History Headscratchers / PansLabyrinth

* Meta: Why some people claimed this movie was marketed as a family friendly fantasy adventure a la ''Film/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', when the actual trailer clearly showed torture devices and had a pretty grim tone, akin to a horror film?

** The food being attractive could also be part of another SecretTestOfCharacter. Ofelia followed what she had been told on the first task, but on the second she disobeyed the Faun's orders and ate some of the forbidden food. So she had to deal with the consequences of her own actions, rather than following orders laid out for her. Although she woke up the Pale Man and got back too late to go through the door, she improvised and found another way out. Sure one fairy died as a result, but Ofelia still demonstrated that she could think under pressure, keep a clear head and find another solution. All qualities that a ruler would be expected to have. Who's to say that the second task wasn't designed in such a way that Ofelia couldn't resist the food (even if it wasn't enchanted, she still hadn't eaten in a while).

* Now, it's been about 3 years since I've seen the movie, so details are a bit fuzzy, but this part of the ending really bothered me: ''Just what's so bad about a little baby blood??'' Now, I know that when people say that they want some of your blood -- even just a little! -- then that usually means that they're going to kill you and drain you of all of it. Were that the case, I could understand how this test would be a pass/fail re: Becoming a princess of a magic fairy kingdom. But mystical creatures, so far as I've come to know them, are literal to absurd proportions. So, if they say "just a little blood", you could ''totally'' get away with giving them just a drop, and they'd just have to say "Well, I guess that ''is'' what I said..." and deal with it. Going with that line of reasoning, this implies that drawing even a drop of blood from a baby -- even if it's to complete a series of tasks while on a mystical quest wherein all of your other tasks have been presented on the level (i.e. not secretly devised to kill you or otherwise full of trickery and underhandedness) -- means you're going to die alone and no one will ever know about it, instead of being transported to a land of magic and wonder. Now ''that'' is some underhanded mystical creature shit right there. The reason this pisses me off so much is because ''I so totally would have given him the baby blood''. I mean, Jesus, he's a baby, not a Romanov; it's not going to kill him to have a drop of blood lost. Unless causing even mild, momentary pain to another person, even with legitimate reason (magical quest! magical quest!) is enough to destroy your Innocent Little Girl status? To which I say: [[FelonyMisdemeanor What Do You Mean It's Heinous?]] Damn mystical creatures.
** I have not viewed the film in a long time, but I recall that look on her face. She seemed to suspect it was more than a cut.

*** Remember, the Faun could have meant "just a little blood" -- but he also could have gone the other way and told her that the little bit of blood she gave was not enough. Also, I think this is a testament to her strong character -- the child is only her half-brother, and his father is a vicious murderer. And it would have been very easy to blame the baby for her mother's death. But when the Faun gives her an easy proposition -- causing pain (albeit momentary) to a baby in order to go into the other world -- what answer does she give? "No."
** If I'm not mistaken, though, what the Faun had said was that she needed to use the "blood of an innocent" in order to pull it off... So why not use some of '''her own''' blood? Or did disobeying the Faun earlier cause her to become non-innocent?

** It's been three years since I've seen the movie too, but I still remember that scene and how it looked. The thought definitely occurred to me "Well if it's just a drop..." but I felt like I was looking at two characters neither of whom believed for a moment that it was really just a drop. The Faun had been acting creepier and creepier and now was acting extra creepy. And he had a HUGE knife. I think if he'd had a needle I'd have felt quite differently.

** Well the secret test of character was that she wouldn't choose her own desires over the well-being of an innocent. She was told: the baby has to bleed for you to get to the fairy realm. As others have said, she ''could'' have resented the baby for being the cause of their mother's death -- but she chose to act as the baby's protector. She would not allow any harm to come to the child for whatever reason. A selfish person would rationalise it saying "it's only a ''little'' bit of blood." But Ofelia refusing proved that she was pure of heart and therefore able to enter the fairy realm. Also wasn't Ofelia under the impression that she would go straight to the fairy realm? If so then wouldn't that mean her brother had to stay behind? Perhaps Ofelia also didn't like the idea of leaving the baby alone and bleeding in a labyrinth in the middle of the night.
* Alright, I know this has been discussed before, but it's a major wallbanger, so it should go here, too. The problem is, ''why the bloody hell did Ofelia eat the damn fairy food!?'' Ofelia is a smart girl, and reads fairy stories; shouldn't she have learned something? And if you learn ''anything'' from fairy stories, it's that ''You Do Not Eat The Fairy Food''. It's one of those things that I learned so early I don't remember when -- ''Do Not Go Places with Strangers''. ''Do Not Leave Things for Other People to Trip Over''. ''[[RuleOfThree Do Not]] Eat the Fairy Food''. ''They Are Not Like Us'', ''What is Theirs is Not Ours'', ''You Do Not Mess with the Fey''. It's not that they're evil, but they're not human. So how come we expect them to be like us? Anyway. Sure, she was hungry, sure she's curious, sure it's a demonstration of how not all orders are obeyed, whatever. A fairy himself told her not to, even! But noooooo, she just had to eat them. And so [[CrapsackWorld it all goes down the drain]]. Gee, thanks!

