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Narrative
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David Bowie is a Muppet. The man never ages.
His career before Labyrinth was an elaborate experimental ruse by the Jim Henson company. It's the same style as having Elmo interviewed on a current affairs program, but on a grander scale. After the film was done, he somehow escaped, and he has been maintaining his fame as a security measure and because performance is all he knows how to do (and gods, he does it well...). There are legions of people who would notice if he ever disappeared.
What we see in the fantasy part of the film is the result of Sarah's deranged and deluded mind after she kills Toby and sinks into insanity.
The end of the movie shows her having a brief lucid moment, though still being in denial about the murder, when her parents get home; then she sinks irrevocably into insanity at the end.
Jareth is of the same Witch Species as Yuko Ichihara from xxxHoLic.
Both of them are masters at screwing around with space and time. Both of them like screwing over ignorant mortals by giving them exactly what they asked for. Both of them have the odd habit of having a new and ridiculously elaborate outfit every time they appear onscreen. Both like flirting with barely-legal teenagers in ambiguously sexual relationships. The similarities are scary.
Jareth is romantically interested in baby Toby.
Sadly, very sadly, this is the plot of the Labyrinth Spin Off yaoi manga, featuring bishounen teenage Toby being stalked for his whole life by Jareth the magical pedophile.
Well, he *is* a supernatural being. Presumably with different constructs of what's an appropriate age to begin lusting after someone, or the difference between 'What a cute baby!' and 'Hel~looo, nurse.'
Sarah, but not Toby, is actually related to the famed Morgan Le Fay, which is why when SHE said the words, it worked.
Meiriona is using this in her own fanworks on fanfiction.net.
The right words were actually "Somebody take me away from this awful place!"
This makes the entire movie a set up for when Sarah inevitably runs back to the generous but cruel Goblin King, who had indeed fallen in love with her.
There Is No Toby.
The "baby" is a creation of Jareth, specifically a Mac Guffin to lure Sarah into his world so that he can evaluate her potential as his Queen. All the trials Sarah goes through in his world are tests of fitness. All her "memories" of Toby are false, and her "parents" most likely either have false memories, too, or are fakes themselves.
Jareth was himself stolen by goblins as a baby.
Hence his human appearance. He was stolen from the Krolock family, and his older brother later became a vampire after inheriting the title of Graf. (Jareth didn't age past about 30 because he lived in another realm.) Both brothers, in spite of completely different upbringings, later fell in love with and lured teenage girls named Sarah who were bored to death with their normal lives. In addition, isn't it obvious that Herbert (Graf von Krolock's son) is SOMEHOW related to Jareth? Just look at Jareth ◊ and then Herbert ◊.
Jareth is a vampire
Jareth is an Anthropomorphic Personification tied to Deception.
He certainly seems to operate on a different plane from the other goblins, who might or might not all be constructs he personally created, based on Sarah's books and toys, when he targeted her. Likewise, he follows no particular rules of time or space, but when Sarah stops believing in his power, it is broken, just with a lie. And he cannot show up until she "tells" him to.
Jareth is a facet of Dream.
He rules a magical kingdom. He put a girl he had fallen in love with but who refused his gifts into an oubliette. (Sarah/Nada) He offers that same girl the world ("Fear me love me..." / "I would have made her a goddess"). He pissed off a young woman by appearing to have stolen a fair-haired baby, while it was being babysat and mum was out. (Sarah; Toby / Lyta Hall; Daniel) He didn't personally steal the kid. (Goblins / Loki&Puck) The young woman embarks on a quest to get revenge on the king for stealing the kid. (Sarah; the whole movie/ Lyta; The Kindly Ones arc) The young woman gains three allies who help her to defeat said king (Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus/The Kindly Ones) He desires to have "stolen" child take his place. He is defeated, and his power broken, when the young woman comes into the heart of his kingdom, and his kingdom is destroyed by this. (End of movie/ End of the Kindly Ones arc). He has Eighties Hair and long flowing cloaks.
