The Monstrefact: The Four Guards of ‘Labyrinth’

just to name a few. While its predecessor film The Dark Crystal took its fantasy world creation incredibly seriously, Labyrinth leans more into pure musical fun and python esque absurdity. Now there's a lot of this flavor to discuss in Labor, but I wanted to talk specifically about the four guards that Sarah encounters as she makes her way across the Goblin King's labyrinth. They are doglike humanoid creatures that guard

a pair of doors. They are either conjoined beings and therefore two guards, or they are affixed behind their signature shields in a way that allow for two beings per shield. Their absurd appearances of course, linked to their visual resemblance to double headed European playing cards, in which a king, queen, jack or joker is double bodied and double headed in such a way that the card can be discernible from

either side of the table. According to St. Bindet and the Excellent Labyrinth Festiary, the heads of the left door guardian are Alf and Jim, while the heads of the right door are Ralph and Tim. When Sarah encounters the guardians, she quickly learns the rules concerning their doors. One door leads to the assle at the center of the labyrinth, where, of course, Sarah is trying to go in order to rescue her step brother Toby, while the other door leads

to bum certain death. The lower heads have no idea which doors which, but the upper heads do, but Sarah is only permitted to ask one of them. Furthermore, one of the two guards always tells the truth, while the other one always lies, So Sarah faces a conundrum. How can she find out which door is which? How can she risk asking the wrong guard and being lied to. The scenario instantly invokes what is known as the liar's paradox. If a liar tells you they are lying, well, then

they are telling the truth. Consider the statement quote, this sentence is a lie unquote. If that statement is true, then it's false. If it's false, then it's true. Oh mind. Sarah, of course, is a bright young woman and makes the short work of the guardians and their attempts to confuse her. As John Touri points out in the paper objective falsity is essential to lying an argument from convergent evidence published in philosophy studies. In one she engages in what is

called answer laundering. If Sarah simply asked one of the guards which doors which, then it might be a true or untrue statement that she gets in return, and her chances therefore are no better than simply picking a door at random. Instead, she launders one answer through another tory explains quote by asking one guard whether the other guard would say that this door leads to success. Sarah deduced the correct one either she gets the truth about a

lie or a lie about the truth. Whenever she has told yes, the correct answer is no, and whenever she has told no, the correct answer is yes. The truth and the lie dependably canceled each other out In scenario provided to restresses that lies cannot be true. Urry points out that the riddle of the Four Guards is a variant of the Knights and Naves logic puzzle from Raymond Smoleans publication What is the name of this book? The scenario in the book that closely resembles the scene from

Labyrinth involves a knight and a nave otherwise indistinguishable. Who guard a fork in the road? Which road do you take? Dare you ask these two men, given that one is secretly a noble knight and the other secretly a vile nave, Only one of them is going to give you a good answer. The other one is going to lie to you. The solution again comes via answer laundry. Ask which path the other individual would say is the correct one. So this is how the Four Guards of Labyrinth work, unless

I am lying, which I am not. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.