Pan's Labyrinth, musings

[wispfox]

I was recently contemplating the second trial in Pan's Labyrinth, because there were so many things that could have happened differently, and not necessarily have been _bad_ things to happen.

If she'd choosen the door that the fairies were telling her to open, would it have resulted in badness, or a different object for use in the third trial? Might the third trial have been different/easier if she had choosen what the fairies were suggesting?

If she'd taken the eyes away, would the creature have been able to do anything about her eating the food she was not supposed to be eating? It seemed to need to see in order to catch things...

If she'd brought food _with_ her, and eaten it after she got back to her room, would she have been ok? Was it "don't eat the food that's there", or "don't eat food while you're there"?

She clearly was able to open a new door when the timer ran out; there was no real importance to the timer after all, because of that. Well, except that opening a new door took time to draw and form.

Ah, unknown mythologies. Fun for my brain. :)

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

All good questions. And who knows. That's what I liked about the story. So many unanswered questions.

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

The way I see it, her fantasy/madness so closely mirrored her stepfather's madness that it would not have mattered. The first object was a key because of the storehouse key. The second object was a knife because of Mercedes's knife, the third object was her brother because of her stefather's fixation on the baby. The food didn't matter nor did the monster except as a reflection of the monsters in her real life. Stealing the food in her fantasy was similar to the raid on the storehouse. She had to "fail" in her second task because she didn't really want to leave her mother behind even though she felt abandoned by her. I thought the little girl's madness was ever so much more appealing than the stepfather's madness. I really loved the visuals. I'm so glad I got to see it...