do not you know what a werewolf is?"
The other man shook his head.
"You only know Fantasy," Gmork said. "But there are other worlds, like the world of children. But there are also beings who have no own world. But they can enter and exit from many worlds. I have such beings as well. In the world of people I appear as a person, but I am not human. And in Fantasy, I take a fantasy look - but I'm not one of you. "
"You were in a world where the children of man live?"
"I often went between them and your world."
"Gmk," Acet stammered, unable to prevent his lips from shaking, "can you show me a way into the world of human chicks?"

At this special moment, where he would never have been waiting for it, he begins to return to hope. Gmork tells him that when he jumps into nothingness, he immediately finds himself in the people's world.

You do not have the slightest reason for hope, son - whatever you have. If you appear in the world of people, then you will not be what you are here. That's the secret that nobody knows about Fantasy ... Do you know what you're saying? "

"No," Átrej whispered.

"Lies!" Snapped Gmork.

Terrifying mystery!
Revelation continues.

"You are the dreamlike images, the fabrications of the realm of poetry, the characters in the infinite story! Do you consider yourself a reality, man? Well, here you are in your world. But if you go through Nicholas then you will cease to be real. Then you are indistinguishable. Then you are in another world. You do not even look at yourself anymore. You bring illusion and laughter into the world of people. Guess, young man, what will happen to all the inhabitants of the ghost town who have jumped to Nicholas? "

"I do not know," said Betty.

"They will become delusions in the heads of people, deceptive notions of fear, where there really is no reason to fear, people get rid of things that destroy their health, people get desperate for people where they have no reason to despair ... That's why people hate Fantasy and afraid of everything that comes from here. They want to destroy her. And they do not know that they are copying the flood of lies that is constantly pounding into the world of people - that stream of the fuzzy creatures of Fantasy that lead to seeming existence there as living corpses and poison the souls of people with their dull puff. It's not funny, is not it funny? "

What does Gmork now, the beast of darkness and the light-eyed - Lucifer - actually tell us? It tells us that if we stop believing in the power of our own imagination and vision, ours imagination it takes us in the form of perverse ideas, delusions and lies and begins to turn our lives into hell. That is what the servant of darkness seeks. The greatest triumph would be if people ever stopped believing that Fantasy exists. Then nobody would ever go to Fantasy. What is Gmork watching such a dark idea? Gmork says: "It is possible to do everything with them."

Gmork is the altergeo of the hero of Átrey, the shadow, his alternative, which we all have as a possibility. We all have ours and Gourka. One went on a big search and the other tried to stop him. Can not, however, be able to lose it if the story is infinite?

How are you near that night? Those nights, when they both lost their way, and their search turned into mischief. Still, when they got lost, they finally found themselves. Only behind, the Dark Night of the Soul, the hero can shave its shadow and shadow to its hero: they have nothing to lose, and their caution is weakened. Consciousness and unconsciousness are frighteningly close, almost merging.

Just as Atrey serves AURY and the Children's Empress, Gmork does not serve himself, but the principle, which is called Nicot in the book, impersonal power, which ultimately does not benefit any individual: only impersonal power and financial systems.

The book postulates imagination as the basis of human psyche. Imagination can be used to create vision and inspiration, or to lie, and to ideas that cast people into despair, inner prison, slavery. A person who does not have a vision is susceptible to accepting a lie in the form of an image, a message someone else submits to it. The forces that are deliberately working with this lie because they see that most people are powerless to her, are represented in the book by Nicholas and Gmork.

Gmork is the hidden power of euphemism and half-truth. Half-life is far more dangerous than a lie.

Gmork says that if people stop believing in their ability to create their own vision they are easy to manipulate. They become dependent on the external stimuli that their passionate imagination stimulates: films, magazines and computer games. These technical achievements make life easier, but they choose their tax in the form of atrophic imagination. This is a situation that appeals to Nicholas' servant because his power is growing. Nicholas Kingdom would probably be the world of PR and advertising agencies trying to convince people what they need, even if they do not need them at all, just to make them unhappy and addicted to the products they need to sell. The second kingdom of lies would probably be a politician standing on the advice of imagologists, modern magicians of today - and false promises.

"And there is no more power than lie. Because people, to know, live out of ideas. And you can manipulate them. This power is the only thing that makes sense. "

"I do not want to take part in it!"

Slowly, "said the werewolf," as soon as you come in order to jump to Nicholas, then you will become a servant of power without your will and your faces. Who knows what you'll be good for. Perhaps he will use you to guide people to buy things they do not need, or to hate everything that is unknown, or to believe what makes them obedient servants, or to have doubts about what could bring them to rescue ... There is, of course, a lot of stupid people - who, of course, think they are terribly smart and think of themselves as serving the truth - and they do not do anything more fervent than even trying to tell the children that Fantasy is not. "

The same understanding that the Werewolf has revealed will also occur to Bastian:

He realized that the ill was not just the Fantasy, but the human world. One was related to the other ... now he also realized that some of the people must go to Fantasy so that both worlds can heal again. "

He also realizes that each of his lies contributed to the destruction of the beautiful world of Fantasy, because he had to take an idea (a being from Fantasy) and abuse it, twist, cause it to become something other than it was originally. This distortion of reality is not only the world of Fantasy, but also our real world - both are becoming ill. This Lucifer's statement says that sick people create a sick world and the sick world creates sick people on the basis of harmful but powerful ideas, and in order to break this vicious circle, each human "cub" must learn to think creatively, actively create its own vision, otherwise he will be the victim of someone else's vision. The terrible suffering of powerful ideologies such as Nazism or Communism was possible only in the world of people who forgot to believe in their own vision - perhaps because they succumbed to the widespread idea that it was not necessary. It is this fantasy that unfolds in the world of Fantasies as Nicotas: a dark power that does not serve anyone but itself. However, we may be grateful to Gmork for such a revelation on the threshold of dying. In the darkest corner of evil, we always find a hidden trick of good - and vice versa - as a symbol of yin and yang.

