The Last Episode: 'The Mountains of Beyond'

im going to go ahead and say that the moutains of beyond is a metaphore for death, as in beyond the grave, and that the writers just tired of the plot and ran out of things to write, so they ended it. or, maybe the mountains of beyond is like florida, they go there when they turn 400 and eventually they die.

i think you might be taking a children's cartoon series too seriously. death is a difficult subject to deal with in a kid's show, they were probably more concerned with doing it respectfully than the little details.

This episode was seriously sad.

Maybe I was just crazy. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted.

The Mountains of Beyond definatly is a metaphor for heaven and they turn into trees because for their whole life to the world they are but small insignificant creatures, but because they are such an important part of the world the become something big and grand and majestic

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I was bawling when I first saw it, lol. I remember hearing somewhere that when the gnomes get old enough they just know when they're finished and they go to the mountains and just give up living. I'm not sure why those particular mountains, though. I think he said in one part that they were going where their ancestors went. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Here is passage from the book Gnomes by Poortuliet and Huygen, from which the show was based on, that explains it.

Even a gnome's life must come to an end. Over 400 years of age, the male rapidly becomes stiff and forgetful, though other gnomes still respect him. Eventually the shriveled-up old man developes a tendency to wander. His wife displays the same symptoms, she being almost the same age herself. The housekeeping begins to suffer; the house starts to decay and becomes dirty and dark.

On one particular night, the aged couple does not return from their wandering. They have begun the journey to the Mountain of Death (never before seen by human eyes)-and with the certainty of a migratory bird they will find it if they are not attacked on the way by animals of prey.

As soon as they die, their birthday tree begins to get dead branches unless it is used by more than one gnome. (See Timekeeping.)

Lives beyond 400 years or so have seldome been recorded, with the exception of a married couple in the Balkans who lived 550 years. But they were looked after for a great while by generations of a farming family, who placed a bowl of yogurt in the stable for them every day. They each had an olive tree on the Adriatic Sea.

I remember watching the last episode on tv, and looking at the dates of the show I would have been either 4 or 5... and I sobbed my little heart out. Did they go into trees? All I remember is these two gnomes had to go and it was so so sad. This was when great cartoons would be on saturday mornings from 6am, so I was by myself watching these gnomes leave (die), and all I can remember doing is cry hahaha... thats pretty much all I remember about the show at all! I've been trying to find out what this cartoon was for years, good ol' IMDB.. plu jem and the holograms brought me here!