Neverending Story 2 Fantasitca in Danger

In this chapter we get our first look at Fantastica, we meet four characters and with in only a few moments of exposition we know the plot of the story.

Fantastica as a world is vast, it is called unbounded and the people from every part of Fantastica are as different from each other as possible. we can see this very clearly in the first four characters we meet.

There is the bouncing ball of light that is Blubb the lost will-o-the-wisp, who is from Moldymoor near lake Froamingbroth. (by the way he is the first character to not make it to the movie.) also the giant Pyornkrackzark, the rock chewer (not biter) who is from the Cheesie-Wheezies -mountains that look like Swiss cheese do to the Rock Chewers eating them- which are inconceivably far from the howling forest where this little party is assembled. the fuzzy Caterpillar like Vooshvazool is a night-hob who's species is fairly widespread so they are found in any number of places in Fantasitca. And last but not least there is Gluckuk the Tiny who is from an entirely different part of the boundless Fantastican Empire, even farther then the rock chewer. these four characters show us that fantastica is made up of many wonderful, strange things. But just how overwhelming the diversity of fantastica is comes from the stables of the Ivory tower. Here is the description:

"In this stable there were many other mounts; two elephants, one pink and one blue, a gigantic griffon with the forequarters of an eagle and the hindquarters of a lion, a winged horse, whose name was once known even outside of Fantastica but is now forgotten, several flying dogs, a few other bats, and several dragonflies and butterflies for especially small riders. In other stables there were still other mounts, which didn't fly but ran, crawled, hopped, or swam."


Fantasitca is indeed a place with many divers creatures.

Now before we get to the Ivory Tower itself I'd like to take a moment to talk about Bastian. we never leave Bastian behind. it is one of the particular features of this book. we get Bastian's thoughts and actions and even some of his interruptions though out the first half of the story. just as the small party divides each believing the others in he party will slow them down in their hurry to get to the Ivory tower the school bell rings. here we see how Bastian views his world, Humdrum, dull where the writer is almost always trying to convince him of something. He doesn't like reading his school books because he get enough of the humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people from living in reality. Bastian believes that the only thing he is good at is imagining things, he can see and hear the characters and their environmental. he counts himself lucky that he is up in the attic reading the perfect book for him while his classmates are studying nature by counting pistils and stamens. this is of course one of the reasons this book is my favorite, I too have the feeling that I get enough of real life in well real life. But back to the story.

For Bastian the world is dull. and his teachers teach dull subjects. it is interesting that it is a science class which focuses on the material world. this is going to be important as the story goes on. Because soon we will find out just how important an imagination is. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I hate to use the movie concept of this,
cause it is just not right. 

on to the Ivory Tower, which is not really a tower, it is a big as a city and looks more like a Mountain peak twisted like a Snail Shell. it is made completely of the purest white Ivory, every wall is decorated by carvings that are so delicate that they revel the finest lace. This is the center of Fantastica, the home of the childlike empress. It is her home but not her fortress. no one in all the unbounded world of Fantastica would ever think of attacking her.

But First, the Nothing. What is the Nothing? It is nothing. The movie that was made quite a long time ago now portrayed the nothing as a storm, clouds rolling in an aggressive and dangerous way. But it would seem that the nothing simply is nothing. where once there was something there is now nothing. as if you were suddenly blind but only in that one place where the nothing is. Blubb tells us that it would start with just a small chunk, no bigger then an egg, but it would grow. and if someone put something into the Nothing, like a hand or a foot, it would be gone. there would be no pain, but that part would be missing. he also adds:
"Some would even fall in on purpose if they got too close to the Nothing. It has an irresistible attraction-the bigger the place, the stronger the pull"
No one is safe, no one can explain it and most horrifying is that it would seem that people are willing to become part of it. but there is something more frightening that this little group of characters find out when they get to the Ivory Tower. Their hope is wrapped up in the Childlike Empress.

Only she can help them, and Gluckuk gives us the terrible news, the Childlike Empress is very very ill. Nobody knows what is wrong and all the doctors have been called to find a cure for what ever is causing her illness. but even at this point there is the though that what ever her illness is, it is connected to the strange calamity threatening to destroy Fantastica. But that is another story to be told at another time. this is the closing statement that is said when the characters leave the story to have their own adventures. I hope that doesn't break your heart too much, we will not see Blubb, Gluckuk, Vooshvazool, or Pyornkrachzark ever again.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

I'm sorry this came so late, it looks like I might not be as good at keeping this going as I was hoping but it is a new week and you might just get two more updates on this book before the end of the week. Again I ask if you my readers think that this post is too long?