As Mephistofeles of Goethe's Faust says, another form of the same Shadow - the Devil: "I am the strength of the parts that I will always do."

And these words will fill up in a moment. Dying Gmork believes that there was hope of rescue in the form of a hero who did not do his job. It was called Atrej. The werewolf proudly announces that he stands before him. Gmork jerks and falls for a terrible cough, a roar and a laugh that echoes in echoes, and suddenly he stops. In the last second of his fate - actually in the posthumous spasm - he jumps and grabs Attrey's leg. But it will save him from all-encompassing Nicholas that would otherwise swallow him up! He will hold him in his teeth and save him. Similarly, Glum, Frod's shadow, ended up with a ring finger on the hero, and by this act, on the border of the cliff above Orodruino, he saved his death not only Frodo but also the whole of Middle-earth. He saved the whole world from the dark power of the ring, which eventually fell into the hot lava with him. Glum and Gmork were the main pursuers of their heroes - but they were also their most faithful guides all the time - and ultimately their salvation.

Is it possible to take any step on our way without shading the shadows?

Only in a single moment do we shade the shadow: at midnight when the moon and the stars are covered with clouds when the night is absolute. It was at that night that Átre and Gmork met.

The hero's journey

Let's review our story now. The hero passed through the swamp of mourning, met Morla, and finally freed Palatin from the Ygramul network. These were the phases in which he cut down on the traumatic experiences of his dad's personal unconscious: sadness, indifference and devastating remorse. Furthermore, he went through a kind of initiation of three gates to hear a "voice of silence" - he reached a kind of mental depth inaccessible to discursive thinking (Elf Engywuk), which told him the paradoxical secret about the parallel world of people. So the hero set out to look for a human child to give the Empress a new name, but to his dismay he found that there was no boundary in Fantasy. He despaired, and in the ghost town he met his Shadow, who had been on his heels all along his Great Quest. Only as "Nobody" could (like Odysseus) Gmork's terrible mystery about the fate of the Fantasies, which when absorbed by the Nothing, become lies in our world. Lies that cause unnecessary suffering to people. He learned that both worlds were ill: the world of fantasy and the world of people - that they were like interconnected vessels waiting for a child hero who would be able to heal the empress and return to the world of people.

After meeting the hero with the Shadow, which we discussed in detail in the previous section, we usually see an encounter with Anima. Indeed, it is also in the Infinite Story. Atreia, at the last minute, he is saved from his Nicholas' carnage by his faithful Falco. He takes him to the very top of the Ivory Tower to meet the Children's Empress.

Meeting with the Children's Empress

He feels he has failed to bring the human child into the world of Fantasy and walks slowly up to his head. But the Children's Empress, in the form of a little girl with almond golden eyes on pillows in the middle of a blossoming cup to the hero with a carefree smile.

"You came back from the Great Search, Atreji ... Your beautiful cloak was gray, you got gray hair and your skin like stone. But everything will be like before and even more beautiful. You will see."

He had a tight neck. He only shook his head. Then he heard a soft voice:

"You did my job ..." (Atrey returns AURYN)

"You did a good job. I'm very happy with you. "

"No!" He said, almost wildly. "It was all in vain. There is no rescue. "

There was a long silence. Atrej hid his face in his forearm and his body was shaking. She was afraid she would hear a cry of despair from her lips, a pitiful moan, maybe even bitter remorse, or even an explosion of anger. He did not know what he was expecting - but certainly not what he heard: She laughed. She laughed softly and cheerfully. Átrey's thoughts faded into confusion, for a moment he thought the Empress was going crazy. But it was not a laugh of madness. Then she heard her voice say, "But he did."

Atrej lifted his head.

"Whom?"

"Our savior."

He's already here with us, says the Empress, I've seen him, and he's seeing us. He is here. I know you do not understand it yet, but you brought it, Better. He sees me and I see his. Do not be sad, you have accomplished your task. By taking all these dangerous adventures, you've attracted him. He has been watching you all the time with interest at this moment. Your journey was not unnecessary.

"You came into his image, and you took him, and he followed you because he saw you with your own eyes. And so now he hears our every word. And we know that we are talking about him and that we are waiting for him and putting his hope in him. And now he may have realized that all the great effort you, Átreji, had taken on himself, that he was paying him the whole Fantasy calls him! "

Atrej is asking if it is true what Gmork called it. The Empress says it's only half as likely to be expected from such a being.

“There are two ways to cross the border between the fantasy world and the world of people. One is right, the other is wrong. If the Fantasies are dragged into the human world in this terrible way, then this is the wrong way. But if human chicks come to our world, then this is the way to go. All the children who were with us learned something that they could only learn here and what had returned them to their changed world. They began to be sighted because they saw you in a higher true form. That is why they could see their own world and people through other eyes. Where they had only seen everyday life, they had now discovered miracles and secrets. That's why they were so fond of coming to Fantasia. And the richer our world became, the more it flourished, the fewer lies appeared in their world, and the more perfect it was. Just as our worlds are destroying each other, they can also restore each other's health ... What can make a person blind, blinds him, and what can create something new, becomes destruction. ”

Azrey asks why the Empress needs a new name.

"All beings and things are real only if they have a real name. A false name makes them beings and things unreal. It's just a lie. "

Both the Empress and Átrej are waiting for Bastian to name her new name. The Empress knows very well that he has invented it, but for some reason the Bastian is unable to speak. They are ashamed to be afraid to come forward in their true form of a little fat, which they do not know. It seems the hero has to deal with archetype persony. The Empress has the last chance to force Bastian to tell what lies on his tongue: to visit the old man from the traveling mountain.

