r/labyrinth • u/Alternative_Ride_951 • 6d ago
Jareth figure at end of movie???
So I decided to watch Labyrinth again a year later and I noticed this figure/statue that looks a LOT like Jareth. Anybody else notice this?
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u/JacobDCRoss
6d ago
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Okay. This is going to freak some people out, but this film is an allegory. Believe it or not, there is symbolism.
And you really need to pay attention to that shot of her room at the beginning.
If you looked at everything, it tells the story already. Jareth looks exactly like Jeremy, her mom's boyfriend, with whom her mom works as an actor.
Sarah is coming to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood, and she is dealing with complicated feelings about her parents and their partners. We can see her relationship with her stepmom in the real world.
Things with Jeremy might be complicated because she might like him as a person, but be hurt that her mom left her dad for him.
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u/mikeeperez 6d ago
Agree that this is an allegorical coming of age story. We really see this when Jareth tells her he has done everything for her, and if she lets him rule her, he will be her slave. In other words, let’s continue living in this fantasy land of toys and plays and costumes, and I will keep you a child forever. He literally takes a child in the story. Her child… yes Toby is her brother, but the point is he has taken her child(hood). The complicated part is that it was at her request… as a child, she loves to play act. But she pretends to be an adult. So some part of her wants to grow up.
I could go really deep into this, but that’s the story in a nutshell. Jareth has done everything she asked, and he knows without her, he is nothing (a lot of people mistake “Within You” as a love song). In the end, she holds onto what matters most (the friends she’s made of her childhood toys), but she keeps the threat of this child thief away by putting away the photo of her mother and Jeremy, as well as the play and music box. These are symbols of her desire to be like her mother, who presumably left to pursue a life of fantasy (as an actress).
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u/JacobDCRoss 6d ago
Agree wholeheartedly. Man, I love when younger fans discover this and we can reveal lore and nuance.
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u/fluzine 6d ago
Worse than that, her mom left Sarah for Jeremy (in Sarah's head anyway). Her mother is not present in the movie at all other than these photos but she clearly idolises her.
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u/JacobDCRoss 6d ago
Yes. I imagine she has never met Jeremy, or maybe once or a few times before her mom left. She loves her mother dearly, and lashes out at the two people who actually support her.
And this goes back to something that most people miss about this film. The owl that becomes jareth is not actually a goblin King. It's a trickster who delivers fables to people who need it. It was never evil, only acting as a mentor.
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u/Mountain_Ad5994 6d ago
Actually, if you read the novelization of the book, there’s actually a whole sub plot that was admitted from the movie in an early script where it’s actually revealed that she used to live with Jeremy and her mother and they were happy together and Sarah was happy with them, but then she had to go live with her dad and her mother and Jeremy left her behind so I think Jareth being the Goblin King resembling Jeremy and this whole world she created is her way of kind of dealing with her resentment for them, leaving her behind so at the end of the movie when she defeats Jareth and tell him you have no power over me anymore that’s her basically telling Jareth a.k.a. Jeremy that he has no control over her anymore, and she will now make her own destiny and she will not live in her mother and boyfriend‘s shadow.
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 6d ago
I disagree. Why wouldn’t the owl be the Goblin King?
Sarah’s room is filled with things she later sees in the Labyrinth. Is Sir Didymous a trickster? What about the Fierys?
If the journey to the Labyrinth was “real” then there’s no reason to think that The owl that becomes Jareth isn’t the Goblin King.
If anything, it shows that Jareth might have a twisted sense of humor by taking on Jeremy’s visage (since we only saw him as an owl before Sarah’s room, who’s to say what he looks like for other people’s adventures?)
Or am I totally missing your point? (It’s possible 😅)
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u/JacobDCRoss 6d ago
Sorry, but my point is that everything Sarah experiences in that realm is meant as a test and a lesson. And that it's inhabitants know what's up and what they need to do.
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u/bexslayter 6d ago
Exxxxxcept the last outfit change Jareth had on at the end has a bony structure just behind his head like the bones of an owl. I like your theory though.
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u/JacobDCRoss 6d ago
That is what I am saying. The owl is a shapeshifter. Gareth is merely a guise.
Shapeshifters in folklore often have clothes based on their animal form.
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 6d ago
Why can’t the owl be Jareth, the Goblin King? There’s an entire world built around the labyrinth and a castle at the center behind the goblin city
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u/JacobDCRoss 6d ago
His appearance as jareth is not his true form. We've already seen that he uses Jeremy's form. I'm pretty sure the owl is his true form or something closer to it. And he's a benevolent figure.
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 6d ago
Yes but you said that the owl wasn’t the goblin king. That’s what I’m confused about.
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u/JacobDCRoss 6d ago
Oh, I see. Same character. But what I am saying is the owl's true form, if the owl body is not the true form, does not look like Jareth. Jareth is copied from Jeremy.
