Jack of Many Trades

J is for Jareth

Originally posted: 2012-05-16

Yes, the goblin king. (You now have "you remind me of the babe" stuck in your head. I'm not sorry.)

I've touched before on the fact that Loki first came to me as a child, wearing Jareth's shape. It's one of those things that makes perfect sense in retrospect, but took me a long time to figure out.

If you pay close attention during the movie, Jareth and his labyrinth teach you all sorts of important Fairy Tale Logic lessons - about politeness, about making friends, about answering questions, about the importance of not eating things you're given.

And of course, Fairy Tale Logic is important for anyone who's not formally taught to go wandering around in other worlds. The physics isn't exactly the same, but if it's a good idea in Fairyland, it's probably not a bad idea wherever you might end up.

You might wonder why Loki would even be interested in teaching that lesson, but I don't think Loki would bother dragging little kids off into the woods to get eaten by the big bad wolves. The wolves aren't going anywhere, and lots of kids wander off by themselves.

No, I think Loki was and is more interested in poking a few of us, trying various styles of getting attention, to see what the results are. For all I know, I'm nothing but a test case. By this point, I'm inclined to believe it's more than that, but there's no guarantees. Especially not with Loki.

Oh, and Jareth was being a creeper and watching you sleep long before Edward Cullen started doing it.