The old man from the traveling mountain

The little empress will do what he can never do. According to the rules of Fantasy, she and the old man from the traveling mountain can never meet. Yet he will decide on this step. The old man sits on the farthest Mount of Fantasy and writes a book. What book? Endless story. The old man and the emperor know very well what happens when they meet - but Bastian does not know:

The endless story begins again from the beginning.

The letter after the letter undoes the same ball again and again. From the time Bastian walks into Mr. Koriandra's shop, the moment Atrej goes to his Great Search until the Empress visits Starce from the traveling mountain. But this clutch never ends, it's a circle enclosed in itself like two intertwined snakes pictured on the cover of a book that eats each other's tails. It is Uroboros, the symbol of infinity. But by the same token, it is also the shape of AURYNA, an amulet dubbed "glitter." At this point, the line of the story becomes endless and eternally returning. In an ever-recurring story, each flying event (from the point of view of linear time random) becomes the gesture of eternity - ie the archetype (Elliade). The fact that such an archetypal gesture is more permanent than a man himself, Milan Kundera describes in his book, with some enchantment over the flight of a young old man, Immortality. Even the old lady is able to make the same gesture as her eighteen. Archetype and gesture is something that does not age.

Auryn

The etymology of the word "auryn" refers to the initial syllable of the AUM world, which according to Indian mythology was, is and will be the world. However, weakening "ryn" refers to the sun's glow. Thus, AURYN can be translated as "the sunlight of the primary vibration".

Two snakes intertwined, black and white, express the interconnection of people's world with the world of Fantasy, their interdependence. The one who wears it lends all the power of the Children's Empress, as if acting in her name. From the Jungian perspective, AURYN is the symbol of the Creator I, a mandala expressing the unity of consciousness and unconsciousness, the potential entity that the hero finds at the end of its journey, even though it is mysteriously present from the very beginning. But to find the hero, he has to take a long, barricade path.

Bastian

The Bastian, horrified by the infinite loophole, finally realizes that if he does not call the new Empress's name, he leaves all the characters forever trapped inside in some sort of "frozen time" - an endless gesture. And he will be the only one who is responsible for it. Now the fate of the whole Fantasy is just and only on it.

Angry Bastian finally screams her new name:

"The Moon! I'm going!"

An immense force broke the shell of a large egg, and the dark thunder of thunder was passing around. Then, from somewhere, the whirlwind came

and flew out of the pages of the book that Bastian had on his knees until her leaves were wildly fragmented ...

Both worlds were interconnected at that moment, the tower twelve, and as the earthquake reached the world of people, Bastian suddenly found himself in the etheric, weightless world of Fantasy.

The egg is the eternal symbol of the Creator I. His yolk is traditionally considered by archaic nations to be intuitively regarded as the "inner sun" hidden in a snow-white package. The sun, the egg, and the AURYN are pictures associated with the symbolism of the child's archetype and the Creature Self. It's a grain of sand. The grain of sand from which the spout of light begins, it is the only thing left out of the realm of Fantasy when Bastian came in. The whole future of Fantasy lies in the hands of a small child, it only depends on what he will now wish for. The moon was given a new name and the world was re-created (regenerated), old Morla got its new, fresh form. Just as the cells of the biological organs die and come new and the organs are regenerated, the psyche is regenerated in the same way according to certain formulas we call archetypes. The rebirth of the Children's Empress is incomprehensible without the knowledge of the mythological aspects of Korah.

"The fantasy will come again from your wishes, my Bastian. And I will make it happen. "

"How many wishes can I say?"

"How much you want - the more, the better, my Bastian. The richer and more varied the Fantasy. "

Bastian's first wish is to see the Moon. At that moment he puts a grain of sand on his palm. It is cold and heavy, but it starts to come alive, germinate and grow. It produces beautiful and phosphorescent flowers until it grows in a vast living forest. Bastian names him Perelin. She looks into the eyes of the former Empress's Children, now the Moon, and is fascinated by her new beauty. The Moon is reborn and there are no sights after the disease.

The moon wonders why she has been waiting for her so long. Bastian says he was ashamed he would not throw it. But the Moon will distract his doubts. He shows him how he sees him with his eyes: like a beautiful prince. Before Bastian can recover from this new form, the Moon is gone. On its neck, however, hangs its amulet, the jewel of AURYN, with the inscription "KONEJ, CO PŘIJEŠ".

At this point, the story of the film ends, but the book is not yet in the middle!

Lev Gragram

The first being, with whom Bastian in the world of the emerging Fantasy meets and befriends, is the Gray Grammar. The lion is traditionally associated with Symbolism of the Creator I, such as the Aslan lion in Letopisy Narnie.

When the lion appears on the scene, it is as if day and night were created, life and death, as if the original unity symbolized by a grain of sand split into two opposites. In the daytime, the gramogram is a desolate desert of Goab, ruling itself as the King of Death alone, dying painfully at night, and the wilderness waking up and coming alive into the charming forest of Perelin. In the morning, the forest turns into a desert, and the lion is reborn. But the lion does not know about it because it does not remember its previous days and nights in the morning. Bastian's purpose is to provide him with this mysterious clarification of his existence and the beauty and diversity of life that he allows for his death. Death is the only one, but life (thanks to it) infinitely diverse. When a lion realizes the meaning of his existence and re-dying, he feels finally filled. His dying and rebirth is no longer painful: it is filled with profound sense.

In return, Graógramán explains to Bastian some of the secrets of the Fantasy world. He explains that there is no "near" or "far" in Fantasia, one can only move from one wish to another. He compares Fantasy to the Temple of the Thousand Doors, which allows one to step from any chamber to any other if one has the courage, but this connection only exists for a fraction of a second, and it is no longer possible to go back the same way. In dreaming, the images associate star-shaped (back and forth around the imaginary center), while the dream is characterized by a linear chain of ideas, so that the architecture of the Fantasy is more like a dream: it is never possible to go back to the same place. As there is a relative time in our reality, there is a relative space and distance in Fantasy. The bridge between distances is a wish.

