Howl's Moving Castle (novel)

"In the land of Ingary, where things such as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three."

- Opening sentence

The first book in the Howl's Castle series of young adult fantasy novels by Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle gleefully lampshades and parodies many tropes common to the Fairy Tale genre.

Sophie Hatter is a sensible young woman who utterly lacks any confidence in herself. She works in a hat store owned by her late father, where she feels resigned to spend the rest of her days, until one day an encounter with the dashing and handsome young wizard Howl marks her as a target of the Witch of the Waste, a jilted former lover of Howl's. Mistaking Sophie for her sister Lettie, The Witch places a curse on Sophie which turns her into an old woman. After this transformation, Sophie exiles herself from her hometown and happens to become a house cleaner for Howl - who lives inside a moving castle with magic doors leading all over the country. The castle is powered by the grumpy fire demon, Calcifer, who is linked to Howl in a mysterious magical contract. Calcifer, however, has grown to resent Howl over the years and agrees to free Sophie from her curse if she can, in turn, somehow void his own agreement with Howl.

As Sophie and Howl grow closer, it becomes more and more apparent that all is not as it seems. Indeed, the main theme of the book is that everything in the story is actually something else, having been transformed by magic.

The book was adapted into an anime film by Hayao Miyazaki.

The book kicked off a series. The first sequel, Castle in the Air (not to be confused with Miyazaki's other film, Laputa: Castle in the Sky), continues the story from the point of view of a new character, in the midst of a war, wherein most of the characters he runs across are characters from the first book, only (a) disguised or otherwise not what they once were and/or (b) described in such a way as to make the reader unaware of the connection (seeing as the sequel's hero doesn't know any of them, he can't very well recognize them for us, either). It uses tropes and settings from the Arabian Nights.

The second sequel, titled House of Many Ways, is set a couple of years after its predecessor. Again, a new protagonist is introduced as the book follows the story of Charmain, a sheltered bookworm who is assigned to caretake a cottage for her Great Uncle (who is also the Royal Wizard) but soon discovers the cottage is a magical labyrinth in disguise. The cast of the first book are given more involved roles than their cameo appearances in Castle in the Air, but still stay secondary to Charmain's plot.

See Howl's Castle for the list of tropes common to all of the books in this franchise.


 * Animate Inanimate Object: Calcifer, who was initially introduced as a small inanimate fire. Sophie, keeping with her habit of talking to inanimate objects, talks to the fire, who then talks back.
 * Beautiful All Along: Sophie never saw herself as pretty. It takes a curse and the building up of her confidence to make her see that she is.
 * She knew she was pretty, but her sisters were prettier.
 * But for Me It Was Tuesday: Subverted. Sophie thinks she can just walk by the Witch of the Waste because the witch has probably cursed so many people that she won't even remember Sophie. It doesn't work.
 * Can't Live Without You: If Calcifer dies, so does Howl.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Seven-league boots, established in the first sentence of the book, are used by Sophie and Michael to travel to Lettie Hatter.
 * Cool Gate: The door to the castle.
 * Cursed with Awesome: Subverted. Sophie's curse is genuinely terrible but it is only as an old woman that she is finally able to feel confident in herself.
 * Deal with the Devil
 * Everyone Join the Party: Sort of happens in the book, when an amazing number of secondary characters independently show up right before the climax; subverted in that they don't know they're supposed to be reinforcements and so are bewilderedly commentating on the fight and swapping stories rather than really helping - afterward, this continues and serves as an Info Dump about what's really been going on for the entire book.
 * First Girl Wins: Gender-flipped with Sophie and Howl, Howl being the first guy that Sophie meets. Howl on the other hand has met plenty of other girls before Sophie.
 * Freaky Friday Flip: Martha and Lettie, who swap bodies so they can have the apprenticeships they desire.
 * Freudian Slip: Sophie, after being turned old, pretends that her sisters Martha and Lettie were actually her niece. This leads to some moments where she accidentally calls them by their names, instead of "my niece". "Sophie: How was Ma—my niece?"


 * Handsome Lech: Howl, before he falls for Sophie.
 * Subverted:
 * In Which a Trope Is Described: The chapters of the book are named like this. For example, the first chapter is called In Which Sophie Talks to Hats and the sixth In Which Howl Expresses His Feelings with Green Slime.
 * Invisible Wall: An invisible wall stops Sophie from entering Howl's castle, preventing her hand from touching the front door of the castle. At this, Sophie tries to go for the back door, where she finds another invisible wall.
 * Ladykiller in Love: Howl, of course.
 * Literal Change of Heart: Howl's character improves a little bit as a result.
 * Men Can't Keep House: Before Sophie, Howl's castle was amazingly dirty.
 * My Hair Came Out Green: Howl gets pink hair (after a an ugly mix of colours) when Sophie messes with his hair products.
 * Narrative Profanity Filter: Occurs when Sophie is trying to get into Howl's castle. "At this, Sophie said a word she had learned from Martha, that neither old ladies nor young girls are supposed to know..."


 * Nice Hat: Given Sophie's job, it's only natural a few would show up.
 * One Degree of Separation: In the book, Sophie eventually learns that every single encounter she's had after the first few pages and everything that's happened to her  pretty much winging it instead.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: The King of Ingary.
 * Romantic False Lead: Miss Angorian, in the book only.
 * Scary Scarecrows: Played straight in the book; inverted in the film.
 * Shapeshifter Showdown: When the Witch of the Waste finds Howl in Porthaven.
 * Shout-Out: The first book has lots of them, to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The main antagonist is the Witch of the Waste, on her journey to the castle Sophie meets a scarecrow and a dog, and Howl himself is a wizard who deliberately cultivates an image of being a lot more terrible and powerful than he really is,.
 * Shrouded in Myth: Many are the mysterious and frightening rumours that circulate about the Wizard Howl. It turns out that he started most of them himself.
 * She Cleans Up Nicely: Sophie is in denial of this until the end.
 * Thinking Out Loud: Downplayed. Calcifer thinks out loud, but not with words, rather with the sounds of fire. Sophie did manage to understand some parts of the thought, shaking her head at the suggestion of pretending to be a long lost great-aunt. "It thought aloud, in a little crackling, flicking murmur..."

"Witch of the Waste: ...she told me 'over my dead body'. So I took her at her word."
 * Threat Backfire


 * Tired of Running
 * Tongue-Tied
 * Trash of the Titans
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: The root of Sophie's major problems is that she thinks she is genre savvy enough to know that being the eldest of three children she will be doomed to a boring life without glamour or success. As such she completely fails to see that she is an extremely potent witch with the ability to ensure a happy ending for herself as well as everyone around her.
 * Youngest Child Wins: Lampshaded in almost every chapter — as well as the first sentence — and subverted.