The only real difference is that Sarah got Toby back, while Daniel took over for Morpheus. It's obviously an alternative ending Dream made for himself and his heir to be comforted by.
Jareth is an empty vessel personification-wise— he takes all his personality and important details beyond simply being what he is in the play, with minimal physical description, from Sarah's fantasies.
That's why he wants her to stay- wouldn't you rather be a handsome, cunning trickster-god in really tight pants than just another goblin in a goblin kingdom? The reason for all the puzzles and awkward semi-romantic imagery? Hormones.
The people inside the crystal during Sarah's dream/Jareth's seduction are the other people of his race.
They've been imprisoned by him, either for some crime against him or because he's totally batshit. They continue partying eternally, either because they're under a spell, they like it in there, or they, too, are completely batshit.
Both Sarah and the Goblin King are simply mentally ill humans.
Jareth breaks into the house and steals the kid as Sarah is babysitting. Sarah, not quite understanding 911, follows. She ventures into a small area of the city where the inhabitants don't like the cops but like baby-stealing psychos even less. (This part is justified by reality. Most crooks have a huge soft spot for kids in a good way.) Sarah's allies are friendly humans who want to help save the baby, and they use their underworld connections to do so. It is just fun to image the real world version of the Labyrinth. Maybe the Bog of Eternal Stench is a needle-strewn, long-abandoned crack-house.
Jareth is a creature similar to the elves in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, if not indeed one of them
His actions and motivations resemble those of the Queen of Fairies in the Wee Free Men considerably, and like with the Queen, his world seems to be a reflection of his own mind, and its creatures are either extensions of himself, or wandered in from other places and gotten stuck. His appearance and demeanor are very reminiscent of the elves described in Lords and Ladies. He isn't a sadistic monster, but he clearly struggles with the concepts of human morality, and can't really tell love and possessiveness apart from each other. Of course, the stories take influence from the same ancient myths, justifying the similarity.
Jareth is Sosuke Aizen.
He keeps his zanpakuto in his pants, which Sarah was the only one not to notice. This is why she is presumably the first human to break through his illusion: she was never subject to the full force of the illusions, just the secondary effects that could be broken.
Sarah Isn't Crazy; she's the new Goblin King
At the end of the movie, she summons the denizens of the Goblin City to her bedroom; she's not hallucinating them or sinking into insanity, it really is happening. Her bedroom, being her sanctuary away from mundane life, is slowly merging with Jareth's Castle. Having defeated him, Sarah is now the Goblin King (Queen?) and entitled to his realm.
Forever touched by the powers of Arcadia, Sarah returns triumphant from her Durance in the Labyrinth, but finds herself growing even more distant from normal humans because she's found real friends among the goblins and hobgoblins she met in the Hedge.
When Toby grows up and finds his sister consorting with monsters (and possibly being able to see through her Mask, having been touched by Jareth's power as a baby), and generally becoming less and less human as she grows more fully into her Fae powers, he'll eventually hear the story of how he was stolen and Sarah came to rescue him, and dedicate himself to keeping the Fae from stealing anyone else.
David Bowie is the heir of Gondor.
David Bowie is, however distantly, the direct descendant of King Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and Queen Arwen, making him not only the leader of the Dúnedain (and, by extension, the Númenóreans), as well as the one of the last elves on Earth. This is evidenced by his slow-aging and as his singing.
Jareth is der Tod.
Sarah keeps almost dying. The film takes place while she's well and truly out of her skull. Maybe she's severely ill (or grappling with depression) or something, and the film (as well as her rejection of his affections, symbolic of a refusal to dream away the rest of her life just taking her medication and waiting for death) is her decision to live, with death returned to its proper place. A story element, not something that will rule her life.
Jareth is Toby.
He went back in time to ensure his own future as Goblin King.
Jareth is a Time Lord
His Time control abilities come from his time lord heritage while the smoke and mirror magic comes from his other parent. the labyrinth may or may not be a TARDIS under this theory.
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