In this maze, however, one can get lost if he does not know his true wishes.

On the back of AURYN is the inscription "KONEJ, CO PŘIJEŠ" ("Tu, was du willst"). He did not know about this statement, he did his mission, which was entrusted to him by the Children's Empress. But Bastin is able to read it. Is it good or bad for him? Both. The problem is that the inscription can be understood differently. It can be understood as "do whatever you like" - but Gray Gramgraman interprets it to Bastian as "go by your will". If you do not realize the difference between the two, the fantasy world is easily lost. However, it may be that he can only get to his true wish when he realizes that all his previous wishes have not been true. The message of truthfulness of desire - and doing what we just want (as the inscription can be understood) creates an imperceptible gap between the film and the book and may be one of the reasons why Michael Ende was not happy with the otherwise very beautiful film processing. The world is not sick by people acting with their own will but by doing just what they like. However, even from the point of view of all-encompassing Creator I, it is good: this is the way to know its true will. Sometimes we have to go a long way just to find the short one.

"... you will take the path of your desire, from one to the other, to the last one. He then brings you to Your True Will, "says Gragramaman.

Acharajové

Bastian wanders Fantasies to fill his dreams and desires, but with every desire he loses part of his memories, forgets every step more and more about who he is from where he came from and what his true mission is. He begins to literally lose in his games, and his sense of godliness grows into an unbearable limit, which Watch and Falco watch with concern. They notice that Bastian is remembering less and less in his world.

"It gives you a way and at the same time takes your target," says Atrey about AURYNA.

One of the excesses of his omnipotent will that AURYN delivers to him is Acharaja. They are very wicked worms who are terribly embarrassed by their ugliness, and therefore do not want anyone to see them and move only in the dark. They are unhappy with their fate and cry without ceasing. From their tears, which change in silver, they build beautiful palaces. This patience, endless work is the only comfort of their being. They are the happiest nation in the whole Fantasy, they have built the most beautiful palace of Fantasy Amarganth and filled their tears with the most beautiful Lake Murhu. The "messy" Bastian decides to help them in their misery. The transformation is in Slamufy - "Eternal Mixes". They will become outraged by them, and they will not put up "cheaters" who make fun of it all. To the extent that they all get nervous. Bastian is proud of his good fortune, but in another part of the story he will meet them and lose something precious to them. He does not know that the suffering creatures, whose suffering was filled with the sense of beauty they created, made joyful but utterly absurd creatures who ultimately cursed their benefactor because they could no longer return them: his wishes were exhausted. It's a story about where "good intentions" are being led by someone who thinks he has divine power and does not know that everything in nature has long been made with a better thought.

Dark Shadow sometimes inadvertently brings light, the motives of the "earliest" benefactor to the darkness.

Three Knights

Bastian faithful allies are the knights Hýkrion, Hýsbald and Hýdorn. They represent three psychic functions, which, thanks to the fascinating power of AURYN, must faithfully listen to Bastian: one cognitive function (thinking, feeling, intuition, perception) rules and commands all the rest, instead of leaning on their advice and achieving balance. (In other stories, they appear, for example, as false counselors).

Bastian loses more and more connections with Atreus and the Palaces, who are connected with his higher self. This is because Bastian has failed archetypu persony and the path of Individuality - the path behind his true wishes - was replaced by a desire for admiration, power, and glory. He wishes to be chanted as the greatest hero of all time, and the power of AURYN allows him to some degree.

Xyida and the Battle of the Ivory Tower

The stories of the second half of the book are diverse and a bit tedious. Basically, our little Bastian is beginning to deteriorate. His power went up in his head. He meets the wicked witch Xyid, who lets him win over him so he can crush his ego and enter into his favor as the most devoted servant. Her intention is to break the alliance between him and Atrejah, which she can do. Bastian with the band of invisibility will witness the conversation of Átrey and Falca, where they argue that AURYN will take him away. Bastian does not realize that they want to save him from himself and are disturbed by coming all his memories and the will to return to the world of people, suspecting them of greed, instigated by Xyida's whispering and flattery of its size, wisdom and perfection he does not need anyone at all because it would be a weakness. He lets them expel from their squad.

Xyide is a personification of the dark aspect of the mother's archetype, representing the "reverse face of the Moon" - a negative counterpoint to the Moon, like the Evil Queen and Snow White. It is surrounded by hollow, iron soldiers without their own will, which are a metaphor of people without imagination: conscientious plumbers of duty without a touch of playfulness, creativity, passion, elan and joke - all the good that gives people fantasy.

"Creating visions is a kind of thinking that is not necessary for our life and we can give it up. The computer or the robot has no vision, "says Radwan Bahbouh. Metal, mechanic soldiers are the metaphor of this type of people in the Infinite Story.

The opposite of the Moon, which does not rule as much as the heart of all existence, Xyida is the symbol of a craving, which requires obedience from its subjects. The moon did not need such a thing: where there is love, there is no need for obedience.

However, every human mother is, and must be, Xyida and Moon, both "good" and "evil" breast, and the separation of these qualities is possible only in fairy tales and fantasy. Reality is a complex and black thread of life always intertwines with white as two snakes in AURYNA. The fact that adults follow telenovelas where the good is always a distinct line separated from evil is actually an infantile escape from overly complicated reality into a world where everything is clear in black and white. Every true story, however, gives the idea of ​​a hidden connection between the two snakes who infest the infinite waters of life. As Átrej and Gmork form an inseparable whole, so is formed by Moon and Xyid.

