First posted August 2020.

In this series on fairytale influences in the films of Guillermo del Toro, I’ve previously talked about The Shape of Water and Crimson Peak. Pan’s Labyrinth is perhaps the most obviously fairytale-inspired of del Toro’s films, with many typical hallmarks of varying tales and traditions woven into the narrative.

The story begins, as all good fairytales do, a long time ago, with a young princess in the underworld who dreams of the human world above. Perhaps the first fairytale princess in the same vein that comes to mind is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” and even before her, tales of merfolk coming to see what the human world’s all about go back centuries. Selkies in Scottish folklore and swan maidens in tales from all over the world come ashore to live without their seal skins and build a human family. However, in these cases it’s not always intentional; unscrupulous humans steal their skins and trap them in the human world. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the underworld princess travels to the human world, but becomes trapped there in human form.

The film introduces us to Ofelia, a reincarnation of the underworld princess. Reincarnation is a theme of countless tales and often takes on different symbolic meaning depending on the story, but personally the interpretation I enjoy the most is a connection to the retelling of tales, which is, of course, exactly what del Toro is doing. At the risk of becoming a broken record, in the folkloric tradition there’s no such thing as an original fairytale. These stories have been passed down through the oral tradition from so long ago we have absolutely no way to prove which version came first, and we can only meaningfully discuss the oldest recorded versions. I love the idea that each retelling is a reincarnation; Rhodopis is Ye Xian is Aschenputtel is Cendrillon is Mossycoat is Cinderella is Ofelia.

And on that note, though there are pieces of many fairytales in Pan’s Labyrinth, the central one is ‘Cinderella.’ It’s the classic rags to riches (though she has to die to reach her riches), plagued with an evil step-parent who openly prefers his own child to his step-child. I’ve talked about the evil step-parent trope before but it’s been so long it’s worth briefly revisiting. On the one hand, it’s often credited to the Grimms brothers recasting biological parents in the tales as they heard them as step-parents in their written versions in order to preserve the sanctity of motherhood. That isn’t technically incorrect, but step-parents in folklore and fairytales pre-dated the Grimms and are, in fact, present in most of the oldest Cinderella variants (and Snow White variants, and Hansel and Gretel variants, etc.) that we have, for the simple reason that step-parents existed then, too. Many parents, particularly women, died young, and step-parents were a very common occurrence for many families. Specifically the step-mothers in Cinderella and Snow White variants are reflective of the fear that the original wife’s children would usurp the inheritance of the second wife’s children. In cultures where women largely did not support themselves, they relied on the support and inheritance from male relatives, and the more people in line for that inheritance, the less any one person would get. That’s not to say Cinderella’s step-mother is excused in any way for how she treated Cinderella, but it’s worth recognising that her fear is that Cinderella, as her father’s overt favourite, would inherit more than she and her own daughters would and she’d be stuck with financial struggles.

Ofelia’s evil step-father isn’t really concerned about any power Ofelia has over him. He knows his wife is helpless, and he knows Ofelia isn’t in a position to take anything that matters to him away. Rather than coming from a place of powerlessness, the Captain is motivated by his unlimited power. No one will stop him from doing anything he wants without repercussions. The change in power dynamic makes a scarier villain and raises the stakes.

The curious case of Cinderella’s mother has echoes in Ofelia’s mother. In most variants, the mother is at least implied, if not overtly stated, to be the magical force that helps her daughter from beyond the grave. Even as late as the Grimms, whose Aschenputtel receives her golden dress from a tree growing out of her mother’s grave, the mother and ‘fairy godmother’ figure were often one and the same. Disney’s adaptations are the most prominent examples of separating the mother and fairy godmother, but the oldest recorded variant, the Greco-Egyptian Rhodopis, and other Middle Eastern variants like “The Red Fish and the Clog of Gold” also attribute the magical element to something other than maternal love. Ofelia’s mother provides her with a beautiful new dress and shoes, only for Ofelia to promptly discard them as she completes the faun’s tasks. In her last words to Ofelia, she denounces magic and insists it isn’t real; clearly, this isn’t the magical maternal figure we hope for. Instead, del Toro’s Cinderella follows the tradition of separating the mother and the fairy godmother, giving us Ofelia’s mother and the faun to fill those respective roles.