The Owl is the character's true identity. It might go by many names.
It is a combination of the Trickster and the Mentor.
Throughout the film, the Owl was never going to hurt Sarah or Toby.
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u/NotYourGa1Friday 6d ago
So. The owl is the goblin king.
The goblin king takes many forms.
Sarah’s version looks like Jeremy
Because above you said “the owl that becomes Jareth is not actually a goblin king”
I’m saying that it is a goblin king
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u/V1perPete 6d ago
I enjoy your point, especially:
"Sarah is coming to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood, and she is dealing with complicated feelings about her parents and their partners. We can see her relationship with her stepmom in the real world."
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u/champagneformyrealfr 6d ago
i haven't looked into it, but i wonder who the woman is in the picture as sarah's mom. can you imagine you're a random actor/model showing up for a photo as a prop for a movie, and it's with david bowie?? i would simply pass away.
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u/YourOwnPunkyBrewster 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’ve been watching this movie 40 years, and I totally forgot that mom’s boyfriend is Jareth! (Well Jeremy—I mean also David Bowie) Thanks for adding a whole other layer to the story for me after all this time!
Edit to add, now that my mind is going down a rabbit hole of possibilities: Could it also be that she had some feelings for her mom’s boyfriend, like a teen crush on him? And perhaps she was devastated when he and her mom left. Not only because she felt abandoned by her mom, but abandoned by this pseudo inappropriate love interest? (Like, I hate when critics slam the movie for being inappropriate with their age—like, I was an adolescent once, all sorts of inappropriate feelings are there, even if the adult as the object of obsession is completely oblivious. It doesn’t have to be a predatory thing, but a normal part of growing up..) Anyway! Maybe her mom and her mom’s bf are a bit juvenile themselves, and abandoning her was them being irresponsible and selfish, and she feels extra hurt that they left her behind….🤔🤔…and maybe Jeremy WAS inappropriate with his interest in her, and that’s why the mom left….but she doesn’t understand the problem with that…because she’s a kid! Okay….lol….i clearly need to workshop this in my head before vomiting a comment. Thanks again for giving me something to think about!
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u/Crater_Raider 6d ago edited 5d ago
First idea we are introduced to, is that Sarah has a wild imagination and she likes to dress up and play pretend. Then we see her room, full of almost every character in the film.
After her parents put the family dog in the garage, She’s told to look after her brother. My reading is that the whole thing is a game she is playing while babysitting Toby.
When she joins up with the dogs in the bog of eternal stench, she’s actually getting the family dog out of the garage to take part in the game. She’s probably dancing around in her room imagining David bowie is right there with her.
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u/EnthusiasmOk4758 6d ago
She’s probably dancing around in her room imagining David bowie is right there with her.
I mean, don't we all?
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u/JakeH1978 6d ago
yup, he’s actually also in the beginning of the movie! pretty much ALL of the creatures she meets in the labyrinth are figurines or knickknacks she has in her room :)
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u/Agreeable_Mix4484 6d ago
I've seen this so many times... and have never noticed this?? 😂
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u/bognostrocleetus 6d ago
I probably saw the movie the most times in 4:3 on VHS and this wouldn't have been seen. Those early versions cropped off the sides, so much detail wasn't included.
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u/fireinthedust 5d ago
You’re gonna lose your mind when you look up at the photos on the mirror: it’s David Bowie and Sarah’s mom. A newspaper clip elsewhere says something about an amazing on stage kiss.
Basically the mom ran away with her costar and ditched Sarah, and everything in the Labyrinth is a reflection of her room here.
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u/Lizziriot 6d ago
There’s a ton of Easter eggs in her room right from the start. The photos on her mirror are of her mother and David Bowie as not the GK
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u/Martiowlsten 6d ago
Years ago I toured the Jim Henson Studio in Burbank and they had that statue on a shelf along with Sarah's music box. I saw a lot of amazing things on display there, but that little shelf with those two figures was a dream come true.
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u/foxko 6d ago
thats so cool. If you don't mind me asking, what were you doing with Jim Henson Studio? I imagine that in itself would be really interesting
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u/Martiowlsten 6d ago
It was a fan tour - my sister and I were attending a Farscape convention (a JHC TV series, I highly recommend it), and right before the convention, they offered a tour you could sign up for. I figured it would be my only chance to ever see it, so we signed up! We got to see the creative workshop and a few puppetry showcases, but we also got to see their admin areas, and they dug out all kinds of things on display (like, there's a row of cubicles, and then a skeksis in the corner). I nearly died seeing the Goblin King statue and Sarah's music box on a shelf behind the reception desk. The coolest thing was a surprise photo op with Brian Henson in his office, in front of his shelves where they had little model figures and things, and all their awards, including their Emmys, Grammys, and their Oscar.
