January 11, 2016: Here at SBTB HQ, we’re quiet and sad about the death of David Bowie, and we kept returning to this entry where we discussed Jareth, his appeal, the layers of bad boy villain and potential redemption. We’re resurfacing it here to pay a small tribute to the character and person who transfixed so many of us, and we’re re-opening comments if you’d like to add yours.
I’ve always struggled to understand why some readers find a controlling, super-alpha hero attractive. I got down-right snotty about it for a while before I realized that I, too, have known the love of a man who is fun to fantasize about but who is a terrible, terrible person…Jareth, from the movie Labyrinth, played by the gorgeous and very, very bad David Bowie.
Labyrinth is a movie featuring people and Jim Henson’s Muppets. The movie is a coming of age story about Sarah, played by Jennifer Connelly. She’s a bratty young teen who doesn’t want to grow up. She idolizes her missing mom, resents her stepmom, and feels put upon by her father and stepmother when they ask her to babysit her baby brother Toby. When Toby cries, Sarah says she wishes the goblin king would take him away.
Enter the Goblin King, Jareth, played by David Bowie. Here’s a sampling of Jareth’s actions:
- He kidnaps a baby
- And sends an under-age girl through a maze full of machines and creatures that might kill her
- And threatens to turn the baby into a goblin
- All of which causes Sarah to be almost killed and/or made permanently stinky
- He has Sarah’s memory erased so he can attempt to seduce her via magical roofie
- He sends the baby crawling after a ball on a set made of M.C. Escher-style stairs in a fashion that is CLEARLY not safety minded. If he had electrical outlets, he probably wouldn’t even put those safety covers on them.
He also looks like this:
At the climax of the film, Jareth says that he did everything for Sarah:
Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for *you*! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn’t that generous?…I ask for so little. Just fear me. Love me. Do as I ask, and I shall be your slave.
For those of us who were around the same age as Sarah (she’s fifteen) when the movie came out, this sparked lively discussion – should Sarah have rescued Toby or should she have stayed with Jareth and ruled over the Goblin City with him?
Jareth is a skeevy older guy who preys on under-age girls, he’s a kidnapper, and he’s certainly controlling – and all of us would have laid down our lives for him in a blink. Sure, David Bowie, take all the younger siblings you want as long as you dance with me in that weird giant bubble.
Behold the scene which is creepy as shit, actually, but also pretty much totally defined my adolescent sexuality:
So many of the Bitches encountered Jareth in our formative years that we all have thoughts. Jareth is a shit, ladies! He’s scum! He’s not even sorry! He’s going to keep being scum! So why are we helpless before the power of the tights?
Amanda:
As a teenage girl, it’s hard not to be mystified by Bowie’s bulge in The Labyrinth. Seriously. Whenever it’s in a scene, it’s an impossibility to take your eyes off of it. That man knows his assets.
HOWEVER! I am not here to wax poetic about Bowie’s bits. Though I could. If you really want me too.
For me, this is probably the earliest example I can think of where I was totally into the bad guy. Let’s not get into the fanfiction that I devoured because of this. I’m blaming Jareth for my eschewing the well-meaning hero and pining for the morally ambiguous, unfairly attractive villain instead, even though I’m well aware that they are awful people. THEY CLEARLY JUST NEED THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN TO CHANGE THEM.
- Jareth/Sarah
- Draco/Hermione (where my Dramione fans at?)
- The Phantom/Christine
The list goes on.
There’s an arrogance that comes with being a villain; they’re so self-assured in who they are and what they’re doing. They’ll exercise their power and do whatever is necessary to reach their means, and it just flips all my switches. I’m a fixer by nature, so perhaps a character needing (though perhaps not actively seeking) redemption appeals to that personality trait.
Give me a good bad guy any day of the week.
RHG:
He’s right in that gives her what she (thought she) wanted. She wanted an adventure. She wanted to be frightened. She wanted to get the damn baby to shut up. She wanted to be the center of attention for someone and be appreciated for being her and not the live-in baby sitter. (Was that unfair for her to think that’s all she is to her dad and stepmother? Yes, but 15 year olds are not known for being fair.)
And being of the age where all I wanted was that – adventures and attention and being in peril and have to think my way out of it (but not ACTUAL peril, adventure movie peril) and those pants – that had a profound effect. A girl, on an adventure, who had to think her way through it and collect a bunch of friends along the way (and the implications that either her toys were Real or it was in her head)?
