4th portal in the door; to fight against both sides. This damages him through wounds that he gets from battle, but he also starts losing the ability to be human. To fight he has to turn into a giant black bird-like creature, which is what he is risking staying stuck as.
Howl endangering himself is what I see as the central conflict. Not just because it affects him, but also because it affects Sophie; Sophie loves Howl. This is made present when Sophie goes to answer the King’s summon as Howl’s mother. The summoning had been done by Madame Suliman, the King’s head sorceress, and she talks to Sophie. She describes Howl as a monster who had given his heart to a demon for power. Sophie defended Howl after Suliman made those statements, and in doing so temporarily broke her curse. We were able to see Sophie as young again, showing Suliman and us that she cared about Howl.
I’m not going to say I predicted this… but I did. It was hinted throughout the movie that Sophie liked Howl, and this scene made it fact.
Suliman tries to take Sophie as leverage so that Howl would have to listen to her, but he was already there and escaped with Sophie. After their successful escape and late at night, Sophie has a premonitory dream. She dreams of Howl being stuck as the monstrous bird, something which can be described as Howl losing himself; something supported by what Suliman said.
And another note, The Witch of the Waste, turned old by Suliman and somewhat senile, is taken to Howl’s castle along with Suliman’s dog, Heen. They are now all safe there. The scarecrow, Turnip-head, also remains with the moving castle.
Howl probably already knew that he’d eventually lose himself while fighting the war. In the day, Howl presents Sophie with two gifts. One is a beautiful garden that was originally a gift given to Howl [It was stunning]. The next gift was a hat shop in the city. Sophie understands this probably means he could never return to the castle. Howl leaves, and the story soon turns dark.
The group is soon bombarded by a military plane in the night. They had been staying in the hat shop given to Sophie. Along with this comes the danger of Suliman; her henchmen had found them. Luckily, Calcifer blocks out
all of the henchmen and Howl reduces the damage of the bombardment. Howl leaves Sophie in the house and goes on to attack the planes to protect them, but Sophie can’t handle seeing Howl fight. She figures out Howl is only fighting for them because of the hat shop in the city, so she teleports them to the moving castle. After this, they all go outside of the castle, including Calcifer. This destroys the moving castle [Is it wrong to think that the fallen castle looked good?]. With that, it is assumed that the hat shop was destroyed as well, and so Howl wouldn’t need to continue fighting.
Now here’s something I wonder, did Sophie have to do that? Calcifer did say that he and Howl could stop it, but I guess you can never be sure. Afterward, they reenter the castle and try to get it working again, but Calcifer is too weak, and all the wood is damp. Eventually, they get going with the sacrifice of Sophie’s braid, but the castle sheds most of its features away. Having seen this exchange and Calcifer saying “imagine what I could do with your eyes and your heart,” the former Witch of the Waste finds out that Calcifer is the demon with Howl’s heart, and then takes it. This causes her to get on fire, and Sophie resorts to throwing a bucket of water on her and the heart, which is what kept Calcifer there. The castle then gets destroyed, even more, knocking of Sophie and Heen. Sophie grieves about what she had done, but Heen saves the day by showing her that her ring is guiding them somewhere. They follow it to the castle’s door, set on Howl’s portal. They go in and find to be in Howl’s memory.
This part is also confusing to me. From what I’ve seen, Howl uses the portal to go in and out of the battle zone, so how could they be in his memory? Some criticize the movie for being very confusing, and this is probably due to the complexity of the book it was based on.
In the memory, Sophie sees how Howl and Calcifer make their contract. Right after she starts getting sent back to the real world, so she shouts out to them to wait for her. They hear her, and Sophie does find Howl outside [I wish I had a memory like Howl]. Howl, in the monstrous bird form, takes Sophie and Heen back to the remaining moving castle. There, he collapses and returns to human. The former Witch of the Waste agrees to give Sophie Howl’s
heart back, which is surprising based on how much time she spent trying to get it. Calcifer then tells Sophie that he’s surprised by the fact that Sophie’s actions hadn’t killed him, so it’s probably okay if she returns the heart to Howl. She does, freeing Calcifer and causing the complete destruction of the castle. They begin to fall off a cliff, but Turnip-head (he got on with them) slows the fall at the cost of half his body. Sophie kisses him, freeing him of his spell and reveals himself as the lost Prince. A kiss of true love saved him, but his true love was in love with someone else [an interesting change to the usual true love’s kiss]. Heen then relays this to Suliman, who then determines this means the end of the war. Mostly, it was happily ever after.
I’ve only seen 3 Ghibli movies so far, and I have to place this one at the top. It may be because I saw the other 2, Ponyo and Spirited Away when I was younger. I do have to say I love all the scenery that they bring. The movie does a great job of telling the story of the main characters, one that seems to be a story of maturity, while giving a big message about the consequences of war. I believe that a lot of the beauty of this movie comes from the character relationships more than anything, or at least that’s what connected with me the strongest. The differences between Howl and Sophie are shown in the story: Howl is flamboyant but cowardly; Sophie is brave but lacks confidence. And the way that they support each other is really motivating. Sophie becoming an old woman and falling in love with Howl gave her more confidence, and love gave Howl the bravery he needed. And another thing, the movie provides strength to the elderly. It shows how being of old age doesn’t have to detract from life and adventure. I also find this motivating.
All in all, being inadept at rating movies, I give Howl’s Moving Castle a 10 out of 10.