Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun characters

Appears from the start

A book-loving girl traveling with her pregnant mother to a military outpost in 1944 Spain. Ofelia distrusts her new stepfather and finds refuge in stories and in the ancient labyrinth near the mill, where the boundary between fairy tale and wartime reality becomes uncertain.

Appears from the start

Ofelia's mother, pregnant with Captain Vidal's child and weakened by a difficult journey. Carmen hopes her new marriage will give them security after years of hardship, and she urges Ofelia to accept practical reality and show respect to Vidal.

First appears in chapter 4

A Falangist officer commanding the mill and the campaign against republican guerrillas in the surrounding forest. Vidal is controlled, authoritarian, and obsessed with discipline, inheritance, and the son Carmen is carrying. His polished manners do little to conceal his readiness to use violence.

First appears in chapter 6

The housekeeper at Vidal's mill, outwardly efficient and obedient. Mercedes treats Ofelia with warmth and understands the dangers in the forest better than she admits to the soldiers under whose eyes she works.

First appears in chapter 7

The physician attending Carmen and the soldiers at the mill. Calm and humane, Doctor Ferreiro follows medical duty even when Vidal expects unquestioning obedience and the war makes compassion dangerous.

First appears in chapter 10

An ancient, unsettling being whom Ofelia meets beneath the labyrinth. Neither gentle nor easily read, the Faun tells her that the ruined place has been waiting for her and gives her a series of tasks governed by strict rules.

First appears in chapter 10

Small winged beings associated with the labyrinth and the Faun. One first approaches Ofelia in another shape and guides her toward the ancient ruins, encouraging her to regard the old stories as something more than imagination.

First appears in chapter 20

Mercedes's brother and a member of the republican guerrilla band hiding in the mountains. His relationship to someone inside the mill gives the resistance a fragile link to medicine, supplies, and information about Vidal's plans.

First appears in chapter 30

A child-eating creature seated before an abundant feast in a silent underground chamber. Its eyes are not in its face, and the stillness of the room depends on a warning Ofelia has been explicitly ordered to obey.

First appears in chapter 7

One of Vidal's officers at the mill. Garces carries out patrols and military orders as the captain tightens control over the household and intensifies the hunt for guerrillas in the forest.