Either way I could relate to everything Sarah went through. Stepparent with whom she had a cantankerous relationship. Conflicted feelings about a younger sibling’s very existence. The desire to playact and live deeply in fantasy and books. Wearing a vest because it was the fashion.
I want to unpack the “Love me, fear me, do as I ask and I will be your slave” thing a bit more. I think this was the first introduction many of us had to the concepts that arise in BDSM, before any of us had a word for it. I remember thinking that on the surface, that was SUCH a huge contradiction, and yet…. and yet… it was intriguing. How would that work? He did give her everything she asked for and there was a pretty dress and Bluto and well… why not? At least consider the choice he’s given you, girl!
I also love this Fan Theory on what Jareth’s deal is. IT EXPLAINS SO MUCH.
CarrieS:
First of all, thanks Mom, for making me a version of Sarah’s vest that I wore constantly and that my kid is now wearing constantly. Many generations will wear that thing, clearly. As an adult I think Sarah is incredibly irritating but as a kid DAMN but I wanted to be her.
I think one thing that makes it easier to crush on Jareth is that the story isn’t presented as a romance. The difference between Edward in Twilight and Jareth in Labyrinth is that we aren’t being tricked into thinking of Jareth as a hero – he’s always presented as a bad guy.
When Jareth drugs Sarah so that she enters a trance and finds herself dancing with him in a magic bubble, the scene embodies all the tension of discovering your sexuality – it’s kind of scary and kind of hot and you have to find your own power within it. But even though the scene itself has these romantic elements (the song, the dress) it’s not presented as a romantic thing that Jareth did. It’s quite clearly presented as an evil and manipulative thing that he did. If I felt like the writer or director wanted to convince me that drugging Sarah was an admirable and romantic act, I’d be revolted, not turned on.
It’s a scene with a lot of contradictions that I’m able to enjoy because it’s presented as a complicated scene. As a teen, this spoke to a lot of things I was juggling – fear of being exploited and having not being able to make my own decisions, a completely contradictory desire to not be held responsible for my own decisions because sexuality is scary, a feeling that sex is dirty and creepy (Sarah is totally creeped out by the dancers with their grotesque masks) and a feeling that sex is glamorous and alluring (Davie Bowie’s hair and make-up deserved their own Oscar).
I can’t stand romances in which controlling heroes are portrayed as romantic heroes unless part of their arc is that they meet their match in the heroine and/or they change in the course of the story. But I LOVE a broken-hearted villain, i.e. Eric from Phantom of the Opera and Loki from the Marvel movies.
Readers, did Jareth awaken strange new stirrings with you? What unrepentant, has not changed, is still evil, villain or villainess has rocked your world, and why? Should Sarah have stayed in the goblin world with that amazing dress or what? Let us know your thoughts.
So I was thinking about a genuine bad boy that you couldn’t help but root for. I will probably take heat for saying this (pun intended) but the book “Heat” by R Lee Smith had a bad (evil fits better) boy that was way more interesting than the hero of the story. He did some truly awful, vile things. Not just one but many. By the end of the book you were sucked into rooting for E’Var to actually escape! That was some pretty terrific writing.
The post by Brooding Bibliophile wins this comment section. Le sigh.
Has anyone else seen the Girls Next Door series on youtube? Not the playboy bunny show – this one is about Christine and Sarah post-story. It’s based on a webcomic on Deviant Art (not sure about the artist), and it is fabulous. Basically voiced animated stills. The “real” world is in black and white, and the goblin world is in color, and it’s fabulous. The entire basis is that Jareth is still obsessed with Sarah, and Erik with Christine, and they basically live next door to each other. So much love.
I loved this movie, and I never really understood why until I read this post. Amazing. I haven’t seen it for what, 20 years, and I still know all of the songs by heart, and now that I’ve watched the ballroom scene I’ll be humming it all night….
I was never attracted to the androgeny, but the power? My god, hot-hot-hot.
I don’t even remember how I first saw Labyrinth but it definitely stayed with me. I desperately wanted to be Sarah…just to wear that dress in the bubble scene. Some days I think spending a few hundred dollars for a custom-made version of it from Etsy is a totally reasonable decision.