"... you can not separate the right from the wrong and the good from the wrong;

for he stands together in front of the face of the sun, as if a black thread with a white thread intertwines. "

(Chalil Dzhibrán: Prophet)

Anima can be our inspiration and source of vision (Moon), but also a mysterious tempter who can seduce us from our journey. Here is Xyid.
In any case, Xyid Bastians instilled into the head that they must conquer the Ivory Tower and, from its peak, reign the whole Fantasy instead of the Children's Empress:

"Only then will you be truly free, free from everything that binds you, and you will really do just what you want. And did not you want to find your True Will? That is her!"

What exactly does Xyída Bastián offer? It offers him to identify himself with the most powerful, central archetype of Fantasy. We know well how such attempts must end: inflation, the devaluation of the ego, as it will later turn out to be. People who think as Xyid think that power = freedom. Freedom of the Moon, however, stems from the retreat from power and supremacy, lies in being alone. The choice between Xyida and Moon is similar to the choice between having and being in the way Erich Fromm writes about it.

We see how far he can lead, if the freedom of life that the Creator I provides we grasp the end that says, Do what you want. The ultimate degree of this desire, if we have tasted everything else before, is power. Likewise, people who have all conceivable desires are coming into politics, and then they rule their subjects by the ivory tower. But there is only one way to go to the junk of history. The Infinite story is called the Old Emperor's City.

However, the tallest magnolia flower of the Ivory Tower, Bastian, could not be conquered violently; only the Children's Empress could walk there but disappeared unknown. Everyone can see it only once in a lifetime and Bastien saw it for the first time and last time. (At least under that name).

Bastian wants to be crowned ceremoniously at the "Emperor's Child" in a violently embarrassing way and prepares triumphal ceremonies. His power is based on Xyid hollow guard. However, with an army of insurgents, the army will attack the Ivory Tower and (due to the moral superiority) will prevail. He asks Bastian to surrender his magical amulet. The Bastian refuses and in the sword battle of Átreje struck by the sword of Sikanda, which he received as a gift from Lv Gramogramm, saying he should never be able to draw it out of his own will-but he did. The injured Atrej falls from the top of the Ivory Tower, but the white lightning Falco captures him and flies away.

The City of the Old Emperors

On the black horse Will (Will = Will), the evil (black) will and the hatred of the Bastian will go on strike by Atreus. His horse, however, suddenly collapses into parts. The neurotic desire for revenge collapsed. Bastian finds himself in a strange city of fools. The monkey Argax explains that he has just entered a city where all those who once wanted to rule the Fantasy live. Every man in Fantasy, if he lost all his memories, could no longer have any other wish: without memories, nothing can be desired! These are fools of one kind, the monkey explains - the other fools are those who, with the power of AURYA, have crowned the emperor: at that moment they will lose all memories.

"When someone claims to be an emperor, then AURYN disappears from one another. It is clear how it is, as it can be said, because the power of the Children's Empress can not be used to take this power. "

The Bastian will understand how little he is missing and become a madman like the others in this city reminiscent of painting Hieronyma Bosch. He regrets everything he has done, burying the sword of Sikhand, by hurting his friend (burying a warped ax, giving up violence). The monkey advises Bastian to look for a wish that will return him to his world. Both of them know that he does not have much desire.

Loneliness brings it to desire after the society of equal. It is among the Yskals, mild and sailors who like to accept it among themselves. They are all the same in their thoughts and beliefs that they live in complete harmony. Bastian, however, will only feel this feeling for a moment. When they find out with what neutral indifference they perceive the deaths of their companions, they will understand that wishing to be part of a collective wave with a larger group of equals - as people experience in a football match - is satisfying for a moment: it can not replace the true need for love and friendship , which relates to the uniqueness of both ourselves and the other. True love can love what is different, and from this difference enjoys, because nothing in the universe is and can not be the same.

Bastian, however, draws on the true wishes of his heart. He no longer wants to be stronger, wants to be one of many, to be the same as others. That's what he did. But the deeper wish of his heart will lead him on.

Ms. Ajúola

By entering the town of the emperors, a community of three knights - a bubble burst, a false mask (person) collapsed. Bastian stopped at the edge of madness in five minutes of twelve, for he understood what fate he would expect. That's what his ending a neurotic desire for power and recognition, Xayid dies under the feet of his heavy-haired men. The dark aspect of the mother / anima image is withdrawn from the game.

This brings us to the core of Bastian's neurotic desire for power: it was a lack of maternal love and acceptance that he wanted to compensate. As the bubble burst, he realized his desperate loneliness and the feeling of being unhappy, trying to satisfy his belongings to a group of equals.

However, the journey brought him further: to the Variable House. It is a magical house that is incredibly cozy and hospitable. There is Mrs. Ajoola, who has a taste of "Basil", even though he looks completely different from his real mom. She and the house are one being who longs for an infinitely long time in her maternal ancestors and daughter descendants on Bastian's arrival. Now its existence is full, you are blooming. It encompasses Bastian with fruit and care and summarizes the entire course of his journey through Fantasy. All the time, Bastian wanted to be someone else, even the Emperor, just because he did not feel unconditionally accepted in his childhood. Hence his neurotic demands for fame and admiration. Whoever feels unconditionally accepted has no need to compare with anyone in terms of fame and success: he is what he is. His mission is not to become someone else (persona) - but to find His True Will.

Bastian in the changing house will stay for an unlimited time until his need for love and acceptance is satisfied. It meets deeply with the positive aspect of the mother's archetype. This could only happen when he gave up his neurotic ambitions and realized the original sense of non-acceptance and loneliness that had been masked.

Thanks to Ajoole, whose symbolism refers to the goddess of goddess Demether, Bastian understands that he is to seek the source of life on the edge of Fantasy. And on the edge of Fantasy he gets his last wish.

