"Fair" is an interesting word, whose diverse meanings often conflict with one another, and with closely related homonyms. A person who behaves unfairly can still have fair hair and live under fair skies, and go to the county fair for candy apples, and bid us farewell while paying the fare on a ferry. How does he feel about this? Fair. Or "fey," if he happens to be some sort of supernatural entity.
Which brings us to the "fair folk" of
El Laberinto del Fauno, the subtitled sensation by writer/director
Guillermo del Toro, which is known to American audiences as
Pan's Labyrinth. Not intended for children or squeamish adults, del Toro's story contains as much violence, malice, sadness and terror as it does a magical sense of wonder. Which of course puts it squarely in the tradition of the ancient fairy tales in their original, unfair, un-Disneyfied forms.
The term "fairy," (or faerie, if you're a fantasy fan), dates back to the writings of Middle-Age Europe, and probably comes to us from the Latin
fatae or "fates." Of course, fairy stories are drawn from oral traditions going back much, much further. Legends of miniature, humanlike creatures exist all over the world, not only in Europe and Asia but also in Polynesia, the arctic and Africa. The traditional winged fairy was most popular in the Celtic or Gaelic-speaking world (Ireland, Wales, Scotland and parts of France), although it crops up in medieval writings from elsewhere in Europe as well. Mythologically speaking, fairies—and their cousins, the pixies, sprites, elves, brownies, trolls, oni, etc.—can range from human size all the way down to about 3 inches tall, and del Toro's film puts them at the low end of that spectrum. He also splits the difference between the myths of beautiful, peaceful fairies and those of ugly, treacherous ones.
And here we are compelled to ask: Could the creatures of this movie—and of the myths before it—really exist?
Looking for fey in all the wrong places
Shapeshifting is one of the traditional fairy abilities, and indeed, del Toro's critters have the ability to change shape, from mantislike insects to blue-, gray- or green-skinned humanoids. By itself, this transformation is no more remarkable, and no less possible, than the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly—two very different body shapes with apparently distinct evolutionary histories. (There is even some evidence that larvae and insects were once completely separate organisms, whose genomes became fused sometime back in the distant past!) However, the changing butterfly, or pupa, stays in its cocoon for at least a week—and often several months—while its body is reshaped and reorganized. To accomplish the same feat in a matter of seconds seems like, well, magic.
Could a humanoid creature have wings? Certainly. Earthbound dinosaurs became pteranodons and birds. Tree squirrels became flying squirrels, and rodents became bats. Insects may have discovered the art of flying on two different evolutionary occasions, and even some species of fish have taken to the air. Biologically speaking, a flying primate is by no means out of the question. Clearly, under the right circumstances almost any animal can evolve the ability, if it's small enough to support its own weight by the flight muscles alone.
This actually imposes some pretty strict limits on size, though; even turkeys can't lift off on their own. In fact, for a fairy to be properly constructed the biggest issue (so to speak) is brain size. Indonesia's so-called hobbit skeletons have officially been classified as a separate species—Homo floresiensis—roughly half the size and one-third the brain volume of Homo sapiens. These hominids shared the world with our own ancestors 18,000 years ago, and there's clear evidence that they used both fire and stone tools—not to mention the boats that carried them to the island of Flores in the first place. They might even be the source (or one source) of the world's fairy legends. But the hobbits were heavier than turkeys, so not good candidates for flying even if they'd had the proper anatomy.
Science gives birth to fantasy
Can intelligent humanoids be smaller still? Absolutely; the smallest Homo sapiens are victims of a rare growth disorder called primordial dwarfism. Although their bodies are often normally proportioned, these individuals may grow to adult heights of under half a meter and weights of under 5 kg—less than many a feathered avian. Most primordial dwarfs can walk and talk like anyone else, and while their childlike voices are pitched unnaturally high, they're of basically normal human intelligence. Slap a large pair of wings on them and, yeah, they probably could fly a little.
Alas, del Toro's fairies are tinier still—smaller even than that lizard in the GEICO commercials. This is coincidentally about the size of the world's smallest primate—the mouse lemur—but there's really no room for a humanlike brain in a skull that size. Still, here's where it gets interesting, because the fairies in this movie don't speak—they just grunt and chitter. Throwing away the language centers would indeed allow the brain to be a few percent smaller. Dispensing with other human frills like fancy color vision would help even more. And what about IQ? The fairies are capable of using tools, but they don't seem to make their own, or to make or wear clothing. So while they may be geniuses by the standards of teeny-weeny primates, they're certainly not as clever as human beings, or even hobbits. So maybe they're anatomically plausible after all.
Anyway, who says we have to let evolution do the job for us? Bioengineering a new species might be a lot easier. We could mix and match the genes—a little bit of butterfly, a little bit of mouse lemur, a little bit of human and hobbit and perhaps a smidgen of original, designer material as well, to fine-tune the workings of a miniature brain and to confer "magical" abilities that don't naturally occur in primates. In the end, we might end up with fairies even fairer (though less fey) than those of ancient legend. The cold hand of science summoning creatures from the very heart of fantasy? Sounds fair to me.
Sources:www.rottentomatoes.com: "Pan's Labyrinth"
Handwerk, Brian: "Is This the Smallest Primate on Earth?",
National Geographic Ultimate Explorer, June 27, 2003
Arthur, Wallace:
The Origin of Animal Body Plans, Cambridge University Press, 1997
AFP: "'Hobbit' Skeleton not Human,"
Discovery News, Jan. 30, 2007
Encyclopedia Britannica 2004 Ultimate Reference Suite: "fairy," "fairy tale," "flight"
Wikipedia (
en.wikipedia.org): "fairy," "fairy tale," "insect flight," "primordial dwarfism"
Wil McCarthy is a rocket guidance engineer, robot designer, nanotechnologist, science-fiction author and occasional aquanaut. He has contributed to three interplanetary spacecraft, five communication and weather satellites, a line of landmine-clearing robots and some other "really cool stuff" he can't tell us about. His short writings have graced the pages of Analog, Asimov's, Wired, Nature and other major publications, and his book-length works include the New York Times notable Bloom, Amazon "Best of Y2K" The Collapsium and most recently, To Crush the Moon. His acclaimed nonfiction book, Hacking Matter, is now available as a free download.
