FAQ for
Labyrinth (1986) More at IMDbPro »

No, it is not.

The official Labyrinth sequel is the four part manga called Return to Labyrinth. Return to Labyrinth deals with Toby's journey into The Labyrinth. Return to Labyrinth can be found in the manga section of most American book stores.

With this sort of riddle when they tell you the rules that is meant as a precursor. The fact that one always tells the truth and one always lies only happens after you're told the rules. It's written out with an explanation in one of the illustrations of the story book adaptation of Labyrinth.

Many mistakenly believe Sarah went through the wrong door during this scene. And many mistakenly think the riddle requires knowing which door tells the truth and which door is lying. This is not required.

Here's the logic for you...

The guard giving the instructions isn't automatically the truthful one by default. The matter of which one lies and which one tells the truth only has to do with the actual riddle after the rules of the riddle are given.

Usually with this riddle you're also told you can only ask one question. This was a little tidbit Terry Jones forgot. The one question aspect makes it more a logic puzzle on how to get the same sort of answer out of both. And the easiest way to do this is ask one guard if the other guard would say that particular door leads to the castle. You're either talking to the liar so you'll get a lie answer as default or you're talking to the truthful guard who is truthfully telling you what the liar would say so again you would get the lie answer. So long as you ask one guard what the other guard would say about one door you will always get an answer that is opposite of the truth. And by this method you need not know which one was telling the truth or lying at all.

You have two guards who are guarding two doors in The Labyrinth. One guard tells the truth. One guard lies. One door leads to a horrible death and the other door leads to the castle.

Here's where it may get tricky. It has nothing to do with which one is the liar and which one is being truthful. The trick is to get them to give the same kind of answer. And here's how you do it. You have one truthful guard and one lying guard. If you ask the truthful guard if the other guard (liar) would say the door you're pointing at would lead to the caste he'll truthfully tell you what the liar would say because you're asking the truthful one what the lair would say. So you get the lie as his answer by default. He is truthfully quoting the liar. If you ask the liar if the other guard (truthful) would say if the door you are pointing at leads to the castle the liar would NOT tell you honestly what the other door would say. He would tell you the lie because he is the lair. So you get the lie by default.

Either you're asking an honest person what a liar would say or you are asking a liar what an honest person would say. As a result you always get the lie as the answer. It's really very simple. If you ask one guard what the other guard would say (nevermind which one's truthful or lying) you will automatically get the lie as the answer by default. It's very simple.

The one thing Brian Henson might be wrong about is in the newer documentary for the two disc DVD is that he said he never understood why the ground opened up under Sarah, because he knows she got the riddle right and he figures it's because sometimes things go wrong even if you are right. The truth is the ground opened up under Sarah because she had said "It's a piece of cake." Things go wrong in the Labyrinth if you say "It's a piece of cake." It happened roughly three times in the film and repeatedly in the novelization by A. C. H. Smith. And when the ground did open up on Sarah she had the choice to go back up and continue on her path or go down. It's her own fault she fell into the oubliette because she chose down. The oubliette was not certain death.

This riddle is imitated in the mini-series The 10th Kingdom in which in frustration a character throws a guard through one of the doors and there's an explosion. "I guess it was the other one."

The official Labyrinth sequel is the four part manga called Return to Labyrinth. Return to Labyrinth deals with Toby's journey into The Labyrinth. Return to Labyrinth can be found in the manga section of most American book stores.