The Monstrefact: The Fireys of Labyrinth

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the dismemberment-loving Fireys of Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is The Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. Once
more we return to the rich, magical world of Jim
Henson's nineteen eighty six classic Labyrinth, having previously covered two

(00:32):
other of its creatures here on The Monster Fact and
the film itself on Weird House Cinema. Today, I want
to talk about the most terrifying denizens of the Goblin
King's Labyrinth, creatures that have unsettled children for almost four
decades now, The Fieries of the Fire Gang. You remember them.

(00:53):
Do not tell me that you don't, because I know
even now you're picturing their lanky, vulturelike bodies, their huge ears,
their bright red and orange fur, and those piercing mad eyes.
The Labyrinth Bestiari by st. Bindet, with illustrations by Iris Complete,
devotes no fewer than eight pages to illustrations of the Fieries,

(01:16):
along with notations that describe them as chaotic, unhinged, good
natured troublemakers. And that is essentially correct. But Bende also
points out that quote, anyone adverse to combustion, disorder and
the possibility of dismemberment is advised to steer clear of
their revelry. Yes, because for starters, the Fieries are so

(01:39):
named not only for their brilliant, flamelike colorization, but also
for their innate pyrokinetic abilities and even more terrifying, they
possess the ability to detach and reattach their own limbs
and heads at will. They can also remove their own eyeballs,
roll them as dice, and then swallow them in order
to return their eyeballs to their sockets. But all of

(02:00):
this reaches a fever pitch when these inhuman hedonists engage
in what I can only describe as a dismemberment party.
Fieries will dance around the great fire and pull themselves
apart with gleeful enthusiasm. They'll employ their disembodied legs and
heads as clubs and balls in morbid games of croquet.
They will even swap body parts with each other and

(02:23):
reconstitute themselves into multi limbed forms that cavort through the forest.
The only rule they keep is thou shalt only throw
thine own head and all that is well and good
for the Fieries, except, as we see in Labyrinth, they
can scarcely comprehend beings that don't have these strange powers
of bloodless living, dismemberment and instant regrafting. We're to understand

(02:47):
that many an outsider guest to their festivities winds up
as a pile of body parts that puzzlingly refuse to
graft back together. Way to kill the vibe and welcome
also the guest. But it's a detail I always appreciated.
The Fieries are indeed good time party creatures, but their
inability to understand other beings makes them a very dangerous

(03:08):
encounter in the world of Labyrinth. Naturally, we don't have
anything quite like the Fieries in the natural world. Certainly
we have some amazing examples of regeneration, from C stars
and C cucumbers to the Axolotel, but they regrow, they
don't reattach. Humans alone have developed the medical knowledge of
limb reattachment, and even this has its limits, and in

(03:30):
the best of cases, is far from instantaneous. And as
for the grafting of another's individual limbs onto your body,
and even the zeno tissue of other organisms such as pigs.
Humans face severe limitations due to the body's autoimmune response
to transplanted limbs, tissues, and organs. This generally requires the

(03:50):
use of immunosuppressive medication to prevent rejection of the donor limb, tissue,
or organ, but the lowering of the body's immune response
in general can then open the door for other infections.
Donor recipient matching can also help, and a host of
more advanced techniques, including stem cell therapy, genetic engineering, biomaterials,

(04:11):
and more, may provide additional possibilities in the future. Now
with the Fieries, we might imagine, well, it's possible that
their own immune systems would reject another Fiery's head or
limbs if it remained attached for too long. Human rejection
can play out over days, months, or even years. The
Fieries might simply not remain attached to other limbs long

(04:33):
enough for it to be a problem, something maybe they
only do during these games and festivities. On the other hand,
knowing nothing about their deeper biology, it's also possible that
they're all genetically identical and therefore perfect donors for each other.
It's also possible that the fieries boast an overall reduced
autoimmune response to allow this sort of fusing, and evolves

(04:55):
some other form of complementary autoimmune strategy to make up
for it, which may well be the case with the
natural world anglerfish, in which the bodies of genetically disparate
male and female counterparts are able to fuse together without
invoking a strong anti graft immune rejection response, a rejection
response that we see in pretty much all other vertebrates.

(05:17):
The fieries don't seem particularly concerned with predators or anything really,
which raises the question of why they might have evolved
to be like this. If such logic even applies to
the labyrinth, one can imagine there could be a survival
advantage in simply being able to graft on the limbs, tissues,
and organs of other members of your group, perhaps even
in a role based way, sharing particularly healthy or strong

(05:40):
body parts for particular tasks. One can also see where
this could easily get out of hand. But then again,
perhaps it also benefits the fieries as far as group
cohesion goes. Not only can they share information and resources,
they can share body parts and adapt their forms to
different tasks. Hey, after all, there's no reason to domesticate

(06:02):
a horse when you can just make a horse like
body out of your own assembled limbs. If this is
all the case, however, clearly they overcame their natural obstacles
long ago and now devote their natural talents exclusively to
self enjoyment and celebration. Tune in for additional episodes of
The Monster, Fact, The Artifact, or Animilius Dupendium each week.

(06:23):
As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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