When I tell you Simon Stålenhag’s The Labyrinth is a maze you’ll never escape… I don’t think
I’m exaggerating. A sci-fi horror artbook where a mysterious phenomenon turns Earth
into a world of ash and decay, the setup seems simple. Likewise, the characters — a trio of
survivors journeying across the wastes — seem easy to relate to. Yet the deeper you venture,
the more you realize The Labyrinth is a complex tangle of secrets, mysteries,
and revelations so gripping that it never truly lets you go. So, for this entry into the archive,
we’ll attempt to decipher this masterpiece of dark worldbuilding. And like my videos on
Stålenhag’s other series, you can purchase the artbook using the links in the description. Now,
let’s enter the maze of The Labyrinth… The end of the world begins with a whisper. Mysterious black
globes appear in the sky one day, their arrival so subtle and quiet it is at first thought to be some
sort of natural cosmic phenomenon — as if Earth simply drifted into an unknown part of the galaxy.
Yet the spheres seem to move in formation, gliding through the landscape like they’re following a
coordinated plan of action. And soon, planet Earth begins to wither, the atmosphere growing toxic
over a timescale of decades. It is a chillingly subtle apocalypse, slow and almost imperceptible.
All attempts to destroy the globes prove futile, with military crafts left warped into dreamlike
spirals of matter — as if space itself has been twisted. Rendered completely inoperable,
these misshapen weapons lie forgotten in fields alongside all hope of defeating the spheres.
The apocalypse in The Labyrinth is so far beyond human comprehension that the narrative could
be classified as ‘Cosmic Horror’ — a genre that extracts terror from the unknowable and
otherworldly. The black globes cannot be reasoned with, rationalized, or removed. They are utterly
insurmountable: an astronomical nightmare that humanity has no hope of escaping. “- Each player
gets two completely different mazes! -” The profound helplessness that incomprehensible
phenomena instill can be better understood in conversation with the film The Endless,
another work of cosmic horror that follows a cult which has emerged around a mysterious,
reality-bending entity. Like the threat in The Labyrinth, the entity in The Endless is subtle
and insidious — only perceptible in the elusive ways it warps space. Yet the dread it conjures
is palpable, felt in scenes where cult members play tug-of-war with an unseen force in the sky.
Or when three moons rise overhead — a visual that like the black globes of The Labyrinth conveys the
celestial scale of the threat. “- The first one to get through the maze with all three balls lights
up the tower! -” Over a decade after the globes’ arrival, the sun — appearing faint
and green through an ammonia-choked atmosphere — rises over a landscape of ash and ruin. Only a
small population of humans avoided the extinction that befell the vast majority of life on Earth.
Yet it is in this era of dust and decay that the primary narrative of The Labyrinth begins.
Three protagonists set out across the desert in a research vehicle. Two are siblings and employees
of Kungshall — an underground facility that is one of the last safe havens for humanity. The third
is a child and former refugee the siblings took in during the crisis years. All three carry with
them dark secrets from before civilization’s fall… The trio journeys toward an uninhabited research
outpost, the siblings hoping a break in routine will help the child, who has been showing signs
of acute psychological distress at Kungshall. They also plan to conduct some light research on the
changed surface. After all, such expeditions are common and should be perfectly safe…
Yet there are other things in the otherwise barren landscape. Things that don’t resemble
life on earth… yet seem to be alive all the same. Answers to what these entities are and why they
seem so at home in an otherwise apocalyptic biosphere can only be found by venturing
deeper into The Labyrinth. “- Roll the balls and roll them fast, hurry, hurry, don’t be last. -”
After a long drive across the somber mesas, the trio at last arrives at the isolated outpost.
Although half-buried in dunes of ash, the vacant station represents one of the last
safe environments in the age of the globes. And yet while the interior is protected from dust and
ruin, the environment doesn’t feel safe. In the garage, a mural depicts dandelion seeds blowing
in the wind — a visual so incongruous with the apocalyptic reality of the planet it becomes
almost eerie. This uncanniness only grows more intense deeper within the station, where objects
remain stacked in neat rows. There’s a sense of desperation in these scenes: the impossibly clean
interiors a way to pretend that nothing beyond the facility walls has changed. As a result,
common objects take on a cadaverous quality, stuck in time like insects trapped in amber. The feeling
of falseness can be so extreme, these interiors can seem more hostile than the barren desert
outside — an environment that, while far from pleasant, is at the very least straightforward.
