WEBVTT - The Monstrefact Redux: The Four Guards of ‘Labyrinth’

0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:07.600
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:12.240
<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lambin. This is the Monster Fact,

0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:14.960
<v Speaker 2>a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.479
<v Speaker 2>focusing on non mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.440
<v Speaker 2>One of my favorite films of all time is easily

0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.120
<v Speaker 2>the nineteen eighty six fantasy musical Labyrinth, a movie that

0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.360
<v Speaker 2>summons the combined creative talents of Jim Henson, Brian Frowd,

0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:41.000
<v Speaker 2>Carrie Jones, David Bowie, Sarah Connolly, and composer Trefor Jones,

0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.000
<v Speaker 2>just to name a few. While its predecessor, the nineteen

0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.720
<v Speaker 2>eighty two film The Dark Crystal, took its fantasy world

0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:53.400
<v Speaker 2>creation incredibly seriously, Labyrinth leans more into pure musical fun

0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.160
<v Speaker 2>and python esque absurdity. Now there's a lot of this

0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.880
<v Speaker 2>flavor to discuss in Labyrinth, but I wanted to talk

0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.760
<v Speaker 2>specifically about the four guards that Sarah encounters as she

0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:09.280
<v Speaker 2>makes her way across the Goblin King's labyrinth. They are

0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.920
<v Speaker 2>doglike humanoid creatures that guard a pair of doors. They

0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.759
<v Speaker 2>are either conjoined beings and therefore two guards, or they

0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.240
<v Speaker 2>are affixed behind their signature shields in a way that

0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.800
<v Speaker 2>allow for two beings per shield. Their absurd appearance is

0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.160
<v Speaker 2>of course linked to their visual resemblance to double headed

0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.480
<v Speaker 2>European playing cards, in which a king, queen, jack or

0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.240
<v Speaker 2>joker is double bodied and double headed in such a

0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.399
<v Speaker 2>way that the card can be discernible from either side

0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:43.080
<v Speaker 2>of the table. According to St. Bindet and the Excellent

0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.000
<v Speaker 2>Labyrinth Bestiary, the heads of the left door guardian are

0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.760
<v Speaker 2>Alf and Jim, while the heads of the right door

0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.840
<v Speaker 2>are Ralph and Tim. When Sarah encounters the guardians, she

0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:59.680
<v Speaker 2>quickly learns the rules concerning their doors. One door leads

0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.840
<v Speaker 2>to the car at the center of the labyrinth, where,

0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.040
<v Speaker 2>of course, Sarah is trying to go in order to

0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:09.480
<v Speaker 2>rescue her step brother Toby, while the other door leads

0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:15.720
<v Speaker 2>to Bubbabubum, certain death. The lower heads have no idea

0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.720
<v Speaker 2>which doors which, but the upper heads do, but Sarah

0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.760
<v Speaker 2>is only permitted to ask one of them. Furthermore, one

0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.320
<v Speaker 2>of the two guards always tells the truth, while the

0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.320
<v Speaker 2>other one always lies, So Sarah faces a conundrum. How

0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.720
<v Speaker 2>can she find out which door is which. How can

0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.240
<v Speaker 2>she risk asking the wrong guard and being lied to.

0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.160
<v Speaker 2>The scenario instantly invokes what is known as the liar's paradox.

0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.640
<v Speaker 2>If a liar tells you they are lying, well, then

0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.880
<v Speaker 2>they are telling the truth. Consider the statement quote, this

0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.160
<v Speaker 2>sentence is a lie unquote. If that statement is true,

0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.640
<v Speaker 2>then it's false. If it's false, then it's true. Oh my. Sarah,

0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.359
<v Speaker 2>of course, is a bright young woman and makes the

0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.520
<v Speaker 2>short work of the guardians and their attempts to confuse her.

0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.080
<v Speaker 2>As John Turi points out in the paper Objective falsity

0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.560
<v Speaker 2>is essential to lying an argument from convergent evidence, published

0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.560
<v Speaker 2>in Philosophy Studies in twenty twenty one, she engages in

0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:21.440
<v Speaker 2>what is called answer laundering. If Sarah simply asked one

0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.000
<v Speaker 2>of the guards which doors which, then it might be

0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.760
<v Speaker 2>a true or untrue statement that she gets in return,

0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.560
<v Speaker 2>and her chances therefore are no better than simply picking

0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:34.880
<v Speaker 2>a door at random. Instead, she launders one answer through another.

0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.680
<v Speaker 2>Turi explains quote by asking one guard whether the other

0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.960
<v Speaker 2>guard would say that this door leads to success. Sarah

0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.160
<v Speaker 2>deduced the correct one either she gets the truth about

0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.720
<v Speaker 2>a lie or a lie about the truth. Whenever she

0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.160
<v Speaker 2>is told yes, the correct answer is no, and whenever

0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.120
<v Speaker 2>she is told no, the correct answer is yes. The

0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.840
<v Speaker 2>truth in the lie dependably canceled each other out in

0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:04.920
<v Speaker 2>the scenario provided to restresses that lies cannot be true.

0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.440
<v Speaker 2>Turry points out that the riddle of the Four Guards

0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.120
<v Speaker 2>is a variant of the Knights and Knaves logic puzzle

0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.520
<v Speaker 2>from Raymond Smollien's nineteen seventy eight publication What is the

0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.000
<v Speaker 2>Name of this Book? The scenario in the book that

0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.000
<v Speaker 2>closely resembles the scene from Labyrinth involves a knight and

0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:26.000
<v Speaker 2>a knave otherwise indistinguishable. Who guard a fork in the road?

0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.680
<v Speaker 2>Which road do you take? Dare you ask these two men,

0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.599
<v Speaker 2>given that one is secretly a noble knight and the

0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.680
<v Speaker 2>other secretly a vile nave, Only one of them is

0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:37.599
<v Speaker 2>going to give you a good answer. The other one

0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.359
<v Speaker 2>is going to lie to you. The solution again comes

0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.680
<v Speaker 2>via answer laundering ask which path the other individual would

0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.360
<v Speaker 2>say is the correct one. So this is how the

0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.680
<v Speaker 2>Four Guards of Labyrinth work, unless I am lying, which

0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:57.719
<v Speaker 2>I am not. Tune in for additional episodes of The

0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.000
<v Speaker 2>Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us

0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:12.440
<v Speaker 2>at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.120
<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.

0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.440
<v Speaker 1>For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.320
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.