The monstrous in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is shown in many different ways. There are horrible looking creatures that are not evil at all, and there are typical looking military men that are terrible monsters. This is especially true in the case of Captain Vidal, who is, in fact, the most monstrous character in the film, and is metaphorically represented by the fantastic monsters that Ofelia, the protagonist of the film, faces, as well as by Vidal’s own misdeeds.
The setting for Pan’s Labyrinth in Spain in 1944 under Franco’s Spanish Traditionalist Phalanx of the Assemblies of National-Syndicalist Offensive, allows for a pertinent context for a monster to emerge. Arguably, it is this setting that permits a character like Vidal to exist and successfully perform such heinous deeds, but also allows us to understand why fairy tales would enamor Ofelia as they do. She is so involved in imaginary worlds that she actually begins to “operate” in her personal make-believe realm. This is an escape from reality, and an escape from the cruel and unforgiving Vidal she is forced to live with and obey. In turn, the foes that Ofelia faces on her quest to be restored to the throne of the Underworld as Princess Moanna within her own personal fairy tale are representative of the foe she faces in her everyday life, Captain Vidal.
Even when Vidal is not performing some violent act, or exercising his tyrannical capabilities, his everyday behaviors mirror his monstrous persona as a whole; he is extremely calculating and ritualistic. We see him standing ramrod strait, meticulously shaving and shining his boots. He oils and tunes his pocket watch using a jeweler’s magnifying glass very slowly and methodologically in Scene 3 and does not look up until he is finished despite being disturbed by Doctor Ferriero’s knocking on his door. The care he takes of himself, his son, and his belongings, and the contrariwise belligerence, contempt, and indifference he holds for everyone else speaks to the idea that he is quite a monster indeed.
As a matter of reference, it is important to note one major personal characteristic that contributes to Vidal’s monstrous resume; his constant needs to be in control. This control may be exerted simply by his presence and rank, as it is with the men he commands, or it may be physical, such as when he puts his hands on Mercedes in Scene 3 while Vidal and his officers are discussing strategy, in Scene 6 after Mercedes serves him burnt coffee, and other characters numerous times to stop her from moving so that he can speak. We also see this physical control being exerted in Scene 2 when Ofelia extends her left hand to shake Vidal’s hand. He grabs her harshly, which we can deduce by the cringe she makes, and says “It’s the other hand, Ofelia.” Another example of this is when Vidal makes the farmer’s son remove his hat before talking to him, showing us that he literally commands the people he encounters to do as he says. Furthermore, Vidal tries to make sure that he is the only one with a copy of the key to the storage shed so that he alone may enter and exit. He also puts his hand on Carmen’s hand when they are at the dinner party, signifying that he wants her to be quiet while he speaks to his guests. And then, after she defies his controlling action and finishes her story on how she met Vidal, Vidal says, “Please forgive my wife. She hasn’t been exposed to the world. She thinks these silly stories are interesting to others” (del Toro, Scene 8). Definitionally speaking, a monster is always, through duress, applying his brutish control, which is why we need a hero, or savior, to stop him from doing so. That been said, because of this characteristic we are able to distinguish Vidal as a monster; as a result of his controlling actions and general demeanor we see the monstrous seeping through even these subtle behaviors.
Vidal is a genocidal megalomaniac who exerts his power through terror and murder, and he is proud of it. For instance, soon after Ofelia and her mother arrive at the mill Vidal’s men catch two farmers, a father and son, in the woods that they believe to be insurgents. Vidal’s men call Vidal out to where the farmer and his son are being held and their interchange begins. “SON: He was hunting rabbits-…” “VIDAL: Shut up, damn it.” When they attempt to explain what they were doing in the woods, Vidal tells them on three occasions to be quiet. Eventually, after the son speaks too directly to Vidal saying, “Captain, if my father says so, he was hunting rabbits.” Vidal, without warning, begins to slam a bottle into his face continuously (and quite unnecessarily by any rational standards) until he is dead. The father then calls Vidal a “Son of a bitch… [and] Murderer” (Ibid., Scene 4), which he obviously is after this gruesome act. Vidal responds by shooting him at point blank in the chest three times. Then, he shoots the father twice more in the head as he lay dying on the ground. At this point, Vidal’s actions are literally overkill. That is to say, when examining this event in terms of monstrosity, Vidal is brutal for brutality’s sake; there is no reason to shoot the insurgents after they are already dead except out of vitriolic masochism. Vidal then their bags and finds a rabbit carcass, which shows us that not only were they truly hunting rabbits, but also that Vidal is monstrous because of his hasty, unaffected disregard for life despite the circumstances.
