1 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:06,120 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:13,440 Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is The Monster Fact, 3 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:15,920 Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 4 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:24,520 Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. Once 5 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 2: more we return to the rich, magical world of Jim 6 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:32,920 Speaker 2: Henson's nineteen eighty six classic Labyrinth, having previously covered two 7 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:35,440 Speaker 2: other of its creatures here on The Monster Fact and 8 00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:38,919 Speaker 2: the film itself on Weird House Cinema. Today, I want 9 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,640 Speaker 2: to talk about the most terrifying denizens of the Goblin 10 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:47,280 Speaker 2: King's Labyrinth, creatures that have unsettled children for almost four 11 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:53,080 Speaker 2: decades now, The Fieries of the Fire Gang. You remember them. 12 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:55,600 Speaker 2: Do not tell me that you don't, because I know 13 00:00:55,760 --> 00:01:01,120 Speaker 2: even now you're picturing their lanky, vulturelike bodies, their huge ears, 14 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:05,440 Speaker 2: their bright red and orange fur, and those piercing mad eyes. 15 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:11,640 Speaker 2: The Labyrinth Bestiari by st. Bindet, with illustrations by Iris Complete, 16 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:16,479 Speaker 2: devotes no fewer than eight pages to illustrations of the Fieries, 17 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:20,399 Speaker 2: along with notations that describe them as chaotic, unhinged, good 18 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:25,280 Speaker 2: natured troublemakers. And that is essentially correct. But Bende also 19 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:29,679 Speaker 2: points out that quote, anyone adverse to combustion, disorder and 20 00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:33,959 Speaker 2: the possibility of dismemberment is advised to steer clear of 21 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:38,880 Speaker 2: their revelry. Yes, because for starters, the Fieries are so 22 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:42,760 Speaker 2: named not only for their brilliant, flamelike colorization, but also 23 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 2: for their innate pyrokinetic abilities and even more terrifying, they 24 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,960 Speaker 2: possess the ability to detach and reattach their own limbs 25 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:54,360 Speaker 2: and heads at will. They can also remove their own eyeballs, 26 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:57,040 Speaker 2: roll them as dice, and then swallow them in order 27 00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:00,600 Speaker 2: to return their eyeballs to their sockets. But all of 28 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:04,720 Speaker 2: this reaches a fever pitch when these inhuman hedonists engage 29 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:07,400 Speaker 2: in what I can only describe as a dismemberment party. 30 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:11,639 Speaker 2: Fieries will dance around the great fire and pull themselves 31 00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:16,240 Speaker 2: apart with gleeful enthusiasm. They'll employ their disembodied legs and 32 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:19,960 Speaker 2: heads as clubs and balls in morbid games of croquet. 33 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:23,520 Speaker 2: They will even swap body parts with each other and 34 00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:28,320 Speaker 2: reconstitute themselves into multi limbed forms that cavort through the forest. 35 00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:31,920 Speaker 2: The only rule they keep is thou shalt only throw 36 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:35,120 Speaker 2: thine own head and all that is well and good 37 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:38,160 Speaker 2: for the Fieries, except, as we see in Labyrinth, they 38 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:43,000 Speaker 2: can scarcely comprehend beings that don't have these strange powers 39 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,440 Speaker 2: of bloodless living, dismemberment and instant regrafting. We're to understand 40 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:50,640 Speaker 2: that many an outsider guest to their festivities winds up 41 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:54,440 Speaker 2: as a pile of body parts that puzzlingly refuse to 42 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:58,560 Speaker 2: graft back together. Way to kill the vibe and welcome 43 00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:01,920 Speaker 2: also the guest. But it's a detail I always appreciated. 44 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:04,720 Speaker 2: The Fieries are indeed good time party creatures, but their 45 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:08,600 Speaker 2: inability to understand other beings makes them a very dangerous 46 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:12,520 Speaker 2: encounter in the world of Labyrinth. Naturally, we don't have 47 00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:15,920 Speaker 2: anything quite like the Fieries in the natural world. Certainly 48 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,280 Speaker 2: we have some amazing examples of regeneration, from C stars 49 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:22,919 Speaker 2: and C cucumbers to the Axolotel, but they regrow, they 50 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:27,040 Speaker 2: don't reattach. Humans alone have developed the medical knowledge of 51 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 2: limb reattachment, and even this has