The time comes to say goodbye with gratitude, because his wishes - and thus the meaning of his existence - are fulfilled. Dating for this wish (which Bastian can no longer know) is the loss of all the memories of my father and mother. From now on they do not know they existed. Ájuola comes to all her leaves, flowers and fruits and turns into a black, dead tree. She waited for eternity to be able to take herself out of pure love for our little hero in a few luminous moments. When she left, she was filled with her love to continue her great search, the meaning of her being ended. The tree slowly dried up. There was no love to give, no life.

Yor

Yor is a silent miner who mines, from morning to night, a thin Marian glass plate from the bottom of the shaft. They represent forgotten dreams from the human world that cover the entire "geological" bottom of Fantasy. Why is Bastian here? It is here to extract some deeply captured image, a forgotten dream that would bring it closer to His True Will.

Yor is an aspect of the Wise Old Man reminiscent of a psychoanalyst - as he brings forth ancient memories and dreams from the depths of the unconscious.

The man in the Bastien painting is portrayed by a man in a white cloak with a quiet, worried expression on his face. It is frozen in an impenetrable transparent ice cube. The Bastian, however, no longer remembers that he is his father, but for a strange reason, when he looks at him, he feels an enormous desolation that almost drowns him. At some point, however, they catch up with the cute and stupid Shlamoufs he once created, and with his mad gambling, the image he carries will break into a thousand pieces.

The desperate Bastian remains kneeling alone, without memories, without name, in the middle of the snowy plains.

The waters of life

At that moment his friends appear - Falco and Átrej. They did not forget him.

Bastian wipes tears and takes AURYN away. He puts it carefully into the snow.

At that moment, AURYN brilliantly glows like the sun, and when Bastian opens his eyes, he finds himself in the middle of the hall with a celestial bow. He's with his friends inside AURYNA.

On a symbolic level, this moment represents the realization of the Creation Self.

From the point of view of the process of individualization, it is the point where the seed finally grew into the whole tree, which was originally contained in it as an archetypal pattern. Bastian could go in any way, choose any options, but the structure of the search for True Will is universal, called individuality.

The Basin sees two huge snakes in the middle of the jetty of the Water of Life. The waters of life are overflowing with the freshness, playfulness and health that jets when we use our imagination in a creative way. The source of our visions is inexhaustible and overflows with possibilities.

"The spring, which is itself perishing,
And it flows more strongly,
the more he drinks of it. "

And it is up to us whether we are going to create a positive or negative vision (black and white snake). Children are creating visions by something natural, creating visions almost constantly, but in adulthood we come to this ability. That's why children learn so easily. Vision is the basic precondition for motivation to learn, without it it is almost impossible.

Bastian is now in AURYN, the glitter itself, the source of life. It is exactly on the edge of Fantasy and the world of people, on the border of consciousness and unconsciousness. It is the boundary of Fantasy, for the Moon can not come here, here its power does not extend, here ends the boundaries of its realm, the Moon can not enter the world of people.

In vain he searched for the boundaries of Fantasy on its perimeter, now found Bastien in the place he had all the time in his chest = in his heart.

It's the end of Bastian's journey.

The passage into the world of people is, however, its own name (self-image "I"). But Bastian forgot. It is threatening to remain in this state (ecstasy, samadhi, trance, consciousness without the "I"). But if he had not forgotten his name if he did not put AURYN in the snow, would his path go HERE? Is not this "end" the result of a faithful friendship she has never left, the result of the grace that appeared only when Bastien did not even hope? Is not the state of final fulfillment, realization, given to those who have tried all the possibilities and desires just like the Bastian - and only one left - to get back? The broken picture with Dad reminds the words of Master Eckhart:

"The highest and innermost thing one can give up is that he gives up God for God's sake." - Then he gives up the image of God for himself.

If we wanted to look for the Infinite Story mystical plane, then her statement would be as follows: AURYN, the direct path to the Creature I, we carry all the time with our chest like Átrej and Bastian, but before we find this way, we have to try all the possible wishes that lie in our hearts. Only when the last wish of our heart remains: to return, and we will follow it, then the path of AURYA opens. But if we exhaust all the possibilities before we discover this mysterious wish - or we will try to become the emperor of the universe, then we will probably end up in the city of fools like many people ahead of us.

Regarding philosophical interpretations and questions of conscience, I found an interesting link in the work of Alice Klicka: Phenomenological approaches to the question of person identity (2003): But as Heidegger emphasizes in §54, the stay must somehow be brought into the hermeneutic circle. His decision, the election of choice, is caused by something that leads him to this possibility. Because the place of origin originally is lost, it must first be found. To be able to find himself, he must be shown in his authenticity. Stay needs testimony of your being able to be with you. This testimony is a voice of conscience. The conscience is a permanent silent call to worry about entering the hermeneutic circle, a non-hermeneutical beginning of hermeneutic circling. Thus, the conscience "prevents a person from understanding something else and goes away by himself" (§57)

Commentary: In Heidegger's concept of staying in "it's self" is a non-authentic mode of being characterized by "downturn". The conscience calls a stay away from being "out of the way".

In the Infinite Story Bastian's voice holds conscience Future with the Falco: all the while trying to warn him that he is losing his memories of the world of people, and his primary mission was to come back to help heal both worlds. They see how Bastian (in the Heidegger sense) "falls" and tries to bring him back. They will only manage to do so when Basin AURYN puts it off. At the deepest stage of decay Bastian his conscience (personified by Atreus) curses and hates and tries to get rid of him (he hits him with a sword, then he even chases him on a black horse). The fact that such a situation is absurd and untenable turns out when his horse breaks down into parts: one can not hate and pursue his conscience indefinitely: he suddenly find himself in a city of madmen, a psychiatric hospital, the personality breaks up and the pieces, the evil will (will) disappears.

When his pride falls and with humility puts AURYN in the snow (a symbol of purity, he surrenders all the powers entrusted to him), his ever-present conscience will appear in the snow-white plain and remind him of his true name and true wishes. It will show him the way back. He was always there waiting, the hero was not ready. For that moment he had to go through all the crazy and terrible pursuits.

