Haroun, Iff, Butt the Hoopoe, and Mali the stories' gardener, investigating the Sea's 'Old Zone', are captured by Khattam-Shud's animated shadow, who plans to plug the Story Source at the bottom of the Sea. Before he can do so, Mali destroys the machines used by him to poison the Sea, and Haroun restores the Sea's long-annulled alternation of night and day– thus destroying the antagonist's shadow and those assisting him, and diverting the giant 'Plug' meant to seal the Source. In Chup, the Guppee army destroy the Chupwalas' army and release Princess Batcheat; whereupon Khattam-Shud himself is crushed beneath a collapsing statue commissioned by himself. Thereafter the Walrus promises Haroun a happy ending of his own story. On return to the human world, Rashid reveals Haroun's adventures to local citizens, who expel Snooty Buttoo. When Rashid and Haroun return home, the people of their city have become joyous to replace their customary misery, and Soraya has returned to her son and husband. The novel concludes with an appendix explaining the meaning of each major character's name. Haroun: The main character/central consciousness of the story. A young, curious, courageous, outspoken child. He struggles throughout most of the story with a form of attention-deficit disorder caused by his mother running away with Mr. Sengupta at exactly eleven o'clock, and under its influence he is unable to concentrate for a longer period of time (not more than eleven minutes). But he eventually overcomes his disorder at the climax, never to suffer from it again. He and his father are both named after the "legendary Caliph of Baghdad, Haroun al-Rashid, who features in many "Arabian Nights" tales. Their surname Khalifa actually means Caliph"  Rashid: Haroun's father, known as the Shah of Blah and the Ocean of Notions for his ability to devise stories impromptu, Rashid is a professional storyteller sometimes hired by corrupt politicians to persuade constituents in their favour. His attachment to his wife and to his practice of storytelling, is probably his greatest psychological weaknesses; when either of them is lost, he becomes depressed and tends to lose the other. In the story, to recover the latter, he travels to Kahani by means known as 'Rapture', through which he is able to travel inside his dreams and wake up in the world, his dream has created.