“ understood my books in a way nobody else has ever done,” said Jones in an interview about the film. One of those worlds is the Royal Mansion, where a king and his daughter are in a desperate search for a legendary “Elfgift.” It’s not long until a certain sorceress, Sophie, is called upon to help, with Howl and Calcifer in tow.ĭespite the differences between Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle and Miyazaki’s film adaptation, Jones says that it was because of the film that the story was given a new life and a new fan base. In 2008, Jones also published House of Many Ways ( Howl’s Moving Castle 3), which tells the story of the heroine Charmain Baker, who, while looking after her great uncle’s cottage, discovers the house can bend space and time and meets a number of magical friends in various magical worlds. When the princess is kidnapped, Abdullah flies on his magic carpet to save her, but not before Howl and Sophie get caught in the mess. Castle in the Air( Howl’s Moving Castle 2) takes place a year after Howl and Sophie’s initial story and focuses on the lands far to the south of Ingary, where a young carpet dealer named Abdullah meets and falls in love with a princess. Perhaps that’s why Jones decided that one book about Howl and Sophie wasn’t enough, going on to write two sequels to Howl’s Moving Castle. But Jones has her own strong connections with the story, being the oldest of two sisters herself, her own allergy ailments kick-starting the creation of Sophie, and one of her “more formidable” aunts being the model for the Witch of the Waste. He asked her to write a book called “The Moving Castle,” and the story was born. On the inside of the book, there’s also a dedication that reads, “This one is for Stephen,” and goes on to explain that Jones began writing Howl’s Moving Castle after the idea was suggested to her by a young boy at a school she was visiting. Of course, their affection grows, as it does in the film, but there’s plenty more outbursts to be enjoyed in Jones’ novel, with the additions of brand new characters and wizardly adventures, none of which are seen at all in the film. Sophie’s being under a spell is only known by Calcifer for a majority of the story, and Howl and Sophie are very much at each other’s throats, between Sophie’s incessant cleaning and Howl’s constant chasing after girls who aren’t Sophie. In Miyazaki’s film, Sophie is quite taken with Howl from the get-go, and Howl is very quick to put the charms on her, revealing right away that he knows she is under a spell. They really can’t stand to be around each other, and it makes for a comedic narrative.
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My castle was tall and thin and made of blocks of probably coal … Miyazaki has translated this into a thing of fantasy.”īut perhaps the most surprising difference, without giving away too many spoilers, is that the relationship between Howl and Sophie, for a majority of the book, is very volatile. But what I liked about it was that it had its own distinct and often quite threatening personality. Jones said, in the same interview, that she saw Miyazaki’s pictures first, before she saw the film, and thought, “This isn’t the castle I wrote.