its limits, and in 52 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:34,640 Speaker 2: the best of cases, is far from instantaneous. And as 53 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:38,680 Speaker 2: for the grafting of another's individual limbs onto your body, 54 00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:42,560 Speaker 2: and even the zeno tissue of other organisms such as pigs. 55 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:46,840 Speaker 2: Humans face severe limitations due to the body's autoimmune response 56 00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:50,880 Speaker 2: to transplanted limbs, tissues, and organs. This generally requires the 57 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:56,520 Speaker 2: use of immunosuppressive medication to prevent rejection of the donor limb, tissue, 58 00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:59,600 Speaker 2: or organ, but the lowering of the body's immune response 59 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:02,560 Speaker 2: in general can then open the door for other infections. 60 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:07,040 Speaker 2: Donor recipient matching can also help, and a host of 61 00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:11,560 Speaker 2: more advanced techniques, including stem cell therapy, genetic engineering, biomaterials, 62 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:15,440 Speaker 2: and more, may provide additional possibilities in the future. Now 63 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,480 Speaker 2: with the Fieries, we might imagine, well, it's possible that 64 00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:22,120 Speaker 2: their own immune systems would reject another Fiery's head or 65 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:26,359 Speaker 2: limbs if it remained attached for too long. Human rejection 66 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:29,000 Speaker 2: can play out over days, months, or even years. The 67 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:33,000 Speaker 2: Fieries might simply not remain attached to other limbs long 68 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:35,560 Speaker 2: enough for it to be a problem, something maybe they 69 00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:39,560 Speaker 2: only do during these games and festivities. On the other hand, 70 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:43,160 Speaker 2: knowing nothing about their deeper biology, it's also possible that 71 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,120 Speaker 2: they're all genetically identical and therefore perfect donors for each other. 72 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:51,000 Speaker 2: It's also possible that the fieries boast an overall reduced 73 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:55,440 Speaker 2: autoimmune response to allow this sort of fusing, and evolves 74 00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:59,120 Speaker 2: some other form of complementary autoimmune strategy to make up 75 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:01,560 Speaker 2: for it, which may well be the case with the 76 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:05,680 Speaker 2: natural world anglerfish, in which the bodies of genetically disparate 77 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:09,640 Speaker 2: male and female counterparts are able to fuse together without 78 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:14,160 Speaker 2: invoking a strong anti graft immune rejection response, a rejection 79 00:05:14,279 --> 00:05:16,800 Speaker 2: response that we see in pretty much all other vertebrates. 80 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,359 Speaker 2: The fieries don't seem particularly concerned with predators or anything really, 81 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:24,560 Speaker 2: which raises the question of why they might have evolved 82 00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:27,560 Speaker 2: to be like this. If such logic even applies to 83 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,760 Speaker 2: the labyrinth, one can imagine there could be a survival 84 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:33,839 Speaker 2: advantage in simply being able to graft on the limbs, tissues, 85 00:05:33,839 --> 00:05:36,880 Speaker 2: and organs of other members of your group, perhaps even 86 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:40,320 Speaker 2: in a role based way, sharing particularly healthy or strong 87 00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:44,640 Speaker 2: body parts for particular tasks. One can also see where 88 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:47,440 Speaker 2: this could easily get out of hand. But then again, 89 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:50,919 Speaker 2: perhaps it also benefits the fieries as far as group 90 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:54,680 Speaker 2: cohesion goes. Not only can they share information and resources, 91 00:05:54,880 --> 00:05:58,000 Speaker 2: they can share body parts and adapt their forms to 92 00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:02,839 Speaker 2: different tasks. Hey, after all, there's no reason to domesticate 93 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:04,919 Speaker 2: a horse when you can just make a horse like 94 00:06:04,960 --> 00:06:08,080 Speaker 2: body out of your own assembled limbs. If this is 95 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:12,080 Speaker 2: all the case, however, clearly they overcame their natural obstacles 96 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:16,200 Speaker 2: long ago and now devote their natural talents exclusively to 97 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:20,560 Speaker 2: self enjoyment and celebration. Tune in for additional episodes of 98 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:23,560 Speaker 2: The Monster, Fact, The Artifact, or Animilius Dupendium each week. 99 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:26,480 Speaker 2: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff 100 00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:36,640 Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com. 101 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,680 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. 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