do you believe?
happy 20th, Howl's Moving Castle.
Howl’s Moving Castle came out in 2004. i was 12 then.
i think the first time i’d watched it was sometime in high school, college? i can’t quite remember, honestly. i think my first impressions were probably all about Howl: how beautiful and charming! over the years though, i’ve discovered memes about Howl being one of the most(?) toxic male leads in Ghibli movies (which honestly, isn’t untrue).
it’s played a lot into my identity of a hopeless romantic too — solidifying on tropes i wish were true but have never gotten. where is my hot wizard? where is my garden? where is my “he’ll love me even though i’m old and ugly” happily-ever-after? but i think for the most part, i’ve gotten the story wrong.
it isn’t about an attractive young wizard falling in love with an old, withered woman.
it was never love in spite of, it was love because.
i know, i know. don’t we all search for a “love in spite of”? love me in spite of my flaws. love me in spite of my weaknesses, my ugliness, my wrath, my worst demons that i don’t know how to get rid of.
if you were to ask me who had fallen in love with who first in this story, i probably couldn’t answer.
mostly because of the time travel element — when Sophie traveled back to Howl’s youth, did young Howl fall in love first (chronologically speaking), or did Sophie fall in love with the present-day adult Howl slowly and surely, or were both their fates inevitably sealed in this loop that was bound to happen, and they were always going to fall in love with each other anyways? all three answers are plausible to me.
but it isn’t love in spite of.
Sophie saw Howl for exactly who he was: a powerful wizard who was essentially a child. tantrums and the fear of having to take on responsibility, Howl also chose to show his vulnerabilities in front of Sophie — although we can’t confirm if he felt safe enough to do this, or if it’s really just part of his personality. Markl’s statement about how he knew Howl was summoning some dark demons during his tantrum seemed to lean towards the latter.
nonetheless, Sophie saw him for who he was. this didn’t stop her from loving him. neither did this stop her from giving him excuses to continue with his bad habits. when he threw a tantrum, she didn’t let him go on. she confronted him with her own feelings (about beauty), calmed down, and eventually went back in to help him get over it. she didn’t abandon him.
and vice versa too: Howl’s first time meeting Sophie was not as a cursed old woman. he had met her as a child, although probably not seeing her very clearly from a distance, but i’m sure he felt the desperation in her call to meet her in the future.
there’s also a line that i think, kind of solidifies this theory.
when Howl met Sophie in her un-cursed form for the very first time, shielding her from predatory soldiers, his first line was this:
“there you are, sweetheart. sorry i’m late, i was looking everywhere for you.”
my theory is that he had been literally looking for her since that fated day when Sophie said to find her in the future, and when he finally found her, he wasn’t lying to get them away from the soldiers. they were truthful words.
as a powerful wizard, Howl also saw through the curse from the start. so the looks really didn’t matter from the start. yet, looks aside — every character in the movie fell in love with Sophie because of her spirit and her heart. even if she didn’t believe it, everyone around her saw her for who she was: kind, generous, gracious, intelligent, and incredibly loving. the curse simply lifted the pretence she had to put on everyday as a young woman with many different expectations (career, marriage, etc).
so it wasn’t love in spite of. they didn’t tolerate each other’s behaviours. they wanted each other to be better. when Sophie didn’t believe she was beautiful, Howl tried really hard to reiterate it to her as well. it’s love because. not love because i see all the flaws in you, but love because i simply love you. and that love is pure, is true, is the strength of a thousand stars. love because is a love that is endlessly giving.
you can see it in both how Howl and Sophie treat each other: from running an errand that the other did NOT want to do under any circumstance (meeting Sulliman and the king), to gifting an entire garden and literally future plans (albeit without himself) to the other because they weren’t thinking about their own comfort zones anymore at that time.
they were thinking of each other, always.
a love letter from Sophie’s journey
years ago i had my own personal revelation on why i loved this movie so much. aside from the magic and the wonderful characters, it finally dawned upon me: like many other art mediums, we often saw ourselves in the art, and i saw myself in Sophie.
here are the exact texts i had sent to a friend in 2022, explaining just that.
hahaha because sophie goes through this whole journey of believing in herself throughout the movie 🥲 she gets cursed to become an old woman and has never believed herself to be beautiful, but she breaks her curse when she falls in love with Howl and is unashamed to admit that she is in love with him
eventually you realise her sense of value and worth no longer comes from whether if she’s pretty or young or old or whatever, but from the people she so loved, whether they’re villains, monsters, cursed objects, or demons. and at the end of the movie it just shows her embracing herself. the curse of an old woman is lifted but her hair remains grey (Howl says it looks like starlight), i think bc she has embraced that yeah im kinda “old” in some ways, but i am still beautiful in every way that i am
i cried in the last 10 minutes of the movie bc Sophie just exudes so much kindness even after she goes through so much hurt. she’s afraid of losing the people she love but she’s never afraid to take a step in protecting them or saving them. she doesn’t just stay hurt and sad, she gets through it and helps the people around them anyways, and i resonate with that a lot 🥹
it’s like the scene where Howl throws a tantrum about his hair colour in the middle of the movie and Sophie gets so mad that she leaves the house crying because she’s “never once been beautiful”, but when Markl runs out to get her bc Howl was melting, she wasted no time to go back inside with a smile (still a bit teary!), to help Howl get back into shape again lol
i’ve struggled with self-worth for a long time now, and i think it will always stay with me in some ways. but watching Howl’s Moving Castle will always remind me of Sophie’s resilience and overwhelming sense of love. she had always been desperate to be seen, to be loved, to be known, but many times she put aside those things to love others first.
she doesn’t find love in the end because she looks really hard, or a great thing falls on her lap. bad things keep happening to her, over and over again, and she had no way of changing her life except to live the best that she had.
it’s cheesy! i know! but art will always be a mirror and i will always find myself in many other art forms, and i’m glad i found Sophie, and Howl, and Calcifer, Markl, the Witch of the Waste, Turnip the Scarecrow, Heen, and so forth.
until i find a garden to be gifted unto me, i will be gifting gardens unto others.
p/s: was inspired to write this piece because i recently went to watch the movie in the cinemas! Happy 20th, Howl’s Moving Castle! so thankful for Studio Ghibli, always.