Years later, I picked it up again when my daughter was maybe 2 and she ended up watching most of it. Far from being scared — she actually danced along to the Magic Dance scene. And for a long while after, if she was crying or upset, we just had to fire up the VHS player and play that scene! So in my experience, Jareth is a fantastic babysitter. 🙂
And for anyone who is ever in the Los Angeles area, every year in the summer there is a Labyrinth masquerade. People dress up in all kinds of costumes and there is lots of dancing. I went with my husband a couple of years ago and it was magical. About as close as one can get to going to Jareth’s masquerade. Plus there were several people dressed as Jareth! http://labyrinthmasquerade.com/
@chacha1 – I’ll have to check out “Close My Eyes” in spite of the squick. And speaking of squicky, have you seen “An Awfully Big Adventure”?
@Teshamonster – I’m not sure that’s try, but thank you. (I’ve never won a comment section before.)
@Melanie – I must immediately check this out! Have you read Phantom by Susan Kay?
@Brooding Bibliophile – I have not! But I’ve now added it to my Goodreads pile ^_^
And here’s the link to the girls next door comic channel page – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP-W70dOpqa55Uhh1EXBZqA
I never made the connection until I saw this article! I saw Labyrinth as a young preteen and was immediately obsessed. Came from a rather repressed “sex is bad” household too so I clung to that villain like a life preserver. Totally helped shape my extreme love of bad boys with submissive tendencies.
And an absolute yes of Rickman’s Sheriff as well. He was definitely on my list.
Gosh, Oldman’s Dracula was on my list as well, big time.
Hah, yes to all of this! I don’t actually have an attraction to ambiguously-masculine men in real life (I don’t know how else to phrase this – androgynous-ish? Men with fancy hair and makeup are, in real life, something I can appreciate in an aesthetic way, but they don’t generally appeal to me in a sexy way), but I remember seeing Labyrinth as a young teen and feeling very confused. Was this supposed to be a children’s movie? Did everyone have squirmy feelings about Jared, or was there something wrong with me?!? Why didn’t Sarah say yes?!?
I saw it again as an adult, a few years ago, and was amazed that it was considered appropriate for children. It still seems to me that there’s so much strange sexual content, and so much strange specifically BDSM content, really. So I guess, in a more elaborate way, I still think “wait, is this a children’s movie?” and “does everyone see the D/s here, or… is there something wrong with me?” Hehe.
I wonder if the filmmakers understood what they were making while they were making it, or if the individual chemical elements were innocuous, and combined to be the confusing chain reaction of the final film?
I guess it makes sense that I had that early response to this movie: as an adult, the aesthetic of Jared and the puppets are not my hot buttons, but I do have sort of “hard-edged preferences” in romance. You know, I like it when the romance is a little scary. I like the feelings to be intense, but also kind of sarcastic and non-earnest. (How I long to find, essentially, certain Georgette Heyer novels, but with more smut.) I like the people to be conflicted about their attractions, and I like it when the heroes have to arc to match the arcs of the heroines (which I often like to move from “maybe I’m doing everything wrong” to “no, I’m great, hear me roar”), so it’s ideal if the hero is mildly villainous and scary to start and by the end is groveling to win the hand of a lady who’s had the opposite arc, from no power to lots of power, which she is then ultimately convinced to give to the hero anyway, but because he’s risen to her level, giving over power to him is no longer disempowering… if that makes any sense.
Lord, this all starts to sound like a weird treatise about mental BDSM.
Someone above mentioned Alan Rickman, who was exactly who I thought about while reading this. I think another element of all of the romantic villains or anti-heroes I really like is that they tend to have strong feelings that they have tight control over. However they might present on the surface (rakes, hello!) they’re serious, competent people on the inside, which is often used to set them up as a foil to the more loose, seat-of-the-pants cowboy styles of heroes, at least in movies, but I always accidentally lean toward the villains, because – sarcastic competence! Is there anything sexier? I think the answer must be no.
I just watched “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” (deeply enjoyable, highly recommend, although there’s little romance) and the Childermass character gave me this type of feeling a little bit, which I felt conflicted about, because he also seemed physically kind of dirty. In a “hasn’t bathed in this calendar year” type of way, not the possibly sexy ways. But that’s the power of the sarcastically-competent anti-hero, a person is attracted in spite of the hairstyle.
In romance, I think this type of anti-hero/gamma hero often shows up in Anne Stuart books. Stuart’s contemporaries are not always for me, and the historicals are definitely fairly formulaic (villainous, dissolute hero is terrible to some spirited woman, and over time accidentally falls in love with her, which he hates himself for) but I tend to enjoy them quite a bit anyway.