Vidal’s father, who we never meet, plays an interesting role in the plot of Pan’s Labyrinth especially in terms of what is monstrous, or, at least, what contributes to the monstrous. The Guardia Civil Captain who attends the dinner party in Scene 8 tells Vidal that he heard Vidal’s father, after being mortally wounded in battle, had smashed the face of his watch against a rock to stop it with the intent of having his son know the exact time of his death, and “So [Captain Vidal] would know how a brave man dies” (Ibid., Scene 8). We are told that his father was a great general. However, Vidal claims that his father never owned a watch. Vidal then looks at his own pocket watch that he has previously been seen tuning and oiling and that has a smashed face. This alludes to the fact that this watch actually did belong to his father. But, then, why deny it? One might reasonably assume that the motive for such is that Vidal is a gross disfigurement of his father. Vidal’s father was an honorable man, but Vidal simply is not, and Vidal cannot admit this to himself. He attempts to mirror his father’s prowess and honor, but only knows how to achieve power through terror and coerced, aggregate control. This, in terms of Vidal’s soon to be born son, creates the possibility of a horrific primogenitary situation that could very well lead to generations of monstrosity within Vidal’s family.
“VIDAL: A boy should be born wherever his father is.” “DOCTOR: One more thing, sir. What makes you so sure it’s a boy?” “VIDAL: Don’t fuck with me” (Ibid., Scene 4). This exchange between the Doctor and Vidal illuminates the fact that he really is a megalomaniac in that not only does he need a child, but also that child must be a male. He needs a male “heir.” Furthermore, his obsession with this child is so contrived and meaningful to Vidal, that when he finds out there may be complications with the birth he says, “If you have to choose, save the baby. That boy will bear my name and my father’s name, too” (Ibid., Scene 13). Thus, he is so egomaniacal and narcissistic that he only cares about his son to continue his name, and he does not even care if the woman who bears this child dies; yet another display of monstrous disregard coupled with his horrific vainglory. This point is furthered by the fact that in the end of the movie, after Vidal kills Ofelia and takes his son back, he smashes his pocket watch to show the time of his death, just like his father did, and asks that his son be given the watch and told of his exploits. Mercedes replies by stating, “He won’t even know your name,” and then a revolutionary shoots Vidal in the head. The monster is thus subdued literally and actually; as he is now dead, it shall be as if he never even existed and the proper order of the village is returned. For while Vidal is a bitter individual due to his father’s death, Vidal’s son shall know nothing of Vidal, and the emergence of another monster in the village is prevented; the revolutionaries avert the progeny of a vicious despot from continuing the vile, martinetish legacy of Vidal.
Now that we have established Vidal as a monster in general, it is necessary to examine the role that Ofelia’s metaphysical foes play in the task of truly exemplifying Vidal as a definite monster. That is to say, in order to fully grasp Vidal’s true monstrosity, we must look at the role the ethereal monsters play as correlated representations of Vidal.
The Giant Toad that lives under the fig tree where “The Forest Folk slept” is in a monster in Ofelia’s fairytale world, and the tree that he stifles is representative of the village. “A monstrous toad has settled in its roots and won’t let the tree thrive” (Ibid., Scene 7). The Toad is fat, has an insatiable appetite for roaches and other insects that live beneath the tree, and will not allow the tree to grow because of his greed. Vidal is also a monster in this regard. Vidal will not let the people in the village thrive as he has settled in their midst, and stifled them under his cruel sovereignty. Furthermore, the city in general cannot actually thrive because he places a stipend of one ration ticket on its inhabitants. Thus, the situation of the Toad stunting the growth of the tree is a metaphorical representation of Vidal’s monstrous dominion and of suffocation the people within the village that retards their growth and quality of life.