The uncanniness that these altered interiors exude isn’t easy to put into words. Compared to
your typical sinister locale, nothing about the research station is overtly menacing.
And on a cultural level, we all know what a creepy interior is supposed to look like. There’s usually
cobwebs and spiders, gothic hallways with dim lighting and long shadows — the perfect
stage for something to pop out for the inevitable scare. …But there’s another kind of interior. One
that lacks every traditional element of a sinister dwelling, yet can be infinitely more unsettling.
The Overlook Hotel from The Shining isn’t dark, or cramped, or run-down — it’s a bright, spacious,
clean venue. Yes, it’s haunted by the dead, both metaphorically and perhaps quite literally — but
as a hotel, it honestly looks nice. Yet through the eye of director Stanley Kubrick,
the building feels… unwell. Everything from the dizzying patterns on the carpet,
to the queasy colors of the rooms, to the sheer uncanniness of spaces meant to hold thousands more
people than the three main characters, broadcasts a sense of… wrongness, for lack of a better word.
As the leads become increasingly psychologically distressed, the unfriendly setting feels like a
reflection of their growing mental unwellness — and perhaps even the cause. It's fitting, then,
that the facility in The Labyrinth mirrors The Overlook Hotel — both in its unnerving aesthetics
and disturbed occupants. For like the characters in The Shining, the three leads in The Labyrinth
are haunted by ghosts from their past, pushing them to the point where they seem genuinely
unstable — although for much of the narrative, it’s difficult to determine which characters are
dangerous, and which are in danger. At the end of The Shining, lead character Jack Torrance reaches
a point where he tries to hunt down his family with an axe. It's a looming potential outcome that
stays with you as you read through The Labyrinth, and wonder how dark things will get before you
reach the center... “- Dig Dug digs his own mazes. He digs for balloon-men. He digs for dragons. -”
As a suffocating tension builds within the station, the brother and sister continue
to make daily expeditions into the surrounding wasteland to study Earth’s new environment. And in
the emaciated remains of what was once a city, new forms of life have arisen. Amongst the wreckage,
gargantuan stationary organisms sprout from the ashen sand like enormous fans of coral.
These lifeforms seem at home in the new climate, as if the globes have terraformed Earth to match
the biosphere of their place of origin. Yet these coral specimens are just the beginning.
Deeper within the maze of the city, tremendous stalks grow inside the husks of buildings,
having infested the structures like hermit crabs occupying a shell. The tops of these
stalks stretch towards the diffused green light of the sun, the scene evoking a photograph taken
far below the waves. Imagery reminiscent of the deep sea appears throughout The Labyrinth,
with the suits needed to survive on the surface evocative of not just astronauts
but also old-school divers. There’s a sense of incompatibility — that the land has become as
unsuitable for human life as the deepest oceanic trench. Elements of cosmic horror once again rear
their heads in these scenes, as the siblings are utterly unable to explain the phenomena around
them. In one image that didn’t make it into the final artbook, a towering squid-like creature
spreads ribbon-shaped tentacles throughout the city. There is no understanding this new
environment — there is only danger. In this respect, the wasteland is resonant with The
Shimmer from the film Annihilation. A psychedelic region that an alien entity transforms into a new
ecosystem, The Shimmer can be deadly for humans to traverse. Yet like Earth in The Labyrinth,
The Shimmer isn’t devoid of life — instead, it’s overflowing with new types of organisms. In fact,
it’s left ambiguous if the force behind The Shimmer even comprehends that it’s causing
harm — an ambiguity that extends to The Labyrinth. Although little comfort to the survivors,
there’s a possibility the near-extinction of humanity was just an accident — the
unintentional byproduct of some unrelated operation. The new world might be toxic to
lifeforms adapted to the old one — but clearly some entities prosper in these new conditions,
growing to colossal sizes. Perhaps whatever intelligence is behind the changed biosphere
thought only of the benefit to themselves, and never factored in the suffering of others. Yet
the creators of the black globes are not the only faction in The Labyrinth that made callous
calculations to survive. The city is haunted by organic detritus – but also the wrecks of giant
armored drones, employed by the military police during the crisis years. And these destructive
weapons weren’t just aimed at the globes... “- And now he’s digging his way into homes everywhere. -”
Later in The Labyrinth, we learn that in the years leading up to the surface becoming completely
uninhabitable, panic and desperation spread among civilians. The air became difficult to breathe,
and refugees urgently sought shelter from the sphere’s toxins. Rumors of Kungshall — a
hermetically sealed city with room for only one hundred-thousand inhabitants — spread to the
desperate masses. As a carefully constructed micro-ecosystem, Kungshall could not hope to
shelter the many needy people who sought refuge. And so, the protectors of the facility — the
siblings included — made a grim calculation. One they’d spend the rest of their lives trying to
justify. A massive quarantine zone was erected around the site, with heavily armed guards and
robots patrolling the border. All possible threats to the project were annihilated. In order to save
humanity, the employees of Kungshall believed they needed to be inhumane for a period of time.
