The Power of Nothing: A Brief Metaphysical Study of Evil Forces in ‘The NeverEnding Story’
The Power of Nothing: A Brief Metaphysical Study of Evil Forces in The NeverEnding Story
by Michael J Flynn, Bachelor of Arts in History & Humanities, Villanova University
Although, I have not seen The NeverEnding Story since I was twelve or so and remembered it as a soporific tale with a giant fluffy and not so cool dragon; I find that the concept of the nothing as a deeply meaningful enemy. Whereas most 1980’s children’s fantasy movies rely upon large nightmare inducing anamatronics or puppets, The NeverEnding Story provides a more philosophically complex antagonist: The Nothing.
The physical manifestation of impending nothing provides an illustration of the Christian Platonist’s belief that the greatest evil is the absence of being or “nothingness.” When The Nothing is being generated from the ill Empress, this illustration is enhanced with metaphysical implications. It is the sickness of man which detracts from the greatest good (being) and thereby promotes or even creates evil. Such analysis is the underpinnings of the answer to the popular theological question: “How does God allow evil to exist?” The NeverEnding Story would support the Neo-Platonist/Augustinian traditions’ response that it is man who creates evil in the world bringing about nothingness where God is being.
While these deeply metaphysical questions may not have been asked in the two sequels or the animated series, The Neverending Story the Adventures of Bastian Balthazar Bux, or even the video game of the same title; that does not reduce The NeverEnding Story’s attempt at introducing children to Neo-Plantonism nor does it tarnish the philosophical power of the nothing.
The End
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