Bastian is now at a point where neither Fantasy nor the World dominates. It is a point of consciousness in which no imaginable ideas, or anything else, yet is. It is the center of consciousness itself. Where to go imagination and the perceptions of the outside world. In this place it is possible to remain forever or return to the realm of fantasy, eternal dream and endless stories. But in order for Bastian to return to our world and help him to heal, bring him the water of life, he needs to know his name: to be aware of his own identity.

Assy Bastien promises he will complete all his tasks in Fantasy and whispers his name.

Bastian runs into the gate, jumps and falls into the void.

He screamed, "Dad! - I - I am - Bastian - Baltazar - Bux! "

Return

Bastian wakes up at school with his name on his lips. He looks around and looks for a book, but in vain. The endless story disappeared. It goes through the corridors of the school, but they are completely empty. It's a holiday, but Bastian does not know.

He returns to his father, who, worried, searches for him all night and day and tells his whole story in detail for hours. Dad listens and understands. At the end, his eyes are full of tears. Bastian gave him the water of life. Father's soul has healed. The spell is broken, the cube of ice that covered his soul melted and turned into the Water of Life.

The last debt remains: explain to Mr. Coriander that he stole his book and that the book unfortunately disappeared. Bastian walks resolutely into Mr. Koriandra's shop, and the bells on the door go off. It's not that cowardly, shaky boy like it used to be.

However, Mr. Coriander did not steal any book, says no book called Endless story never heard! Special ... they both wonder. Mr. Coriander will light a smile and let the story come from Bastian pretty well from the beginning to the end. The story likes him very much. Who then wrote it? Your unlimited imagination, Bastian. He shows Bastian all his huge library reaching the ceiling and tells him that each of those books can also be a gateway to Fantasy. And that not only books can be entered into it, and that every real story is an Infinite Story. Did he really see Basil of the Moon last? Yes and no. Just give her a new name.

Eventually they put their hands and then Coriander Bastian asks him to visit him more often. He is no longer as nasty as at the beginning. Bastian loves it.

"Baltazare Bastiana Buxi," you're grumbling in the end Wise old man under the beard, when the boy closes the door, "If I do not, then you will show a man to the Fantasy to give us the water of life."

Conclusion - Possible Interpretive Plane of Infinite Story:

1) Sociological plane: Threat of Imminent Danger - People come to the ability to create visions and creatively think.

2) Psychoanalytic plane: The path to healing the father's soul-or, in general, the soul of any adult-who has cut off from his soul and lost the sense of his existence. A story in Fantasy in the first half of the book reflects what's happening in Dad's unconscious. In the second half, we witness Bastian's neurotic desire for power and glory, which results from a lack of sense of unconditional acceptance, which will only be revealed when the "proud bubble" of narcissistic self-infliction becomes lighter: Then Bastian comes to his true wish - to feel genuine, unconditional love. (Ms. Ajúola). Both halves of the book are both a metaphor for both adult and child healing processes that deal with mum's loss. Horník Your can represent a psychoanalyst, which allows long-lost unconscious memories and pictures to bring to light.

3) Psychological plane of wishes and needs: Bastian first tries to fulfill his desire to be a hero, courageous and famous, to the extent that his wish comes out of his hand and wants to be crowned with the Emperor of the whole Fantasy. The desire for recognition and respect is the fourth floor Maslow's pyramids needs. Only when this impossible dream collapses becomes aware of the unfulfilled basic need (third floor) - the level of acceptance and love. When this deeper need is fulfilled, the fifth plane call is called: a call to self-realization - to find his true will - as Graygraman's lord advised him. A similar process where the oversized needs of the fourth floor (respect and recognition) compensate for deficiency at a deeper level (love and acceptance) can be found at Hitler or Mussolini. Only the satisfaction of all basic needs (the first four floors of Maslow's pyramid) opens the door to the fifth stake: the growth needs - "the desire to become what one could and should be." (Maslow)

4) Philosophical (Heidegger) plane: The story of "returning" home, returning to the authenticity of its being, living out of itself, falling apart, living in things, living "it", how "everyone else" lives. To this return, one is called by the soft voice of the conscience, which represents in the second half of Átre and the Falco.

5) Mystical plane: Auryn as a symbol of infinite consciousness, divinity, enlightenment, realization of the Creator I, which can only be achieved when one has no desire, respectively: then man is accessible to him, accessible because he has lived through all his wishes and is no longer left, do everything. As he enters this higher plane, he realizes at the same time that this treasure has carried with him all the time of the Great Search in his heart: He had it with him from the beginning, but if he did not go into great distances he might never find it.

6) The Motive of Integrity of the Entire and Individual: If one man heals his soul, he heals the whole world (the waters of life).

Symbolism of Infinite Story

Acharájové / Šlafufové
Acharaja: beings who suffer greatly, but feel sense in beauty and creativity / Slaughters: Beings of joyful infantile but without sense who suffer themselves by not being able to play because they have no rules; therefore ask their "benefactor" Bastian to make some rules for them

Archetype of the Wise Old Man: Mr. Koriander, The Wanderer of the Wandering Mountain, the Engywuk / Yor
Mr. Koriander: Alterego writer The Infinite Story in the World of People / The Wandering Mountain Old Man: The Same Aspect in the World Fantasy / Engywuk: A comic skein of a wise old man, a cartoon of a child scientist (the boy is older than the old Engywuk) , which can only be understood through his own infinite story - the process of individuality - Great searching / Yor: psychoanalyst, shaman, magician

Upper / Werewolf Gmork
positive power to follow the vision of your inner self, fighter, divine child, child hero / negative power to create visions of manipulation, shadow; Lucifer, Mefistofeles, explaining the role of Nicholas and the reason why it serves: participation in power; in our reality: a person working in the media, an advertising creator, a demagogue, a political leader - anyone who abuses the power of a vision