Recently, while watching Game of Thrones, I realized that the character of Stannis sort of pushed this set of buttons for me. Very cold, cruel, but also masculine and competent and reliable (in the predictable/non-chaotic sense). I think particularly when set against the backdrop of a chaotic, unpredictable universe, this type of anti-hero/villain often winds up seeming like a better deal than the presumed heroes to me.
PS, it’s interesting to me that there are several commenters who perceive Jareth to be sexually submissive – in my perception, he’s so… the opposite. He wants a person who resists him to submit to him, and if she’d just do that, he’d give her everything she wants. (Is his claim.) To me, that’s exactly the type of dynamic one seeks but so rarely finds in the alleged BDSM novels a person inexplicably reads even though they are never good, never, and spend too much time in dull scenes where the hero explains the concept of safewords and not nearly enough on the fact that there is in fact tension in submission, the tension is part of what’s sexy – the relaxation that comes after the tension is gone is also sexy, but at first there’s that sexy part where the submissive person is trying to understand if their urge to submit is safe or not. (I really find more of what I want in historicals with jerk anti-heroes who are wildly promiscuous and cruel and end up brought low by the heroine’s love/coded submission than in actual BDSM novels, which I almost invariably find terrible, like people playing dress-up with concepts.)
If anyone has book ideas for any of these gamma hero/anti-hero/villain-turned-hero things, please share with the class! Some things I’ve read and found to contain this gamma-hero-type thing:
*The Duke’s Wager (Edith Layton)
*Multiple books in the House of Rohan series (Anne Stuart – these are definitely kinda formulaic, like I’d be hard-pressed to give you more information about the individual titles off the top of my head, BUT… enjoyable, if you like sexy villainous types)
Here’s a goodreads list, although some of these, I would not agree with: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/27015.Villain_Gets_the_Girl
*Patience (Lisa Valdez – the other book, Passion, is the actually-BDSMy book, and… all of these Valdez books are basically bananas, and uneven, BUT they also have some of the sturm-und-drang you may find problematically compelling)
*Going the Distance (Juliana Keyes – this is not actually BDSM or anything, it’s supposed to be straight contemporary romance, but the hero is very strange and tense and totally did it for me for most of the book, he is the hero I always want the “military hero who has done bad, bad things” to be, but never are)
Here’s a Goodreads list to go browsing in:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/27015.Villain_Gets_the_Girl
PPS: I thought I knew what “gamma heroes” were (I thought they were basically “mean anti-heroes who arc” but based on five minutes of googling, I think I might be wrong? Huh.) Anyway…
I have faithfully read every single one of these comments.
Did none of the rest of you see it? Or are you just too polite to mention that there was a scene where Bowie had an obvious boner going on in his pants?
My friend, Laurie, and I both shouted at the same time, He’s got a hard on.” And giggled like little wee things which we were not.
I have always had a bit of a thing for the bad boys. Growing up with darker themed movies and books probably played their part in twisting me around. But, seeing Bowie in those grape-smugglers definitely worked for me. I think it is the attraction that even the greatest evils can have desires and squishy little soft spots. I remember watching the movie- Mary Reilly for the first time and John Malcovich as both Jekyl and Hyde and he was an evil bastard, very violent. But I could not help but to be touched and intrigued by his often tender turns with Mary. I have never wanted those qualities in a boyfriend but I love it in a purely fantasy based experience. It’s an adventure. It’s a gamble. It’s just sexy.
Oh, Jareth. Happy, happy sigh. I find the “fear me, love me” line *incredibly* hot. A huge part of his attraction for me is his very strong–albeit aesthetically atypical–masculinity.I don’t necessarily think masculine men want women to fear them, but there is something about the dynamic of surrender that for me feels like the heart of feminine energy. Receptivity, being the object of desire and focused, loving attention. Whew, it shivers me just thinking about it! There is a circuit that happens when there is really strong masculine/feminine polarity that feels very magnetic and intense. A lot of villains are really single-minded, focused, confident, “fuck all y’all bitches” in their presentation. That’s pretty damn hot. Strong masculinity (or femininity) will often polarize whoever is with the person into the extreme of the opposite/balancing end of the spectrum. Enter swooniness 🙂
I would *love* to see Colette Gale do an erotic version of this story when S is a few years older. Her Seducing the Classics series is delicious.
