Pan’s refusal to grow up has a much uglier meaning in Grimm Fairy Tales. The children brought to Neverland are what allow him to preserve himself. His version of eternal youth d…

Pan’s refusal to grow up has a much uglier meaning in Grimm Fairy Tales. The children brought to Neverland are what allow him to preserve himself. His version of eternal youth depends on taking away the futures of people who have barely started living. That makes the familiar promise of Neverland especially cruel. A child gets taken somewhere magical, while the person controlling that world already knows what he wants from them. Pan gets to keep being Pan. Everybody else becomes expendable. His hold over Neverland belongs in the same discussion. He wants the throne as well as the continued youth. Having a place under his control makes it easier to keep that arrangement going, and the victims have very little say in either part of it. His appetite has become something an entire world has to live around.