Del Toro has spoken about Carroll and Victorian fairy tale illustration as sources, and Ofelia's underworld runs on Wonderland's logic: three tasks with rules stated precisely and then broken, a warning about eating what is on the table, and creatures who are neither friendly nor hostile but simply indifferent to a child's distress. The difference is what sits on the other side. Alice wakes up, and del Toro puts a fascist captain in the room instead.