I loved me some Spike on Buffy (was he *really* such a bad guy??) and always like when I get more backstory on a villain. Part of their allure, I feel, is that they are so multifaceted.
@No Name – Oh, I’ll be digging into all your recommendations. I didn’t know that “gamma hero” was the term I was looking for, so thank you.
I’ve been wondering, since I commented on Jareth’s sexual submissiveness if that’s really what I was trying to pinpoint. I wonder if, instead, I’m looking for heros for whom power negotiation is the turn on? In much the way morality negotiation is a thrill for them? Maybe that’s the gamma hero and I just haven’t read him yet.
I’m just picturing invisible Buffy handcuffing Spike to the wall and dream Eric wooing Sookie with soft, sweet loving so, I may not be very clear here.
@NoName, I also feel Jareth is invested in S’s surrender to him. And I never heard the term gamma hero! I feel smarter already! 🙂
@Mary – please link me to anywhere you review books forthwith, because every darn thing you just said!
@NoName, as that just made my day! Thank you! I am a prolific reader, but as yet have never reviewed anything. I’ve read a lot about masculine/feminine roles in exploring my own femininity and I enjoy David Deida’s work a lot if that topic interests you. I like strong, strong polarity in my personal and literary lives. I’m trying to think if there were any gamma-hero books I could recommend. Maybe I’ll Google it to get a better concept and get back to you 🙂
Is a gamma sort of a smart-ass alpha? Cause sign me up!!
Judith James – Broken Wing
Laura London – The Windflower (been awhile since I read this, but remember it being good)
Silk and Steam – Bec McMaster (hero is a decent guy — I really liked how his desire for the heroine makes her be honest with herself and him about what turns her on/she needs)
Lothaire – Kresley Cole
Master – Colette Gale (erotic retelling of Count of Monte Cristo…….squeeeeee, the hotness!!)
Oh yeah, I had a crush on Jareth, but I never understood why. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one. But I think my first bad boy crush was Han Solo. No, he’s not a villain, but he’s a scoundrel, and I liked that.
My favorite morally ambiguous character is Lindsey McDonald from Angel. He’s evil when it suits him, and he’s gorgeous. Can’t beat that. 😉
Oh, and Loki because, dayum.
Labyrinth was my introduction to David Bowie and my life completely changed. I am madly in love with both Jareth and Bowie. As the world falls down was my wedding song and a few years later, I named my daughter Bowie. I’ll be heading to LA soon for the Labyrinth Masquerade ball, inspired by the movie. I also plan on checking out “The Underground” (in the Drake hotel) bar/nightclub here in Toronto, also inspired by the movie. It’s nice to see I’m not the only person affected by the magic!
As a child who came of age (and into puberty) in the late 70s and 80s, many of my hormones were shaped by movies. But I was never a fan of the ordinary teen movies. With the exception of John Bender (and even he was kind of an anti-hero), most of my attention went to men who were the villains and not a bit of redemption in the bunch. Even worse, a lot of them came from scary or just plain horror movies. Frank Langella as Dracula, the Dracula and the Marquis de Sade in Waxwork, Jareth in Labyrinth, the main werewolf in Company of Wolves, etc. None of them were expressly romantic (except maybe Frank Langella) but they all had an intensity, a single focus that was very seductive to a girl who often found herself alone (only child syndrome lol). Of course when I got older, I never dared the line of the bad boy. And I found out all too well that the “good guy” wasn’t necessarily a good guy after all. Maybe I should’ve tried a bad boy after all.
it feeds into the desire to be seen as more than other women. Like Peter Pan before him Jareth has a series of girls. This is the new Sarah. Her brother will become a goblin, she’ll become something unrecognizable to herself trying to win Jareth’s approval. The triumph of Labyrinth is Sarah turning away from the abusive trap offered her and insisting on returning to her life.
Jareth sees her clearly, in a way he didn’t see the other Sarah’s because she goes from a girl to a young woman. She stops adoring him. She stops excusing him. That’s where their relationship ends and a romance would begin.
Meoskop that is brilliant. Thank you!
