Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Mythology Explained. In today’s video,
we’re going to be discussing Guillermo Del Torro’s 2006 Dark Fantasy film, Pan’s Labyrinth.
More specifically, we’re going to be discussing the film in relation to Mythology,
because, as it turns out, part of the film was inspired by the Greek creation myth.
However, it doesn’t just end there- as there are also seemingly some ties to Japanese folklore.
Before we get started I want you to do something for me: Try to picture the scariest, creepiest,
most sinister looking creature that you know from film. Thought of one? Okay.
Now, if you weren’t thinking of ‘Pale Man’ from Pan’s Labyrinth,
then you’re in for a horrific surprise, because he is undoubtedly one of the scariest monsters
that I’ve ever witnessed on-screen. In 2006 I was 13 years old, and I remember the chills
shivering down my spine as Pale Man made his way on to my television set for the first time.
First I want to paint a picture of who Pale Man is,
and then I want to give you the mythological context.
Pale Man was the secondary antagonist in the Pan’s Labyrinth film- an immortal ‘pale’ skinned
humanoid monster with a signature terrifying look that featured eyeballs in the palms of his hands.
His lair existed in a sort of ‘underworld’ limbo,
and had large piles of children’s clothing and shoes stacked in the corner. Why children’s
clothes? You might ask. Well, Pale Man had an affinity for devouring young children.
In fact, he was so proud of his accolades that he adorned the walls
of his underground lair with paintings of him eating children alive, begging for their lives.
What makes Pale Man exponentially more sinister, however, is the fact that he capitalized on
defenceless, starving children in a post civil war Spain. During this time period no one had any food
and ‘stone soup’ was the closest thing they had to sustenance. This only made the stretched out table
FULL of food in Pale Man’s lair all the more inviting. The victims came to him.
So, what’s the mythological context here? Well, as it turns out director Guillermo Del Toro
was heavily inspired by the painting ‘Saturn Devouring his Son’ by Francisco Goya,
which depicts ‘Saturn’ in Roman Myth or ‘Cronus’ in Greek Myth, devouring one of his children.
Cronus, who was the leader of the Cosmos, learned of a prophecy foretelling his downfall at the
hands of one of his sons, and in an effort to forestall such an eventuality, Cronus swallowed
each of his children as soon as they were born. His reasoning for this was that none of them would
be able to usurp him while they were imprisoned inside of him. This eventually backfires,
but for the rest of that story you’ll have to watch our video on the Greek Creation Myth-
linked in the description. So, Del Torro got the inspiration for a horrific child-eating monster
from the painting of a Spanish artist, which makes total sense given that it’s a Spanish film.
However, ties to Pale Man don’t end with Cronus and the creation myth.
As it turns out, ‘Pale Man’ is actually exceptionally similar to a monster found
in Japanese folklore, and whether Del Torro knew of this monster or not is unclear.
This monster- named the ‘Tenome’ is a ‘yokai’ or Japanese supernatural spirit, and bears a
STRIKING similarity to the Pale Man. According to Japanese lore, he is a demonic ghost of a man that
was blinded and murdered, and-like with ‘Pale Man’- he has empty eye sockets on his face and
eyes on the palms of his hands. In order to ‘see’, he waves his hands in front of him as he walks.
But the similarities don’t stop there. As it turns out,
the ‘Tenome’ also consumes the bones of his victims, much like Torro’s creation.
What do you guys think? Was ‘Pale Man’ just a direct rip-off of the Tenome,
or did Del Torro truly derive the creation of this monster from Greek Myth? Comment down below.
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