The Faun

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## Magnificent Baddie

### Alias

The Faun
Pan

### Allies

The king and queen of the Underworld
His fairies
Ofelia
Caramez
Cintolo (both in novelization)

### Powers/Skills

Manipulation
High intelligence
Charisma

### Goals

Help Ofelia reunite with her parents, the rulers of the Underworld (succeeded)

### Type of MB

Grey Zoned Mentor

**The Faun** is a major protagonist in the Oscar-winning hit 2006 Spanish dark fantasy drama film *Pan's Labyrinth*. He is the servant of the rulers of the Underworld who was searching for their lost daughter, Princess Moanna (whose name is Ofelia on Earth), and comes across Ofelia whom he recognizes as her. Throughout the film, he tries to help her reunite with her parents by means of completing tasks he assigns her albeit ones that end up endangering her life before giving her an ultimate test of character much later.

He was portrayed by Doug Jones.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* Upon spotting Ofelia, he helps her get a clue to her status as the princess of the Underworld by informing her of a birthmark on her shoulder which she discovers later on.
* He spends the film giving Ofelia tasks to complete so that she could reunite in the Underworld as a princess with her parents, the rulers of said realm.
* He gives Ofelia the Book of Two Crossroads to help her find out what she needs to complete for her first task which, while something she doesn't figure out at first due to the book being initially blank, helps her get clues on what to do to complete it with her getting the key the Faun assigned her to get with the help of the book by tricking a gluttonous giant toad that was devouring nearly all the insects in a tree that it caused to start dying into devouring three stones that caused it to throw up the key (which the novelization revealed the toad swallowed years ago).
	+ In the novelization, it is explained that the Faun had a bookbinder named Caramez bind this book with the containment of everything the Faun knows that it will only show when he tells it what to reveal so that it will help the princess find her way back. The Faun also gives him leather that was cut from the skin of a beast that fed on truth and many fearless men to use as the cover of the book so that the princess will get courage whenever she touches it.
* When Ofelia tells him of her mother's illness, while he initially scolded her for not completing the second task in spite of her helping her mother, he gives her a mandrake root in a bowl that requires three drops of blood and has her put it under the bed to help her out, which seems to make her feel better until Vidal discovered it and revealed it to Ofelia's mother, who threw it away into a fire and afterwards felt a lot more pain due to the baby she had in her stomach.
* He gives Ofelia the materials, a piece of chalk and a key, necessary for her to complete her next task, which involves her entering the Pale Man's cave and getting a dagger behind one of the doors, and gives her a satchel with his fairies inside to accompany her while warning her not to eat anything on the table, with her succeeding at the task albeit at the cost of two of the fairies who died getting their heads chomped off by the Pale Man trying to protect Ofelia.
* He is shown to care about his fairies, being fond of them in general, feeding one some of his meat, and being furious at Ofelia when she reveals that two of the three fairies he sent with her died.
* While initially furious at Ofelia and willing to abandon her, he decided to give her another chance by giving her another task to complete involving her taking her brother and bringing him to the Faun for the final task.
* He successfully helps Ofelia reunite in the Underworld with her parents, the rulers of the realm, by getting her to unknowingly complete the final task which was a test he put her through to see if she would choose to risk her own life to save that of her brother's with Ofelia refusing to give her brother to the Faun to use his dagger on for the portal to the realm, leading to her getting shot and killed by Captain Vidal who was chasing her to get her brother back into his own hands which caused her to return to the realm in front of her father and mother with the Faun revealing to her that she chose well there as they congratulate her.
* In the novelization, it is revealed that he went to even greater lengths to try to find Princess Moana by having a sculptor named Cintolo make numerous sculptures of the king and queen to grow from the soil in the Upper Kingdom to remind the princess of who she was should she walk past them one day, feeding his fairies tears to remind them of Moanna since they tend to be quite forgetful creatures, and allowing Cintolo to sculpt him so that the sculpture would find her.
* The novelization gives him a sympathetic backstory where he developed a romantic relationship with a woman who danced and sang under the forest's canopy before reluctantly leaving her after offering her to come with him to his underground world as she dreaded the thought of spending the rest of her life without ever seeing the stars or feeling the wind on her skin with her love filling her with longing afterwards and turning into a tree from the heartache that resulted in her soft skin turning to bark with the Faun coming back to find her this way, shedding tears over her and staying there for a while until he heard a flute being played by a boy with horns in his hair and hooves on his slender legs, though when he arrived through the secret passageways, the sound was nowhere to be heard.