@roserita – Glad Capt Hook gets some love. When I was in high school I wrote a story where James Hooke (the shy, technologically minded boy who is ostracized at school because he can’t play games due to the accident when a door slammed on his hand as a child, leaving him with permanently deformed fingers and a limited range of motion, and who solaces his loneliness building model ships in bottles) succeeds in wooing Wendy Darling shortly after his graduation from Oxford. Part of the wooing is persuading her that Neverland was an imaginary place that never existed – that is, persuading her to grow up. (I think in high school I had the vague idea that this involved a certain symbolism about seeing herself as a sexual creature.) It has a happy ending of course. (For all the bullied kids who were tortured by the pack mentality of the Lost Boys, the message is definitely It Gets Better.) Hadn’t thought of that in years. Thanks for the reminder. 😉
I was either sixteen or seventeen when I watched Labyrinth. Something about the movie called to me but then, I always loved movies with magic. Yeah, I knew that Jareth was the baddie… but he was one you could not help but to like. I almost wanted her to return just to redeem Jareth. I remember having to have the soundtrack that I talked my mother into taking me to the mall to buy the cd. Then when my sons were young, they watched the heck out it. I even had to get the manga that came out of when Toby grows up…
And I have to agree with the person that mentions Erik in Phantom of the Opera. I wonder if they have read the book “PHANTOM” by Susan Kay. If not, I highly recommend it. Susan Kay writes in first person about Erik’s life, starting from his birth, his childhood, his teen years and adult years leading to the Opera House. He may have been a bad guy but my heart empathized with him. I preferred him to be with Christine. I remember having to hunt down and find two other copies of that book mentioned above for two people, one was a friend at the time who was into Phantom of the Opera. She thanked me for that.
And I did a little squee when I seen Francesca mentioned Grell from Black Butler. I’m always glad when another mention anime and manga.
I love all of these comments! I had to do a little research, so I watched all the best parts of “Labyrinth” again. 😉 When I first saw this movie, I thought it was weird. Now when I see the sexuality and seductiveness of it, I see it a little differently.
Villains? Lothaire comes to mind. I loved that he remained evil but Kresley Cole still managed to make him a (somewhat) sympathetic hero. There were some difficult moments in that book.
I was in my early twenties when I first saw this movie, and I loved it. If I had known fanfic was a thing, I would have actually written down the fanfic in my head where Jareth gets deposed from being Goblin King because Sarah and Toby got away, so he follows Sarah to her world and hangs around on the edges of her life, sometimes flirting with her, sometimes protecting her, sometimes interfering with her life. Sarah’s “toys” are still actually her friends from Jareth’s labyrinth, so they’re part of the story too.
@roserita I think you’re right re Duke of Avon being a recast of Tracy, but I was always bothered by the age difference between the H/H more than I was able to enjoy his badness. I enjoyed the sequel much more, where his son gets to be the villain/hero, maybe because Dominic was so fresh to it and so enthusiastic a villain, like it was the best job ever. ^^
I didn’t see Labyrinth until about 2000, when I was 15. OMG. To this day, I wonder how on Earth those tights warranted a PG rating. Within a couple of years, my Bowie obsession was full-fledged. I actually just watched this movie with a friend (via texting) and the whole thing was basically “Bowie yum. Sarah, you’re stupid. STAY WITH HIM. He’s powerful and gorgeous and sexy and DITCH THE BABY AND KEEP THE BABE!”
We also had a nice long chat about what motivates Jareth. We both felt like he’d been given the responsibility of ruling the goblins as some form of punishment, and that he was actually quite powerful and immortal (think Trelaine in Star Trek – the Q before Q, if you will). Then, somehow, he fell for this girl, and his goblins went out on their own and took this baby (again – if you’ve seen the documentary on the “making of”, it’s obvious the goblins pull this crap on a pretty regular basis because they aren’t that bright and feel compelled to do it and Jareth has to go and clean up their mess).
Bowie also does “menacingly sexy” SO SO SO well.
Jareth/Sarah is also one of the very (very very very) few het couples I ship in fandom. I never could abide the manga, though – the cover art was pretty, the interior art… yuck.
@PamG You are probably thinking of Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There, which is considered an inspiration for the movie Labyrinth.
I would like to chime in here and say there was a manga sequel to Labyrinth that follows the adventures of Toby. Toby gets brought back to the Labyrinth to become Jareth’s heir, and Jareth fuck off to go find Sara in the human world. Of course it’s more complicated and unethical than that, but to say more would be to spoil it.