The strategy was simple: deterrence. Methods of instilling fear by any means necessary became
common practice. There was no official name for what the guards of Kungshall were doing. No name
was needed. And in many respects, the plan was a resounding success. The streams of people seeking
safety diminished. The message had been received: whatever misery the survivors were fleeing from,
something much worse awaited them at Kungshall. Yet cruelty does not vanish. It lingers,
festering, in the souls of those who wield it, and in those whom it is wielded against.
Among the refugees who suffered at the hands of Kungshall was the child the siblings would later
take in — a decision they made to ease their guilty consciences and forget the darkness
of the past. But what some seek to forget, others shall always remember… “- They think I’m trapped,
but I’ll escape.” “Tunnel runner, the new video game where you don’t look down on the maze,
you’re in it.” “Monster! -” The people in The Labyrinth are a tangle of moral complexities,
knots you turn over and over in your head as you try to unravel them, struggling to reconcile
their many contradictions. The characters themselves seem lost within their own memories,
unable to decide the right path forward. This conflict is represented by a maze that comes
from a computer game the child plays — which grows larger and larger as the story reaches its climax…
There is a literal maze at the heart of The Shining as well, an immense expanse
of hedges that dominate the hotel grounds. For a film known for its puzzle-like storytelling,
it seems like a logical inclusion. Yet as is the case in The Labyrinth,
the maze in The Shining is also symbolic of the psyche of the main characters — in particular,
Jack Torrance and his descent into utter madness. Perhaps the greatest
mystery of The Shining is the source of Jack’s insanity. Is it something he brought with him,
as the film implies he abused his spouse and child in the past? Is it symptomatic of the
hotel itself, a seemingly hostile locale? Or is it something beyond comprehension,
the scheme of an otherworldly entity we can’t hope to understand? This plot point acts like a prism,
with the refracted truth appearing differently to each member of the audience. The ending of The
Labyrinth is just as multi-faceted — in fact, it might be more so. Because in The Shining,
out of the three lead characters, there’s at least a distinct villain in the form of the
axe-wielding Jack Torrance. But The Labyrinth has no villain, not really — just people who had to
make terrible decisions and people who can’t let go. And while you hope they’ll be able to escape,
to find a way out of the maze they’ve all trapped themselves in, there’s no clear exit in sight.
Famously, in the final scenes of The Shining, Torrance becomes lost within the very labyrinth
that represents his winding path towards insanity. The film ends not with the red-hot swing of an axe
but with a long, slow fade-out as he succumbs to the cold of a snowstorm — the blizzard an
apparent reminder that there are more powerful and elemental forces at work in these stories
than humans. The Labyrinth ends with a flood. The ammonia in the atmosphere falls like rain
and dissolves the water frozen under the ash — a final, unexpected stage of the changing Earth.
The dark liquid wells up in the interior of the station, drowning the red corridors. And in the
midst of this catastrophe, the pressure building within the lead characters finally bursts in a
way I found both shocking and somehow completely inevitable considering all that came before. While
I won’t give away all the final twists and turns to The Labyrinth, if you’d like to know everything
that happens, you can check out the book for yourself… “- Better check the map. It’s the exit!
To another maze… -” The Labyrinth doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Simon Stålenhag’s other works,
Tales from the Loop and The Electric State, explore related themes of bureaucratic
inhumanity and lingering trauma through a lens of visually-stunning sci-fi. Yet though both of the
aforementioned works have their serious elements, I believe The Labyrinth is ultimately Stålenhag’s
most solemn story yet — one I still feel a part of me is trapped within. While all narratives have to
come to an end, the mysteries and tragedies of The Labyrinth lingered long after the final page
— which is a testament to the story’s strength. All of Stålenhag’s futures are worth experiencing,
and if you find these worlds as interesting as I do, you can purchase the artbooks using the
links below to get the full narratives, and follow Simon Stålenhag on social media. As always, thanks
for watching. If you enjoyed this entry, please lend your support by liking, subscribing, and
hitting the notification icon to stay up to date on all things Curious. See you in the next video.