The hero being given three tasks to complete is present in so many different kinds of folk- and fairytales it hardly needs pinpointing. I’ve talked before about the Norwegian Beauty and the Beast variant, “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” and the very similar tale, “Bear King Valemon.” Following the precedent set by one of the oldest extant Beauty and the Beast type stories, the myth of Eros and Psyche, the heroine must complete a series of tasks before being reunited with her love. In Ofelia’s case it is not a lover but a kingdom she is regaining. Many Cinderella variants involve the heroine having to prove who she is, more so, in many cases, than simply putting her foot in a shoe. Stories like “Mossycoat” and “Donkeyskin” see the heroine disguise herself and later shed the disguise to prove her identity. Specifically in the latter of those two examples, the heroine is a princess who pretends not to be, then sheds the disguise to disclose her royal status.

The terror of the Captain is shown in both the human and fairytale realms through the echoes in Ofelia’s tasks. The Captain is shown feasting while the people starve, a parallel drawn explicitly by Ofelia in the first task, chastising the toad for “growing fat while the tree dies.” This is also echoed in the second task and the Pale Man, who sits before a table laden with mountains of delicious food. It is the Pale Man’s cruelty, however, and not the feast that is the point of the sequence. (The famous fae rule that eating fairy food traps you in their realm almost goes without saying; in any case, Ofelia doesn’t actually get trapped there, though it is specifically the breaking of that rule that endangers her.) The Captain’s blood-soaked torture sessions and casually-committed murders are easy to see echoed in the crimson chambers and blood-stained skin of the Pale Man.

In most of the more well-known fairytale references drawn during the tasks, there is less danger and opportunity for evil than in Pan’s Labyrinth. Specifically the third task, the sacrifice of an innocent, is more religiously influenced than most fairytales as we think of them (though, on a tangential note, take a look at some of the Norwegian fairytales as they exist today if you want a good look at how subtle the conversion to Christianity wasn’t). There is one Japanese story that I’d like to mention as a possible influence: “The Tale of the Oki Islands.” A samurai is banished to the titular islands, known as a forbidden place, and his daughter, Tokoyo, is left all alone. She travels in search of him, though no one will help her as no one is allowed to visit those banished to the islands. Freezing and starving, she makes her own way to the islands. None of the island’s inhabitants will help her find her father, but still she searches. Eventually she encounters a sacrifice taking place, and when she stops it, the priest explains to her that the sacrifice of an innocent girl is an annual ritual to appease an angry god. Taking her dagger and donning the white robe of the sacrifice, she leaps into the water in search of the god. While underwater, she finds a statue of the emperor who banished her father. She considers striking the statue, but says to herself, “I’d rather do good than evil,” and brings the statue with her. She kills the monstrous god and hauls its corpse to the surface along with the statue. News that the emperor, who had been suffering from a mysterious illness, has miraculously been cured is met with the news that Tokoyo has saved this statue of him and freed the islands of a vicious monster. The emperor frees the samurai whose daughter freed him from his curse, and Tokoyo and her father are reunited with honour.

Ofelia’s refusal to sacrifice her brother is her own “I’d rather do good than evil” moment. Saving her brother comes at great cost to herself, but her noble deeds reunite her with her father and her kingdom.

Pan’s Labyrinth is set at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Though the republican holdouts in the forest are still fighting back, the fascists have been victorious. As the Captain says with a shrug when asked about the continued fighting, “The war is over. We won.” It is a hopeless time. Ofelia’s mother embodies the time’s despair, screaming at Ofelia to stop dreaming of happy endings. Doctor Ferreiro, Mercedes, and the guerrilleros, though they continue to fight, are extremely aware of their dangerous and precarious positions. They are up against something so big and powerful, it feels like there’s nothing they can do to stop it. But still, they try. And Ofelia, like countless fairytale heroines before her, refuses to sacrifice justice for ease. Facing an escape from this hopeless, devastated world, she refuses to take it knowing it would harm an innocent. It would be so easy for her to sacrifice her morals to save herself, but she chooses not to. It is that choice that rewards her. And though we know there is no happy ending in store for the guerrilleros, we must take inspiration from their unbreakable hope. Our ending isn’t written yet.