Eye Lichen

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Eye Lichen are a foliaceous organism that grow on the walls of the Labyrinth. They consist of a cluster of mossy tendrils tipped with fleshy eyeballs that move about in response to their point of interest.
They can first be seen on film in Labyrinth when Sarah initially parts ways with Hoggle. As she makes her way down an endless corridor, the Eye Lichen emote with a squeaky, rustling murmer. They appear again in scattered clumps when a frustrated Sarah submits to exhaustion, watching intently as she makes acquaintance with the Worm.
Although they can't be seen in the film, the lichen are present in the novelized version of the scene in which Sarah is pursued by the Fireys, desperate to scale a wall to escape decapitation.
The novel also clarifies that their incoherent whispers are in fact a means of communication among itself, expressed as gossip, and later, sympathy. "Most of it disapproved of the direction she had taken. You could tell that from the way the eyes looked meaningfully into each other. Lichen knows about directions." When the Worm warns Sarah not to go "that way" in the book, it's the lichen he speaks to in Sarah's absence, "That was close. If she'd gone the other way, she'd have walked straight into that dreadful castle." The lichen sigh with relief.
The Labyrinth Bestiary paints a different picture of the lichen's role in the story: "These keenly observant creatures watch over the maze, carefully studying everything around them and reporting their findings back to the King. They alert Jareth when travelers bypass an obstruction, and they warn him when a resident is working against his best interests." In this respect, they serve a similar role to the Crystal Bats in The Dark Crystal, able to observe an environment from a diverse mix of locations as a crucial asset for their masters.
Labyrinth: The Adventure Game adds another aspect to the Eye Lichen, appropriate for the setting of a role-playing game. During the "Stone Walls" chapter, an infestation of lichen cover a twenty foot stretch of the walls that cannot be passed without falling immediately asleep. These lichen project a sleeping spell from their eyes as they observe approaching parties. The aftereffect has subsequently resulted in a dense stack of goblins that fill the floor of the corridor, snoring indefinitely unless someone pulls them out. The spell has no lasting effect, leaving the subject with no memory of having fallen asleep or the passage of time. The game also describes patches of Eye Lichen that can be used as a hiding place, and also as a secret ingredient for a goblin chef cook-off. As in the Bestiary, the Eye Lichen are also used by the Goblin King to observe those who infringe upon his kingdom.
==Appearances==
In addition to the film and novel, the Eye Lichen has also appeared in the music video for "Underground," Labyrinth: The Storybook Based on the Movie, the Marvel comic book adaptation, Return to Labyrinth v1, Labyrinth: Masquerade, the Jeremy Bastian variant cover for Labyrinth: Under the Spell, and the RPG Labyrinth: The Adventure Game.
File:Eye Lichen Return to Labyrinth v1.jpg|Return to Labyrinth
File:Eye Lichen Masquerade.jpg|Labyrinth: Masquerade
File:Eye Lichen Under the Spell (Bastian).jpg|Under the Spell
File:Eye Lichen RPG Adventure Game.jpg|RPG Adventure Game
==Behind the scenes==
Brian Froud describes the conceptualization of the Eye Lichen in Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History as the result of "playing around" in the tradition of the Muppets:
Although the Eye Lichen is a fictitious creation, its final design resembles a gold-eye lichen, or Teloschistes chrysophthalmus.
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Category:Labyrinth Characters
Category:Creatures