[ SECRET POST #4741 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4741 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #679.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. https://i.imgur.com/Y66GVHD.png

[(Anonymous)]

I know this is a comment secret and it's not necessarily about the Labyrinth fandom, but... Jareth x Sarah forever!!

[(Anonymous)]

Yes!

[nightscale]

To be fair to Sarah, the Labyrinth world is kind of hellish so I can actually understand her wanting to go back.

But in general I get what you mean, although my opinion would be highly dependent on whether I could cast magic or not, because if I'm just a regular Joe in a world full of magic? Um, yeah I might take the real world over that because I'd probably end up dead in a week.

Also if there's giant spiders I'm gonna be out regardless.

[(Anonymous)]

Labyrinth maps pretty strongly to Tam-Lin where the baby is destined to be shipped off to hell as a tithe when he comes of age. And the fairy queen/king is creepy and has minimal idea of consent, so Labyrinth is possibly not a good example to use in criticism of this trope.

[(Anonymous)]

There's also the fact that Sarah's IRL problems are temporary (and to some degree just related to her being a teenager). Even if she never gets along with her stepmother, she doesn't have to keep living under the same roof as her forever (and that looked like a pretty cushy roof to live under!) Sarah didn't have a shit life.

It's also good she learned not to blame a baby for her problems.

[(Anonymous)]

Labyrinth as a world was the world she thought she wanted, fraught with danger and adventure. (Jareth even tells her outright.) It's a very big plot point that he's the villain because that's what she wanted. He was playing things how she wanted it to be, because she was young and didn't have an idea of what she actually wanted. It sounded amazing in a book, so she wanted to be the book heroine! And then once she was, she realized it wasn't that great, actually. It's why Jareth watches on silently in the end of the story, as she parties with the friends she made. She got what she needed out of that and while he's not part of it, it's enough.

TBH for something fae, Jareth is very giving. (But then fae in love tend to put their everything into it and he's going to remember her FOREVER so.)

[(Anonymous)]

Depends on the reasoning for me

"the other place is objectively better and healthier but I must go back because my family shares genes with me no matter how shitty they are and
I looove them" nope

"the other place is objectively better and healthier, but I want to go back and fight the good fight to make my home world better and more like this one" sure

[(Anonymous)]

It's a cowardly choice the vast majority of the time IMO

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed - even more so when the protagonist has clearly suffered some trauma in the course of their adventures and you just know there's zero chance they can talk to a therapist about it back home ("Yeah, I'm afraid of fire because the evil empire used their enslaved dragons to burn down a refugee camp I happened to be in, and though I escaped, many others did not." Yeah, that's gonna be a little awkward.)

Also when the protagonist has magic powers in the other world and gives them up to live in the real world. Fuck that! I wanna do magic!

[(Anonymous)]

even more so when the protagonist has clearly suffered some trauma in the course of their adventures and you just know there's zero chance they can talk to a therapist about it back home ("Yeah, I'm afraid of fire because the evil empire used their enslaved dragons to burn down a refugee camp I happened to be in, and though I escaped, many others did not." Yeah, that's gonna be a little awkward

That's why Seanan McGuire's Every Heart Is A Doorway series is so cool. It's about what happens to the protagonist after they save the fantasy world or complete their quest and have to go home. Some spend a lifetime trying to get back and some just try to emotionally heal from what happened. It's a great series.

[cloudtrader]

Thanks for the rec, anon!

[sparklywalls]

When I was little I used to fall very firmly on the side of "I want to stay in the magic world" and there's a part of me (in my imagination) that still would. But it depends, could I still pop between worlds every now and again? "You can stay but can't see your family and friends ever again" would be hard for a lot of people I think.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you read Every Heart A Doorway and its sequels/prequels? Most if not all of the characters didn't choose to leave their magical worlds and the books deal with a lot of the aftermath of being forced out and what kinds of things they went through and lost.

[fishnchips]

Yeah, that's my main gripe with The Dark is Rising which I otherwise love. Still a bit bitter about it.

[tabaqui]

Agreed. Especially i felt this way as a kid - it never made sense to me, especially when the 'real' world was a terrible or miserable or traumatic place for them.

[feotakahari]

I think it’s supposed to parallel how you the reader are leaving the fantasy world by closing the book and doing something else. Frankly, I’m already aware I’m leaving the fantasy world when the book runs out of pages. You don’t have to remind me.

[philstar22]

I think it depends on why they are going back and the characterization of the protagonist. A protective, heroic protagonist going back because they want to make things better in their home and help their family/people is a believable reason for me and it works for me. But if they are just going back because they are supposed to or because it is their family (even though the family has treated them terribly), then no, it doesn't make sense.

I don't know.

[(Anonymous)]

Often, for staying in the fantasy world, the implication is that you give up seeing your friends and (loved) family. Sure, if you have no real friends and your family is truly horrible, by all means, you should stay. But if it was a choice between the most amazing world without my family or my family, my family would win, every time.

Mild DIE Spoiler

[(Anonymous)]

This becomes the major plot conflict behind DIE with the second arc. Half of the protagonists are "fuck no, my family may be fucked up but they're my family" and half are "what the hell, it's not like we have much going on back on Earth."

Re: I don't know.

[type_wild]

Yeah, this is my feeling exactly. It's part of what I loved with the Kyo Kara Maoh ending, and part of what I loathed about Digimon Data Squad.

[(Anonymous)]

I love travelling and seeing places I dreamed about as a kid and even some places I never knew existed. But after a few weeks I'm ready to back home surrounded by familiar things, seeing familiar faces and places and relaxing into the comfort of routine. It would be somewhat traumatic to find myself in a fantasy world and I would certainly make the most of it but wouldn't want to stay there forever. And I think any character that would stay would be unrelatable to most audiences which is why it's so uncommon in fiction.

[(Anonymous)]

Depends on how it's handled for me. The Neverending Story is one of my favorite examples of how 'going back to the real world' works well and is necessary plotwise.

[(Anonymous)]

I hate it when the person falls in love with someone in the other world but they choose to go back home because of their friends and family, because the story frames staying with the person they're in love with as the shallow, selfish choice. Or sometimes they do decide to stay and the fandom gets upset because they think it's the shallow, selfish choice. It comes down to pitting romantic love against platonic love and I always hate when one is presented as more meaningful than the other.

[cloudtrader]

I love my friends and family, but there are a few fantasy worlds I'd love to live in. On the other hand, I also feel like I would ultimately regret leaving my friends and family behind. I lived a few years alone on the other side of the world for my job, and while I was missing people and home sick, the biggest thing to get to me was culture stress. I think people who haven't really experienced living in a place that is completely foreign to them don't quite get how it can affect you long term. And I at least had other foreigners to commiserate with -- if you were the only one from our world in a fantasy world, no one would ever understand what shaped you as a person, your knowledge base, your reference points. Even if you found your One True Love in the fantasy world, or a Meaning and Purpose in Life, or whatever, I do think you'd end up very stressed and lonely.