** The food is enchanted -- I'm always surprised by how many people don't get that. Look at the way she suddenly turns toward the grapes and the camera does a little sweeping pan to follow her gaze, with the Universal Standard Harp of Magical Mischief playing in the soundtrack. GenreBlind, yourself.
** Actually he is right. The food is not enchanted, Del Toro Himself says in the audio commentary that she hasn't eaten anything at all since her mother grounded her, there was a scene that didn't make it to the final cut where Ofelia was offered some food but she declined because he thought it would have been very obvious to the viewer.
** I posted this in the main page, but whether it will stay there is anyone's guess. Ofelia's acting like a character in certain fairy tales, which makes sense because she believes herself to be a fairy tale princess. In some fairy tales (but not all,) the main character will fail to listen to advice, or do something they were told specifically not to do -- and in the tales I can remember the reasoning is rather stupid, like not covering up the cage of a bird because it's too pretty (resulting in the bird's singing and alerting everyone in the castle that it's being stolen -- admittedly birds will still make SOME noise when they're covered, but not as much when they aren't!) And yes, if there is a person who is guiding the main character in their quests, they will get VERY pissed off about this. In some cases the tale ends here, but if it doesn't, the main character must do something to redeem themselves in the eyes of their quest-giver. Usually just listening to the instructions and following them to the letter is good enough, though sometimes (like in Ofelia's case) something more extreme is required. So Ofelia is just acting in accordance with the fairy-tale princess that she believes she is -- and in her case, she's the kind of fairy tale character that messes up once in a while, because nobody's perfect. It took me a while to realize this, and I have read *tons* of fairy tales.
** The second time I saw the movie, I read it as a parallel to Ofelia's mother marrying Captain Vidal, and buying into his luxury, power, and prestige, even though she has to know something of what a monster he is. She let greed overrule fear, and Ofelia did the same.
*** ETA: ''Not'' that it is a bad thing to look out for not only your own welfare, but that of your young daughter, during warfare. Carmen is making a pragmatic choice (or making the best of a bad situation that wasn't much of her choosing,) but I still think her decision is meant to parallel Ofelia's.
** I think it's worth noting what happened right before she notices the grapes. The fairies direct her to the wrong door. She ignores them and she gets the dagger. In that instance disobedience turns out to be the right choice. It's not much of a stretch to imagine that she thought the fairies (and by extension the Faun) were misdirecting her when they tried to stop her eating the grapes.

** You don't need to overthink this one. Ofelia is just a little girl and she's witnessed a nightmarish scene that would make any child to run to hide under the bed. Heck, most adults would be terrified too! There's no way Ofelia would be in a state of mind to even realize the Pale Man was not exactly agile.
* There was one thing that bugged this Troper when watching Ofelia's escape-from-the-Pale-Man scene. Why, exactly, did she have to get up on a chair and draw a trapdoor in the ceiling? Wouldn't it have been much easier -- and, more importantly, much faster -- to simply draw another one on the wall?

** About the Spanish mythology: There are several different mythologies, but I can say that the ones in the north have a lot of common points (somethings also shared with [[UsefulNotes/{{Portugal}} Portuguese]] mythology). Fairyland is underground with the realm of the dead. The world is called Mourama in Portuguese mythology, and Alén (lit. "The Beyond") in Galician mythology; in the last one castros and old tombs (or rock formations, actually) are entries to this world. Mouras (think the Sidhe from [[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Irish mythology]]) are the inhabitants of this world and the name 'moura' is thought to mean 'dead.'
** "Fairy-world" = "Underworld" is a spiritual belief that's OlderThanDirt in many cultures, so [[{{Tropers/Sharysa}} This Troper]] assumed that Del Toro just [[{{Mythopoeia}} made up the fairy-tale from scratch.]]

** She'd likely still wake up the Pale Man anyway. I think stealing from the table would be enough.

*** I pondered if his "lair" was more his trap. As he doesn't seem the type to do his own painting, so perhaps the fairyland people locked up all the dangerous stuff in there (the knife, whatever else is locked up, etc.) and that includes a dangerous monster as an unwilling guard? The paintings are designed to warn anyone that should be there for whatever reason "don't freakin' mess with that thing!"

** Personally I always thought the Captain married Ofelia's mom because he ''had'' to marry her -- a one-week affair suddenly got serious when Ofelia's mom revealed she was pregnant, and Vidal decided it was better to start building his legacy now rather than wait 'til the end of the war.
* Okay, I need to ask: What the [[PrecisionFStrike FUCK]] was Ofelia's mother thinking when she married Vidal?! I understand the need for security, but how does marrying the psychotic member of a fascist government grant you that? It just puts a big target on the back of your head, especially when you have to move to a possibly hostile spot in the middle of nowhere!

* Ok, back on the Real World, what the hell was so important about that sawmill? I couldn't see any reason why it was so ''incredibly'' important that there be soldiers there, or even that it was under any kind of direct threat at all until the very end. And if it IS, in fact, a military objective that must be defended at any cost, why does Vidal have his wife and soon to be son living with him in what is, for sake of this specific argument, a war zone? Any why does he host ''dinner parties'' there? I get that Vidal is supremely arrogant, is he also supremely stupid, or is there some context I'm missing here?

* Why didn't Mercedes poison Vidal's food or kill him in his sleep to passively take him out? I know it makes the story simple but I find it irritating that she doesn't do much other than plot against him indirectly. She obviously wants him for dead, but even when she gets the chance to do some serious damage, she only wounds him on the shoulders rather than going for his vital organs.

*** Remember that Ophelia is GenreSavvy, as well. The Faun could have meant "just a little blood" -- but he also could have gone the other way and told her that the little bit of blood she gave was not enough. Also, I think this is a testament to her strong character -- the child is only her half-brother, and his father is a vicious murderer. And it would have been very easy to blame the baby for her mother's death. But when the Faun gives her an easy proposition -- causing pain (albeit momentary) to a baby in order to go into the other world -- what answer does she give? "No."

** Also add in the fact that the only way out of that room is to go all the way back, climb on a chair, and draw another portal. It's very easy to become cornered in that room. You also have to take into account, these are simple, stupid children. Not some GenreSavvy adventurer.