AURYN / Children Empress
the primordial vibration of the universe, the greatest mystery and the symbol of the Creator I, the unity of consciousness and unconsciousness, good and evil; power / Korah, symbol of rebirth and endless life; helplessness, fragility

Bastian / Atrej / Falco
Bastian: the self-image "I" with all the imperfections, the archetype of the hero (still unarmed warrior) / Átrej: the child's hero, the ideal "I", the archetype of the warrior in childhood, Bastian's conscience and the inner voice " non-exhorting hope, luck, spiritual freedom, unbridled; Falco or Lucky Dragon is another form of the fabled Phoenix or Bird of Fire: that part of our soul that takes off to the stars with the divine enthusiasm of poets, ecstatic dancers and mystics; Falca can also be considered a symbol of libido, sexual or total-psychic energy, in our story bound up with reproaches of conscience (Ygramul)

white horse Artex / black horse Will / mezek Jícha
good / bad will / Jicha: a symbol of patience and humility that Bastian rejects on Xyídino's insistence so that he has since been allowed to wear in the stretcher; so his descent begins

doubles: the Elves Engywuk / Urgla
Engywuk: Spirit, intellect, noble and scientific matters, the wisdom of the spirit / Urgle: matter, body, everyday and earthly matters, the wisdom of the body; together make up the imago of the parent couple (syzygia) + the understanding that one without the other is childish (infantile) and funny though "good in the core", a reference to the fact that even "parents are sometimes children and adults"

Children Empress / Morula:
Child Empress: living truth, eternity as a moment, rebirth, unity of life and death, joy; the white hair of the child is a symbol of "existence forever" / Morula: dead knowledge, enormous age, life as infinitely long dying, dead life, indifference, guna tamas; despite his age, he is a being of fantasy that is subject to the origin and extinction and is younger than the Empress

Children's Empress / Ms. Ajúola:
Koré, the principle of defense, which must die and be born again, daughter / Déméter, the principle of harvest and fertility, the positive aspect of the mother's archetype / together form the cycle of the regeneration of nature

Children Empress / Xyida / Lion Gramgraman
Children's Empress: Inspiration, Clean Being, "What You Want" Xyida: Temptation, Abuse of Power, Possession, "Do What You Want" Gragramaman: Courage, Authority and Terrible Magnificent Magnificent Power will";
another connotation: "Just how you want it to be the whole law" (Aleister Crowley)

The metal guards blow
a metaphor of people without fantasy who, without interference, fulfills their duties and authority orders

Imagination
an unconscious metaphor in which the only bridge between two places is a wish; has no boundaries

Karel Conrad Coriander (Carl Conrad Coriander) and Baltazar Bastian Bux
CCC: A Writer who does not like children because they are no longer interested in real, big stories / BBB: the child they are interested in and who, when he grows up, becomes Mr. Coriander, and he meets again with himself as a writer's source fantasy is his child's imagination

Lion Grabgraman / Forest Perelin / Children Empress
unity, desert, death, destruction / diversity, forest, life, procreation / unification of both and their origin in the form of grains of sand

Nothingness
a metaphor of ignorance, a trend whereby people come to the ability to create their own vision and cease to believe in this possibility, the form of blindness and destruction that causes people to suffer on the basis of mere ideas; expanding with every misnomer's name by the real names: lies and truth covering the euphemisms; in human psyche, however, there is something that Nicotoy is indestructible, and it contains the ever-present regeneration potential that can be activated by the creative act and the liberating name of "real name": grain of sand

Purple bison
the magical beast that Atrej spared when pointing at the arrow and giving him the first advice in his Great Search, the positive aspect of the mother's archetype; the reminiscence of this symbol can be found in the advertisement of purple Milk - "a land flowing with milk and shade"

Sikanda (sword)
symbolizes the use of power at the instigation of the higher self (leaping from the sheath itself) or the selfish abuse of power (if tasen by the human hand); Bastian, by breaking Atreus, tries to silence the voice of his conscience calling him to return (the authentic mode of being)

Daddy / Children Empress / Átrej
adult person, inability to dream, obsession with the profession, persona / his soul, anima, the principle of imagination and the depth of life that one should revive in the second half of life / Hero-child, who is the healer Cheirón sent to heal his father's soul

Daddy: horse Artex / Morula / Ygramúl
Arthur: overcoming the sadness of Mother's loss, not looking back / Morula: overcoming resignation, indifference and indifference, dead and wretched "omniscience" who does not cure / Ygramul: overcoming the terrible remorse for the death of a mum -

Uyula
"Voice of silence", oraculum, answer, a mystery known only by its own experience, led by three gates of initiation: 1) overcoming the desire to explain all the world's riddles by dualistic thinking, 2) courage to accept self-image including its unknown depths, 3) in the sense of a zen

Great search
metaphor of individualism or opus magnum - Great Work

grain of sand / Water of life
the indestructible nature of human ability to create visions (analogy of mustard seed from the gospel) / aqua vitae, the inexhaustibility of human creativity and fantasy: the more the more it is used; inexhaustible energy of love: grows more the more it is shared

Book and film impersonation

In conclusion, I would like to make a small comparison: while the message and the joyful ending of the film say, "Wish what you want - the world is full of unsuspected possibilities," the book warns against a slightly infantile ending: but be careful not to end up in a "mad city" "Because auryn" gives you the way, but takes the goal. "To become an adult means to wake up from your childhood, renounce infantile claims to the world, find your true will and bring your neighbor's water to life: the energy of love.

The film ends in an endless childhood, while the book can also be read as a story of childhood, of adolescence filled with searching, groping and suffering - and finally of the adulthood that every small self-centered hero must "reach".

Tip from Sueneé Universe