Okay No I Need To Talk About The Book Version Of Howl's Moving Castle. I Love The Movie But The Book

Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.

Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.

Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.

In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.

In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)

In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.

The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.

In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.

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22K notes View Post

gemeiki

1 year ago

- on childhood loneliness

@aphexxtween on tiktok/ @mazzystarjpg/ mastermind- taylor swift/ the virgin suicides/ @heavensickness/ if you’re anything like me- taylor swift/ pen15/ @mango-season

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gemeiki

10 months ago

I think people have talked at length about the fact that bnha ended up basically being super pro-cop and delivered nothing on its narrative critiquing hero society. but one thing I haven't seen commentary on yet is how bizarre the narrative on abuse is. bnha is a series where abusive father figures (e.g. endeavor, overhaul, shigaraki's father) and neglectful parents (e.g. toga's family) have been the origin for marginalization of children and, in the cases of the league, their eventual descent into actual crime and villainy. yet the single most prominent abusive father figure of the series (endeavor) got a redemption arc, while the second-most prominent abusive father (overhaul) got to survive. yet the children who suffered abuse (toga, shigaraki, touya) were not worthy of redemption nor even survival. it has very bleak implications on who gets a second chance in life and who doesn't. this is possibly the worst narrative on childhood abuse I have ever consumed btw lol

2K notes View Post

gemeiki

1 year ago