@Rebecca TELL me you’re watching ‘Peter and Wendy’ on YouTube. It’s season two and…. Hook, the nerdy boy from childhood, is now hot and hooked up with Wendy. Seriously. WATCH EEEET, it is fantastic.
@Obsessive Lurker there are lots of Toby-goes-back fanfics I’ve read (and, cough, written). Makes sense to throw everyone back together when they are all grown ups and can play fair…. as the world falls dowwwwwwwwnnnnnn…..
Just last weekend, I was Skyping my best friend. At least once a month, we try to watch cheesy TV shows we like together. Previously, it was Supernatural; right now it’s Haven. As we watched, I said to her, “You know, if I couldn’t have a Hot Man Sandwich and had to choose just one guy from this show, it would be Duke.” My friend grinned and said, “You really like his character, huh?” And I thought about it. Duke is the Other Love Interest. He’s not the main hero. I’d describe him as the Loki-type, the one who’s loyalties you aren’t quite sure about, but in the end, despite his own reasoning and reticence, he’ll fight beside you.
Those kind of guys, I know, in real life would make horrible boyfriends/husbands. They’re not reliable, they’re selfish, they lie, they quickly bend rules to fit their purposes, and they’re not communicative.
And yet…they’re so damn sexy.
Because they’re also funny, meet life head-on, don’t complain when shit hits the fan (unlike some of the broody heroes), know how to adapt and improvise, and they’re handy to have in a fight. They also seem like they’d be great in bed.
I don’t know if I’d call them “alphas,” they’re not all alphas. I call them “bad boys with hearts of gold,” because oftentimes they will end up doing the right thing even if they don’t want to.
And a lot of that traces back to Jareth. I’d actually say Jareth is darker, and yet some of the things he said made it otherwise for me (“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you” right?).
It always amuses me when I remember that Labyrinth was a giant flop. To think how big of a cult following it has now, and how it’s influenced so people!
I loved Labyrinth, especially Bowie as Jareth, when it came out. This might have confirmed my stance in finding the bad boy so much more interesting than the hero type. So many of my favorites have been mentioned – Spike, Eric Northman, Alan Rickman as whatever villian, and Captain Hook. If you are looking for a fresh take on the Hook story try Lisa Jensen’s Alias Hook.
Your pardon if someone has already posted this, but have you all seen this?:
http://detonate.com/products-for-those-who-still-love-labyrinth/
I was in my twenties when I saw Labyrinth, and absolutely loved it. I saw it because I was a huge Bowie fan, and of course I would have chosen Jareth over going back to the real world. I do have a submissive personality that I discovered years later, and I do know the reasons for that, too personal to share on a blog 😉
Francesca – Just as an aside, we love anime at our place, daughter is a huge Black Butler fan so I’ve seen it many times. Grell Sutcliff is a male character, not a she. Japanese anime/manga can be so androgynous / gender ambiguous it can be hard to tell, my daughter just sighs sometimes when I ask is that a guy or a girl.
ChelleB – it’s not my fandom, but there are many debates about Grell’s gender. Some people say the mangaka confirmed that the character is trans, though I don’t have any proof of this. But if someone uses female pronouns while talking about self, saying “nope, he’s a man, just a flamboyant one” is kinda… opening a great big can of worms.
Labyrinth (and, to a lesser extent, Legend) formed the bulk of my sexual awakening. THANK YOU, DAVID BOWIE, FOR THOSE OUTFITS.
Anyway, if any of you Goblin-King-loving readers want a fairly good fanfic (with its own head canon about Jareth’s deal, though I loved the one RedHeadedGirl linked), then dive into “The Enticement” by Scattered Logic.
Might be time to re-watch Labyrinth for the 20th time!!! <3
Ahhhh, villains. Snape from the Harry Potter series is still my favorite character. A large part of that could be because of how Alan Rickman played him so sympathetically in the films (I think he knew the twist from Books 6 & 7. In an interview in EW, I remember Chris Columbus mentioning J.K. Rowling had told him something that really informed the way he played the character).
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my favorite show as a teenager and I loved both Angel and Spike. Spuffy forever.
In terms of book villains. I really liked Anne Rice’s Lestat. He was a villain in the first book, but I think I loved him in how own book, the second one, more.
And yes- I loved David Bowie as Jareth, but then I love David Bowie in general. In the same vein, Tim Curry was the villain in Muppet Treasure Island, but I just remember really liking that character as a child. I pretty much like any movie with Muppets for the zany humor.