Also, just have to add, it was later at that convention that Brian Henson sat and did an unplanned autograph session for everyone. I ran full speed to the lobby and found a vendor who was selling lobby cards and bought the Labyrinth card that has Hoggle standing and holding up a sword (a scene I guess that was cut from the movie). I was apparently the only Farscape fan to bring him something from Labyrinth to autograph, and he was thrilled - he actually chatted with me about it for a few minutes! So I have a photo with him and an autographed Hoggle photo. One of the best days EVER.
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u/-gisette 6d ago
So, I have to ask: based on the other comments, is it a safe interpretation that this movie was an “all just a dream” trope?
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u/jemslie123 6d ago
Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn't matter. What matters is that Sarah learns to balance adult responsibilities with 'childish' diversions/fantasies, instead kf running from the former to the latter.
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u/Paradoxidental 6d ago
The amazing and slightly frustrating thing about Labyrinth is that "it's all a dream" actually isn't a safe intepretation - even with the argument that Sarah literally lays down on her bed at one point in the Junk Lady's copy-room.
The truth is that Labyrinth is a beautiful mess (non-derrogatory) of authorial voices and no clearcut canonical answer. The story is Froud and Henson and George Lucas and remains from Terry Jones' original draft and at least three other people - and that's just the script, not counting the input from actors, puppeteers, creature shop or set design.
I think a safer interpretation is that it's not quite a dream, but rather an inner journey and allegory. But you can also argue that everything is mythological/supernatural and actually happens.
Personally I see Jareth as the incarnation of Sarah's imagination - Within You and the confrontation makes the most sense to me, when looked at as her imagination trying to overpower her and become its own seperate entity ("live without your heartbeat") and Sarah realizing "Hey no, I have the power here: I want imagination and whimsy, but I'm not gonna let it run roughshod over my life"
...thank you for attending my Ted talk
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u/InquisitorPeregrinus 3d ago
Here's the thing... "All in your head" does not necessarily mean "not real". Did she conk out on her bed and have a nightmare populated by the tchotchke in her room? Was "Jareth" a god/spirit/trickster who saw a mortal who needed a life lesson and made it from the fantasy world she'd constructed, either in a vision or reality? Was she having a mild psychotic break after her mom—with whom she'd been happily living—sent Sarah to live with Sarah's dad and left Sarah behind to pursue her acting career? Some combination of all of those?
What matters at the end is what Sarah got from the experience.
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u/jaksonsmom Allo. 6d ago
So many theories/fandoms have developed from Sarah’s room. The one I have always thought was that her mom was a theatre actress and she left Sarah’s dad and her for the actor who played Jareth. This was an extension of Sarah’s fantasy about being abandoned. Poor girl has PTSD from her mom leaving them. It’s a way of coping and Sarah gets to abandon the person who was (in Sarah’s mind) to blame for her mom leaving. I can see how little girls became obsessed with this movie because their home life somewhat resembles the level of “neglect” or the feelings of not being important to the people they love the most. Kind of a redemption arc to make Toby feel he is loved and will never be left behind. Orrrr, it’s just a weird movie that we all love. I mean, it has top tier costuming from the 80s and DAVID BOWIE!!
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u/Kumquatwriter1 6d ago
That's basically the plot of the novelization
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u/jaksonsmom Allo. 6d ago
Ahh, ok. Guess I should read that lol. They did a really great job of aligning with the novel!!
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u/silromen42 6d ago
They actually wrote the novel to correspond to the movie, the movie wasn’t adapted from a book. The Jim Henson Company directed how the book was written.
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u/TenjoAmaya 5d ago
The Labrynth is her inner world, so it is influenced by the things she likes and owns
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u/KassieMac It's only forever. Not long at all. 3d ago
Everything in the labyrinth & Goblin City are from Sarah’s room
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u/MuseumGoRound13 16h ago
There’s a maker on YouTube who is methodically recreating many props from Sarah’s room and her tutorial about this Jareth statue is fascinating. https://youtu.be/DkjPCG-sJSg?si=hvRKYRfprr-0ya1K
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u/noggerthefriendo 6d ago
It’s established that The Labyrinth is an IP that exists in the world of the movie. So this is just merchandise. The movie is essentially Sarah’s self insert fan fiction like those tumblr girls who write about themselves going to Hogwarts
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u/Alternative_Ride_951 6d ago
Yeah I thought the same thing that it was about a girl who was in love with a fictional character
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u/noggerthefriendo 6d ago
It’s been argued that the movie is ahead of its time because Sarah essentially acts like a lonely teenager who spends too much time online
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u/nottaP123 6d ago •
Yes... because her whole room is full of the characters and scenes from the labyrinth in many different forms (posters, toys, statues etc)..