#labyrinth fandom

[donna-rinascimentale]

hiya! hope you doing well.

would you elaborate on the interpretation you were talking about in your Labyrinth post tags? what you said was really interesting and I never thought about it that way! 👀

also, hope you had fun watching! ✨✨✨

certainly.

i’d always been subscribed to the interpretation that the labyrinth is a metaphor for navigating coming of age, that the end of sarah’s hero’s journey is a means of balancing adult maturity with never losing a child’s sense of wonder and imagination. the fandom has thought up tons of explanations for where jareth falls in this scenario. is he a tangible antagonist, actively trying to get sarah to slip back into her old childish ways? a metaphor for adulthood, all that sarah is and isn’t ready for?

i think he’s all sarah’s creation. so does jim henson.

“He represents a lot of things that are a part of Sarah's world, what she's trying to figure out and what she's going through. … [Jareth] has no reality except what Sarah gives him, which she can constantly change.”

sarah seems to be very genre-savvy. she reads lines from a play titled the labyrinth, and she recognizes the puzzle of the two guards and implies she’s practiced it before in case she’d happen to encounter it. here, the labyrinth is a product of sarah’s fantasy, by which she navigates her adolescence and her parents’ divorce and her perceived lack of autonomy in a manner typical of a seasoned fantasy reader.

sarah is well aware that every fantasy hero needs a villain. the likeness she gives hers is that of her mother’s costar—as the former mrs. williams is a stage actress, shown in the photo on sarah’s vanity of her posing with a fellow actor who looks just like this jareth. sarah made jareth, made him as beautiful and dangerous as she believed he should be.

sarah made jareth.

to jareth, god is a sixteen-year-old girl.

imagine god, calling you by name, crowning you a king and giving you beauty and power. you were quite literally born for this. all you know is this role, building yourself and your kingdom just the way god wishes it.

then, god turns herself away from you.

you may feel betrayed. hollow, like you’ve been stripped of everything that makes you you. “you made me this way,” you might say.

Everything! Everything that you wanted, I have done. You ask the child to be taken, I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you.

“i was playing the role you put me in. what was i made for, if not you?

i can’t live within you.”

Just fear me, love me, do as I say

“let me play the role of villain, the role you made me to fill.”

and I would be your slave.

“your will be done.”

god is a sixteen-year-old girl who hasn’t yet figured out the way she wants to be worshipped. it’s a heavy burden, trying to satisfy someone who doesn’t know what she wants.

but there is hope for jareth.

fandom rarely debates on how to interpret the barn owl at the beginning of the film. we’re pretty much in consensus that it’s a manifestation of jareth, but that’s never given much thought.

when sarah asserts her power and escapes the labyrinth, jareth has once again taken the form of the owl. in the final scene, when sarah celebrates with her friends from the labyrinth, reconciling her love of fantasy with her maturity and self-growth, jareth flies away, smaller and smaller until he’s gone. here we turn to the age-old metaphor of flight as freedom.

in moving away from escapism and becoming an active participant in her own life, sarah has freed jareth from the role of villain. none of the friends in her room are human. be reminded again that jareth bears the likeness of a man present (at least tangentially) in sarah’s real life, who would likely feel disheartened knowing he’s blamed for something beyond his control.

because sarah has no more need for a jareth, there is no more jareth. and that’s arguably best for both of them.

(p.s.: i go to the theater tomorrow! i have a sarah-esque outfit put together and everything. thanks for wishing me well & know tomorrow can’t come soon enough for me… this film has been among my favorites for many many many years and each watch makes me find more to love. best cult i’ve ever joined)

[mx888gem]

[wolfsnooze]

🪞💫 am i awake?

labyrinth runners anniversary art :3

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

"percy manipulated bob" "percy manipulated charon" i think the thing we all need to focus on more is the fact that he accidentally manipulated the whole of the pjo fandom into seeing him as dumb and stupid when he was just insecure as hell

[1800-lemon-boy]

Friendly reminder that Nico Di Angelo as a child, loved pirates and Greek mythology.

Imagine a 10 year old Nico getting excited that the Greek gods exist, then finding out that he gets to learn how to sword fight just like pirates do. (He was so excited he ended up cutting his leg resulting in a scar)

And now imagine all that excitement disappear when he learns that he can never show his big sister what he learnt.

<33

[liesmultixxx]

Mr. Perseus “I talk about the love of my life in my sleep” Jackson is something that is so personal to me

Also: “Oh, uh. A friend.”

FRIENDS MY ASS

[pluck-heartstrings]

So I was making a companion piece to yesterday’s fancy Sun, and somehow created a Moon that has vague Goblin King energy?? @petrabasil @overly-dramatic-artist is this what happened to y’all??

[siingomuse]

some of the book names in pjo/hoo/toa are actually FIRE mate like. "the lightning thief" that's actually so fire???? "the titans curse"??? that's so epic bro like. that's so cool "the battle of the labyrinth"?? that would be the COOLEST band name mate "mark of athena" like. greek mythology song named that WHEN?? and ALL of the book names in Trials of Apollo? FIRE "the hidden oracle" thats so awesome like WHAT??? "the dark prophecy" fire song name "the burning maze" aidoneus song drop named that when?? "the tyrant's tomb" call your band that drop the songs and I would be your NUMBER 1 listener like thats so cool "tower of nero" fire shit mate rick you were COOKING with these names

[randomness-is-my-order]

you can’t tell me percy didn’t do his very best to care for nico because he did. percy tried so hard to be there for nico after bianca’s death because he knew just how gut wrenching it could be to lose someone (sally’s “death”) and be so confused about who to blame, who to look to for comfort. he helped nico despite the storm of shit he was in and he was so sensitive to his plight even if it meant bearing nico’s angry accusations and hurtful words because he understood what shape grief could take, because he understood that nico was just a child.

but you know what?? percy was just a child, too. he was fourteen and shouldering the blame of bianca’s death, feeling so incredibly guilty about it and when nico blew up at him, he accepts it and lets himself be told he’s the reason for his sister’s demise and when nico leaves, he does his level best to keep nico’s parentage a secret because he can’t have this ten year old become the centre of a surely fatal prophecy, because he feels responsible for his safety. this–this forced maturity that percy had to acquire is such a huge failing of the adults around him and it hurts my heart to think this kid was at one time in his life completely okay with being blamed for causing someone’s death if it meant another kid could find some peace of mind.

[seagull9111]

how are we ignoring how suicidal nico was at age eleven

someone get this boy some help I AM BEGGING

[overly-dramatic-artist]

Labyrinth au concept art

Has it only been seconds? Hours? Have entire days passed by in this decaying kingdom as the broken-heart king overflows the dreaming pool with his tears? Longing for his love with hair tangled with starlight?

[int3r3st1ng]

Percy: I think I accidentally joined a cult Later Percy: Update, I am now the leader of said cult

[wishesfromwithin]

saw something in a tiktok comment which explained percy and annabeths relationship in battle of the labyrinth:

“her best friend (and crush) has 2 months left to live and he doesn’t want to spend it with her”

im done.

SOULCRUSHING.

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

Percy’s “crashing a car after annabeth smiles at him” to “blowing up a volcano after annabeth kisses him” pipeline is going to hit hard

[apollosbisexualass]

Kelli: Take Percy Jackson to the arena, I’m sure he’d love to meet his brother

Percy: Tyson?

Kelli:

Kelli: Need I remind you that your father is a whore

[sopapoing]

When Apollo sees Nico and Will as a couple, do you guys think it reminds him of Hyacinthus?