Hey guys hope you're all staying warm and dry in this weather. So my presentation is on Pan's Labyrinth. I'll be focusing on the three tasks that Ofelia has to complete and how it is a catalyst in taking away her innocence.
Its a terrible thing for a child to loose their innocence. Parents spend lots of time and effort into keeping their kids sheltered from the horrors of the world. One of the things that's used is the idea of magic. In Pan's Labyrinth magic becomes a big part of Ofelia's life while at the base. But this magic has the opposite effect of sheltering her from the terrors of the world around her.
The first task: (36:40-37:10)
The first task is simple enough. It's to get rid of toad that is killing a tree. The thing is she has to kill the toad to save the tree. Sure all she does is give him the three stones but those act as poison to him. He dies and the tree lives. This make her not only aware of the concept of death but she herself has killed. Yes it wasn't very gruesome but it is still killing.
The second task: (57:08-57:50)
This clip only shows the paintings on the wall which shows Ofelia that children are being eaten. This is a clear destruction of her innocence because here is a creature that eats children. It can be seen as a way to get children to behave and obey their parents but she witnesses the creature bite the heads off of the innocent fairies. It shows her that she is completely to blame for their deaths.
The third task: (105:15-106:15)
The third task can be used to argue that she hasn't lost her innocence because she refuses to give up her brother for her benefit, but then she's the one who has to die. She suffers because she's shot in the stomach. She may not have given up her brother but she knows the feeling of pain and suffering and she knows death completely. She has a painful passing that is slow and she is alone in the labyrinth with no one. Mersedes only shows up at the very end.
So the magic in this film didn't help to protect Ofelia as magic usually does for children. Instead it presents the pains of the world to her plainly.
Discussion Question:
Did the magic help shield Ofelia from the terrors of the world or did they make a difference at all? If they did, how?
I don't think magic helped shield Ofelia from the world; I think magic helped Ofelia understand the world. As a child, there are many things Ofelia wouldn't understand. Why can't she have her real father? Why does her step-father hate her? Why do her authority figures want her to only obey, and not be herself? By surrounding herself with the magic from fairy tales, she comes to see the world in a way she can understand. This makes sense, because the whole point of fairy tales is to put serious things in a way that a child can wrap their head around. In short, no, the magic does not shield her from the world. However, it makes a difference in how she understands the world, and in a way, this helped her through the confusion and turmoil resulting from her rough family life.
ReplyDeleteMagic didn't shield Ofelia from the horrors of the world, but rather exposed her to them. Most of the events leading up to her death, such as the use of mandrake root and the taking of her brother into the labyrinth, are caused by magic. So, magic left her unprepared for the realities of the un-magical world. However, because of magic, Ofelia was able to live on after death in the Underworld as royalty, so you could say that magic did protect her from the potential horrors of death and the afterlife.
ReplyDelete(applesauce = tiffany jiang)
ReplyDeleteI think rather as a shield to help her from the world, magic was her sword to conquer evils. All her struggles that she went through and the battles that she fought could represent a sort of evil in the real world - the child eating monster could represent her gruesome stepdad, the ending decision with the faun could represent a battle with herself and whether she would choose immortality or saving herself. I feel like magic was a way to represent the evils of the world, I definitely agree with Michael's statements that magic was the best way to have a child understand evil. It was her way of turning evil into something that she could destroy and overcome-- and she eventually did.
ReplyDeleteI agree that magic did not shield Ofelia from the twisted realities of life. However, the use of magic did allow these aspects of life to be introduced in a way that allows her to maintain her childhood innocence while still learning about the unfortunate terrors one may face throughout their life.
ReplyDeleteIn the absence of reliable adult role models, the magic is important as tools to develop her growing psyche. True, Ofelia does see horrors such as the "hand-eye man" eating the fairies and kills another creature. However, compared to the real horrors of the real world which include military torture tactics, domestic violence, and other more heinous acts, the horrors she experiences in the supernatural world are much more suppressed. Thus, she learns about the nature of the real world through magical representations.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that she didn't shot her brother shows how mature she had become by the end of it. Personally, I associate innocence with a somewhat lack of questioning (not of curiosity though - there is a distinction) of the things we are prompted to do. Trust is a big theme in innocence. The fact that she didn't shoot her brother means she learned to question.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Ofelia has lost her innocence through the magic, she was able to appreciate what it meant to be good and, therefore, was to make something beautiful out of it by saving her brother.
ReplyDeleteI think magic helped shield Ofelia from the terrors of the world. The magical world, which can be interpreted as her own imagination, is hugely influenced by the real world and thus has a characteristic of violence and tragedy. However, since her death is an achievement of her task, and it leads her to become a royalty in the Underworld, her death given a positive meaning. It can be said that her state after the death, which is realized by virtue of the magic, is a Utopian ideal, for the terrors of people in the real world are becoming nothing or elimination of their achievement after their deaths.
ReplyDeleteAya Takagi
I think magic helped shield Ofelia from the terrors of the world because in the real world she feels lonely and powerless and whenever she enters the magical world it gives her hope and makes her feel better. She wanted to complete all the tasks to be able to be the princess of the magical kingdom. adn knowing that she was the princess made her feel important and wanted, which is how every child wants to feel.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that her refusal to 'sacrifice' her brother is a quality of innocence, but rather an example that she is a selfless person. Her moral tells her to forgo her benefit for the sake of her brother.
ReplyDeleteThe magic portrayed in the movie did not completely shield her from the terrors of reality, but presented reality in a more fantasy-like way. (If that makes any sense).
The magic in the movie did not shield her from the horrors of the world, but it did give her power over her life. Without magic, Ofelia is a child, and generally not allowed to make major decisions for herself. With the introduction of magic, Ofelia had the power to help her mother, and potentially become a ruler over a kingdom.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of stories/movies that have magic in them have a different way of utilizing the magic aspect in them and the magic in Pan's Labyrinth allowed the main character Ofelia to experience trials sand tribulations to discover herself. I might be wrong but I kind of see a resemblence of Alice In The Wonderland to the Labyrinth because both films are about girls who go on a journey to discover who they are and along the way, Ofelia matures into a young lady, making the decision to save her brother. So, I think magic played a big part in helping Ofelia discover her true self and mature and no, magic did not shield Ofelia from the 'terrors' in the world. Magic in turn exposed Ofelia to the dangers the world emits and she must be strong enough to endure that.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that magic sheltered Ofelia from the horrors of the world, but it did cause her to make moral decisions. In the third task, she chose to kill herself rather than her brother which ultimately allowed her to rise above the terrors of the world - through her selflessness.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe magic shielded her from the horrors of the world, but just created a temporary escape. This is seen in the movie because no one is there when she dies, which is a sad reality. A real horror of the world is death, and she is not protected by it. There was no magic to stop it.
ReplyDeleteOphelia is aided by magic throughout the film. Although Ophelia's death is unavoidable, she would not have achieved all she did without her magical deer friend.
ReplyDelete