This metaphor of Vidal as the Toad is pertinent. Directly after the toad is defeated, Vidal progresses his tyranny on the people, thus propelling both the imaginary conflicts and real monstrosity of said tyranny. Additionally, it is symbolic that Ofelia uses one of the roaches to entice the Toad, and then is able to subdue him, because the Captain, too, can only be sidetracked and felled when he is in search of and then given something that he wants, his son. Though this correlation cannot be made until the end of the film, the scene with the Toad helps to progress the parity between the surreal monsters and Vidal.
As is seen in the frescoes above where the Pale Man sits at his table, there are images of the Pale Man stabbing and eating babies. This, combined with Vidal’s obsession with his unborn child, relates Vidal to the monstrous Pale Man; just as the Pale Man does not want anyone to disturb his feast, or else he will eat them, so does the Captain not want there to be any issues (or anyone) impeding the birth of his child, or they will die. In fact, Carmen’s life is eventually lost during the childbirth because Vidal explicitly says, as stated before, that if the decision must be made whether to save the child or to save Carmen, the doctor is to save the child. Additionally, Vidal and Ofelia are forced to make a decision that will affect the outcome of his child being born and her skirmish, respectively -- Vidal chooses his son over Carmen, and Ofelia choose grapes over her and the fairies’ safety. Contributing to this parallel is Vidal’s precision when it comes to time. Just as Ofelia only has so much time to finish her task with the Pale Man, so does Vidal angrily note that Carmen and Ofelia arrive “Fifteen minutes late” (Ibid., Scene 2); exceeding time limits is not acceptable to the Pale Man or Vidal.
Moreover, the Pale Man lives in a world underneath Ofelia’s room. We see this when the Pale Man attempts to bang through the floorboards after she escapes his lair. For the purpose of the metaphor, Vidal sleeps downstairs, thus the idea of the monstrous Vidal is transferred onto a chimerical monster, and vice-versa.
Shortly following the episode with the Pale Man, Ofelia’s mother dies in childbirth. Following her mother’s death, Ofelia is given her final task by Faun, to bring her brother to the portal, in order to return her to her throne and save the child from Vidal. As Ofelia takes her newborn brother to the portal, the revolutionaries are attacking the Falangists at the mill. Despite Vidal’s investment in the village for him to maintain control, he chases Ofelia, drugged up and with numerous stab wounds, to try and get his son back. While this does not inherently show a monster since, after all, he only wants his son, it does express his megalomania and vicious nature in that he is able to withstand his wounds and the effects of the drugs for the sake of preserving his lineage at all costs. Ofelia interferes with his son, just like she did with the Pale Man’s feast, and just as the Pale Man tries to eat her, Vidal takes his son back and shoots her in the stomach killing her; this time, however, she does not escape the evils she is faced with, and pays for it with her life. Thus, after all her success with the ethereal monsters, the actually manifest monster does her in. And to take this even further, if we consider that the monster in her third task is tangible and real, and that her two prior foes were conjured, then we are virtually told that Vidal is, in fact, beyond a doubt, a monster.
Helping to perpetuate the metaphor between the fantastical monsters and Ofelia’s quests, and Vidal’s monstrous character is the Book of the Crossroads. All of its pages are blank until Ofelia receives and performs her task. In essence, what this is doing is showing us that she is transcribing her own “fairy tale,” and it is a fairy tale in which Vidal is represented as these otherworldly opponents. During or immediately after every encounter with the fabled monsters, Vidal commits his own offenses on either Ofelia, the people of the village, or the insurgents. The Toad and the limiting of rations, the Pale Man and the death of her mother as her brother is born; then, in an act of resolution, she takes her baby brother away from Vidal as the insurgents are raiding, showing us that the end of her personal fairy tale correlates to the demise of the monstrous reign of Captain Vidal. The Book of the Crossroads has reached its conclusion, as has Ofelia and Vidal’s lives. However, she is reunited with her parents in the Underworld, and Vidal’s suffocating, monstrous grip on the village is over.
In the end, after all is said and done, the punishment that Vidal receives is justice that would only be reserved for a monster. Everything that Vidal has worked for is gone. His power and control over the village, and his son -- his lineage -- all fades and are destroyed with his life. It is debatable as to whether or not it is Ofelia’s own imagination that constructed her tasks, or if the fantastical was actually present. One thing, however, is for sure: Captain Vidal is a real, true monster of grotesque inhumanity just like the monsters Ofelia faces are grotesque and inhuman.
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