View source for Howl's Moving Castle (novel)

{{work|wppage=Howl's Moving Castle}}
{{Infobox book
 | title = Howl's Moving Castle
 | image = Howl_Cover_1.jpg
 | caption = 
 | author = Diana Wynne Jones
 | central theme = [[Fractured Fairy Tale]]
 | elevator pitch = A young woman attracts the interest of a wizard and is cursed by a former lover of him, so she goes to live on the wizard's moving castle in a way to break her curse
 | genre = Fantasy
 | franchise = Howl's Castle
 | followed by = Castle in the Air 
 | publication date = April 1986
 | wiki URL = https://howlscastle.fandom.com/wiki/Howl%27s_Moving_Castle_Wiki
 | wiki name = Howl's Moving Castle Wiki
}}
{{quote|''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 [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] and [[Affectionate Parodies|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 [[Portal Network|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 [[Howl's Moving Castle (anime)|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.
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See ''[[Howl's Castle]]'' for the list of tropes common to all of the books in this franchise.

{{tropelist|''Howl's Moving Castle'' provides examples of:}}
* [[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.
* [[Big Bad]]: The Witch of the Waste, whose curse on Sophie kickstarts the events of the novel. She is a threat throughout the entire novel, and Howl takes many measures to keep her away. The witch's threat grows stronger as the book goes on.
* [[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 Got Worse|It doesn't work]].
* [[Can't Live Without You]]: If Calcifer dies, so does Howl.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|Pretty much every object, character and throwaway line of dialogue, in the first book at least.}}
** 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 ({{spoiler|really - that was Howl's plan}}) 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 nieces. This leads to some moments where she accidentally calls them by their names, instead of "my niece". {{quote|'''Sophie''': How was Ma—my niece?}}
* [[Handsome Lech]]: Howl, before he falls for Sophie.
** Subverted:  {{spoiler|Howl falls for Sophie the first time he sees her, but he maintains the appearance of being a [[Handsome Lech]] while he's actually just trying to find out more about Sophie from her sister.}}
* [[Happily Ever After]]: Lampshaded: {{quote|''Howl said, "I think we ought to live happily ever after," and she thought she meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more eventful than any story would make it sound, though she was determined to try.''}}
* [[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  {{spoiler|of having his heart returned to him}}.
* [[Love Potion]]: Mentioned but not used. Howl likes to charm girls into loving him, then he breaks up with them the moment they love Howl back. He tries to do this with Lettie, but Lettie does not fall in love. Sophie asks why Howl won't use a love potion to achieve the same effect, and he replies that it will "ruin the fun".
* [[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. {{quote|''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.
* [[No Ontological Inertia]]: {{spoiler|When the Witch of the Waste's heart is crushed, all of her curses are undone. Sophie is back to her younger self, and Prince Justin and Wizard Suliman are back to normal.}}
* [[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  {{spoiler|has been directly caused by Howl's actions. This only reason this isn't [[The Chessmaster|Chessmastering]] is that while Howl had the prerequisite knowledge, he's actually been}} [[Indy Ploy|pretty much winging it]] instead.
* [[Opposite Gender Protagonists]]: Sophie Hatter and Howl. Unlike the [[Howl's Moving Castle (anime)|film]], the two in the book are less friendly towards each other, with more bickering and arguing. Sophie, after being cursed, becomes a cleaning lady in Howl's castle. Howl is a peculiar man, living in a [[Trash of the Titans]] house, and refuses to let Sophie clean some areas, insisting that the spiders on the roof be kept alive. He constantly keeps calling Sophie "Mrs. Nose". Eventually, they overcome their differences for the climax, and unite against the Witch of the Waste. Somehow, the two become lovers despite being the last two people you would pair together.
* [[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, {{spoiler|was born in our world, and - referencing a different character entirely - is literally heartless}}.
* [[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. {{quote|''It thought aloud, in a little crackling, flicking murmur...''}}
* [[Threat Backfire]]
{{quote|'''Witch of the Waste''': ...she told me 'over my dead body'. So I took her at her word.}}
* [[Tired of Running]]: Howl, tired of running away from the King's order to find Prince Justin. {{spoiler|He also goes directly to the Witch of the Waste's residence to confront and kill her.}}
* [[Title Drop]]: The phrase ''Moving Castle'' is used a few times throughout the book, but the only time ''Howl's Moving Castle'' is used is in chapter one: {{quote|''For the way to Upper Folding, where Mrs. Fairfax lived, lay over the hills past Wizard '''Howl’s moving castle'''. Martha was understandably scared.}}
* [[Tongue-Tied]]: Calcifer is unable to tell Sophie about how to break his contract, and must resort to dropping very subtle hints which Sophie often misses. Similarly, Sophie cannot tell others about her curse, and must leave it up to them to figure out, although a skilled wizard like Howl and powerful demon like Calcifer can see Sophie's curse from a single glance.
* [[Trash of the Titans]]: Howl's entire castle is unkempt and disorganised before Sophie arrives. Sophie acts as the cleaning lady, and makes the place look much more organised.
* [[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. Sophie often thinks that whatever has gone wrong is caused by her being the eldest child.

{{reflist}}
{{Howl's Castle series}}

[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]
[[Category:Fairy Tale]]
[[Category:Young Adult Literature]]
[[Category:Howl's Moving Castle]]
[[Category:Literature of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Witch Works]]