## What Makes Him A Baddie?

* His tasks repeatedly end up endangering Ofelia's life with the task regarding her getting a key from a toad's belly required her to go into a tree and encounter a giant toad that could've eaten her (the novelization also making this even more clear) and get him killed by tricking him into devouring three stones that would cause him to regurgitate his inner body and the key along with it and the task regarding entering the Pale Man's cave to get a dagger with the banquet on the table being strongly implied in the film to enchant her with a spell binding her to eat some of the food (confirmed in the novelization) which caused the Pale Man to wake up and nearly kill her if not for her escaping he cave in time.
	+ It's worth noting that while he did give her instructions for the former, he never made it clear just how big the toad is with the Book of Two Crossroads he gave her making it seem far smaller than it really is nor that the toad could have eaten her and as for the latter, while he did warn her not to eat anything in the lair and that the Pale Man there was not human and Ofelia's life was only placed in danger due to her disobedience, he was being a bit cryptic here as he never specified why she shouldn't eat anything nor that the Pale Man was a monster that killed many children.
	+ The novelization gives further shadiness to his character in regards to the former task, revealing that he had the Book of Two Crossroads be made to contain everything the Faun knew but only reveal what he wants it to reveal.
	+ The movie also strongly implies that the food on the Pale Man's table was enchanted with the novelization confirming this and was capable of putting anyone under a spell to eat the food on it, something the Faun never warned her about in either versions.
	+ Both of these tasks overall suggest that the Faun is putting Ofelia through some kind of test with the details he leaves out in both instructions regarding the tasks.
* He scolds Ofelia for not completing her second task despite her telling him she needed to help her mother with her illness, with the Faun merely brushing this off by saying that it was no excuse for negligence, suggesting that he was fine with whatever happens as long as the work gets done, though he does give her a mandrake root in a bowl to put under her mother's bed and instructs her to give it three drops of blood for it to help her mother.
* The Faun initially decides to abandon Ofelia and his decision to help her return to the Underworld after discovering that during her task in the Pale Man's cave, two of the three fairies he gave to her as company got killed by the Pale Man due to her disobedience and yells at her and decides to leave her while telling her she'll die amongst the mortals and not join for that, though he does return later and decide to give her another chance.
* Having the dagger from the Pale Man's lair, he tasks Ofelia to take her brother and deliver him to him to a portal nearby the woods and once she arrives there, he initially acts like he wants her to give her baby brother to him so that he could stab it with the dagger in order to shed blood to be able to open the portal.
	+ While this was revealed to be a test to see if she'd be willing to shed the blood of an innocent or not with Ofelia not doing so and passing the test, which allows her to reunite with her parents in the realm, the Faun still does act a little shady here too.
		- For one, he says that it'll take just a drop to be able to open the portal in spite of the task requiring the blood letting to open it.
		- Another thing is that when Ofelia initially refuses, while it's an act, the Faun acts like he's trying to pressure her into giving her brother over by emphasizing what she is giving up by not giving her brother to him and reminding her that she promised to obey him, making the task difficult, which could have had potential to actually successfully make her do it even if she doesn't do it in the end.
		- There's also nothing confirming that the Faun wouldn't have stabbed him to get the blood dripping necessary to open the portal if Ofelia gave him to the Faun.
* He does nothing to warn Ofelia when Captain Vidal catches up to her, instead merely leaving her to deal with the consequences of her decision, which resulted in Vidal taking back her baby brother and shooting and killing her, though this causes her to bleed enough blood into the portal to open it and reunite with her parents in the underworld she was the princess of.
* He is overall intentionally left dubiously trustworthy due to his comments and deeds throughout the film.