Pan's Labyrinth: Adults vs a Child's realities

It's funny when adults view fairy tales as childish as if it’s only children who can believe that the fantasies and tales to be true, and if you believe or enjoy them too as you’re older than you are in fact childish as well. Commonly when you’re younger the media or types of content you consume is fiction, to help fuel children’s imagination and promote creative thinking. Though society has this belief you need to grow out of that, you need to recognize what reality is and what's not, even when you do, many still think it’s odd for you to enjoy fantasy or fairy tales. Since this is a common thing for people to “grow out of”, so many stories include that in their own fantasy work, adults telling their children that they need to grow up, stop believing in these stories and face reality. When it’s those same adults who once believed the same things when they were younger but stopped they stop believing for one reason or another. Those same adults once told the children those stories and encouraged the imagination to run wild with these crazy tales, commonly because that adult enjoyed them as well when they were younger. Some people lose that interest as they age, that kind of imaginary stuff isn’t worth the time, since it doesn’t exist outside of their head or outside of the pages of a book. Many stories that include that struggle of the child wonder and believing the impossible and what’s going on in the actual “real” world often show children actually seeing and interacting with what they imagine.  Guillermo del Toro in work like Pan’s Labyrinth plays with this concept, many fantasy realism have this concept in it. Even though the parts of fiction are interacting with and effecting the real world, many don’t see it in the story, too focused on what else is going on in their human world and their issues. By playing with that the story adds that factor for the audience to know that in this case the adults were wrong and it is real, even if they don’t want or can’t see it you know it’s there. that even though the parts of fiction are interacting with and effecting the real world, many don’t see it in the story, too focused on what else is going on in their human world and their issues. In Pan so much is going on politically and otherwise with war and what not, that all the adults don’t see what Ofelia, our main character sees. Though the war going on in her lifetime has an effect on Ofelia and her story, it’s different than to the older people around her who have an active role in it. So their focus is on that aspect of life, as they see death and destruction or be the cause of it. Many see it as Ofelia coping, that she’s dealing with psychosis because she can’t process the amount of trauma that’s going on in her life with the war since those around her are in some way involved with it, and that’s a lot for a child to have to try and handle. Many see her interacting with the fantasy world as separate since no one else can see or notice what she sees, so even the audience still thinks it’s fake within the fake story. I can understand why people think that, since that kind of style of coping is common, just imagine what you want to, or your brain imagines it for you to help you process or ignore what’s going on around you. Though something fantasy realism as a genre tends to include is the concept that these “fantasy” elements in their story if some people can’t see it, mainly adults, is that the commonly fantasy creatures don’t want the adults to see them. They don’t want the attention or to be bothered by the adults, so these “fake” creatures just have the option in a way to only appear to people they want to see them. In many cases that reason why this happens is adults have grown and their version of maturing and growing is corrupt, that’s one common route I see as a reason why they can’t see the fairy tales happening around them. In Pan’s cause it’s the cruelty and selfishness of adults that lead to their downfall, and to me is the main reason why in the story the Faun doesn’t interact with the adults in Ofeila’s life. Or in other cases it’s the lack of faith and belief that makes it impossible for the adults to be able to see it, that they’re already too far gone for the fantasy to reach them, so they don’t bother cause they in a way aren’t worth their time or energy.